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Most ‘potent’ time for divine experiences

opinionMost ‘potent’ time for divine experiences

Is there a particular hour or time favoured by ghosts and other supernatural entities? Is there a particular hour or time when “divine” experiences are more likely to take place? The answer to both these repeatedly asked questions is “yes”. Dusk and midnight are the most potent hours for “extra terrestrial” activity. However, I have not yet had a “divine” experience at dusk, although I  and many others once very distinctly saw Bhanja Sahib, a pir at the Malcha Marg dargah in New Delhi, wandering around his grave and then disappearing into it at that hour. But dusk, especially the point when day slips into night, is certainly a “fertile” time when it is possible to obtain glimpses of or experience the supernatural. And yet, there is something disturbing and not very peaceful about these sightings and experiences.

In contrast, midnight is a charmed hour at many different esoteric levels. There is something special about midnight—it has been so for centuries, not just in India but in the rest of the world as well. Often called the “bewitching” hour, midnight isn’t just associated with ghosts, the supernatural, witches riding on brooms and dark happenings. It has strong connections with elves, fairies and fairy tales—remember the story of Cinderella and several others…? It is also the time for dreams, when the soul is supposed to leave the sleeping ‘body’, wander into the unknown, undergo experiences, meet other souls. Black magic practitioners too usually prefer to choose midnight as the “most potent hour” for carrying out certain rites. It is well known that the dead tend to ‘come alive’ at around midnight.

Obviously, it is a very extraordinary hour and holds a deep significance. Why is it so? A  clue lies in the phrase, “in the dead of the night”. We don’t say “in the dead of the day”.  Years ago, a sadhu on the banks of the holy Ganges who spent the better part of the night chanting mantras once explained to me why the period between midnight and 4 a.m. is so special. “Most living things are asleep at that time. There is peace. There is a cessation of frenetic activity that marks the day time, which in turn means a lull in the confrontations between individuals,  which is generally the cause for vitiating the atmosphere with all kinds of negativities. The environment at that time is at its purest during the day-night cycle—don’t forget its during this time that the vital function of ‘recharging’ of rejuvenation is quietly being carried out by nature.

“To put it very simply, sleep refreshes one, mentally and physically—renews hope.  Midnight onwards is thus an extremely important period when there is peace, there is a rest from exhausting movement, opposing forces are no longer pitched against each other, and the most essential function of renewal is taking place, making this a very charged period. The rays of the sun are necessary for growth, but the sun also has a harsh, drying effect. The moonlight is never harsh—it is always soft, soothing. The darkness too has a soft effect, which is part of the reason why spirits find it easier to materialise at night, particularly between midnight and 3 a.m.”

There is indeed considerable supernatural traffic from midnight onwards. At the dargah of Khwaja Moiluddin Chisti on Malcha Marg,  at and after midnight, the place virtually hums with supernatural activity and spirits, singly and in pairs, can be seen hurrying to and fro, sometimes pausing to chat with each other. This is no coincidence, as the area, once the site of Malcha village, is dotted with more than three hundred graves, most of them not easily visible any longer because of the overgrowth and the passage of time.  In the forest at Mehrauli too, many spirits can be sighted around midnight.

“That is the time to fear”, says Madan Lal, (not his real name), a Delhi Development Authority (DDA) chowkidar who did night duty and has long experience of the supernatural, “because both good and bad spirits materialise at that time. If you’re unlucky and encounter a bad spirit, it could, for instance, latch itself onto you and plague you day and night, or it could slap you—both these things have happened to me. If you’re lucky, and meet a good spirit, its protective powers can change your life for the better—that too has happened to me. Usually, these occurrences have taken place between midnight and 3 a.m.”

Elsewhere too, down the centuries—and now—the most frequent and “clear” sightings seem to take place at the bewitching hour. Out of innumerable instances on record, here is a brief account of two. “It was a Saturday night, about midnight,” according to Peter Underwood in  Haunted London, “and the last show was over. Bernard Mattimore and Jerry Adams, the assistant manager and the projectionist of the old Tower Cinema in Peckham, south London, were making their way to the rear exit when they stopped. They were not alone in the cinema. A man was walking through the air about 10 feet above the floor. The figure seemed to be that of a middle-aged man wearing the clothes of another era, and he seemed to glow in the darkness.”

In America, there is the case of midnight Mary, so dubbed because her ghost would disappear at midnight near the cemetery where she is buried. When she was alive, she had gone to a party, and while returning, died in a car accident. After her death, unwary motorists driving after dark on the road she had taken to the fateful party were flagged down for a lift by a young girl in a party dress. As they passed the cemetery, the girl would pass clean out of the car, much to the astonishment of the motorist, and clean through the closed iron gates of the cemetery.

And it isn’t just the dead who come alive at midnight. The Gods too seem to favour the period between midnight and 4. a.m. for appearing in a form of their choice. I have written about the dazzling dance performed by a beautiful devi—so bright and luminous that I  had to shield my eyes with my hand and watch from between my fingers—at the Jwalamukhi temple in Himachal Pradesh.  In Dehra Dun, at the “Dat” (tunnel) Mandir, so called because it is near a tunnel, the Mata has often been sighted, astride her tiger, on the hillsides around the temple—always between midnight and 3 a.m.  I have been lucky to see her too on more than one occasion and the light that emanates from her and the tiger is amazing—keeping one’s gaze fixed on the enthralling sight would probably blind one. At Haridwar too, at the ashram where I have spent so many charmed days and nights, I have seen the Mata emerge from her own image, resplendent and astoundingly brilliant. The time has always been a little after midnight.

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