All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World (19 page)

After the Deepam I returned to Varanasi. I loved the ancient city, with its ever present worship and decay, its crumbling architecture, its plethora of tricksters and saints. Installed in my old room, I felt a sense of homecoming, even the welcome of the hotel staff offering comfort after so many months on the road. Honoré, the chess-playing junkie, was gone now – to Thailand, said Bhapuji, the manager. ‘He is bearing a great burden,’ he added mournfully. ‘What a difficult incarnation.’

Certain things were becoming clearer to me, too. If I had set out uncertain of the differences between mysticism and magic, and indeed resolute that it was not religion itself that I was searching for, I was beginning to narrow my focus. Central to both the mysticism of the
sadhus
and Ladakhi oracles, as well as the more prosaic gathering of the fire ceremony, had been a marked shift in consciousness. For the
sadhus
, marijuana brought them into contact with Shiva; for the oracles it was drumming that gave them access to the pantheon of Tibetan deities. Although the exact nature of these trance states remained unclear, I felt that I, too, had experienced a foretaste of them, both at the climax of the fire festival and during other peak experiences of my life. That sense of the numinous had been a portal, of sorts, into mystic consciousness.

Now that it was becoming comprehensible, I joined some other dots. Could it be that beyond all religions lay the same primal state of consciousness, accessed through an infinite number of methods and substances, but allowing for the same awareness of an ultimate reality? Since magicians were playing both with the texture of perception and with our human notions of the supernatural, the parallels between the magician and the mystic seemed also far clearer than I’d previously supposed.

From here on, these states of consciousness would become the focal point of my search. William James, the pioneering American psychologist and philosopher, explored the same questions back in 1886 when, after availing himself of some ammonium nitrate, he experienced his own higher state of consciousness. James was fascinated by the untapped potential of life: that ‘compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake’. In an attempt to uncover this hidden strata of existence, James dosed himself with laughing gas, a drug which was having revolutionary consequences for the medical profession at that time. The effects of that experiment would remain with him for his entire life and his writings on it would inspire seekers and mystic wannabees throughout the twentieth century, who shared James’ assertion that consciousness remained the last hidden frontier. James wrote: ‘Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness, as we call it, is but one especial type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.’

But what exactly
were
those ‘potential’ states of consciousness? And what would reaching them mean? Even as these thoughts occurred to me, I felt a trace of my former scepticism rearing its head. From the perspective of science, this seemed the greyest of areas. But then a second feeling arrived, one which prioritised the feelings I’d experienced at first hand. In those moments I’d come to call ‘numinous’, I felt more alive than at any other time in my life. On the basis of that alone, this was a worthy avenue of enquiry.

With pleasure, I returned to my old routines: roving the constricted streets with my notebook; striking conversations at tiny chai stalls; hearing sitar recitals at the numerous music ashrams of the city. India’s musical traditions stretch back to Vedic times, and they are notable for their religious neutrality, despite strong devotional aspects. Muslims and Hindus often play together, with Muslims singing Hindu
bhajans
, and Hindus singing Sufi compositions, everyone accepting the music’s ability to lead one to the ineffable, without feeling the need to quibble too much about what exactly that means.

It was on such a night, cramped amongst a diverse audience of Indians, backpackers, musicians from East and West, that a new strand of my journey opened up. Sitting on rickety chairs, sipping spicy
ayurvedic
tea, we listened to a female vocalist, her sweet, endlessly lilting voice soaring above the other instruments. Above us, the building rose up three tiers, each with viewing galleries, to an open roof. Glancing up as her voice reached its zenith, I saw a bleached moon, full and trembling in the sky, surrounded by endless silver pinpricks of stars.

When the concert was over, I fell into conversation with a man sitting to my left, with a plump, kindly face, who seemed to know a great deal about the Hindustani music of north India. He was a tour guide by profession, he explained, but when time allowed he came here. The greatest regret of his life, he said, was he had never learned an instrument himself.

‘For myself, music is a means to feel the presence of God,’ Niraj confided, with a matter of factness about the metaphysical that one gets used to in India. ‘And for the musicians, too, it is clearly a form of worship. One story tells of the day when the sitar player Ustad Imdad Khan’s daughter died. He was practising when someone came to discuss the funeral arrangements with him. “Please wait for a time,” he asked them. “I am not yet through with my prayers.” ’

I told him a little of my own journey, of some of the things I had seen and hoped still to see.

Niraj listened politely but I could see he thought my journey mad. ‘That sounds like a very important journey you are on,’ he offered. ‘But a very
Western
one, if you don’t mind my saying.’ He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on his pleasantly crooked nose. ‘You are bringing an exhaustive Western mindset, with all its tests and analyses, to what is a very simple question. Stop looking and simply accept God. His forms are many.’

If only it were so easy, I thought.

‘You must come and see Mata-ji,’ said Niraj. ‘In a village not far from here is a great saint. Whenever anyone in my family has a problem we go to see her. She is a fully realised being, an incarnation of Kali. Great power is there.’

I leaped at the chance. ‘Will she talk to a foreigner?’

Niraj considered. ‘I will go to see her this Sunday and ask her permission. Assuming she consents, then we will return the following week.’

I thanked him. But what did it mean, I asked, to be an incarnation of Kali?

He thought for a second. Niraj was articulate and confident, and yet this, perhaps, made him hesitate in answering my question.

‘Mata-ji is a human form of the divine mother,’ he began. ‘She is also Durga, Bhagvati, Lalita – there are many forms. Are you following me?’

I nodded, only half sure if I actually was. About us, attendants were beginning to pack away the chairs, while the musicians were eating their evening dal and rice at one edge of the stage.

‘She’s an avatar? A goddess in human form?’

‘Mata-ji is a normal village lady, of course. But when she wishes, the spirit of Kali enters into her. At that moment we believe we are not talking with Mata-ji but with the
force
behind her. Kali is
actually
there. Her energy is manifest.’ He searched my face. ‘Such things do not happen in London, I am sure. But here they are relatively common. Many villages have such people. But Mata-ji is the most powerful I have known.’

A week later, perched on the back of Niraj’s Enfield Bullet, we left from the main bazaar. Mata-ji, apparently, had found no problem with a foreign visitor. After twenty sluggish minutes of weaving through shoppers on their way to market, the traffic thinned and we leaped forward, past bony cows, flamboyantly decorated Ambassador taxis, white-buttoned traffic controllers. Soon, we headed north along the crescent-shaped bank of the Ganges, past Indian Railways’ bustling diesel locomotive factory, and finally into the green and rich brown countryside of rural India. To be riding a motorbike, the sun just tinged with winter, felt enormously pleasant.

We rode for a few hours, stopping only for tea and to buy marigolds for Mata-ji. Beneath us, the conditions of the road seemed to speak volumes about the direction in which we were heading. Smooth asphalt gave way to potholes, then dust, then finally little more than a rutted track. The concrete buildings returned to an organic mud and brick, and the people lost their Western clothes, their sunglasses and their ever-present mobile phones, to be replaced by hand-loomed saris, pitchforks and buffaloes straining at the end of worn hemp ropes.

For the last half mile, the motorbike could not be driven. We left it basking in the sun, and walked along the narrow path, open fields stretching out in every direction. Three quarters of the working population of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, work in agriculture. Here that was evident in the corn, millet and lentils which studded the red earth. In the distance, I could see cotton tufts blowing in the breeze, and I felt a great well-being flood through me.

Niraj, on the other hand, seemed nervous, so I asked what was bothering him.

‘I have been leading quite a bad life recently. Smoking and drinking profusely, and neglecting my religious duties. I am worried Mata-ji is going to give me a talking to.’

I suppressed a smile. ‘You’re certain she’ll know?’

He nodded. ‘Oh yes! She knows. Last time she was so angry I did
puja
for a month! She is quite frightening, actually.’

‘But she doesn’t mind a Westerner coming here?’

‘No, no. But make sure to give her some rupees. When she tends to people, it is taking her away from her main work, which is farming. So she needs the money to buy food. She is not profiteering, you understand.’

At the end of the track we saw a cricket match in full swing. Outside the small hamlet, an open field had been planted with cricket stumps, and a wicket drawn out in chalk. Most of the adolescent male population of the village were involved, with those too young to join in seated cross-legged at the boundaries, or in several cases perched in the lower branches of banyan trees, punching tiny fists in the air when the shots made it past the boundary. Seeing the arrival of a
gora
– a white man – many came over to say hello, and Niraj was soon involved in lively explanations about just what I was doing here, in a village where a foreigner had rarely – if ever – appeared. I stared into their faces, which were full of friendly curiosity.

The village itself was small, scarcely more than five or six buildings, and populated with the usual goats and chickens. A tiny girl was rolling a wheel through the dust with a stick. To one side was a rammed earth platform, a temple of sorts, pillared with concrete and crowned with a tiny red pennant. I could see a large crowd and, over the bobbing heads, I could make out who I assumed to be Mata-ji sitting cross-legged: seemingly a regular village woman, surrounded by some fifty people.

Closer, I saw that she was tough-looking, with the thick arms and muscular neck of a rural peasant, a face older than her years and the slightly thinning hair of the Indian matriarch. In her parting she wore the traditional vermilion powder, and amidst her dark complexion there was a pair of unusually deep-set eyes. She was muttering quietly beneath her breath. A fly had landed on her cheek but she seemed not to notice.

That Niraj had said she was an incarnation of Kali told me something. This put Mata-ji in the school known as ‘Shaktism’ – a system outside the Brahminical tradition in which a local priestess becomes a channel for the personality of a goddess. In some villages, particularly in the largely communist state of Bengal, these figures have been driven out, much like the European witches of the Middle Ages. Elsewhere they remain, albeit on increasingly shaky ground as Mr Ghosh’s forces of rationalism sweep through India, labelling trance healers and tantrics fraudulent. Certainly, they are unusual figures, professing knowledge of ancestors and ghosts and often the ability to avert natural disasters and infertility, or to exert control over an unpredictable world. As with the trance healers of Ladakh, it’s a gift that often appears in adolescence, the medium falling into trances for no reason, speaking with beings that cannot be seen.

Viewed as a positive force, these women are healers of a sort, versed in herbal medicine and the power of mantras, and with the ability to make amulets to counteract evil influences. Their prayers involve a spectrum of major and minor goddesses from the Hindu pantheon, and they provide primary counsel for men and women often cut off from conventional medical and psychological advice.

They are also interesting for being the last vestiges of a goddess tradition that reaches back long before the arrival of Hinduism as we know it. According to these beliefs, divine energy is a feminine rather than a masculine principle. Called
shakti
, this primordial force is responsible for creation and destruction, for curing diseases and punishing wrongdoers. The goddess is called upon to help with agriculture and birth, to bring marital happiness and sexual enjoyment; in some forms she is Mother Earth herself.

Slightly apprehensively, I sat down beside Niraj on the edge of the temple. Aside from a few cursory glances, no one paid me too much attention. Some of these people, he told me, had travelled a hundred miles to see Mata-ji – they were here for any number of ailments: professional, mental, physical – and thus were more concerned that this living incarnation of Kali should help them than by the presence of a foreigner.