The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (7 page)

“Even if particular accusations have a logical explanation, they are reported anyway, for their impact on ratings and circulation.
In a world where the people are numbed and distracted, the only thing that sells is the unbelievable. And the pity is that
this kind of journalism is self-perpetuating. A young journalist looks at this situation and thinks that to survive in the
business he has to play the game. If he doesn’t, he thinks he’ll be left behind, ruined, which is what leads to so-called
investigative reports being intentionally faked. It happens all the time.”

We had proceeded south and were making our way down the rocky terrain.

“Other occupational groups suffer from the same condition,” Joel went on. “God, look at attorneys. Perhaps there was a time
when being an officer of the court meant something, when the participants in the process shared a common respect for the truth,
for justice. But no longer. Think about the recent celebrity trials covered by television. Lawyers now do everything they
can to subvert justice, intentionally, trying to convince jurors to believe the hypothetical when there is no evidence—hypotheticals
that the attorneys know are lies—just to get someone off. And other attorneys comment on the proceedings as though these tactics
are common practice and absolutely justified under our system of law, which is not true.

“Under our system, everyone is entitled to a fair trial. But the lawyers are beholden to ensure fairness and correctness,
not to distort the truth and undermine justice simply to get their client off at all costs. Because of television, at least
we’ve been able to see these corrupt practices for what they represent: simple expediency on the part of trial lawyers to
enhance their reputations in order to command higher fees. The reason they’re so blatant is that they think no one cares,
and obviously no one does. Everyone else is doing the same thing.

“We’re cutting corners, maximizing short-term profits instead of planning long-term, because inside, consciously or unconsciously,
we don’t think our success can last. And we’re doing this even if we have to break the spirit of trust we have with others
and advance our own interests at the expense of someone else.

“Pretty soon all the subtle assumptions and agreements that hold civilization together will be totally subverted. Think what
will happen once unemployment gets to a certain level in the inner cities. Crime is out of control now. Police officers aren’t
going to keep risking their lives for a public that doesn’t notice anyway. Why find yourself on the stand twice a week getting
grilled by some attorney who’s not interested in the truth anyway, or worse, writhing in pain while your lifeblood runs out
on the ground in some dark alley somewhere, when no one cares? Better to look the other way and do your twenty years as quietly
as possible, maybe even take a few bribes on the side. And it goes on and on. What’s going to stop it?”

He paused and I glanced back at him as we walked.

“I guess you think some spiritual renaissance is going to change all this?” he asked.

“I sure hope so.”

He struggled over a fallen tree to catch up with me. “Listen,” he continued, “I bought into this spirituality stuff for a
while, this idea of purpose and destiny and Insights. I could even see some interesting coincidences happening in my own life.
But I decided it was all crazy. The human mind can imagine all sorts of silly things; we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
When you get right down to it, all this talk of spirituality is just weird rhetoric.”

I started to counter his argument but changed my mind. My intuition was to hear him out first.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it sometimes sounds that way.”

“Take for instance the talk I’ve heard about this valley,” he went on. “That’s the kind of nonsense I used to listen to. This
is just a valley full of trees and bushes like a thousand others.” He put his hand on a large tree as we passed. “You think
this National Forest is going to survive? Forget it. With the way humans are polluting the oceans, and saturating the ecosystem
with manmade carcinogenics, and consuming paper and other wood products, this place will become a garbage bin, like everywhere
else. In fact, no one cares about trees now. How do you think the government gets away with building roads in here at taxpayer
expense and then selling the timber at below-market value? Or
swapping the best, most beautiful areas for ruined land somewhere else, just to make the developers happy?

“You probably think something mystical is happening here in this valley. And why not? Everyone would love for there to be
something mystical going on, especially considering the diminishing quality of life. But the fact is, there’s nothing esoteric
happening. We’re just animals, creatures smart enough and unlucky enough to have figured out we’re alive, and we’re going
to die without ever knowing any purpose. We can pretend all we want and we can wish all we want, but that basic existential
fact remains—we can’t know.”

I looked back at him again. “Don’t you believe in any kind of spirituality?”

He laughed. “If a God exists, he must be an exceedingly cruel monster of a God. There couldn’t be a spiritual reality operating
here! How could there be? Look at the world. What kind of God would design such a devastating place where children die horribly
by earthquakes and senseless crimes and
starvation,
when restaurants toss out tons of food every day?

“Although,” he added, “perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Perhaps that’s God’s plan. Maybe the ‘end times’ scholars
are correct. They think life and history are all just a test of faith to see who will win salvation and who won’t, a divine
plan to destroy civilization in order to separate the believers from the wicked.” He attempted a smile, but it quickly faded
as he drifted into his own thoughts.

Finally he quickened his pace to walk up even with me. We were entering the sage meadow again, and I could see the crow tree
a quarter of a mile away.

“Do you know what these end-times people really believe is
happening?” he asked. “I did a study of them several years ago; they’re fascinating.”

“Not really,” I said, nodding for him to go on.

“They study the prophecies hidden in the Bible, especially in the book of Revelation. They believe that we live in what they
call the
last days,
the time when all the prophecies will come true. Essentially what they think is this: History is now set up for the return
of the Christ and the creation of the heavenly kingdom on Earth. But before this can occur the Earth has to suffer a series
of wars, natural disasters, and other apocalyptic events predicted in the Scriptures. And they know every one of these predictions,
so they spend their time watching world events very closely, waiting for the next event on the timetable.”

“What’s the next event?” I asked.

“A peace treaty in the Middle East that will allow the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Sometime after that, according
to them, a massive rapture will begin among true believers, whoever they are, and they will be snatched off the face of the
Earth and lifted into Heaven.”

I stopped and looked at him. “They think these people will begin to disappear?”

“Yeah, that’s in the Bible. Then comes the tribulation, which is a seven-year period when all hell breaks loose for whoever
is left on Earth. Apparently everything is expected to fall apart: giant earthquakes destroy the economy; ocean levels destroy
many cities; plus rioting and crime and the rest of it. And then a politician emerges, probably in Europe, who offers a plan
to pull things back together, if, of course, he’s set up with supreme power. This includes a centralized electronic economy
which coordinates commerce in most parts of the world. To participate in this economy, however, and take advantage of the
automation,
one has to swear allegiance to this leader and have a chip implanted in one’s hand, through which all economic interactions
are documented.

“This Antichrist at first protects Israel and facilitates a peace treaty, then attacks later, starting a world war that ultimately
involves the Islamic nations, Russia, and finally China. According to the prophecies, just as Israel is about to fall, the
angels of God swoop down and win the war, installing a spiritual utopia that lasts a thousand years.”

He cleared his throat and looked at me. “Walk through a religious bookstore sometime and look around; there are commentaries
and novels about these prophecies everywhere, and more coming out all the time.”

“Do you think these end-times scholars are correct?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The only prophecy that’s being played out in this world is man’s greed and corruption.
Some dictator might rise up and take over, but it will be because he saw a way to take advantage of the chaos.”

“Do you think this will happen?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing. If the collapse of the middle class continues, and the poor get poorer and the
inner cities get more crime-infested and spread into the suburbs, and then on top of that we experience, say, a series of
big natural disasters and the whole economy crashes for a while, we’ll have bands of hungry marauders preying on the masses
and total panic everywhere. In the face of this kind of violence, if someone comes along and proposes a way to save us, to
straighten things out, asking only that we surrender some civil liberties, I have no doubt that we’ll do it.”

We stopped and drank some water from my canteen. Fifty yards ahead was the crow tree.

I perked up; far in the background I could detect the faint dissonance of the hum.

Joel’s eyes squinted in concentration, watching me closely. “What are you hearing?”

I turned around and faced him. “It’s a strange noise, a hum we’ve been perceiving. I think it may be some kind of experiment
going on in the valley.”

“What kind of experiment? Who’s conducting it? Why can’t I hear it?”

I was about to tell him more when we were interrupted by another sound. We listened carefully.

“That’s a vehicle,” I said.

Two more gray Jeeps were approaching from the west and heading toward us. We ran behind a patch of tall briers and hid, and
they passed within a hundred yards without stopping, heading southeast along the same path the earlier Jeep had followed.

“I don’t like this,” Joel said. “Who was that?”

“Well, it’s not the Forest Service, and no one else is supposed to be driving in here. I think it must be the people involved
with the experiment.”

He looked horrified.

“If you want,” I said, “you can take a more direct route back to town. Just head southwest toward that ridge in the distance.
You’ll run into the stream after about three-quarters of a mile and you can follow it west into town from there. I think you
can arrive before it gets too dark.”

“You’re not coming?”

“Not now. I’m going directly south to the stream and wait awhile for my friend.”

He tensed his forehead. “These people couldn’t be conducting
an experiment without someone in the Forest Service knowing about it.”

“I know.”

“You don’t think you can do anything about this, do you? This is something big.”

I didn’t respond; a pang of anxiety rushed through me.

He listened for a moment and then moved past me into the valley, walking quickly. He looked back once and shook his head.

I watched him until he crossed the meadow and disappeared into the forest on the other side, then I hurriedly walked toward
the south, thinking again of Charlene. What had she been doing out here? Where was she going?’ I had no answers.

Pushing hard, I reached the stream in about thirty minutes. The sun was now completely hidden by the band of clouds at the
western horizon, and the twilight cast the woods in ominous gray tones. I was tired and dirty, and I knew that listening to
Joel and seeing the Jeeps had affected my mood severely. Perhaps I had enough evidence now to go to the authorities; perhaps
that was the way I could help Charlene most. Several options danced through my head, all rationalizing my return to town.

Because the woods on both sides of the stream were thin, I decided to wade across and make my way into the thicker forest
on the other side, although I knew that area was private property.

Once across, I stopped abruptly, hearing another Jeep, then broke into a run. Fifty feet ahead the land rose quickly into
a knob of boulders and outcroppings, twenty feet high. Climbing quickly, I reached the top and accelerated my pace, then leaped
upon a pile of large rocks, intending to jump them quickly to the other side. When my foot hit the topmost rock, the huge
stone rolled forward, throwing my feet out from under me and starting the whole pile moving. I bounced once on my hip and
landed in
a small gully, the pile still tumbling my way. Several of the rocks, each two or three feet in diameter, were careening down,
coming squarely for my chest. I had time to roll onto my left side and raise my arms, but I knew I couldn’t get out of the
way.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wispy white form moving in front of my body. Simultaneously an unusual knowing
came over me that the huge rocks would somehow miss. I closed my eyes and heard them crash on both sides. Slowly I opened
my eyes and peered out through the dust, wiping the dirt and rock chips from my face. The rocks were lying neatly beside me.
How had that happened? What was that white form?

For a moment I looked around the scene, and then behind one of the rocks I saw a slight movement. A small bobcat cub eased
around and looked directly into my eyes. I knew it was big enough to have run away, but it was lingering, looking at me.

The rising sound of the approaching vehicle finally sent the bobcat scampering into the woods. I jumped to my feet and ran
several more steps before landing awkwardly on another rock. A bolt of throbbing pain raced through my whole leg as my left
foot gave way. I fell to the ground and crawled the last two yards into the trees. I rolled around behind a huge oak as the
vehicle pulled up to the stream, slowed for a few minutes, then raced away, again toward the southeast.