6/2

Played: March 14, 2022.

Friday, August 3, 1973. Around 11:30 am on Friday, Mitch and Mary-Lynn meet up with the rest of URIEL (sans Marshall, who stayed behind to “man the desk” at Building 451, should they need to reach someone at Livermore — he actually just told the girl at the call center to forward any calls to his number at the Mission) at one of Mount Shasta’s many campgrounds. They find Jocasta, indeed, came loaded for bear, having packed two vans’ worth of equipment:

✔ enough standard camping equipment for eight people: eight camp chairs, mess kits, survival knives, canteens, trekking poles, rain ponchos, blankets, pillows, bed rolls, and sleeping bags; four tents, cots, and coolers; lots of firewood; some cooking gear, charcoal, lighter fluid, lighters, matches, and the like; hygienic basics; plenty of food and water (and water purification kits); and any other stuff a normal group of people would bring along on a camping trip in 1973

✔ a radio that can tune into regular, as well as weather and police band, broadcasts

✔ a field-grade medical kit, a bottle of mixed fruit-flavor combat amphetamines, some Modafimil, some standard painkillers, and a variety of normal-strength uppers and downers

✔ eight walkie-talkies, flashlights, ballistic vests, signal whistles, and signal flares; and four Remington 870 pump shotguns, four M-16 assault rifles, and four Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolvers, with plenty of ammo for each, as well as a mixed case of tear gas, smoke, explosive, and concussion grenades

✔ a couple of good cameras and a small portable movie camera, a small telescope, several pairs of binoculars, and whatever the current generation of night-vision device is

✔ a rifle and pistol ikoter

✔ a standard tool kit, a hatchet, fuel, firestarters, fire extinguishers, a saw, and an entrenching tool

✔ some tarps, buckets, rags, chloroform, handcuffs, gags, blindfolds, rope, and body bags

✔ some wire and stakes to set out a simple defensive perimeter if needed, and some basic anti-wildlife stuff (bug repellant, bait, a few traps, etc.)

✔ a tree stand, some BZ gas, a hypnagogic flash, and any glyphs or anti-Anunnakku shields we happen to have sitting around.

Mitch introduces Mary-Lynn to Archie, Charley, and Viv (Mary-Lynn previously met Roger and Jocasta in their guises as Marshall’s driver and “date,” respectively, during the dinner with SCANATE at the St. Francis). With the introductions complete, Mary-Lynn takes Mitch’s brown VW Bug, which he’s always owned, and heads into town to pick up some “camping food” (marshmallows, hotdogs, etc.) and to visit the health food store where Bigfoot Pete — well, now Peter Mount Shasta — said he works. As her car rounds the corner out of sight, Mitch catches everyone up on his recent doings around the Mountain.

Mitch: So I should start a couple of nights ago. I called Bigfoot Pete — Peter Mount Shasta, as he's now calling himself. I like Bigfoot Pete but Peter Mount Shasta makes sense. I can't say it doesn't make sense. I called Pete, but he did not pick up, which was weird because I felt like he should have. You know, that was a thing. And that got me a little bit spooked. So I called the, uh … the Zen abbey to check with the Abbess Jiyu and she apparently is having a bout and was in the hospital at the time. So that's like a couple of bad omens. So based on the — on what the excursions people told me in passing about Pete, I thought perhaps he had fallen in with Ol’ Vera — you know, Nola van Valer. So this morning, Mary-Lynn and I called on her. He was not there. Vera is hanging in just barely … I guess she's — she's very ill. Very old, I should say. And she has some kind of History B treasure buried in her backyard, which I was not previously aware of. So we should probably check that out. Follow up on it.

She apparently has good days and bad days. I guess this was a good day because she was willing and able to talk to me. She used the word “Anunnaku,” which kind of surprised me, and she indicated that the Beehives had been, like, managing her correspondence for a while. Getting her to write letters that would put people off the scent, which was news to me. Although maybe it's not news to all y'all. I don't know that part — if we're concerned about what the right hand is doing with the left hand, if the left hand is concerned about the right hand, what the right hand is doing, then this may be something to investigate a little bit. Anyway. Then we went — I don't think there's anything else at Vera’s — um after that we went to Pete's house and he was there. He's apparently fallen in with the local like I AM, uh … people. I’ve already forgotten her name. Pearl Dorris! Pearl Dorris, that’s correct? Wow. Pearl Dorris is his guru. He feels St. Germain was, uh, instrumental in getting him to where he is with his spiritual awakening. Had a bit to say about that … this I AM stuff, I don't know what SANDMAN’s position on I AM is. Roger, do you know anything about that? You've read all those pamphlets.

Roger explains that SANDMAN has a history of backing certain cults that have memetically “sticky” over-myths that will lead people away from the idea of worshiping the Red Kings. Muddying the waters so that it leads people to the Kings is absolutely not the thing that SANDMAN has wanted to do, historically speaking. SANDMAN has known for a long time that it would need to fight the ontological war on an informational level. Real “hearts and minds” shit. That meant they needed to go back to the history of religion and to humanity’s great “over-myths” — like the creation of man out of clay, or the Great Flood — and look for memes that are likely to bring about the second coming of the Kings.

“It does not surprise me at all,” Roger says, “that this very powerful locus of belief, here at Mount Shasta, has spread so many of these different ideas and that SANDMAN has tried to capitalize on it and draw people away. The question, really, is: what is Mount Shasta?” After a pause, he wonders aloud whether SANDMAN has fucked up with these cults, these ostensible honeypots. Has there been unexpected fallout? Unanticipated backfiring? “The more you get into double dealings, the more chance you have of things getting messed up,” he observes. Did SANDMAN go too hard at Mount Shasta?

Mitch says that the thing he’s worried about is the connection between all these belief-structures and St. Germain. St. Germain the historical figure has been central to the I AM movement for quite a while, and now there’s this professed agent of the Red Kings going around calling himself that.

Mitch: That doesn’t seem like a good thing. That doesn’t seem like something harmless that we can let go.

Roger: Plus, this is his … uh, his place? His demesne?

Mitch: Yeah, how come he gets to have a magic mountain? I want a magic mountain.

Roger: Let’s get you a magic mountain, man.

Archie asks Mitch if he’s concerned for any of the people he’s been discussing. Does he think they are agents of the Enemy? What’s his position on Bigfoot Pete — Peter Mount Shasta, sorry — and the Abbess? Are they in on this? Do they even have a side? Mitch says he thinks Abbess Jiyu is completely unrelated. She’s never spoken to Mitch about anything that’s related to History B, except in more abstract and philosophical terms, “which is just to say we’ve talked about philosophy.” Bigfoot Pete — damn it, Peter Mount Shasta — has Mitch concerned, though.

Mitch: I don’t want him to be anyone’s dupe and I feel like it would be easy for him to be taken advantage of. St. Germain, he used this runestone up on top of Mount Shasta to put him into a trance so that he and I could have a conversation and apparently that was, like, a catalyst for Peter’s spiritual awakening. You know, he quit his job at the excursions company and changed his name to Peter Mount Shasta. I really should have seen that one coming …

Roger: Pete, the one I met? He’s like, St. Germain’s cheval now? Is he riding him?

Mitch: He hasn’t talked about in those terms. But he considers himself to be the disciple of this woman Doris, who supposedly is in touch with him.

Archie: One last question with regards to where we stand with this people … if we were to encounter this St. Germain, what’s our goal with him? It seems to me that we have no doubt he’s with the Enemy. Setting aside the question of whether we’d be able to do it, is there any reason … (Archie glances at the two vans’ full of guns) … if he’s an active agent of the Kings, should we treat him as a hostile agent? Should we kill him?

Jocasta: (rubs her hands together gleefully)

Mitch: I mean, the biggest issue there that I can think of is that he appears to be able to just be a hologram. The bullets would just go right through him. But I’m all in favor of shooting the guy. He seems, very evidently, to be on the other team.

The team discusses what their plans should be for the weekend. Mitch says he’d like to hit the summit; Jocasta and Roger say they’d come along if needed. Charley’s also interested in hitting the peak. After some indecisiveness, Viv asks the group why they don’t just ask the mountain. “Have we asked the Mountain what we should do? That could take any form you could possibly imagine — meditating, I know many of us have the ability to see beyond what is visible with our eyes. Do we trust the Mountain, if it is a place where the enemy feels at home? Since I’ve gotten here and since I’ve gotten to stretch my legs a little bit, it is absolutely beautiful here. Of course, there are things that are beautiful that are also dangerous. But I don’t know.” Mitch mentions that the first time he came to Shasta, he meditated at a few sites, led there by the Beehives. During his meditations, he saw — “or imagined,” he quickly clarifies — a golden tunnel inside the mountain, with seven seats sitting around a giant table.

Viv: So you were able to — you were able to project? You were able to actually go further than your senses usually let you?

Mitch: Maybe. It seems that way, yeah. And I suppose it could have also been an illusion or some sort of projection or some sort of interference from whatever minds might be inside the Mountain. So, sure, maybe there’s a History B machine in there that zaps people when they try to meditate and gives them a specific set of hallucinations.

Viv: Well, I'm gonna go find myself a nice spot a little away from the camp to do just that — and if anybody wants to join me, they are welcome to do so.

Roger says he’s going to work on setting up their campsite with Charley — the girl did want to go camping after all. Archie declares he’s going to take a walk and read a book quietly somewhere. Mitch says he’s game to meditate with Viv. Jocasta volunteers to go as well, if only so that she can mull over some of what Mitch just said. His description of a “golden council chamber” inside the Mountain does match up with the stories and legends that have grown around Shasta. Since the first white settlers reached the region, there have been wild tales about an entire golden city inside the Mountain. Legends of ascetic loners finding their way into hidden caves and finding ancient temples. Lunatic ideas that Shasta was an outpost of the Lemurians. But why?

A brisk walk and some clean mountain air does wonders for Archie as he puzzles over the meaning of Mount Shasta. There’s just a sheer confusion of memes up here, he thinks, flipping through a “local color” guidebook he bought on a gift shop on the way up. Spiritual memes, ascended master memes, alien memes, the entire memeplex of the Mountain, it’s just a morass — a place where ideas and motifs breed and cross-breed and multiply and mutate. People come here and they catch something. They take it home with them. It spreads to people and a few of them come. They pick something up and bring it home, too. The whole place is festering with belief — the memes are heavy in the air. A malaise. If that’s the case, Archie wonders, is Shasta a memetic reservoir? Are the stories so old that they are literally imbued in the stones and diffused in the water in some unquantifiable way? But beliefs come from somewhere, and if this place does generate beliefs, then who is writing them? The only way to know that would be back-trace some of these memes and see if he can discern an origin point. To do that, he’ll need to talk to a bunch of people.

And what of SANDMAN? Well, if SANDMAN’s been playing around up here, Archie muses, then all they are probably doing is digging little trenches to take the flow of the memetic river slightly off course. There’s just too much to handle at Mount Shasta. Attempting to fully direct its flow would be like trying to dig the Panama Canal with a spoon. Archie suspects that SANDMAN has tried to “deal” with Mount Shasta by creating or promoting memetic “safety valves” — people or systems that can prevent the reservoir from overflowing. One of those safety valves might be the I AM movement; others might be more absurd, like all those stories you hear about people spotting UFOs taking off from inside the Mountain.

Back at the campsite, Roger and Charley are setting everything up when Charley spots a couple late model four-door sedans and a microbus pull in. They park in the area roughly adjacent to URIEL’s site. Charley gets Roger’s attention and they discreetly observe as a dozen people in white robes emerge from the vehicles. (Not those kind of white robes, to Roger’s relief). The crowd is on the younger side, men and women both, though there are a few older people in the mix. Roger snatches his Army binoculars just in time to watch as an elegant woman in a fancy filigreed white robe steps out from the backseat of the front-most sedan, a driver opening the door for her. She gathers everyone around and tells them — Roger and Charley can only barely make this out at a distance — to stop for a moment. Everyone does. They then face the mountain, raise their hands, and begin to pray in unison.

In a secluded area of the nearby woods, Viv, Jocasta, and Mitch meditate. Jocasta meditates extremely well, effortlessly falling into a state of mental quietude. With awareness comes truth. She feels herself delving into the Mountain and realizes that Shasta is a psychic tuning fork. It resonates with the part of peoples’ brains that the Anunnaki engineered to develop psychic powers. But it does not feel like a trap. The sensation she gets is not that she is being drawn into the Mountain — and she certainly sees none of the golden hallways or council chambers Mitch observed — but that the Mountain is giving her instructions on how to more finely tune her instrument.

Mitch has harder time. He feels distracted on some level he can’t quite pin down. After a time, though, he is able to release his thoughts and with that registers something: whatever happens this weekend, it will involve the Illuminated. People like himself, and Nola, and and Peter Mount Shasta.

Later, Viv opens her eyes and brings her breathing back to baseline level. She looks at Jocasta and Mitch and says: “I’ve been here before. I’ve even meditated here before. I did not sense last time what I sensed just now. I saw kind of … an inverted tree. It felt like it was all gold, like it was just branching broccoli or brain type … tree that sent veins of gold through every inch of the Mountain. It was a very … materialist vision I had. But that’s all I got. What about the two of you?” Mitch shakes his head. “My mind is elsewhere, I think,” he mumbles.

Jocasta describes her experience, recounting the sense she got that the Mountain was constructed long ago by the Red Kings as a sort of signal-emitter for people with magic in them. “People who are attuned to this particular vibrational channel. It doesn’t feel like a trap,” she says, “or something necessarily malignant. But it’s been drawing people here for a long time and was intended to do just that.” Viv asks Mitch what he makes of that. Mitch shrugs. “Don’t look at me,” he says. “Why is everybody looking at me?” Viv suggests they take all this back to camp.

Archie arrives back at the campsite shortly before Viv, Mitch, and Jocasta. He also marks the neighboring campsite and its strange group of hippie cultists. Jocasta approaches Archie and asks if everything’s good. Archie says yes, “though we’ve got some neighbors.” He points over to the white robe-clad group. Mitch trains his senses on the crowd to see what he can see. He does not detect History B, except with the elegant woman in the lead, who has a certain something about her. As best he can triangulate, she seems able to wield … some kind of tool which, itself, is of History B, but necessarily from History B. He does a sweep of the group’s auras and finds nothing suspicious, again with the exception of the elegant woman in the filigreed robe, whose aura betrays that she is able to use NLP. Not NLP the way Viv uses NLP — a natural, latent talent — but the way Marshall uses NLP — a trained technique. Mitch turns to Jocasta and tells her that the woman looks like trouble.

Jocasta: How bad a trouble? Trouble we need to deal with immediately? Is this just potential trouble?

Mitch: Either weirdos are way, way, way thicker on the ground here than elsewhere, which, I mean, we knew they were way thicker on the ground — but I’m saying way … it’s weird that she’s here at the campsite at the same time as us. Let me — look, I was going to try to be clever about it but that’s what I’m trying to say. That level of trouble. Not just like, who’s the tallest person in the room kind of tall, but go to the circus kind of tall.

Jocasta: Should I go try to talk to them?

Mitch: Yes.

Jocasta slips her pistol into the waistband of her pants, shoves a stun grenade and an ikoter pistol into her backpack, and pockets a walkie-talkie. With Roger and Mitch watching discreetly from behind some natural cover, Jocasta strolls down the path toward the group’s campsite. She approaches the elegant woman in the fancy robes, observing that she’s in her early 30s and quite well put together. The woman catches Jocasta’s eye as she approaches and waves to her. She introduces herself as Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hail traveler! Blessed day and wonderful to see you here. We are the Summit Lighthouse, out of Malibu, and it is a pleasure to encounter you here on this beautiful, meaningful, mystic mountain!

From her experience dealing with Marshall, Jocasta can tell, almost instantly, that Elizabeth is using NLP. She senses the woman, Elizabeth, is attempting to implant feelings of calm and love in Jocasta. Jocasta shakes all that off thanks to her SANDMAN training.

Jocasta: Well, hello Elizabeth. I’m Mary. This is quite a big group you’ve got here. How long are you staying?

Elizabeth: Mary! Mary, named after the mother of the master Jesus. The feminine principle in its fullest flower. A beautiful name, Mary.

“Mary”: … thank you.

Elizabeth: Well, we are here to — shall we say, we are an advance party. We are here to survey the grounds of this holy mountain. Our group wishes to gather here in two years’ time. For, you see, in two years time, the Messiah will be born.

“Mary”: Born here?

Elizabeth: That we do not know. We do not know which nexus or chakra of the Earth will bear this new ascended master, but we do know that it will be two years hence.

“Mary”: Well, that’s beautiful, Elizabeth. Are you part of a group? I mean, are you part of an organized church?

Elizabeth: I am the leader of the Summit Lighthouse, yes.

“Mary”: Well, that’s great. I’m so glad that you’ll be our neighbors tonight.

Elizabeth: Oh, wonderful! Are you here with friends? Family? Would you like to break bread with us this evening?

“Mary”: I am here with a few friends … I was just heading down to take a look at the lay the land but when I get back to my group I’ll certainly let them know you’re here. And I’ll ask them if we’d like to, uh, spend some time together.

Elizabeth: Wonderful. I’m so happy that we have only been here 10 minutes and we’ve already made friends.

Jocasta shrugs off another push of NLP from Elizabeth, says her goodbyes, and heads back to the URIEL campsite. Immediately upon arrival Mitch asks what the woman’s name was. Jocasta shares it and updates everyone on what she learned.

Jocasta: Including her, there’s a dozen of them there. They’re very of the New Age, if you will. They are scouting out some terrain because they believe there's going to be a messiah born here, or somewhere. In two years, there's going to be a messiah born and they think it's connected with Shasta. That woman also has some … abilities, NLP perhaps? Some mild psychic abilities? And she was trying to lull me into a sense of communion and good feeling. She was definitely working a routine.

Archie: Well, if their, ah, “messiah” is not going to be born for two years, that’s a longer lead time than we often have in these kinds of situations.

Viv: Are we going to stick around here?

Roger: Did you see any armaments or anything else? I mean, you know, this could just be an observe, be careful at a distance thing — which we would have had with anybody who showed up at the campsite.

Archie: That’s true. We should see what they do. Keep an eye on them.

Jocasta: None of their baggage looked suspicious. There’s nothing immediately threatening about them. But, I mean, none of us believe in coincidence, right? That they would all show up here, right, at this moment? And that they have this — a leader who has this ability?

Archie: I’m not really certain what it is we’re doing here, but Mitch, you’re in charge. This is your territory. So, you know, whatever you think should happen, we’ll do.

Mitch: Would the world be a better place without Elizabeth Clare Prophet in it?

Archie: I don’t know — who is Elizabeth Clare Prophet?

Mitch: It’s that woman over there.

Viv: They’re — the Summit Lighthouse — they’re another ascended master offshoot. Her husband died last year —

Mitch: It was this year.

Viv: It was this year? Huh. Time is strange with you folks. I mean, she’s a name. I wouldn’t call her a big name but she’s a big enough name for me to know who she is.

Jocasta: Another Uri Geller type?

Mitch: Yeah!

Viv: It is the same profile, right? Same powers, just used in a different way?

Mitch: Slightly differently. Slightly differently.

Archie: Well, if any of these folks have literature I can look at, I’d love to trace — you know, I’m trying to track the memetic lineages here. Failing that, we could go chat with them some more. If —

Jocasta: It was an open invitation.

Archie: — right, as long as folks think that would be safe. We could split up. We could split up, too, right? I could go over and chat. Charley and I … maybe Jo? The hike’s not going to start until tomorrow, right? So is there anything else people want to do today, tonight?

Mitch: We were talking earlier about SANDMAN plants in the I AM community and Guru Ma over there is — like, she fits the same profile as Uri Geller, right? Like, I mean, to a T. So if anybody, I would think her.

Roger: I mean, not to get military on you, but standard procedure is: new group comes in, you identify friend or foe, right? So maybe that's what we need to do while, you know, setting up a watch. I can take the watch —

Mitch: Geller has a handler — does she have a handler?

Roger: — or at least, try talking to her — find out what their school of thought is.

Viv: Given the fact that we know what you just said about the original — the originator of the Summit Lighthouse having just recently passed away and Elizabeth having taken over the church — taken over the organization — that's interesting in and of itself. I mean, again, thinking about it from a SANDMAN perspective, if the summit Lighthouse used to be a SANDMAN cutout, this guy married a woman who either developed or — I mean, I'm just blue skying here — but either developed or sharpened her own innate NLP abilities and took this cult over for her own purposes. Maybe she's neither … maybe she's — but we don't have the ability to, I mean, we could call Marshall from a pay phone and have him check records at Granite Peak? We have that ability but it’d be tough to get that information back.

At the mention of Granite Peak, Archie, Roger, and Jocasta all start speaking at once. Viv raises her hands and continues:

Viv: Or we could use the passcode! You know, the SANDMAN identifying secret handshake stuff.

Roger: There’s gotta be a code word in Danbe we can say.

Archie: Yes, and I do think that if I hear her talk for a bit or get some literature, you know, the question of whether there's memetic stuff there, we can do some analysis. So, yes, I think at some point we have to go over there. Or some of us have to go over there. But it doesn't have to be this instant. We could go sort of at the end of the day at dinner time.

Viv: It felt like an invitation for tonight, yeah. Campfires are lit, basically.

Jocasta: Yeah, if this is a group that we have to deal with, it's probably better on our end to deal with them once we leave and like figure out ways to disrupt them than to have to explain why we left a dozen bodies on Mount Shasta. As much as I might enjoy that … anyway, yes, Archie, I might take somebody with you and watch your heads.

The group is interrupted by the sound of Mitch’s VW pulling up to the campsite. Mitch helps her unload the marshmallows, Graham crackers, and weenies she obtained and joins the group around the fire to discuss her findings in town.

Mary-Lynn: The health food store folks were nice, but I don’t think they think too much of Pete. I think that — I mean, when I got there, it was apparent that, like, he’s a customer, he runs errands for them, he’s worked there, he swept the floor, he was doing odd jobs when he first got here. But I think they feel he's changed recently. You know, just sort of … not necessarily going off the deep end, because these gentlemen were into yoga and everything else, but I guess they just feel like he kind of gets head over heels about things. Sort of takes every new thing that comes across his field vision too seriously. So that got me kind of intrigued to go see what Pearl was all about. And, um … she has a very, very large group of people up there. She was speaking in her backyard to about 20-some-odd people. And these classes seem to go on all day, every day. They were all, like, Mitch — our age. I mean they were all early 20s to mid-20s. Didn't see too many older folks there. And she had them eating out of the palm of her hand. It was just more of this ascended master nonsense. St. Germain, you know, that whole thing. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but what do I know? She was the most important person in that little backyard, I'll tell you that much.

She pauses, looking at Archie, Charley, Roger, and Jocasta. Then she says, in an explanatory way: “I just get these feelings sometimes.” Jocasta smirks and quips: “Tell us about it.” Mary-Lynn explains that she stayed for a little while at the backyard gathering. No one accosted her or anything. Then she left. “These people are crazy about Mount Shasta, though,” she says good-naturedly, with a laugh. Jocasta asks her if she spotted “our new neighbors” when she got back. Mary-Lynn says she did not, asking, “We have new neighbors?”

“Oh yeah,” Jocasta responds. “You seem to have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

Mary-Lynn asks if this weekend is particularly important to the whole Mount Shasta mythos, but Archie confirms it is not. Just a regular weekend, as far as he knows. Viv wonders aloud: “This is like the chicken and the egg problem. Did the Mountain bring all these people here or did they create the energy around the Mountain?”

The team settles down to figure out their plans for the evening. Ultimately it is decided that Archie, Jocasta, and Charley will head over to the Summit Lighthouse camp after nightfall. In preparation, Roger and Charley collaborate on planting a remote listening device inside one of Charley’s pockets. Roger and Mitch agree to stay behind, concealed as best they can be, and will listen in remotely. About 20 minutes before departing, Jocasta climbs atop one of URIEL’s vans with a pair of night vision binoculars. Observed by darkness, she spies on the Summit Lighthouse camp and notices that the group seems to have set a couple of burley guys as a watch. They loosely patrol the area, keeping an eye on the incoming road and on the forest-line leading up to the Mountain. Climbing down, Jocasta warns Archie that their neighbors seem to be ready for trouble. Archie responds that that’s good to know because he, Charley, and Jocasta won’t seem like trouble. They head off, with Roger and Mitch watching from the shadows.

Archie, Jocasta, and Charley arrive at the Summit Lighthouse camp. They find everyone gathered around a huge bonfire, with a couple lanterns positioned at intervals around the perimeter. The dozen members are singing — well, more like chanting — the Violet Flame, a hymn of adoration to the Ascended Master St. Germain. The patrolling members do not stop Archie, Jocasta, and Charley. The chanting is heavy with NLP, the purpose of which, the trio is rapidly able to discern, is to get everyone thinking the same way. Attuned to the same frequency, as it were. Archie, with his deep understanding of memetics and esmology, calculates that the group is replicating and amplifying Elizabeth’s will. If she is an NLP practitioner, she has figured out a way to make other people an extension of herself. Pretty evil stuff.

Suddenly, one of the patrolling members appears behind Archie, Jocasta, and Charley and says, quietly, “Excuse me.” He cuts past them and joins the circle, picking up the chant as he does. Elizabeth notices them: she smiles broadly and says, “Visitors! Welcome!” Her attention elsewhere, the NLP “energy” in the air dissipates slightly. Everyone in the circle waves hello — not in unison — and greets them in a friendly manner, many coming forward to introduce themselves. Archie can tell that even this is orchestrated: Elizabeth has loosened the reins a bit so her followers do not seem too creepy. Once the introductions are out of the way, Archie speaks to Elizabeth:

Archie: Boy, that was really something! We were just going on a walk, we’re over in the neighboring camp, we heard the campfire songs and thought we’d come over.

Elizabeth: I’m glad you understand them for what they are — that this is just our way of celebrating being out here on this beautiful Mountain. We talked to your — is it your wife? — earlier today and I'm so glad you decided to take the invitation. (She turns to Charley) Hello little one!

Charley: … hi.

Elizabeth: Has anyone ever told you that you have an old soul?

Charley: No.

Elizabeth: Well, sincerely, you must believe it. From my heart to yours — and my heart is open to yours — inside you are many, many rooms and all of your past lives, they love you so much. So much.

Archie: I’ve never seen anyone camp with a gong before!

Elizabeth: We certainly have dressed things up a bit. I was telling your wife earlier, our group is planning a little event here for the summer of 1975 and we're a little — we're an advanced party, looking for the right location. I mean, we're expecting people from all over the world. We have many, many schools on the East Coast, some in Europe and Africa. We're expanding very rapidly there. We expect by the time the next two years go by we could see hundreds of us coming to this Mountain to bathe in its radiant energy. Do you know all the stories? Do you know all the legends that many have told over the last century — more even, when you get back to the Indians? Their root race memories of what has happened here over the past two thousand years? It’s just — ah! The gravity of this place, in all senses of the word. This is not the only place but this is very, very dear to our hearts. We are based in California, so we will offer ourselves to the Mountain and whatever it provides in two years’ time, we will be very, very pleased to take on.

Archie: So you folks are … uh, you're some kind of a church? You have missionaries all over the world?

Elizabeth: We do, yes. I would say that, speaking from the perspective of someone who maybe doesn't understand our theology, let's say all religions of the world have a central truth in them: that this world, this universe that we dwell in, is merely a reflection of what the authors of the universe have in mind for us. When a Buddhist talks about achieving nirvana, when a Christian talks about entering the Kingdom of God, when an animist in some distant jungle is kneeling before the greatest tree that has been there for a thousand years, they are all looking for and worshiping the same thing. The ultimate, highest monad. The godhead, if you will. And that godhead has at its service the authors of the world: the ascended masters, men and women — and there will be more and more women in this Age of Aquarius. We’re going to be in charge (she says, looking at Jocasta and Charley).

Some of the women in the group cheer and clap.

Elizabeth: But these were ordinary people like you and me. They've lived many, many lives. Been reborn. Obviously, young one, you still have service to be done on this plane. And, of course, they have their servants — the angels, the Elohim, who ferry messages back and forth between the higher universe and ours. That's our theories in a nutshell.

This is enough information for Archie to connect a few dots with his earlier readings. While what Elizabeth is describing is, in a sense, basic ascended masters theology, it does contain a few very interesting add-ons. The proto-feminism, for one. How she and her husband supplanted the Master Jesus from Sixth Ray back in the 1950s and have put in a feminine principle to take over that spot — to usher in the end of the Piscean Age of the last two thousand years — for another. But it is clear, from the way she describes the universe, that the “authors” she describes are people like Mitch — the Illuminated. The Elohim, who ferry messages back and forth, could very well be the Anunnaki.

With this realization, Archie decides that he should not be the one to drop a SANDMAN passcode into the conversation. Instead, Charley should do it, so that Elizabeth will simply disregard whatever she says as a stray comment from a weird child if she does not recognize it. With Archie’s subtle prompting, Charley injects herself into the conversation and utters the phrase, “What would happen if that there King was to wake?” Elizabeth does not respond with the confirmatory code, which the trio takes as proof that she is almost certainly not a Sandman. Elizabeth resumes discussing her group’s theology.

Elizabeth: You know, most people would wait until 1976 — until the Bicentennial — especially people of our nature, who believe that, well, this country was founded by the ascended masters. You know, do you all get that feeling like I do, when you look at the flag and you see those stars and stripes and … I don't know. It fills up your heart with something! It just makes you feel like there's something greater than yourself. That's the magic of the ascended masters. They whispered into the ears of Franklin and Washington and the presidents afterwards as well! They've been advising this country. There's a reason why we were put here. There's a reason why we were put here to expand westward, to find this Mountain. Now, I've had all kinds of discussions with my group about whether it's going to be ‘75 or ‘76, but all the signs — we talk astrology here, we talk alchemy, we talk the alignments of the planets with the minerals inside the earth — these signs tell me that it will be 1975 and not ‘76.

Archie can tell, as she gets increasingly worked up, that Elizabeth is being entirely sincere. She truly believes this stuff. She continues.

Elizabeth: I am a channeler. That is why I sit here in this position of responsibility and privilege. Among our group, I am the only one who can open up the channels to the ascended masters and to the Elohim. They speak through me! (She pauses and looks at Archie very seriously). And there is one that wishes to speak with the three of you. I can sense it now. It is one of the Elohim, one of the Archangels.

Archie: The Archangels wants to speak with us? Now?

Elizabeth: Yes. The Archangel of the Sun. His eye upon the Earth. The Archangel Uriel.

Back at the URIEL campsite, Mitch mutters to himself while Roger flips up the cover on his rifle scope.