The Magnetic Messiah

6 min read5 days ago

This story is part 2 of a continuing story
Here is part 1: The Fool’s Journey
Here is part 3: Lost In Lucid Shadows
Here is part 4: Narcotics Anonymous Meeting
Here is part 5: DIY Sensory Deprivation Tank

Chapter 1: The Bohemian Lab

My cramped apartment looks like the aftermath of an electronics inventor’s fever dream. On a cluttered table, a tangle of wires, neodymium magnets, and outdated electronics sits next to piles of handwritten notes and Internet printouts in a mixture of Latin, Greek, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bookshelves bend under the weight of tomes on everything from Jungian psychology to ancient Sumerian rituals. I hum a half-forgotten ritual chant, my eyes sharp and calculating despite the general chaos around me.

Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga,
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga,
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga.
I can’t stop this musing
Deep within my mind
God, you just don’t understand
What you do for me
I’m hooked on an EKG
And I’m high on LSD
That will enlighten me.

“Today’s the day,” I mutter as I solder a wire with an alligator clip onto my homemade magnetic helmet, a contraption built from spare parts from Radio Shack and several children’s magnet kits. “Today, I ascend.”

This isn’t just a wild experiment. It’s based on academic research, including footnotes from an ancient Greek philosopher on the Eleusinian Mysteries.

[The Eleusinians were a major religion in pre-Christian ancient Greece, their rituals involving a shamanic ceremony in which initiates, sworn to secrecy, drank a special potion and experienced visions of spirits from the world of the dead. Scholars believe that the Eleusinian Mysteries, which spanned two millennia, involved the ritual use of fungal psychedelic drugs.]

Combined with modern neuroscience papers on the properties of fungal entheogens and the effects of strong local magnetic fields on the human brain, I’m ready to create a new breakthrough in human transcendence.

Sure, some of the research papers didn’t quite align. But that’s part of the fun using my eidetic memory and genius to putting mismatching puzzle pieces together to form a coherent whole. I double-check the parts of my setup: the powerful 1.2 Newton force pull magnets, some homemade scalp electrodes, and a couple of obscure herbs I ordered from a sketchy website.

“I’m pretty sure Tesla and Edison would’ve done this if they had better drugs,” I muse aloud, mostly for my own amusement. I slip into a reverie about how ancient Egyptians used magnetized stones in their rituals and how their understanding of the pineal gland still might be centuries ahead of modern science. I adjust the frequency oscillator connections to the scalp electrodes.

Chapter 2: The Experiment Begins

After a few moments of tinkering with the helmet — now precariously strapped to my head with duct tape. I take a deep breath. My mind, despite its usual whirlwind of thoughts and tangents, feels unusually clear. I’ve done the calculations. I’ve done the research. The helmet should, theoretically, stimulate the part of my brain that will allow me to reach beyond the physical realm and into something greater. Maybe even Godhood.

“Alright, magnetic fields, don’t let me down,” I whisper as I flip the switch.

The sensation is immediate. A faint hum fills my ears, and my thoughts start to fragment. But not in the usual ADHD multiple distraction way. It is as if each thought is being pulled in a the same direction, stretching outward together. For a brief moment, it feels like my brain is vibrating in sync with the cosmos. I grin. This is it. The magnetic fields are realigning my neurons, opening doorways to realms humans were never meant to access.

Then reality hits. One of the wires sparks and the helmet starts buzzing like a broken lawnmower. I jerk backward, my mind slipping further into an altered state. It’s not the enlightened vision I’d planned for, but a psychedelic mix of ancient languages, random chemical formulas, and snippets of occult rituals.

Chapter 3: The Vision

In a dreamlike state, I find myself standing in a vast desert under a sky filled with swirling constellations. I’m wearing a ceremonial black robe. It’s something between a high priest’s attire and a bad ’70s cult movie costume. Before me stands a comic book council of spectral figures: ancient gods and deities from the countless pantheons I’ve obsessed over in my ancient religion studies. Except, rather than solemn and divine, they look… bored.

One of the gods, a towering figure with golden armor and too many arms, yawns audibly.

“Is this the guy?” another deity mutters in an ancient tongue that I instinctively understand — one of the perks of my eidetic memory and obsession with languages. “I thought we were getting someone more… impressive.”

I straighten up, trying to project confidence. “I am Jerry, wielder of magnetic fields, master of psychology, chemistry, and… ancient mystic rituals!” My voice falters a bit at the end, but I quickly recover with a flashy grin. I’m hoping it’ll charm the gods like it does with my chemistry tutorial students.

The deities exchange glances. One of them, a vaguely humanoid being covered in feathers and glowing facial runes, steps forward. “You seek enlightenment,” it intones, “but all we see is chaos. You lack focus.”

I open my mouth to retort but find myself staring at a particularly shiny rune on the being’s arm. My ADHD kicks in at full throttle. “Is that a Celtic design? I mean, it kind of resembles the ones used by Druids, right? I swear I’ve seen that somewhere…”

The god sighs. “You lack discipline.”

Chapter 4: The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Just as I’m about to argue, the ground beneath me begins to shift. I’m not sure if it’s the magnetic fields affecting my inner ear equilibrium or if I’m really being dragged into some cosmic lesson about balance. The deities start to speak in riddles, but my mind — now a supercharged mess of chemical formulas and random occult trivia — can’t stay on track long enough to solve them. I half-listen while wondering if there’s a way to harness magnetic fields to brew the perfect cup of coffee. I’ll just need to tweak the microwave a bit.

Suddenly, the gods grow tired of me. “He’s not ready,” one of the glowing deities declares, and the council vanishes in a flash of light, leaving me alone in the desert.

I blink, realizing that I missed my chance for godhood because I got distracted by a shiny rune. “Dammit.”

Chapter 5: The Return to Reality

With a jolt, I wake up on my apartment floor, the makeshift magnetic helmet sparking beside me. My head is pounding, and everything feels slightly… off. The room is spinning, but the dizziness is nothing compared to the sense of failure creeping over me.

I push myself up, glancing at the scattered papers and notes around me. No gods, no enlightenment, just the faint hum of my malfunctioning helmet. And yet, in typical Jerry fashion, I convince myself that I’m on the verge of something great. It’s not that the experiment failed — no, I just need to recalibrate the magnetic fields. Adjust the frequency of the oscillator. Maybe add a few more magnets. And next time, maybe some ancient runes. Yeah…definitely add the runes.

As I stagger to my feet, I grin to myself, still caught between genius and madness. “Next time, I’m gonna nail it,” I say aloud and start to hum again.

Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga,
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga,
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga.

All personal statements were written by me and edited for spelling and grammar by ChatGPT. Sections of this article have been refined by AI to enhance comprehensibility and to provide facts that only online search engines would know.