Part 16 (1/2)

I jumped to my feet and looked all around, realizing that everything was in the same hyperfocus all around me, which created an enhanced, three-dimensional effect. Everything stood out with incredible clarity of color, form, beauty, and existence-all at the same time. And more, it seemed to stretch my consciousness, so that I felt as though I could reach out and touch the farthest cloud or rocky peak.

And then I remembered my experience on Secret Mountain, when I broke through to an apprehension of cosmic s.p.a.ce. I was regaining that same consciousness now.

Tommy noticed and said, ”It's the consciousness that has begun to become accessible as the next step of creation approaches.”

Coleman was now walking around, looking in all directions as well. The thought came to me that we were seeing in expanded 3-D, like in the movies. I wondered if the development and growing popularity of 3-D movies was coming from an unconscious intuition that we were nearing the ability to see that way ourselves. Was another pathway popping open in the human brain?

The remarkable aspect of this way of seeing was that it seemed so easy and natural at this point. Coleman grabbed my arm and looked at me, beaming.

”This is the way it was on Secret Mountain,” he said, ”only it seems more normal now.”

That was the word: normal. On Secret Mountain, the effect still carried a slight mind-blowing or adrenaline feeling. But now it was calming, if anything, and felt perfectly real, as if we were already integrating it as a way of perception we could sustain in daily life.

Besides the three-dimensionality, another enhancement was that my eyes now seemed to have an advanced acuity in which everything was more clear and lit up, as though I'd suddenly entered an inner-lit wonderland of some kind. And that included our bodies. They literally had taken on a sheen that was more radiant and beautiful. Yet again, it all still felt normal.

Tommy was looking at me with a huge smile, his face also beaming and glistening slightly. We were all in a state of pure love, Agape-with one another and with the beauty and majesty of everything around us.

Suddenly, I thought to check for a text. When I saw one from Wil, I laughed with delight. He said he could feel us reaching the Ninth Integration and had reached it himself. He added that while many other traditions spoke of this kind of perception, the Native traditions by far emphasized this ability to see nature as it really is. He ended by saying he was in contact with someone who knew where the Twelfth part of the Doc.u.ment had been released, and he would be heading to Sinai as soon as he talked to him.

I put the phone away and turned to Tommy. ”So have you been seeing this way the whole time?”

”Mostly,” he said. ”But Agape with Mother Earth has to be maintained and treasured. And one has to eat clean food to remain at this level of perception.”

We looked at one another.

”This is the Ninth Integration, isn't it?” Coleman asked.

”Yes,” Tommy replied. ”To maintain a heightened perception of the world, one needs only to intend to tune in, in Agape, to a new level of beauty, and to practice seeing everything with a single focus. The mountains will light up.”

He looked at Coleman. ”As you have said, it can be proven to oneself!”

Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move in the desert, and I jerked around. Nothing was there. Coleman gave me an expression that told me he had seen it, too.

”What was that?” I asked Tommy.

He walked closer to us. ”At this level of perception we are much closer to the other side.”

”You mean the Afterlife?” Coleman asked. ”Heaven?”

”Yes.”

Colman glanced at Tommy again. ”You think what we glimpsed was a spirit?”

”Yes,” Tommy replied, giggling. ”But spirits are people, too. And they have something to tell us.”

WHAT HEAVEN KNOWS.

As much as I wanted to stay in the mountains, it was almost completely dark now, and Tommy said we should go back. I saw a look on his face that concerned me, so I tuned in to our return trek to the Circle of Rocks. I found it difficult to visualize.

After about three hundred yards, Tommy suddenly called for us to stop. He was peering into the distance, listening.

”What's wrong?” I asked.

”I don't know,” he replied. ”We have to be careful. Keep your energy up.”

He looked into the night for a few more seconds then said, ”Do you hear that?”

I shook my head.

Tommy began walking ahead. ”There are people talking up there somewhere. Let's find them.”

We made our way forward for about a hundred feet, coming to a large outcropping about thirty feet high. As we grew closer, I began to hear the talking myself. We climbed up the rock and found a place where we could look over. About thirty feet in front us of was a group of Apocalyptics huddled together, discussing something in loud tones. At the center of the group was their leader, Anish. He was talking to a short, round man in an Egyptian military uniform, telling him something in Arabic.

”I can understand this,” Tommy whispered. ”That large man is Joseph's brother. He's telling him about the Circle of Rocks and where it is.” Tommy looked at us in alarm. ”Now they know where our camp is.”

A rush of anger moved through me as I remembered Joseph telling us he wanted to contact his brother. Did he give away our location?

”We have to get back!” I said quietly, trying to control myself. ”Now! Let's go!”

We made our way back to the circle as quickly as possible, and I was fighting against going into fear. For some reason I began to remember things my father had told me about his experiences in World War II. Getting rid of the fear is impossible, he said. All you can do is focus on what you're doing, and even if people are being killed all around you, you concentrate on the job and get it done. I never quite grasped how he did that.

As we approached the first large boulders of the circle, Coleman pulled me aside.

”You look like your energy is collapsing,” Coleman said, obviously trying to look deeply at me to reestablish the Agape connection.

I blew him off. ”If the Apocalyptics get there before we do, everyone could be killed.”

When we made our way back to the circle we found the others already breaking camp. As I rushed up to Rachel, she noticed the change in me immediately.

”What's wrong?” she asked. ”What happened?”

I told her what the Apocalyptics had said, then added angrily, ”Joseph's brother has sold us out. Joseph himself could be involved.”

”Calm down,” she said. ”We were all getting the image that we should leave immediately, and we're hurrying as fast as we can. But there has to be some mistake. Joseph would not have told his brother where we were camped.”

She pointed to a stack of papers that were lying on a rock near her tent. ”Joseph brought us copies of the Tenth Integration he'd found, then left again. He's still looking for his brother. Why would he betray us?”

”I don't know.”

Her eyes were drawing me in again, and I felt the Agape and the peace come back a little, but my perception had totally crashed.

”We've been working on the Ninth,” she said, ”at the same time you three were. We could feel you. You have to hang on to to it. We've even gotten into the Tenth.”

”We have to leave now!” I pressed.

”Okay, okay. Here's the rest of your stuff.”