#mag025

MAG025 – Caso 0151904 – Oscuridad creciente

Testimonio de Mark Bilham, sobre los acontecimientos que culminaron en su visita a la capilla de Hither Green.

[Disclaimer/ Aviso]

A list of TMA characters that did not turn on their phone torches despite living in a time where that was very much possible. also f u TMA for making me research when phones started having torches in them. it's 2005 to 2007, depending on the model. though Nokia also had one in 1999. MAG022 Martin Blackwood (2016) MAG025 Mark Bilham (2015) despite him remebering in the end

Case #0151904, Mark Bilham Release date: June 29, 2016 First listen: Somewhere between the 20th October and the 5th November. But it was definitely on a walk in, I remember the centre coming into view when the lightbulbs were mentioned.

This statement dives into another instance of religion and faith and how they can go from being support networks to highly predatory very easily, very quickly if the target is in the correct state.  There are some Entities that lend themselves to divinity more than others, but The Dark is certainly one that could be easily exulted.

- The statement was made April 19th, 2015 and the late spring/early summer was when things were starting to shake out at the Magnus Archives.

- Mark is another who starts the statement in an adamant sate of mind, but surprisingly it’s one of denial. We’ve seen people in a state of disbelief and they have appeared confused and nervous, maybe defensive but submissively so. When we see someone taking about more of a firm stance, they tend to be demanding to be believed that what happened to them, happened, supernatural elements and all. But Mark is being assertive in his denial of what he experience even possibly being supernatural. I’m mollified to see that the example he went to was ‘Like ghosts and stuff’, which had been exactly my thinking about the Magnus Archives right up until I pressed play on MAG001.

- The ‘No offence, I guess,’ really doesn’t feel to convincing. Would have loved to know what Gertrude would have thought of him.

- Ah, he’s a medical student. Boy, you may be a scientist, but you are gonna see some weird shit so you better become open to it. In what the human body can become, in what human behaviour can become, hell, even what your own eyes will tell you is there after a few too many night on call.

- I’m not sure about how I feel about him saying ‘I’m not sure how good I’d be at a long-distance relationship.’ On the one hand, well done for having that level of self awareness, on the other, seems like a strange place to reveal this information. I wonder if he’d spared it much thought before he told his story under the influence of The Eye?

- ‘I don’t know if I ever actually heard her laugh. Maybe she just didn’t find my jokes funny.’ This boy is giving me levels in self-absorption that I am not enjoying.

- The description of Natalie is going to be skewed as it is coming from Mark, who did not like her, and I know people with strong faith who are lovely, wonderful souls, but… If I walked into a home and saw a framed bible passage on the wall of the common area of a shared house, I’d be nervous too. The missionary drive of Christianity unnerves me greatly at the best of times, without even considering the history of the practise and the impact it has had on the globe. I’ve had folks asking to pray for me before for one thing and another and every time it’s felt like an invasion, no mater how well intended.

- ‘crochet, politics or God’… Yeah, I think I’d be backing away slowly, and I do cross stitch for pity’s sake.

- ‘…reading some boring book on the political history of the bonnet or something.’ This could be an actual topic of a book, or this could also him using hyperbole to be a bit of a dick. I did look up ‘political history of the bonnet’ and lost a few minutes learning about the Jacobite song ‘Bonnie Dundee’.

- The sudden loss of a loved one has been the catalyst for a few inciting incidents now, and each time it’s been a different Entity to swoop in. I don’t think there’s any one Entity with a monopoly on grief. But with grief and upheaval comes new, unsure circumstances that can be terrifying, compounded by the lose of a key person in the support network.

- And this vulnerability is something cults will look to exploit. Natalie may have ‘found her new church’, but I wonder how much looking she really needed to do.

- The Bible quote, while possibly a red flag, it’s prolonged absence after her apparent return to faith, is possibly a bigger red flag. It may have been somewhere else in the house, but Mark pulling our attention to it is a key point.

- So Natalie was ‘at church’ overnight. She’d ‘leave in the evening and come home early in the morning, just as the sky was starting to get light’ and when asked would say ‘church’. Now, I’ve done midnight mass before and in my experience, people don’t tend to linger once you’re done. If you made me do that every night, doesn’t matter how good the kingdom of heaven is, I want my bed.

- Well, we’ve already seen vampires so whatever Natalie’s becoming, it’s not that. But the way Kathy jumps to her defence with an itemised list before trailing off and realising what she’s doing does suggest some kind of influence.

- So we know why Natalie’s unscrewing the lightbulbs, we know it’s dangerous, creepy and unnerving as hell. But there’s also a voice in my head going ‘well, cost of living crisis...’ I think I’d take to wearing a head torch.

- Was Kathy’s inability to sleep a by-product of Natalie’s behaviour, or do you think she was purposefully draining something from Kathy with these rituals? I mean, even if we take away creepy evil darkness religion, that’s rude as hell. Had Kathy tried ear plugs and such? But I imagine whatever work of The Dark this is could bypass ear defence and white noise machines. I also imagine that if she tried to confront Natalie, she’d get the same response that Mark had done when he asked questions.

- A song in a language that they couldn’t recognise, and it’s the same song, on and on. Was Natalie trying to tie the home into some form of ritual, small ‘r’, in practising away from ‘the church’ or was it just a case of, this is her life now. There’s no mention of what Natalie did for money, and presumably she’s paying rent on the property along side Kathy. What is she doing during the daylight hours? Sleeping? Would retribution even doing anything?

- I wonder what language it was. I can’t remember The Dark having an affinity for one language or another off the top of my head.

- I really feel for Kathy, I’ve been in a living situation where I felt trapped in my the other occupant of the house. And he was the live in landlord, so extra fun. At this point in the listening experience I was less than a month out of that situation. Did he kick me out during the pandemic year of 2020? Yes, yes he did. Muses bless Trish and her family for taking me in when they did.

- Jonny… Jonny how many times are you going to take the tree branch of ‘the sanctity of the home’ and char it and splinter it and put nails through it and wrap it in barbed wire and then hit me in the gut with it? Because it hurts every time and I never learn to dodge. Having someone who’s been your friend for years change so drastically, have such a negative impact on your own quality of life and then have them try to convert you to the thing that has been making you miserable and scared by proxy? Yeah, I’d have not even sat down at the table, I’d have run.

- ‘Kathy had wanted to run… but didn’t know quite how to do so. She said it would have felt… rude.’ Manners maketh man and all but Kathy, there’s no one here to judge other than the friend who has made the home you share unliveable for you. Dispense with the niceties and get out of there.

- Actually, I’m slightly worried for Kathy. She’s a people pleaser and appears to be avoiding conflict to the best of her abilities to the detriment of her own well being. The fact that she didn’t want to appear rude, that she ate what she couldn’t see or identify… I’m getting Jonestown vibes. Especially as Natalie just sits and watches and doesn’t move to eat herself.

- ‘She said that they were all going… She said that it wasn’t long until they were collected by Mr. Pitch. She said that Kathy could come too, if she liked. She could be saved.’ Welp… that doesn’t sound too shiny… Sounds a lot like The Heaven’s Gate Cult of 1997. And others. Yikes.

- ‘No, but you’re a natural for Them. You’re worshipping as we speak.’ Is this ‘Them’ the first indication we get of The Entities? Or just The Dark alone? Is Natalie more clued in than anyone at this point, were they going to attempt a Ritual, OK capital R this time. She said 300 years was a long time, was that when they’d last attempted? Or was that just how long Maxwell Rayner’s been around?

- Hearing the description of how the lights don’t seem to work as well as Mark got closer to the flat, it’s evident the the presence of an acolyte of The Dark is going to be doing that, and I know that this spooky eldritch horror, but there’s a morbidly curious part of me asking ‘how though?’ Is it like a black hole, gravity so strong it bends light and it can’t escape? Is it like a sponge effect sucking everything in? If she emitting her own aura of darkness smothering any occurring light?

- Description of Natalie’s room… Well, sorry Kathy love, but there goes the safety deposit.

- A key piece of evidence and an address left at the scene. Do you think Natalie left it on that chance that Kathy changed her mind and came looking? We’ve got the closed eye motif, connecting this to The People's Church of the Divine Host we first heard of in MAG009, when Julia Montauk’s mother disappeared.

- Good move to call Kathy, establish a contact and a time line. That fact that you didn’t tell her you were going to a secondary location… bad. Not good. Don’t do that.

- ‘…(the church) might be bad for her.’ in the voice of Taako, y’know, from TV Great job, Angela Lansbury!

- So Hither Green Dissenters Chapel. Part of the Hither Green Cemetery, which has two chapels; the Anglican Chapel, which appears to still be in use, and the Dissenters Chapel, which is abandoned. Founded in 1873 and was designated for non Anglican use, hence ‘Dissenters’. It’s south of Lewisham, but Mark never gives a location for Kathy and Natalie’s flat, but he mentions her getting a job in East Ham, which is clear across the river and an hour’s drive at least. Admittedly, I’m going from central East Ham and I’m looking at google maps at just before 6 in the evening. That’s going to be rush hour stuff.

- ‘The iron gates stood wide open, so I went in.’ I was wondering how Mark was going to get in. We’re about 50 years or so after the height of the resurrectionist fear with the Anatomy Act of 1832 meaning grave robbing wasn’t so great a concern, but the Victorians were still weird about death. The cemetery probably has impressive walls.

- From google maps and what photos I can find, it does look like a pleasant, open place. Street view’s not cooperating at the moment.

- ‘I shouldn’t have gone in. Of course I shouldn’t have gone in. I’m not that stupid. I’ve never been that stupid. But for some reason, standing there in that dark, empty cemetery, I made the decision to look inside.’ … The face I am pulling right now… It’s like the more restrained older sister to a facepalm.

- ‘…were some hooded cultist freaks waiting to jump me.’ Mark, my dear boy, may I introduce you to the subject of social camouflage. They are not going to be wearing robes with hoods, they are not going to be making animal sacrifices or whatever. Because this is the big leagues now. They aren’t going to jump out at you, you will never even see them.

- The chapel suddenly being so much bigger than it had any right to be is feeding into my little though of ‘are disciples of The Dark mini black holes that bend time and space around them weird?’

- The singing, after discussions of the The Slaughter and The Stranger using music as a tool in my notes on MAG024, seems I can add The Dark to the list.  

- ‘At one point I honestly thought I might have died and gone to hell.’ Interesting how he maintains his disinterest in faith but in this moment of fear and vulnerability, seems to reach out to the Christian doctrine of hell as a reference point.

- What were the ‘leathery’ fingers that reached for Mark? Was it something inside a cage?

- I’ll say it, it’s a bitch ass ritual if one fool with a smart phone can blow it off the tracks…

- ‘I think that’s everything. Can I go now?’ He sounds like a contrite little boy.

- March 11th 2015 they report Natalie missing. Oliver Banks, oh I’m so sorry, Antonio Blake makes his statement 2 days later. Was March 11th that night? Was March 11th the first night Oliver sees Gertrude in his dreams?

- So ‘Nee-allisand’ or ‘allisunt’ could be referring to the Norwegian town ‘Ny-Ålesund’, according to Tim. Side bar: imagine being on a pub quiz team with these people. They’d be terrifying. But it’s a company town own by Outer Bay, which rings a bell. I think it’s one of the corporations that is part of the Rayner/Fairchild/Lukas Daedalus mission.

- The screaming at the Ritual site on the night of Gertrude’s murder… What’s that about? Gertrude didn’t have a hand in the disruption of this Ritual, not unless it was merely interrupted and Gertrude used this information to go back and destroy it completely. I could maybe understand screaming at the sites of Rituals she’s foiled; The Silence, Sunken Sky, The Scoured Earth, The Last Feast,  The Great Twisting. And now I’m listing them, good grief this woman is terrifying. But why was there a scream at Hither Green Dissenters Chapel?

Out and out, The Dark is a cult. It’s a cult. For millennia, we’ve huddled in the darkness for safety and companionship. And I think this is an important stance to make, that support systems and community is important and vital, but we need to have our critical thinking skills about us. Cults will target those who feel lost, who are isolated, and who have fervour to burn. And we’re living in a time that is very conducive to cults, as much of the last century really. Social upheaval, pandemics, war, financial crash after financial crash, political institutions crumbling. Cults will thrive in a time of transition, loss, uncertainty and fear. And they’re pyramid schemes, we see Natalie trying to recruit Kathy and Kathy, being the social creature that we all are, goes along with it until she can not bear it any longer.