The Auta Man
Copyright © 2019 by John Stephenson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
John Stephenson/Hidden Cove Press
P.O. Box 1421
Kailua, Hawaii 96734
www.alohamystics.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover design by John Stephenson
Book layout by Palomar Print Design
www.palomarprint.com
Hidden Cove Press/ John Stephenson.—1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-578-59359-3
To the mystic in each and every one of you …
And to my wife, Sandra, a mystic and my muse.
Mystics gain information from a source other than the known senses. They perceive time as an illusion, they are aware of a fundamental unity to all things, and they perceive evil as an illusion that changes when one shifts one’s field of perception.
– BERTRAND RUSSELL
“Is there a reality that cannot be altered by perception?”
– SANDRA KNIGHT
Contents
PROLOGUE
PART I
CHAPTER 1
Stanford House, London
CHAPTER 2
Honolulu, Hawaii
CHAPTER 3
Stanford House
CHAPTER 4
Kensington, London
CHAPTER 5
Collingham Gardens, London
CHAPTER 6
Southwark, London
CHAPTER 7
Stanford House
CHAPTER 8
Kensington, London
CHAPTER 9
Chester, England
CHAPTER 10
Oahu, Hawaiian Islands
CHAPTER 11
Stanford House
PART II
CHAPTER 12
Honolulu, Hawaii
CHAPTER 13
Waikiki, Hawaii
CHAPTER 14
Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, Honolulu
CHAPTER 15
Waikiki
CHAPTER 16
Ala Wai Yacht Harbor
CHAPTER 17
Stanford House
CHAPTER 18
Chester, England
CHAPTER 19
Ala Wai Yacht Harbor
CHAPTER 20
Waikiki
CHAPTER 21
At Sea
CHAPTER 22
Papeete, Tahiti
CHAPTER 23
The South Pacific
CHAPTER 24
Rangiroa, Tuamotu Archipelago
CHAPTER 25
Manihi, Tuamotu Archipelago
CHAPTER 26
Takaroa, Tuamotu Archipelago
CHAPTER 27
South Pacific
CHAPTER 28
Chester, England
CHAPTER 29
Stanford House
CHAPTER 30
On the Road, England
CHAPTER 31
Stanford House
CHAPTER 32
Fatu Hiva, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 33
Tahuata, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 34
Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 35
Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 36
Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 37
Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 38
Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 39
Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands
CHAPTER 40
Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands
PART III
CHAPTER 41
Honolulu – Los Angeles – London
CHAPTER 42
Stanford House
CHAPTER 43
Collingham Gardens
CHAPTER 44
Stanford House
CHAPTER 45
London
CHAPTER 46
Royal Albert Hall, London
CHAPTER 47
Stanford House
CHAPTER 48
Royal Albert Hall
CHAPTER 49
Hanalei Bay, Kauai
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prologue
London, November 2004
He hadn’t slept for the past three nights. Something within him, something beyond his control, kept him from finding rest. It had nothing to do with his everyday problems. It wasn’t his wife or son or occupation that kept him awake; it was his soul. It was his awareness that there was something greater than mortal existence available to humanity, and that “something” wanted to use him as its outlet. Again.
He moved his comfortable wingchair to a spot close to the leaded windows and sat down. He studied the pale moon that sent its dim light through the fog and put a silvery glow to the tall sycamores in his private garden. He was privileged and blessed, and he was insecure and fearful. He was reluctant to let go of what the world thought of as reality. Would he be forever lost to those he loved if he succeeded? Should he even try to break the physical bonds of the material world and enter the spiritual dimension? He was terrified that this next step in his mystical journey would be another deadly ordeal.
For many years he had not told anyone about the first time he had experienced the immortal, not even his best friend, David. Gazing at the November moon brought the incident to mind. He was eighteen, surfing his first big waves in Hawaii. He felt the same way then as he felt now, frightened yet excited. His first ride fulfilled his dreams; his second ride nearly killed him.
He had been caught in the impact zone. The breaking wave had ripped his board from his hand and had driven him into the coral and sand bottom. He panicked, but after a moment the same knowledge that was pushing him now, his greater self, had taken away the fear and brought peace. Very soon he had no more breath. He had no more strength. His body automatically began to inhale, and that meant that his lungs would fill with water and he’d die. But his lungs miraculously filled with air. He was breathing underwater and then he heard the words, “You are not yet finished here.”
Jason St. John got up from the chair, shook himself as if he were still wet. He questioned the timing of the memory. Did it come to reassure him that he was safe, that he would be protected in this new exploration into the nature of reality? Or, was it a warning? His earlier initiations came through his desire for adventure. He no longer wanted that. More than ever he needed the peace that came in meditation.
He sat back down and looked at his hands resting on the arms of the chair. As he relaxed, he contemplated what Einstein called the fabric of time and space, the fourth dimension of reality. He could not yet put into perspective what he had seen and felt these past few weeks. He never did understand the significance of his trials until they were over. All he could do was push ahead and pray that he still had something to give.
He closed his pale green eyes to shut out the garden and the fog and the moon. He consciously stopped the river of thoughts and images concerning his daily life from entering his mind. He rested into the stillness that he had known since he was a boy. It was a silence that filled him with peace. In that state of being, the beliefs that defined him materially and dictated how he should live dissolved. In the womb of silence, which was how he thought of the darkness, he became “
one” with the invisible fabric of creation. He found himself integrated with every molecule of life, an experience in which he was at once himself and at the same time “one” with all that existed.
And then came new images, esoteric images of a world in which the colors barely held together, and solid objects burst into stardust the moment they were touched. Everything pulsed and vibrated to harmonic chords that were so beautiful they made him weep with joy. He knew deep down in his soul that he was glimpsing the unseen reality behind what the five physical senses describe as real.
In this dimension he felt a power that could only be called divine, though he refused to use religious terminology to define it. The power he felt was beyond his comprehension, yet it was the essence of who he was. It was not a cosmic force, but the substance of all that existed.
PART I
Chapter 1
Stanford House, London
Tuesday Morning, November 2004
Barbara Buchanan, an African American woman in her early fifties, pushed her way through the mob fronting Stanford House, the Tudor Revival buildings in South West London that housed the offices, television studios, and residences that made up the St. John Ministries. It was ten to nine and Barbara was going to be late for the quarterly board meeting if she couldn’t get through the crowd. She hated to be late.
She wondered what in hell had brought out this crowd. There had always been the curious in front of Stanford House waiting to catch a glimpse of their messiah, but this morning was different. Something was going on.
Tall and thin, her close-cropped hair salted with white, Barbara was stronger than she looked. She elbowed aside someone trying to stop her by grabbing the strap of her Louis Vuitton bag. That act nearly choked her. She pulled the purse to her chest and then felt the jacket of her new suit rip as another person tried to keep her from getting to work. Cursing under her breath, she fought her way up to the steps of the gated entrance only to be stopped by a policeman.
“I’m Barbara Buchanan. I work here.”
“I’ll need some identification, ma’am.” The policeman crossed his arms and looked at Barbara skeptically.
Barbara reached into her bag for her wallet only to find it gone.
“It seems I’ve been pickpocketed. I’m missing my wallet.”
The policeman nodded but didn’t move.
Gary Howell stepped from the entrance to the stoop to get a sense of the crowd. He was tense, expecting the worst. In his mid-thirties, Gary wore a tailored suit, and stood with a military bearing. He had a Bluetooth earpiece in one ear, a mobile phone to the other ear, and a walkie-talkie in his hand. His muscles bulged under his suit as he twisted around, taking in the full scope of the hordes hoping to glimpse Jason St. John. Half of the crowd yelled, “Heal us!” while further back, separated by police barricade, protesters shouted “Antichrist.”
“Barbara! What are you doing down there?” Gary rushed down to the gate.
“I lost my wallet and this person won’t let me in.”
Howell tapped the policeman on his shoulder. “Let her in. She’s one of our directors.”
“She hasn’t any identification.”
“I’ll vouch for her.”
“And who are you?”
“I’m the bloody head of security and I’ll have your boss on the phone in two seconds if you don’t let her in.”
The bobby stepped aside, and Gary opened the gate.
Tony Bass, the dapper, fiftyish CEO of St. John Ministries, leaned over the shoulder of a young technician anxiously scanning the array of monitors in his cubical in the St. John Ministries security bunker. The numerous screens showed the crowds on the street, the entries and exists of Stanford House, and the hallways, public rooms and garages of the compound.
“There!” Bass pounded his pencil on the monitor showing a car pulling into the garage. “What time was that?”
“About six, I think. One of the kitchen staff.”
“This is serious, you know,” Bass said. “You have no idea of the threats we have against Mr. St. John’s life. I wish you people would get it through your heads that if the world loses Jason St. John, they have lost one of the great prophets of all time.”
Bass watched for a moment longer until another monitor drew his attention to the breaking news of ITV reporter Theodore Spencer.
“Oh fuck. Not him again.”
Spencer, Britain’s answer to Geraldo Rivera, had such a relationship with the camera that those watching him felt that he was their best friend and that whatever news he was delivering was drop-what-you-are-doing important. He had a rich baritone voice that made everything he said sound credible, and piercing eyes that assured his audience that he would get to the truth wherever it hid. He had perfect English, more hair than he deserved, and he looked no older than forty. He had probably looked that way for years.
Tony Bass walked over to the monitor and turned up the volume. “Four twelve-year-old girls, here at Royal Marsdan Hospital, all in the last stages of childhood leukemia, left the hospital this morning apparently no longer sick, but full of energy and joy.”
A grainy video from the hospital’s security camera popped on the screen showing the girls scurrying across the lobby with their parents running after them.
Spencer’s voice went on under the video; “The children claim that the world renown healing guru, Jason St. John, cured them of their disease. In fact, one of the girls told her doctor that she saw Jason St. John in the hospital room…”
The monitor went back to Spencer, filling the screen with his face.
“Are you recording this?” Bass was glued to Spencer’s image.
“What?” The security tech followed Bass’s gaze to the television. “No sir, that’s just the telly.”
“Record everything. And call me immediately when you find video of Mr. St. John.”
The television captured a shot of the mobs in front of Stanford House and then cut back to Spencer with school photos of the girls under his talking head. “Last night these girls were on their deathbeds. We are waiting to hear from the attending physicians as to whether or not the children were indeed cured, and that will take some time. There are many questions here. There is no record of anyone coming into the cancer ward. And yet one of the girls positively identified Jason St. John at the foot of her bed. Did she really see him, or was she hallucinating?”
Bass returned to the young tech and his array of monitors. “Run back the CCTV from Mr. St. John’s apartment. I want to see what you’ve got from nine last night until six this morning.”
The technician queued up the video from the camera outside the St. John apartment, reversed it until the time code read twenty-one hundred. The picture that came up was the richly paneled hall with plush burgundy carpet from the top floor of the building, but no sign of life.
Bass waited, hoping Jason St. John would slip out the door and run down the hall. He tapped his pencil again on the monitor while he waited. “Are you fast-forwarding?”
“No, sir. It’s real time.”
“Then speed it up, you idiot. I don’t have all day.”
Spencer’s voice was still grating on Bass. “The St. John Ministries was established eight years ago to manage the worldwide rallies of Jason St. John. This latest appearance, if it’s true, a physical appearance of Jason St. John when there is no record of him coming or going from the hospital, is unprecedented. The St. John Ministries has yet to comment. Tony Bass, its CEO, has not returned our phone calls.”
Finally, Bass picked up his briefcase from the floor, gave the young tech a few taps on his head with his pencil before dropping it in his case, and took one last look at Spencer on the television. “I want to know the moment you have footage of Mr. St. John; you hear. The very moment!”
Bass turned and headed for the door.
“Mr. Bass,” Spencer continued in the background, “the Wall Street wunderkind was brought into the organization as the ministry’s first CEO. With h
is financial background, it’s apparent to this reporter that his primary purpose is to manage the vast sums of money that have made Mr. St. John a billionaire.”
“Friggin’ little pit bull,” Bass muttered under his breath as the door shut behind him.
He took the stairs two at a time up to the ground floor and entered the reception lobby. He loved this area. It held the short history of the St. John Ministries. There were citations and honors from hospitals and governments covering its walls. Recessed television monitors showed clips from The Healing Hour television program, and pictures of Jason with various heads of state, prominent religious leaders, and celebrities of all stripes—from entertainers to athletes to scientists and statesmen—filled the room. He pressed the call button for the elevator. Tony felt that he was responsible for much of Jason’s celebrity and success. He was the one who built the ministry into one of the great metaphysical organizations in the world.
He stepped into the waiting elevator—lift, he said to himself, and punched the button for the third floor.
Lillian St. John ambled into the parlor of her top floor apartment and moved her husband’s meditation chair back to its usual place next to the inlaid ivory side table. She had just awakened, and she stood in front of the tall leaded windows overlooking her garden to let the foggy light wash over her. Her youthful face denied her forty-three years—she was still a great beauty, and her auburn hair fell in loose curls to the middle of her back. Her English blue eyes showed the stress of living in a fishbowl prison. She shivered and sat in the wingchair next to her husband’s, wrapping herself in her Frette throw, kept there for mornings like this. The oaks and sycamores in the fog reminded her of a Turner painting. She closed her eyes and began to meditate. Just as she approached the stillness that would bring her into a state of bliss, the sound of her front door opening startled her.
“J.J.?” she called but heard no reply.
Her heart began to race. She jumped up, pulled her cashmere robe tight around her slender body, and ran into the foyer.
“What in bloody hell are you doing?” she yelled, blocking Tony Bass from entering her home. Her blue eyes turning to ice.
The Atua Man Page 1
