When I was aroung twelve I had an unsettling dream. I was at my house, but then everything began to burn and explode and blow away: I was standing on a vast field: a field of battle.
I found that my body was still my own, but that I was wearing a sword and armor. This was my astral self, which is capable of feats of incredible, but not limitless, power.
Around me was a band of similarly armed humans, though all somehow smaller and darker than me. Flying overhead were four archangels, bright and glorious.
Before our army was a sea of black and red, demons. I realized this was Armageddon.
Just then the Dark Prince himself arose from a cleft in the ground and spread his massive dark wings, and I knew somehow that I was the one to fight him. There the dream ends, with no battle.
I took this dream as a sign, a prophecy. For almost seven years I prepared myself for battle: I had to have real power of mind, of spirit, and of will. The devil, I thought, would not be destroyed simply by my faith, and he would not attack me physically. No,my devil was much like my god: otherworldly, unkowable, divine; with the power to assail me with situations I did not even have the hardware to understand. To defeat this opponent, I studied every scrap of ritual magick and general metaphysics I could get my hands on: I had to be invincible.
I quit believing in this prophecy on Christmas day 2001. If there was a time for Armageddon, it would have been this, Jesus' first birthday of the new millenium. There was also a partial solar eclipse that day.
Every moment I could get to sneak away from my family I spent preparing myself and sharpening my sword.
Christmas came, and as you all are aware no Armageddon followed, only tinsel and presents.
So I put down the sword. I am not God's general, but the years of preparation and fear had already soaked into me.
So now I am still a man with a mission, though my mission is now unclear even to me. I know that all I care about, all I can really get myself to give a damn about, is magick.