Where to begin? Five years of the Healing Herb and the smrti-bhramsat of this Iron Age make a witches' brew of memories. What else rests but to poke around in it with a little Hazel twig and pull out whatever recognizable bits and chunks of recollection stick to it? What appears to be the vapors dispersing into thin air must be the chronology.

What's this here? Ah, I'm standing with my back to the temple building, at the edge of the entrance road that curves into the property like a lost snake. Shaking off the notion that the name of every building in Korsnas is suffixed with "building," I feel drawn to a small, circular lake at the foot of the hill. It looks like a bomb crater filled with water. About half of it is surrounded by fairly steep banks that flow into rocky hills. The other half is straddled by the main road and a meadow full of wild flowers and hard-stinging bees.

The official name of this lake, which I am sure none of the inhabitants of Korsnas have ever heard to this day, is Brud TrΣsket, meaning "Bridal Swamp." If this sounds inviting to the satisfaction of your curiosity, then I am afraid I have to disappoint you. Other than a conjecture that it was perhaps a terminal for runaway brides in days of yore, when most of the surrounding area was swampy, I have nothing to offer.

However, locals in Korsnas had a different name for it, one much more resounding and quick to pique interest. My first question ever about the little lake was answered with a low-voiced response: "You mean... (pausing for creepy emphasis) the Hellish Lake?" The story unraveled as rapidly as newly purchased Silly String. Despite its ominous name and appearance, the locals had a hard-to-describe fascination and fondness for it -- almost as if it were a crazy, but harmless little hunchback nephew.

It had no bottom. Yes, let that sink in without any pun intended. Our little lake, right in our backyard, was a portal to the lower planetary systems. In late brahmacari ashram nights some dared to speculate that if you could hold your breath long enough and dive deep enough, you would reach Patala Loka. Oh, and you might need a yantra... and a good excuse for dropping in. Seriously, this pin prick of water in some God-forsaken corner of the Swedish hills was the Earthly access point for all kinds of nasty creatures, hobgoblins, ghosts, demoniac entities, and perhaps lawyers.

Maybe the reason d'existance for this doorway to the dark side lay in the notion that in olden days unmarried, pregnant young women from Stockholm would avoid their cultural stigma by coming to Korsnas to give birth and then drown their children in the TrΣsket. Never mind that a horse and buggy ride all the way from Stockholm must have been far more hellish. Of course, this campfire story holds as little water as the lake does.

Nonetheless, some locals would swim in the lake and get pulled under by unseen entities. Others actually saw entities in the lake. Another great addition came from a mentally unstable local who claimed that the voices in her head came from people from the lake. She allegedly ended up in Hⁿddinge, a well-known lunatic asylum that strangely pops up every now and then in Korsnas' history. At one point, nobody dared to swim in the TrΣsket anymore, except for one individual who everyone agreed on was anyway capable of scaring away any possible life form in the murky black waters.

Now, here's the good news. Once, an Orissan tantric, a master of intent -- let's therefore call him Cittesvara -- visited Korsnas to offer his mystic services in aiding locals possessed by the unembodied. It was through his brilliant, recondite perception that the truth about our little lake was revealed. On a daily basis, so he claimed, thousands upon thousands of beings from the lower planetary systems entered Botkyrke Commun (our mother municipality) to wreak ethereal havoc. The solution? A vaishnava-tantric ritual that would counter their powers and seal off the portal for 11 years. It was a special and came with a "devotee discount" because of the volume of other services already ordered.

And so our beloved little Hellish Lake lost its uniqueness in a sacrificial fire and vigorously screamed Orissan mantras. Its demotion from a Level 10 Wicked Portal to a tiny Boxamathingy of Pandora with a lengthy time lock on it left an air of melancholy. Thank God eleven years have past, so we can happily look forward again to increased activity in Gr÷dinge's subtle realms for our own entertainment, and feel good again by providing Hⁿddinge's asylum with job-security.

Now, all that was left of the TrΣsket's former glory was its general gloomy appearance, brought about by the depressed looking Weeping Willows and scroungy Berches at its waters' edge. In cold early mornings a faint haze in the shadow of the hill cliff completed the scene. Something must have been lingering; I have never seen anyone swim in it even after the tantric cast his spell. Perhaps because it was a confirmation in itself that something was seriously wrong with these waters?

The only phenomenon to persist from before the closing ritual was the legendary appearance and disappearance of tiny islands in the lake. True, much less of a claim to fame than Loch Ness can bolster, but intriguing nonetheless -- the more so because I have seen these with my own two eyes (to paraphrase Herodotus' assertion of genuineness). My first exposure to the legend took place in the form of a warning by a powerful pujari, let's thus call him Tejiyas. This Tejiyas had seen many an odd occurrence in and around the Gr÷dinge area, as well as on the very altar he served on. It was he who told me of his efforts to find out the truth of the Hellish Lake long before the arrival of the Orissan tantric.

All it took was a small boat, a good length of rope and a stone to undermine the notion that the lake was bottomless. Oh, deep it was indeed, over a hundred yards even, but unless the stone was playfully prevented from sinking deeper by a ghastly looking mermaid with three arms and an extra tail (in true fashion of the lake's reputation), it showed that this myth had hit rock bottom. To great relief of the want-to-believers, Tejiyas' discovery was later quickly dismissed by the tantric: the bottomlessness was as subtle as the realm it gave access to. I can't help but smilingly wonder if the authorities wished that his bill for the sacrifice had been equally subtle.

As we sat on a rock outcrop overlooking the now familiar lake, Tejiyas turned to me and answered my question as to the strangest thing he had ever seen around here: "Every now and then islands pop up in this lake. Usually only one or a few, but once I saw as many as six." My jaw made a clacking sound as it dropped onto the rocks. Tejiyas continued, "Sometimes they are motionless, sometimes they move. I have never seen them while they are appearing or disappearing." My interest was burning like the fire in an old oil drum at a crossing in the Bronx. His expression turned pensive. "I once swam out to one of these islands. It was solid. I sat on it. I felt under it and there was nothing -- no support. It had several small trees on it." I picked up my jaw and asked, "How long did you stay there?" He answered matter-of-factly, "Until it started moving."

It was a mere two weeks later that my daily chuckles at the sight of the lake dimmed to the sound of silence. The watery cold, so characteristic for the early winters here, crept through layers of cotton, synthetics, skin, fat, and muscle, to chill the very bones. Your pockets better be deep and fake-fur lined not to end up with icicled fingers. However uninviting the climate was, though, it couldn't match the urge for light that drove one to brave the cutting winds. Now, I hardly noticed that I had stopped breathing and blinking.

The two small islands floated somewhere near the middle. There was a certain grace to their motionlessness on the silent black water, reflective like the high gloss of a polished anthracite marble. They were like flying carpets woven of soil and bushes, gliding through the Arabian night; the trees their pilots, standing proudly. Ok... so this made no sense. From a great need to reassure myself I whisked away any mystical possibility with the deft conclusion that these must be parts of the lake bank, loosened by natural laws and forces, and now floating around until they would undoubtedly sink under their own weight.

The rationalization failed. Although leafless, these were pretty substantial trees, almost as high as the islands were long, and the wind should at least have moved them or blown them over. And why would they float at all? And why now? A flood of further questions and doubts clogged my mind into a stupor. Lunch time saw an excited individual, blabbering about islands in a usually empty lake, being met by friendly, comforting stares that shouted, "You're nuts..." No one else had seen them, and after lunch they were gone. I was left with the vision of a future where everyone I met would hold their right index finger and thumb to their forehead in the shape of an L.

My vindication took almost three years to ripen. It was worth every second of it. The crisp spring air did not offer any visual obstacles; the angle of the early afternoon sunshine created a perfect light box; my dear Czech companion, let's call him Honza, was cognitive and rational; the wind conspicuous by its absence; and our vantage point a wide angle view from the low road. Except for the addition of seven major news organizations and a cheer leader squad, it couldn't have been better.

It stared us right in the face as we rounded the bend from under the railway tunnel: solitaire, grand, and regal. Its leaf-laden tree stood higher than its estimated 9 feet length, and it moved in a slow, circular motion, as if parading in front of a selection of high ladies after a long and hard joust. Honza's rationalizations failed as miserably as mine. And this time our mysterious island stuck around long enough to be witnessed by a German bhakta, who concluded that "Or mindz ar kondiziond zu auzomatikaly razionaliz und akzept zat razionalization regardles of it making zenz or not. Ozer zan zat, I zink it iz blody vird." My initial thought at that was, "Give the man a cigar."

Instead, I ripped off my clothes, ran down the slope, and dove into the lake to once and for all settle the score on the truth of the islands. Uhm... ok, so I didn't. Honestly, my sense of adventure had faded enough over several years of bookworm-ness to quench the urge to take the plunge. Tejiyas had left Korsnas a while ago, and none of my bookworm friends stepped forward, either. C'mon people, we are BBT devotees. We stand behind everyone else during aratiks and dance half the speed, waving like fields of wheat in the wind. Indiana Jones would die of loneliness and depression here.

Thus, anticlimactically, the legend of the islands in the Hellish Lake endures; our hope now invested in future generations. I never saw the islands again, but was told of others who did -- one still lives in Korsnas, one is a friend of mine here on FaceBook, and another lives in Hungary. No photographs exist of the islands, despite the point-and-shoot digital camera era we live in. There are no references or explanations to be found in the deep archival vaults of Botkyrke Commun. They simply appear and disappear, unbound by time.

Have you seen them?

Lectures were a tough one in Korsnas. We just didn't have a large enough (gene) pool to draw from, and we certainly didn't have the kind of engaging talent that keeps audiences in the thousands flocking to concert halls with inspiring monologues like some Christian denominations do. "Say amen!" It was mostly feast or famine -- with the latter taking up the majority. Dry repetition, seldom spiced with some quote-a-sloke-crack-a-joke, would merely remind us of a chapter we already proofread umpteen times. During these long spells of drought, the only welcome distractions were the very people who succumbed to the sandman of monotony to begin with. In one instance, the lecturer himself.

The plethora of more or less original tricks to keep the attention of the audience varied in success rate, with sudden raising of the voice or clapping being the front runners. Startled and confused by the noise, an unsuspecting dozer could do a number of things before the "Oh, crap..." realization sank in; anything from loudly chanting japa to mumbling "Yes, of course, of course..." or "No questions..." The best ones were those who panicked, flailed their arms, grunted, or simply fell over. All in all the daily routine was rather uninspiring. Most of us eagerly awaited the speaker's last spasms.

So, please take out your violin and play along with me as I whine and complain about the ambushers. We all know some. They memorize some utterly uninteresting thing from the beginning of the lecture; then, at the end, after the "Are there any question or comments?" they wait just long enough for everyone to start heaving a sigh of relief... and then tag on another half an hour by blurting out: "Yes, I have a question. You mentioned something very interesting in the beginning of your lecture..." Strangely, such ambushers tend to have names that end in "goswami," "pandit", or "sastra."

Now, in all fairness, there were some exceptionally bright moments, too. Every now and then we had true artists with the gift of spiritual gab ascending the sacred vyasasana, dropping such dramatic gems as "We are bags of blood, stool, puss, urine, and sweet rice" and "For the right ears even the ocean is full of sound!" None withstanding the depth and validity of the latter statement, it couldn't escape the creative visualization of a squid band playing a gig at the Coral CafΘ. It was almost as good as my favorite creative lecture cherry: "Have you ever noticed that there is nothing in this universe, or there is something else that eats it?" Seriously profound, people.

At the other end of the narrow spectrum, the temple president usually read the verse and purport and then proceeded to lecture on Times Magazine and the Wallstreet Journal. Truly delectable for us lesser glowing irons, as it was our only sputtering glimpse of the outside world beyond claims of how ISKCON had already infiltrated several governments, Rockefeller resumed his gigantic form of a rakshasa when he died, and the Russians had found a winged, human-like species when drilling the deepest hole in the Earth ever.

Of course, the only real infiltration that I ever witnessed was that of gullibility, including my own. Long were the nights that I spent awake in anxiety after listening to the "Ananda Tapes." Uhm, for the newer generations: tapes were roles of magnetic film on which... anyway, whatever. Tape = Ancient iPod Thingy. Deal with it. There were three tapes, each 90 minutes long. They were handed to me as if I had just exchanged my life savings for a shampoo bottle full of crack. They contained, so I was told, a highly confidential interview with an anonymous journalist of some kind, only known by the super secret code name "Ananda." Oh, and it was Visnupada-approved, so I'd better listen to it.

Instantly feeling part of the undefined inner circle of Korsnas' Opus Dei, I carefully made my way back to my room. So as not to draw attention, I stopped for a moment in the meadow to enjoy the early morning sun. My career as human sun dial was cut short by a girl's voice: "What are you doing here?" Full of newly found importance I responded in Latin: "Horas non numero nisi serenas." She then responded in English, "Whatever," and left me considering that I would likely never have children of my own. In my room, I closed the shades, locked the door and initiated the magnetic-capture to sound wave transformation apparatus -- in those days more commonly known as a Walkman.

The interview started with an introduction explaining that the original recording was meant for broadcasting on the Danish Krishna radio station, which never happened due to the high sensitivity of the interview's content. If the information contained on the tapes would ever come out in public, it would cause a serious meltdown of the world's social structure. Needless to say, the lives of anyone with knowledge on the matter was potentially in danger. It never failed to completely baffle me that ISKCON authorities were somehow or other always abreast of the latest, newest and most top secret government information worldwide. I was then introduced to Mr. X, or Ananda, as he called himself.

Ananda answered the increasingly interrogation-style sounding questions of the Danish interviewer with complete composure and confidence. Here was a man who either truly believed the incredulous material he laid out on the acoustic table, or was accustomed to straight faced lying. Mind you, nowadays his rare Earth metals of deep and dark secrets can be accessed in a heartbeat with some Googly-woogling around in the digital realm of scarcely believable conspiracy theories, but back in the early 90s this was phenomenal, to say the least. I mean, these were the heydays of the Toshiba T-1000, which, although looking like a laptop, had less computing power than a $2 calculator from Walmart. Internet? Sure, but only as an experiment in nuclear-holocaust-surviving networking at the offices of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Google was still spelled "googol" and meant no more than a 1 followed by one hundred zeros (ten duotrigintillion, for you nitpickers out there).

A 10-line, monochrome LCD without back-light. Running DOS from a floppy. I'm not even going to mention anything about its speed...

I proceeded with caution, turning off my obsolete brand Aiwa recorder whenever I even sensed the thought of hearing someone in the hallway. The onset of the interview dealt with Bliss Boy's amazing, unverifiable credentials -- credentials that could easily pass USA airport security as a cross-breed of Sammy Davis Junior and the clown from Stephen King's "It." Next followed a lot of techno mumbo-jumbo about the secret socio-political setup of the US government. Well, well, well... It had descended from the Rothschild family? Added to the mix was a bit of Illuminati, MJ-12, World War II "Foo Fighters," and a speck of secret underground facilities. Voila, the perfect scene for the core of his message:

The US government had made a deal with aliens ever since a crashed space ship was recovered at Roswell in 1947. The aliens were allowed to harvest tissue from random people and cattle in the most un-stealthy and unscientific of ways, and the US would get all this nifty technology that only aliens could dream up.

Only the sound of a Theremin would have done it true justice.

The sun had set. A sudden knock on the door almost made my heart stop. I envisioned a parcel of dwarfy, grey aliens with forceps, scalpels and a Mini-Vac© to enter and do some serious harvesting. Even the prospect of a best-case scenario -- a mere anal probe -- didn't hold much appeal.

Thank God, no dwarfy aliens. It was close, though: the skinny, pale devotee from Holland. He gave me his usual blank stare and urged me to go to sleep like it was part of a hypnotherapy session. Look into my eyes... Tomorrow is a full day of editorial work. I faked a smile and lied for the first time since joining the society. It wouldn't be too much of a hassle to operate the play and pause buttons in the dark. It did, however, make the whole mood even creepier than in the saving grace of incandescence. I couldn't handle much more than another 20 minutes of details on do-it-yourself cattle mutilation and human-animal cross breeding gone wild. The rest of the night I lay awake in my 10 by 6 foot room with awfully thin walls, listening to the wind whistling outside the even more awfully thin, shadeless window. Were these branches moving in the wind? Was that a green glow?? What the Hell was that sound??? Should I arm myself with anything less than a flame thrower????

It didn't matter. They could anyway make my paralyzed anterior float straight through the glass without much effort ...

The next couple of days, and looooong nights, I tried my best to rationalize the fear and rise above it -- to no avail. Despite its utter lack of any connection to vaishnava philosophy or practice, if this was "Visnupada approved" then there was no way back. Must obey... Must obey... I had to listen to the rest.

In retrospect I am glad I did. After some further juicy details on underground probes and practices of the third kind, Bliss Boy was asked to explain how he had come to possess such amazing information. After all, he was only in his mid twenties and jobless. Towards the end of the second tape the credibility came tumbling down the upward escalator in an ongoing stream. Our Sherlock Holmes of conspiracies revealed to the hapless interviewer that from early childhood on he had had the special ability of astral travel. Really? Astral travel? You can lay down and leave your body at will? Wow. And then, instead of doing something useful like checking out the rings around Saturn or even spying on your ex girlfriend, you visit imaginary alien test facilities on another continent that magically fit the descriptions you pulled off some random BBS at 2400 Baud??

(2400 Baud is about the speed of your broadband during a power outage)

So I made it half way the last tape before realizing the true reason the Danish ISKCON radio station refused to broadcast the interview. Come on, even Art Bell would have been rolling on the floor laughing his career into oblivion. Abandon all fear, ye who realize this! I tried to return the tapes, but was told "Nah, you can keep 'm or pass 'm on." I wonder why...

The smoke rising from the steel drum was black, with an acrid smell, and I felt a trifle guilty as the voice of Ananda turned to plasma and ascended to meet a spotless, blue sky.