by Bob Frank
No response came from the guide, despite several shots of micro-pulse to the Third Eye.
Clay looked to Shali and said, “This is all interesting, but we’re not getting ahead. He hasn’t turned over any information about any hidden writings. We’re up to 1300 AD already and on the first two regression days we did not see any significant lives after this point. I’m going to cut him off and get to the closing scripts on the secrets. Tommy’s soul may have been the founding librarian at Alexandria, but he surely wasn’t the last one. I think the last librarian is living down in Panama as a Kuna.”
Clay walked Tommy through the final scripts, directly asking the guide for information on the actual location of any hidden or lost secrets. They got nothing: no locations, no referrals, no pointers. The session finally wrapped up. Disappointment showed on the two regressors’ faces as they tore down the equipment and packed the cases.
On the last night in Wales, all three of them sat together in a pub, sipping on pints of lager and lime.
“Well, my little mutts, did you find what you was lookin’ for? ‘Cause I’ll tell you that I sure don’t remember shit.”
Shali looked at Clay to make the first move. Clay took a slow sip of his lager and lime, savoring the sharp but tangy, sweet taste. He looked up to Tommy with a smile and said, “We didn’t find what we were looking for, but we think you lived a lot of very interesting lives. Your soul is somehow connected to our search, but we don’t know exactly how, yet. You sure had some interesting lives, though. There was one life as a very prominent Roman-Egyptian scholar who had an uncontrollable libido for women left behind by their Roman Legionnaire husbands. That guy was banging on absolutely every willing woman he could find. You described one mother-daughter ménage-a-trois and all kinds of other sexual trysts. I’m telling you, we couldn’t stop laughing.”
Clay went on to describe some more of Tommy’s past-life exploits, but with a bit of creative exaggeration. Tommy belly-laughed throughout Clay’s oratory and at one point almost fell out of his chair.
Then he said, “I still think your regression stuff is horse shit, but if not, I think you’re right about my past sexual conquests. Let me tell you ‘bout the time I hooked up with Melanie Jones, up the road here — ”
Clay and Shali laughed as Tommy described his sexual conquests in his present incarnation. Two hours later, after one-too-many lagers, Clay promised he’d come back some day to perform a special regression using PLR Protocol 73, which unlike the Protocol 75, would allow Tommy to remember everything in his past lives as if he had lived them yesterday.
“Now if you do that, am I going to remember Cletus gettin’ killed in that field, again?”
Silence immediately filled the air as Clay and Shali looked at each other with blank stares.
Clay turned back to Tommy, “Are you saying you remember Cletus?”
“I remember everything about his life including every damned time I stubbed my toe.”
“Do you remember any other lives?”
“Nope. Nothin’ on any other lives. But I remember — no, I felt—that God damned sword slice through my guts on that beautiful summer afternoon in the wheat field.”
Clay and Shali looked at each other again. Nothing more was said.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell
Chapter 11
Panama City, Panama
A little over two weeks later at Panama’s Tocumen International Airport, Clay and Shali walked outside the terminal to the taxi stand. The heavy smell of tropics filled the air, which was humidity-laden after a late-afternoon rain.
As they loaded their cases of equipment into the back of the large SUV, Clay called out to the driver, “Marriott Hotel, por favor.”
The driver acknowledged with “Si”, and they drove out the airport exit ramp. Dusk fell as they roared along the parkway and approached the glittering glass towers of downtown Panama City, the Queen of Latin America. Shali slowly gazed over at Clay with the seductive look of a TV wine-commercial. She caught herself and snapped her head forward again, as if determined to keep their agreement not to become involved again.
After freshening up at their hotel, the two met for dinner across the street.
Over their first glass of red wine, Clay said, “Iqbal’s guide gave us more than enough leads to easily find this Sogui Iglesias. The problem will be getting her to undergo regression. We have to work our way into her trust. Getting close to a Kuna Indian would not be easy for a Panamanian, let alone for an American gringo.”
“So how do we break the ice?”
“Maybe I’ll play to Kuna history. The Kunas have always been a fiercely independent people. Five hundred years ago, Spanish conquerors testified to the ferocity of the Kunas in their reports to the king. The Spaniards were never able to totally conquer them. Then, in 1925, the young Panamanian government was about to militarily crush the Kunas during a rebellion for independence from Panama. But the Americans parked a fleet of naval warships in the San Blas Islands as a warning to say they must show tolerance to the native Indians. I’ve heard the Kunas have had a slight endearment to the gringos ever since.” Clay chuckled. “Perhaps they saw the ‘88 American invasion of Panama to get Noriega as a sixty-year-old payback.”
Shali looked puzzled. “That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? I mean, did not the Americans almost wipe out entire American native Indian population, take away their land and their way of life? So why try to save the Kunas from the Panamanians?”
“It was probably a gringo guilt trip. Ever since that rebellion, the Kunas have enjoyed an autonomous relationship with Panama. They have their own government, territory and laws, all of which enabled their society to survive.”
“How’d you know so much about them?”
“About ten years ago I served several tours of duty with Army Intelligence in Latin America, chasing drug lords. I worked with several indigenous Central American Indian groups closely related to the Kunas. I looked up some old Indian friends down here and got an introduction to a good contact in Panama, close to the Kunas.”
“Is this the woman you’ve been talking to on the phone the past few weeks?”
“Sure is. She is a psychology professor at the Universidad de Panama and is a Kuna herself. At first, she was apprehensive about our motivation, but she understands our use of regressions. After all, she’s a shrink herself. Nonetheless, I think she was so intrigued that she agreed to help us.”
“How did she find Sogui?”
“On our first phone call, the professor knew exactly who we were looking for. Sogui Iglesius was one of the three Sailadummads, or Great Sahilas, of the Kunas. These three people, plus a secretary general, make up the leadership of the National Kuna Congress. For many years, Sogui was one of the local Sahilas serving in a governor-like role. She was responsible for management of her home island, one of the forty-nine separate Kuna communities. It turns out Sogui was a natural leader, exactly as described by Iqbal’s soul guide in Jordan. She had success despite the male-dominated political structure and the terrible physical and mental suffering she has experienced throughout her life.”
“I remember Iqbal’s guide talking about this soul having great challenges. Did he mean the suffering?”
“For sure,” Clay said. “Evidently, Sogui was stricken with congenital scoliosis and extreme physical deformity as a small child. She has been in constant pain her entire life. The professor told me that the disease twisted her spine hard to one side and stunted her growth. Malaria struck her at a young age and has returned continuously through her life. Twice, she contracted Dengue fever, which complicated the malaria even more. To top it off, she developed rheumatoid arthritis when she was in her late forties. Her entire life has been one giant bodily challenge.”
“That sucks. You also said emotional challenges. What was that?”
“She lost both parents in tragic deaths a
t an early age. In the 1940s, when she was just seven years old, her mother took her into the jungle on the mainland to collect herbs, spices and fruits. Suddenly, Sogui was attacked by a young jaguar. Her mother fought off the jaguar but she was brutally mauled to death in front of Sogui. Sogui survived, but evidently, the traumatic images of that attack give her nightmares, even today.”
“Yowsa.”
“It gets worse. Just two years later when she was nine years old, her father and uncle disappeared while fishing off the coast of their island. Only broken and chewed-up fragments of their dugout canoe were discovered the next day. Speculation was that a migrating killer whale mistook their canoe for a manatee and, no doubt, feasted on the two unsuspecting fisherman who would have been thrown from the canoe.”
Shali shook her head and grimaced. “I can see why Iqbal’s guide said Sogui has been so challenged in this life.”
“The professor told me that despite her lousy luck in life, her persevering and outgoing personality has driven her to become one of the strongest leaders in her little nation.”
“Maybe I should use her as a role model.”
Clay smiled at her jest. “Better yet, did you know the Kuna culture is matriarchal? The line of inheritance and family power actually passes down through women. I wonder if that had something to do with helping Sogui rise to societal leadership, even as a woman with severe disabilities.” Clay took a sip of wine. “I’ve read that when a Kuna man marries, he has to move into the mother-in-law’s house and work in pseudo-servitude for his new wife’s family for a year or more.” He sat back and shook his head. “If that’s the case, there is no way I could be a Kuna man.”
Shali gave him an inquisitive look and smiled. “I wonder if I can convert from an India Indian to a Kuna Indian? It’s kind of the same, right? We’re both Indians.”
They laughed as the wine started to take effect.
Shali asked, “So what’s up first?”
“We’ll be meeting with the professor at the hotel tomorrow just to work out the logistics. Then we fly to San Blas to meet Sogui personally. If all works out, we’ll ask Sogui to come back with us and do the regressions in Panama City.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
San Blas Islands, Panama
Clay, Shali and the professor made the short flight from Panama City to the small airfield on the San Blas Island of Ustupu Yantupo. As they walked down the ramp of the plane, the smell of ocean, salt and sea-life permeated the air. A soft, warm moist breeze blew in off the water. They walked from the small terminal building down to the dock where two motorized canoes took them the short distance through the archipelago to the island of Nargana.
They were met at the main dock of Nargana by two of Sogui’s great-grand-nephews. The two young, dark-skinned boys with sharp ethnic facial features escorted the three travelers on the short walk to Sogui’s house on the far side of the island. As they walked across the island, the musty smell of tropical village life and local cooking permeated the air. Palm leaves rustled in the breeze and the slight rolling of the surf on the beaches all around them was relaxing.
Clay chatted with Shali in English as they trailed along behind the boys. “Are you not just mesmerized by the tropical beauty? It’s like paradise lost.”
“Absolutely. This is truly a paradise if you can get past the simple living standard.”
“The fact that they never allowed this place to be overrun by resort hotels is testimony to the strong will and independence of the Kuna. They managed to maintain their fundamental culture, traditions and simple life despite the lure of fast, easy money. They could have sold off their paradise to the resort chains at any time.”
Shali asked, “Did you see the flag at the dock?”
“Yep”
“Is that the Kuna flag with a swastika?”
“Yep.”
“I thought the swastika was outlawed just about everywhere. Isn’t it politically incorrect?”
“They don’t care. They used the swastika long before the Nazi Party. They are the only group in the world that still uses it as their national symbol. A form of the swastika has been the symbol of eternal life to the Hindus and Buddhists for thousands of years, but even they shy away from it today for political correctness.”
“But doesn’t this piss off the Jews?”
Clay chuckled. “Sorry, but the Kunas don’t care what the Jews think. It’s their flag, not the Nazi’s. Besides, it’s not like it flies over the UN in New York. They are just an autonomous region under Panama.”
In a few minutes they arrived at Sogui’s hut-like island home, and she met them with open arms at the door. The main room was dark but cool. Light occasionally shimmered through the palm grass that made up the walls, and the aromatic smell of baking lingered in the air. Sogui served them fresh fruit drinks and traditional Kuna snacks. Her hospitality and inviting personality impressed them.
After some Latin-style chit chat to get acquainted, they finally got around to talking about why they were in San Blas. The professor opened the discussion and reviewed what Clay and Shali wanted to do with the regressions. Sogui sat back for a few minutes to absorb what she had heard and what she was being asked. The long pause was accentuated by rustling of the palm leaves above the island home and the lapping of the surf in the background. A waft of a neighbor’s cooking drifted through the air. With narrowed eyes, Sogui looked at her two gringo visitors, alternating one to the other. Clay and Shali glanced at each other and knew this was a pivotal moment. Slowly, Sogui focused intently on Clay and spoke in her Kuna-laced Latin Spanish.
“Señor, so you will put me to sleep and talk to my soul, and my soul’s ancestors.” She slowly looked up at the ceiling and then turned her head toward the window. Quickly looking back to Clay, she continued, “Hmmm. Well, I suppose it won’t kill me. But you don’t want me to remember; your technique means I will not remember anything. If I allow this, will you tell me about my past lives when it is done?”
Clay responded in clear, concise Spanish, although it was laced with a slight gringo accent. “Normally we do not allow someone to remember their regressions. There may be terrible things that happened in a previous life, and it could be difficult for you emotionally. Later, perhaps we could — ”
“Mi Amigo,” Sogui cut him off abruptly, yet politely. “Look at me. I am an old woman and have had a painful, crippled body for as long as I can remember. And you are telling me that remembering some bad past-life may be difficult for me to tolerate emotionally? Jejeje.” She laughed out loud and then, still smiling, lifted a disfigured finger that had been twisted by years of arthritis. “If I see former lives, no matter how good or bad, it can’t be more difficult than this life. Si?”
Clay politely acknowledged the nature of her supposition. “Si, Señora.”
Sogui paused and looked at each of her visitors for several seconds. “If I see that I really had previous lives, then that means there will be future lives, si? If I know that I will get a new body in my next life, don’t you think it would feel pretty good to remember the details?”
“Si, Señora.”
Sogui paused, looking intensely at Clay. “Is it possible to do this regression where I remember everything?”
Clay looked at Shali then back to Sogui. “Si, Señora,” he said hesitantly.
Sogui immediately replied in a rapid, staccato tone, “Well, my young man, I will do it, but only on my conditions. I want to experience it all. I want to remember everything. Comprende, Amigo? Do you understand, my friend? You must allow me to remember it all!”
Clay leaned back in his chair and clasped his lips tightly. Shali and the professor stared at Clay, waiting for his response. Clay’s expression turned to a smile and then he laughed out loud. “Mi Amiga, my friend, you are so refreshing.” Clay paused for a moment and looked at Shali. Their eyes connected, and she nodded agreement.
Clay said, “Entiendo a mi amiga. I understand, my friend. We will use a technique that wil
l allow you to remember everything. In fact, you will remember much more than you tell us under hypnosis. After the session, even more of your past memory will come to you. But you have to promise me that if you remember something significant after the regressions, you will record it and tell us. We will give you a copy of the recordings of our sessions so you can play it as much as you want. This might help you remember even more. But we do ask you to keep it all secret until we find what we are looking for. Although, if you remember your life as a beautiful hot young woman in Madrid, you don’t have to tell us those details.” He winked at her.
At that, Sogui leaned back as best she could in her distorted body and let out a huge roll of laughter. “On the contrary, my son. If I experienced a good time as a beautiful hot young woman anywhere, I will tell everyone. And I will tell everything!”
All four of them laughed together. The bond was complete. They joined in more afternoon snacks and finished the day with a round of thick, sweet, black Panamanian coffee.
For two days, they stayed in a small lodge on the island and enjoyed the company of Sogui, her family and friends. Then the three of them, including Sogui, took motorized canoes back to the neighboring island airfield and flew the domestic shuttle plane back to Panama City.
* * * ~~~ * * *
Panama City, Panama
After checking Sogui into her room at the Marriott, they all went to the hotel suite that was set up as the regression lab. To relieve any anticipation for the next day, Sogui agreed to go through a practice hypnosis session, which lasted forty-five minutes.
Coming back to full consciousness, Sogui smiled contently and said, “Mi Amigo y Amiga, this hypnosis is like sitting on a Nargana beach watching a beautiful sunset.”
Shali smiled with the look of a romantic and asked Sogui, “Do you watch the sunset on the beach every night?”
With glowing smile, Sogui responded, “No, in San Blas, we are hypnotized by the sunset every night.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
The next morning, Shali went to Sogui’s room and escorted her to the regression suite. Clay helped Sogui settle into the lounge chair and hooked her up to the assortment of regression paraphernalia. As Sogui fidgeted with the pulse pads and goggles, Clay went through the formalities: “Today we are going to use a special procedure that we normally do not use. After the session, you will remember everything you saw and experienced in the regression. Do you understand this?”
