“That’s right, although some prices might go up temporarily as everyone takes into account the true cost of waste disposal and other environmental effects. Overall, though, prices will systematically decline.”
“Doesn’t this process already happen at times,” I asked, “as a result of market forces?”
“Of course,” he replied, “but it can be accelerated if we do it consciously—although as the Ninth Insight predicts, this process will be greatly enhanced by the discovery of a very inexpensive energy source. It appears as if Feyman has done that. But the energy has to be made available in the most inexpensive way possible if it is to have its most liberating impact.”
As he spoke, he seemed to grow more inspired. Turning, he looked straight into my eyes. “This is the economic idea I came here wanting to contribute,” he said. “I’ve never seen it so clearly. That’s why I wanted to have the life experiences I’ve had; I wanted to be prepared for delivering this message.”
“Do you really think enough people will reduce prices to make a difference?” Maya asked. “Especially if it takes money out of their own pockets? That seems to fly in the face of human nature.”
Curtis didn’t answer. Instead he looked at me, along with the others, as if I had the answer. For a moment I was silent, feeling the energy shift.
“Curtis is right,” I said finally. “We’ll do it anyway, even though we may give up some personal profit in the short run. None of this makes any sense at all until we grasp the Ninth and Tenth Insights. If one believes that life is just a matter of personal survival in an essentially meaningless and unfriendly world, then it makes perfect sense to focus all one’s wits on living as comfortably as possible and seeing to it that one’s children have the same opportunities. But if one grasps the first nine Insights and sees life as a spiritual evolution, with spiritual responsibilities, then our view completely changes.
“And once we begin to understand the Tenth, then we see the birth process from the perspective of the Afterlife, and we realize that we’re all here to bring the Earth dimension into alignment with the Heavenly sphere. Besides, opportunity and success are very mysterious processes, and if we operate our economic life in the flow of the overall plan, we synchronistically meet all the other people who are doing the same thing, and suddenly prosperity opens up for us.
“We’ll do it,” I continued, “because individually that’s where the intuition and coincidences will take us. We’ll remember more about our Birth Visions and it will become clear that we intended to make a certain contribution to the world. And most important, we’ll know that if we don’t follow this intuition, not only will the magic coincidences and the sense of inspiration and aliveness stop, but eventually we may have to look at our actions in an Afterlife Review. We’ll have to face our failure.”
I stopped abruptly, noticing that Charlene and Maya were both staring wide-eyed at the space behind me. Reflexively I turned around; there was the hazy outline of my own soul group, dozens of individuals fading into the distance, again as though the walls of the cave weren’t there.
“What are all of you looking at?” Curtis asked.
“It’s his soul group,” Charlene said. “I saw these groups when I was at the falls.”
“I’ve seen a group behind both Maya and Curtis,” I said.
Maya twisted around and looked at the space behind her. The group there flickered once, then came fully into focus.
“I don’t see anything,” Curtis said. “Where are they?”
Maya continued to stare, obviously seeing all of the groups. “They’re helping us, aren’t they? They can give us the vision we’re looking for.”
As soon as she made that comment, all of the groups moved away from us dramatically and became less clear.
“What happened?” Maya asked.
“It’s your expectation,” I said. “If you look to them for your energy, as a replacement for your own inner connection to divine energy, they leave. They won’t allow a dependence. The same thing happened to me.”
Charlene gave me a nod of agreement. “It happened to me too. They’re like family. We’re connected to them in thought, but we have to sustain our own connection with the divine source beyond them before we can link to them and pick up on what they know, which is really your own higher memory.”
“They hold the memory for us?” Maya asked.
“Yes,” Charlene replied, looking directly at me. She started to say something else, then stopped herself, appearing to drift off in thought. Then she said, “I’m beginning to understand, what I saw in the other dimension. In the Afterlife each of us comes from a particular soul group, and these groups each have a particular angle or truth to offer the rest of humanity.” She glanced at me. “For instance, you come from a group of facilitators. Do you know that? Souls that help evolve our philosophical understanding of what life is about. Everyone who belongs to this particular soul group is always trying to find the best and most comprehensive way of describing spiritual reality. You struggle with complex information, and because you’re so dense, you keep pushing and exploring until you find a way to express it clearly.”
I looked at her askance, which made her burst out laughing.
“It’s a gift you have,” she said reassuringly.
Turning to Maya, she said, “And you, Maya, your soul group is oriented toward health and well-being. They think of themselves as solidifiers of the physical dimension, keeping our cells operating optimally and full of energy, tracing and removing emotional blocks before they manifest in disease.
“Curtis’ group is about transforming the use of technology, as well as our overall understanding of commerce. Throughout human history this group has been working to spiritualize our concepts of money and capitalism, to find the ideal conceptualization.”
She paused, and I could already see an image of light flickering behind her.
“What about you, Charlene?” I asked. “What is your group doing?”
“We’re journalists, researchers,” she replied, “working to help people appreciate and learn from each other. What journalism is really all about is looking deeply at the life and beliefs of the people and organizations we cover, at their true substance and higher expression, just the way we’re looking at each other now.”
I again remembered my conversation with Joel, specifically his jaded cynicism. “It’s hard to see journalists doing that,” I said.
“We’re not,” she replied. “Not yet. But this is the ideal toward which the profession is evolving. This is our true destiny, once we become more secure and break free from the old worldview in which we need to ‘win’ and bring energy and status our way.
“It makes perfect sense why I wanted to be born to my family. They were all so inquisitive. I picked up on their excitement, their need for information. That’s why I was a reporter for so long, and then joined the research firm. I wanted to help work out the ethics of reporting and then come together with all of…” She drifted away again, staring at the floor of the cave, then her eyes widened and she said, “I know how we’re bringing in the World Vision. As we remember our Birth Visions and integrate them together as a group, we merge the power of our relative soul groups in the other dimension, which helps us remember even more, so we finally get to the overall vision of the world.”
We all stared at her, puzzled.
“Look at the whole picture,” she explained. “Each person on Earth belongs to a soul group, and these soul groups represent the various occupational groups that exist on the planet: medical people, lawyers, accountants, computer workers, farmers, every field of human endeavor. Once people find their right work, the job that really fits them, then they are working with other members of their soul group.
“As each of us wakes up and begins to remember our Birth Vision—why we’re here—the occupational groups to which we belong come more into alignment with the members of our groups in the other dimension. As this happens, each occupational g
roup on Earth moves toward its true soul purpose, its role of service in human society.”
We all continued to be spellbound.
“It’s like with us journalists,” she continued. “Throughout history we have been the individuals most inquisitive about what others in the culture were doing. And then a few centuries ago, we became conscious enough of ourselves to form a defined occupation. Since then we’ve been busy broadening our use of the media, reaching more and more people with our newscasts, that sort of thing. But like everyone else, we suffered from insecurity. We felt that to get attention and energy from the rest of humanity we had to create increasingly more sensational stories, thinking that only negativity and violence sell.
“But that’s not our true role. Our spiritual role is to deepen and spiritualize our perception of other people. We see and then communicate what the various soul groups, and individuals within these groups, are doing, and what they stand for, making it easier for everyone to learn the truth others provide.
“It’s the same for every occupational group; we’re all awakening to our true message and purpose. And as this happens all over the planet, we’re then able to go further. We can form close spiritual associations with people outside of our particular soul group, just the way we’re doing here. We all shared our Birth Visions and raised our vibration together, and that transforms not only human society but the culture in the Afterlife as well.
“First, each of our soul groups comes closer into vibration with us on Earth and we with them, the two dimensions opening into each other. Because of this closure, we can begin to have communication between the dimensions. We are able to see souls in the Afterlife and pick up on their knowledge and memory more readily. That’s happening with increasing frequency on the Earth.”
As Charlene was speaking, I noticed the soul groups behind each of us widening and spreading out until each touched the others, forming a continuous circle around us. The convergence seemed to jolt me into an even higher awareness.
Charlene seemed to feel it too. She took a breath and then with emphasis continued. “The other thing that happens in the Afterlife is that the groups themselves come closer into resonance with each other. That’s why the Earth is the primary focus of the souls in Heaven. They can’t unite on their own. Over there, many soul groups remain fragmented and out of resonance with each other because they live in an imaginary world of ideas that manifests instantly and disappears just as quickly, so reality is always arbitrary. There is no natural world, no atomic structure, as we have here, that serves as a stable platform, a background stage, that is common to all of us. We affect what happens on this stage, but ideas manifest much more slowly and we must reach some agreement on what we want to happen in the future. It’s this agreement, this consensus, this unity of vision on the Earth, that also pulls the soul groups together in the Afterlife dimension. That’s why the Earth dimension is deemed so important. The physical dimension is where the true unification of souls is taking place!
“And it’s this unification that’s behind the long historical journey that humans have been taking. The soul groups in the Afterlife understand the World Vision, the vision of how the physical world can evolve and the dimensions can close, but this can only be accomplished by individuals who are born into the physical, one at a time, hoping to move the consensus Earth reality in that direction. The physical arena is the theater upon which evolution has been playing out for both dimensions, and now we’re bringing it all into culmination as we remember consciously what’s going on.”
She pointed to us with a sweeping motion of her finger. “This is the awareness that we’re remembering together, right now— and it’s the awareness that other groups, just like us, are remembering all over the planet. We all have a piece of the complete Vision, and when we share what we know, and unify our soul groups, then we’re ready to bring the whole picture into consciousness.”
Suddenly Charlene was interrupted by a slight tremor that ran through the earth under the cave. Specks of dust fell from the ceiling. Simultaneously we heard the hum again, but this time the dissonance had disappeared; it sounded almost harmonious.
“Oh God,” Curtis said. “They almost have the calibrations right. We have to go back to the bunker.” He made a movement to get up, as the energy level of the group plummeted.
“Wait,” I said. “What are we going to do there? We agreed that we would wait here until dark; there’s still hours of daylight out there. I say we stay here. We achieved a high level of energy, but we haven’t moved through the rest of the process yet. We seem to have cleared our residual emotions and amplified our energy and shared our Birth Visions, but we haven’t seen the World Vision yet. I think we can do more if we remain where it’s safe, and try to go further.” Even as I spoke, I saw an image of all of us back in the valley again, together in the darkness.
“It’s too late for that,” Curtis said. “They’re ready to complete the experiment. If anything can be done, we’ve got to go there and do it now.”
I looked hard at him. “You said they were probably going to kill Charlene. If we’re caught, they’ll do the same to us.”
Maya held her head in her hands and Curtis looked away, trying to shake off the panic.
“Well, I’m going,” Curtis said.
Charlene leaned forward. “I think we should stay together.”
For an instant I saw her in Native American clothing, again in the virgin woods of the nineteenth century. The image quickly faded.
Maya stood up. “Charlene is right,” she said. “We have to stay together, and it might help if we can see what they’re doing.”
I looked out through the cave’s entrance, a long, deep-seated reluctance rising in my gut. “What are we going to do with this… operative… outside?”
“We’ll drag him into the cave and leave him here,” Curtis said. “We’ll send someone for him in the morning, if we can.”
I met eyes with Charlene, then nodded agreement.
REMEMBERING THE FUTURE
We knelt at the top of the hill and looked carefully down at the base of a larger ridge. I could see nothing out of the ordinary in the fading light; no movement, no guards. The hum, which had persisted for most of the forty-minute walk, had now completely disappeared.
“Are you sure we’re at the right place?” I asked Curtis.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you see the four large boulders about fifty feet up the slope? The doorway is right beneath them, hidden in the bushes. To the right, you can just make out the top of the projection dish. It looks functional again.”
“I see it,” Maya said.
“Where are the guards?” I asked Curtis. “Maybe they’ve abandoned the site.”
We observed the doorway for almost an hour, waiting for signs of activity, hesitant to move or talk much until darkness had fallen across the valley. Suddenly we heard movement behind us, Flashlights clicked on, flooding us in light, and four armed men rushed in, demanding that we raise our hands. After spending ten minutes going through our gear, they searched each of us, then moved the group down the hill and up to the bunker’s entrance.
The door of the bunker swung open and Feyman charged out, loud and angry. “Are these the ones we’ve been looking for?” he shouted. “Where did you find them?”
One of the guards explained what had happened as Feyman shook his head and stared at us through the beams of light. He walked closer and demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“You’ve got to stop what you’re doing!” Curtis retorted.
Feyman was struggling to recognize him. “Who are you?” The guards’ flashlights settled, illuminating Curtis’ face.
“Curtis Webber… I’ll be damned,” Feyman said. “You blew up our dish, didn’t you?”
“Listen to me,” Curtis said. “You know this generator is too dangerous to operate at these levels. You could ruin this entire valley!”
“You were always an alarmist, Webber. That’s why w
e let you go at Deltech. I’ve been working on this project for too long to give up at this point. It’s going to Work—exactly as I planned.”
“But why are you taking the chance? Concentrate on the smaller, house-size units. Why are you trying to increase the output so much?”
“That’s none of your business. You need to keep quiet.”
Curtis edged toward him. “You want to centralize the generating process so you can control it. That’s not right.”
Feyman smiled. “A new energy system has to be phased in. Do you think we can go overnight from energy being a substantial part of household and business costs to practically nothing? The sudden disposable income throughout the world would cause hyperinflation and then probably a massive reaction that would cast us into a depression.”
“You know that’s not true,” Curtis replied. “Reduced energy costs would increase the efficiency of production tremendously, supplying more goods at lower costs. No inflation would occur. You’re doing this for yourself. You want to centralize the production so you can control its availability and price, despite the dangers.”
He stared angrily at Curtis. “You’re so naive. Do you think the interests that act to control energy prices now would allow a sudden, massive shift to an inexpensive source? Of course not! It has to be centralized and packaged to work at all. And I’m going to be known for having done this! It’s what I was born to do!”
“That’s not true!” I blurted. “You were born to do something else, to help us.”
Feyman swung around to face me. “Shut up! Do you hear me? All of you!” His eyes found Charlene. “What happened to the man I sent with you?”
Charlene looked away without responding.
“I don’t have time for this!” Feyman was shouting again. “I’d suggest you worry about your personal safety right now.” He paused to look us over, then shook his head and walked to one of the armed men. “Keep them here in a group until this is over. All we need is another hour. If they try to escape, shoot them.”