The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure (13 page)
“But what about Marjorie?” I asked.
“We can’t do anything about her right now,” Wil said. “We’d better leave.”
We started to walk away when Jensen called out. “You’d better stay here. You won’t make it.”
I glanced back.
Wil stopped and looked at me, giving me a choice to stay or go.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We passed the truck in which Wil had arrived and I noticed two other men had been waiting in the front seat. When we got to Wil’s jeep, he asked me for the keys and we drove away. The truck with Wil’s friends followed.
Wil turned and looked at me. “Jensen told me you had decided to stay with his group. What was going on?”
“How do you know his name?” I stammered.
“I just heard all about this guy,” Wil replied. “He works for the Peruvian government. He’s a real archaeologist, but he’s committed to keeping the whole thing secret in return for exclusive rights to study the Manuscript, only he wasn’t supposed to go looking for the missing insight. Apparently he’s decided to violate that agreement. He is rumored to be leaving soon in pursuit of the Ninth.
“When I learned he was the person Marjorie was with, I thought I’d better get down here. What did he say to you?”
“He told me I was in danger and that I should join up with him and that he’d help me leave the country if that’s what I wanted.”
Wil shook his head. “He really had you hooked.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should have seen your energy field. It was flowing almost totally into his.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think back to Sarah’s argument with the scientist at Viciente. … If you had witnessed one of them winning, convincing the other that he was correct, then you would have seen the loser’s energy flowing into the winner’s, leaving the loser feeling drained and weak and somewhat confused—the way the girl in the Peruvian family appeared and the way,” he smiled, “that you look now.”
“You saw that happening to me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “And it was extremely difficult for you to stop his control of you and to pull yourself away. I thought for a minute you weren’t going to do it.”
“Jesus,” I said. “That guy must really be evil.”
“Not really,” he said. “He’s probably only half aware of what he’s doing. He thinks he’s right to control the situation, and no doubt he learned a long time ago that he could control successfully by following a certain strategy. He first pretends to be your friend, then he finds something wrong with what you’re doing, in your case that you were in danger. In effect, he subtly undermines your confidence in your own path until you begin to identify with him. As soon as that happens, he has you.”
Wil looked directly at me. “This is only one of many strategies people use to con others out of their energy. You’ll learn about the remaining ways later, in the Sixth Insight.”
I wasn’t listening; my thoughts were on Marjorie. I didn’t like leaving her there.
“Do you think we should try to get Marjorie?” I asked.
“Not now,” he said. “I don’t think she’s in any danger. We can drive out tomorrow, as we leave, and try to talk to her.”
We were silent for a few minutes, then Wil asked: “Do you understand what I said about Jensen not realizing what he was doing? He’s no different from most people. He just does what makes him feel the strongest.”
“No, I don’t think I understand.”
Wil looked thoughtful. “All this is still unconscious in most people. All we know is that we feel weak and when we control others we feel better. What we don’t realize is that this sense of feeling better costs the other person. It is their energy that we have stolen. Most people go through their lives in a constant hunt for someone else’s energy.”
He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. “Although occasionally it works differently. We meet someone who at least for a little while will voluntarily send us their energy.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Think back to when you and Marjorie were eating together at the restaurant in town and I walked in.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know what you two were talking about but obviously her energy was pouring into you. When I walked in, I could see it clearly. Tell me, how did you feel during that time?”
“I felt good,” I said. “In fact, the experiences and concepts I was relating seemed crystal clear to me. I could express myself easily. But what does that mean?”
He smiled. “Occasionally, another person will voluntarily want us to define their situation for them, giving us their energy outright, the way Marjorie did with you. It makes us feel empowered, but you’ll see that this gift doesn’t usually last. Most people—Marjorie included—aren’t strong enough to keep giving energy. That’s why most relationships eventually turn into power struggles. Humans link up energy and then fight over who is going to control it. And the loser always pays the price.”
He stopped abruptly and looked at me. “Do you get the Fourth Insight? Think about what has happened to you. You observed that energy flows between people and wondered what it meant, and then we ran into Reneau, who told you that psychologists were already searching for some reason humans sought to control each other.
“All that was demonstrated with the Peruvian family. You saw clearly that dominating another makes the dominator feel powerful and knowledgeable, but it sucks the vital energy out of those who are being dominated. It makes no difference if we tell ourselves that we are doing it for the person’s own good, or that they are our children, and therefore we should be in control all the time. The damage still occurs.
“Next, you ran into Jensen and got a taste of what this actually feels like. You saw that when someone is dominating you psychically, they actually take your mind away. It was not as if you lost some intellectual debate with Jensen. You didn’t have the energy or mental clarity to debate with. All your mental power was going to Jensen. Unfortunately this kind of psychic violence happens all the time throughout human culture, often by otherwise well-meaning people.”
I just nodded. Wil had summarized my experience exactly.
“Try to integrate the Fourth Insight fully,” Wil continued. “See how it fits together with what you already know. The Third Insight showed you that the physical world is actually a vast system of energy. And now the Fourth points out that for a long time we humans have been unconsciously competing for the only part of this energy we have been open to: the part that flows between people. This is what human conflict has always been about, at every level: from all the petty conflict in families and employment settings to wars between nations. It’s the result of feeling insecure and weak and having to steal someone else’s energy to feel okay.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “Some wars had to be fought. They were right.”
“Of course,” Wil replied. “But the only reason that any conflict can’t be immediately settled is that one side is holding on to an irrational position, for energy purposes.”
Wil appeared to remember something. Reaching into a satchel, he pulled out a bundle of papers clipped together.
“I almost forgot!” he said. “I found a copy of the Fourth Insight.”
He handed me the copy and said nothing else, looking straight ahead as he drove.
I picked up the small flashlight Wil kept on the floorboard and for the next twenty minutes read the short document. Understanding the Fourth Insight, it said, is a matter of seeing the human world as a vast competition for energy and thus for power.
Yet, once humans understand their struggle, the insight continued, we would immediately begin to transcend this conflict. We would begin to break free from the competition over mere human energy…because we would finally be able to receive our energy from another source.
I looked at Wil. “What’s the other source?” I asked.
He smiled, but said nothing.
T
he next morning I awoke as soon as I heard Wil stirring. We had spent the night at a house belonging to one of his friends, and Wil was sitting up in a cot across the room, dressing quickly. It was still dark outside.
“Let’s get packed,” he whispered.
We gathered our clothes and made several trips out to the jeep with some extra supplies Wil had bought. The center of town was only a few hundred yards away, but few lights penetrated the darkness. Dawn was but a streak of lighter sky toward the east. Other than a few birds signaling the impending morning, there were no sounds.
When we finished, I stayed with the jeep while Wil spoke briefly with his friend who stood sleepily on the porch while we completed our packing. Suddenly we heard noise at the crossroads. We could see the lights of three trucks as they drove into the center of the town and stopped.
“That could be Jensen,” Wil said. “Let’s walk over there and see what they’re doing, but carefully.”
We made our way across several streets and into an alley that entered the main road about a hundred feet from the trucks. Two of the vehicles were being filled with fuel and the other was parked in front of the store. Four or five people stood nearby. I saw Marjorie walk out of the store and place something in the truck there, then walk casually toward us, gazing into the adjacent shops.
“Walk over there and see if you can get her to come with us,” Wil whispered. “I’ll wait for you here.”
I slipped around the corner and as I walked toward her I was horrified. Behind her, in front of the store, I noticed for the first time that several of Jensen’s men carried automatic weapons. A few moments later my fright intensified. In the street across from me armed soldiers crouched low and slowly approached Jensen’s group.
At the exact time Marjorie saw me, Jensen’s men saw the others and scattered. A burst of machine gun fire filled the air. Marjorie looked at me with terror in her eyes. I rushed forward and grabbed her. We ducked into the next alley. More shots were being fired amid angry shouting in Spanish. We tripped over a pile of empty cartons and fell, our faces almost touching.
“Let’s go!” I said, jumping to my feet. She struggled up, then pulled me down again, nodding ahead to the end of the alley. Two men with weapons were hiding with their backs to us, looking down the next street. We froze. Finally, the men raced across the street to the wooded area beyond.
I knew we had to get back to the house of Wilson’s friend, to the jeep. I was sure Wil would go there. We crept carefully to the next street. Angry shouting and gunfire could be heard toward the right, but we could see no one. I looked left; nothing there either—no sign of Wil. I figured he had run ahead of us.
“Let’s run across to the woods,” I said to Marjorie, who was now alert and looking determined. “Then,” I continued, “we’ll stay along the edge of the woods and bear left. The jeep is parked in that direction.”
“Okay,” she said.
We crossed the street quickly and made our way to within a hundred feet or so of the house. The jeep was still there but we could see no movement anywhere. As we prepared to dash across the last street to the house, a military vehicle turned a corner to our left and proceeded slowly toward the dwelling. Simultaneously, Wil ran across the yard, started the jeep, and sped away in the opposite direction. The vehicle pursued.
“Damn!” I said.
“What’ll we do now?” Marjorie asked, panic returning to her face.
More shots were being fired in the streets behind us, closer this time. Ahead, the forest thickened and inclined up the ridge which towered over the town and ran north and south. It was the same ridge that I had seen from the overlook earlier.
“Let’s get to the top,” I said. “Hurry!”
We climbed several hundred yards up the ridge. At an overlook, we stopped and looked back toward the town. Military vehicles seemed to be pouring into the crossroads and numerous soldiers were conducting what seemed to be a house to house search. Below us, at the base of the ridge, I could hear muffled voices.
We rushed further up the mountain. All we could do now was run.
We followed the ridge north all morning stopping only to crouch down when a vehicle traveled along the ridge parallel to us on our left. Most of the traffic was the same steel-gray military jeep we had seen before, but occasionally a civilian vehicle would pass. Ironically, the road provided a lone landmark and point of security against the wilderness all around us.
Ahead the two ridges grew closer together and more steeply sloped. Jagged outcroppings of rock protected the valley floor between. Suddenly, from the north we saw a jeep like Wil’s approach, then turn quickly onto a side road which looped down into the valley.
“That looks like Wil,” I said, straining to see.
“Let’s get down there,” Marjorie said.
“Wait a minute. What if it’s a trap? What if they’ve captured him and are using the jeep to lure us out?”
Her face fell.
“You stay here,” I said. “I’ll go down there and you watch me. If everything’s okay, then I’ll motion for you to follow.”
Reluctantly she agreed, and I started down the steep mountain toward the spot where the jeep had parked. Through the foliage I could vaguely see someone get out of the vehicle, but couldn’t see who it was. Holding onto small bushes and trees, I worked my way between the outcroppings, occasionally sliding down in the thick humus.
Finally, the vehicle was directly across from me on the opposite slope, perhaps a hundred yards away. The driver, leaning against a rear fender, was still obscured. I moved to my right to get a better look. It was Wil. I rushed further to my right and felt myself slide. At the last minute, I reached for a tree trunk and pulled myself back up. My stomach twisted with fright, below me was a sheer drop off of thirty feet or more. I had barely avoided killing myself.
Still holding the tree, I stood up and tried to gain Wil’s attention. He was surveying the ridge above my head and then his eyes dropped and he looked right at me. He jerked up and walked toward me in the bushes. I pointed down to the steep gorge.
He surveyed the valley floor, then called to me. “I don’t see a way across,” he said. “You’ll have to move down the valley and cross there.”