The Smith River

I was still living with my mother, and it was only getting worse. And I began to think I was the Devil, and I was utterly condemned. It was a dreadful thing, and I decided it was no longer safe to stay at my mother's and drove to the Siskiyou Mountains near the Oregon border: "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place..." (Revelation 12:14) This was on April 4th, and I found my way to a small valley along the Smith River, where I had been before; and I pulled off the highway and decided to stay there awhile.

All the way up I was distraught, feeling a sense of impending doom. Hearing what sounded like thunder, it was self-induced, and watching bugs smack into the windshield, I couldn't tell what was real. By the time I got there, in mid-afternoon, and while driving up the road, I felt the walls crashing down! And I got out to look around, and there were voices, and thunderings, amplified by the river crashing over the rocks, and bees flying around—straight at me—and I couldn't tell if they were real. The valley itself appeared like a large amphitheater or arena, and I began to envision cannibals (later wolves) along the mountain tops: it seemed like that kind of affair. Which brings up the Titans, who tore Dionysus to pieces and ate him! How uncanny!

Like Dionysus I combatted these forces, to prolong what seemed imminent, by going through several transformations. (I portrayed myself as different characterizations, most of them deadly.) And like the Titans, these spirits threatened to suspend me in midair, and tear me to pieces!—literally! That is if I didn't first try and drown myself in the Smith River: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." (Revelation 12:15) I finally succumbed early that evening, when I was overwhelmed by falsities (i.e., what a flood signifies), and my atrocities began to outweigh theirs. All I had left was a blind rage, like a bull!—which, was Dionysus' last transformation. (I speak of the bull's significance in chapter 12, regarding the Minotaur.)

I also conceived the idea of my flesh being consumed, while only my heart would remain, and carried off to Wolf Creek, Oregon (hence the wolves), which is 22 miles north of Grants Pass, where I would be restored. (I was really scared, and it was more of a wish.) It's unusual because in the myth of Zagreus, almost a direct parallel of Dionysus, the Titans tore Zagreus to pieces and ate his flesh raw (not boiled), before the goddess Athena stepped in and rescued his heart, and later restored him (instead of Rhea). While it also correlates with King Lycurgus and the wolves, in chapter 13.

And though these things didn't happen in the flesh, it amounted to the same thing, for I was effectively murdered—in the spirit (giving more credence to Greek myth, or mythology in general). Indeed it was the worst day of my life! And I stayed there that night, while the phantoms flitted in and around me. Come morning I managed to pick up the pieces and drove the 50 or so miles to Grants Pass, where I went to the Mental Health People and told them I was ready to be committed—to the mental hospital. Fortunately it didn't work out that way! Thus it's interesting how this became my twelfth residence, where I stayed the next five months and began to recover; with the number 12 representing the New Church: "...where she [the woman] is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." (Revelation 12:14)

I later returned to the same valley, in December 1988, and camped out for the next month. And having a different perspective, and better understanding of what I was dealing with, I challenged these spirits (more the trauma it represented) and waged war with them: and kicked their butts!