"A magical portal opened inside my mind and conducted me into an astonishing world. [...] So audacious did my mind become..." - Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, concerning the source of his harum-scarum motivation to suddenly translate the entire French dictionary to Greek.
Let me tell you how one opens a portal through the Vaults of Lore (The Five Commandments).
1. Bravery amidst the void. You must not fear unfamiliar spaces. Anything can be real or imagined. Best if you don't even know the difference between the two. You risk adventure and misadventure. You must be ready to never look back. Do not be like salty mothers and unworthy farmers with unsure hands at the plow. Put away fear of death and love of life and trust the mechanisms of totality. They are like the works of a Great Miller who designed gears that now go round for the bread of the many worlds.
2. Listen as a whole being. Listen for the striking of the planar seconds. Wake to them in the night and forsake your own opinion in the day, if you have the gift. Do not observe reality for then you may break the first rule and believe something is real or imagined. Even if you imagine fear, that may be enough to think fear is real. Instead, let the eye ponder and the mind blink. Give every ounce of flesh a new vocation. Every wall or ceiling is everything or nothing. Wonderment is not the completion of an observation and it leaves every possibility unbound without resorting to chaos.
3. Visualize two crossings. All too often, humanity is prone to imagine a portal in a circle or an oval. Perhaps you too believe this shape is more natural and would be more likely to occur, but I disagree. Circles are too infinite and can spiral on and on if you don't have clear perceptions of points on that circle. A good portal is not a chaotic rift that spreads out like paint dropped on to a canvas. It is a gate that frames the way and a series of straight lines within more straight lines and from points A through Z to points Ѧ through Ϫ. This is where two universes or two points within the same realm cross. It is a crossing upon a crossing, a square on the grid that no longer conforms. These two crosses form the window of the portal, through which your mind, soul, individuality and (hopefully) your body will travel to the next destination.
4. Peer beyond what you see. Hold the portal open. Peel it back first in thought and then push those thoughts outward. You will not realize it was your own doing if you have done it right. Sometimes our will to carry this out is weak and our expectations are too adapted at balancing out the equations of what should be real in our heads. That is why you need a crutch, a staff, a cane, training wheels for the soul, chained firmly to your eyes. Something visual and simple is easy to translate to the ineffable.
5. Move without doubts, without certainties. When the window is prepared, find the seams of this portal and peel it open completely! Moving aside what you perceived as a wall, a floor, a ceiling, or even empty air framed only by this one wake in the sleepy patterns of brick or panel. Then, do not let go. Keep going forward! When you see a marvelous luminescence of stars pitted against a blue glassy glaze then you are ready. Step through this divide and merely "be" on the other side. Do not lose yourself in the reflections of whatever possibilities and realities or dreams you may see around you. Just pick one. Pick the one that calls to you if you cannot choose. I have found that even in the most certain of times, answering this call is the best choice.
Did you see it?! Were you scared? Did doubt anchor you here? Truly, truly I tell you, that this portal is real and humans, especially, can open them. But for those still seeking to awaken the Vaults of Lore or lacking agicalic powers, I wrote you this book. A poor substitute or a rich teacher, depending on how it is applied.
