Felix Belmont had always been a hermit. The only reason I knew him as well as I did was because we had gone to school together at Eton College, one of the most prestigious boarding schools in all of England. Even then, he seemed distant from the rest of the children but warmed up to me after a few years in the same classes. If I were to guess, we were around fifteen when we first started to become friends.
He had always had an addictive fascination with history and the more obscure questions concerning existence. I imagine that may have been the reason I looked past the awkward boy and saw a brilliant mind. We would wander the school grounds on the weekend deep in debate, but I always had the suspicion that he was somewhere else. There were moments where he would stare forth into space and nod periodically as if some inner voice was relaying something to him.
After we graduated, we stayed in touch and met periodically at 67 Pall Mall, a private club just a stone’s throw away from Buckingham Palace. He chose that club because it was near his home and work. He became quite successful in the restoration of old texts and started The Belmont Book Company after graduating from university (we had gone to separate schools). It had grown to be quite a successful endeavor for him and allowed him to be secluded from most people and close to rare and old books. From what he told me in our chats, the Belmont focused on locating, restoring, and housing books of antiquity. Of course, Felix was not involved in the client relations for the company but instead allowed his business partner Harold Evanson to fulfill that role.
When I first got the call about the disappearance of Felix, Harold was the voice on the other end. His words were solemn and curious. He began, “I don’t know how to say this, Rupert, but Felix is gone with only a note left behind. He mentioned you in it. I always felt this may come. He had been muttering about some secret way for some time. Did he ever mention it to you?” I told him no, but asked to come see the note. Harold agreed and I quickly cleared my schedule for the remainder of the day.
Upon arriving at half-past three, I read the note in its entirety. It was quite brief and vague, as Felix was with many things. It read: “From the days at Eton, I was walking a path that none understood. I found a piece of information on the school grounds that would set the rest of my life on a path to uncover the secret way. It will no doubt come as a surprise that I have disappeared, but I have a final request. I expect Harold will find this letter and ask for you to call Rupert Groves and give him the key to my home. It was left in my upper right desk drawer. He will know what to do.”
After reading the note, Harold handed me the key and asked, “What now?” I told him I had the slightest idea, but expected that Felix’s home, just a short walk down Picadilly, would have more answers. We made our way from Belmont to Felix’s place. The house itself was grand and royal in its decor. White columns lined both sides of the large wooden door. With the key, we opened it and stepped into the foyer. A staircase spiraled the wall and led to his second floor, which was where his study was located. We made our way up the stairs and to the study door. I had remembered he kept it locked, but now it was left open and we both entered. The study was stunning in its woodwork. Bookcases lined two levels of the fifteen-foot walls. There was a rolling ladder on a track that Felix would use to reach the upper level. At the far end of the room was his walnut desk and velvet reading chair.
I rushed over to see what was left on the desktop and found a stack of papers with a yellow sticky note attached saying “For Rupert”. The first page was the title: The Secret Way by Felix Belmont. I looked up at Harold and asked him to give me a moment to read it. He decided to step out for a smoke and said he would return soon. I flipped the title page back and began to read:
On the first day of 2020, I found myself wandering down through the endless caverns attempting to locate that which the philosophers of old had sought. There was this idea that somewhere beneath reality lies a layer from which all others derive. Peoples and religions from across the earth and throughout time have developed methods they claim will allow the adepts to enter the realm, yet few, perhaps none, have truly seen it. It is the fundamental fabric of all things, weaving throughout reality.
Have I made it closer than all others? I can feel it in my heart; the resonance passes through me. It guides me from the realm of obfuscation to that of revelation. Like the fecund soil in which crops grow, that which I seek is the substrate of all of matter, space, and time. Time has buried it far below the topsoil, beyond the bedrock. The technique used by the ancient ones to pass this barrier has long been forgotten, and charlatans have buried the path in noise. They claim to know the way, but instead, have led their followers astray.
Deep within hidden circles, some of the fundamental techniques still reside, yet even those are lacking in their substance. Dogmatically these circles hold onto their way, not realizing that they have grown languid with time. The path to the substrate lies in between all of the ways, from the oriental to the occidental and all religions and ideologies that reside therein. Many do not see the truth and are polarized between two ends of a single-dimension. It is not a straight line, but a series of crisscrossing spectrums that layer together as echos of the ancient ways. Not one is right, but all are right. To see between, to ignore the details, to find the matrix within is the path of the lone traveler. I am such a traveler.
I have entered alone into the bedrock that has alluded the doctrines of recent years. The secret way was shown to me in methods I would rather not describe, for none can fathom, not even I. Yet here I stand, before a fork in the tunnel, left or right. I have remained here for some time, filled with incertitude, contemplating the very nature of left and of right. Each of these concepts is more gravid than all can know. Making my choice, I turn at the fork and move deeper. The answer, as all others, was hidden in all that I had ever learned and all that I had ever felt. To trust that feeling indubitably was the first step of the path.
Each fork has the potential to lead to a labyrinth from which one will never return. Many of these labyrinths are the previous paths of those who entered without understanding the first step. They made the way more perplexing for future entrants by their very ignorance. For the neophyte who trods these caverns will find themselves in traps laid unwittingly by their lost forebears.
In ancient times the path was less cluttered. There was less ignorance and more reverence. None attempted to enter with hubris. They were, instead, educated in such a way that embodied the secret. In the abstract nature of ancient thought, they placed much of their understanding in the divine. While I am not arguing that there are godly figures in the heavens, just by the fact that they had trusted fate to the unknown allowed them to believe in the intuition that led them to the secret.
Modern mystics have lost this reverence and study from their secret libraries. But they are entirely useless and filled with traps. Apprentices study from the pages of the forebears in the most scholarly ways. Every word is taken to heart and ingrained in the mind. The maps derived from these writings are maps to the labyrinths, but end up nowhere. There can be no map that leads through these caverns. This is the reason why I elected to forgo any membership into these societies and instead found my own path. They distract, confuse, and fill their members with a sense of knowing. This is entirely the opposite of the way. The societies themself are labyrinths of the upper world, preventing those apprentices from even finding what lies beneath. I wonder if the masters of these groups know this and if they allow it as part of the process of discovery, but I feel there is a hubris to these men that have caused them to become entangled in their own webs, preventing them from making their own way down.
As the years go by, we build more layers between the surface and the substrate. Science itself is to blame for this increase. Knowing obfuscates truth. This is what I had come to believe by the time I started my journey years ago. Being a man of science, this revelation broke me in many ways, sending me into lassitude. I realized that modern science was the grandest of all labyrinths, and with every step towards material discovery, a new fork was built. How could I exist, as a man who believes in the understanding of science, within this new realm of thought?
I battled with this dilemma for the last year, and upon the eve of this new decade, I was graced with a celestial blaze that sparked the timid embers of my mind. I saw a wave of light blast over this world that was seen by few, perhaps even none. The light itself allowed me to venture deeper than I ever had. The forks fell away, and I came to a passage that would lead to another realm. There was a faint purple light at the far end. I had come across forks before in which a blue glow shined forth from the left, and I went right. At another fork, a red glow appeared down the right, and I went left. Now, at the end of my journey, I see before my feeble eyes the purple light of transcension, or is it descension?
For the ones close to me that read from these pages, know that I am well in this new place. And for those who understand the words written here, there is a chance that you can find your path to the secret way. There are but few who I expect can follow (but not follow) in my footsteps, for my path itself has caused new forks to form in the way. The next traveler must trust their first step, and then the second, and so forth else they will get lost in the labyrinth like all others who parade around claiming they possess occult knowledge.
You who read this already know the path for these pages will find only those who need it.
I put the manuscript back down on the desk and stared forward, confused, yet knowing he had finally done it. He had finally stepped behind the veil. I never expected it to be literal in its revelation. But we had discussed this concept throughout our years together. I only ever thought of these ideas as allegories and metaphors, not reality itself. Harold returned, asking, “What did it say? Can I read it?” I looked down and the manuscript had completely disappeared.
You who read this already know the path for these pages will find only those who need it.
