“Do you think these end-times scholars are correct?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The only prophecy that’s being played out in this world is man’s greed and corruption. Some dictator might rise up and take over, but it will be because he saw a way to take advantage of the chaos.”
“Do you think this will happen?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing. If the collapse of the middle class continues, and the poor get poorer and the inner cities get more crime-infested and spread into the suburbs, and then on top of that we experience, say, a series of big natural disasters and the whole economy crashes for a while, we’ll have bands of hungry marauders preying on the masses and total panic everywhere. In the face of this kind of violence, if someone comes along and proposes a way to save us, to straighten things out, asking only that we surrender some civil liberties, I have no doubt that we’ll do it.”
We stopped and drank some water from my canteen. Fifty yards ahead was the crow tree.
I perked up; far in the background I could detect the faint dissonance of the hum.
Joel’s eyes squinted in concentration, watching me closely. “What are you hearing?”
I turned around and faced him. “It’s a strange noise, a hum we’ve been perceiving. I think it may be some kind of experiment going on in the valley.”
“What kind of experiment? Who’s conducting it? Why can’t I hear it?”
I was about to tell him more when we were interrupted by another sound. We listened carefully.
“That’s a vehicle,” I said.
Two more gray Jeeps were approaching from the west and heading toward us. We ran behind a patch of tall briers and hid, and they passed within a hundred yards without stopping, heading southeast along the same path the earlier Jeep had followed.
“I don’t like this,” Joel said. “Who was that?”
“Well, it’s not the Forest Service, and no one else is supposed to be driving in here. I think it must be the people involved with the experiment.”
He looked horrified.
“If you want,” I said, “you can take a more direct route back to town. Just head southwest toward that ridge in the distance. You’ll run into the stream after about three-quarters of a mile and you can follow it west into town from there. I think you can arrive before it gets too dark.”
“You’re not coming?”
“Not now. I’m going directly south to the stream and wait awhile for my friend.”
He tensed his forehead. “These people couldn’t be conducting an experiment without someone in the Forest Service knowing about it.”
“I know.”
“You don’t think you can do anything about this, do you? This is something big.”
I didn’t respond; a pang of anxiety rushed through me.
He listened for a moment and then moved past me into the valley, walking quickly. He looked back once and shook his head.
I watched him until he crossed the meadow and disappeared into the forest on the other side, then I hurriedly walked toward the south, thinking again of Charlene. What had she been doing out here? Where was she going?’ I had no answers.
Pushing hard, I reached the stream in about thirty minutes. The sun was now completely hidden by the band of clouds at the western horizon, and the twilight cast the woods in ominous gray tones. I was tired and dirty, and I knew that listening to Joel and seeing the Jeeps had affected my mood severely. Perhaps I had enough evidence now to go to the authorities; perhaps that was the way I could help Charlene most. Several options danced through my head, all rationalizing my return to town.
Because the woods on both sides of the stream were thin, I decided to wade across and make my way into the thicker forest on the other side, although I knew that area was private property.
Once across, I stopped abruptly, hearing another Jeep, then broke into a run. Fifty feet ahead the land rose quickly into a knob of boulders and outcroppings, twenty feet high. Climbing quickly, I reached the top and accelerated my pace, then leaped upon a pile of large rocks, intending to jump them quickly to the other side. When my foot hit the topmost rock, the huge stone rolled forward, throwing my feet out from under me and starting the whole pile moving. I bounced once on my hip and landed in a small gully, the pile still tumbling my way. Several of the rocks, each two or three feet in diameter, were careening down, coming squarely for my chest. I had time to roll onto my left side and raise my arms, but I knew I couldn’t get out of the way.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wispy white form moving in front of my body. Simultaneously an unusual knowing came over me that the huge rocks would somehow miss. I closed my eyes and heard them crash on both sides. Slowly I opened my eyes and peered out through the dust, wiping the dirt and rock chips from my face. The rocks were lying neatly beside me. How had that happened? What was that white form?
For a moment I looked around the scene, and then behind one of the rocks I saw a slight movement. A small bobcat cub eased around and looked directly into my eyes. I knew it was big enough to have run away, but it was lingering, looking at me.
The rising sound of the approaching vehicle finally sent the bobcat scampering into the woods. I jumped to my feet and ran several more steps before landing awkwardly on another rock. A bolt of throbbing pain raced through my whole leg as my left foot gave way. I fell to the ground and crawled the last two yards into the trees. I rolled around behind a huge oak as the vehicle pulled up to the stream, slowed for a few minutes, then raced away, again toward the southeast.
My heart pounding, I sat up and pulled off my boot to inspect the ankle. It was already beginning to swell. Why this? I thought. As I slid around to stretch out my leg, I observed a woman staring at me from about thirty feet away. I froze as she walked toward me.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice concerned but wary. She was a tall black woman, perhaps forty, dressed in loose-fitting sweat clothes and tennis shoes. Strands of dark hair had pulled out of her ponytail and dangled in the breeze above her temples. In her hand was a small green knapsack.
“I was sitting over there and saw you fall,” she said. “I’m a doctor. Do you want me to take a look?”
“I’d appreciate that,” I said dizzily, not believing the coincidence.
She knelt down beside me and moved the foot gently, at the same time surveying the area toward the creek. “Are you out here alone?”
I told her briefly about looking for Charlene, but left out everything else. She said she had seen no one of that description. As she talked, finally introducing herself as Maya Ponder, I became convinced that she was completely trustworthy. I told her my name and where I lived.
When I finished, she said, “I’m from Asheville, although I have a health center, with a partner, a few miles south of here. It’s new. We also own forty acres of the valley right here that joins the National Forest.” She pointed to the area where we were sitting. “And another forty acres up the ridge to the south.”
I unzipped a pocket on my hiking pack and pulled out my canteen.
“Would you like some water?” I asked.
“No thanks, I have some.” She reached inside her own pack, retrieved a canteen, and opened the top. But instead of drinking, she soaked a small towel and wrapped my foot, an action that made me grimace in pain.
Turning and looking into my eyes, she said, “You’ve definitely sprained this ankle.”
“How badly?” I asked.
She hesitated. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Let me try to walk on it.”
I attempted to stand, but she stopped me. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Before you try to walk, analyze your attitude. How badly do you think you’re hurt?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that very often your recuperation time depends on what you think, not me.”
I looked down at the ankle. “I think it could be pretty bad. If it is, I’ll
have to get back to town somehow.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. If I can’t walk, I may have to go find someone else to look for Charlene.”
“Do you have any idea why this accident happened now?”
“Not really. Why does that matter?”
“Because, again, very often your attitude about why an accident or illness has happened has an effect on your recuperation.”
I looked at her closely, well aware that I was resisting. Part of me felt as though I didn’t have time for this discussion right now. It seemed too self-involved for the situation. Although the hum had ceased, I had to assume that the experiment was continuing. Everything felt too dangerous and it was almost dark… and Charlene could be in terrible trouble for all I knew.
I was also aware of a deep sense of guilt toward Maya. Why would I feel guilty? I tried to shake off the emotion.
“What kind of doctor are you?” I asked, sipping some water.
She smiled, and for the first time I saw her energy lift. She had decided to trust me too.
“Permit me to tell you about the kind of medicine I practice,” she said. “Medicine is changing, and changing rapidly. We don’t think of the body as a machine anymore, with parts that eventually wear out and have to be fixed or replaced. We’re beginning to understand that the health of the body is determined to a great degree by our mental processes: what we think of life and especially of ourselves, at both the conscious and the unconscious levels.
“This represents a fundamental shift. Under the old method the doctor was the expert and healer, and the patient the passive recipient, hoping the doctor would have all the answers. But we know now that the inner attitude of the patient is crucial. A key factor is fear and stress and the way we handle it. Sometimes the fear is conscious, but very often we repress it entirely.
“This is the brave, macho attitude: deny the problem, push it away, conjure up our heroic agenda. If we take this attitude, then the fear continues to eat at us unconsciously. Adopting a positive outlook is very important in staying healthy, but we have to engage in this attitude in full awareness, using love, not macho, for this attitude to be completely effective. What I believe is that our unspoken fears create blocks or crimps in the body’s energy flow, and it’s these blocks that ultimately result in problems. The fears keep manifesting in ever-greater degrees until we deal with them. Physical problems are the last step. Ideally these blocks would be dealt with early, in a preventive way, before illness develops.”
“So you think all illness can ultimately be prevented or cured?”
“Yes, I’m sure we will have longer or shorter life spans; that’s probably up to the Creator, but we don’t have to be sick, and we don’t have to be the victim of so many accidents.”
“So you think this applies to an accident, like my sprain, as well as to illnesses?”
She smiled. “Yes, in many cases.”
I was confused. “Look, I don’t have time for this right now. I’m really worried about my friend. I’ve got to do something!”
“I know, but I have a hunch this conversation won’t take long. If you rush by and disregard what I’m saying, you may miss the meaning of what is obviously quite a coincidence here.” She looked at me to see whether I had picked up on her reference to the Manuscript.
“You’re aware of the Insights?” I asked.
She nodded.
“What exactly do you suggest I do?”
“Well, the technique I’ve had great success with is this: first, we try to remember the nature of your thoughts just prior to the health problem—in your case, the sprain. What were you thinking? What is the fear this problem is revealing to you?”
I thought for a moment, then said, “I felt afraid, ambivalent. The situation here in this valley seemed much more sinister than I thought. I didn’t feel as though I could handle it. On the other hand, I knew Charlene might need help. I was confused and torn over what to do.”
“So you sprained your ankle?”
I leaned toward her. “Are you saying that I sabotaged myself so I wouldn’t have to take action? Isn’t that too simple?”
“That’s for you to say, not me. But very often it is simple. Besides, the most important thing is not to spend time defending or proving. Just play with it. Try to remember everything you can about where the health problem came from. Explore for yourself.”
“How do I do that?”
“You have to calm your mind and receive this information.”
“Intuitively?”
“Intuitively, prayerfully, however you conceive the process.”
I resisted again, not sure whether I could relax and clear my mind. Finally I closed my eyes, and for a moment my thoughts ceased, but then a succession of memories of Wil and the day’s events intruded. I let them go by and cleared my mind again. Immediately I saw a scene of myself at age ten, limping away from a touch football game, well aware that I was faking the injury. That’s right! I thought. I used to fake sprains to avoid having to perform under pressure. I had forgotten all about this! I realized that later I began to actually hurt the ankle frequently, in all kinds of situations. As I pondered the memory, another flash of recollection entered my mind, a cloudy scene of myself in another time, feeling cocky, confident, impulsive, then as I worked in a dark, candlelit room, the door crashed in and I was dragged away in terror.
I opened my eyes and looked at Maya. “Maybe I have something.”
I shared the content of my childhood memory, but the other vision felt too vague to be described, so I didn’t mention it.
Afterward, Maya asked, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know; the sprain seemed the result of pure chance. It’s hard to imagine that the accident came from this need to avoid the situation. Besides, I’ve been in worse situations than this many times and I didn’t sprain an ankle. Why did it happen now?”
She looked thoughtful. “Who knows? Perhaps now is the time to see through the habit. Accidents, illness, healing, they’re all more mysterious than any of us ever imagined. I believe that we have an undiscovered ability to influence what happens to us in the future, including whether we are healthy—although, again, the power has to remain with the individual patient.
“There was a reason that I didn’t offer an opinion concerning how badly you were hurt. We in the medical establishment have learned that medical opinions have to be offered very carefully. Over the years the public has developed almost a worship of doctors, and when a physician says something, patients have tended to take these opinions totally to heart. The country doctors of a hundred years ago knew this, and would use this principle to actually paint an overly optimistic picture of any health situation. If the doctor said that the patient would get better, very often the patient would internalize this idea in his or her mind and actually defy all odds to recover. In later years, however, ethical considerations have prevented such distortions, and the establishment has felt that the patient is entitled to a cold scientific assessment of his or her situation.
“Unfortunately when this was given, sometimes patients dropped dead right before our eyes, just because they were told their condition was terminal. We know now that we have to be very careful with these assessments, because of the power of our minds. We want to focus this power in a positive direction. The body is capable of miraculous regeneration. Body parts thought of in the past as solid forms are actually energy systems that can transform overnight. Have you read the latest research on prayer? The simple fact that this kind of spiritual visualization is being scientifically proven to work totally undermines our old physical model of healing. We’re having to work out a new model.”
She paused and poured more water on the towel around my ankle, then continued, “I believe the first step in the process is to identify the fear with which the medical problem seems to be connected; this opens up the energy block in your body to conscious healing. The next step is to pull in as much energy a
s possible and focus it at the exact location of the block.”
I was about to ask how this was done, but she stopped me. “Go ahead and raise your energy level as much as you can.”
Accepting her guidance, I began to observe the beauty around me and to concentrate on a spiritual connection within, evoking a heightened sensation of love. Gradually the colors became more vivid and everything in my awareness increased in presence. I could tell that she was raising her own energy at the same time.
When I felt as though my vibration had increased as much as possible, I looked at her.
She smiled back at me. “Okay, now you can focus the energy on the block.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“You use the pain. That’s why it’s there, to help you focus.”
“What? Isn’t the idea to get rid of pain?”
“Unfortunately that’s what we’ve always thought, but pain is really a beacon.”
“A beacon?”
“Yes,” she said, pressing several locations on my foot. “How badly does it hurt right now?”
“It’s a throbbing ache, but not too bad.”
She unwrapped the towel. “Focus your attention on the pain and try to feel it as much as possible. Determine its exact location.”
“I know where it is. It’s in the ankle.”
“Yes, but the ankle is a large area. Where exactly?”
I studied the throbbing. She was correct. I had been generalizing the pain to the whole ankle. But as my leg was stretched out with the toes of my foot pointed upward, the pain was more precisely centered in the top left portion of this joint and about an inch inward.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve got that.”
“Now place all your attention on that specific area. Be there with all of your being.”
For a few minutes I said nothing. With total concentration I felt this location in my ankle completely. I noticed that all the other perceptions of my body—breathing, the location of my hands and arms, sticky sweat on the back of my neck—faded far into the background.
The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision Page 6
