Now, there are ‘objective’ realities that exist within the astral system. There are more than your own thought forms, in other words. Your own thought-forms can be definite aids when you are in the proper mental condition, and they can impede your progress if you are not. For example, a man in a desperate frame of mind is more apt to emphasize the unpleasant aspects of the news and to see bitterness rather than joy in the faces of those he/she meets. He/she will ignore a contented child playing on one side of the street and notice, instead, a dirty ragged child, even though he be further away. So your frame of mind when projecting will largely determine that kind of experiences you have.
The original intensity behind the construction determines its duration. Left alone, any such construction will eventually vanish. It will leave a trace, however, in electromagnetic reality where it can then be activated by anyone when certain conditions are met or are favorable.
Denying energy to such a construction can be like pricking a balloon. Then all attention must be taken from it, for it thrives on attention.
She was then living in the bush, never showing herself to anyone. She had living with her just one daughter, who used to pass the day in the fork of a tree making baskets.
One day there appeared a man just when the mother had gone to kill game. He found the girl making baskets as usual. “Here now!” he said. “There are people here in the bush! And that girl, what a beauty! Yet they leave her alone. If the king were to marry her, would not all the other queens leave the place?”
Going back to the town, he went straight to the king’s house and said, “Sire, I have discovered a woman of such beauty that, if you call her to this palace, all the queens you have will make haste to go away.”
The following morning people were called together and set to grind their axes. Then they started for the bush. As they came in view of the place, they found the mother had once more gone to hunt.
Before going, she had cooked porridge for her daughter and hung meat for her. Then only had she started on her expedition.
The people said, “Let us cut down the tree on which the girl is.”
So they put axes to it. The girl at once started this song:
“Mother, come back!
Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.
Mother come back!
Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.
Cut! Here is the tree falling in which I eat.
Here it is falling.”
The mother dropped there as if from the sky:
Many as you are, I shall stitch you
with the big needle.
Stitch! Stitch!”
They at once fell to the ground…. The woman left just one to go back and report.
“Go,” she said, “and tell the news.” He went….
When he came to the town the people asked, “What has happened?”
“There,” he said, “where we have been! Things are rather bad! “
Likewise, when he stood before the king, the king asked, “What has happened?”
“Sire,” he said, “we are all undone. I alone have come back.”
“Bakoo! You are all dead! If that is so, tomorrow go to the kraal over there and bring more people. Tomorrow morning let them go and bring me the woman.”
They slept their fill.
The next morning early, the men ground their axes and went to the place.
They, too, found the mother gone, while the porridge was ready there, and the meat was hanging on the tree….
“Bring the axes.” Forthwith they went at the shade tree. But the song had already started:
“Mother, come back!
Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.
Mother, come back!
Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.
Cut! Here is the tree falling in which I eat.
Here it is falling.”
The mother dropped down among them, singing in her turn:
“many as you are, I shall stitch you
with the big needle.
Stitch! Stitch!”
They were dead. The woman and her daughter picked up the axes….
“Olo!” said the king when he was told. “Today let all those that are pregnant give birth to their children.”
So one woman after another straightway brought forth her child. Soon there was a whole row of them.
Then the whole band departed, making a confused noise.
When the girl saw that, she said, “There is no joke about it now. There comes a red army with the umbilical cords still hanging on.”
They found her at her own place in the fork of the tree.
“Let us give them some porridge on their heads, but the children did not eat it.
The last-born then climbed up the shade tree, picked up the baskets which the girl was stitching, and said, “Now bring me an axe.”
The girl shouted once more:
“Mother, come back!
Mother, here is man cutting our shade tree.
Mother, come back!
Mother, here is a man cutting our shade tree.
Cut! Here is the tree falling in which I eat.
Here it is falling.”
The Mother dropped down among the crowd:
“Many as you are, I shall stitch you with the big needle.
Stitch! Stitch!”
But thee was the troop already dragging the girl. They had tied her with their umbilical cords, yes, with their umbilical cords. The mother went on with her incantation:
“many as you are, I shall stitch you
with the big needle.
Stitch! Stitch!”
In vain! The troop was already in the fields and the ngururu went up as far as God’s abode, and soon the children were in the town.
As they reached it, the mother said, “since you have carried away my child, I must tell you something. She is not to pound in the mortar, nor to go to fetch water at night. If you send her to do one of these things, mind you! I shall know where to find you.”
Then the mother went back to her abode in the bush.
The following day the king said, “Let us go hunting.” And to his mother he said, “my wife must not pound mortar. All that she can do is to stitch baskets.”
While the husband was away there in the open flat, the other wives as well as the mother-in-law said, “Why should not she also pound in the mortar?”
When the girl was told to pound in the mortar, she said, “No.”
A basket of corn was brought to her.
The mother-in-law herself took away the meal from the mortar, and then the other women in their turn brought corn and put it all there.
So the girl pounded, singing at the same time:
“Pound! At home I do not pound,
Here I pound to celebrate my wedding.
Yepu! Yepu!
If I pound, I go to God’s.”
She began to sink into the ground but she went on singing:
“Pound! At home I do not pound,
Here I pound to celebrate my wedding.
Yepu! Yepu!
If I pound, I go to God’s”
Soon she was down as far as her neck. Now the mortar went on by itself pounding the grain on the ground, pounding on the ground. Finally the girl disappeared altogether.
When nothing more was seen of her, the mortar still pounded as before on the ground. The women then said, “Now what shall we do?”
They went and called a crane, and said, “Go and break the news to her mother. But, first, let us know, what will you say?”
The crane said, “Wawani! Wawani!”
They said, “that has no meaning, go back. Let us send for the crow.”
The crow was called, “Now what will you say?”
The crow said, “Kwa! Kwa! Kwa!”
“The crow does not know how to call. Go, quail. How will you do?”
The quail said, “Kwalulu! Kwalulu!”
“The quail does not know how to do it either. Let us call the doves.”
They said, “Let us hear, doves, what will you call to her mother?”
They they heard:
“Kuku! Ku!
She-who-nurses-the-sun is gone,
You who dig,
She-who-nurses-the-sun.”
They said, “Go, you know how to do it , you.”
The mother went when she heard the doves. There she was going toward the town. She carried medicines on a potsherd, also tails of animals with which she beat the air.
While she was on the road, she met a zebra:
“Zebra, what are you doing?
–Ullimidden.
The wife of my father is dead.
–Ullimidden.
O Mother! You shall die.
–Ullimidden.”
The zebra died. The woman went on, went on, went on, and then found people digging:
“You who dig, what are you doing?
–Ullimidden.
The wife of my father is dead.
O mother! You shall die.
–Ullimidden.”
When she reached the town there:
“Let me gather, let me gather
The herd of my mother.
Nakomse, get up.
Let me gather the herd.
“Let me gather, let me gather
The herd of my father.
Nakomse, get up.
Let me gather the herd.”
She then heard the mortar still sounding right above the child.
So she sprayed one medicine, then another.
There was the child already pounding from under the ground. Little by little the head came out. Then the neck, and the song was heard again:
“Pound! At home I do not pound,
Here I pound to celebrate my wedding.
Yepu! Yepu!
If I pound, I go to God’s”
The child was now in full view. Finally she stepped outside. The end.
THERE WAS ONCE an old woman who had no husband, and she lived for many days in trouble. One day she said to herself, “Why do I always feel so troubled? It is because I have neither children nor husband. I shall go to the medicine-man and get some children.
She went to the medicine-man and told him she was unhappy owing to the fact that although she had now grown old, she had neither husband nor children. The medicine-man asked her which she wanted, husband or children, and she told him she wanted children.
She was instructed to take some cooking pots – three, or as many as she could carry – and to search for a fruit-bearing sycamore tree, to fill the pots with the fruit, to put them in her hut, and to go for a walk.
The old woman followed these instructions carefully. She gathered the fruit, filled the pots, placed them in her hut, and went for a walk until the evening.
On arriving near the kraal, she heard the sound of voices and asked herself, “Why does one hear the voices of children in the kraal?” She went nearer, and found her hut filled with children, all her work finished, the boys herding the cattle, the hut swept, by the girls, the warriors singing and dancing on the common, and the little children waiting to greet her. She thus became a rich old woman, and lived happily with her children for many days.
One day, however, she scolded the children, and reproached them for being children of the tree. They remained silent and did not speak to her; then, while she went to visit her friends in the other kraals, the children returned to the sycamore tree, and became fruit again. On her return to her own kraal, the old woman wept bitterly when she found it empty, and paid another visit to the medicine-man, whom she taxed with having spirited away her children.
The medicine-man told her that he did not know what she should do now, and when she proposed to go and look at the sycamore tree, he recommended her to try.
She took her cooking pots to the sycamore tree and climbed up into it. But when she reached the fruit they all put forth eyes and stared at her. This so startled her that she was unable to descend, and her friends had to come and help her down.
She did not go to the sycamore tree again to search for the children.
ONCE UPON A TIME there were a brother and sister who lived together. The mother had died leaving many goats, and the brother looked after the goats in the daytime, but in the evening he went away from home, for he was very handsome, and had many friends. The name of the girl was Nasere, the name of the brother Tunka Menin.
Now one day when the brother returned Nasere said to him, “Two men were here yesterday, and if you go away and leave me they will carry me off.” But he replied, “You talk nonsense.” She insisted, “I am speaking the truth. Now when they take me I will bear with me a gourd full of sap which is like fat, and I will let it drop along the path so that you can follow my trail.” That night when Tunka Menin brought the goats home, Nasere made a great feast and gruel, but again he went away. When Tunka Menin came back the next morning he found the homestead empty, for his sister had been carried away as she had said. However, he saw the track where drop by drop she had let fall the sap which was like fat. And Tunk Menin followed over hill and down dale, and ever and again he heard her voice crying from. the opposite hillside, “Follow after where you see the trail.”
The following day the sap began to take root and to spring up into little plants, but he did not see his sister. At last, he returned to his home to herd the flock. He took them out to feed, but he had no one to prepare food for him when he returned home at night, and if he himself prepared the food there was no one to care for the flocks. So he slew a goat and ate it and, when it was finished, he slew yet another, and so on till all the goats were finished. Then he killed and ate the oxen one by one. They lasted him months and years for the flock was large but, at last they were all gone, and then he bethought him of his sister.
Now the plants which marked the way she had gone were, by this time, grown to trees, and so he journeyed on for one month and half a month and at the end of that time he came to a stream and by the stream were two children getting water. Then he said to the younger, “Give me some water in your gourd,” but the child refused. The elder child spoke to the younger and said, “Give the stranger to drink, for our mother said if ever you see a stranger coming by way of the trees he is my brother!” So he and the children went up to the homestead, and he waited outside, and Nasere came out, and he knew her at once. However, she did not know him, for he was not dressed as before with ochre and fat. He came into her hut and she gave him food, not in a good vessel, but in a potsherd. Then he slept in the hut, but on the floor, not in the bed.
Now the next day he went out with the children to drive away the birds from the crops and as he threw a stone he would say, “Fly away, little bird, as Nasere flew away and never came back any more.” Soon another bird would come and he would throw another stone and say the same words again. This happened the next day and the next for a whole month.
The children heard this, and so did others, and they said, “Why does he utter the name Nasere?” So they went and told their mother. At last she came and waited among the grass and listened to his words, and said, “Surely this is my brother Tunka Menin, and she went back to the house and sent for a young man and told him to go and fetch Tunka Menin to come to her, for she said, “He is my brother.” And the young man went and told Tunka Menin the words of his sister, and she has given me no cup for my food but a potsherd,” and he would not go in. Then the young man returned to Nasere and told her the words of her brother, and she said, “Take ten goats and go again and bid him to come to me.” So the young man took ten goats and said, “Your sister has sent these ten goats.” But again Tunka Menin refused, and the young man returned. So Nasere said, “Take ten oxen and give them to my brother.” However, Tunka Menin owuld not come. Nasere then sent him ten cows, and another ten cows, but still Tunka Menin refused to come in. Nasere thereupon told her husband how she had found her brother and how he would not be reconciled to her, and her husband said, “Send him still more animals,” so Nasere sent ten other cows and again ten more, till Tunka Menin had received forty cows besides the goats and the oxen which Nasere had sent at the first. And the heart of Tunka Menin relented, and he came into the house of his sister. And she killed a goat, and took the fat and dressed his hair and his shoulders, for she said, “I did not know you, for you were not adorned as before.
After Tunka Menin had been reconciled to his sister, he asked that eight wives should be given him. So the husband of Nasere sent to all his relations round about, and they brought in goats, and Tunka Menin bought eight girls, some for thirty goats, some for forty. Other relations all came and built eight huts for the wives near to the dwelling of Nasere, so Tunka Menin and his wives dwelt near the homestead of his sister.
A BIG DANCE was once held at which many warriors and girls were present. Toward evening the dancers dispersed, and each warrior selected one or more of the girls to accompany him home.
One of these men, a particularly handsome and well-built fellow, went away with three sisters. On leaving, he asked the girls where they would like to go, and they told him they wished to accompany him to his kraal. He said that it was a long way off, but they replied that that did not matter.
They started off, and after walking some distance, they approached the kraal. The girls noticed some white things scattered about on the ground and asked the warrior what they were. He said that they were his sheep and goats; but when they reached destination, the girls saw that they were human bones. They entered the warrior’s hut and the girls were surprised to find that he lived quite alone.
It transpired later that this warrior was in reality a devil who ate people, but it was not known because he concealed his tail under his garment. He had even eaten his mother and had thrown her bones into a heap of grass which formed the bed.
Shortly after their arrival at the hut, the warrior went outside, leaving the girls alone. A voice, which came from the bed, startled them by asking them who had brought them there. They replied that the warrior had brought them, whereupon the voice told them to open the mattress. The girls threw off the top layer of grass, exposing the bones to view. The voice, which came from the bones, then related that she had been the warrior’s mother and that he had become a demon and had eaten her. The girls asked the bones what they should do, and the voice answered, “The warrior will come presently and bring you a sheep. Accept it. He will then go outside again and, having shut the door, sit down there. Make a hole in the wall and pass out. If you are asked what the knocking is, say that you are killing the sheep.”
Everything took place as the voice had predicted, and the girls made a hole in the wall of the hut through which they predicted, and the girls made a hole in the wall of the hut through which they passed and escaped. When they reached the road, however, one of them suddenly remembered that she had left her beads behind. Her sisters told her to go and fetch them while they waited for her. She returned to the hut but met the warrior, who asked her if he should eat her or make her his wife. She thanked him for giving her the choice and said that she preferred the latter.
They lived together for a considerable period and, after a time, the woman presented the demon with a son, whom they named Tezamet. From the day of his birth Tezamet accompanied his father on his journeys to the forest in quest of people to devour; and, while the man and the boy ate human beings, they took home with them for the woman goats and sheep to eat and cows to milk.
One day one of the woman’s sisters came to the kraal to visit her. As Tezamet and his father were both absent she arrived, the two women sat and talked until it was time for the visitor to depart. The weather looked threatening as she rose to take her leave, and Tezamet’s mother cried out to her not to go to the tree in the middle of the plain, should it rain, for it was the custom of her husband and son to rest there on their way home. But the woman hurried away without paying attention to her sister’s warning, and when it came on to rain a little later, she ran to the tree in the middle of the plain, which was a baobab tree, and climbed up into it. She had not been there long when Tezamet and his father arrived and stood beneath the tree to get shelter from the rain. Their appearance recalled to the woman her sister’s words and she was greatly alarmed.
Tezamet gazed up into the tree and remarked that there was something peculiar about it, but his father said it was only because it was raining hard. Shortly afterward, however, Tezamet saw the woman and called out, “There is my meat.” The woman was forced to descend, and she gave birth to twins.
Tezamet picked up the children and said, “I will take these kidneys to mother to roast for me.
When it stopped raining, the two returned home and Tezamet asked his mother to roast his kidneys for him. But the woman knew at once that her sister had been out to death, and she hid the children in a hole in the earth, roasting instead two rats. When they were ready, Tezamet went to the fire, picked them up off the stones and ate them, grumbling at the same time because they were so small. His mother pretended to be very annoyed at this and, turning to her husband, complained of what their son had said. The old man told her not to mind the boy as he was a liar.
The woman fed and tended the children, who were both boys, and gradually they grew up. One day she asked her husband to bring her an ox which she said, she wished to slaughter and eat. Tezamet on hearing this request at once pricked up his ears and remarked, “It really amuses me to hear of a woman who wants to eat an ox all by herself. I think those kidneys of mine have something to do with this matter.” However, the two men searched for an ox which they procured and brought back with them. They slaughtered the animal and left the meat with the woman, after which they went for a walk in the forest.
As soon as they had departed, the woman let the children out of their hole and gave them the ox to eat. They ate until sunset, when she sent them back again to their hiding place.
Tezamet and his father returned shortly afterward, and the former, being very sharp, at once noticed the small footmarks on the ground. “I wonder,” he said, “what those small and numerous footmarks are. They are certainly not mine.” His mother, however, stoutly insisted that the marks had been made by herself or by the two men, and in this she received her husband’s support. Being annoyed with Tezamet on account of the way he treated his mother, the old man killed and ate him, but he immediately came to life again and cried out, “There, I have come back again.”
As time passed, the children grew up, and their aunt asked them one day if they knew that the people who lived in the same kraal with them were in reality demons and cannibals. She also inquired if, in the event of her being able to obtain weapons from her husband, they could put Tezamet and his father to death. The boys replied that they could, but asked the woman what she would say if her husband wanted to know why she required the weapons. She told them that she would say she wanted them to protect herself against any enemies who might come.
When Tezamet and his father next returned home, the woman asked her husband if he would procure two spears, two shields, and two swords for her. “For I am always here alone,” she said, “and if enemies come, I wish to be able to fight with them.” Tezamet remarked that he had never before heard of a woman who wanted men’s weapons and said he thought that those kidneys, which he had brought to his mother to roast for him, must have something to do with this request.
Notwithstanding Tezamet’s protest, the old man obtained for his wife the weapons that she required. When he had given them to her, she fetched an oxhide, and asked the two men to lie down on the ground while she stretched the hide over them and pegged it down. She told them that when she was ready she would cry out and would see if the enemy came, in which case they could assist her. She pegged the oxhide down securely and asked them if they could get out. Tezamet found a hole and began to crawl out, but his mother told him to get in again, and she pegged it down once more. She then raised her voice and called to the children, who came from their hiding place and killed Tezamet and his father.
As Tezamet was dying, he said to his parent, “Did I not tell you so, and you said I lied?”
The boys, after killing the two devils, took their aunt away to their father’s kraal.
THERE ONCE LIVED a man named Battuda, the weed smoker. One year there was s serve drought, and the weed did not grow. He said to his children, “What am I to do? I have no weed.”
They answered, “If you wish it, send us that we may search for some.”
Thereupon he sent the eight sons and three daughters, and said, If you secure weed, leave the girls with the man from whom you got it.”
They walked for a long time, nearly two months, but they did not find weed. They said to each other, “As we have not found that which we seek, it is best that we return.”
On their return they met two men, wanderers, who asked them what they sought. “We seek weed. We were sent by our father who is in great need of it, and we fear he will be dead by now.”
The wanderers replied, “Very well. Come with us, and we will take you to a man who has lots of it.”
Thus they travelled together, and when they arrived at one man’s village they met his son, who asked, “What do you seek?”
They replied, “Weed.”
“Only weed?” he asked.
“Yes, indeed,” they replied.
“If it should be offered to you, what would you give for it?” he asked further.
They answered, “Father said to us if you find a man with weed, leave all the girls with him.”
The man who owned the weed, and who was also named Battuda, rejoiced when he heard this and killed a goat for them. The next morning he filled eight bags with weed and gave them to Battuda’s sons. He also sent his four sons and two daughters, and said to his sons, “When you come to the man who desires the weed and find that his village is a pleasant place, leave the two girls with him.”
When Battuda’s eight sons returned with the weed, he rejoiced and praised them for what they had done and killed a goat for them. They said, “The man from whom we got the weed has also sent his four sons and tow daughters to see your abode and whether it is a pleasant place.”
He replied, “It is well.”
The next morning the four sons returned to their home and left their two sisters ar Battuda’s village.
The two families thereafter became friends and visited each other.
Some time later, Battuda said, “I am old. Take me to my friend that I may see before I die.” To this his children agreed. They went ahead, and he followed, until they arrived at Battuda’s village.
When Battuda heard the greetings and clapping of hands, he asked, “Whom is it you greet?”
One of his sons said, “It is the father of the girls who were left here – he who sought weed.”
He answered, “I am ashamed to meet him, as I married his daughters before I met him. Go and tell him that his friend Battuda is ill.” The sons went and told the man as they were desired to do by their father.
Thereupon the eldest son of the other said, “My father is also ill. I brought him, as he wished to see his friend who supplied him with weed. You say he is ill, therefore both are ill.”
The son of the other replied, “It is as you say. Enter the hut. We shall see tomorrow.”
They prepared food and, when they were about to take it to the visitors, there suddenly arose shouting and wailing, and the people of the village cried out, “Father is dead.”
Thereupon the visitors also set up a wailing and shouting, crying, “Father is dead. He died at the village which was not his home.”
Then all the people said, “We shall see tomorrow when we bury them.”
The next morning the people of the village said to the visitors, “it is daybreak. Go and choose a spot where you may bury your father; we shall do likewise for our father.”
But the sons of him whoo came on the visit replied, “Speak not thus. Let them be buried together, because they had become friends.”
Those of the village answered, “Have people ever been buried together?”
The visitors said, “You say people are not buried together. Have you known of a case where one man went to visit his friend and it was said, ‘He is dead,’ and that the other also died, thus both dying at the same time? Where did you ever see this?”
Thereupon they agreed to bury the bodies together.
They dug a deep grave for the two and carried the bodies thither. First they lowered into the grave the body of the man of the village and then that of the visitor. They then called out, “Bring stones that we may fill up the grave.”
When they were about to throw in the stones, the man who was lowered first called out, “I am not dead, take me out, and do not cover me with stones.” Then the body of the visitor said, “I am on top, I want to get out first.”
Thus both came out.
They went and killed a goat of which all ate. Then the old men called their sons together and said to them, “We wish to instruct you, our children. Do not do this: do not marry a girl before you ask her in marriage of her father.”
Then the old man of the village, whose name was Battuda, said to his sons, “I thought I would be clever. I did not wish to see the man whose daughters I had married without telling him. Therefore I said I was sick, hoping he would go home.”
Thus the custom arose that when a man desires to marry, he first informs the girl’s father of what he desires to do, for at the beginning this was not done.
A GIRL, it is said, once went to seek for onions. As she arrived at the place where they grew, she met several men, on of whom was half-blind, having only one eye. As she dug, the men helped her, digging also. When her sack was full, the men said to her, “Go, tell the other girls, that many of you may come.” So she went home and told her companions, and early the next morning they started. But a little girl followed them. The other girls said, “Let the little girl go back.”
Her elder sister protested, saying, “She runs by herself; you need not out her into your awa skin.”
So they all went on together and, having reached the onion field, began to dig. Now the little girl saw traces of feet, and she said to the one who had guided them thither, “Wonderful! Whence so many traces? Were you not alone here?”
The other replied, “I walked about and looked around; therefore there must be many of my foot prints.”
The child, however, did not believe that if the other girl had been alone the traces could be many, and she felt uneasy, for she was a wise little woman. From time to time she rose from her work and peeped about and once, while doing this found by chance an anteater’s hole.
Still further spying about, she perceived some men, but they did not see her. She then returned and continued digging with the other girls, without, however, saying anything; but in the midst of the work, she always rose and looked about her.
So the others asked her, “Why do you always spy about you and leave off digging? What a girl!” But she continued her work in silence. When she rose from it again, she saw the men approaching. As they drew near, the one-eyed man blew through a reed pipe the following:
“Today blood shall flow, blood flow, blood flow!”
The little girl understood what was blown on the reed. She said to the elder ones, while they were dancing, “Do you understand the tune that is blown on the reed?”
But they only said, “What a child she is!”
So she mixed in the dance with the others, but managed while so doing to tie her sister’s kaross to her own. In this manner they danced until the merriment became very noisy. Then the two sisters found an opportunity to slip away.
On their way out the little sister asked, “Do you understand the reed – I mean what is blown on it?”
The elder one answered, “No, I do not understand it.”
Then the little girl explained to her that the tune on the reed said, “Today blood shall flow!”
While they walked along, the little girl let her elder sister go first and she herself followed, walking backwards and carefully stepping in her sister’s marks, so that thus they left only one set of footprints, and these going in a contrary direction. In this manner they arrived at the anteater’s hole.
The men killed all those girls who had remained dancing with them. When the elder of the two who had escaped heard their wailing, she said, “Alas, my sister!”
But the younger one answered hr, “Do you think you would have lived if you had remained there?”
Now the one-eyed man was the first to miss the sisters, and he said to the other men, “Where may the two handsome girls be who danced with me?”
The others replied, “He lies. He has seen only with his single eye.” But the one-eyed man insisted that two girls were truly missing.
Then they went to find their tracks, but the footmarks had been rendered indistinct enough to puzzle them.
However, the men finally arrived at the anteater’s hole. They could not see that the foot marks went farther, and they peered into the hole but saw nothing. Then the one-eyed man looked also, and he saw the girls and cried, “There they sit!”
The others now looked again, but still saw nothing, for the girls had covered themselves with cobwebs.
One of the men then took an spear and, piercing through the upper part of the hole, hit the heel of the older girl. The wise little woman took hold of the spear, however, and wiped off the blood. The elder sister was about to cry, but the little one warned her not to make a sound.
When the one-eyed one spied again the little girl made big eyes at him. He said, “There she sits.”
The others looked too, but as they could see nothing they said, “He has only seen with his one eye.”
At last the men became thirsty and said to the one-eyed one, “Stay you here and let us go to drink, and when we have returned you may go also.”
When the one-eyed man was left alone there, the little girl said, conjuring him:
“You dirty son if your father,
Are you there? Are you alone not thirsty?
Oh, you dirty child of your father!
Dirty son of your father!”
“I am indeed thirsty,” said the one-eyed one and went away.
Then the two girls came out of the hole, and the younger one took her elder sister on her back and walked on. As they were going over the bare, treeless plain, the men saw them and said, “There they are, far off,” and ran after them.
When they came near, the two girls turned themselves into thorn trees, called “Wait-a-bit,” and the beads which they wore became gum on the trees. The men then ate of the gum and fell asleep. While they slept, the girls smeared gum over the men’s eyes and went away, leaving them lying in the sun.
The girls were already near their kraal, when the one-eyed man awoke and said, “Oh, the disgrace! Fie on thee!”
“Our eyes are smeared over; fie on thee, my brother!” said the others.
Then they removed the gum from their eyes, and hunted for the girls, but the two sisters reached home in safety and told their parents what had happened.
Then all the people lamented greatly, but they remained quietly at home and did not search for the other girls.
Projections actually involve a change of atomic structure. Consciousness simply changes its form. When projection is first accomplished, there is a strong charge of adrenaline in the body and high activity of the thyroid gland. There is a charge of sexual hormones which are also utilized in projection.
After projection is accomplished, however, there is a marked decline in chemical activity and hormone action, a drop in body temperature and a drop in blood pressure. The rapid eye movements noted by dream investigators cease entirely. The eye muscles are not used. The normal muscular activity that usually occurs in sleep vanishes. The physical body is in a deep trance state. The trance may also be masked by sleep, if the projection happens from a dream threshold.
According to the intensity of the projection and to the systems visited, the body may become more or less rigid when consciousness returns to it. This is a subtle difference in the way sugar molecules are utilized. Momentarily, the body uses less sugar. However, the sugar is important in fueling the consciousness on its journey. It also aids in connecting the consciousness to the body.
In other words, there is indeed a connection that is and must be partially physical, between the body and the traveling consciousness, and it is based upon a certain sugar molecule in a form not normally seen. Before conscious projections I would therefore recommend that you take a small amount of starchy or sugar food. A small snack before bed is a good idea from this viewpoint. Alcohol is of some benefit, though not to any great degree. Excellent results can be achieved in a dream-based projection during the day, in a nap.
Certain chemical changes must come about in the physical organism before projection can occur. Were it not for those, we would still be imprisoned within the corporeal image. You know that dreaming has a definite chemical basis, that chemicals built up during period of waking experience are released through dreams. Not only are these released, but they form a propelling action that allows energy to flow in the opposite direction. As chemical reactions allow the body to utilize energy and form physical materializations, so the excess built up becomes, then, a propelling force, allowing action to flow in what we would call subjective directions.
This same chemical reaction must also occur, only more strongly, before a legitimate projection can occur. This is one of the main reasons why deliberate projections are not more numerous. Usually the chemical access is used in normal dreaming. In periods of exuberant energy and well being, a more than normal excess accumulates. This can trigger a projection. In periods of momentary indisposition, however, the dreaming process may be blocked and the chemical excess accumulated. Again, a good time to try projection.
These chemical excesses are a natural byproduct of consciousness that is bound up in physical materialization. The more intense the characteristic experience of reality, the greater the chemical excess that is built up. Consciousness itself, when physically oriented, burns up the chemicals. The more intense the individual, the hotter the fire, so to speak, and the greater the chemical excesses released.
Released they must be, or the organism would not survive. Periods of intense activity may also generate this additional chemical propellant. Although this is generated through activity, it is released, making projections possible, in alternating periods of quietude and rest. There must be a disciplined focus, therefore, of this propellant. Periods of heightened sexual activity of a strong and deep nature will help. Periods of no sexual activity will also help, however. On the one hand, the chemical excess is built up as a result of great intensity, and in the latter case it is built up because psychic and sexual release has not been granted.
Eggs and asparagus are helpful as far as diet is concerned. I am obviously not suggesting a whole diet of eggs and asparagus. These plus fish oils are beneficial, however, but not when taken with acid foods.
I still suggest a more thorough examination of your dreams for many of them contain spontaneous projections. They are most apt to occur in the early hours, between 3:00 and 5:00 A.M. The body temperature drops at such times. Five in the afternoon is also beneficial from this standpoint. The drinking of pure water also facilitates projection, although for obvious reasons, the bladder should be empty. The north-south position is extremely important, and, indeed, is a necessity for any efficient dream recall. Energy is most easily utilized in this position for one thing, and this cuts unnecessary restrictions to a minimum.
There is vast difference between ordinary dreams and projections, whether or not the projections occur from the dream threshold. Dreams are constructed and sent upon their way. As you know, they maintain an independence within their own dimension.
Projections involve many more aspects of the whole self and are a mark that the personality is progressing in important ways. The inner senses are allowed their greatest freedom in projection states, and the self retains experience that it would not otherwise. When this knowledge becomes apart of the ordinary waking consciousness, then we have taken a gigantic step forward.
An almost automatic determination must be established, however, if conscious projections are to be anything but rare oddities. With some, the problem is somewhat different than it might be with others. These chemical excesses are used up, for one things, in creative work. You do this automatically. It goes without saying that your own work will gain immeasurably through the extended experience of projection. The yoga exercises allow you to draw an abundance – indeed, a superabundance – of energy. This energy, also, in chemical excesses that can be utilized in projections, without drawing energy away from your other work.
The expectation and knowledge that you are a part of all energy will allow you to realize that all the energy you require will be given. Your attitude toward what is possible determines what is possible for you in very definite terms.
Now, there are also electromagnetic changes (during projections) that can be perceived with instruments. Certain electrical fields will make themselves known under these conditions. The fields have always existed, but they will become apparent to physical instruments only when they are being crossed – in other words, at the very act of projection.
Other hints: A cool body temperature but with room temperature between 73.8 and 75.9 High humidity is poor. The colors of a room is important. Cool colors are best. Too warm colors are detrimental, being to closely allied with earthly conditions. In your climate, October, February and March are best. August can be beneficial, according to the weather. Too warm weather is detrimental.
MANY YEARS AGO There was a Calabar hunter named Effiong who lived in the bush. He killed plenty of animals and made much money. Every one in the country knew him, and one of his best friends was a man called Okun, who lived near him.
Effiong was very extravagant and spent much money in eating and drinking with everyone until at last he became quite poor, and he had to go out hunting again. But now his good luck seemed to have deserted him, for although he worked hard and hunted day and night, he could not succeed in killing anything.
One day, as he was very hungry, he went to his friend Okun and borrowed two hundred rods from him. He told him to come to his house on a certain day to get his money, and he told him to bring his gun, loaded, with him.
Now sometimes before this, Effiong had made friends with a leopard and a bush cat whom he had met in the forest while on one of his hunting expeditions; and he had also made friends with a goat and a rooster at a farm where he had stayed for the night. But, though Effiong had borrowed the money from Okun, he could not think how he was to repay it on the day he had promised. At last, however, he thought of a plan. The next day he went to his friend the leopard and asked him to lend him tow hundred rods, promising to return the amount to him on the same day as he had promised to pay Okun. He also told the leopard that, if he were absent when he came for his money, he could kill anything he saw in the house and eat it. The leopard was then to wait until the hunter arrived, when he would pay him the money. To this the leopard agreed.
The hunter then went to his friend the goat and borrowed two hundred rods from him in the same way. Effiong also went to his friends the bush cat and the rooster and borrowed two hundred rods from each of them on the same conditions, and told each one of them that if he were absent when they arrived, they could kill and eat anything they found about the place.
When the appointed day and left the house deserted. Very early in the morning, soon after he had begun to crow, the rooster remembered what the hunter had told him and he walked over to the hunter’s house but found no one there. On looking around, however, he saw corn on the ground and, being hungry, he commenced to eat.
About this time the bush cat also arrived, and not finding the hunter at home, he too looked about and very soon he espired the rooster who was busy picking up the grains of corn. So the bush cat went up very softly behind and pounced on the rooster and killed him at once, and begun to eat him.
By this time the goat had come for his money; but not finding his friend, he walked about until he came upon the bush cat who was intent upon his meal off the rooster that he did not notice the goat approaching; and the goat, being in rather a bad temper at not getting his money, at once charged at the bush cat and knocked him over, butting him with his horns. This the bush cat did not like at all, so as he was not big enough to fight the goat, he picked up the remains of the rooster and ran off with it to the bush; and so he lost money, as he did not await the arrival of the hunter. The goat was thus left master of the situation and started bleating. This noise attracted the attention of the leopard, who was on his way to receive payment from the hunter. As he got nearer, the smell of goat became very strong and, being hungry, for he had not eaten anything for some time, he approached the goat very carefully. Not seeing anyone, he stalked the goat and got nearer and nearer until he was within springing distance.
The goat, in the meantime, was quietly grazing, quite unsuspicious of any danger, as he was in the compound of his friend the hunter. Now and then he would say “Ba!” But most of the time he was busy eating the young grass and picking up the leaves which had fallen from a tree of which he was very fond. Suddenly the leopard sprang at the goat and, with one crunch at the neck, brought him down. The goat was dead almost at once, and the leopard started on his meal.
It was now about eight o’clock in the morning, and Okun, the hunter’s friend, having had his early morning meal, went out with his gun to receive payment of the two hundred rods he had lent to the hunter. When he got close to the house he heard a crunching sound. Being a hunter himself, he approached very cautiously and, looking over the fence, he saw the leopard only a few yards off busily engaged eating the goat. He took careful aim at the leopard and fired, whereupon the leopard rolled over dead.
The death of the leopard meant the four of the hunter’s creditors were now disposed of, as the bush cat had killed the rooster; the goat had driven the bush car away, who thus forfeited his claim; and in his turn the goat had been killed by the leopard, who had just been slain by Okun. This meant a saving of eight hundred rods of Effiong, but he was not content with this. As soon as he heard the report of the gun he ran out from where he had been hiding all the time and found the leopard lying dead with Okun standing over it. Then in very strong language Effiong began to upbraid Okun and asked him why he had killed his old friend the leopard. He said that nothing would satisfy him and that he would report the whole matter to the king, who would no doubt deal with Okun as he thought fit. When Effiong said this, Okun was frightened and begged him not to say anything more about the matter, as the king would be angry; but the hunter was obdurate and refused to listen to him. At last Okun said, “If you will allow the whole thing to drop and will say no more about it, I will make you a present of the two hundred rods you borrowed from me.” This was just what Effiong wanted; but still he did not give in at once. Eventually, however, he agreed and told Okun he might go and that he would bury the body of his friend the leopard.
Directly Okun had gone, instead of burying the body, Effiong dragged it inside the house and skinned it very carefully. The skin he put out to dry in the sun and covered it with wood ash, and the body he ate. When the skin was well cured, the hunter took it to a distant market where he sold it for much money.
And now, whenever a bush cat sees a rooster he always kills it and does so by right, as he takes the rooster in part payment of the two hundred rods which the hunter never paid him.
Moral: Never lend money to people, because if they cannot pay they will try to kill you or get rid of you in some way, either by poison or by setting bad jujus for you.
Or seem to waken – in the middle of the night, try to get out of the body. Simply try to get out of bed without moving the body and go into another room.
This is a pleasant and easy method. With some experience you will discover that you can maintain control, walk out of the apartment and outside. You may then attempt normal locomotion or levitate. There is little strain with this method. Keep it in mind so that you are alert to the initial favorable circumstances. You may be half awake. You may be in a false awakening. The method will work in either case. You can, if you want to, look back at your body.
You must want to do this, however. Often, you do not want to see the body by itself, so to speak, and so choose methods that make this more difficult. Just this one exercise will sharpen your control greatly. It is an ABC. This experience is also less startling to the ego than a more abrupt projection, and the ordinary nature of the activities – walking into the next room, for example – will be reassuring. You are more calm in your own surroundings.
Now it is possible for someone within the body to perceive someone who is not, but it is not usual. The perceiver must be a person of strong psychic abilities or the projecting personality must be driven by high emotional intensity to make himself/herself known.
