“This place is great,” she said when she reached me. “Have you come to the part about the perception of beauty yet?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I’m not sure what that means.”
“Further in the Manuscript,” she said, “it goes into more detail, but I’ll explain it briefly. The perception of beauty is a kind of barometer telling each of us how close we are to actually perceiving the energy. This is clear because once you observe this energy, you realize it’s on the same continuum as beauty.”
“You sound like you see it,” I said.
She looked at me without the slightest self-consciousness. “Yes, I do, but the first thing I developed was a deeper appreciation of beauty.”
“But how does that work. Isn’t beauty relative?”
She shook her head. “The things that we perceive as beautiful may be different, but the actual characteristics we ascribe to beautiful objects are similar. Think about it. When something strikes us as beautiful, it displays more presence and sharpness of shape and vividness of color, doesn’t it? It stands out. It shines. It seems almost iridescent compared to the dullness of other objects less attractive.”
I nodded.
“Look at this spot,” she continued. “I know you are blown away by it because we all are. This place leaps out at you. The colors and shapes seem magnified Well, the very next level of perception is to see an energy field hovering about everything.”
I must have looked bewildered because she laughed, then said very seriously, “Perhaps we should walk on to the gardens. They’re about a half mile farther south. I think you’ll find them interesting.” I thanked her for taking the time to explain the Manuscript to me, a total stranger, and for showing me around Viciente. She shrugged her shoulders.
“You seem like a person friendly to what we’re trying to do,” she said. “And we all know we’re involved in a public relations effort here. For this research to continue, we must get the word out in the United States and elsewhere. The local authorities don’t seem to like us much.”
Suddenly a voice called out from behind. “Excuse me, please!” We turned to see three men walking quickly up the path toward us. All appeared to be in their late forties and were dressed in stylish clothes.
“Would one of you tell me where the research gardens are?” the taller of the three asked.
“Could you tell me what your business here is?” Sarah asked in return.
“My colleagues and I have permission from the owner of this estate to examine the gardens and to speak with someone about the so-called research being conducted here. We are from the University of Peru.”
“Sounds as though you’re not in agreement with our findings,” Sarah said smiling, obviously trying to lighten the situation.
“Absolutely not,” another of the men said. “We think it is preposterous to claim that some mysterious energy can now be seen, when it has never been observed before.”
“Have you tried to see it?” Sarah queried.
The man ignored the question and asked again, “Can you direct us to the gardens?”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “About a hundred yards ahead you will see a path turning east. Take it and ahead maybe a quarter of a mile you’ll run into them.”
“Thank you,” the tall man said as they hurried on their way.
“You sent them in the wrong direction,” I said.
“Not really,” she replied. “There are other gardens in that area. And the people there are more prepared to talk with these kinds of skeptics. We get people like this through here occasionally, and not just scientists but curiosity seekers as well, people who can’t begin to grasp what we’re doing … which points out the problem that exists in scientific understanding.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“As I said before, the old skeptical attitude was great when exploring the more visible and obvious phenomena in the universe, such as trees or sunshine or thunderstorms. But there is another group of observable phenomena, more subtle, that you can’t study—in fact, you can’t even tell they’re there at all—unless you suspend or bracket your skepticism and try every way possible to perceive them. Once you can, then you return to your rigorous study.”
“Interesting,” I said.
Ahead the woods ended and I could see dozens of cultivated plots, each one growing a different type plant. Most seemed to be food-bearing types: everything from bananas to spinach. At the eastern border of each crop was a wide gravel path which ran north to what appeared to be a public road. Three metal outbuildings were spaced along the path. Four or five people worked near each one.
“I see some friends of mine,” Sarah said, and pointed toward the closest building. “Let’s go over there. I’d like for you to meet them.”
Sarah introduced me to three men and one woman, all of whom were involved in the research. The men spoke with me briefly then excused themselves to continue their work, but the woman, a biologist named Marjorie, seemed free to talk.
I caught Marjorie’s eye. “What exactly are you researching here?” I asked.
She appeared to be taken off guard, but smiled and finally answered. “It’s hard to know where to start,” she said. “Are you familiar with the Manuscript?”
“The first sections of it,” I commented. “I’ve just begun the Third Insight.”
“Well, that’s what we’re all about here. C’mon, I’ll show you.” She motioned for me to follow her and we walked around the metal building to a plot of beans. I noticed they appeared to be exceptionally healthy, with no noticeable insect damage or dead leaves. The plants were growing in what appeared to be a highly humus, almost fluffy soil, and each plant was carefully spaced, the stems and leaves of one growing near but never touching those of the next.
She pointed to the closest plant. “We’ve tried to look at these plants as total energy systems, and think of everything they need to flourish—soil, nutrients, moisture, light. What we have found is that the total ecosystem around each plant is really one living system, one organism. And the health of each of the parts impacts on the health of the whole.”
She hesitated, then said, “The basic point is that once we started thinking about the energy relationships all around the plant then we started seeing amazing results. The plants in our studies were not particularly larger, but according to nutritional criteria, they were more potent.”
“How was that measured?”
“They contained more protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals.”
She looked at me expectantly. “But that wasn’t the most amazing thing! We found that the plants which had the most direct human attention were even more potent.”
“What kind of attention?” I asked.
“You know,” she said, “fiddling with the ground around them, checking them every day. That sort of thing. We set up an experiment with a control group: some getting special attention, others not, and the finding was confirmed. What’s more,” she continued, “we expanded the concept and had a researcher not just give them attention but to mentally ask them to grow stronger. The person would actually sit with them and focus all his attention and concern on their growth.”
“Did they grow stronger?”
“By significant amounts, and they also grew faster.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Yes, it is …” Her voice trailed off as she watched an older man, appearing to be in his sixties, walk toward us.
“The gentleman approaching is a micro-nutritionist,” she said discreetly. “He came down here about a year ago for the first time and immediately took a leave of absence from Washington State University. His name is Professor Hains. He’s done some great studies.”
As he arrived, I was introduced. He was a strongly built man with black hair, gray streaks at his temples. After some prodding from Marjorie, the professor began to summarize his research. He was most interested, he told me, in the functioning of the body’s organs as measured by h
ighly sensitive blood tests, especially as this functioning related to the quality of food eaten.
He told me what interested him most were the results of a particular study which showed that while nutritionally rich plants of the kind grown at Viciente increased the body’s efficiency dramatically, the increase was beyond what could be reasonably expected from the nutrients themselves as we understand how they work in human physiology. Something inherent in the structure of these plants created an effect not yet accounted for.
I looked at Marjorie, then asked, “Then the focusing of attention on these plants gave them something that boosts human strength in return when they’re eaten? Is this the energy mentioned in the Manuscript?”
Marjorie looked at the Professor. He gave me only a half smile. “I don’t know yet,” he said.
I asked him about his future research, and he explained that he wanted to duplicate the garden at Washington State and set up some long-term studies, to see if people eating these plants had more energy or were healthier over a longer period of time. As he spoke, I couldn’t help glancing periodically at Marjorie. Suddenly she looked incredibly beautiful. Her body appeared long and slender, even under her baggy jeans and t-shirt. Her eyes and hair were dark brown, and her hair fell in tapered curls around her face.
I felt a powerful physical attraction. At the exact moment I became aware of this attraction, she turned her head, stared directly into my eyes, and backed away from me a step.
“I’ve got to meet someone,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you later.” She told Hains good-bye, smiled coyly at me, and walked past the metal building and down the path.
After a few more minutes of discussion with the professor, I wished him well and strolled back to where Sarah was standing. She was still talking intensely with one of the other researchers but she followed me with her eyes as I walked.
As I approached, the man she was with smiled, rearranged the notes on his clipboard and walked into the building.
“Find out anything?” Sarah asked.
“Yes,” I said, distractedly, “it sounds like these folks are doing some interesting things.”
I was looking at the ground when she said, “Where did Marjorie go?”
As I glanced up I could see she had an amused look on her face.
“She said she had to meet someone.”
“Did you turn her off?” she asked, smiling now.
I laughed. “I guess I did. But I didn’t say a thing.”
“You didn’t have to,” she said. “Marjorie could detect a change in your field. It was pretty obvious. I could see it all the way over here.”
“A change in my what?”
“In the energy field around your body. Most of us have learned to see them, at least in certain light. When a person has sexual thoughts the person’s energy field sort of swirls about and actually propels out toward the person who’s the object of the attraction.”
This struck me as totally fantastic, but before I could comment, we were distracted by several people coming out of the metal building.
“Time now for the energy projections,” Sarah said. “You’ll want to see this.”
We followed four young men, apparently students, to a plot of corn. As we walked closer, I realized that the plot was made up of two separate subplots, each about ten feet square. The corn in one was about two feet high. In the other, the plants were less than fifteen inches. The four men walked to the plot containing the taller corn then sat down, each on one corner of the plot facing inward. On cue they all seemed to focus their eyes on the plants. The late afternoon sun shone from behind me, bathing the plot in soft, amber light, yet the woods beyond remained dark in the distance. The plot of corn and the students were silhouetted against the almost black background.
Sarah was standing beside me. “This is perfect,” she said. “Look! Can you see that?”
“What?”
“They’re projecting their energy onto the plants.
I stared intently at the scene but could detect nothing.
“I can’t see anything,” I said.
“Squat down lower then,” Sarah said, “and focus on the space between the people and the plants.”
For a moment I thought I saw a flicker of light, but I concluded it was just an after image, or my eyes playing tricks on me. I tried several more times to see something then gave up.
“I can’t do it,” I said, standing.
Sarah patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. The first time is the most difficult. It usually takes some experimenting with the way you focus your eyes.”
One of the meditators looked over at us and brought his index finger up to his lips, so we walked back toward the building.
“Are you going to be here at Viciente long?” Sarah asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “The person I’m with is looking for the last part of the Manuscript.”
She looked surprised. “I thought all of it had been located. Though I guess I wouldn’t know. I’ve been so engrossed in the part that pertains to my work that I haven’t read much of the rest.”
I instinctively reached for my pants pocket, suddenly uncertain where Sarah’s translation was. It was rolled up in my back pocket.
“You know,” Sarah said. “We’ve found two periods of the day most conducive to seeing energy fields. One is sunset. The other is sunrise. If you want, I’ll meet you at dawn tomorrow and we’ll try again.”
She reached out for the folder. “That way,” she continued, “I can make you a copy of this translation and you can take it with you.”
I pondered this suggestion for a few seconds, then decided it couldn’t hurt.
“Why not?” I said. “I’ll have to check with my friend, though, and make sure we have enough time.” I smiled at her. “What makes you think I can learn to see this stuff?”
“Call it a hunch.”
We agreed to meet on the hill at 6:00 A.M., and I started the one mile trek to the Lodge alone. The sun had completely disappeared but its light still bathed the grey clouds along the horizon in hues of orange. The air was chilly but no wind blew.
At the lodge a line was forming in front of the serving bar in the huge dining room. Feeling hungry, I walked toward the head of the line to see what food was being served. Wil and Professor Hains were standing near the front, talking casually.
“Well,” Wil said, “how did the afternoon go?”
“Great,” I said.
“This is William Hains,” Wil added.
“Yes,” I said, “we met earlier.”
The professor nodded.
I mentioned my early morning rendezvous the next day. Wil saw no problem, as he wanted to find a couple of people he hadn’t talked to yet, and didn’t anticipate leaving before 9:00 A.M.
The line moved forward then and the people behind us invited me to join my friends. I stepped in beside the professor.
“So what do you make of what we’re doing here?” Hains asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m trying to let it soak in a little. The whole idea of energy fields is new to me.”
“The reality of it is new to everyone,” he said, “but the interesting thing is that this energy is what science has always been looking for: some common stuff underlying all matter. Since Einstein particularly, physics has sought a unified field theory. I don’t know if this is it or not but at the very least this Manuscript has stimulated some interesting research.”
“What would it take for science to accept this idea?” I asked.
“A way to measure it,” he said. “The existence of this energy is not that foreign actually. Karate masters have talked about an underlying Chi energy responsible for their seemingly impossible stunts of breaking bricks with their hands and of being able to sit in one place unmoved with four men trying to push them over. And we’ve all seen athletes make spectacular moves, twisting, turning, hanging in the air in ways that defy gravity. It’s all the result of this hid
den energy that we have access to.
“Of course, it won’t really be accepted until more people can actually see it themselves.”
“Have you ever observed it?” I asked.
“I’ve observed something,” he said. “It really depends on what I’ve eaten.”
“How so?”
“Well, the people around here who readily see these energy fields eat mostly vegetables. And they usually eat only these highly potent plants they’ve grown themselves.”
He pointed ahead to the food bar. “This is some of it, though thank goodness they serve some fish and fowl for old guys like me who are addicted to meat. But if I force myself to eat differently, yes, I can see something.”
I asked him why he didn’t change his diet for longer periods of time.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Old habits die hard.”
The line moved forward and I ordered only vegetables. The three of us joined a larger table of guests and talked casually for an hour. Then Wil and I walked out to the jeep to remove our gear. “Have you seen these energy fields?” I asked.
He smiled and nodded. “My room is on the first floor,” he said. “Yours is on the third. Room 306. You can pick your key up at the desk.”
The room had no phone, but a lodge attendant I saw in the hallway assured me someone would knock on my door at 5:00 A.M. sharp. I lay down and thought for a few minutes. The afternoon had been long and full, and I understood Wil’s silence. He wanted me to experience the Third Insight in my own way.
The next thing I knew someone was banging on the door. I looked at my watch: 5:00 A.M. When the attendant knocked again I said, “Thank you,” in a voice loud enough for him to hear, then rose and looked out the small frame window. The only sign of morning was a pale glow of light toward the east.
I walked down the hall and showered, then dressed quickly and went downstairs. The dining room was open and a surprising number of people were moving about. I ate only fruit and hurried outside.