Tag Archives: psychogeography

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The Shin Splint Drifts

I had developed shin splints, and running was off the agenda. Never mind: walking was still available, so I wandered the city, and around the corner from home discovered a small, abandoned car park.

A car park of grass.

Imagine that! A place where people could have been parking cars, but weren’t.

The tarmac had become suffused by moss, which made the ground feel underfoot like carpet. I fantasised about returning at night, to bed down in a sleeping bag by the wall. People would pass in the dark without knowing I was there. I hoped it might gently rain.

A Grassy Panopticon

My wandering led me to the wood above Bevendean, a district I’d never explored. Littering the wood were beer cans, crisp packets and used condoms – one of them tied and dangling from a twig, a disturbing shade of blue. I realised later it was the colour of band-aids traditionally used in hospitals and food preparation establishments. Pantone 2935. Personally, I wouldn’t willingly sheath myself in the hue of an occupational injury.

In the central space of Bevendean, houses on either side eye each other across an expanse of green. A pocket park on your doorstep might once have been delightful. But, despite the mild weekend weather, today it was deserted, for when there’s so much more electrical head space indoors, and a trip to the park entails merely driving the car onto grass, to play the sound system with the doors open, then who will be bothered to go to the effort of stepping outside, just for a bit of lawn?

Once a friendly, communal space, now the abandonment of the green conveyed an edginess and quiet paranoia.

A trail led onto the Downs, where a glare – unbearably bright – assailed me from the city below. It was hard to ascertain, but seemed a reflection from an array of solar panels on a terraced house.

If it provides water or electricity, why make it look like a chemical weapons dump?

I paused to inspect an installation on the apex of the hill. It might have been a nuclear bunker, a biological weapons research centre, or maybe just the entrance to an extraterrestrial base.

If anyone reads this who is connected with the place, a simple sign on the fence would be nice – unless you’re intentionally pitching for ‘sinister’.

The Persistence of Liminality

In my home town, Irthlingborough, I set out to explore the new housing estates which, over the years, have destroyed the place I remember from childhood: a small town, where everyone knew everyone else.

Not to be confused with Upper or Working Grass.

The last time I wandered onto one of these estates, erected on a former patch of wasteland that had offered a fantastic playground when I was a kid, I was lost a blind mesh of streets. This time, I couldn’t understand how that had happened. I had walked it all in minutes! A woman jogging thanked me, as I stepped aside to let her pass. It felt cosy and homely.

Finding a route back to the old town, I noticed a track leading into waste ground, well-worn enough to indicate that it certainly led somewhere. I followed, and discovered an ad hoc footbridge, leading onto one of the newer estates.

It was Saturday afternoon. There was not a soul in sight, apart from a couple of guys delivering leaflets for an Indian takeaway. As I wandered the maze, the only life-sign was a weedy dog, peering from a window. Although the pod people had taken this part of town, I was cheered by the indications that human beings were still forging walks through the wasteland, creating new liminal tracks between the authorised spaces.

Where the pod people perform circular dances in their cars.

Another recently forged trail led from this estate to the town’s bypass, which I followed back again, to explore the latest estate of all, this one so new it wasn’t even nearly finished. Passing a brand new house I’d assumed was empty, a small child burst from the door, dressed in a karate suit, and threw himself into a nearby 4×4.

As long as those vast dependencies are in place, upon which children’s karate classes and 4x4s rely, it seems the pod people will happily inhabit a building site.

Just before arriving home, I was caught in a vicious hailstorm and took shelter under a hedge.

Realms where the pod people live.

A Realm of High Verdure

Another day, and the final drift began as I descended Crow Hill into Irthlingborough, and wondered at the field near the bottom, on my right.

Behold, the distant light that beckons from another realm…

Other than grass, I’d never seen anything growing there. I’d never seen animals grazing. I didn’t know where it led, nor what lay over that teasing slope formed by its lush and spongy turf.

I leapt from the roadside and went to explore.

Over the hill was yet more grass, and more fields. In a muddy corner, hoof marks betrayed the none-too-recent presence of cattle. I was returning to my point of entry, disappointed, when something scarlet caught my gaze at the hill’s nadir, and I noticed, too, a tunnel, under the road, beneath where I’d jumped the fence.

The red thing was an empty and discarded school bag. The tunnel was a rank and dismal place, haunted by sinister, cavernous dripping sounds. I’d earmarked it already as an entrance to hell, until I saw light shining from the other side through leafs and twigs.

I climbed up onto the road, crossed, then squeezed over an old stone wall, through brambles down to the other side. And here I found it: a high fantastical world, wildly overgrown. Trees, bushes and plants were tangled in a crowded orgy. Birds tweeted madly, like tweeters on Twitter, and a wood pigeon, distressed by my gatecrashing, chittered in high dudgeon and hurtled off through the leafs.

A very English jungle.

There were precious few signs of intrusion – apart from the inevitable jetsam of bottles, cans and packets, fallen just inside, tossed by pod people from their cars. A branch lodged against the wall, easing the descent, suggested a weak incursion – by children, perhaps. Unfortunately, I was wearing my lovely faux leather jacket I’d bought the day before, in the pod person Mecca of Milton Keynes, and I was reluctant to test it against the thorns.

The land seemed boggy and uneven. No doubt, someday someone will work out how to build a housing estate there. Until then, it’s mine to explore, and if it’s a chaotic riot of growth in April, imagine how it’ll be when I return, wearing my old denims, in July or September…

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
– From Andrew Marvell, ‘The Garden’ (1681).

A realm of high verdure.

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Inside the Entrances to Hell

Last May, Alan Chapman and I visited four of Brighton & Hove’s seventy-two entrances into hell (as featured in previous articles on this site) to make a short film of our exploits.

At Daffivisionomy we performed for the first time our ritual for opening hellmouths and encountered a psychotic spirit. At Chesney Peck we employed tarot and the magic 8 ball to make contact with a thieving gnome. Vomitory we used as an opportunity for some practical sorcery. Finally, we used a ghost box to chat in real time with spirits inside Yizmeduck.

Entrances to Hell - view on YouTube.

Entrances to Hell - the movie. 11mins 44 secs. Click to view on YouTube.

Although I’ve logged their locations and characteristics, I’ve never set down in detail what I consider the nature and function of these entrances into hell. In my view, psychogeographical magick consists of a few basic techniques. Standing still is the simplest: you simply stand in a specific location, observe what happens, and interpret the experience as a message. Following is another: either you move from location to location following specific signs or cues from the environment, or else you choose locations or directions at random. (This is, in essence, the technique of ‘drift’ or ‘dérive‘, so commonly favoured by psychogeographers.) Finding is slightly different. You decide beforehand the outcome of the journey, and then look to experiences during the journey as the provision of that outcome. (My walks to discover the chakras of the city were an example of this.) The entrances to hell, however, represent a fourth category in the psychogeographical repertoire, which I describe as going behind. It differs fundamentally from the previous three by assuming a dimension of experience separate from the manifest environment.

With this type of magick, we’re not so much interpreting experience as a message or allegory, but the experience itself is perceived as originating directly from the allegorical realm. So whereas with the first three techniques we can observe, discover and track our quarry, by going behind what is manifestly real we interact with our object more directly, on its home ground.

Splitting the world into ‘the manifest’ and ‘the concealed’ is itself a fundamental magical technique, one so powerful that it’s not limited to magick. Realising that a ‘here’ originates from a ‘there’ releases the potential to change ‘here’ simply by interacting with or intervening in ‘there’. Science does this all the time, intervening in things we can’t perceive in order to change those we can. Similarly, but in a different sphere, therapists, politicians and teachers influence our unconscious processes, in order to modify conscious behaviour. The domain of magick, however, is neither physical nor social reality, but individual consciousness, which is why in magick this technique is worked entirely consciously instead, and limited within the minds of a specific person or group.

Entrances to hell are necessarily funny. This is because ‘funny’ arises from a split between what is actually said and what was meant, or between what really happens and what ought to have happened, and so on. All traffic with spirits is at least faintly ludicrous, because of the way that what’s ‘up there’ is necessarily forced to manifest through whatever happens to be available ‘down here’. For instance, when the angels made Dee and Kelley schlep around Europe for months on end, to reprimand its kings for their sins, and later instructed the pair to swap wives – this was at least as absurd and funny as it was dangerous and embarrassing. Similarly, when Crowley, possessed by Choronzon at Bou Sada, sneaked out from the protective triangle and leapt on Neuberg – that was bloody hilarious!

Bathos and magical manifestation tend to go together. If the results of magick aren’t faintly silly, it’s worth checking that they have been truly situated as coming from some place other, and aren’t merely the product of an over-valuation of what’s to hand. I remember looking at an altar, lovingly set up for a session of group magick, when a senior magician came in and remarked, ‘What a pile of tat!’ What magick infers or represents is important, not the forms through which it manifests. Mistake the forms for the meanings and you end up with the kind of superstitious fetishism that many mistake for magick.

Comedic techniques are frequently put to magical uses, something almost as frequently overlooked. A joke, for instance, has an enormous power to entirely transform our mood, or make someone look and feel ridiculous. And the use of laughter as a banishing ritual is endemic among chaos magicians. However, comedy comes in two flavours: ironic and humorous. The former turns the world dark; the latter floods it with light. Imagine that a condemned man is led to the chopping block. If he remarks to the executioner, ‘How lovely to meet you!’ then that would be irony. But if he paused to inspect the axe and ask, ‘Are you sure that thing’s safe?’ then that would be humour. In the former, the prisoner highlights how bad things are by pretending they’re good. In the latter, he draws attention to the manifestly bad (the axe), but pretends good might come of it. The ironic remark shames the executioner, whereas the humorous one releases and absolves him. Indeed, it releases and absolves everyone, including the prisoner.

In magick, irony manifests demons and humour draws down angels. Entrances to hell are portions of the city overlooked, ugly, decayed. By awarding them attention and deciding they are intentional, and that behind them lives an organising intelligence, this ironically exposes the chaos ‘here’, by supposing that ‘there’ the chaos is planned. The disadvantage of demons is that they mess things up; the advantage is that in places messed beyond repair, a demon has control. No doubt for this reason, we heard the entities of Yizmeduck describe themselves as ‘the rape of truth’ and admit that ‘we play violent’.

So to visit and open an entrance into hell is to negotiate with the messed-up city, with all that disgusts and alienates us from our environment. We may not like it, but these forces have power over what manifests – in certain locations, at least. The alternative view is that wastage occurs by accident, and there’s no intelligence behind decay, but surely it’s better to honour and negotiate with the city’s demons rather than to accept alienation as accidental and inevitable?

So much for demons and hellmouths. Where are the angels? The technique I’ve tried for finding these I call going beyond. It involves letting go of the manifest, or – at least – holding onto it so lightly that ‘there’ unavoidably bleeds through into ‘here’. There’s nothing new or original in this. By making the angels in his film Wings of Desire (1987) so concerned with mundane aspects of human experience, Wim Wenders similarly erased the split between the other world and this. So far (perhaps) I’ve found two angels in the city: one of air, and one of earth or fire. But this is a work in progress, because they seem far harder to locate…

P.S.

Oh, in case you’re wondering… Having opened one, to close an entrance to hell merely recite thrice backwards the traditional opening formula. So just say (three times): Sasaz atanatasan, sasaz, sasaz!

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The Entrances to Hell of Brighton & Hove

A website called entrances2hell is the original source, but its intention was mostly humorous, so I hope my work of the past six months, spent walking the streets of my home city, photographing, investigating and describing all 72 of its entrances into Hell, has added new dimensions to the genre.

The places I’ve uncovered and listed below are real. I’ve also made an interactive Google map so that anyone can go visit them, or – as is possible in many cases – check them out using Google streetview. But what these infernal portals signify, their magical uses, and the reasons for writing about them in the way I’ve chosen, will form the basis of future articles. For now, the most important thing is to share the fruit of my findings and simply list in alphabetical order by name these most unique and disturbing places.

Because they’re padded with bubble-wrap, the cells inside Admiral Betty are massively popular and always booked for months in advance. Many former inmates report they never suspected that banging your head against a wall could feel so satisfying.

Ladies in bikinis and gentlemen in speedos hibernate inside Aja McFahn through the winter months, but spill onto the beach once the sun’s rays heat the door. They evolved from offshore algae and feel a bit greasy, yet help keep the seafront shops in business.

Argh Feeyenna was, of course, the subject of a hit record by eletro-rock band Ultravox in 1981, but has since fallen on hard times. After the financial crisis of 2008, its elegant alabaster portico was sold to Superdrug and ground down to make Andrews Liver Salts.

Baffstand is the proverbial brick shit-house, the most difficult entrance to open, and recommended only for experts. On October 9th, 1980, the Shakespearian actor and explorer Brian Blessed stood outside and demanded admittance very loudly for almost six hours, but had no joy.

To celebrate the birthday of Clive Dunn, there is a display of astral yoga by goetic demons on the pavement outside Battachari Nambisca at midnight on the 9th of January every year. However, it was cancelled for the first time ever in 2010, due to the extremely icy conditions.

It is nice to see communities supporting their hellmouth, as is the case at Bouchamanga, whose grille is regularly fed by the locals with plenty of nourishing detritus and crap.

Seven devil’s minions live in Bura Bura. Their names are Flack, Cuthbert, Pugh, Dibble, McGrew and Grubb – plus Pugh’s twin brother, whose name is uncertain. There’s no need to take the sign on the door seriously. Not one of them has stepped outside since 1966.

The low-key appearance of Champers is due, probably, to its situation close to an affluent area. Wealthy people prefer to live as far as possible from infernal portals, despite being often quite involved in the sort of activities that give rise to them.

On Valentine’s Day at Charbovari its cover lifts and under a red light a whore in ripped lingerie pours champagne for a fat, ugly punter. Make sure you’re somewhere happier when this happens, else one of them will be you.

The devil’s answer to Disneyland, Chesney Peck is particularly attractive to children, but don’t be taken in by its fake ‘enchanted castle’ doorway made of cardboard. Cheap displays of hyperreality like these lure our kids into filthy post-modern habits. Remember: a pimped-up door isn’t ‘ironic’; it’s an entrance to hell.

Inspired by prophet David Icke‘s turquoise tracksuits, and manufactured from re-purposed 1970s San Francisco police cars, which were painted powder blue at the behest of hippie icon Alan Watts to reduce police brutality, the doors of Chiddle McBlindo radiate cosmic serenity and peace. But it’s a different bloody story once you’re in there.

Known also as ‘the temporal starfish’, if you’ve ever wondered where all the time went, it may have passed through Chranus. Time wasted locally by weed-smokers and computer gamers is absorbed into its clock-face, recycled, then excreted through the centre-hole into jobs, financial services, and giving back control to customers.

Using pork carcasses wrapped in plastic bags, the devil’s minions practise their forklift driving here at Clankfadge, preparing for the day when the shit will really hit the fan.

Daffivisionomy is where the devil’s minions regulate the city’s mental health. Reading aloud a celebrity biography through the grille is thought to lull them into a good mood and may reduce local paranoia levels by up to 7.5%.

In 1940 Dimpannish was bristling with gun turrets and encased in concrete, serving as the front-line against Hitler‘s planned invasion. Evidently, at the time, it worked.

In Effington von Topsy reside the departed souls of Ambient composers. Della Derbyshire was the first in 2001. Brian Eno blew his entire fee for directing the 2010 Brighton Festival on reserving a space inside. The interminable drone from within is the net upshot of all their works.

In the same way that Jaffa cakes were ruled in 1991 not to be biscuits (for tax purposes) so Ek Ek Eleen was ruled not a hellmouth but a natural feature caused by wind erosion. If you’re unsure, munch on a Waggon Wheel whilst you think it over.

Etchkin is a hub for gnomes. Stairs lead to an underground siding where they are issued travel warrants and dispatched across the nation. It was most busy in 1984, when gnomes were sent from here to Yorkshire, to replace the striking miners.

Fanni is a frequently and widely worshipped entrance. It’s no accident there is a drug and alcohol rehab unit upstairs, from which many of its acolytes are drawn. People are often attracted by the smell of freshly baked bread that wafts out especially when it rains.

Inside Flep Flep is a gym for zombies, which explains why they’ve become so fast and mean. But put your head around the door and watch them on the treadmills. Even though they’re quick, they’re as mindless and dead as ever.

According to current estimates, only 1 in 39,000,000 deliveries arrive at Freugh. To send something, a good diet and regular exercise, as well as the avoidance of tight-fitting underwear, may significantly improve your chances.

Possibly the only truly organic portal into Hell, Froodombermulch is a big favourite among the vegan entrance-worshipping community. Its roots (when stroked and licked) taste of parmesan cheese.

Situated ten feet above street level, in 1857 Goshwin Prambag was a residence to the physical medium Daniel Dunglas Home. Each night he levitated in for tea and crumpets, as crowds gathered below to debate how he did it.

Conveniently situated in the city’s main shopping district, Grouchmouth dispenses free and impartial advice on a range of financial products to anyone who rams their head inside.

In 1983 Hamble, the evil doll from the children’s show Playschool, was hacked into four pieces by The Right Honourable Baroness Floella Benjamin. A lower portion of the corpse is interred at Hamblelegg, inside a frame from the show’s ‘square window’, which has protective properties. Whilst the whereabouts of the other bits of Hamble remains a secret, then the world is safe.

The devil recently introduced flexible working practices at Handy Ferrule. His minions no longer show up on site but now log in from home. The arrangement has proved so successful there are plans to extend it to all the other entrances where no one was doing any work anyway.

The devil’s minions ran a sadomasochist club at Houch, until the vice squad raided in 1986. But the dress code was police uniforms in the club that night and in the confusion six officers arrested themselves, whilst three punters received commendations.

Consumption of giant squid in the seafood restaurant behind the grille at Intankersmoosh is alleged to have given H.P. Lovecraft intestinal cancer. No longer a catering outlet, the portal these days is a command centre for evil seagulls.

The devil negates the weight of our expectations with the inevitability of our disappointment – and beneath Jaz his minions have built a vast disappointment trough. These days, disappointment so far exceeds reasonable expectations that peculiar gravitational effects are experienced here, which explains the portal’s wonkiness in the photo.

Jeffnackers is a quality outlet for audible pies, which come in the usual flavours: moo, baa, oink and cluck with mushroom.

Jemima Bailey is named for the notorious serial-killer who was neither caught nor identified but escaped through here to Hell in 1976. Kiss this portal nine times and, it’s said, she’ll pop back up for a chat. It’s also said that we use only ten percent of our brain.

The ladder next to Kevbannister was donated by Leo Sayer in 1974. Since then, other local celebrities have left their mark. Chris Eubank commissioned Banksy to produce the wall art in 1993. The chocolate brown colour-scheme is a more recent innovation by Norman Cook and Zoe Ball.

Koo-Koo Nimba is a low-key entrance. It is regularly whitewashed by demons who park their fake cars outside. But it glows bright orange at night and this gives the game away entirely. (See picture.)

Koshtt was formed by steam from passing engines during the Industrial Revolution and used as a municipal Turkish bath. In 1958 it was sealed to become the devil’s pressure cooker. Modern Satanists believe that a huge spotted dick, rising slowly inside, will one day end world hunger.

Reverse-psychology is such a tired old trick that it has almost died out, but thankfully not here at Laamanaama, to which fly-tippers and trespassers flock in droves.

The worst disguised entrance, it looks like a female toilet but is part of an apartment block. I mean, would you live next to a disused public urinal? Who are they kidding? The real function of Ladies is the generation of the special desperation that arises when you think you’ve found a toilet, but then discover you haven’t.

Meagre is a tiny portal whose cover was knocked sideways in 1891 when the devil dragged mathematician Georg Cantor inside and showed him the theory of transfinite numbers. But since then it has been fairly quiet.

In 1974 Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise failed to deliver their TV Special and ruined the nation’s Christmas. In fact, the show was made, but lost in the post at Mister Preview. Sad, because it’s rumoured to be the only one that’s still funny.

After his death in 1947, Aleister Crowley took up residence here in Mortislum. Through its hole (top left) he mocked the self-righteous, accepted donations of heroin, but looked rather perplexed by it all.

This entrance has a purely ceremonial function. On November 16th each year, elderly residents near Mosewald Osley dress in black and goose-step up and down its ramp to the strains of Wagner that issue from within.

Nanky was almost chosen as the location for serial-killer George Marlow’s lock-up in the 1991 TV drama Prime Suspect, but was eliminated from the final short-list because of its funny smell.

‘The lights are going out all over Europe,’ Sir Edward Grey declared in 1914. And it’s still pitch dark in Nittlepishwalden, because since then no one has found the light switch. A huge crowd is inside, groping about between the furniture. Local residents are woken at night by shins perpetually barking.

The devil has kept watch at Nyadh since 1558, looking for anyone stupid enough to come looking for him. If you’ve heard the ancient saying, ‘Look for the devil and he shall come looking for you,’ then – like me – you’re probably the type who can see the devil’s eye staring back from the aperture (bottom right). And you’re probably the type that likes inventing ancient sayings.

At 233 feet high the Leshan Giant Buddha is the world’s largest. The Buddha inside Obi Wan Tanker is only 5′ 9″, yet continues to fend off requests from the local tourist office to fatten up.

Every time someone calls an ambulance, the devil stuffs an empty can of Coca Cola into Omfaloo. That’s the conclusion drawn by health experts from the enduring incidence of hospital admissions with sales of fizzy drink.

Pizmire is notable for its miniature rainforest, situated just inside. There is also a cress farm, a bud gallery, and a warehouse full of tendrils that are often seen waving at passers-by.

No daffodils grow within a hundred metres of Plashy Brook. The devil banned them after William Wordsworth stayed here briefly on his return from France in 1793. Back then, it was a shepherd’s hut and worthier of the rustic bard than the sleazy crack den it resembles today.

A game of ullamaliztl was played at Pokatezlicatl between the Devil and international financiers in 2008. Players aim to whack a 9lb solid ball through tiny hoops using only their hips, so it’s no surprise who won.

Always check before accessing Psaddi that its door is cool to the touch. Its antechamber is used sometimes as an oven, wherein the devil’s minions bake their flapjacks and pork pies.

Which way do the doors of Hell open? For years Quackbocker was hailed as conclusive proof by Inwardists, such as Professor Stephen Hawking. But recently Outwardists such as Professor Richard Dawkins have argued this is only half the truth.

A naked green man is often seen inside Radishpantry who shouts disturbing slogans. These have recently included: ‘Car fumes make children poorly,’ and: ‘We invaded Iraq for petrol because we don’t like walking to the shops.’

When Rank Sewillys was visited by Most Haunted in 2004 Derek Acorah was possessed by ‘a racked hero’, and Yvette Fielding reported feeling trapped inside an ‘evil, fidgety net.’ Sceptic Ciaran O’Keeffe later denounced Acorah’s salary for appearing in the series as ‘a faker icon fee’.

The Royal Family deny rumours that they are extra-terrestrials, but its archaeology and alignment with the constellation Serpens Caput proves that Royal High Fankhole was built for the monarchy’s pleasure by their fanclub of shape-shifting lizards.

Even stripy hazard tape and regular sweeping with a brush cannot disguise overwhelming evil. Of this, Scamberflopf is a prime example.

This entrance is guarded by a powerful transsexual minion, Sheena, from whom its name derives. Ply her with an alcoholic beverage to gain admission. Best tackled only when you’re feeling chilled and funky.

The most deceptive of entrances, it is recorded that Silvestor materialised from thin air in 1922. Recent analysis has proved its interior is exactly the size its exterior suggests and that there is no irritating man inside wearing a long scarf. (Despite appearances to the contrary.)

Snaffuntackle is made entirely from reinforced steel because it’s full of gas. No naked flames or light-switches are allowed, but this rule is regularly bent because explosions are heard inside frequently. Depending on your point of view, this either makes it quite exciting, or a really shitty place to work.

Described by bestselling author Katie Price as ‘like a bucket’, Snax Minguh is the most accessible local entrance and very suitable for beginners. But in terms of style and function, it’s clearly poor.

Tardismentry is an experimental collaboration between the devil and the local council. Disguised as a pollution monitoring station, it actually absorbs pollution and feeds it to the devil’s larvae. The more pollution the better, because demon larvae bowel-movements alter atmospheric pressure, powering ecological wind farms that the council is rumoured to be planning.

If you knock, a head appears in Temophab and delivers the answer to all questions (in a soothing Halifax accent). This scares the shit out of most people, often causing violence, but when you see past all that it’s actually therapeutic and quite safe. Recommended.

Timblanca Ta’pow was constructed from melted-down biscuit tins in 1813 by George III, as a memorial to Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. However, George IV found it unbearably ugly and it was presented to the people of Hove by Mrs. Fitzherbert, on the occasion of his coronation in 1821. Today, in its present form, monkeys with bats’ wings use it as a toilet.

Moored in the underground river that flows beneath Tomblerploq is the devil’s fleet of submarines, moulded by demons from nutty floaters plucked specially out of the sewer for their flush-resistant qualities.

Trimoomoo is located in the eastern wall of Hove Town Hall. The devil allows the council to use the building on condition that offerings of blood, sweat and tears are dribbled through its respective orifices each year on the Mayor’s birthday.

In the 5th Century, Ubigenitals was a repository for biblical relics too stupid to be taken seriously. Reputedly among them: Enoch’s knackers; the schwang of Ham; and John and Thomas’ john thomases. Sadly, this rich heritage of knob jokes was devastated by a Viking raid in 864, and only a few dry puns and the odd innuendo now remain.

Vashamaxcaries is full of machine-guns. Cemeteries and battlefields make the finest arable land, so the devil’s minions have been waiting here since 1918 for people to become hungry and demand fertilizer production again.

Inserting objects into the orifice of Vomitory is futile, because it keeps on being sick. Its purgative flux is synchronised with the lunar cycle, so that whatever is put in at full moon will be expelled from reality when the next new moon comes. Wear protective gloves and use with caution.

The devil nailed the gentle hermit who lived at Wabblabble upside-down to the door. He just smiled and continued meditating, but moved out sharpish when the devil put the rent up and threatened to withhold his damage deposit.

Just because the devil loves puns, Werehouse is inhabited by creatures half-human and half-wolf that spend their days transporting goods on forklift trucks.

The ground-level situation of Wodge Nodge makes it an ideal dogs’ toilet, which was its purpose in 1982 when launched by Barbara Woodhouse. Disappointingly, a recent survey showed that dog-owners still prefer their pets to use verges, parks and pavements.

Is it dangerous? Or safe? Both dangerous and safe? Or neither safe nor dangerous? Visit Xocabox and you’ll either get enlightened or electrocuted.

A solitary nail. The rustic driftwood. And that Yale lock, whose patina has gently spread across its wooden surround. I mean, Yizmeduck is just beautiful. Isn’t it?

Prestigious awards are dispensed from Zabbernaffendry. Everybody can receive one, if they obey the devil’s instruction to devote themselves utterly to something more important than anything else. So, what are you waiting for?
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The Chakra Walks

I had become dissatisfied with my abilities at using a pendulum. The answers it gave were too often misleading or plain wrong. So I banished the spirit that controls the pendulum and invited in another that promised it would do better.

To build some rapport, I embarked on an exercise devised by Ramsey Dukes: asking the pendulum a question with no rational answer. This – says Dukes – prevents our expectations from interfering with the result, so we can use it to begin to sense the difference in feel between the pendulum speaking directly, or its message becoming distorted by our rational expectations of what it ought to say.

Among Dukes’ examples of irrational questions is, ‘Where is this region’s heart chakra?’ This is a question with no answer that could be considered correct or corroborative.

muladhara

Muladhara. The base chakra. A catholic chapel.

I decided I would use the pendulum to find all the city’s chakras, to see what this revealed about its spiritual composition and subtle energies. So I stuck together onto thick cardboard photocopies from my Brighton A to Z and attached lengths of string with drawing pins to the bottom left and right-hand corners. Once I’d negotiated with the pendulum which chakra we were setting off to find, it could pinpoint the location on the map by describing with its motion two intersecting vectors from the bottom corners. The strings could be used to record the vectors. Where the two strings crossed on the map would indicate the location of the chakra.

Often (but not always) the place indicated was an approximate location, and more divination on the ground was required to pinpoint it exactly. The first walk, to discover the root chakra, took place on September 7th, and the last – revealing the crown chakra – on November 28th. In the meantime, a mild autumn had given way to a wintry cold snap. I also moved home between the penultimate and the final walk. Not one of these expeditions failed to reveal something intriguing about the city.

svadisthana

Svadisthana. The sex-organ chakra. A gymnastics club.

The Lower Chakras

The first led me to an incongruous chapel in a residential area, signposted ‘The Chapel of the Holy Family’. Funny, that a catholic chapel should correspond to the site of the city’s muladhara chakra, the most basic and materialistic chakra, the predominant function of which is excretion. But further research revealed that the chapel belongs to the Society of St. Pius X, an ultra-traditionalist catholic organisation that was excommunicated by the Vatican in 1988 and has since attracted controversy for its alleged anti-semitism and support for extreme right-wing political positions. So this was the city’s anus; a place where it retains or vents its most atavistic impulses.

manipura

Manipura. The belly chakra. The transmitter on Whitehawk Hill.

The search for swadisthana, the sex-organ chakra, led me to a spot in view of a dark and rounded road-tunnel under the railway. Perfectly vaginal, I thought. But, no, the pendulum pointed instead to another ecclesiastical building nearby. Formerly St Agnes’ Church, this redbrick structure was erected in 1913, de-consecrated in 1977, but saved from demolition by being converted into a gymnasium. It is the home of the city’s gymnastics club. Energy finds physical expression here, and thus it is also the site of the city’s sex organs.

Discovering manipura, the belly chakra, was the most awesome of these expeditions. The pendulum led me to the transmitter mast on top of Whitehawk Hill. A gale was blowing. The billowing sky and the roar of the air as it shredded itself through the giant mast was terrifying. My guts turned to water. I hardly dared look at the sky. Whitehawk Hill is a neolithic ceremonial landscape dating back to 3,500BC. The place that day was seething with a weird, barely controllable energy. No doubt, this was the centre of the city’s dynamism and power. The descendants of the neolithic hunter gatherers who first settled here had recognised it long ago.

anahata

Anahata. The heart chakra. A disused playing field.

Anahata, the heart chakra, posed a more ambiguous set of symbols. The pendulum led me to a quiet, affluent housing estate. It offered clear directions, but the spot was shielded by fences and roads that wound laborious detours around it. Eventually I discovered why: the place indicated was on private land, denied to casual explorers. But I found an entrance that seemed to have been left open by accident. At the end of a track was a disused clubhouse next to a former sports field that was spectacularly overgrown with chest-high weeds. Research revealed how this oasis of dereliction is the centre of an ongoing feud between potential developers and conservative residents. Has the city privatised its own heart and denied itself from itself? Or was the sports field a symbol of transcendent calm at the centre of competing tensions? It isn’t inappropriate that an ethical issue should predominate at the site of the city’s centre for compassion and self-transcendence.

Into Subtle Realms

What is intended when the pendulum leads somewhere that we wouldn’t ordinarily even consider a ‘place’? This was the question posed by vishuddha, the throat chakra, which the pendulum insisted was located in a strip of private backyards behind a row of houses bordering a fire station. There was no chance of gaining access; I had to content myself with glimpses between the houses of this piecemeal territory, comprising gardens, garages and lock-ups.

The higher towards spirit one attempts to ascend, the more subtle and abstract experience becomes. It’s natural to feel disappointed if a search for treasure leads to a rusted rivet on a lamppost, or some dog-pissed corner by a telephone box. But who says these aren’t places every bit as pregnant with meaning as an ancient site, a tourist attraction or a private address?

vishuddha

Vishuddha. The throat chakra. A strip of garages and gardens behind some private houses.

Surveying the area afterwards on Google Maps revealed how the houses are semi-detached. Each household shares its building with a neighbour on one side, but also shares its garden space with its neighbour on the other. This strip of territory is a living symbol of intercommunication and interdependency, each household bound to its neighbours through a double bond of building (inner) and garden (outer).

Vishuddha is evidently where higher, subtler realms of spirit begin. This place that wasn’t really a place was teaching me something about places. In one sense, there’s nothing ‘subtle’ about a city made of roads, buildings, stone and metal; but if we insist on asking it to show us something subtle, we have to be receptive to how this can manifest.

The expedition to uncover ajna, the brow chakra or ‘third eye’, looked at first as if it would yield a similar outcome. The pendulum led me to a soulless trading estate that I’d passed by countless times before, but then it took me down a featureless road towards a forbidding-looking fenced-off area, which turned out to be the city car pound. A forlorn collection of vehicles seemed to stare back at me from inside unscalable, spiked bars. Something told me this was far too tense and sensitive a place to be seen taking photographs, so I kept my distance. (A little research afterwards confirmed that I might have been right about this.)

The ajna chakra is the ‘organ’ that allows us to perceive emptiness, non-duality. The car, meanwhile, is a perfect symbol and manifestation of our culture’s current stage of evolution: materialistic, unsustainable, a metal excrescence that is fundamentally a projection of the ego on wheels. I don’t mean to imply that cars (and egos) don’t have their uses, but the car pound is certainly at the sharp end of the city’s spiritual evolution. Having our car towed currently feels like having our ego removed. On the day that this ceases to be such a terrifying ordeal, the city will have moved to a higher level of development.

On the day I set off in search of sahasrara I had moved all my belongings to a new place, and the home from which I’d launched all the previous expeditions was empty of everything except for the map and its pieces of string. The location for the chakra was quite specific: a youth hostel at the northernmost limits of the city. When I arrived, the building proved to have been out of use for some time, and was occupied only by security staff who were there to deter squatters. Only afterwards did I discover that the elegant, neo-classical mansion house to which I’d been led was Patcham Place. The building dates back to 1558, although it was totally rebuilt in 1764. It is rumoured to be haunted by a former resident, Anthony Stapley, who was a signatory to the execution warrant of King Charles I.

ajna

Ajna. The brow chakra. The city's car pound.

I’d been wondering how to follow up my Alone With Ghosts project, and where the next venue might be where I could spend a night meditating with spirits. I’d chanced across an article in a local newssheet on Brighton’s ‘forgotten’ haunting and wondered if the place mentioned – a mansion called Patcham Place – might be a candidate venue. I hadn’t a clue where it was, and hadn’t got around to finding out.

Seems I wouldn’t have to bother. The pendulum had led me directly there. So here was sahasrara, the chakra that manifests as pure consciousness, access point to the divine, announcing itself with a remarkable synchronicity and proving that Dukes’ pendulum exercise – to expel unconscious rational interference – had perhaps achieved its result.

‘Where is this?’

I was delighted to discover that the question ‘Where is this?’ is used as a koan in Zen Buddhism. Try meditating on it. ‘Where is this?’ Where is what? Well, this, of course. This arising of experience, this awareness. Surely it’s simply here where I am, isn’t it? My body. In this room. Here, at this address, in this town, in this country. Yes, but look more closely. Does that truly define your experience of where? Or isn’t that just a label, an idea – in effect, just more of ‘here’ arising. Isn’t it clear how any concept of location is just more of ‘here’ rather than a direct experience of where ‘here’ is?

But meditate on the koan for long enough and in the correct way, and eventually there will be a direct experience of the answer – which is outside words and concepts.

If anyone asks me what’s the point of psychogeographical exercises like the one described here, I’d suggest they’re all attempts to tackle that koan, ‘Where is this?’ Because in the exploration of our relationship to space lies a great and speedy vehicle for enlightenment.

Place and location are not the fixed entities they seem, but mental constructs. As such, they can be deconstructed, played around with, looked at from different perspectives, applied to other uses.

Was this exercise just a series of walks on which I fooled myself that something else was happening? Yes, it was. But I was fooling myself with awareness. Whereas on our daily journeys between home, work and the shops, we generally fool ourselves without awareness.

To properly engage with and explore the place we live in, let’s throw away the ordinary maps and make our own.

Video

chakra video

Video of the discovery of the crown chakra. Click to view on YouTube. (Duration: 3 mins.)

References

The Chakras of Brighton & Hove. A Google map showing the locations of the sites mentioned in the article.

Ramsey Dukes (2011). How to See Fairies: Discover Your Psychic Powers in Six Weeks. London: Aeon Books.

Susan Blackmore (2009). Ten Zen Questions. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.

by

A Field of Dreams

If I’d had audio the recording would have included distant thunder, the pattering of sporadic rain, breezes amongst leafs, and intermittent cheers from the football stadium at the edge of town.

It was a Saturday afternoon in August. Warm, but interrupted by showers running on an automatic cycle every thirty minutes.

I was walking in my childhood town when, near the recreation ground, it struck me there is a certain area to which I return repeatedly in dreams. In fact, I wasn’t sure I hadn’t stood there the night before, beyond that arc of trees on the grassy slope.

Saturday afternoon

Saturday afternoon. The community together at play.

So I turned back for my camera, to see if I could somehow chart the space and pin down the essence that draws my subconscious back.

Everyone has such spaces. They are the contours of the cave walls upon which experience plays. Dreams and hallucinogens can sometimes place us far enough outside ourselves to see how fragments of memory, their textures, moods and significances, underpin our perception. They go so far down we cannot ask what our relationship with these sites ‘means’ or ‘represents’. Rather, they are what provide our capacity for meaning and relating.

The house we were born in has engraved within us the hierarchy of the various functions of inhabiting. We are the diagram of the functions of inhabiting that particular house, and all other houses are but variations on a fundamental theme. – Gaston Bachelard (1969: 15)

One dream has stayed with me, of the space below the arc of trees flooded with brackish water. Beneath the surface lie submerged objects: rusted clocks, old coins and sodden books, one of which is titled The Book of Clawed Verse.

The flat space above the slope, meanwhile, is an area for panic, of nightmares from which I wake in terror before recognising what frightens me. But then again, it’s sometimes where I splay my arms and fly. The grass becomes bouncy and assists my gradual lift-off above the trees. These are templates for exhilaration.

My route to school

My route across the fields to school.

So I took some photographs, fascinated by the changes, the degradation of these spaces since childhood. The gap in the hedge that was my route to school is blocked now by a barbed metal fence. Ancient trees once stood one on either side, but those are gone. The dead stump of one remains.

On the grass against the hedge lay an inexplicable lump of concrete whose shape was naggingly familiar – but I couldn’t decide if this were true.

The bowling greens have been allowed to turn into an overgrown wasteland. The tennis courts exude an equally unloved feeling. No doubt, a saving on money and effort, but how slovenly and how fuck you.

Bowling greens

The immaculate town bowling greens.

The sky was darkening. Rain threatened. I wanted moving images, to catch a fuller impression of the space, but my batteries were low, so I made a detour to the gift shop in the town centre. I found a pound coin on the pavement near the post office, which covered the cost of new batteries and felt like an endorsement.

When I arrived back the sun was bright again, and the trees cast shadows as I made circles of footage. I ran around the flat space with the camera, but did not succeed in taking off.

The sunlight passed. Thunderclouds were massing again. I shot footage of the sky. Was something going to happen? Why assume this wasn’t already something?

Steps

Steps.

In a corner were concrete foundation stones of a vanished building. Tiny, it had once housed some kind of a pump, defunct even then. Now, it returns in another strand of my dreams, of subterranean complexes and chambers, semi-flooded, often perilous, into which I descend and retrieve miraculous secrets from their obsolete machinery of pipes and circuits and analogue dials.

At university, once I slept with an unknown photograph in a sealed envelope under my pillow, at the behest of a social psychologist. I recorded my dreams, to see if the unseen photograph had seeped telepathically into them. On opening, the photo showed a ruined cottage, and during the night I had dreamed of the derelict building within whose long-gone walls I was now standing. But its appearance in the dream was so incidental, so casually background, that it didn’t feature in my written account, and thus the experiment seemed a failure.

My photography elicited suspicious stares from occasional dog-walkers. Two teenage girls chatting on the playground rides kept a cautious distance. Then a man with white hair passed by, walking a collie, and we fell to talking about the peculiar atmosphere.

A peculiar atmosphere

A peculiar atmosphere.

‘It rains but doesn’t soak,’ he said. ‘Things aren’t growing. My tomatoes haven’t ripened and the potatoes are tiny and green. I’d done something wrong – I thought – because I don’t garden much, until the old boys who do had told me it’s a good year for fruits but not for roots.’

Another bout of rain ended our conversation. From under a tree I shot more sky, until it had eased off as suddenly as it came. Should I wait for the storm that was surely coming? Again, I was seeking a narrative, whereas leaving just then would include me in the happenings of the place, far more than trying to bend out a story.

Video

A Field Of Dreams

A short narrated sequence with footage from the drift. Click to view on YouTube. (Duration: 2.5 mins.)

Reference

Gaston Bachelard (1969). The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press.