by Bob Frank
Chapter 4
“Walk down the hall to the door to a life about three thousand years ago. Go to a life where you made a significant contribution to human society. In this life, you lived to a very old age: over one hundred years old. Walk to that door now.”
Clay shot a micro-pulse to the pads on Iqbal’s feet. They saw Iqbal’s calves contract slightly.
“I am there.”
“Open the door and walk into the room of that life. Go, now.”
Clay pressed the button to send a micro-pulse to the pads on Iqbal’s shoulders. There was another slight contraction of the neck and shoulders.
“Are you inside now?”
“Yes, I am inside.”
“Look around. Tell me if you are indoors or outside. What do you see? Are there buildings, houses, animals?”
“I am inside a building — a big, beautiful building, large, open. Yes, it is a glorious building, beautiful and so — so rich.”
“What are you doing there?”
“I am admiring this place. No, more than admiring; I am proud of the building. Oh my, Allah, Allah, I built this building. I am responsible for such a beautiful place.”
“Where is this building? What city?”
“Jerusalem — no. Yes, Jerusalem.”
”Look down at your clothes, your hands and feet. How are you dressed? What do you look like?”
Clay gave him a quick shot of micro-pulse to the Third Eye. Iqbal’s head reared backward slightly. His expression quickly changed to show he was pleased with whatever he saw. Clay hoped he might have located the soul of Moses, but he wasn’t sure what that expression meant.
“I am dressed in regal clothes. My hands look old.”
“What year is it and how old are you?”
There was a slight pause. “It is 950 — 950, 951 BC. I am forty — no, forty-nine years old.” The corner of Iqbal’s mouth curled up in a smile of pleasure.
Shali glanced over to Clay in disappointment. “Clay, this life is a couple hundred years after Moses.”
“Sounds like it. Even so, it sounds like we’ve got an interesting life. Let’s dig in.”
Shali continued the regression. “Tell me, how do you feel? What do you see?”
“I am very happy, very comforted. My wives — I have so many wives — a hundred, maybe hundreds. I cannot possibly take my pleasure with all of them. It is a waste to have so many wives. However, I like to have new wives. They are all so beautiful — so much satisfaction. I can have my way with any of them, whenever I want, and however I want. Oh, so pleasant.”
“What else do you see? Look around the building and describe more.”
Iqbal hesitated and then inhaled a slow, deep breath through his nose.
“The smell of incense is heavy in the air.” Iqbal inhaled again as if savoring the sensation. “A large box is in a center area. It is blocked off. There is an open area so no one can get to the box.” Again, Iqbal deeply breathed in, filling his lungs with the perceived pungent odor of incense.
“What is in the box?”
“Large stones. It has large flat stones — important stones. I cannot see inside the box, but I know the stones are there. No one is allowed to touch the box. That is what I told them all.” Iqbal laughed out loud. “I told them they would die if they touch the box.” He laughed again.
“Is it true? Will a person die if they touch the box?”
“No, absolutely not. I just don’t want anybody to steal it.”
“Is there anything else is in the box?”
“Nothing else. I already took it out — the stick. I took the stick out. It is as important as the stones, but I took it out anyway.”
“What kind of a stick? Why did you take it out of the box and what did you do with it?”
“It’s a walking stick. I feel that it is mine. I took it to my home, to my palace.” Iqbal pushed his head back into the chair, smiled and said, “Whoa, I have a palace.”
“What is your name? What do people call you?”
“Sulayman or Sulaimaan. Something like that.”
Shali stopped for a moment and translated for Clay. His face flashed first puzzlement, then shock, and then amazement. “Solomon,” he popped back in a fast excited tone. “King Solomon. It’s Solomon’s Temple, on the Temple Mount. The box is the Ark of the Covenant, and the stones must be Moses’ tablets with the Ten Commandments. We didn’t get Moses but we got his tablets. The stick has to be Aaron’s staff. You know the one Charlton Heston used in the movie to turn the water to blood and part the Red Sea?” Clay chuckled and leaned back in his chair, gloating with a look of “how do you beat this?” He rolled his finger in a circle, telling her to keep going.
Shali turned back to Iqbal. “Continue walking through the building and tell me what you see.”
Iqbal inhaled again, savoring the incense. Clay pressed the button for a micro-pulse to Iqbal’s feet. Iqbal’s legs contracted slightly. He hesitated and then responded, “The ceiling is very high. There are many rooms around the temple.” His expression suddenly turned to a solemn, almost scornful look. He took a large, deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“What do you see? How do you feel?”
“This room, the room on the end, is for sacrifices. Oh, my God. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. They sacrifice people here. My wives. I sacrifice my wives, but usually just the ones from foreign lands. I had them sacrificed for God. I thought it would please God and bring us health and wealth. But I never sacrificed a wife if she believed in my God or if she was from my land. Unless, of course, I no longer liked them. Then I would have them sacrificed, too. All this was in the name of God, in this room and in the name of God. I said it was an offering to God for mercy and goodness, but it was really to clean out my flock of women so I could get new ones.”
Iqbal hesitated as his face turned even more scornful. “And this is goodness? I did not have them sacrificed; I had them killed. When I grew tired of one or when she made me angry or displeased me, I would have her killed. No one questioned me or stopped me. I was the king, and this was my sacrifice to God.”
Iqbal’s breath had become short and rapid. Clay looked at the monitors. Iqbal’s heart rate and blood pressure increased rapidly. “You’ve gotta relieve him,” Clay said to Shali. “He’s stressing out.”
“Anything that you see or feel happened a long time ago,” Shali commanded. “Your current life is not responsible for anything you see in this past life. View everything you see as if you are watching a movie at the theater. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Step back from the life and watch this life from above.”
Clayed watched the monitors until the heart and stress readings dropped back to normal. He looked at Shali and nodded that her instructions had worked.
Shali continued. “Move forward in this life to a time that is very significant to you. Go now.”
She looked at Clay and touched a finger to her forehead. Clay pressed the micro-pulse button to stimulate the Third Eye.
“Move forward in this life and tell me what you see now.”
“I am in my palace,” Iqbal responded immediately. “The big one. She has come to see me, the queen from across the sea, the sea to the west from the land called Sheba. She brought me gifts, but I do not know why. I have so much gold, so much wealth. I like her. She entertains me. She tells me jokes and riddles. She is a challenge to my mind, much more than any of my wives or concubines.”
Iqbal slowed and paused for nearly ten seconds. His expression showed sensations of satisfaction and enjoyment.
Shali smiled at his expression and asked, “What do you see, now?”
Iqbal breathed deeply and replied, “She stays with me a fortnight. I wish she would stay longer, but she must return to her land and her people. We have come to know each other, and she is passionate. Yes, oh, a passionate woman. I send everyone away so we can be alone, every day. But, she finally left me. I will never see her again in this life
, although the desire is strong in my heart. I was told she carried my son. I wonder — perhaps he will be a good king, better than his father.”
Clay whispered to Shali, “The Queen of Sheba came across the Red Sea to visit King Solomon. Now at least we’ve confirmed that they had a significant love affair. Speculation was that she had his son after she went back to Africa. At least Solomon, here, seems to think the rumor was true.” Clay chuckled. “I wonder if he sent her child support.”
Shali ignored his wisecrack and continued the regression for another twenty minutes, uncovering further details about the ancient king’s life, and then she began the scripts for probing the end of Solomon’s life.
“Move to the end of this life, the last few hours. Describe what you are doing, what you see, and what you feel.”
“I was sitting in a chair, like a throne. I was watching my servants or my subjects or slaves. They were building something on the edge of the city, like a pavilion. I was tired, so I leaned back in my chair and I died. This was too fast. I did not expect to die. I felt no pain. I did not think I would die like this. I had more to do. But this life is over.”
“How do you feel about this life? Was it a good life? Did you feel good about yourself?”
“I feel that I was a good person in my heart, but I did bad things. I took money from everybody just so I could have tremendous wealth. I used it mostly for my own purposes, like to build lavish buildings, when I could have used it to help others in need. And I had all of those women killed, and for what? Sacrifice? Humph. God wants no sacrifices.”
“What did you learn from this life?”
“I made many wise decisions as a judge, as a ruler. I was fair to people.”
They sat quietly to allow Iqbal’s soul to linger in the memories of this life. Shali then turned to Clay, translated and asked, “What’s the deal with King Solomon?
“He was obviously very disturbed by having used religious sacrifice as the reason to kill a bunch of his wives. When he reincarnated as Hillel hundreds of years later, his soul made a correction. Hillel had to fix what he did wrong as Solomon, so he worked hard to ban human sacrifices, at least among the Jewish sect of that time. By making a correction from a previous life, Iqbal’s soul was allowed to move on to new challenges. Otherwise, he would be tested again and again. Most Abrahamic religions say Solomon had as many as a thousand wives. Here he said he had several hundred wives. I wonder how many he killed — the other eight hundred?”
After a short pause, Shali added, “And so many religious zealots think King Solomon was a good guy? Nah, what a jerk. And he knew it himself, at least after he was dead.”
“It’s interesting when you find out that even after thousands of years of social maturity, humans aren’t much different. You’d think you couldn’t really get away with treating women like that in these times, but there was Uday and Kusay Hussein in Baghdad just a few years back.”
“Alright, Sherlock, what’s next?”
“Solomon lived before the secrets were amassed,” Clay answered, “so he wouldn’t know of the secrets or who might have wanted them destroyed, so let’s skip those scripts. Let’s take him back one more time and hunt for Moses, and then we’ll bring him out and break for lunch. He’ll be ready for a little real life after the past several hours. This afternoon, we’ll move to the LBL. If he is not Apollonius, then we’ll see if he knows where we can find that soul. This, of course, assumes Apollonius’ soul is even living on the planet right now.”
Shali turned forward in the script book, glanced at Clay with a devilish grin and said in a lisping Elmer Fudd voice, “Be berwy berwy quiet. We’ur hunting Moses.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
“You are back in the hall of doors,” Shali told Iqbal. “Walk to the door for a life that was two hundred years earlier than the life that you just visited as Sulayman — about the year 1200 to 1300 BC. In this life, you may have been very famous and very popular among certain people. It may have been a very long life, perhaps one hundred or one hundred twenty years. Go to that door now.”
Iqbal’s response was almost immediate. “I am outside. We are playing by the river. A girl is with me. She is my older sister. I am twelve years old. Our clothes are very heavy and coarse in texture. They are scratchy, made of wool, but they are warm. The pungent smell of the river is everywhere in the air.”
“Where are you located?”
“We are in Goshen, or Gesan — or Kessan, in the far eastern part of Egypt. It is near Avaris, sometimes called Hatwaret. There are different names for the same places. Our tribe is called Levi. It is large, and we are many. We are strong but oppressed.”
Iqbal hesitated, obviously absorbing the sights and sounds of this memory.
Shali gave him a few moments to sense the current scene before continuing. “What year is it and how old are you?”
Clay shot a pulse to the Third Eye. Iqbal’s head pushed back into the pillow.
“1360 — 1380 or ‘84 – no, 1385 BC. I’m a young boy, about twelve years old.”
“What are you doing?”
“We’re playing in the river, in the Nile. The water is cool and pleasing; we are having fun. Our mother is nearby, sitting on the shore and watching us. We are having a picnic. It is a celebration that we have every year at the river. There is lots of food, and we are having fun today.”
“What is the celebration? Why are you doing this?”
“This is the day that our younger brother went away. He was sent away on the river several years ago.”
“Why did he go away? Did he die?”
“No. My mother sent him away so he would not die. The Pharaoh was killing the children, so my mother sent him away to save him. Many mothers did this. However, today we celebrate that he is alive and well.”
“What is your name?”
“Harun or Horen — something like that.”
Shali smiled a smug look and leaned over to whisper to Clay. “We missed Moses. But, I think we got his brother Aaron. Is that close enough?” Clay broke out in a huge smile. “Yeah, the next best thing. And remember Solomon’s stick in the box? That was Aaron’s stick. I guess he missed it, so he took it back as Solomon.” He laughed out loud. “Keep going and see if you can validate whether or not this is Aaron.”
Shali continued through the standard regression scripts. She drew out the life experiences from this soul that lived the life of Aaron over 3,000 years earlier. She took the soul through Aaron’s teenage and young adult life with no particularly special events, although it seemed to be fairly accurate with documented history. She pressed Iqbal, “Move to a later time in this life — a time where you experienced a significant event for yourself or someone else in your life.” She paused. “Are you there yet?”
“Yes, I am older. I am about sixty years old, now.”
“Where are you and what are you doing?”
“We are still in Egypt. I do not know what is happening. It is very confusing. My heart is pounding so loud I can hardly hear. I am with my brother, the one who went away as a baby. We are in a court or a big room. It is decorated. The smell of sweet, tart perfume is heavy in the air. We are with important people. Oh, Allahu Akbar, he is the Pharaoh. It is confusing. I speak for my brother because few people can understand him. He has a voice or speech impediment, so I speak for him. This Pharaoh and my brother are violently arguing, and I am in the middle. My brother is a wise person, but he cannot control his temper. He is acting like a crazy man. Even I can hardly understand what he says.”
Iqbal raised his voice and started talking fast and loud, almost yelling, as he relived this intense scene in the life of Aaron. Shali translated for Clay as Iqbal babbled on.
Looking concerned at his stress monitors, Clay said to Shali, “He is stressing out again. You better bring him back out some.”
Shali interrupted Iqbal. “Come out of this life and only observe this life from outside. You are not living this life now. This life was a long tim
e ago, and you are only looking back at the life. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he exclaimed, but continued his excited playback. “How can my brother possibly get away with talking to the Pharaoh like this? How can I speak to the Pharaoh in such a tone? If I did not change half the words Moses says, we would have been killed already. We are dealing with a powerful man, this Pharaoh.”
Iqbal paused for several seconds and the expression on his face changed dramatically. His tone and manner slowed. “Even so, we also have power. We have taken advantage of events to persuade the Pharaoh that we are powerful. He thinks we caused recent famines and plagues. The whole sea turned orange color. We do not know why, but my brother convinced the Pharaoh that I caused this with my walking stick by casting magic from our God. If the Pharaoh figures this out, we are dead. I saw a snake crawling along the wall, so I threw my stick at it to kill it. The snake was startled and slid into the middle of the room. They think my stick became the snake when I threw it down.” He laughed out loud.
Shali explained to Clay what was transpiring. Knowing the historical stories, Clay grinned. Iqbal’s soul continued to rattle on about his life as Aaron, so Clay and Shali regrouped in a sidebar.
Clay whispered, “This has got to be one of the many confrontations between the Pharaoh and Moses. It’s lucky that Moses and Aaron didn’t lose their heads, literally. This sounds like a movie — well, I guess it’s already several movies. However, none of them followed this storyline.” Clay bit his lip for a few seconds while he pondered. “Shali, keep him going for a while. This is a big find, so we’ve got to milk it. See if you can find out more about Moses. When we get to the LBL, let’s ask where we can find Moses’ incarnation today. He’s probably in the same soul pod.”
Shali nodded, “Got it.
“This session is obviously going to take a while, so let’s break for lunch and do the LBL after that.” Then he added, “Damn you, Iqbal, we need a couple more days of regressions. One day is not enough.”
“Hey, you know all of this magical stuff in the old legends and religious accounts? It’s really just misinterpretations of facts and coincidences, all turned into stories of magic, supernatural powers and all powerful gods, huh?”
Clay smiled an acknowledgement with a nod of his head. “Yeah. Penn and Teller kind of stuff.”
