The Programme

CHAPTER THREE-1

CHAPTER THREE“I am one,” The Teacher said. He was sitting cross-legged on his throne-cushion in The Temple, his back to the wall, looking up at the Superiors and Senior Messengers assembled before him, clothed and cloaked in white just as he was. There were fifteen of them in all; with two more Superiors already in America, they represented about a tenth of the resident membership.

After he told them to sit, the door opened and The Seer entered.

She picked her way between the members, pausing occasionally to smile at or touch one of her own, and settled down, legs beneath her, to Matthew’s left. She wore a dark green dress, a black cloak.

“Let us meditate,” Matthew said.

He looked around the room, smiling, encouraging them to not take themselves too seriously.

“Close your eyes, breathe deeply, take your time. I want you to think about your first meditation within The Programme. I want you to remember what it felt like to take that first step to come together with The Programme. I want you to capture an image from that moment - the image that is most real to you - the moment of your change. Breathe deeply, take your time, slowly, it’s easy now, let it flow, go with the flow.” His voice rolled over them in waves; they were empty vessels waiting to be filled.

Matthew, too, closed his eyes, though he did not meditate in the same way as he was telling them to do. He was still receiving what he was going to say This was the monthly meeting of the hierarchy, not so much a religious occasion as a council; none the less, it was preceded by rituals to remind them that their discussions were not to be material; it was an opportunity to be a channel for the ulterior forces by which The Programme was ultimately guided.

“Come in now, slowly, open your eyes, come in,” he said when long enough had passed.

He looked around: the members opened their eyes at their own paces, some taking more time than others, some because they wanted to give the appearance of greater profundity, others because they had genuinely distanced themselves from the moment. Mother Naamah, Sisters Rebecca and Helen fit the latter class; Father Christopher - Caleb’s closest friend - was an example of the former.

Matthew nodded once: permission to proceed.

The Seer rose and started to point - you and you and you and you - two men, two women - by choice not convention. She began to chant:

“I am one.”

The chosen ones sang back:

“We are many.”

She began to sway, waving her arms above her head and to her sides; they followed, mirroring her movements. Gradually, she picked up the pace.

“I am fire.”

“We are fire.”

“I am earth.”

“We are earth.”

I am fire; we are fire; I am earth; we are earth; I am fire; we are fire; I am earth; we are earth. Air; water. Faster and faster, arms akimbo, frenzied. She tossed her cloak in the air, catching it, twirling it around; they followed suit.

“I am good, I am evil.”

“I am good, I am evil,” they responded.

She threw her cloak to one side; they threw theirs away from them; some of them landed outside the circle of members, a few landed within; they were quickly seized, rolled up by cross-legged members, swaying along with the designated dancers, clapping their hands to the rhythm.

The Seer had left them behind. She ran her hands up and down her body, frenetic, s****l, drops of sweat flying off her forehead.

“Touch me, burn me,” she screamed: “Touch me, burn me.”

“Touch me, burn me, touch me, burn me,” her chosen ones echoed.

Some of the unselected members of the congregation got up to join in; others remained seated, stomping their heels on the ground, clapping harder and faster, a rising crescendo of noise and energy, everyone was touching, everyone had joined in, everyone was participating - except Matthew.

If this had been a Midnight Mass, he would have let them go until they dropped but this was a meeting. He clapped his hands together once, loud enough to be heard and to distinguish the sound from those clapping along.

“Come in now, come in.”

It took minutes for The Seer to slow down and for the others to follow suit. Matthew knew she was taking longer than she needed. Her eyes met his, almost smiled, insolent, his frown was her reward and enough.

He said, slow and sonorous:

“I want to go back to basics. I want to go back to what we’re about. I want to talk first about the very idea of The Programme itself. I don’t mean historically, although what we are is what we came from, but you all know the history; I want to go back to what our past lives and times were about - what they meant, and why. I want to remind you that we were once small. ’I am one; we are many’ is how we have long greeted each other, but everything is relative,” he smiled to allow them to share his joke.

They loved him but they were frightened of him, even Cassandra and Caleb and others of their ilk. His eyes could see into a soul, could pierce the deepest hidden deceit, could puncture the longest-held precept; yet they could bathe with warmth and sparkle with love. His hands could heal; but they could hurt. A hug could become a crush; a touch could be reassurance or invasion. “Once, The Programme was The Seer and myself, a handful of followers, a half dozen, then ten. Look at us today. Why did we grow? Not how: it is easy to answer how; we had found something that all of you wanted to be a part of; there’s no surprise - it was never a novel idea that people - many people - were discontented, looking for something new, wanted to be with others of their own kind, it was the oldest idea of all, it was Moses’ charter as much as Christ’s; it is the premise of gods, emperors, dictators and presidents. The question I am asking is ’why’; ’why did we want to grow?’ I am asking you to stop for a moment and challenge the assumption that it was natural to grow, natural to share what we had with others, natural to allow you all in. It’s not natural to share: animals don’t share - to the contrary, they fight to protect their own space and their hoardings; people don’t share - go ask a rich man for a dollar or a pound.”

He paused for a change in direction. When he began talking again, it was a different tone, less rational, evangelical, almost a chant.

“What is it that we believe life itself is about? It is the core of our teachings: our teaching of life is simple, elementary almost: that is its attraction. We only take one premise: life is energy. That is all: life is energy.

“Energy needs expression, expression is its very nature. If all that exists is energy, then energy - a single, whole energy - is all that it can express.” His voice was rhythmic, hypnotic.

“Energy cannot express itself to itself: that is a nonsense. It is like trying to see a room that you are in: you cannot do it; you are in it, yet you are looking at it; you are inside looking out, not outside looking in. Looking at a mirrored ceiling or wall is the best that you can do and it is still not real, merely an image.

“Energy - being - isn’t there to be looked at; we have to become it, not watch it. We have to perform its different parts, between us to make up the whole: conflict and peace, love and cruelty, confusion and clarity - it all needs to be expressed. We have to go on trying to create the whole, because unless we do so, we have no purpose; and to be whole is the purpose”.

His voice shifting gear, he switched back to reason:

“The reason we needed to grow was because we could not complete our purpose - ourProgramme - without more energy, more people; we did not have or could not perform enough parts to complete the whole. If we were incomplete, then we needed something else - and that meant something else which we did not already have.”

He paused to allow flashes to enter, then clear, his head.

Flash: finding he could make people do anything he wanted them to was a journey too full of promise not to explore, and a temptation too great to resist.

Flash: a drug-besotted night on a hillside high in the Andes, five of them naked and holding hands, building image on image into a vision of the new life, the new God.

Flash: their passages through black magic, white magic, mysticism, spiritualism and religion, celibacy and profligacy, each phase contributing something new to their philosophy.

Flash: the first time a stranger approached him and told him that he had heard he was the way and the truth and on his knees begged to be allowed to serve him.

“We needed more of you, to contribute your energies, to contribute your experiences and to contribute the particular, peculiar aspects of your being, because we had yet to make it whole: we were building a house and had insufficient bricks, telling a story without enough words, creating children without enough parents. We had taken on a tremendous task. We had looked around and around and what had we seen? We had seen people in hunger and in misery - throughout the world, and on our own doorsteps; not just physical hunger, nor just spiritual, but in profound, human need of comfort. The world was a mess and we were a mess. It wasn’t news; what was new was our refusal to tolerate it for and of ourselves.

“What we saw was waste. We saw the battle between good and evil and we could see that it was a waste - a waste of time, a waste of energy, a pointless battle designed to secure the triumph of good over evil - one over another - which meant expending energy fighting ourselves, within ourselves, one part of purpose against another, so that - in the end - there could be little left to use in any other way. In familiar imagery, God and Satan were at war and it was a war that, in the end, neither could win; it achieved nothing but to kill the soldiers.

“This was the seed from which The Programme grew. What we learned was that the only hope lay in reconciliation of the opposing forces within each of us. This is what The Programme is about: the reconciliation and unification of opposites; the reconciliation of good and evil, of God and Satan; they are each halves of the same whole being; they need to be treated as such, brought together not set against one another.

“What we say is that good - true good - and reality - true reality - can only emerge from that reconciliation; only by unifying opposing elements can we make something that is whole, and only by making something that is whole can we bring the whole of our energy, the whole of our being, to bear on the task of creating a way of thinking, living, learning, loving, sharing, teaching, achieving.

“It’s a constant exercise, a constant challenge. If God is dynamic, if life is dynamic, if energy is dynamic, then we have to keep moving, we have to keep changing shape, we have to keep growing, to feed the exercise - the moment we stop, we cease to have any purpose and the time will have come to break it all down and begin again. We are many; but we need to be more.”

He gripped the platinum symbol around his neck.

“It is time for change. ’Be clean and change your garments and let us arise and go,’ it says in the Bible. It is time now for us to change and to arise and to go: at least,” he added with a twinkle returning to his eyes, “some of us.”

Another day, another injunction, another client - another battered woman.

This one was different. For a change, there were no children; they were middle-class; it was too soon, they didn’t want to give up their freedom, the enjoyment of money to spare, holidays to be taken, cars to drive across the continent, restaurants they couldn’t afford when they were at college, lying in bed at the weekends, making love if they weren’t too hungover, reading the newspapers, drinking coffee.

“Life is this: work, money, s*x,” the woman said bitterly.