“How many of the insights have you read?”
“Only the one I saw at Viciente. Robert has some others but he believes people have to rid themselves of their traditional beliefs before they can understand them. He says he would rather they learn the key concepts from him.”
I must have frowned because she added: “You don’t like that much, do you?”
“It sounds suspicious,” I said.
She looked at me intensely again. “I wondered about it too. Maybe when you take me back, you can talk with him and tell me what you think.”
The waitress arrived and brought our food, and as she was walking away, I saw Wil come in the door. He walked quickly to our table.
“I’ve got to meet some people about a mile north of here,” he said. “I’ll be gone about two hours. Take the jeep and take Marjorie back. I’m riding with someone else.” He shot me a smile. “We can meet back here.”
The thought came to me to tell him about Robert Jensen but I decided against it.
“Okay,” I said.
He looked at Marjorie. “Nice to have met you. Wish I had time to stay and talk.”
She looked at him with her coy expression. “Maybe some other time.”
He nodded, handed me the keys, and walked away.
Marjorie ate for a few minutes, then said: “He seems like a man with a purpose. How did you meet him?”
I told her in detail of my experiences upon first arriving in Peru. As I talked, she listened intently. So intently, in fact, that I found myself telling the story with great ease and expressing the dramatic turns and episodes with insight and true flair. She seemed spell-bound, hanging on every word.
“Goodness,” she said at one point, “do you think you’re in danger?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Not this far from Lima.”
She was still looking at me expectantly, so while we finished eating I briefly summarized the events at Viciente up to the point where Sarah and I had arrived at the gardens.
“That’s where I met you,” I said, “and you ran off.”
“Oh, it wasn’t like that,” she said. “I just didn’t know you, and when I saw your feelings, I thought it was best to leave.”
“Well, I apologize,” I said chuckling, “for letting my energy get out of hand.”
She looked at her watch. “I guess I should be getting back. They’ll be wondering about me.”
I left enough money for the bill and we walked outside to Wil’s jeep. The night was chilly and we could see a trace of our breath. As we got in, she said, “Head back north on this road. I’ll tell you when to turn.”
I nodded, and made a quick u-turn in the street and headed that way.
“Tell me more about this farm we’re going to,” I said.
“I think Robert rents it. Apparently his group has been using it for a long time while he has studied the insights. Since I’ve been there everyone has been assembling supplies, and readying the vehicles, things like that. Some of his men seem very rough.”
“Why did he invite you along?” I asked.
“He said he wanted a person who could help interpret the last insight, once we found it. At least that’s what he said back at Viciente. Here he has only talked about supplies and helping to prepare for the trip.”
“Where is he planning to go?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He never answers me when I ask.”
After about a mile and a half, she pointed out a turn to the left onto a narrow, rocky road. It meandered up a ridge and down into a flat valley. Ahead was a farmhouse made of rough planking. Behind it were several barns and outbuildings. Three llamas peered at us from a fenced pasture.
As we slowed to a stop, several people walked around a vehicle and stared without smiling. I noticed a gas powered, electric generator humming at the side of the house. Then the door opened and a tall, dark-haired man with strong, lean features walked toward us.
“That’s Robert,” Marjorie said.
“Good,” I said, still feeling strong and confident.
We got out as Jensen walked up to us. He looked at Marjorie.
“I was worried about you,” he said. “I understand you ran into a friend.”
I introduced myself and he shook my hand firmly.
“I’m Robert Jensen,” he said. “Glad you two are all right. Come in.”
Inside several people busied themselves with supplies. One carried a tent and camping gear toward the back. Through the dining room, I noticed two Peruvian women in the kitchen, packing food. Jensen sat in one of the chairs in the living room and directed us to two others.
“Why did you say you were glad we were all right?” I asked.
He bent toward me and asked in a sincere tone, “How long have you been in this area?”
“Only since this afternoon.”
“Then you couldn’t know how dangerous it is here. People are disappearing. Have you heard of the Manuscript, of the missing Ninth Insight?”
“Yes, I have. In fact…”
“Then you need to know what’s going on,” he interrupted. “The search for the last insight is getting ugly. There are dangerous people involved in this.”
“Who?” I asked.
“People who don’t care about the archaeological value of this discovery at all. People who just want the insight for their own purposes.”
A huge man with a beard and paunch interrupted the conversation and showed Jensen a list. They discussed something briefly in Spanish.
Jensen looked at me again. “Are you here to find the missing insight too?” he asked. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?”
I felt awkward and had difficulty expressing myself. “Well…I’m mainly interested in finding out more about the entire Manuscript. I haven’t seen that much of it yet.”
He straightened in his chair, then said: “Do you realize that the Manuscript is a state artifact and that copies of it have been made illegal except by permit?”
“Yes, but some scientists disagree with that. They feel the government is suppressing new…”
“Don’t you think the nation of Peru has the right to control its own archaeological treasures? Does the government know that you’re in this country?”
I didn’t know what to say—the surge of anxiety in my stomach was back.
“Look, don’t get me wrong,” he said, smiling. “I’m on your side. If you have some sort of academic support from outside the country, then tell me. But I get the feeling you’re just floating around.”
“Something like that,” I said.
I noticed Marjorie’s focus had shifted from me to Jensen. “What do you think he should do?” she asked.
Jensen stood up and smiled. “I could perhaps work you into a position with us here. We need more people. Where we are going is relatively safe, I think. And you could find some avenues home along the way if things didn’t work out.”
He looked at me closely. “But you’ll have to be willing to do exactly as I say, every step of the way.”
I glanced over at Marjorie. She was still looking at Jensen. I felt confused. Perhaps I should consider Jensen’s offer, I thought. If he was in good standing with the government then this might be the only opportunity I had for a legitimate way back to the states. Perhaps I had been fooling myself. Perhaps Jensen was right and I was in way over my head.
“I think you should consider what Robert is saying,” Marjorie commented. “It’s too frightening out there alone.”
Though I knew she might be correct, I still had faith in Wil, in what we were doing. I wanted to express this thought but when I tried to speak, I found I couldn’t formulate the words. I could no longer think clearly.
Suddenly the large man walked into the room again and looked out the window. Jensen was quickly up and looking, then he turned to Marjorie and in a casual tone said, “Someone is coming. Go ask Kenny to come up here, please.”
She nodded and left. Throu
gh the window I could see truck lights approaching. The vehicle parked just outside the fence, fifty feet away.
Jensen opened the door and as he did, I heard my name mentioned outside.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Jensen looked at me sharply. “Be very quiet,” he said. He and the large man walked outside and pulled the door closed. Through the window I could see a lone figure silhouetted behind the truck’s lights. My first impulse was to stay inside. Jensen’s assessment of my situation had filled me with foreboding. But something about the person by the truck seemed familiar. I opened the door and walked outside. As soon as Jensen saw me, he quickly turned and walked my way.
“What are you doing? Go back inside.”
Above the generator I thought I heard my name again.
“Go back inside, now!” Jensen said. “It could be a trap.” He was standing directly in front of me, blocking my view of the vehicle. “Go back inside now!”
I felt totally confused and panicked, unable to make a decision. Then the figure behind the lights walked closer and I could see his form around Jensen’s body. Distinctly I heard: “… come here, I need to talk with you!” Then as the figure approached, my head cleared and I realized that it was Wil. I rushed past Jensen.
“What was wrong with you?” Wil asked quickly. “We need to get out of here.”
“But what about Marjorie?” I asked.
“We can’t do anything about her right now,” Wil said. “We’d better leave.”
We started to walk away when Jensen called out. “You’d better stay here. You won’t make it.”
I glanced back.
Wil stopped and looked at me, giving me a choice to stay or go.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We passed the truck in which Wil had arrived and I noticed two other men had been waiting in the front seat. When we got to Wil’s jeep, he asked me for the keys and we drove away. The truck with Wil’s friends followed.
Wil turned and looked at me. “Jensen told me you had decided to stay with his group. What was going on?”
“How do you know his name?” I stammered.
“I just heard all about this guy,” Wil replied. “He works for the Peruvian government. He’s a real archaeologist, but he’s committed to keeping the whole thing secret in return for exclusive rights to study the Manuscript, only he wasn’t supposed to go looking for the missing insight. Apparently he’s decided to violate that agreement. He is rumored to be leaving soon in pursuit of the Ninth.
“When I learned he was the person Marjorie was with, I thought I’d better get down here. What did he say to you?”
“He told me I was in danger and that I should join up with him and that he’d help me leave the country if that’s what I wanted.”
Wil shook his head. “He really had you hooked.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should have seen your energy field. It was flowing almost totally into his.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think back to Sarah’s argument with the scientist at Viciente. … If you had witnessed one of them winning, convincing the other that he was correct, then you would have seen the loser’s energy flowing into the winner’s, leaving the loser feeling drained and weak and somewhat confused—the way the girl in the Peruvian family appeared and the way,” he smiled, “that you look now.”
“You saw that happening to me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “And it was extremely difficult for you to stop his control of you and to pull yourself away. I thought for a minute you weren’t going to do it.”
“Jesus,” I said. “That guy must really be evil.”
“Not really,” he said. “He’s probably only half aware of what he’s doing. He thinks he’s right to control the situation, and no doubt he learned a long time ago that he could control successfully by following a certain strategy. He first pretends to be your friend, then he finds something wrong with what you’re doing, in your case that you were in danger. In effect, he subtly undermines your confidence in your own path until you begin to identify with him. As soon as that happens, he has you.”
Wil looked directly at me. “This is only one of many strategies people use to con others out of their energy. You’ll learn about the remaining ways later, in the Sixth Insight.”
I wasn’t listening; my thoughts were on Marjorie. I didn’t like leaving her there.
“Do you think we should try to get Marjorie?” I asked.
“Not now,” he said. “I don’t think she’s in any danger. We can drive out tomorrow, as we leave, and try to talk to her.”
We were silent for a few minutes, then Wil asked: “Do you understand what I said about Jensen not realizing what he was doing? He’s no different from most people. He just does what makes him feel the strongest.”
“No, I don’t think I understand.”
Wil looked thoughtful. “All this is still unconscious in most people. All we know is that we feel weak and when we control others we feel better. What we don’t realize is that this sense of feeling better costs the other person. It is their energy that we have stolen. Most people go through their lives in a constant hunt for someone else’s energy.”
He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. “Although occasionally it works differently. We meet someone who at least for a little while will voluntarily send us their energy.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Think back to when you and Marjorie were eating together at the restaurant in town and I walked in.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know what you two were talking about but obviously her energy was pouring into you. When I walked in, I could see it clearly. Tell me, how did you feel during that time?”
“I felt good,” I said. “In fact, the experiences and concepts I was relating seemed crystal clear to me. I could express myself easily. But what does that mean?”
He smiled. “Occasionally, another person will voluntarily want us to define their situation for them, giving us their energy outright, the way Marjorie did with you. It makes us feel empowered, but you’ll see that this gift doesn’t usually last. Most people—Marjorie included—aren’t strong enough to keep giving energy. That’s why most relationships eventually turn into power struggles. Humans link up energy and then fight over who is going to control it. And the loser always pays the price.”
He stopped abruptly and looked at me. “Do you get the Fourth Insight? Think about what has happened to you. You observed that energy flows between people and wondered what it meant, and then we ran into Reneau, who told you that psychologists were already searching for some reason humans sought to control each other.
“All that was demonstrated with the Peruvian family. You saw clearly that dominating another makes the dominator feel powerful and knowledgeable, but it sucks the vital energy out of those who are being dominated. It makes no difference if we tell ourselves that we are doing it for the person’s own good, or that they are our children, and therefore we should be in control all the time. The damage still occurs.
“Next, you ran into Jensen and got a taste of what this actually feels like. You saw that when someone is dominating you psychically, they actually take your mind away. It was not as if you lost some intellectual debate with Jensen. You didn’t have the energy or mental clarity to debate with. All your mental power was going to Jensen. Unfortunately this kind of psychic violence happens all the time throughout human culture, often by otherwise well-meaning people.”
I just nodded. Wil had summarized my experience exactly.
“Try to integrate the Fourth Insight fully,” Wil continued. “See how it fits together with what you already know. The Third Insight showed you that the physical world is actually a vast system of energy. And now the Fourth points out that for a long time we humans have been unconsciously competing for the only part of this energy we have been open to: the part that flows between people. This is what human con
flict has always been about, at every level: from all the petty conflict in families and employment settings to wars between nations. It’s the result of feeling insecure and weak and having to steal someone else’s energy to feel okay.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “Some wars had to be fought. They were right.”
“Of course,” Wil replied. “But the only reason that any conflict can’t be immediately settled is that one side is holding on to an irrational position, for energy purposes.”
Wil appeared to remember something. Reaching into a satchel, he pulled out a bundle of papers clipped together.
“I almost forgot!” he said. “I found a copy of the Fourth Insight.”
He handed me the copy and said nothing else, looking straight ahead as he drove.
I picked up the small flashlight Wil kept on the floorboard and for the next twenty minutes read the short document. Understanding the Fourth Insight, it said, is a matter of seeing the human world as a vast competition for energy and thus for power.
Yet, once humans understand their struggle, the insight continued, we would immediately begin to transcend this conflict. We would begin to break free from the competition over mere human energy…because we would finally be able to receive our energy from another source.
I looked at Wil. “What’s the other source?” I asked.
He smiled, but said nothing.
THE
MESSAGE OF
THE MYSTICS
The next morning I awoke as soon as I heard Wil stirring. We had spent the night at a house belonging to one of his friends, and Wil was sitting up in a cot across the room, dressing quickly. It was still dark outside.
“Let’s get packed,” he whispered.
We gathered our clothes and made several trips out to the jeep with some extra supplies Wil had bought. The center of town was only a few hundred yards away, but few lights penetrated the darkness. Dawn was but a streak of lighter sky toward the east. Other than a few birds signaling the impending morning, there were no sounds.