Along with snippets relating to the fiction genre known as horror within The Prodigal Band Trilogy are snippets of horror’s ‘sidekick,’ the occult. I have only witnessed the ‘milder’ side of occultism–Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards, mock séances with fake ‘mediums,’ and in all instances these tools were not being used by actual ‘witches’ or wiccans. Just ‘playing’ at it during parties or whatever. Yet one evening at a friend’s house more than a mile from my own house two friends and I did get a good look at what true witchcraft would look like without realizing it, and the event scared the crap out of me to the point where the two friends had to walk me home around 11 p.m.! After that, I eschewed any and all of these practices! But I did get to witness actual occult practices, and, while writing the trilogy, was glad I did partake in the occult, a little bit, knowing I would never do such things again. Any other knowledge of occult rituals came from horror movies or fiction novels.
All three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy have occult aspects. Part 1 of this snippet-occult series shows the mockery side of the occult as well as the witnessing of pure occultist evil that took place inside of a separate room within what is called an ‘Ashram,’ which is a Hindu religious retreat that could also be used in any eastern-type religion (which is what Swami Negran’s ‘Church of the Circle of Unity’ is derived from, using Hindu/Sikh systems for a New Age cult. Negran is a prominent fictional evil character within the trilogy. His successor, fake ‘healer’ Cole Blessing, is featured in the second snippet.)
In the first snippet, drummer Tom Cornsby of the band Sound Unltd surrounds himself with an entourage including a ‘clairvoyant,’ Prissy, who is also a pop star, her handler, Paul, a TV show-hostess, Lady Moira, and a rock singer, Peter Slade among others, lounging around a hookah during a party. His ultimate goal is to find out, using these celebrities with ties to aristocracy and government officials, who indentured his ancestors. Since Prissy and some of the others are into occult rituals, he pretends to ‘channel’ the New Age ‘god’ Corion, the ‘god’ of the Swami church. This snippet comes from Chapter Three of Battle of the Band. At this point, Tom’s agenda is just getting in with these folks so that he could use them later after they learned to trust him. In later parts, he finally meets a fictitious princess who would be more knowledgeable about whom had indentured his ancestors.
Tom, once consigned to the background as clairvoyant pop star Prissy Wyatt’s toy boy, had the street sense to develop his own jet-set following which turned enraptured on his every word. Lying against pillows depicting woven dragons, his little entourage surrounded a hookah. They discussed the future of Prissy’s singing career guided by her producer and promoter, Mushroom Paul, son of an MP. With his advice, Tom might as well have been her manager, agent and songwriter.
Prissy inhaled some hashish. “Whatever happens, I swear I won’t make any decisions without consulting Mushroom Paul and Tom. Tom’s sorta my spirit-guide right now. He knows. He knows.”
Peter Slade, a low-level aristocrat and singer with Hot Vinyl, asked, “What kind of music will you do? Raunchy metal? Orchestral? Mystical?”
“None o’ those,” Tom answered in his nasally baritone voice. “All that shit’s on the way out, eh? Prissy’s gonna do what I call honky-tonk. Really, Pris, you have that show-parlor style. You could do a flapper act, eh girl? Tell you what. I’ll even be your drummer, eh? With EpiGram’s permission and all that crap.” The five-foot-six drummer laughed, then took a hookah hose and inhaled.
Paul snickered. “Right. And her songwriter, and her manager, and her limo driver.”
“Yeh, and you could be her bootlicker.”
Paul responded with a cuss. Tom responded with, “Not in this lifetime.”
“Really, you two.” Lady Moira Sedgewick sighed. “Why do you both always have to argue?”
“Tom’s an arguer, that’s why.” Paul whined.
Prissy came to the drummer’s defense with a giddy smile. “Now that’s not true, is it, Tom?”
“That’s what Mick and Bry say. I love to argue. But I feel I have something to say, so I say it.”
Tom saw Prissy gleam at him. He quickly turned away to roll his eyes. She’s such a little nuisance.
Slade said, “You don’t like ol’ Mick, do you?”
“It goes back to when Mick and Bry joined us. Mick acted like I was going to consume his skinny little bod. Like I was a vampire. Little prevert. And get this. He really grimaced when I smiled and said hello to him.”
“Knowing Mick,” Slade said, “he probably would have loved it if you did consume his skinny bod.” Laughs.
“No. I won’t even have lunch with the bastard.”
Tom laughed to himself as he thought about the others lying with him. No sense telling these silly people why I don’t go for that perv shit. They’d never understand. They’ve never been abused, poor, homeless, indentured. Really such stupid little rich kids. So ripe for my plucking. They’ll never guess I’m only using them to find out who indentured my family.
That Prissy, whose tabloid predictions usually came out true, needed a spirit-guide bothered talk-show celebrity Moira. “What I don’t understand, Pris, is why you—a fortune teller—need Tom or anyone else to make your decisions for you.”
“Because my auras and chakras have been so clouded lately. Too much interference from bad angels. I can’t handle it now, and I’ll prove it.”
Lady Sedgewick slapped the floor. “Prissy? Are you saying you can’t be my medium anymore? Please don’t tell me that. Just who the hell am I supposed to get to replace you?”
“I’ll show you who. The spirits that communicated with me will now do so with Tom. Tom’s a channel. He didn’t even know it when I met him last year. Did you know the god Corion speaks through him?”
Slade, a debonair but insecure star who was new to New Age ideas, asked, “Who the hell is Corion?”
Prissy answered. “A god of light born in darkness. The One we call God threw Corion out of Paradise, but then Corion changed his ways and is now a god of light. There’s a tribe in Africa that claims Corion is married to the deity we call The World. He will now speak through Tom when I call him in séance. Isn’t that super?” She looked at everyone. “Now let’s hold hands.”
The crowd surrounding the hookah sat yoga style holding hands in a circle. Prissy went into a trance and called Corion. “God of light born in darkness, speak to us.”
Very quickly, ‘Corion’ answered her through a deeper voice of the conniving drummer. “I am here. Your question, please.”
“You once said there would be world unity and peace in a few years, and all the world’s tuned-in people would follow your chosen minstrels.”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell the tuned-in friends here who will be your chosen minstrels?”
With a meditative poker-face, Tom-as-Corion answered, “The band called Sound Unltd.”
An uproar of protest ensued. “Oh, come off it!” Slade yelled. “What sorta crap is that, Pris? Of course he’s gonna say that!”
“Hear me, unbeliever!” Tom-as-Corion bellowed back. “There is no doubt! They will be persecuted next year. But they will afterwards rise up and lead the youth of this planet into an era of—novordopax, nuevopax, tricameron.”
Tom then woke up from his pretended enchantment. “Well, did I? Did Corion speak through me?”
“Yeah,” Slade said with a sneer, “and he said your quintet would be the leaders of the world’s youth into an era of—what the hell is ‘novordopax’ and that other gibberish?”
No one could answer that.
Cornsby, with authority, said, “It’s Corion’s word for world peace, or didn’t you know, with your proper public school education, that ‘pax’ is Latin for ‘peace’?”
“It’s just that I find it ridiculous that Corion—through you—would say Sound Unltd will lead the world’s youth as if you’re the reincarnation of—”
“And who are you to doubt Corion? The man’s a god, eh? If he says we will, then we will. So—we will. We got that ambition, eh?”
In the second snippet Tom and this princess, Tina, who are in fact lovers though Tina is married to the one whose ancestors did in fact indenture Tom’s family, meet together at the basement of a palace next to the Ashram mentioned earlier. What they witness while outside looking through a door window is a wicked occult ritual led by the evil fake doctor Cole Blessing within a large room. Blessing uses the original occult amulet known as the Red Crystal of Corion, which brings forth demonic powers, in this ritual. This takes place at the end of Chapter Eight of The Prophesied Band and is narrated by pop culture pundit Jay Elliot, who sees the two witnessing the ritual.
“I just can’t see very much, Tom,” the Princess of Leandro whispered with anxiety as she looked through a tiny square glass window built into a metal door.
“Blessing, my wonderful husband, and one or two others are in there, I know, because I can hear them. But it’s too dark in there!” Tina then turned to Cornsby. “There is a red glow, however. Not a lightbulb glow. More like a candle that glows red, or a candle covered by a red glass.” Turned back. “A votive candle, perhaps. Or a red-glowing crystal.”
The drummer, standing behind her, let his body fall against the door. “A red crystal?” A loud whisper. “Don’t tell me Blessing’s got one o’ those!”
“I hope they didn’t hear you slam against their door, Tom.” Her annoyed voice was low normal. “Anyway,” she looked at him, “It’s too big to be the kind Swami Negran wore. But I feel this crystal and Negran’s are related somehow.”
“Maybe the crystal in there is the mother of all the other crystals Swami had, including the ones he gave the six of us.”
I heard the last thing he and she said to each other. More than just curious, I went toward Tom and Tina. Less than a minute later I heard them go breathless and saw the aura of a giant red glow.
“Tom!” Frightened. “You won’t believe this!” Turned to him. “See this for yourself.”
The curly blond said nothing at first as he feasted his eyes on a room large enough to be a gymnasium, with objects of pure gold wall-to-wall, and the hooded people—including a woman by the look of her face—in supplication to Blessing, who stood hoodless over the red crystal.
Blessing’s hands then engulfed the crystal the size of a baseball—which, having just illuminated the room, now burned a fiery ball of light.
And when Tom heard him speak, Blessing’s voice bellowed with such force several gold statues near the west wall shook.
Corion was also in the room.
“My children,” the dark voice said, “soon I and Mother Nature will come forth to show the only way for the people of this beautiful lush planet—our way, as our enemies cringe and burn before us. Mother Earth will return to her greatness, my followers.”
The crowd chanted, “Your will be done, my lord.”
“Our enemies are being rounded up now, a herd for the slaughter, as our Master cleanses her domain, as I—with you at my right hand—come to the head of your world.”
“We are with you, my lord.”
“Tina!” Tom swiftly got off his tip-toes with breathless fear. “This is it! The people who seek to enslave this world. And Blessing is not Blessing. Or, maybe he’s speaking through a distortion microphone that I can’t see. But he sounds—possessed! Did you hear him? The chanting?”
“Yes. It’s Blessing’s inner circle. Probably the same ones that make up the Novordo Club.” Then she shuddered. “I think we need to leave, my love. I’m really afraid.”
“You got that right!”
In Occult, Part II will be featured rituals that take on a much more sinister tone as the chief minions of the Evil reveal themselves and their agenda in full.
The Prodigal Band Trilogy © 2019 by Deborah Lagarde, Battle of the Band © 1996 by Deborah Lagarde, The Prophesied Band © 1998 by Deborah Lagarde and The Prodigal Band © 2018 by Deborah Lagarde. Permission needed to copy any materials off this page.
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