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Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 6: Learned Yet Lost

   [Spellbound - Siouxie And The Banshees] 


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Brian Joseph Johns


Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound

by Brian Joseph Johns


Episode 6: Learned Yet Lost


How To Fix A Chain Smoker


If there is indeed a god, and I mediate on the fact that there is, despite my having walked my own path for most of my life in terms of religion and belief, because assuming there is, she's going to get an earful when I'm done here. 


Maybe not right away.


The first thing I'll do upon my arrival in the afterlife, is try to figure out how far off my own beliefs were from the reality of the situation I'll find myself within after death. As a neo-new ager that strayed from the more theological paths from an early age, I've not exactly been the apple of god's eye.


Once I've ascertained the real nature of reality and the divine almighty, at that moment, I'll proceed to give her an earful that I suspect could last the best part of a year or two, though I suspect that there will most certainly be a lineup for that undertaking.


I say she, because most women, when there are problems, choose to talk and sometimes even to bond with regard to a solution. The religious record insofar as the male aspect of the almighty is concerned, seems to involve a lot of rules and then the torture or smiting of those who violate such rules as: don't eat this thing on this day, don't do that in bed with your wife or husband. Don't create likenesses of that which is upon the Aerth or within the heavens. Don't create idols that advocate for anyone but me, and so on and so forth. The other rules, the ones like: don't kill, don't lie, well they seem kind of obvious, though I'm certain there are cases that could potentially justify the contradictory.


 I remember reading about a woman who'd been assaulted and abducted. Rendered unconscious and locked in a room. When she'd gained consciousness, her captor opened the door and entered the room with a knife. Given the man's track record with her up until that point, she decided that she wasn't having any more of it, and disarmed him and then took his life, stopping his plans to rape her and kill her. A fate Police later found out that he'd rendered unto three other women previously. It was self defense, in a situation where she'd have certainly died had she not made the decision to deny him the pleasure of her playing the victim. He paid with his life, which if she hadn't, she'd have been the fourth victim. In that case, I'd definitely stand by her over her having broken the don't kill rule. He didn't, but in order to stop him from doing so, she did. The punishment should go to him, and the reward to her for stopping him from doing it again and saving who knows how many other women's lives.


Then, on the other end of the scale in terms of its life and world importance, there was a time I was dating. Actively seeking a man whom I assumed might someday be my husband, and very much going all in on this endeavor, seeing as I'd signed up for an online dating service geared towards professionals of the esoteric variety for lack of better terminology, with myself having been a flourishing tarot card reader insofar as what I can recollect of my former life. A man named Ernest had arrived at my front door to pick me up for said date, and when I opened the door, the first words to come out of his mouth were: Gwendolyn. Let's be serious here. The only thing that dress is attracting is pity.


After I'd sent him home, slamming the door on his face I curled up on the sofa and cried for about ten minutes, and then laughed about what he'd said for twenty, given the fact that it was funny, and that it had in some strange way matched up with the meaning of his name: Ernest as in truth. At least phonetically speaking. 


I'm not so certain that my evening would have gone any differently had I gone on the date, but I feel that situation was a great example of the fact that there are situations where breaking the don't lie rule is and can be more appropriate. I mean, because of that statement, I gave up on dating and found my time better put to things that I'd convinced myself were allowing me to "grow as a woman" or to "nurture my inner sense of peace and sanctity". Idioms that came from other women who'd already long since won the battle against their raging hormones which had wanted them to have a child before they were thirty-three. An age that many women consider themselves to be over the hill.


Now, given the current state of the world in this year of the summer of 2006, to some of you, it might sound like I'm griping. That I'm ignoring the most wonderful gift that I received for free. The fact that I am still alive, and in enough of a good condition that I can gripe about such things, having all the time in the world to thing about these things. However, three years after my having surpassed the age of thirty-three, and having not found a man with whom to share my life's journey, I found myself in a situation where I'd attended a seasonal holiday party, which I believe that host had referred to as a SAPCHoP, with my best friend and tarot mentor, Nathalie. Its just amazing how much has come back since I last committed myself to the exercise of recalling my former life.


You see, at that party, something happened. Something on the scale of a global catastrophe, the nature of which I cannot recall no matter how hard I try. Its like the details are stretched and spaghettified into infinity, though I have a feeling my sudden propensity for using such terminology might be a clue, though I have no idea other than the tarot, of where to turn to find out.


Now, about that catastrophe? You might say it couldn't have been that bad. After all, you're here and still griping apparently, here being somewhere in Shepperton off the Thames in England, rather than my original home in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, where I'd lived before this wonderful SAPCHoP party, and immemorable catastrophe. My circumstances, those concerning the concept of self, have become rather complicated.


I remember when I was a teen, back in the pre-catastrophe world, when I'd watched a Warren Beatty movie called Heaven Can Wait. It was one of my favourites of his, though I really like the one where he was a hairdresser as well but I can't for the life of me recall what it was called.


In Heaven Can Wait, he plays the role of a professional football player who dies suddenly in an automobile accident, but his consciousness or soul is taken from his body prematurely by his guardian angel, played to perfection by Buck Henry. To make it up to Beatty, his soul is inserted into the body of an aging multimillionaire, who with Beatty's characters' mind, then attempts a return to professional football where he falls for an alluring environmentalist.


I guess my point in bringing that movie up is connected to my current situation, though the movie itself is hardly a palpable explanation for my current situation.


What is that you might ask me? Well, to put it lightly, my consciousness, or soul if you'd like, is now a co-inhabitant of someone else's body. Like I'm in the passenger seat, able to see out through the windshield, while they're driving. I can even speak with her, in her head, though most of the time, Gillie and I, we spend mostly just arguing as we don't get along very well. Like having a bad roommate, but taken to the next level. One that you can't escape, because you both essentially inhabit the same body. A body which she has no respect for regardless of the wonder of nature and creation that it truly is.


And so, as you can see, my qualms with god, when I finally meet her face to face, will be an engagement of problem solving and bonding, as most women except Gillie and I, seem to be able to do. Perhaps if the divine masculine isn't off torturing this soul or smiting another, I might have a word with him too.


Griping can be a very powerful coping mechanism, despite the association it has with complaining. For instance, I just used it to circumvent the fact that for the last six hours, Gillie has, since this morning, been smoking cigarette after cigarette, using the previous to light the next, as a tool to punish me for trying to stop her. From smoking I mean.


Despite the fact that I am an unwanted passenger in her body, her smoking causes me pain. The perception thereof. It makes my eyes (her eyes as felt by me) sting. It makes me feel like coughing (with her lungs). It gives me headaches (with her head). Its besides the fact that she seems immune to any of these symptoms.


To top it all off, she won't talk to me anymore.


When she'd returned from acquiring the cigarettes from a local corner store earlier, she sat down with one of her customers (she's also a tarot card reader) and spent forty-five minutes with the woman, who turned out to be the mother of one of the women who attended this SAPCHoP with Nathalie and I. A woman of such immense patience, for she as a non-smoker sat with Gilie for a full forty-five minutes, as Gillie chain smoked through the entire session.


When this poor woman left after her reading, her eyes were as red as a cherry and she surely must have stunk like a chimney, the poor woman.


She however, as I stated, is the mother of Nelony Ardbloem, who at this time is a young woman. A much younger woman than she had been at that same pre-catastrophe party, which had taken place in the holiday season of 2024. Nelony is just a teenager, as would I be too if I could convince Gillie to clean up her act, quit smoking and venture out into the world to enjoy her last few years.


Perhaps I'm being selfish, for my motivations would be for my own self interest, in looking into the whereabouts of Nelony and even myself as a much younger woman.


"Could you just cut it out for a damned minute?!!!" Gillie finally erupted.


"What? I'm just going over the details out loud, with my dear diary!" Gwendolyn explained to Gillie.


"You are purposely driving me bonkers!" Gillie charged Gwendolyn.


"I could accuse you of the same! This isn't exactly easy for me you know!" Gwendolyn countered.


"You are uninvited and in my body! This is a violation of my being of the worst kind! You are a....!!! HUSSIE OF A WOMAN!!!" Gillie's voice peaked, as she raised her voice at Gwendolyn, both of them feeling a sudden sharp pain in the right side of their chest.


"Uuuuughhhh!" Gillie gasped out loud, grasping at her chest and then slumping forward onto the table.


Gwendolyn meanwhile was in severe pain, though she was still roaming consciously and had access to Gillie's senses. Gwendolyn listened carefully, and found that Gillie's breathing was shallow and protracted. She was receding.


Gwendolyn saw her cellular phone laying on the table three inches from the end of Gillie's nose, her hand motionless just beside it as Gillie lay with both her eyes open, unconscious.


Gwendolyn could feel a sudden growing fog coming over her, as if the world were slowing down and fading.


"She's asphyxiating! Her heart's stopped!" Gwendolyn thought out loud, Gillie responding by trying to mouth words, though she only ejected air from her lungs, speeding herself towards her end.


 Gwendolyn at that moment and with all of the willpower she could muster, focused on moving Gillie's hand. Her fingers twitched momentarily, and then her arm gradually slid over to the phone. She'd seen Gillie enter her code a thousand times, through her own eyes, and she knew secrets about her that few ever had in all likelihood.


Gwendolyn managed to get Gillie's hand onto the phone, and was tapping the screen to life. After three tries, she managed to get the right code, and the phone unlocked beside Gillie's lifeless body.


Gwendolyn carefully navigated the phone's interface until she had a dial screen. Instinctively, she began dialing 911. A voice emerged just barely from the phone's speakers:


The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang-up and try your call again.


"Damn! What's the number in England!" Gwendolyn panicked as she felt her own consciousness slipping away. She suddenly recalled having seen a news clip about England's new emergency phone system, and then recalled the number: 112 which she immediately dialed.


"112. What's the nature of the emergency?" a soft yet sharp British voice emerged from the speakers.


 Gwendolyn could not reply, and so she just waited as her consciousness was slowly constricted by Gillie's lack of respiration.


"Alright. If you can't speak, hit any of the numbers on your phone..." the emergency operator requested of her.


Gwendolyn managed to move Gillie's index finger one last time before the blackness consumed them.




To be continued...


Credits and attribution:

Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Reedsy (an online resource and tool for writers), Borderline Obsession...

DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar and also for the quip Ernest uses when he comments about Gwendolyn's dress before their date.

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts

Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history

Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)

Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai 
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art

Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion 
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility

Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools

Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!

Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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