space of that hooded figure.  You see him in the thousand thoughts, things, people, and aspirations that invite you into darkness. You are tempted to linger on every image that is spoken by the Magician like an ill-fated clown doting the morbid fantasies of his perverse lover.

      How do I know so much of this unholy affair? To my shame, I had once consorted with this devilishness--though I called it by another name. To my reason and my senses I threw the crumbs of every passing whim--though I starved for a meaty course. And to my impending doom, I had barred the doors of my heart against heaven. I know the strategy of the Magician because I was once a rebel and comrade in arms for his service.

       Now my life, my writing, is a great contrast from this past. Then I would never have spoken through allegory and parable. At that time, I spoke the clear logic. I understood the world of experience in terms of substance, premise, and definition. I did not ask the cosmos to reveal meaning, but accepted it on its own terms. I had left behind pie-in-the-sky Christianity, to follow the practical vision of humanism. I thought I had become free, and wanted all my brothers and sisters to experience freedom from superstition and supernaturalism.

       I wanted no more senseless chatter of a common man's God. What cannot be kicked, cannot be believed. What good is a bodiless Noun floating within a child's desire to feel safe? I was done with God and all those angelic and demonic spirits who roamed with me in my younger years. Any notion of God was dying, and with it rusted away the chains that bound humanity to some transcendent Other. I felt free!

       It did not occur to me at the time that I had only transferred my allegiance. A finite creature cannot set himself free. I was not free, but I had interpreted my new worldview as freedom. I had not left behind the quality of faith when I gave up on God, but had placed my faith in what man could discern and do. On the surface, my new persuasion seemed a strong man's drink. It was one that only daring and courageous minds could swallow. It mocked the finality of death. It seemed to plug me squarely into the real world. 

       Instead, it numbed me to my partnership within creation. I was intoxicated with the notion that I was totally my own sovereign on the plane of my existence. The universe was absurd, no doubt, but I was its master! I was its master, if for no other reason, simply because I had discovered its absurdity...

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