The Transfiguration of Mister Punch (7 page)

The entire image is lifted from the premiere image of the show’s star, from the cover of Punch magazine.

This seminal version of the tyrant has been rendered beautifully in three dimensions. Perhaps they were given away when one purchased several sets of bound, annual volumes. A matching Judy completes the set.

It was the
other
bookend that fascinated me. Here, Punch appears as Julius Caesar. He wears a wreath of olives and the tunic and cape of the Roman emperor. The facial expression he wears is entirely his own. It is a leering grin, wrought with passion. Frill-Collared Toby sits up, circus dog style, on his hind legs. He squats low, next to Punch as Caesar...

I was instantly reminded, again, of another intriguing passage from Robert Sears ‘Scenes and Sketches,’ volume.

‘The Italian, antiquaries found a convincing resemblance between Policinella’s master and a little figure in bronze with a beak and chicken nose to its face, which was discovered at Rome; and from this chicken nose they derive Punch’s Neapolitan name, Pullus signifying a chicken, Pullicinus, a little chicken, &c. Another bronze figure with the same nose or beak was discovered a few years ago among the bronzes dug out of Herculaneum; and in the ancient guardroom at Pompeii (before parts of the stucco were broken and purloined by some shameless travelers), there was a figure drawn upon the wall by some idle Roman soldier, which closely resembled the Neapolitan Punch, not only in feature but also in costume and gesture; and this rude but no doubt faithful delineation had been buried for sixteen centuries under the scoriae, pumice, ashes, and cinders of Mount Vesuvius, before it was restored to light.’

I was thrilled when the thing of brass arrived in the post. Imagine my disappointment when I clumsily knocked it over, damaging it. It was perhaps the highlight of my Punch and Judy collection. The unknown sculptor put such maniacal glee into the face, there had to have been some of his own mania and rage in the sculpting and creating. Like the great Golem, a thing of clay may be infused with the intent and will of the creator, and live far beyond the flesh. In the midst of moving back to the little town I had left not knowing what I sought lay in front of me.

Imagine, also, my astonishment when I saw that the brass cover of the figure had been knocked off in the fall, exposing a hidden chamber, within the step-like base. From this dark rent their dangled, tantalizingly, a thin, tightly rolled up series of three manuscripts!

Cursing with excitement and absolute astonishment, I carefully extricated the manuscript, for that it was, from the Punch figure and scooted over to my desk. I turned the gooseneck lamp on put on my reading glasses. The parchment was unrolled with ease, for it was made of some sort of animal skin and seemed almost as if it had been preserved by oils. I had expected it to crack or crumble. A SECOND and then a THIRD tautly rolled document appeared within each other! The rich, mellow honey-coloured pages quickly revealed the dense writing and strange drawings and... were these actually magical insignia I was looking at? The language was... I was not sure. Enochian? A code? Instinctively, I raised one of the curled parchments to my nose and inhaled slightly. An intense blast of goat, musky and fresh, nearly knocked me over. If time-travel is possible, for one second I felt so far away, on a dry, desert cliff of red. I was wearing pale, sun faded robes and performing an ancient drama with the help of strange, primitive little figures... A moment later I squinted. I was back in my home, staring at the papers and the broken object. This was no dream.

At this point, I should perhaps briefly cover, for the sake of the uninitiated, the nature of The Vessel of Brass. The Vessel of Brass is an object used by ceremonial magicians. It is based on the form of the vessel that legend held King Solomon used to seal demons, and other powerful forces within. (These same entities were used by Solomon to actually build his temple.) Another seal, this one rendered of copper, was covered with magical writing in Hebrew, running all around the shut container lid, like a lock. This served as a cover, and was permanently shut. It could never be opened unless some fool dropped the object onto his floor, say, in the midst of a move to a smaller town. (Contrary to most opinions, there are certain Jinns which MUST remain in the bottle. Pun-ch intended.)

I wish I could tell you that the magician involved was John Dee, Edward Kelly or Arthur Edward Waite. If Dr. Dee was as busy as modern fiction has kept him, he’d need a full time secretary just to book all of his magical adventures, detective work and collaborations with other figures of fact and fiction. It seems amazing that he, S. Holmes, Capt. Nemo and Eugene Sue keep rubbing ribcages beyond the quill’s tomb. There are so many unknown characters worth getting to know.

No, our Magician would have remained almost forgotten, without a moniker, save for his name bluntly appearing in the parchment itself. Plus, there is a box of documents at the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. Though an expert in all things Punch, I am still a novice in regards to serious ceremonial magic and the ‘Western’ tradition. I consulted an old friend, Martin Macpharlin, an acclaimed author and publisher of all things magical and witchy, whom I’d known forever. He’d always been a Freemason, but had spent two decades under the spell of a twentieth century occultist. One day he woke up and realized, in a blinding, white blink, just how low of joy and lacking in play, how ‘icky’ and novelty oriented that schoolboy magic was. He broke free and became a Deacon in the religion of his youth, the Church, with an informed passion. This did not stop him from maintaining a scholar’s interest in the shadowy realms. So, I sent him copies of all three documents found in the copper Punch Caesar.

He wrote me, quite thrilled, as follows (I present his letter in its entirety):

Nov. 11, 2___

26 Crescent Drive Chicago, Il. 60614

So Good to hear from you! Well, I am breathless. You have stirred up the old mystical explorer in me! In this case for certain! The three documents appear to be records and magical scrolls of a series of epically important occult rituals from the mid-nineteenth century. These were enacted with very specific and serious intent, by a group of learned ceremonial magicians who knew what they were doing. Everything you have sent me in these documents positively screams with an urgency, an appeal to OUR times. This is the real deal. It is interesting that Mister Punch did not appear in his current form until after Elizabethan Times. Apparently, in that earlier time, a great and fearsome Magician translated a frightening grimoire into English for the first time. Across the Black Sea, another Magician, S____, evoked that most ancient and terrible deity ____. The reason? He decided to create a ‘new form,’ a means by which the GOD could hide WITHIN A PUPPET. This is an amazing discovery, with, I find, frightening suggestions. Please keep this between us, for now, if possible. I feel a great sense of responsibility, now that you have shared this with me, and I want to handle the situation appropriately, due to its cosmic nature.

What is surprising is that this took place in Philadelphia, and the magicians were three Fraternal brothers with ‘day jobs’ relating to puppetry, antiquities, curiosities, perfumery and toy-making. This is clearly the tip of the proverbial... you know.

The writing on, I shall call it, ‘Manuscript M’, is so minute that it took me over twelve hours to decipher it. The first manuscript reads almost like a play, or script. It consists of the dialogue between the two magicians as they discussed and commenced with their ritual! It is extraordinary. One would have to presume that a third party was present, whose sole purpose was to record this dire undertaking. It might have been committed to memory and written down after the fact, but I doubt it. Forgive any errors in translation or my interpretation, when needed. I know that the gist and essence of it is recorded here accurately.

The second scroll is a powerful and unfamiliar magical SIGIL, or series of sigils, signs and words of power. Some of these are familiar. Some made me very uncomfortable, in regards to what they hinted at. One of them has left me very frightened, but I am sure that with His Grace and Love, all will ultimately be right in this Fallen World.

The third, and final, document is the KEY to it all. It is a guidebook, a textbook, a series of instructions of no uncertain terms. It tells the FINDER of these three documents what MUST be done, immediately. We are also informed of what the finding signifies.

Praying that your blood be washed in that of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

Martin

Manuscript ‘M’

It was Tuesday, the day of Mars. The hour was Twelve Midnight.

The moon was moving toward Virgo and getting brighter.

M: Is the Seal written?

S: It is.

M: How have ye prepared thyself for this Great magic?

S: I did faste. I did drinke of the kykeon. I took the secret mortar and made the secret grains.

M: And the meaning of these diverse and curious actions?

S: I have sworn they shall remain unspoken, from twig and serpent, from Skin of the Faun, we shall escape from the Evil.

M: (He nods and makes the eighth sign.) Perfume it now with alum, with cedar, with dried, golden dates and with aloe.

S: I ask once more, why is it that we are here tonight?

M: Do you hear them? The flutes? The high-pitched, constant buzzing whine of tension? It is known that far beyond and removed from this attempt at Order we have glued together with Hope.... there exists a constantly shifting eternal Plague, a Manifestation of endlessly explosive random, purest anarchy. This Thing has always destroyed all that it touched, turns flowers to ashe as it unbreathes in its crypt. It has No Name and Every name. The infinite devil-king Akz-Thool-c’th. Dare whisper this name and your lips will be made thicker by the kiss of the Worm. It dwells in the darkness, devouring the dust and all that hopes in the shadows. In an olde heraldic book it was writ: ‘The Larvae and The Mandrake upon a shield above the Salamander. The crown and the hook’d snoute will Foole the wise so the Phoenix may Rise.’

S: Where shall it reste?

M: Within the hump’d and murdrous villian, belov’d Old Punch! Who could ever dreame it? Myghty Chiefe of ye Rosy-Nose Fraternitye, now sepulch-ered in ye Vault at Bamarzo.

S: Wilt be a homunculus?

M: T’will be a puppet.

S: Something small but powerful.

M: Something that shall live forever.

S: Something that MUST live forever.

M: Something small but not so innocent as to arouse suspicion.

S: What shall we call it and shall it be alone?

M: He already has his Eve. Create things that crawl and slither.

S: In time they gave him a dog.

M: Aha! He shall not own it.

S: (Laughs.)

M: From Birth they shall know the Strange Angles of his face.

S: I INVOCATE, CONJURE and COMMAND THEE, O thou Spirit P., force and body, oh, holder of the Beast. The Eater. They shall dance & they shall laugh but they shall not know it. They shall not know it as the dragons vomit the black air. They shall not know it as the storms rage in new patterns, they shall not know it as the sky and oceans meet, and the top of the world vanishes.

And so they conjured and so they BOUND the great demon horror, the Sultan. Called by some The Idiot God. The sloughing black, advancing waves. The bubbling oils of death. All mass destruction—pouring all of it—a scissoring... left-hand... bleeding skeletons of screaming violation, winged demons, the centre and negation of eternity, terror of the flesh, shame and sin, Pit of the Devourer, all teeth and eyes, all teeth and eyes, all teeth and eye... they Forced and banished the EARTH GOLEM into the LITTLE FIGURE OF BRASS.