Chapter 3

THE TURNING POINT

'Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them'.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Representative Men

In 1974, my friend Patricia and I set out to drive by van through the United States and Mexico. On the first morning, we picked up a young man who was hitchhiking from Boston to Lansdowne, PA, a town just south of Philadelphia, where he was due that evening at a rehearsal at the church where he played the organ. The three of us talked. We all enjoyed the conversation so much so that we drove a full hour south of Chuck's destination. Turning, we headed back to Lansdowne.
During that last hour, Chuck talked about the recent death of a young woman who was very close to him. Her death left him with the feeling that their relationship was incomplete, unfulfilled. Trust and friendship had developed among the three of us. I wanted to help Chuck. While it is difficult now to reconstruct the sequence of events exactly, I think I simply asked Chuck if he wanted to participate in an exercise that might help him understand the loss of his friend. I must have explained that I had done similar work before. He agreed. I suggested he mentally look into the eyes of the young woman, to send love from his eyes into her eyes, and to allow her to fade away.
Chuck responded very well to this exercise. Then, spontaneously, with his eyes still closed, he held his right knee and talked about a pain he felt there and had - with no apparent cause - felt at other times in his life. I suggested we look for the cause of that pain, and I then guided him through a few steps of a technique for viewing past lives without hypnosis.(1) I asked Chuck to imagine enlarging himself to twice his normal size; then returning to his normal size; then floating safely a few inches above himself; and then returning to his body. Eventually, after a few more steps, I asked him to come down to earth once again, place his feet on the earth, and describe his feet. (In retrospect, this seems very strange and confusing direction to give in a moving van.) Chuck did the exercise.
What happened next filled me with astonishment and awe.

Chuck's Experience

Chuck began to talk. In fact, he began a monologue that lasted 45 minutes, and which I stopped only because I knew he was due at his rehearsal. First he described himself as an old man in an Eskimo-like tribe in a frozen land. His tribe could not support its elderly; there was simply not enough food. Chuck suffered the fate the tribe prescribed in this situation; one of his legs broken was so he couldn't follow the band as it migrated. He was left to die. Next, without pause, he started to talk about a life in a place he called Atlantinus or Atlanticinus and later, Oceanus Atlantis. He was delivering a speech. His message was apocalyptic: He told the people in his audience they had five years left before the land was destroyed, and he begged them to flee with him and other leaders.
As a guide or facilitator I had conducted many past life regressions. A few were dull, most were good, some were excellent. But what was happening with Chuck, right here in my van, was phenomenal beyond anything I had yet seen or imagined. Chuck was about five minutes into his speech before I realized we had a tape recorder in the van. I started it, picking up his speech in mid-sentence.

CHUCK Spring, 1974 Near Lansdowne, Pennsylvania First Session
"....need to be fed tonight, to be clothed tomorrow, and to love tomorrow after. You will follow every single origin that that has been before you, only to follow a conclusion you have not known. You will be part of me. You will be part of ourselves. We are teach[ing] each other. You must follow. Pack up everything you own. Pack up your idols. Pack up your possessions. Tell your children, tell your grandparents you must leave them. Break every tie. There is a mountain and a valley beyond it. There is a spring. There is everything ever that we have ever had; that we have never had. There is a being within us so strong that you cannot deny it. I will lead you; believe in me. We will go to a valley that no one has ever seen or no one will ever see again. There is a forest, a veritable forest. There is unanimity in our purpose, but our purpose is to be beyond, to a point where people will precede us and antecede us. People who have known us and never known us. Generations of generations will come after us and they will know where we were but they've never been. They will be in places to the north and to the south. They will to be with the fair skinned people from the East. We will create our own, Atlantinus - Atlantinus Atlantinus! We will be there! We will die with you so that we will live with you. When our race is with our race, we will be. We will be what has never been, and we will die, but we will live, and you've got to be with us because that is what Louana was ever.(2) That's what she pointed. That's why I hurt. I've been among you, but I've been away from you for years. It's Louana. I've come out. She knew. She knew she had to break away so that I would be me, but it's us and it's me, so follow. Will you follow! Will you be with us! Will you be with me! Will you be with the passion and will you be with the purpose! Will you rise above your lowly rags and will you rise above your lowly existence! Will you be something that has never been! Will you dare to conquer what is unconquered! Will you go with me! Then we shall go. Then we shall go. Then we shall go. "

Chuck next spoke quietly in a language I did not know, though I am familiar with French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Latin. With the next question, I was able to guide him back into English. I was relieved, for two reasons: it made the session intelligible and it reassured me my skills were sufficient to guide him during the session - the possibility that I might not be able to was very real, as Chuck was totally living the experience.
"...What's happening now? People. What are they doing? They're following a course that cannot be followed. Why? Its conclusion is so soon. They're abandoning what made them what they are to become, something they can never be. Too fast! They don't realize what they are. They can't. If they did, they'd slow down. They'd teach their children, but they're not teaching their children. They're not even teaching themselves. What are they doing? They're following a principle that can't be followed. What principle? They're selfish. They can't be. They're worshipping, they're worshipping the Power. They can't. It's not the Power they should worship. They should worship what made them powerful. They don't understand the difference. What made them powerful? They don't know. They know that they're gifted. They know they've conquered, but they don't know why, and they think they're omnipotent, but they're not. They're human. They're subject to weaknesses. I'm trying to tell them. They won't listen. There's a few. Launch ships. Go places you've never been. Start what we've started, but start it. Start it so they can be themselves and not what they're not. We'll kill each other off; you know it. You know we'll do something we can't ever recover from. You've got to go. You've got to leave. You've got to follow me. You've got to follow me to places that we've never been. We're explorers! We're adventurers! We're not self-effacing. We're not dignified without our dignity. They will follow themselves until they die. They will create powers they can't control. You can't allow it. We'll kill each other from within. We've got to start over. I know we do. We've got to start slower; we've got to realize what human dignity and value is. We've got to realize behavior. We've got to realize our minds. Don't you understand that people are worshipping us, but we're not worshipping-ful? They are worshipping us as ultra-beings and we're not. Can it be that we're not? Can it be that we've learned something for not-learning? There are people that have been before us. We've got to find them. We've got to find their secrets. Why are we different? Why are our colors different? Why are our heads bigger, our noses longer? Why are our fingers longer? Why are we taller? It's not from something we've learned. It's from something that's within us. It's inherent. We've got to learn it before we advance any further. We've got to take time to study what we are and what we will become. We can't be powerful without until we're powerful within, and we can't ever be powerful within until we realize our potential. You who believe me, you've got to follow me and Moran. You've got to follow me and Moran and Estes and Challis. You've got to follow the four of us. We are the Quadrant. We are the ones who are what we were. If you can see beyond your fingers, if you can see beyond the sunset, you'll know it's not the sun we revolve around. You know it's not ourselves we revolve around. It's a universe. It's a galaxy. You know that we are not the seasons. We're the reasons for the seasons. You don't know the reasons. You must know that the reason for man and woman is not because of some, some divineness within self. Did we create man and woman? Did we create learning? Did we create our noses, our bodies, our beings? Did we create sexual fulfillment? Did we create learning? No! We were created. We are what our predecessors were and what they built upon. So we must continue to build. Think of the horizons we can expand. Think of the enormous structures, the enormous learning. Think of the philosophy, the etiology. Think of what we are. Think of what we are now. It's one billionth of what we can become, not in our lifetime, not in our children's lifetime, but it's up to us. We must propagate. We must procreate. We must go to our centers of learning. We cannot think that we are the end. We cannot believe that this is the absolute end of what we are. We are a stepping stone. You're leading to destruction. Don't you understand? There will be mutants. There will be emaciated faces. There will be people who will never arise beyond what half of what we are. We must go to other lands, other horizons. There are places to the south that we have not ventured to. We must launch ships. We must launch everything that we have. We must build cities. We must build waystones. We must build pointers to where we have never been. We will build again. We will arise, only slower. We must use every single ounce of mentality. And we must learn what we are so that we can become what we will be. What will our children be? Will they be self- centered egotists? Will they be caught up with their own power? No. They can't be that. We'll never evolve. Think of what we can do. There are civilizations we've haven't seen. We must be there. You must follow me. See my hand. See my eyes. See what they tell you. Don't listen to my words; see my being! Look at it! Look at it! It trembles! Look at it! We will be! We will conquer what we are to be, what we haven't been! We will reach! There is strength within us that has never been strengthly tested. We must be. We must arrive. If this is the end, we cannot look at ourselves with pride. We must abandon sex. We must abandon bodies. We must be outside our bodies. We must be mind. We must be, we must be mentality and spirit. We will cover oceans. We will cover mountains. We are! Understand that we are! Your politics are worthless. Your physical sensations are needless. Your starving, your hunger, they can be overcome. There will be - there will be people after us. There have been people before us. They are pointing the way to something, to somewhere we must follow. There are pathways that have been made but never recorded, and we will follow. Look at me! Look at the strength! You know me as a leader. You know me as a strong man. You know me as a man who can move temples with a single word. You know me as someone who has power from within. You know me as parentless, as brotherless, as sisterless, but you do not know me! You must abandon yourself. You must abandon physical being. You must abandon pain and hurt and pleasure and surface. You must be from within. It has come from your very stomach, from your intestines. You must be able to look beyond what is to be seen. You will follow! You will follow because I command it. Yes, I dare command it. I dare command what you are. I command what you think you are. I will lead. I will lead because it is within me to lead and I question it not. I question not! I know that you are with me. You will follow. You will go now. You will pack. You will bring your asses, your donkeys, your lambs, your llamas, your goats. You will bring everything that was in you. Everything material, everything financial - you will abandon it! You will follow these hands. They will lay themselves down to the west and to the north. We will cross oceans. We must launch now before the entire Brotherhood abandons itself for power, and they will never do that successfully. There is a power from underneath that will kill us. We will be abandoned. We will be cast into the ocean. We will die. We will sink. We cannot allow it. I give you five years, five years, 364 days times five. I give you calendars. I give you dates. Follow me. If we die, we die, but we'll die living. We will die living instead of dying slowly. We must be, we must be better than what we are or else - or else what have we striven for all these years? Our ships that go under, our vehicles that fly over mountains, are they to fly because we command them to fly? Did we invent them because we were the only inventors, or did we invent them so that after we die people will follow them? They will say, "Look at what our predecessors were. That is what we must become." We must discover why we are so light and others dark. It is because there is a light within us. It is because we have the power that we do not deserve, but that we must continue. You must realize that drunkenness and immorality will never ever sacrifice or never ever replace spiritual immortality. We will conquer. We will conquer because I see us conquering. We will rise above what we are. It is what Louana was. It is what her parents sanctioned. It is what I must continue and I will bear the burden if only, if only to die and leave you carrying it on. I will die helpless. I will die friendless. I will die, if only so that we can continue. Do you think that we go underneath the water because we are so gifted that we looked in silver plates for mirrors that told us that we were omnipotent that we were gods because we have seen others lower than ourselves? No. If all we are here for is self-preservation and for selfishness, then we are here for nothing! We are transient. Follow me, follow Challis, follow Moran. We are the way. We have given you the knowledge. You must contain within you the need for understanding. Then we will conquer, from worlds beyond, from horizons beyond, we will overcome what we are to be - what others before us and after us need to be. And that is why I stand before you, and that is why I ask you: Will you follow? Will you be what our brothers cannot see? Will you be the preservation of a - of a goal? Will you lower yourselves with brothers [others]? Will you continue a race that can never give hope to be what we are? In only a thousand years to be what we are? Have I reached that much? Is that single chord within you struck enough? Will you follow - Challis! Challis! Challis! Then let us go to the west and tell them what we were and hope - and hope that those under us will never undermine what we've become, because we are the hope. We are the compassion, we are! And we can never be less than what we are. Let others die underneath rubble. Let others waste themselves in principles that we'll never know. Let us be beyond what we are. Let us rise above flesh to be what our spirits command. Let us leave now. Let us launch. Let us journey. Let us continue. Let us propagate and procreate. Let us carry on those principles of humanity that our brothers have forsaken for power. Let us be - let us continue - let us go!"

My Doubts Removed

Everyone has doubts, especially about new ideas and new discoveries. When does doubt become belief? At what point does belief become reality? Does a child, for example, believe it can walk when it sees other people walking, or when it takes the first unsure step, or when it can go a certain number of steps without falling? For me, belief in the existence of past lives turned into the reality of acceptance with Chuck. All my previous questioning and doubt suddenly took a quantum leap into unqualified conviction.
I had never met Chuck until the day we worked together, and as far as I can tell, he had nothing to gain by faking any of this recall. When we talked later, I discovered he had virtually no knowledge of the concept of past lives or even of hypnosis. He knew nothing of my previous explorations in mental recall. Chuck did not know specifically what I was doing - neither did I, for that matter. At this point my sessions were very much learn-as-we-go affairs. So he did not want to please the hypnotist, a phenomenon some people mistakenly assume accounts for behavior under hypnosis. I was not leading the witness with questions, or directing him to a conclusion, as the session was almost all a monologue. My mind was fully occupied simply with understanding what was happening; I could hardly formulate questions at all, much less lead him in a preconceived direction.

When we started, I never imagined a full regression. I had only conducted such sessions in a controlled setting with preestablished procedures and at least a few witnesses. To attempt anything more in an impromptu session in a van on a highway was the farthest thing from my mind; I hoped only for a few basic exercises. But the door opened to a full, in depth, profound session. One step flowed easily into the next without effort and soon Chuck was in the deepest hypnosis. This was completely against my normal procedures. He was an able subject and seemed to have a flood of information waiting to burst forth - and it did. There was no stopping him. Rather than the usual question and answer approach, he began the monologue I eventually had to stop so he could get to his appointment.
I was astounded not only by Chuck's spontaneous speech, but also by his delivery. He spoke with commanding power and authority, in the voice of a man, not a youth (he was 18 at the time). He accented each important point by pounding on the dash of the van. I could not see his audience, but I could see and feel his pleading to them. There in my van, in the person of an 18 year old, I was seeing the great leader of a lost people as he warned them of their approaching doom. I believed it would require a phenomenal imagination and vocabulary - more than Chuck had displayed in conversation - to create and deliver such a story. I believed his Atlantinus to be Atlantis, the fabled lost island civilization, and the effect of his speech was all the more overwhelming because I believed his audience to have been inundated for thousands of years.

I asked him later if he knew anything of Atlantis; he had no conscious knowledge of or interest in it. To him it was just a myth, an imaginary colony or a mythical island that had sunk in the ocean. In the second session (below), however, he talks of Atlantis, rather than Atlantinus, adapting the word to fit my vocabulary. After this session, Chuck had no conscious memory of what he had said. He was, however, shaken by the whole experience and knew that something unusual had happened. He left to go to his organ practice. We agreed to meet the next day.

The Second Day When we met again, he still had no recall of the session, and asked what had happened. I made an exception to my usual practice and played the tape for him. (If there is no conscious recall of a session, I do not play the tape for the subject. I made an exception with Chuck because he had no painful personal recall during his first regression.) When we had listened to about a third of the tape, he closed his eyes and started speaking again in a monologue. I sensed that listening to the tape might be enough to propel him back into the past time and asked him to be careful not to do that, since I hoped to discuss the tape with him and then conduct another session. However, he went spontaneously into past time, without detriment to himself or the session.
On this second day, he spoke in a tone of deep resignation about a time that seemed to follow the destruction of Atlantis. He spoke of the destruction; of how the people followed the principles of a person called Pyramadis; of what the people did; of the beginnings of the city of Rome. A great deal of history not all of it history as modern historians recognize it - is related in this session.

CHUCK Second Session.
"Conquer - there was no need to conquer. We were teaching, we were building - the principles of Pyramadis. We had constructed them. The ancients worshipped us. Why? Why did we destroy two cities? To prove our power over men, or to prove our power? Was it an accident? It was a tragedy. It couldn't have been our fault. No, we're the gifted. It was meant to be by purpose. Ah, Challis. How I do respect you - I disagreed with you. I called him a coward in the face of nobility, for the only true patriotic thing to do was to leave. And Ares abandoned. He abandoned his entire principles to save face. He said he would start again, but he didn't. He and I have been warring ever since. No, Ares, your chance will never come again. They've outgrown us, because we outgrew ourselves. We had so much pride in what we were that we refused to look in mirrors for fear it would spoil the image. You know, I often wonder, when you were lecturing, how many people wrote your words, 'cause you were so divinely wrapped up in self, it was beyond you to lift a pen. That light - what you must have thought when you saw the light. You didn't believe that a light could undermine your world. It was to be a glow. I curse you. I curse you and shall always curse you. The view you are standing, watching us burn and I can't even feel enough hate to want to kill you. The time when I thought I'd most want to have you between my arms. I cry for you, for what you made yourself and your followers. To the east they expect us. To the north there is ruin. To the south there is the sun. What would few follow? What did they follow? They don't know why. Maybe it's better. Maybe it's better.... I told Chuck he had no right to curse anybody and he laughed, saying: There is no curse. It is he who has cursed himself, and I am only the physical embodiment of that curse. He will die hating me for something that I am. He will die hating me because I am what he could never be. I am the sight for the blind. He is the sight from the mirror. I am the strength from within. It is in this hand, as long as he can never usurp my strength, he is nothing. He combated that all his life, you know. He fought the Quadrant. He fought Challis. He hated Challis and despised him because Challis would not fight. He hated me because I would fight and he could not beat me. Yes, Estes, you are right. It is not for me to curse. I beg you forgive that weakness. The curse is beyond destiny. Let us go to the Hall. Let us go. The last vibration will be soon. The fire is ignited. What is there left but to ascend?
What is your name, your full name? Moran Charras, Challis Karmas. Ares Vilas, Ares Vilas, Ares Vilas. And what is the name of the land you are leaving? I am not, I am not leaving. I shall stay, for there is nowhere for me. What is the name of your land? [Here he lists, in Atlantian language, all the provinces of Atlantis.] He mentioned a ring, and I said, "Tell us about your ring." I remember. There was a large stone to be divided into four, and cut four different segments, and a ring, a large ring. Pinnacle in the center - placed in such a way - the roundness - the oval - the eclipse. It was the eclipse. An eclipse with an orbit. Thirty-nine degrees at parallel five would bring us far to the south.... It was like a map. It was like a geographical, nautical map. That was where the secrets were. We needed all four. Our last point, we buried the last secret so no one could find it - and subjected ourselves to mirrors, so that we would never be able to remember what we did. That's why - that's why Ares Vilas hated us so much. Because we stole the second key. The binary key. He never saw it because he had his friends working on it and had them executed and we knew. We kept him from destroying the world, but we sacrificed Oceanus Atlantis. That's why I'm free. That is why I'm free. My curse was in making him lost by losing myself. That is the secret of this ring. That is [pointing] the eclipse, the planet, the orbit, the moon. The orbit pattern 39 to the fifth. One, two, three, four, and five was the dark. I'm sure of it. I'm sure of that. The patterns, every layer is of orbital flight. Every layer is a pattern of air. Levels, by 1,000 [unclear]. Every light being the space between, so no collisions could possibly occur, and every pattern had a vortex. The vortex, there was something about the vortex. Yes, yes, every vortex, here [pointing], was in parallel with Ascension Hall, there [pointing]. It was our guiding; it was a guide. It was natural because we had no records of its creation. It was monolithic in proportions. [Pointing] That was for trade; [pointing] that was for dignitary; [pointing] this was uncharted. It was night. The configuration is perfect. Granlandia, Islanda, Sudias Articas, Estes Avilas. Thirty-ninth by the fifth binary sector. Where did we put it? By the spider. Oh, yes, we've put it by the spider.(3) Three degrees from the wing to the arrow - four; Oceanus - four. There was an earthquake there. I remember four Phoenician sailors accidentally drowned because of turbulence caused in Oceanus Four. If only they had known! Ares Vilas retreated to the west hoping to start again. He couldn't have made it. The west was uncharted and there was no one there. He and his whitefaces took it. They tried, but they segregated and they split. I remember the accounts. Ten years after the fatality, they had a monolithic war. Souls were dying, but the war continued. They crossed mountains. They crossed valleys, and every time the war would end another segment would start. In the end there was a revolution. And Challis Karmas came out of hiding after 27 years. Told his followers he would have no more to do with war. Promptly retreated to the Mediterranean and he started his sect. It was the same time the ancient Romans began conquering. The Romans under the direction of Montomus Caras and Antonus Romilis, who they said was raised by the heathen, but he wasn't. He was the nephew of General Maros. Estes and I had raised him. He was a fine general. He took after Alexis, who conquered the east. Netarnius Forests started the underwater colony in hopes that perhaps they could start again underneath and become their own civilization, but it never lasted. I remember - I remember the Wavian telling us all that the pressure was too great, that a large force had cracked the top. And I remember Challis Karmas writing to me at last through the ballast that he had cast his ring into the sea, begging me to do the same. And Ares begged me to keep it in the hopes that one day when our futures were ready, our spirits would be united again, and have the rings together. It never worked. Ares retreated again into the east, hoping to get what he had buried. Ares Vilas went. Ares Vilas went, and ran and ran, creating colonies and hoping to band them together, but he couldn't teach them. He could not teach them. So Ares Vilas died in a show of martyrdom, proclaiming himself the last great hero and could not kill himself properly, needed the aid of a Sarian sister, who came back to proclaim her great deed.
Chuck now speaks in a different tone of voice. He is quieter, introspective, almost reserved. We were gods then. We were revered as gods and we were, but only to others. We made ourselves gods in others' eyes because we were so weak in our own. If only we had taken time to realize what we were - that we had had fathers and forefathers. If only we had realized what we were. Instead, Ares Vilas did the final call. And Atlantis burned for seven years. Seven god-awful years and collapsed as a nation. Ares Vilas did one great purpose. He had discipline. His followers had discipline and they had discipline after them. And all we could have was compassion. But that was the secret of the ring. That was the secret. I understand the ring. There are three more like it...

From here on, Chuck seems to be going in and out of the trance, from past to present life, on his own. By now, he was really guiding his own session. I had very little influence over what was taking place.(4) I was learning that the biggest job of the guide is to protect the subject from external disruption and to gear the session in a certain direction if it needs it, if the subject gets stuck. Chuck seemed to know where he was going, and I was wise enough to let him go there.

"I don't believe this. This is the Milliyear 1974. I am in the present, as a Chuck, but I remember what I was. I was somebody else. Somebody else in a different time. There's a voice. It keeps telling me I've dealt enough with origin. I should go to transformation. What else am I? What else am I? What's the voice saying? What's the inner voice saying? Yes, yes, I remember. I was there, I remember. I remember the great scene. It was him coming off the boat and all of us laid down our arms. We couldn't fight him. He was one of us. He was the greatest man our country had ever produced. How could we fight this man? I remember going home and telling Juliette, "There will be another war." I remember her crying, but it was happiness, because we were going to be victorious - But we lost - He wasn't the general any more - and me a mere lieutenant, commanding a cavalry of half-starved men who had lived on pride and sacrifice for months. Disgraced and ashamed and hoping to regain honor by fighting the vilest, filthiest, stinkiest, cruelest, most ludicrous and lewd, vulgar, repulsive army on earth who called themselves "proper, and the true army" - We had to fight Prussians to beat the French. I remember. That's not all I am. That was very short. So confusing. Too many trials, but not enough tribulation. This cannot be. I can't have been all these things. You've been all these things and many, many, countless more. They are all within the part of you that goes into the making of what is the you and it's all part of soul development. It's all part of the evolvement, that this voice is saying that you must evolve to, what you must strive to. These are all memories and experiences of things that you have done, you have been. Frightened. What else was I? Who am I? I'm scared. I sit here now and I see what is, but I'm scared. How do I deal with myself now? What do I say when I look in a mirror? What am I to become this time? Why now? Look ahead. Look yourself to what you will become, to what you must do in this life. Look ahead now yourself to what you must be, to what you must fulfill and to what you must accomplish in this life. Don't be frightened. Just look ahead. Let it come. It's clear. It's very clear. We have been fighting a war for thousands of years in different bodies, in different faces, in different times, but it's the same war. It's the Quadrant. It's Ares. It's Napoleon, it's Waterloo, it's every single war. The battle is not yet ended. The lost keep searching for themselves and Challis still roams this earth trying, trying hard to keep the war from going on - trying to break down that blind obedience - and I keep trying to find compassion in a world that turns heartless. You said it yourself, it was the war of Karmas. It was karma gathering to fight unjustice past, and it's that way ever since. If Atlantis had fought Atlantis, if the victory had been decisive - the earth [death?] would not have needed to continue. Atlantis would be here. But Atlantis died, not the people, not the karma, not the reasons, not the evil or the good. It is good versus evil. It is the wisdom versus the youth. It is why I could not give my blessing for Atlantis. It was why I could not kill my general. It was why I lived a pauper. It was why I died an alcoholic. It was why I could not see the reason for the hanging of John Wilkes. It is why, it is why the battle will never end.
Look ahead. Look ahead in this life. What must you do? What must you do in this life? I must find Challis. How will you recognize him? I will know him, his eyes. I recognized them before, but we didn't meet. I saw him in passing. It was recognition. It was a half smile. "Welcome, brother, to the fight. Welcome, because the fight is continuing and I can't talk with you now, but later." I must find Challis. In this life, I must find Challis. We must talk. We must put away our hatred and our longing. We must find ourselves here. We must make this the last stand. This must be the last stand. Moran, Challis, and Estes. Estes had the idea, but he didn't have the strength. He had the knowledge, but he didn't have the ability to carry it. We must unite and be one as we were once one. We must come face to face with Ares, but we cannot, we cannot allow it to battle.
Is Ares on the earth's planet at this time? No. Ares was always late with us. He always came later. He was always the late arrival. I could tell. We must await him coming. We must sit down and reconcile, for it's our only hope. There must be a reconciliation, because annihilation will never work. We've used too many people carrying on our cause - carrying on the principles - carrying on a war that should have long ended. I must find Challis. I must find his eyes.
Where will you look? Inside myself. If I know myself, then I will know Challis. I will know where he is. I will know what he's thinking, and he then will be able to find me. He's not here. I don't sense him. I remember sensing imminent danger with imminent joy. Challis was that way, a blind man who saw with his fingers. A blind man who glowed in his eyes. They were colors. I could see them at night. There is such a man.
Where is he now? He must be to the south. Yes, he must be to the south. The West isn't ready, and the East is in turmoil. The South is all that's left. I must finish here and I must go to the South. I must find Challis. I must find Estes. We will stand against Ares Vilas. They never could pronounce his name in the West.... They never understood our language. I am - I is - Ares. We used his name like he used a godhead title. Ares - Ares - Ares - Ares. Challis: the fountain, the seaman. Moran: morales [morals?], dignity, loyalty, compassion. Estes: Always looking, always seeking, always going to the east. Estes, Estes, Foturas."

After the session, we were all hungry, and we went looking for a park in which to have a picnic lunch. Somehow we needed a real lawn to "ground" ourselves after our wrenching soul traveling experience. We found no park. Instead, a cemetery, strangely appropriate, with green grass on which to sit. (I have never before or since had lunch in a cemetery.) Chuck's mind was full of memories. He remembered much of the second session. The whole experience was unexpected and fantastic. Truly, Patricia and I didn't know what to say or do. In retrospect, we obviously should have stayed on and continued working with this young man, but we didn't. We simply said goodbye after our picnic and left. We never saw Chuck again. After our return from a two-month trip in the U.S., we wrote, but he had moved, leaving no forwarding address. I was unable to follow up on what he did and what happened to him. I often wonder if he did follow the map that he had outlined for his present life.

Patricia and I resumed our trip, going to the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, and north to the Oregon and Washington coasts, then back to New England. There, we were to start a whole new adventure.

Notes to Chapter 3

(1) In 1974, I attended several classes a week at the New Birth Center in Groton, MA. It was started in 1972 to educate people in psychic development, health food, and organic gardening; it has since closed. Patricia and I met there and formed a loving relationship that lasted several years. At the time of our trip, she was not yet familiar with my regression work. At the center, I learned a technique called the Christos Experience; I was using variations of this with Chuck. The purpose is to open a subject's awareness - to show him he can reach beyond a limited perception of reality by changing size, floating, etc. The subject is given time to accomplish each step. To send love, the subject is asked to close his eyes, visualize the eyes of another, and then, when this is accomplished, to send love from eyes to eyes. The technique is described more fully in The Case for Reincarnation, by Joe Fisher (New York: Bantam Books, 1985, pp. 138-143).

(2) I do not know if Louana was the name of Chuck's friend, the girl who died. At the time, so much information was coming through, and I was so astonished by its extent and depth, that I did not think to ask, either during the session or the next day.

(3) He may be referring to the giant earth drawings that appear in many parts of the world; for instance, the spider on the plains of Nazca in southern Peru.

(4) A subject's taking control of the entering and exiting in hypnosis is rare, but not without precedent. A young woman I had guided a few years earlier described a violent scene in which she was stabbing someone or being stabbed with a knife. She was particularly surprised that there was a definite sound to this act. (From her description the lung cavity was probably punctured by the knife.) She willed herself back to the present and out of hypnosis, refusing to discuss the episode. As I write this 16 years after her session (her first and only one), she still will not discuss the memory with me.