Death in the monastery

Do you believe in dreams? I don’t mean the fleeting dreams one has so often and quickly forgets, if you remembers them at all. I mean those rare ones from which one wakes up still intoxicated by the dream and is swept away by its clarity. I believe that in these dreams, our consciousness descends into our deep roots, which are inaccessible to rational thought and yet contain so much truth. These deep roots of ours are also the roots of all other people and of all life and being. Through them, we are connected to all other life and they allow for an exchange of which we have little inkling.

This is likely how this story came to me, in a dream, which was merely the medium of communication. But it came from a life, a soul, that chose this path to bring the truth to light, to expose the crime that had been committed against her and her fried. Here is her story:

“We were from Japan, two girls, 22 and 23 years old, my friend and I. My friend was quite pretty; I was less so, a bit too chubby to be attractive to guys. My friend, however, was slim, had an attractive body and a pretty face. We were on a European tour for a few weeks, backpacking. Until we arrived at that monastery in France, in a side valley of the Rhône, situated on a high mountain ridge that was part of the Jura Mountains, which lie just before the Alps.

Like many other students, we visited it backpacking. The Romanesque vaults impressed us — the simplicity and solemnity of the bare stone. There were quite a few people in the church. A friendly, heavyset priest, perhaps in his mid-40s, offered to give us a tour. We were too shy to say yes or no. He was very jovial and kind and explained to us what the various items — altars, statues, paintings, etc. were all about. After a while we entered less-visited parts of the monastery and encountered only few other tourists. He wanted to show us a special crypt. He opened a stone slab in the floor of a corridor. I don’t know what mechanism he used to lift that heavy slab. We descended a staircase and walked down a corridor. Another priest passed us, smiling as he went by. Two other priests came a few steps behind the first. Our guide introduced us. The first priest spoke to us, and before we could react, he had lifted our skirts and pulled down our panties. We stood there half naked and shocked. He pointed at my friend. They took her into a room on the left side of the hallway; they locked me in a room on the other side across from it. No one paid any attention to me.

The door to my room was old and had cracks through which I could peek out. I could see very little, because the door behind which my friend was brought, was closed. But every so often, priests would bring things in and come back out. That’s how I saw that they had completely undressed my friend. She didn’t resist — perhaps she couldn’t anymore. She wasn’t tied up. They had shaved off her pubic hair. They bathed her. They treated her with the utmost respect and reverence. Later I saw that they were dressing her. They adorned her like a queen — no, more than that, like a goddess. Her dress was simple, yet infinitely tasteful. They brought boxes of gold and gemstone jewelry. They chose carefully. Not just what was beautiful, but what suited her, my friend — what matched her nature and elevated her. She wore a light white dress. Her hair looked more beautiful than ever before. She was indescribably beautiful. She was an ideal image, an unsurpassable embodiment of femininity. I envied my friend. I understood why she didn’t resist. What girl, what woman wouldn’t have succumbed to this adoration?

The priests cleared away the bathtubs and all the other paraphernalia and prepared the room for a grand celebration. The elegant arches, the candlelight, and my girlfriend’s radiant beauty conveyed a sense of grandeur.

Now a large number of priests, perhaps 30 or 40, entered and gathered in the room. They began a ceremony, a religious service. They celebrated the beauty and dignity of womanhood embodied in my friend. My friend sat in the center of the room, on a decorated throne like a goddess. After about half an hour, they reached the climax of the ceremony. An older priest, perhaps the abbot, somewhat corpulent, in his mid-50s, with a bald head, had presided over the ceremony. He approached my friend, laid her on her back on a stone altar. He stood between her legs, bared her and his genitals, and penetrated her.

My friend did not resist. Perhaps she was too frightened. Perhaps she also understood or sensed that this act celebrated the union of man and woman, that most divine event accessible to us humans. It was a wonderful event, nothing my friend should have been ashamed of. Nothing could have been more natural. It was a ceremony celebrating the union of complementary divine forces, which have always been the source of life and spirit in this world.

After the leader had finished making love to my friend, she was brought back to her throne and the mass continued briefly. Then it was other priests’ turn to make love to my friend. One after another. There were many of them. I sensed that my friend was no longer okay with this. The solemnity and symbolism faded away more and more. My friend began to resist, but she was powerless against so many strong men. She lost her jewelry, bit by bit. The act of love became routine, selfish, and ruthless, and ended in a gang rape. They took my girlfriend from the front and the back, vaginally and anally, and when she moaned and screamed and begged to be left alone, she was mocked and laughed at. They beat my girlfriend. They took out all their negative feelings on her. Her hair, once so beautiful, was matted and sticky with semen. The last shreds of her clothes were torn from her body. She was no longer a goddess. The priests used her like an object, like something dirty and despicable. When they had all satisfied themselves with her, they even brought dogs in and let them mount my girlfriend. They took pleasure and satisfaction in seeing my girlfriend so humiliated and dragged through the dirt. Later, they killed my girlfriend.

When it was all over, they remembered me again. A priest led me into another room, a dungeon carved into the rock, deep down in the monastery. I spent a night there. The priest had been ordered to kill me, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The next day he came and strangled me with a rope.”