“And from what I’ve heard, bad trips can recur without taking more of the stuff,” Jesse said, striving to keep part of his attention on the display.
“Yes—which goes to show that the mind itself is what produces states of consciousness; drugs merely open the door. So if you can control your mind, you can get in and out of various states by volition alone. Shamans have been doing it for millennia, but for us it’s easier because of the feedback.”
“I don’t see how just making patterns with my brain can do that,” Jesse declared.
“The visual patterns are only symbols, remember—just as the metaphors used in traditional spiritual practices are symbols. We associate them with the way our brains are operating. The actual instruction comes from the teacher’s unconscious mind to the student’s.”
The two feedback patterns before him now matched, Jesse saw. He felt strange, as if he were hearing Kira’s voice from far away, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. He was very calm, breathing slowly and deeply, and the nameless terror he’d felt had abruptly vanished. “How soon will I get into a new state of consciousness?” he asked.
“You’re in such a state right now,” Kira told him. “I’ll prove it to you—but keep watching your pattern, don’t let it diverge from mine.” She called out, “Michelle, put the heart monitor on-screen, please.”
He had wondered why they continued to use the heart monitor when he wasn’t being stressed by pain. Now, below the matched mind-patterns, its characteristic graph appeared. The rhythm of the beats was regular, the way he’d seen them in countless vid dramas. He tried not to think of the dramas in which heart rates flatlined.
“We don’t use this particular technique with anyone who has heart problems,” Kira said. “Peter has access to the Hospital’s files. We know you’re okay, since you’ve just had a very thorough physical exam.”
Well, Jesse thought, at least something useful had come of it. And then he thought, did Peter subject me to that exam because he planned to recruit me? But how could he have known he wanted to before I’d spoken more than a few words to Carla?
“Your attention’s wandering,” Kira said. “Focus on your brain feedback; keep it steady.”
Jesse complied. “Now,” Kira went on, “speed your heart up. Imagine that you’re running, racing perhaps, and your pulse rate’s going up—”
Unbelievably, it worked. He could see the spikes of the rhythm contract.
“Now slow down,” said Kira. “Stop running, rest. Relax and let your heart beat slowly, more slowly . . . but not too slow. Don’t slow it any more.”
“This is unreal,” Jesse murmured. “People can’t control their hearts just by thinking about it.”
“Yes, they can. Yogis have controlled their hearts, and more, for centuries. But it took them time and effort to learn. You do it instantly right now because, through matching mind-patterns, you’re already in the appropriate state of consciousness.”
“But surely I can’t keep on doing it. Not without watching the feedback.”
“Eventually you can, after you’ve had more practice.” Kira frowned. “Normally we don’t introduce heart rate control this soon in the training. Peter was very specific; he said you were to learn it immediately, that we were to focus on it before anything else and get it out of the way. He didn’t tell me why. When I protested that it might be too stressful for a beginner, he assured me that you’re up to it. But I think one reason he chose me as your instructor was my knowledge of cardiology—just in case anything were to go wrong.”
Is this a game? Jesse thought, seeing his heart rate accelerate again as a chill spread through him. Is she trying to shake me up, or is she really worried?
“I’m sorry,” Kira said quickly. “It’s not a game; I spoke thoughtlessly. Still, sooner or later you have to face the fact that it’s scary to have control over your own heart. Peter’s decisions are usually wise and never unwarranted. If he chooses not to tell me what’s back of this one, I’m sure he has due cause.”
Deliberately, Jesse gave his attention to the visual patterns, reminding himself that it was okay to fear his control might slip, that instead of fighting that he must let it happen . . . and on the monitor, he watched his heart slow and then stabilize.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” Kira said reassuringly. “In time, you’ll learn to control more kinds of stress responses, and you’ll learn to get into states of consciousness without external assistance.”
“And this will protect my health?” It seemed too simple to be true.
“Ultimately, yes, after it becomes unconscious. Of course it won’t work if you just do it once in awhile. You have to train yourself to react this way, instead of the instinctive way, automatically—when you’re actually under stress. Not just major stress, but ordinary ongoing worries and frustrations. That’s the hard part.”
It would be, Jesse realized. But it was why they all seemed so carefree, despite all the real worries they faced. He was not sure he could ever reach that stage. On second thought, it was not at all simple. He didn’t see how to even begin.
Wanting to change the subject, he said slowly, “If psychoactive drugs produce altered states, then the ones they use in the Hospital . . . on people who commit serious crimes, I mean . . . wouldn’t our training enable us to overcome the effects?”
Kira shook her head. Soberly she told him, “It might, to start with, but that’s one experiment the Group’s not going to try, any more than we’re going to kill ourselves to find out if there’s an afterlife. Those drugs cause physical damage to the brain, just as electroshock and psychosurgery do. They’ve never been given to one of us, so we don’t really know how long a trained mind would retain control—volition depends on the brain, after all, even though it’s not physical in itself.”
“Not physical?” Puzzled, Jesse questioned, “What is it, then?”
“You may as well ask what telepathy is,” Kira told him, “and we don’t have an answer; we only know what we can do with it. Though in some traditions, healing and other forms of psi have been attributed to energy vibrations of some sort, that’s simply one of the metaphors—one we don’t use, because we don’t encourage the notion that anything physical is involved.” She got out of her chair and detached the sensors from his body. “Enough training for today. Now go out and run, or something, to clear your head.”
~ 25 ~
Jesse indeed felt a need to exercise after the training sessions. Running on the beach at low tide, as well as the swimming he’d begun to enjoy, was a welcome diversion from the things going on in his mind. He had also, belatedly, realized that the work of maintaining the Lodge was shared on an informal basis. No one had asked him to pitch in, but floors didn’t sweep themselves, nor did fuel appear magically for the fireplace. So now, after a short run, he set to work replenishing the woodpile, finding it pleasantly exhausting to swing the axe.
That night he woke in the dark with a backache nearly killing him. Oh hell, Jesse thought, is this going to start again? He’d had it on shipboard a few times for no apparent reason. Fleet medics had examined him and found nothing wrong. It came on suddenly and then, over several days, gradually diminished. This time, he supposed, he’d thrown his back out chopping wood, though it was odd he hadn’t felt it happen. The pain was worse than usual. He did not get back to sleep.
In the morning he dragged himself to breakfast, unable to stand erect but determined not to let the agony show. People looked at him, then carefully looked away. “What’s wrong, Jesse?” Kira asked, showing less sympathy than he expected.
He told her, feeling somewhat sheepish. Everyone in the Group was healthy, after all—nobody ever displayed the slightest sign of disability. And knowing what he now knew, he could not even say it was because they were all so young!
“Rest today,” Kira told him. “We don’t have to go to the lab.”
All morning he lay on the beach in the sun, wondering why his joy in the place had
evaporated. It wasn’t that he wanted to be elsewhere. He didn’t even feel restless, as he had the three days before. But his uneasiness had grown. His back continued to ache fiercely. He didn’t bother to move when the others went up for lunch. Then clouds formed, the first he’d seen on the Island, and before long a drenching rain forced him indoors.
By evening, he could scarcely walk. He settled on the cushions near the fireplace and Dorcas brought him a plate. She didn’t seem very concerned about him, nor did the others. It was unlike them, Jesse thought—there was usually so much empathy within the Group. Now they were withdrawn, seeming, almost, to be deliberately avoiding eye contact, though their conversation was friendly enough. Had his dark mood put them off, or did they simply scorn human frailty? His back hurt more than ever, but he’d be damned if he was going to mention it to anyone.
Finally, after several hours, Michelle spoke up. “For God’s sake, Kira,” she said. “Put Jesse out of his misery! If he hasn’t caught on by now, he never will.”
Everybody brightened, their warmth suddenly restored. He’d indeed never catch on, Jesse thought—not to the thinking of these people; the surprises in their reactions were unending. “What have I done wrong?” he asked humbly.
“It’s what you haven’t done,” Greg told him. “Jesse, think! You have been going around all day in so much pain that we’re worn out from sensing it. And we’ve been wondering why. We’ve been waiting to see how long it would take you to put two and two together.”
“I don’t see—” he began, and then it hit him. A backache was no different from induced pain. He had been resisting, hoping it would go away, despite the vivid lesson he been given in how to alter perception. Let go! he told himself. Let it hurt! It doesn’t matter. . . .
The ache lessened, became bearable. After a while he found he could enjoy the music. When the evening was almost over Kira moved to his side. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Better, thanks. Much better. I think I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Better? Jesse, it’s not supposed to be merely ‘better.’ You are not supposed to suffer from pain at all, ever again. Did you think what Peter taught you was just for the lab, with no practical use?”
“You mean what I did during the breakthrough, when I literally didn’t mind it? Over a long period like all day?”
“Of course. Your brain can work the same whether you see feedback or not, after all.” She smiled. “We know perfectly well that you aren’t yet experienced enough to do it on your own. But you need to start trying to. That’s why we didn’t ease it for you as we would have for an outsider. Come downstairs now, and I’ll help you.”
In the lab, Kira went on dual with him again, sharing his natural pain—which she claimed to literally feel, telepathically—to form the feedback pattern. He found he could match with it quickly. He didn’t get high, but the pain no longer bothered him. It was just there, in the way mild heat or cold might be there.
“The relief won’t last,” Kira warned. “You’ll have to keep reminding yourself, visualizing the pattern, over and over. In time, you’ll learn to do it without thinking. After that you’ll have to rely on common sense to tell you when an injury needs treatment.”
“Kira—why was I so blind? How could I go through a night and a day suffering pointlessly, after I’d once learned?”
“There are good reasons,” she said. “Since the question’s come up, I’ll tell you, though you may not be ready to hear.”
They went back upstairs and out across the porch of the Lodge onto the damp beach. The heavy clouds had blown past, but mist dimmed the stars.
Kira said, “Usually we don’t have this conversation until a person’s been with us longer. But Peter said to push you. Frankly, I don’t know what’s going on with Peter. He says he’s moving fast with you because he wants to learn the reactions of an offworlder. That’s nonsense. Human reactions are the same except where cultures differ radically, yet the culture of Fleet is much like Undine’s, and you haven’t been exposed to the telepathic undercurrents on Earth for twenty years. So it’s not a valid experiment. Even if it were, Peter would never exploit a trainee! It would be contrary to his basic ethic.”
“I don’t think I’m being exploited,” Jesse said. “I agreed to accelerated training. I want to get on with it.”
“Perhaps,” Kira said. “But he closes his mind to me in a way that’s not like him. He’s seemed troubled for some time now, since the week before you arrived. Maybe it’s just that he’s preoccupied with grief for Ian, and with worry about what’s to come when Ian is gone.”
“I guess it will be hard on the Group to lose the leader,” Jesse said.
“Hard for all of us, and not only because we love him. But especially for Peter, who will have to take his place.”
Jesse had not realized this. But of course, it was obvious. There could be no doubt about Peter’s qualifications to lead. “What exactly does the head of the Council do?” he asked. “Aside from presiding at ceremonies like the ritual Michelle mentioned?”
“Presiding at the Ritual is a bigger responsibility than you know,” Kira said, “but that’s not the problem. No new leader can be what Ian has been to us. Peter cannot fill his shoes. There will never be another like Ian; he is psychically gifted beyond any but the greatest spiritual leaders who ever lived on Earth. If he were not, there would be no Group, no hope of achieving our goal on even a small scale.”
“And the goal depends on these—gifts? Not just the system he developed?” Jesse had been told that the neurofeedback lab had been established by Ian and that it employed technology so far unknown in the world outside.
“The training we give our people depends on telepathic aid to a much greater extent than you’ve seen so far,” Kira explained. “And that’s okay. We’re here to provide it. But in the beginning there was no one but Ian. He developed the mind skills we rely on, personally on his own, and was able to pass them on only through paranormal talent that far exceeds what any of the rest of us can hope to attain. He is literally ahead of his time, perhaps by centuries.”
Jesse tensed, shifting his weight and feeling his back start to ache again. The constant references to telepathy continued to make him uneasy.
Kira sighed. “Anyway, you asked why it didn’t occur to you that you could get rid of your pain. To begin with, it’s a matter of habit. When you feel pain, all your past experience tells you it’s unpleasant. You don’t question that. Your brain keeps on functioning the same way it has since you were born. But there are deeper reasons why you let yourself suffer, why you have a backache in the first place. It’s not from chopping wood. Jesse, unconsciously you want to suffer—not for some perverted, unhealthy reason, but because that is a normal response to certain kinds of stress. It takes your mind off things you’d rather not be aware of.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Kira—”
“Of course you don’t. By definition, unconscious choices of this kind are not accessible to your thinking mind. But they are part of being human. Everyone is subject to them sometimes, at some point in life. You have been placed under extreme stress—and the stress is going to get worse, which you know underneath but would just as soon not contemplate.”
Jesse was silent. This was, of course, true.
“As we were saying two days ago, most illness is caused by stress,” Kira went on. “Not stress like what you went through during testing. You’re okay with that. Humans are genetically equipped to deal with crises. But ongoing stress, stress that comes from what’s going on in your mind, is another matter. Instinctively, you respond biochemically when you’re stressed, and that affects your heart, your nervous system, your immune system—even your muscles—in ways that would enable you to act fast if you were in danger. It’s often said that these responses damage the body because they last longer than nature intended, but there’s more to it. The results of prolonging them are psychologically useful.”
“That doe
sn’t make sense! Are you saying people get sick on purpose?”
“Yes, though the purpose is unconscious, of course. When this was first understood, it was viewed by some as if it were a fault that victims of sickness should be blamed for, and because that was so wrongheaded, most refused to believe any purpose exists. But it’s a constructive one buried deep in our biological inheritance. A tired, stressed-out caveman didn’t fare too well fighting predators; if he got sick, not sick enough to kill him but enough to keep him home from the hunt, his genes were more likely to be passed on. That genetic programming still affects us, though today’s stresses are different and they no longer have any impact on evolution.”
Peter, too, had said something about evolution, Jesse recalled. He’d said it was time for humankind to grow up. . . .
“We’re learning to overcome our programming. But—here’s the hard part—unavoidably, the very process through which we teach you to handle stress creates more stress. In the first place many of the skills you need can’t be learned except in crisis situations. And in the second place, those skills in themselves add another very severe stressor on top of what’s required to awaken them—which you’re now beginning to feel, and which your unconscious mind will resist.”
“Catch-22, you mean.”
“Not quite that bad. You’ll get through this stage. But for now, you’re lucky you don’t have something worse than a backache.”
That was hardly a comforting thought. Developing skills to protect his health seemed like a great idea, and yet somehow . . . he was not sure, Jesse realized, that he really wanted to become Superman.
Stewards of the Flame Page 19
