Pageturners: A Castle in Canada Part 3

It seemed to me wildly indulgent, not to mention costly, to carry out such a magical mission. I may write fantasy, but I’m not a fantasist.

Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories. I’ll publish a chapter or a section per week, available for free here on Iconoblast. And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!

Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.

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Illustration by David Broughton

If you missed A Castle in Canada Part 2, read it here:

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Astonishingly, after all these years, I have the motorway services guide to Cathar Castles and a postcard of the fountain I was ‘encouraged’ to visit.

I began to have startling ‘dreams’ about a witch burning at Najac – so powerful I would use them later as the basis for my series Sha with Olivier Ledroit. I can only describe it as a haunting. They were very emotional and graphic, but too detailed to go into here.

However, I still had no intention of visiting Najac. I feared such a psychic quest might easily get out of hand, like the Castle in Canada adventure. But the Muse had other ideas. She endlessly played ‘Three Coins in a Fountain’ in my head and finally got my attention, I realized she wanted me to place three coins in a fountain at Najac: to commemorate the girl who had died, including her mother and child. All victims of the Burning Times in the 17^th century. So now I was dealing with two events: one eight hundred years ago, in the time of the Cathars, and a now a new event four hundred years ago, in the Burning Times.

It seemed to me wildly indulgent, not to mention costly, to carry out such a magical mission. I may write fantasy, but I’m not a fantasist. So I ignored Frank Sinatra’s beautiful song and its poignant lyrics, full of heartrending meaning for a tragedy that happened centuries ago.

As far as I was concerned, the matter was closed.

A week later I got an invitation from my French publishers, Glenat, to go to Angoulême comic convention, all expenses paid. Angoulême is only a four hour car drive from Najac. 

I couldn’t really say no to either invitation – from a comic publisher of today or the ghosts of the past. And so I went to Najac, found a medieval, dried-up fountain, duly carried out my psychic task and there was a kind of closure.

But not from the Cathars.  

What I figured out from the experience is that feelings can cross time and some of us, like Alora, can actually see into the past.  

And that there was a ‘pattern’ to reincarnations: perpetrator (Crusader) and victim (Witch), possibly endlessly repeated. How reincarnation really works I can only speculate. Or indeed if it really is reincarnation. Perhaps it’s more a form of possession. I doubt it’s as simplistic as it’s often represented. It might be that characters from the past use conduits, like myself, to manifest themselves to deal with unresolved pain. 

Having brought the Cathars to my attention, when I previously knew absolutely nothing about them, the Muse relentlessly insisted on me investigating them further. I’d wake up every morning with a burning desire to know all there was to know about them. I became obsessed with the subject and read the original medieval accounts of what the Cathars were alleged to have done. I gave talks on the Cathars at  London esoteric venues.

Today, they’re usually seen as a benign, New Age-ish religion, but I discovered they actually did have a sinister side to them. Because they believed the Earth was Hell, many escaped through suicide, like their modern counterpart, the bizarre UFO cult Heaven’s Gate (who have also been described as Cathars). 

This mindset led to various unpleasant black magic practices that have continued into our own time. Satanism is an acknowledged form of Catharism because if the Earth is Hell, then the Cathars see Satan as the Lord of Earth. A deity who some might rebel against, but others would worship.

Aleister Crowley’s black mass was a Gnostic Cathar mass and there are numerous other examples of the connection between Cathars and Satanists.

But this in no way excuses the crimes of the Crusaders. It may well be that the Cathars of the South of France were simple ascetics trying to lead good and wholesome lives, as a reaction to the corruption and theatrical grandeur of the Catholic Church.

After all, Catharism (Pure Ones) or Gnosticism (self knowledge, rather than the teachings of the various sacred books) has been around for at least two thousand years. Its more recent form originated in Persia in the third century and spread across Europe under a number of names such as Manicheans (followers of the Persian prophet Mani), Albigensians (after the French city of Albi), and Bogomils (Beloved of God). Some versions of the religion might be a force for good and others a force for bad

Finally, I made the connection to the Cathars in this life.

It was bad.

When I was thirteen, I met a group of occultists who called themselves Cathars or Pure Ones and were devotees of Aleister Crowley with everything that involves. It was not a pleasant encounter and so I’d chosen to block them from my mind. But then the memories returned in the 1990s, incited by Alora’s strange dreams.

So I needed to process my past and resolve what had happened. I don’t subscribe to ignoring past wrongs. That doesn’t work for me. They’re like a stone in your shoe you can’t get rid of. And so, shortly after the millennium, I confronted these latter day Cathars and found the experience most… Cathartic.

Then I had closure.  

The Muse had done her job.

It seems an elaborate and roundabout way to bring childhood events back to my attention via a Castle in Canada, but there it is. And we often think – in our instant Google world – that there are shortcuts to gnosis, to knowledge, which actually has to be absorbed in a deeper and more profound way.

And the three coins in the fountain? We assume, when we take an interest in the esoteric, that it’s one way, when, in fact, it’s two way traffic. If we take an interest in those who have gone before us, they may take an interest in us. We look for answers to our problems by employing their help and they do the same. It’s the only explanation I have for that journey to Najac.

They needed closure, too.

It’s the price the Muse required. She is not a passive resource for writers to draw on. Sometimes she wants something in return. And resistance to her may explain the troubled nature of some authors. Far better to go with her flow.

It’s also worth stressing that Gnosticism doesn’t have to have the sinister aspects I’ve described. At its heart, it suggests we all have the answers inside us: the Muse. And we don’t need the leaders of the various ‘religions of the books’ who claim to be superior and have a divine wisdom we lack. 

By comparison, many of the early Christians were Gnostics. They may even have been the original Christians. No one knows for sure.

 The only qualification was the new convert had to add something, some insight or new revelation, to the existing doctrine. There were women priests and anyone could be a bishop – it didn’t require years of studying theology. It could even be a teenager. Or they just did away with bishops altogether.

Gnostic Christianity was a conscious effort to upend conventional, controlling spiritual authority and empower everyone. Whatever its faults (and today’s Christians understandably trash it, because it’s such a threat to their power base), it contains more truth than the current examples of clericalism.

In any event, the Muse had provided me with a rich resource for stories on the Cathars and more. Thus there was Sha with Olivier Ledroit. Sláine featured two adventures in the land of the Cathars and another based on Najac. And Claudia Vampire Knight is inspired by those modern-day Cathars I encountered as a boy.

All part of the Magic of the Muse.

Next week: where my Muse has currently taken me - my new WW1 thriller novel and when you can read it.