And every step of the way, heroes had been born into the earthly realm from the Afterlife—some recognized and some working in anonymity—struggling to push forward these gains in understanding a tiny bit more. Slowly, we moved from the idea of nature deities to Greek-style archetypal gods, and finally into the great truth of monotheism, the concept of one Divine source. Over the years came the three larger religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, each thinking their path was the only way.
With Modern times came the Enlightenment, and Science and a growing urge to unify human understanding. Suddenly, I saw how this planetary consciousness had begun to progress during the later twentieth century into a higher, more galactic perspective, and the questions of life began to arise again in a mass way. What were we doing here? What was the purpose of life?
I could see how this need for clear spiritual answers had created a deep insecurity in the older religions. They felt their doctrines might be questioned or destroyed altogether. Just after the turn of the twenty-first century, the wars had begun over whether one religion could impose itself on the others.
And then I could see that the woman was aware of the Document and the most recent urge to Unity: the Integration of spiritual information into daily life, and into a fully awakened consciousness connected to the one God. She was aware of the efforts to unify religion around the common experience of this Divine Connection and of the emerging Templates of Agreement… and finally, she knew of the Rise to Influence.
For the first time, I saw clearly the long story of creation in its totality. My energy level suddenly elevated, and I knew I was experiencing more of the Tenth Integration. It was the awareness that we had the potential, right now in our lifetimes, to pull this Plan fully into consciousness. It would be the culmination of billions of years of creation.
Yet at the same time, I sensed there was one last aspect of the Plan that I hadn’t yet grasped.
“Did you see anything,” Rachel asked, “that looked familiar in the Plan you just saw?”
Immediately, I knew her meaning. The steps in the Universe’s long development was very similar to the Steps of Creation prophesied by the Mayan Calendar.
“That’s right,” she said, reading my mind. “The early Maya had a breakthrough of their own during their time, when they remembered much of the Plan for creation. Yet their culture was still out of Alignment, and they knew they couldn’t hold on to the knowledge. So they built the timeline for this Plan into their stone architecture and inscriptions, hoping that future humans would discover it and transcribe their message. And that’s exactly what occurred.”
She paused and looked at me. I could again feel her energetic embrace.
“But the Maya showed that creation wasn’t complete, that another push was coming in to help us unify completely, if we came into Alignment and were able to tune in. Some scholars have called it a Universal Consciousness. Apparently, the Maya thought of it as the final phase of creation, which will lead the souls in both dimensions of life toward final completion and Unity. And it will, if enough of us seek to embrace it.”
She looked ready to drive her point home. “We can already foresee this force of creation coming, and soon it will be easier to feel. We all sensed it on Secret Mountain.”
Again she paused.
I was electrified now. “You’re talking about the point of Connection I’ve been trying to figure out all this time. You experienced it too?”
“Yes, the last step in Unity begins with understanding what this phenomenon is and how to connect with it more fully. We are now ready to fully discover our spiritual nature, and it will mark the beginning of the last expansion of human consciousness into unification.”
Rachel’s image was beginning to blur, as though she was fading.
“Remember what we talked about,” she continued. “Most of the Prophecies held by religious traditions have some concept of the Rapture—acquiring a spiritual body and moving into Heaven, avoiding Armageddon.
“Humans brought these images into earthly culture, because it’s also part of the Plan—just not exactly as the prophets have said. It has to be understood symbolically. All those prophecies and scriptural references have come into history from people trying to remember what they knew in the Afterlife, but they didn’t get it quite right. The truth came to them through the lenses of their own individual religions, which created all this competition. In reality, the Prophecies are all pointing toward something else, one event meant for everyone.”
I still didn’t quite get it.
“Don’t you see?” she responded. “There’s only one Rapture! The Rapture is a bodily transformation that happens through heightened perception and consciousness such as we have glimpsed. We shouldn’t be waiting on God to bring the Rapture. God is waiting on us! We have to open up to Divine Consciousness enough so that our perception and energy expand enough so that it can occur. And it may take a long time to achieve. The important part is that we know what we are working on, what our drive to Unity can achieve. And that more help is coming, if we learn how to tune in.”
I looked at her, getting it fully. “You’re again talking about this Universal Consciousness that the Maya saw.”
“Yes, but don’t get hung up on a name. It’s more personal… and it’s the last step in understanding what Heaven knows. We’re already sensing…”
Now she was fading almost completely, and I couldn’t hear her last comments. All that was coming through was one vague, urgent plea.
“Just do what we do, and raise your Influence,” she seemed to be communicating. “You’ll understand fully when you grasp the Eleventh Integration and find the Twelfth.”
I tried to ask another question, but my eyes would no longer focus. I was spinning away, falling backward into a blinding flash of light.
THE RISE TO INFLUENCE
Hours seemed to pass before I began to hear talking around me. I struggled to open my eyes.
“He’s waking up,” I heard Coleman yell.
I felt, before I could see, the others gathered around me. I was now at the rock overhang again, overlooking the guardhouse on the southeastern approach to Sinai. I saw my pack lying beside me. The flap had been opened and the copies of the Tenth Integration had been taken out and were lying around. But no sign of Rachel.
I looked down at the feather still in my hand, and in that moment I knew.
“We found you here,” Coleman was saying. “You must have hit your head. You’ve been unconscious.”
“Where is Rachel?” I asked.
He reached over and touched my shoulder. The others looked devastated.
“She didn’t make it,” he whispered. “She was killed at the Circle of Rocks.”
I nodded slowly. I knew I should have known the whole time, but I was still thrown into total shock. I was just with her.
I pleaded with him. “Are you sure? She pulled me out of the Circle during the gunfire. I was with her for a long time. We were able to observe the Afterlife together. We saw the Plan.”
“I checked her myself,” Coleman said. “And right after, a group of Egyptian soldiers came to investigate the explosions. The Apocalyptics had to back off. So all of us except Rachel were able to get away. You were missing. I saw the soldiers carry her body away. I texted Wil and the others and told them. I’m so sorry.”
At this point, I was emotionally swept into one of the most profound feelings of loss I had ever experienced. Rachel’s energy had been a part of this entire journey, beginning with our first Connection at the Pub. She was a partner in my clearing to Agape, and now she was gone. My head told me she was still alive in the Afterlife, but I missed her radiant eyes, and the thoughtfulness that had kept me so grounded. Amid tears, I blurted all this out to the others.
Then, right at my darkest moment, I suddenly felt her hug from a distance that I had felt on the other side, and smelled the familiar rose perfume she had always worn.
I knew, then, that she was
not only still alive. She was right here with us!
“She helped me through so many things on this trip,” Coleman said. “And now she’s dead.”
“She’s not dead!” I protested.
“I know. I know,” Coleman said. “I get the Tenth Integration. We were all tuning in to the Plan. But knowing that she still lives isn’t the same as having her right here to talk with, or to get one of those famous hugs from.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I shouted confidently. “She’s right here with us. Now. She was touching me from a distance in the Afterlife so I would know it was possible here. Tune in! You can still get that hug!”
The others were gathering around closer, listening intently, and they began to sense Rachel as well. For several hours, I carefully relayed to them everything that had occurred in the Afterlife, especially the Plan and goal of history, bringing to Earth the knowledge and consciousness known in Heaven, and Rachel’s statements about the coming Universal Consciousness. Tommy smiled at me.
Everyone told me about what had happened here when they had read the Tenth part of the Document they’d found in my bag. As we talked, our energy elevated us together into the Tenth Integration.
“It’s about realizing that the Afterlife is right here,” Coleman offered. “We can resolve everything with our loved ones and receive what they know. The key is to do what they do: use their Influence and the Law of Connection to uplift everyone into a Connected consciousness. It’s another level of Alignment.”
“Native peoples,” Love of Mountain said, “have never lost this ability to communicate with the other world. Developed cultures have derided this awareness as ancestor worship, but we have held this Connection as important since humans became conscious.”
She gave us a particular look, and I knew she was right. We were now in a template discussion. Everyone agreed that the Native traditions had always had the best emphasis on this Integration, although mystical Christianity and certain Jewish writings in the Kabbalistic traditions point to Afterlife contact as well.
“Over here!” Tommy’s mother was saying. We had all started to gather our gear, sensing we must move farther up the Mount. We dashed to the overhang and saw Joseph walking through the gate at the guardhouse and heading back in our direction. He eventually stopped and went in another direction for a while, then in another, apparently attempting to hide his true destination from the soldiers. When he was out of sight of the guardhouse, we could see him turning toward us again.
“We have to leave before he gets here,” Coleman suddenly shouted. “If he was involved in the attack on us, he might have soldiers heading our way right now.”
Many of the others seemed just as fearful, and I felt myself moving into deep anger again. My energy plummeted. What if Joseph had been responsible for Rachel’s death? What kind of monster was he? Here he was, walking around free and alive, and she was gone. My emotions were moving from anger to a vengeful urge to get back at him.
I suddenly stopped myself, shaking my head. Unconsciously, I had gone into a Cycle of Revenge, just that fast.
Tommy was looking down at Joseph and spoke up. “Wait a minute. He seems to be alone. And I can see no soldiers. I think we should talk to him.”
“He’s right,” I said. “We have to find out the truth.”
We all agreed and waited there until Joseph walked up. He appeared shocked that we were now in this location.
“You’re here,” he said, walking quickly up to us. “I wasn’t able to find my brother. No one had seen him. I am afraid he is with the Apocalyptics now.” Joseph’s face was sad, as though he thought he’d failed.
None of us responded, so he continued, “One of the soldiers at the gate told me my brother had ordered them not to patrol in certain areas of the mountain any longer.”
He looked at Tommy. “I think this soldier knows you.”
We were still not saying anything.
“Look.” Joseph was pointing to his knapsack. “He also gave me this.” He was pulling out a stack of papers. “It’s the Eleventh Integration! It tells us how to…”
His words trailed off. He could see we were still looking at him intensely.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Everyone surrounded him and we asked Joseph if he knew what had happened at the Circle of Rocks. He said he didn’t, and when we informed him of the shooting, he was so genuinely shaken he had to sit down—prompting most of the group to welcome him back with hugs and encouragement.
“Joseph,” Coleman asked, “why did you come up to this location now?”
“Because the guards said there are many more people coming into town from everywhere. I headed up here because I wanted to see if I could detect anyone coming up from this side.”
Coleman and I looked at each other and then gazed down at the trail coming up the mountain. Dozens of people seemed to be heading our way.
As the rest of the group continued to talk to Joseph, discussing the Tenth with him, I walked farther out on the overhang, needing to think. I was still concerned by how quickly I had slipped into revenge.
How pervasive, I wondered, was this emotion in the world right now? Was it the predominating emotion behind the rash of school shootings, employee outbursts, and—on the international scene—the willingness to blow oneself and others up in order to make the enemy pay? Was this the way human fear and anger, in this time of transition, was playing out: wanting others to suffer the way we were suffering?
Colonel Peterson had said this Cycle of Revenge was growing into a nuclear phase, the urge to deliver the final act of retribution and end everything. I suddenly felt as if humanity was running out of time.
Where was Tommy? I wondered. I needed to speak with Tommy. When I turned around, I saw that he was already walking toward me. I laughed out loud, evoking a puzzled look from the young man.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s important.”
“About the Universal Consciousness?” I asked.
“Yes, I want to tell you something. My tribe believes it will get much stronger, and sooner than most people think.”
“But when is it going to happen?” I asked.
“Most think the Calendar’s end date is December 21, 2012, but other scholars are saying the beginning of the last phase of creation will start much earlier, in the spring of 2011.”
“What? That’s now!”
“Yes. And we aren’t going to understand this coming force of creation until we can figure out what the point of Connection we felt on Secret Mountain really is, and how to relate to it. We have to get through the remaining Integrations!”
Suddenly, Coleman was pushing his way through us to see down toward the guardhouse again.
“Look at that,” he said with alarm.
Fifty or more troops were deploying all around the area of the guardhouse.
“They don’t want any of those new people to come up the trails,” Joseph said, “and I also think they know the extremists are around, and they want to stop them.”
“The Apocalyptics are already past them,” I stressed. “They’re holed up near a mound of rock over the next ridge.”
“How do you know that?” Coleman asked.
“I saw them when I was up there earlier with Rachel.”
They all looked at me in amazement, and then Coleman said, “It’s going to be difficult to sneak past all these troops.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. “Rachel showed me another way past. It’s almost dark. I think we should go now.”
In a matter of minutes we were moving off the overhang and down the slope. I remembered the route clearly. It would take us down the ridge to a point about a hundred yards to the right of the guardhouse. There, the trail ended at a steep drop-off into a wide gorge that seemed clearly impassable. What no one seemed to know, besides Rachel, was that a ledge wide enough for a person to walk on existed just over the edge of the gorge.
It ran a hundred feet north
to a point where there was a small gap in the cliff wall that was scalable. Once through the gap we would be hidden from anyone looking from the guardhouse, and we could then advance directly up the tiers of rock overlooking the Apocalyptics to where Rachel and I had been earlier. The only place that was particularly close to the guardhouse was the point where we dropped down onto the ledge.
As we walked, I could see that Joseph had integrated the Ninth and Tenth steps, and now he, Coleman, and the others were reading the Eleventh. I thought of the old Prophecy and the Eleventh Insight that had grown out of it. It predicted the actualization of the use of intention and prayer, and learning the secrets of using this power.
“Do you believe what this Document is saying?” I suddenly heard Coleman shout.
I turned to see him talking to one of the scientists. Coleman shook has head in amazement and walked up to me, pointing at the Document.
“Listen how specific it is about the Influence,” he said. “ ‘Because of the Law of Connection, the whole of what we believe and stand for—the quality of our character—sends out a field of Influence that impacts everyone with whom we interact. It acts to draw them into our level of consciousness and behavior, for good or ill, and either makes it easier or harder for them to stay in Alignment. And, at the same time, our individual Influence also co-mingles with everyone else’s Influence globally, and at any one time helps to collectively set an energetic level of consciousness for all of humanity.’ ”
He was trying to stay beside me as we moved down the rugged terrain.
“Do you believe it?” he went on. “It’s like there is a huge balance scale in the sky, weighing the relative strength of two opposing fields of Influence. One side represents those opening to a higher personal spirituality, and thus acting to lift others into that consciousness. The other side of the scale represents those who are still stuck in fear and anger, who are acting to pull people down into a simmering, untruthful fear and rage.”