“Don’t listen to him,” the other said to Sharon. “He’s crazy. We need each other.”
I stooped slightly so I could look directly into Sharon’s eyes. “Sharon, none of this is real. You’re dead. We have to find a way out of here.”
“Shut up!” another person screamed. Four or five more people walked toward me, hate in their eyes. “Leave us alone.”
I began to back toward the door; the crowd moved toward me. Through the bodies I could see Sharon turning back to her hookah hose. I turned and ran through the door, only to realize that I wasn’t outside. I was in an office of some kind, surrounded by computers, filing cabinets, a conference table—modern, twentieth-century furniture and equipment.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in here,” someone said. I turned around to see a middle-aged man looking at me over his reading glasses. “Where’s my secretary? I don’t have time for this. What do you want?”
“Someone’s chasing me. I was trying to hide.”
“Good God, man! Then don’t come in here. I said I don’t have time for this. You haven’t the slightest idea what I have to do today. Look at these case files. Who do you think will process them if I don’t?” I thought I saw a look of terror on his face.
I shook my head and looked for another door. “Don’t you know you’re dead?” I asked. “This is all imagined.”
He paused, the look of terror shifting to anger, then asked, “How did you get in here? Are you a criminal?”
I found a door that led outside and ran out. The streets were now completely empty except for one carriage. It pulled ‘up to the hotel across from me, and a beautiful woman, dressed in evening attire, got out and glanced over toward me, then smiled. There was something warm and caring about her demeanor. I dashed across the street toward her, and she paused to watch me approach, her smile coy and inviting.
“You’re alone,” she said. “Why don’t you join me?”
“Where are you going?” I asked tentatively.
“To a party.”
“Who’s going to be there?”
“I have no idea.”
She opened the door to the hotel and motioned for me to come with her. I followed aimlessly, trying to think of what to do. We walked into the elevator and she pushed the button for the fourth floor. As we rode up, the sensation of warmth and caring increased with each floor. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her staring at my hands. When I looked, she smiled again and pretended to have been caught.
The elevator opened and she led me down the hall to a particular door and knocked twice. After a moment the door was unlocked and a man opened it. His face lit up at the sight of the woman.
“Come in!” he said. “Come in!”
She invited me to enter ahead of her, and as I walked in, a young woman reached over and took my arm. She was dressed in a strapless gown and was barefooted.
“Oh, you’re lost,” she said. “Poor thing. You’ll be safe in here with us.”
Past the door I could see a man without a shirt. “Look at those thighs,” he commented, staring at me.
“He has perfect hands,” another said.
In a state of shock I realized the room was crowded with people in various stages of nudity and lovemaking.
“No, wait,” I said. “I can’t stay.”
The woman on my arm said, “You would go back out there? It takes forever to find a group like this. Feel the energy in here. Not like the fear of being alone, huh?” She moved her hand across my chest.
Suddenly there was the sound of a scuffle on the other side of the room.
“No, leave me alone!” someone shouted. “I don’t want to be here.”
A young man no older than eighteen pushed several people away and ran out the door. I used the distraction to run out behind him. Not waiting for the elevator, he bounded down the adjacent stairs and I followed. When I reached the street, he was already on the other side.
I was about to shout for him to stop when I saw him freeze in terror. Ahead on the sidewalk was the commander, still holding the knife, but this time facing the group of men who had watched me earlier. They were all talking at the same time, posturing angrily. Abruptly one of the group pulled a gun, and the commander rushed toward him with the knife. Shots rang out, and the commander’s hat and knife flew backward as the bullet pierced his forehead. He dropped to the ground with a thud, and as he did, the other men stopped in midmotion and began to fade away until they disappeared completely. Just as quickly the man on the ground also disappeared.
Across from me, the young man sat wearily down on the curb and put his head in his hands. I rushed up to him, my knees shaking.
“It’s okay,” I said. “They’re gone.”
“No, they’re not,” he said in frustration. “Look over there.”
I turned and saw the four men who had disappeared standing across the street in front of the hotel. Unbelievably they were in the exact position they had been in when I had first seen them. One puffed his cigar and the other checked his watch.
My heart skipped a beat as I also spotted the commander, standing across from them again, staring menacingly.
“This keeps happening over and over,” the young man said. “I can’t stand this anymore. Someone’s got to help me.”
Before I could say anything, two forms materialized to his right, but remained obscured, out of focus.
The young man stared at the forms for a long time, then, with a look of excitement on his face, said, “Roy, is that you?”
As I watched, the two forms moved toward him until he was completely hidden by their weaving shapes. After several minutes he had completely disappeared, along with the two souls.
I stared at the empty curb where he had been sitting, feeling remnants of a higher vibration. In my mind’s eye I saw my soul group again and felt their deep caring and love. Concentrating on the feeling, I was able to shake off the blanketing anxiety and to amplify my energy in increments until finally I began to open up inside. Immediately the environment shifted to lighter shades of gray and the town disappeared. As my energy increased, I was able to image Wil’s face, and instantly he was beside me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, turning to embrace me. His expression showed immense relief. “Those illusions were strong, and you willed yourself right into them.”
“I know. I couldn’t think, couldn’t remember what to do.”
“You were gone a long time; all we could do was send you energy.”
“Who do you mean by we?”
“All these souls.” Wil’s hand gestured outwardly.
When I looked fully, I could see hundreds of souls stretching as far as I could see. Some were looking directly at us, but most appeared to be focused in another direction. I looked to see where they were staring, following their gaze to several large swirls of energy far in the distance. When I concentrated my focus, I realized that one of the swirls was in fact the town from which I had just escaped.
“What are those places?” I asked Wil.
“Mental constructions,” he replied, “set up by souls who in life lived very restrictive control dramas and could not wake up after death. Many thousands of them exist out there.”
“Were you able to see what was happening when I was in the construction?”
“Most of it. When I focused on the souls nearby, I could pick up on their view of what was happening to you. This ring of souls is constantly beaming energy into the illusions, hoping someone will respond.”
“Did you see the teenage boy? He was able to wake up. But the others didn’t seem to pay attention to anything.”
Wil turned to face me. “Do you remember what we saw during Williams’ Life Review? At first he couldn’t accept what was happening, and he began to repress his death to the extent that he created a mental construction of his office.”
“Yes, I thought of that when I was down there.”
“Well, that’s how it works for everyone. If we die and we have
been so immersed in our control drama and routine as a way to repress the mystery and insecurity of life, to such a degree that we can’t even wake up after death, then we create these illusions or trances so we can continue the same way of feeling safe, even after we enter the Afterlife. If Williams’ soul group had not reached him, he would have entered one of the hellish places where you were. It’s all a reaction to Fear. The people there would be paralyzed with Fear if they didn’t find some way to ward it off, to repress it below consciousness. What they’re doing is repeating the same dramas, the same coping devices, they practiced in life, and they can’t stop.”
“So these illusional realities are just severe control dramas?”
“Yes, they all fall within the general styles of the control dramas, except that they are more intense and nonreflective. For example, the man with the knife, the commander, was no doubt an intimidator in the way he stole energy from others. And he rationalized this behavior by assuming that the world was out to get him, and of course, in his life on Earth these expectations drew just those kinds of people into his life, so his mental vision was fulfilled. Here he just created imaginary people to be after him so he could reproduce the same situation.
“If he were to run out of people to intimidate and his energy were to fall, anxiety would begin to seep into consciousness again. So he has to keep up the intimidator role constantly. He has to keep this particular kind of action going, the action he learned long ago, the only action he knows that will preoccupy his mind sufficiently to kill the Fear. It is the action itself—the compulsive, dramatic, high-adrenaline nature of the action—that pushes the anxiety so far into the background that he can forget about it, repress it, and feel half at ease in his existence, at least for a little while.”
“What about the drug users?” I asked.
“In this case, they were taking passivity, the ‘poor me,’ to the extreme of projecting nothing but despair and cruelty on the entire world, rationalizing a need to escape. Obsessively pursuing drugs still serves the function of preoccupying the mind and repressing anxiety, even in the Afterlife.
“In the physical dimension drugs often produce a euphoria quite like the euphoria that comes from love. The problem with this false euphoria, however, is that the body resists the chemicals and counteracts them, which means that, as the drug is repeatedly used, it takes an increasingly larger dose to reach the same effect, which eventually destroys the body.”
I thought of the commander again. “Something really strange happened down there. The man who was chasing me was killed, and then he seemed to come back to life and start the drama all over again.”
“That’s how it works in this self-imposed Hell. All these illusions always play out and blow up in the end. If you had been with someone who had repressed the mystery of life by eating great amounts of fat, a heart attack might have ended it. The drug users eventually destroy their own bodies, the commander dies over and over, and so on.
“And it works the same way in the physical dimension: a compulsive control drama always fails, sooner or later. Usually it. happens during the trials and challenges of life; routines break down and the anxiety rushes in. It is what’s called hitting bottom. This is the time to wake up and handle the Fear in another way; but if a person can’t, then he or she goes right back into the trance. And if one doesn’t wake up in the physical dimension, one might have difficulty waking up in the other as well.
“These compulsive trances account for all horrible behavior in the physical dimension. This is the psychology of all truly evil acts, the motivation behind the inconceivable behavior of child molesters, sadists, and serial monsters of all kinds. They’re simply repeating the only behavior they know that will numb the mind and keep away the anxiety that comes from the lostness they feel.”
“So you’re saying,” I interjected, “that there is no organized, conspiratorial evil in the world, no satanic plot to which we fall prey?”
“None. There is only human fear and the bizarre ways that humans try to ward it off.”
“What about the many references in sacred texts and scriptures to Satan?”
“This idea is a metaphor, a symbolic way of warning people to look to the divine for security, not to their sometimes tragic ego urges and habits. Blaming an outside force for everything bad was perhaps important at a certain stage in human development. But now it obscures the truth, because blaming our behavior on forces outside ourselves is a way of avoiding responsibility. And we tend to use the idea of Satan to project that some people are inherently evil so we can dehumanize the ones we disagree with and write them off. It is time now to understand the true nature of human evil in a more sophisticated way and then to deal with it.”
“If there is no satanic plot,” I said, “then ‘possession’ doesn’t exist.”
“That’s not so,” Wil said emphatically. “Psychological ‘possession’ does exist. But it is not the result of a conspiracy of evil; it is just energy dynamics. Fearful people want to control others. That’s why certain groups try to pull you in and convince you to follow them, and ask you to submit to their authority, or fight you if you try to leave.”
“When I was first drawn into that illusory town, I thought I had been possessed by some demonic force.”
“No, you were drawn in because you made the same mistake you made earlier: you didn’t just open up and listen to those souls; you gave yourself over to them, as if they automatically had all the answers, without checking to see if they were con nected and motivated by love. And unlike the souls who are divinely connected, they didn’t back away from you. They just pulled you into their world, the same way some crazy group or cult might do in the physical dimension if you don’t discriminate.”
Wil paused as if in thought, then continued. “All this is more of the Tenth Insight; that’s why we’re seeing it. As communication between the two dimensions increases, we’ll begin to have more encounters with souls in the Afterlife. This part of the Insight is that we must discern between those souls who are awake and connected with the spirit of love and those who are fearful and stuck in an obsessive trance of some kind. But we must do so without invalidating and dehumanizing those caught in such fear dramas by thinking they are demons or devils. They are souls in a growth process, just like us. In fact, in the Earth dimension those who are now caught up in dramas from which they can’t escape are often the very souls who were the most optimistic in their Birth Visions.”
I shook my head, not following his meaning.
“That is why,” he continued, “they chose to be born into such drastic, fearful situations that necessitate such intense, crazy coping devices.”
“You’re talking about coming into abusive and dysfunctional families, that sort of situation?”
“Yes. Intense control dramas of all kinds, whether they are violent or just perverse and strange addictions, come from environments where life is so abusive and dysfunctional and constrictive, and the level of Fear is so great, that they spawn this same rage and anger or perversion over and over, generation after generation. The individuals who are born into these situations choose to do so on purpose, with clarity.”
The idea seemed preposterous to me. “Why would anyone want to be born into a place like that?”
“Because they were sure they had enough strength to break out, to end the cycle, to heal the family system in which they would be born. They were confident that they could awaken and work through the resentment and anger at finding themselves in these deprived circumstances, and see it all as a preparation for a mission—usually one of helping others out of similar situations. Even if they are violent, we have to see them as having the potential to break free of the drama.”
“Then the liberal perspective on crime and violence, the idea that everyone can change and be rehabilitated, is the desirable one. The conservative approach is without merit?”
Wil smiled. “Not exactly. The liberals are right to see that people who have grow
n up in abusive and oppressive situations are a product of their environments, and the conservatives are out of touch to the extent they believe stopping a life of crime or public dole is just a matter of making a conscious choice.
“But the liberal approach is superficial as well, to the degree they believe people can change if offered different circumstances, better financial support, or education, for instance. Usually intervention programs focus only on helping others to better their decision making and economic choices. In the case of violent offenders, rehabilitation attempts have always offered, at best, superficial counseling and, in the worst cases, excuses and leniency, which is precisely the wrong thing to do. Every time someone with a disturbed control drama is slapped on the hand, turned loose with no consequences, it enables the behavior to continue and reinforces the idea that this behavior is not serious, which just sets up the circumstances that guarantee it will occur again.”
“Then what can be done?” I asked.
Wil seemed to be vibrating with excitement. “We can learn to intervene spiritually! And that means helping to bring the whole process into consciousness, as these souls here are doing for those caught in the illusions.”
Wil was staring at the souls in the ring, then looked at me and shook his head. “I can get all the information I’ve just relayed to you from these souls, but I still can’t see the World Vision clearly. We haven’t learned how to build enough energy yet.”
I focused on the souls in the ring but could get no information other than what Wil had conveyed. Clearly the soul groups held a greater knowledge and were projecting this knowledge toward the fear constructions, but like Wil, I still couldn’t quite understand anything more.
“At least we have another piece of the Tenth Insight,” Wil said. “We know that no matter how undesirable the behavior of others is, we have to grasp that they are just souls attempting to wake up, like us.",
I was suddenly jolted backward by a blast of dissonant noise, images of whirling colors seizing my mind. Wil lunged forward and caught me at the last moment, pulling me into his energy and again holding me back firmly. For a moment I seemed to shake violently and then the discord passed.
The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision Page 14
