The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

by James Redfield

  “So how do you think this group can build enough energy to have an effect on these people?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” I replied. “We’ll have to figure it out.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think anything like that is possible. Probably all I did with my little bit of explosives was to irritate them and put them more on guard. They’ll bring more people in, but I don’t think they will stop. They would have had a replacement antenna close by. Maybe I should have taken out the door. God knows I could have. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. Charlene was inside and who knows how many others. I would have had to shorten the timer, so they would have gotten me… but maybe it would have been worth it.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “We’re going to find the other way.”

  “How?”

  “It’ll come to us.”

  We heard the faint sound of the vehicles again, and simultaneously I noticed a movement on the downslope below us.

  “Someone’s out there,” I said.

  We crouched down and looked closely. The figure moved again, partially obscured by the underbrush.

  “That’s Maya,” I said, disbelieving.

  Curtis and I stared at each other for a long moment, then I moved to get up. “I’ll go get her,” I said.

  He grabbed my arm. “Stay low, and if the vehicles close in, leave her and come back here. Don’t risk being seen.”

  I nodded and ran carefully down the hill. When I was close enough, I stopped and listened. The trucks were still moving closer. I called out to her in a low voice. She froze for an instant, then recognized me and climbed up a rocky slope to where I stood.

  “I can’t believe I found you!” she said, hugging my neck.

  I led the way back to the cave and helped her through the opening in the rock. She appeared exhausted and her arms were covered with scratches, some of them still bleeding.

  “What happened?” she asked. “I heard an explosion, and then those trucks were everywhere.”

  “Did anyone see you come this way?” Curtis asked with irritation. He was up and looking outside.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I was able to hide.”

  I quickly introduced them. Curtis nodded and said, “I think I’ll take a look.” He slipped out through the opening and disappeared.

  I opened my pack and took out a first-aid kit. “Were you able to find your friend with the Sheriff’s Department?”

  “No, I couldn’t even get back to town. There were Forest Service agents along all the paths back. I saw a woman I knew and gave her a note to take to him. That’s all I could do.”

  I applied some antiseptic to a long gash across Maya’s knee. “So why didn’t you leave with the woman you saw? Why did you change your mind and come back out here?”

  She took the antiseptic and silently began applying it herself. Finally she spoke: “I don’t know why I came back. Maybe because I kept having these memories.” She looked up at me. “I want to understand what’s happening here.”

  I sat down facing her and gave her a sketchy summary of everything that had happened since we parted, particularly the information Wil and I had received about the group process of moving past the resentment to find the World Vision.

  She looked overwhelmed but seemed to accept her role. “I noticed your ankle no longer seems to be bothering you.”

  “Yeah, I guess it cleared up when I remembered where the problem came from.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then said, “There are only three of us. You said Williams and Feyman had both seen seven.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, “I’m just glad you’re here. You’re the one who knows about faith and visualization.”

  A look of terror crossed her face.

  A few moments later Curtis came back through the opening and told us he had seen nothing out of the ordinary, then sat down away from us to finish his meal. I reached over and served another plate and gave it to Maya.

  Curtis leaned back and handed her a canteen. “You know,” he said, “you took a hell of a risk walking around in the open like that. You could have led them right to us.”

  Maya glanced at me and then said defensively, “I was trying to get away! I didn’t know you were up here. I wouldn’t even have come this way if the birds hadn’t—”

  “Well, you’ve got to understand how much trouble we’re in!” Curtis interrupted. “We still haven’t stopped this experiment.” He got up and stepped outside again and sat behind a large rock near the opening.

  “Why is he so mad at me?” Maya asked.

  “You said you were having memories, Maya. What kind?”

  “I don’t know… of another time, I guess, of trying to stop some other violence. That’s why all this is so eerie to me.”

  “Does Curtis seem familiar to you?”

  She struggled to think. “Maybe. I don’t know. Why?”

  “Do you remember when I told you about seeing a vision of all of us in the past, during the Native American wars? Well, you were killed, and someone else was with you who seemed to be following your lead, and he was killed too. I think it was Curtis.”

  “He blames me? Oh God, no wonder he’s so mad.”

  “Maya, can you remember anything about what you two were doing?”

  She closed her eyes and tried to think.

  Suddenly she looked at me. “Was a Native American also there? A shaman?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He was killed too.”

  “We were thinking about something…” She looked me in the eye. “No, we were visualizing. We thought we could stop the war… That’s all I can get.”

  “You’ve got to talk to Curtis and help him work through his anger. It’s part of the process of remembering.”

  “Are you kidding? With him this angry?”

  “I’ll go speak with him first,” I said, standing up.

  She nodded slightly and looked away. I moved to the cave’s opening, crawled out, and sat down beside Curtis.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  He looked at me, slightly embarrassed. “I think there’s something about your friend that makes me mad.”

  “What are you feeling, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. I felt angry as soon as I saw her out there. I got the sense she might pull some blunder and expose us, or get us captured.”

  “Maybe killed?”

  “Yeah, maybe killed!” The force in his voice surprised both of us, and he took a breath and shrugged.

  “Remember when I told you about the visions I saw, of a time during the nineteenth-century Native American wars?”

  “Vaguely,” he muttered.

  “Well, I didn’t tell you then, but I think I saw you and Maya together. Curtis, you were both killed by soldiers.”

  He looked at the ceiling of the cave. “And you think that’s why I’m angry at her?”

  I smiled.

  At that moment a light dissonance filled the air and we both heard the hum.

  “Damn,” he said. “They’re firing it up again.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Curtis, we’ve got to figure out what you and Maya were trying to do back then, why you failed, and what you intended to happen differently this time.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know how much of all this I even believe; I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “I think if you just talk with her, something will come up.”

  He just looked at me.

  “Will you try?”

  Finally he nodded and we crawled back into the cave. Maya smiled awkwardly.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so angry,” Curtis offered. “It seems maybe I’m mad about something that occurred a long time ago.”

  “Forget it,” she said. “I just wish we could remember what we were trying to do.”

  Curtis looked hard at Maya. “I seem to remember you’re into healing of some kind.” He glanced at me. “Did you tell me that?�
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  “I don’t think so,” I replied, “but it’s true.”

  “I’m a physician,” Maya said. “I use positive imaging and faith in my work.”

  “Faith? You mean you treat people from a religious perspective?”

  “Well, only in a general sense. When I said faith, I meant the energy force that comes from human expectation. I work at a clinic where we’re trying to understand faith as an actual mental process, as the way we help create the future.”

  “And how long have you been into all this?” Curtis asked.

  “My whole life has prepared me to explore healing.” She went on to tell Curtis the same story of her life that she had told me earlier, including her mother’s tendency to worry that she would get cancer. As Maya discussed all that had happened to her, both Curtis and I asked questions. As we listened and gave her energy, the fatigue that had shown on her face began to ease, her eyes brightened, and she began to sit up straight.

  Curtis asked, “You believe your mother’s worry and negative vision of her future affected her health?”

  “Yes. Humans seem to help draw into their lives two particular kinds of events: what we have faith in and what we fear. But we’re doing it unconsciously. As a physician, I believe much can be gained by pulling the process fully into consciousness.”

  Curtis nodded. “But how is that done?”

  Maya didn’t answer. She stood up and stared straight ahead, a panicked look on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I was just… I… see what happened during the wars.”

  “What was it?” Curtis asked.

  She looked at him. “I remember we were there in the woods. I can see it all: the soldiers, smoke from the gunpowder.”

  Curtis seemed to be pulled into deep thought, obviously picking up on the memory. “I was there,” he mumbled. “Why was I there?” He looked at Maya. “You brought me to that place! I knew nothing; I was just a congressional observer. You told me we could stop the fighting!”

  She turned away, obviously struggling to understand. “I thought we could… There’s a way… Wait a minute, we weren’t alone.” She turned and stared at me, an angry expression appearing on her face. “You were there, too, but you abandoned us. Why did you leave us?”

  Her statement stirred the memory I had brought back earlier and told them both what I had seen, describing the others who were also there: the elders of several tribes, myself, Charlene. I explained that one elder voiced strong support of Maya’s efforts, but believed the time was not right, arguing that the tribes had not yet found their correct vision. I told them another chief had exploded with rage at the atrocities perpetrated by the white soldiers.

  “I couldn’t stay,” I told them, describing my memory of the experience with the Franciscans. “I couldn’t shake the need to run. I had to save myself. I’m sorry.”

  Maya seemed lost in thought, so I touched her arm and said, “The elders knew it couldn’t work; and Charlene confirmed that we hadn’t yet remembered the ancestors’ wisdom.”

  “Then why did one of the chiefs stay with us?” she asked.

  “Because he didn’t want the two of you to die alone.”

  “I didn’t want to die at all!” Curtis snapped, looking at Maya. “You misled me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t remember what went wrong.”

  “I know what went wrong,” he said. “You thought you could stop a war just because you wanted to.”

  She gazed at him for a long moment, then looked at me. “He’s right. We were visualizing that the soldiers must stop their aggression, but we had no clear picture of how that could happen. It didn’t work because we didn’t have all the information. Everyone was visualizing from fear, not faith. It works just like the process of healing our bodies. When we remember what we’re really supposed to do in life, it can restore our health. When we’re able to remember what all of humanity is supposed to do, starting right now, from this moment, we can heal the world.”

  “Apparently,” I said, “our Birth Vision contains not only what we individually intended to do in the physical dimension but also a larger vision of what humans have been trying to do throughout history, and the details of where we are going from here and how to get there. We just have to amplify our energy and share our birth intentions, and then we can remember.”

  Before she could respond, Curtis jumped to his feet and moved to the cave’s opening. “I heard something,” he said. “Someone’s out there.”

  Maya and I crouched beside him, straining to see. Nothing moved; then I thought I detected the rustling sound of someone walking.

  “I’m going to check this out,” Curtis said, moving through the opening.

  I glanced at Maya. “I had better go with him.”

  “I’m coming too,” she said.

  We followed Curtis down the slope to an outcropping where we could look straight down at the gorge between the two hills. A man and a woman, partially obscured by the underbrush, were crossing the rocks below us, heading toward the west.

  “That woman’s in trouble!” Maya said.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I just know. She looks familiar.”

  The woman turned once and the man pushed her menacingly, exposing a pistol held in his right hand.

  Maya leaned forward, looking at both of us. “Did you see that? We’ve got to do something.”

  I looked closely. The woman had light hair and was dressed in a sweatshirt and green fatigues with leg pockets. As I watched, she turned and said something to her captor, then glanced toward us, giving me a clear look at her face.

  “That’s Charlene,” I said. “Where do you think he’s taking her?”

  “Who knows?” Curtis replied. “Look, I think I can help her but I have to go alone. I need both of you to stay here.”

  I protested but Curtis would have it no other way. We watched him as he walked back to the left and down the slope through a section of woods. From there, he crept quietly to another outcropping of rock just ten feet above the bottom of the gorge.

  “They’ll have to pass right by him,” I told Maya.

  We observed anxiously as they moved closer to the rocks. At the precise moment they had passed, Curtis bounded down the hill and leaped upon the man, knocking him to the ground and holding his throat in a peculiar fashion until he stopped moving. Charlene jumped back in alarm and gathered herself to run.

  “Charlene, wait!” Curtis called. She stopped and took a cautious step forward. “It’s Curtis Webber. We worked together at Deltech, remember? I’m here to help you.”

  She obviously recognized him and moved closer. Maya and I made our way carefully down the hill. When Charlene saw me, she froze and then ran toward my embrace. Curtis rushed up and pushed us to the ground.

  “Keep down,” he said. “We could be seen here.”

  I helped Curtis tie up Charlene’s guard with a roll of tape we found in his pocket and pulled him up the slope into the forest.

  “What did you do to him?” Charlene asked.

  Curtis was checking his pockets. “I just knocked him out. He’ll be okay.”

  Maya bent down to check his pulse.

  Charlene turned her attention to me, reaching out for my hand. “How did you get here?” she asked.

  Taking a breath, I told her about the call from her office informing me of her disappearance and about finding the sketch and coming to the valley to look for her.

  She smiled. “I made that sketch intending to call you, but I left so suddenly I didn’t have time…” Her voice trailed off as she looked deeply into my eyes. “I think I saw you yesterday, in the other dimension.”

  I pulled her to the side, away from the others. “I saw you too, but I couldn’t communicate.”

  As we stared at each other, I felt my body grow lighter, a wave of orgasmic love sweeping across me, centered not in my pelvic region, but somehow around the outside of m
y skin. Simultaneously I seemed to be falling into Charlene’s eyes. Her smile grew and I realized she must be feeling much the same way.

  A movement from Curtis broke the spell, and I realized both he and Maya were staring at us.

  I looked back at Charlene. “I want to tell you what’s been happening,” I said, then described seeing Wil again, learning about the polarization of Fear, and the group coming back, and the World Vision,’"Charlene, how did you get into the Afterlife dimension?”

  Her face fell. “All this is my fault. I didn’t know the danger until yesterday. I’m the one who told Feyman about the Insights. Shortly after receiving your letter, I found out about another group that knew of the nine Insights, and I studied with them intensely. I had many of the same experiences you talked about. Later I came with a friend to this valley because we had heard that the sacred locations here were connected somehow with the Tenth Insight. My friend didn’t experience much, but I did, so I stayed to explore. That’s when I met Feyman, who employed me to teach him what I knew. From that moment forward he was with me every minute. He insisted I not call my office, for security reasons, so I wrote letters rescheduling all my appointments, only, as it turned out, I guess he was intercepting my letters. That’s why everyone thought I was missing.

  “With Feyman I explored most of the vortexes, especially the ones at Codder’s Knoll and The Falls. He couldn’t sense the energy personally, but I found out later that he was tracking us electronically and getting some sort of energy profile on me as we tuned into the locations. After that he could hone in on the area and find the exact location of the vortex electronically.”

  I glanced at Curtis and he nodded knowingly.

  Tears filled Charlene’s eyes. “He had me completely fooled. He said that he was working on a very inexpensive source of energy that will liberate everyone. He sent me to remote areas of the forest during much of the experimentation. Only later, after I confronted him, did he admit the dangers of what he was doing.”

  Curtis turned to face Charlene. “Feyman Carter was a chief engineer at Deltech. Do you remember?”