The Mind Chronicles

from Chapter 7

The Dark Night of the Soul into Magic

Once I was completely embodied, my head in the clouds in the higher realms got connected to my body, and then my feet pushed me into the dung. The pull into connection with the cosmos forced me into my own feet. Like a root from a seed diving straight down into the soil, the journey into the dark night of the soul became a total compulsion. I needed to shine a searchlight into my deepest recesses, and what I could find would be my teacher.

It is 1208 AD . . .

The madness spreads like the plague. The people run through the towns whipping themselves, and we hear about more and more burnings at the stake. The people go to watch the burnings, but I do not. I do not go because I feel fear in my heart. There is thickness in my throat from the fires and the stench of burning flesh. I will not look. I will not look. While sitting in the office of my store in Marseilles, a crying woman comes in to ask me to help her just because I’m rich. She is too dirty to pass by my fabric, and I want her out, away! My valet shoves her and she hits her head. She throws my door open and screams as my men tear at her hair, at her dress. I stop them and say, “No, let her go! Don’t grab her!” She screams a piercing scream and falls forward on my desk with her hands clutching the edge. She screams, “You can stop them, all you have to do is pay the Dominicans. If you don’t, they will burn her. She is my little girl, only twelve, and you have the money. You can pay the Church. If you don’t pay, they will burn my girl.”

I feel nothing. As if my heart is in the damp ashes and coals lying in the hearth next to where my mother died, frozen for days, I feel nothing. My men grab her shoulders, pull her away, and throw her out the door. She wants twenty florins, which I make in an hour. But there are too many of them. If I did it, I’d be flooded with filthy ragged women begging for their daughters. Suddenly a ray of white light pierces my head, and I clutch my head as if I’m having an aneurysm. My muscles lose their tone as I fall against my desk. My consciousness as Hebrew prophet comes in, the time when I told the people how to live. In those days, I left behind my own wife and children as soon as the light of my mission took over my soul. Now I am here again as medieval merchant with another chance. But I do nothing.

Now, I’m an old man still living in my house, and now that I am old, I have feelings. Thinking about the different things that happened in my life, I go back to that time when she was being burned. On that fated day, I remained a while in my office worrying about my heart while I sorted brocades from Florence. I couldn’t shake it, so I went to the square where a large tree was cut down into a stake that was piled high with faggots ready to light. It all comes back, as if I am there again, the people screaming like animals with no souls. I hear a scream above the crowd, a screaming small sound like a wounded bird. They are bringing in a little girl pulling on her shoulders, as rags come off exposing her flesh. This is the little girl--I see her mother being restrained. Five or six men are holding her and laughing. The little girl screams the most unearthly sound I have ever heard. They bring the ragged, mangy little girl through the crowd, and as she comes close to me, she turns and I see her face. I stare with horror into this unearthly beautiful little face, beautiful eyes, skin, white skin. Her eyes are hot coals staring into the face of my own soul. I know I’m allowing my own soul to be burned by killing it with indifference, killing it with the fear of feeling the fire in my heart.

Oh, God, I’ve seen this face before, and I am terror struck. I fish in my pocket desperately for twenty florins. But I’ve brought no money in case the beggars would try to get it from me. I look up again at the face, and my soul realizes this is the face of my own daughter long ago in Thrace. But now I am a male merchant, and this I don’t understand. I run toward her and clutch for the men who carry her along. They see my good clothes and they seem ready to stop, but a Dominican shoves one of them hard. He whispers in a raspy voice, “It is the devil, it is the devil,” and again they move her along. The crowd of crazed peasants sees my good clothes, and they become angry. One of them pulls a gem ring off my finger almost breaking my knuckle, and I am more afraid for myself than for the little girl. One of them grabs me by the throat and starts to strangle me. I can feel my throat gurgling, and the pain is unbearable. Somebody stabs me in the heart! I think I feel somebody stab me in the heart, but it is the sound of that little bird stabbing me in my heart. I have my own dagger, I hear her cry again as the flames sear her flesh, and I stab myself in the heart. I never want to have life again. I’m lying on the ground feeling heat and flames and somebody kicks me on the side of my head. That is all I remember.

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Gregory Paxson

Book One
Eye of the Centaur

1   The Court Jester, the Roman, and the Victorian Lady
2   The Priest of Osiris and the Druid
3   The Delphic Oracle and the Magic Cave
4   The Rape of Lydia and the Labyrinth
5   The Renaissance Astronomer, the Medieval Merchant, and the Roman
6   The Vision in the Temple and the Scarab
7   The Dark Night of the Soul into Magic
8   The Argo Passes through the Symplegades
9   Enochian, Druidic, and Thracian Divination
10   Existence as Form
11   The Virtues of the Soul
12   The Vision of the Christ

Book Two
Heart of the Christos

13   Tantric Initiation and the Goddess
14   The Olmec and the Records of Teotihuacan
15   Priests and Kings
16   Tikal as the Gateway to the Underworld
17   Emergence from the Underworld
18   The Great Lakes and the Paleolithic Spiral
19   Teotihuacan and the Tiger Initiation
20   Bishop, Executioner, and the White Knight
21   Isaiah and Marcion
22   Lakota Medicine Woman
23   Messages from the Pleiades
24   The Emerald Records of the Holy Grail

Book Three
Signet of Atlantis

25   Labyrinthian Journey
26   Mystery Plays of Atlantis
27   Breaking the Seventh Seal
28   Swimming in Cells and Stars
29   Multidimensional Portals
30   Birthing the Divine Child
31   Decoding the Principle of Twelve
32   City of the Goddess

Barbara Hand Clow is an internationally acclaimed ceremonial teacher, author, and Mayan Calendar researcher. Her other books include The Pleiadian Agenda, Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, Catastrophobia, and Liquid Light of Sex. She has taught at sacred sites throughout the world and maintains an astrological Web site, handclow2012.com.

“The past comes alive here and teaches us life in the present; and time is no longer a single strand stretched out and forbidding but is rather a vast spaciousness all are invited to explore.”
Brian Swimme, Ph.D., Physicist, Holy Names College, author of The Universe Is a Green Dragon

“Barbara Hand Clow offers a brilliant and ingenious record of her inner journey into the multiple landscapes of her creative unconscious.”
Jean Houston, Ph.D., author of The Possible Human


“. . . a spellbinding journey through cellular memory and the multidimensional self, brilliantly recalled with an infusion of Pleiadian perspective.”
Barbara Marciniak, author of Bringers of the Dawn

“Blending new science with myth, Barbara Hand Clow reveals an astonishing vision of past and future. Read it!”
John Matthews, author of Celtic Shamanism

“A spellbinding tour de force of ancient mysteries and archaic consciousness drawn into present time and space. . . . Barbara Hand Clow has worked real magic with this book.”
Robert E. L. Masters, director of research for the Foundation for Mind Research and author of The Goddess Sekhmet

“Barbara Hand Clow gently illuminates the shadows of our frightened souls with a multitude of magnificent stories, teachings, blessings, and truths.”
Tony Shearer, author of Lord of the Dawn and Beneath the Moon and under the Sun

“Barbara Hand Clow’s account of her extensive past-life regressions is mesmerizing and insightful. From past lives lived as great initiates and seers to humble everyday people, she reveals that no matter how spectacular or quietly ordinary a life may seem, it is always filled with great lessons.”
Michael Talbot, author of Mysticism and the New Physics

"For those interested in reincarnation, this will be a fine reading experience. For those new to the work of Barbara Hand Clow, they are in for a special treat. Recommended to all readers who enjoy exploring the past with a brilliant writer."
Lee Prosser, Ghostvillage.com, Feb 2007

"You can read this as a collection of stories or, as the author intends it, as an amassed collection of past-life memories. It does not matter what your belief system. If you can keep an open mind and be willing to find the bits of wisdom laced throughout this book, you will surely find some path toward personal growth."
Ladyfogg, Ladyfogg's Deck Reviews, March 2007

"Past-life regression goes far beyond symptom relief, validation of belief or simply to verify reincarnation. Regression can facilitate growth, integrating personal healing and spiritual growth into one process. . . . Knowing our own unique past provides a vehicle for learning so much about our true essence, our higher selves."
Alice R. Berntson, New Connexion, Jul/Aug 2008

NEW AGE / PAST LIVES

“Barbara Hand Clow offers a brilliant and ingenious record of her inner journey into the multiple landscapes of her creative unconscious.”
--Jean Houston, Ph.D., author of The Possible Human

“. . . a spellbinding journey through cellular memory and the multidimensional self, brilliantly recalled with an infusion of Pleiadian perspective.”
--Barbara Marciniak, author of Bringers of the Dawn

“The past comes alive here and teaches us life in the present; and time is no longer a single strand stretched out and forbidding but is rather a vast spaciousness all are invited to explore.”
--Brian Swimme, Ph.D., Physicist, Holy Names College, author of The Universe Is a Green Dragon

Combined for the first time in one updated and revised volume, the three books of The Mind Chronicles Trilogy--Eye of the Centaur, Heart of the Christos, and Signet of Atlantis--show that all the places, times, and beings we have ever known exist now in our collective memory. Using the mind state produced during one hundred sessions of hypnotic regression, Barbara Hand Clow unlocks the primordial memory bank--the records of time in which all humans participate--offering readers critical information to reflect upon now.

In The Mind Chronicles, Clow guides readers through 100,000 years of human history, using in-depth experiences of initiations and sacred ceremonies to illuminate the forgotten wisdom of our ancestors. She shows that this ancient knowledge, which is contained deep within all of us, is becoming even more relevant as the Mayan Calendar comes to a close and a new stage of evolution begins.

BARBARA HAND CLOW is an internationally acclaimed ceremonial teacher and Mayan Calendar researcher. Her other books include The Pleiadian Agenda, Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, Catastrophobia, Liquid Light of Sex, and The Mayan Code. She has taught at sacred sites throughout the world and maintains an astrological Web site, handclow2012.com.