Chapter 16 A reunion

Saturday 7th August

‘Hello, John, it’s Sam. We met yesterday.’

There had not been an opportunity for Sam to see John Henson on his own, and she realised she was taking a risk in meeting him again with others present. Unfortunately, her current visit would only make sense as a one-off act of kindness, so it would have seemed odd had she asked Dr Melton and one of John’s dedicated nurses to leave the room.

In their presence, it was possible that John might say something akin to: ‘Hello, Sam. I remember we met in the secret lab beneath the airfield last night.’

That would have been hard for Sam to explain, given her assertion that she had encountered John in the immediate vicinity of the temple. Also, such a statement would have been just his second utterance since admission – and hence his words would have attracted disproportionate attention.

Fortunately, John showed no recognition of Sam and simply continued to stare into the space in front of him.

Sam had smiled to herself when told about John’s first utterance – the chanting of the word “stairgate” together with a possible reference to the date of Beth’s nearest pass to Earth. Sam reflected that any stairgate would have been much easier to deal with than an updated version of Stargate – even if it had been pronounced with John’s Scottish accent.

Sam experienced the presence of both Doctor Melton and the nurse, and she immediately warmed to them. They both seemed to be very caring people who were genuinely concerned about John Henson. There was something else she detected in relation to the nurse. It was nothing malevolent, but there was another agenda there somewhere. As on the previous evening, she sensed nothing from John. It was as if he wasn’t there at all.

‘Has he said anything else, Madeline?’ Sue Melton asked the nurse.

‘John woke up in the small hours of the morning and repeated the word “Rogers” a few times – maybe it’s a name.’

Sam wondered, given the connection with the Stargate project, whether the mention of Rogers might refer to Major Peter Rogers. He had been the UK head of the Stargate project at Fort Meade in nineteen ninety-five. Could he still be alive? Sam did a calculation in her head. Yes, he would probably be in his early seventies by now.

After ten minutes with John, it became apparent that there was little purpose to Sam remaining. She and Sue Melton therefore left John and began to walk back to the reception area.

‘It was very kind of you to come along, Ms Martin. Although we saw no obvious response from John, you can never tell what’s going on deep down. Your acts of kindness may have had some effects we can’t yet see, and they’ve certainly done no harm.’

‘Please call me Sam, and thanks for letting me visit.’

As they reached the reception area, a man passed through the main door and walked towards them. Suddenly, both Sam and the new arrival stopped and stared at each other with expressions of surprise on their faces.

‘Hello, Ben.’

‘Hello, Sam. What are you doing here?’

Sue explained Sam’s presence. ‘Ms Martin, Sam, was the person who found John wandering in the grounds of the temple last night.’

‘Ah, that explains it. I expect you’re leading a retreat at Bodhiisha.’

‘Not leading it, but contributing sessions.’

Ben looked at Sue. ‘Sam’s a spiritual teacher. I was at one of her retreats on Lindisfarne last year. Still, it’s a coincidence we should both end up on the Bodhiisha site.’

‘Are you on the retreat, Ben? I haven’t seen you.’

‘No. That building next to the temple was an MOD rehab centre for military personnel with PTSD. It was closed down three months ago. I’ve been commissioned to do a retrospective analysis of patient outcomes. It’s a routine process when MOD medical projects come to an end.’

As Sahadeva had recently reminded Sam, there were no coincidences. While Ben spoke, Sam’s intuition created within her the firm impression that his presence, here and now, was occurring for a purpose. He had been brought here by the same forces that had guided her country walk past the Aashirya Temple on the previous Monday.

‘Are you here for much longer?’ Sam asked Ben.

‘I was planning to leave on the day after tomorrow, but,’ he glanced at Sue, ‘there’s been a turn of events that’ll lead me to be here for at least another week.’

Sam detected Sue’s reaction to Ben’s words, although she did not see the glance that passed between them. Sam nevertheless concluded that Ben and Sue had just started a relationship. She suspected that Ben had unnecessarily, from a work perspective, lengthened his proposed stay in Norfolk solely to pursue that relationship. Sam also sensed this to be the first Sue had known of Ben’s change of plan, and that she was delighted.

A question arose in Sam’s mind about whether Sue’s unscheduled visit to Bodhiisha on the previous evening had interrupted Sue and Ben’s plans for the evening in a major way. She thought it better, however, not to comment on any of these insights.

Sue and Ben had absolutely no idea that Sam had deduced the gist of their entire story. They were also unaware that she could detect the fun they were currently having in non-verbally reviewing that story with each other – secure in the knowledge that no one could possibly guess the meaning of their communications.

Sam concluded there to be no need to make any arrangement to meet again with Ben. It would seem like a strange thing to suggest at this moment anyway, and fate was working with her. They would meet again. When their conversation came to a natural end, Sam simply wished Ben well and said goodbye to them both.

Once outside the hospital, Sam sent a text to Sahadeva: John Henson repeated the name “Rogers” in the early hours of this morning. I’ve met before the psychologist who’s reviewing the PTSD project.

Chapter 17 Morning coffee

Saturday 7th August

Jenny and Lauren sat at a table outside a coffee shop on Trumpington Street, Cambridge, almost opposite King’s College Chapel.

Jenny stirred sugar into her Americano. ‘How’s Joe?’

‘Much the same really. The stay at the Diss rehab unit has certainly helped. He still has nightmares and flashbacks, but it’s better than it was.’ Lauren paused. ‘Something’s not right though, but I can’t put my finger on it. How’s your husband, Jenny?’

‘Very much the same as Joe. I know what you mean about something not being right. It’s easy to put everything down to the PTSD, but I think something else has changed since Diss.’

Lauren looked intently at Jenny. ‘Can you describe what you’ve noticed with Al?’

Al Smith and Joe Walters had both served with special forces in Iraq in different units and in different areas of the country. They had both returned to the UK with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and had been inpatients at the Diss unit at around the same time as each other, earlier in the year. Their wives, Jenny Smith and Lauren Walters, had met while visiting their husbands and discovered they lived less than ten miles apart. Jenny and Lauren had become friends and had also provided support for each other – often meeting for coffee. Al and Joe had also become friends.

Jenny put her cup down on the café table, looked back at Lauren and began to answer her question. ‘It’s hard to describe. It’s not one thing. If there’s a common theme, it’s inconsistency. After Al came back from Iraq, he had the symptoms you just described, but underneath all that, it was the same old Al. Now, it’s as if he becomes a slightly different person with each new thought or feeling he has.’

‘I know what you mean. Someone who didn’t know Joe well wouldn’t notice it, but something’s subtly different. Joe’s a good man, but he used to take me a bit for granted. I don’t remember him getting me flowers since we were married. He’s brought flowers for me twice in the last month and has been as romantic as when we first met. Last week, something upset him, and he was uncharacteristically sullen for a couple of days. In the old days, I wouldn’t have got the flowers, but minor annoyances would have washed right over him. In some ways, I don’t feel I know who Joe is anymore.’

‘It’s the same with me and Al. It’s exactly like being with a sequence of different people with slightly different personalities. I would have thought it was a PTSD symptom, but it wasn’t there in the six months between when he got back from the Middle East and when he went to the unit.’

‘Maybe we should get in touch with Diss and tell them. I tried to tell Joe’s GP, but he didn’t listen. He just puts it all down to the PTSD.’

‘Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll write to the manager of the unit. I think his name was John Henson. He seemed to be a helpful guy.’

Chapter 18 Dharma Talk

– The underlying unity of all things

Saturday 7th August

Sam sat on a chair on the raised platform at the front of the main meditation hall of the Bodhiisha Temple – the place from which she had delivered her introductory dharma talk on the previous evening. Both Shingetsu and Sahadeva sat cross-legged on the floor to one side of the hall. The retreat participants had distributed themselves throughout the remaining space.

‘Hello, everyone,’ Sam began. ‘I hope you’ve found the first twenty-four hours of this retreat to be valuable. This evening before dinner, I want to talk to you about the underlying unity of all things.

‘Some of you may be surprised that I should talk about this subject on just the second evening of this retreat. Especially for those of you who are fairly new to spiritual practice, the ground of existence may seem a million miles away from trying to prevent your mind involuntarily wandering from your breath to whether you turned off the light in your room.’ There was subdued laughter from participants. ‘I think it can be helpful, however, to think about the issues this subject raises.

‘There’s one very important thing to always bear in mind during this kind of discourse. You should not confuse an intellectual understanding of some aspect of awakening with the underlying reality that it attempts to describe.

‘That’s so important that, at the risk of patronising some of you, I want to quote an analogy. Imagine that you’re the world’s leading expert on ice cream. I’m guessing that, like me, some of you have held a great interest in that subject for many years.’ There were further sounds of amusement from the group. ‘Imagine that you know all there is to know about the ingredients and the process of making the final product. Then imagine that, despite this expertise, you’ve never actually tasted ice cream.

‘In a way, that’s a poor analogy to the difference between spiritual knowledge and spiritual experience because the taste of ice cream is a sense perception. Nevertheless, I hope you can see the huge difference between the understanding of the ice cream expert, who has never tasted ice cream, when compared to the understanding of any child who has probably eaten too much of it. Think about that for a moment. Intellectual knowledge of the underlying nature of all things is not union with all things – or anything like it.

‘So, what do I mean by the underlying unity of all things? As I explained in my talk last evening, the quiet awareness within you when thoughts, feelings and sense perceptions are not dominating your attention is the place to start. The awareness within each of you is the same thing as the awareness within everyone else – exactly the same thing. All the differentiation you experience is an illusion. All the uncountable separate things you perceive in this Universe are really part of one seamless whole. That seamless whole, however, is not a thing. It’s more like a flow. As Sir John Jeans, the English physicist, astronomer and mathematician, put it: “The universe looks more and more like a great thought, rather than a great machine.”.

‘Despite the drawbacks of intellectual explanations that I’ve just mentioned, people who’ve recognised this underlying unity have, for thousands of years, tried to devise analogies to describe it in terms of experiences that are more generally familiar. For example, it’s been talked of as being like an ocean. In that analogy, all differentiated objects are likened to the transient crests of waves – appearing to exist in their own rights but really being just different manifestations of the same underlying body of water.

‘In more recent times, fundamental physics has evolved a similar but more nuanced analogy to describe fundamental particles. In the past, sub-atomic particles have been pictured as analogous to snooker balls. Now they are viewed as our perceptions of perturbations in various fields that permeate the Universe.

‘This perspective conceptualises an electron as what you perceive if you measure a perturbation in the electron field. Similarly, a photon is what you perceive if measure a perturbation in the electromagnetic field.

‘Using an analogous framework, the underlying unity of all things can be conceptualised as being the field of consciousness. The ten thousand things, as Laozi phrased it in the Tao Te Ching, are what we perceive when we focus our attention on individual parts of that Ultimate Field based on the inputs from our sense organs as they are interpreted by our brains.

‘What could be called the Consciousness Field can also be interpreted as fundamental to everything, and to contain all the other fields that physicists use to describe the quantum processes which underlie the apparently physical phenomena that we experience.

‘Sages for millennia have been arguing that everything we think we see around us isn’t real. That’s a hard one to grasp because it all looks real enough.’ Sam tapped her knuckles on her chair by way of illustration. ‘What they mean is that we don’t perceive things as they are because there are no concrete underlying things to perceive. What is perceived depends on the perceiver. If you carefully examine the biological processes that lead to sense perceptions, it’s obvious that we have no direct contact with the world we are trying to interpret. If you’ve not heard of Plato’s cave, check it out later on the Internet.

‘If we simply examine our responses to the apparently material world around us, our eyes respond only to certain frequencies of light. Our ears respond only to certain frequencies of sound, and perceptions of both are constructed within our brains from electrical impulses sent from those sense organs.

‘Our brains generate the colours and the sounds we perceive. These perceptions are representationalist, they do not exist outside our brains in the form in which we experience them. Imagine a tree falling in a forest. If there is no one there to hear it fall, it makes no sound. Pressure waves might be detected in the surrounding air by an appropriate device, but there is no sound. The sound of the tree falling is a representationalist illusion that requires an ear and a brain to manufacture.

‘To use a computer analogy, ask yourself in what sense any desktop icon is real? Clicking on an icon may cause many complex underlying processes to take place. This might produce a comprehensible image on the computer screen, which can inform subsequent actions. The assisting icon, however, is nothing more than a representationalist illusion. It facilitates the execution of the underlying processes, but it is not the reality of those underlying processes. Indeed, how these underlying processes appear depends on how deep you go. Does the reality lie in the computer program or the components of the computer or the atoms from which they are made – or even deeper than that. The question is, in fact, meaningless.

Our perceptions of the apparent material world are also constrained by scale. It would all appear very different if we ourselves were the size of a galaxy or the size of an atom.

‘To say, therefore, that the reality we perceive around us is an illusion is not simply a vague, mystical or poetic utterance that one might hear from a guru on a Himalayan mountain top. It is, when you look at it this way, obvious.

‘The representationalist illusions that most people currently employ to navigate their realities have evolved to aid human survival over thousands of years. Our brains construct three dimensional icons on the three-dimensional desktop of the world we perceive around us. These objects are not, of themselves, fundamental reality.

‘By meditating on the unity of all things, you are attempting to perceive deeper levels more accurately. It is the Consciousness Field you are attempting to experience within yourself – the Universal Flow. If you attempt to hold tightly onto any one of Laozi’s ten thousand things, the whole will vanish like the morning mist.

‘This is why you will hear spiritual teachers stressing that reality is here and now. The problem is that we don’t easily adjust to perceiving it. Our evolutionarily created perceptual framework is obscuring it from us.

‘So remember that in seeking to be one with the Underlying Unity – one with all – we are simply looking to perceive reality in a more accurate way. We are seeking to overcome illusions and see more clearly what actually is. But how do we do that?

‘To provide a clue to answering that question and also to conclude my talk for this evening, I want to return to our ice cream expert. Imagine she or he is sitting on a park bench next to a child who is eating ice cream. Our expert can attempt to use reason and logic for ever to deduce what ice cream might taste like. That approach will never succeed. Intellectual and experiential knowledge are two quite different things. Note, however, what the child is doing. The child is doing nothing that’s at all complicated. He or she is just eating the ice cream. When meditating on the underlying unity of all things, don’t think about it. There’s nothing to think about. Just maintain your awareness in the present and relax. There’s nothing more to do than that.

‘Thank you.’

Chapter 19 Dinner at the Bodhiisha Temple

Saturday 7th August

Sam and Sahadeva sat facing each other at a table in an alcove that was separated from the main dining hall at Bodhiisha Temple. There was no door connecting the two spaces – a recognition of the equality of all present. This room layout, however, fulfilled the need for some degree of separation between those who were learning and those who were imparting that learning. It allowed private conversation amongst those with different responsibilities.

‘What do you think Shingetsu knows about the work of the unit, Sam?’

‘He just thought it was a therapeutic unit. I don’t think he was aware of anything else that was going on there.’

‘Would he have sensed it if something was odd?’

‘I don’t get the impression that Shingetsu is awakened to any great extent. He seems like a nice, caring person, but in our brief discussions of awareness and samadhi, I had the sense that he knows the words but he’s struggling with the tune.’

‘That’s not uncommon. Unenlightened spiritual leaders guiding unenlightened followers happens everywhere.

Sam smiled. ‘There aren’t enough mystics to go round, but any compassionate, well-informed teacher can be helpful. It’s just that without some direct experience of enlightenment, there’s a limit to how far they can go.’

Sam stopped speaking and looked over the shoulder of Sahadeva. She smiled at someone who had just entered the room.

Sahadeva turned to see Shingetsu and someone he did not recognise.

‘Hello, Ben,’ said Sam as the new arrivals reached the table.

‘You know each other?’ Shingetsu glanced at Ben and Sam in turn.

Sam explained. ‘I went to see John Henson at Lakenheath, late this morning. Ben was there. Ben came to a retreat I organised on Lindisfarne last year.’

‘That’s a coincidence,’ said Shingetsu in a surprised tone that led both Sam and Sahadeva to infer that he meant exactly what he had said. Someone who was aware would not attribute these events to some notion of chance. Sam glanced at Sahadeva with a fleeting expression that imparted: you see what I mean.

‘Ben was working late in the unit,’ Shingetsu explained, ‘so I invited him to join us for dinner.’

Sahadeva stood up. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’ He shook Ben’s hand.

Ten minutes later, they had all served themselves from the vegetarian buffet and were seated once again.

‘I gather you’ve nearly completed your work here, Ben,’ said Shingetsu.

‘There’s less to do than I’d expected. There are only thirty-two patient files. For a ten-bedded unit over five years, I’d have expected nearer two hundred. Have you any idea, Shingetsu, why they operated with such a low occupancy?’

‘It’s true that only around thirty people chose to engage with us at the temple – we met a new resident every couple of months. There were certainly more people than that in the unit though. John said the others had declined to work with us.’

‘That’s interesting. All the files I’ve been looking at make reference to support from the temple. They must have been your thirty, but where are the other records?’

Shingetsu thought for a few moments. ‘I suppose the files could have been removed by mistake when all that equipment was collected from the unit.’

Ben seemed surprised. ‘What equipment? When was that?’

‘It was the Tuesday before last. The day before you arrived. They filled six large, covered, army lorries.’

Sam glanced at Ben. ‘You look perplexed.’

‘It’s just there’s no obvious sign in the unit that anything has been removed. All the individual rooms and offices seem fully equipped, as I’d expect them to be. I can’t really visualise what else would have been in there that could have filled six removal vans.’

Sahadeva looked towards Shingetsu. ‘What was it they were loading?’

‘I didn’t see all that clearly. The temple’s some way from the unit. It was mostly boxes, I think, and some office furniture.’ He held up his hands to illustrate the size and shape of something akin to a large microwave. ‘The boxes were mostly the sort of size that one man could carry.’

Sam cut a slice of butter from a block on the table. ‘Was all the stuff being carried from the front door of the unit?’

‘Yes. … How else would they have got it out?’

Sam did not reply. No one else spoke, and that conversation seemed to have come to a natural conclusion.

They continued to eat in silence.

‘Have you continued with the practice you began on Lindisfarne, Ben?’ asked Sam.

‘I have,’ Ben replied proudly. ‘Every morning, I spend half an hour meditating – based on the principles you taught. I’d been to meditation workshops before, but no one had ever explained things in the way you did. It was a whole new beginning for me.’

‘I’d be interested in what you mean,’ said Shingetsu? ‘I’d also noticed something very inspirational in Sam’s two excellent dharma talks, and I’ve heard similar feedback from the participants.’

‘Thank you,’ Sam responded.

Ben thought for a moment. ‘It was something about the way Sam cut through all the words and rituals and pointed us directly at underlying reality as if she’d been there. Other teachers I’ve met have said similar sorts of things, but it’s as if those words were not signposts to an underlying reality but a protective wall to hide their own lack of understanding – with nothing further lying within the wall.’

Sam and Sahadeva both detected that Shingetsu felt slightly uncomfortable as Ben had said those final words.

‘That’s what I was thinking when Sam spoke,’ Shingetsu revealed, ‘and I’m aware that I may be hiding behind such a wall.’

Sahadeva caught Sam’s eye and then turned to Shingetsu. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve spent many years travelling the world, seeking wisdom. I spent three years at a monetary in Tibet. The honest fact, however,’ he looked at Sam, ‘is that when Sam spoke of the ice cream expert and the child this evening, I recognised myself as the ice cream expert.’

‘That’s very honest of you, Shingetsu, and believe me, just being honest with yourself about that, here this evening, is a huge step along your path.’

‘So how did you become abbot here?’ asked Ben.

‘While I was in Tibet, I lived at the monastery of Balapuspika. That’s near Chepuwa – about one hundred kilometres west of mount Kangchenjunga and just north of the Nepalese border. A few pilgrims came there, and one who stayed for a couple of months was an Englishman called George Mackenzie. We got to know each other, and we got on well, although when he left, I thought little more about it. Then, one day, after I’d come back to the UK, he turned up at my flat in Chigwell and told me about the temple project here.

‘I managed a road haulage company in Chigwell. George said an abbot was needed here who not only understood spiritual matters but who could also run a business.’ Shingetsu smiled. ‘I was reluctant at first. I think I said to him, like I just said to you, that although I knew a lot about eastern spiritual traditions, I didn’t possess some of the real insights of an enlightened spiritual teacher.’ He fleetingly glanced at Sam – as if highlighting an illustration of what he meant by an enlightened spiritual teacher. ‘In response, George challenged me to find an Anglican vicar who was more than just an actor in a religious pantomime.

‘To be fair, I expect enlightened Christian ministers do exist, but I understood exactly what he meant, and I agreed to come here. I knew I could manage this place as a business, and I planned to help others along their paths with guest teachers. Also, I was hoping – I’m still hoping – that being in this environment will somehow break down the barrier my mind has built to separate me from true reality. I’ve faith that what Sam talked about is real. I just haven’t been able to reach it. In the meantime, although I say it myself, I’m a very good manager. I’ve taken this temple from strength to strength from a self-sustaining commercial point of view.’

There was a silence, and Ben noticed that both Sam and Sahadeva had sat upright and closed their eyes. They both took deep breaths.

Ben watched them but said nothing.

Sam and Sahadeva then simultaneously opened their eyes, looked at each other, smiled and together said: ‘Yes,’ with a slight nod of their heads.

Sam looked in turn at Ben and Shingetsu. ‘You both recognise that much more is going on beneath the surface of the world around us than most people register. Neither of you might have fully seen some of this as yet, but our conversations this evening have shown to both me and Sahadeva that you can both understand what we need to tell you.

‘None of us are here at this table tonight by coincidence. Fate, the Unity, God or whatever you might like to call it has manipulated the Flow to make this meeting happen.’

Shingetsu appeared surprised. ‘You’re saying that we’ve somehow been brought together for a purpose.’

‘Yes. Let me explain. Sahadeva and I met in America nearly thirty years ago. We both worked for the MOD at that time and had been seconded to a US base at Fort Meade in Maryland. That was the headquarters of a top-secret project called “Stargate”.’ Sam paused, looked at Ben and smiled. ‘It sounds a bit like stairgate when you say it in a Scottish accent like John Henson’s.’

With that one recognition, Ben felt that a number of unexplained facts had started to come together. They still made no overall sense, but the MOD involvement, the lack of patient files, the removal of unknown equipment from the unit, the medical condition of John Henson and John’s chanting of the name of an American top-secret military project all now resembled jigsaw pieces that could probably be assembled into a single picture. ‘What was Stargate, Sam?’

‘It was the DIA’s attempt to use remote viewing to gain intelligence about enemy operations. DIA stands for Defense Intelligence Agency. It’s a part of the US federal government that specialises in military intelligence.

‘Following from all the psychical research of the seventies and eighties, DIA researchers recognised that awareness was not necessarily localised within physical bodies. They saw that it might provide the potential to undertake remote viewing that could gain useful military intelligence.

‘Stargate was officially closed down in nineteen ninety-five after a CIA report concluded the information gained from remote viewing was of no practical military use. Many people still take that conclusion to mean that remote viewing didn’t work, but that wasn’t the problem. They … we proved beyond doubt that remote viewing was possible. The problem lay in consistency. From a military standpoint, they needed to know with ninety or one hundred percent certainty that a location was as described. Fifty percent is worse than useless. Hitting the wrong target half the time would cause huge problems – suppose a remotely viewed target was a school and not a weapons dump.

‘The reason accuracy was not greater was because many of the RVs, the remote viewers, were not sufficiently experienced in meditation to maintain an adequate degree of sustained focus. Those who were able to maintain a more profound depth of awareness could not function as RVs because of the Unity itself. One part of the Unity gaining a military advantage over another part of the Unity, with a view to destroying it, produced a paradox that prevented high-quality outcomes from the military’s point of view.

‘The approach could only have reliably worked if they’d intended to make no military use of the information they were gaining, but rather to employ it for some humanitarian purpose. Catch 22.

‘They actually tried various ways to outmanoeuvre reality, such as framing the project to RVs as an act of selfless love. It didn’t work because any RV who entered that delusion found that his or her RV abilities faded away. Delusional beliefs distanced them from the Underlying Reality.’

Sahadeva took up the story. ‘We believed they’d given up on it all in nineteen ninety-five, and then I received a letter on the Thursday before last. It was anonymous, but whoever wrote it obviously knew classified details about the work at Fort Meade in the period leading up to the official cessation of Stargate. The letter warned that a related but far more dangerous project had been tested here at Bodhiisha and that it was ready for deployment. We now believe the project is called Starchild, but we still don’t know the nature of it.’

‘The answer would probably be in the missing one hundred and seventy patient files,’ said Ben.

‘They might certainly have provided clues,’ Shingetsu agreed, ‘but can we step back for a moment? If I understand what’s being said here, there’s a new and more dangerous version of Stargate being developed by the UK MOD in cooperation with the US military. In addition, Sam and Sahadeva believe that forces related to the Ultimate Reality wish us to take action against the project.’

‘We don’t even know if we should take action against it,’ Sam clarified. ‘At the moment, we need more information.’

‘So, if this was a few thousand years ago, and I was drafting the Old Testament,’ Ben summarised, ‘I might have written that God had commanded us to take action against the forces of evil.’

Sam smiled. ‘That’s a bit heavy, but then the OT’s like that. I would have written that God suggested we try to discover what’s going on and take appropriate action.’

The four of them laughed.

‘Why the four of us in particular, Sam?’ asked Ben.

‘I don’t know. There’s some combination of our life paths, circumstances and skills – our karma – that must mean we can complement each other in this task.’

‘Is it just the four of us?’ Shingetsu looked at Sam.

‘That’s a very interesting question, and I don’t know the answer. I have an impression, however, that one more person is destined to join us very soon.’

Under normal circumstances, both Ben and Shingetsu might have treated what had just been said with scepticism. The fact that it was coming from Sam and Sahadeva, however, leant considerable credibility to it. In addition, both Ben and Shingetsu felt a sense of intense interest and great enthusiasm arise within them. Both briefly wondered if those feelings originated from within themselves or from somewhere much, much deeper. Neither commented.

‘I’m up for it,’ said Ben, keenly.

‘Me too,’ Shingetsu agreed.

Ben furrowed his brow as he thought further.

‘What’s on your mind, Ben?’ asked Sahadeva.

‘It’s about the phrase that John repeated in the early hours of last Monday morning: “Stairgate. Fourth of September”. I know what “stairgate” means now, but why was that associated in his mind with Beth’s closest pass to the Earth? I know half the world’s gone mad and are viewing the comet as some kind of portent, but in my brief contact with John, he seemed very sensible and down to earth.’ Ben turned to Sam. ‘Do you think the comet has any significance beyond being just an interesting astronomical phenomenon?’

‘Not as far as I know. I’ve no expectation of it portending anything other than the disappointment of millions of deluded believers.’ Sam looked at Shingetsu. ‘Was John Henson religious?’

‘No. He seemed very secular. He never spoke of church, and he never joined us at the temple – despite an open invitation. George Mackenzie was quite the opposite. He came to the unit for about a day a week and would join our meditation sessions when he could, but even he never talked about the work at the unit.’

‘Ben’s question about Beth’s a good one,’ said Sahadeva. ‘I guess what John said could relate to something else that’s happening on that date other than the passing of the comet. Although somehow, like Ben, I feel there has to be some connection.’

Chapter 20 An out-of-body experience

Saturday 7th August

George Mackenzie sat alone in front of a computer screen in the laboratory within the Shorncliffe bunker.

It was late in the evening because this was the only time at which George could guarantee he would be alone in the lab and undisturbed. All those who had been engaged with preparations for Starchild had long since gone.

The helmet he was wearing was heavy, but the padding inside the device had been specially designed, and it was relatively comfortable to wear. The sides of the helmet extended downwards to his shoulders in order that its weight was carried by his body and not his neck. He had found that he could wear the helmet for many hours without too much discomfort.

George typed on the keyboard in front of him and a sound came from the helmet that was reminiscent of a Star Wars light sabre. The hum was not loud or particularly distracting, and George had come to consider the noise to be quite pleasant and restful.

Electromagnets within the helmet were positioned in proximity to the temporoparietal junctions in his brain. As the electromagnets began to energise, George noted the characteristic effect on his sight. His peripheral vision darkened and then faded to blackness while a point of light in the centre of his field of view began to brighten.

George relocated his right arm to rest it on the arm of his chair. By way of a test, he gently touched the large button on the chair arm that would deactivate the helmet when required.

George relaxed and focussed on the brightening white spot at the centre of his vision. The remainder of his field of view slowly contracted until he began to experience the sensation of travelling along a tunnel that was illuminated with coloured lights. He felt as if he was flying towards the brightly lit tunnel exit.

He focussed upon his breath for several moments. No thoughts arose.

Suddenly, he had left the end of the tunnel and emerged into bright light. His vision was initially blurred, but soon cleared, and he was then aware of looking down upon himself.

George could see his body sitting in the chair below. He willed his left arm to rise slightly and then settle back onto the arm of the chair.

It complied.

George looked around the room from this new vantage point. He seemed to be floating effortlessly in the air, and he could clearly and vividly see the contents of the laboratory. He noted that nothing connecting his disembodied awareness with the body in the chair below. Some subjects within the Starchild project had spoken of a grey, shining umbilical cord, but he had never experienced such a phenomenon.

George willed his dissociated awareness to rise upwards to the ceiling of the laboratory and then move to a location above a server rack on the far side of the room.

The top of the server rack was around three metres from the floor. Lying on top of the upper unit was a card with the word ORANGE written upon it in large, clear capital letters.

George looked back towards his own body and willed his right arm to press the abort button. He watched his finger do so, and in a split second, he experienced his awareness as once more within the body that was sitting at the consul.

George removed the helmet and placed it on a custom-built rack to the left of his chair. He then stood up and walked to the server rack above which he had just experienced his own presence.

There was a step ladder in front of the rack. George climbed the ladder and reached for the card that lay on the top of the stack.

He picked up the card, pulled it towards him, and looked at the word written upon it.

He was not surprised to confirm that his remote viewing of the card had been correct. George had achieved this simple level of dissociated awareness on many previous occasions, and most such dissociations had occurred without any assistance from Starchild technology. Meditation and spiritual practice had long ago led him to understand that his underlying awareness was not bound to his physical body. He had subsequently learned to dissociate the two and remotely view the world from alternative locations.

What was significant about his experience with Starchild was that dissociation was so straightforward. There was no necessity for prior meditation and the disciplined focus of his mind. When employing Starchild, there were never occasions when events in the material world would enhance the influence of his ego and obscure the reality behind it. There were never any barriers to attainment of the altered state of consciousness required for dissociating his awareness. Starchild took care of all of that.

George pondered once again upon the potential implications of Starchild. On its own, the equipment could allow many more people to realise a dissociated state with little or no requirement for spiritual practice. Experiments with Starchild had indicated that perhaps one in twenty people were susceptible to the experience.

The addition of Teterodat, however, had been a game-changer. That drug, in conjunction with the Starchild hardware, allowed almost anyone to achieve the required mental state and also to facilitate very much more than simple remote viewing.

George believed the positive potential of these discoveries to be immense. Allowing people to experience awareness in a new way could provide the opportunity for mankind to develop a more profound understanding of the nature of reality with all the benefits which would flow from it. For the moment, however, an arms race had developed as nations rushed to weaponise the discovery. Currently, the UK, with American support, was just ahead of the field.

Clearly, this technology had huge implications for the future direction of humanity. What concerned George was how this might play out in the current military context.