There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to
understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well
to see the stars in broad daylight.
There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to
understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well
to see the stars in broad daylight.
As he continued to study Cartwright's works, he came to understand that studying with a genuine teacher was a gift, not a right; that the privilege of studying with a teacher was something which was granted only to those who made the correct effort to prepare. It became clear to him that in his present unprepared state of mind he wouldn't be capable of assimilating answers to his questions except in his own terms of thinking, which would be inadequate for profiting from the answers. What do I need to do to prepare for learning? he asked himself. One answer was clear: to familiarize himself with Cartwright's teachings in his books.
| The Green Rose
Teachings of |
As he studied Cartwright's works in the months that followed, he began to see that his life had been primarily an aspiration for some kind of recognition. His aspiring to importance had actually become a debilitating form of pretentiousness, assuming that he was capable and worthy of high achievement. The only antidote to this, he saw, was genuine humility. Humility became in this sense, not a nice virtue which a person might or might not develop; it was an absolute necessity. Only true humility set the foundation for the possibility of learning. Otherwise, one was constantly working from a framework of self-importance and the sense that the world owed him knowledge and recognition.
Ben began to realize that he had chosen the scholarly life because it bestowed a flattering reputation on the successful. He had achieved a fairly wide reputation as an expert in psychological profiling, for instance. Now he saw that he was attracted to spiritual ideas because, to his inauthentic mind, they provided the same kind of false recognition and power: esoteric ideas, super-normal capabilities, distinctiveness from those who didn't understand, and attainment of higher states of consciousness. He remembered, with chagrin, boasting to Cartwright about his being a seeker of genuine experiential understanding of spiritual concepts.
As he became aware of his own shortcomings he also learned from Cartwright's writings the important difference between mere self-abasement for the purpose of appearing to be a humble person and genuine self-examination for the purpose of gaining a necessary basis for learning.
It had been nine months since Ben had first travelled to Healdsburg, and during that time Ben had been studying Cartwright's works on and off. So Ben decided to write to Cartwright again, explaining what thoughts he'd arrived at, and ask for guidance as to what next step he might take in preparation for studying with him. After receiving no reply for over six weeks, Ben was beginning to give up hope of an answer to his request.
Then he received a letter, this time from Cartwright himself.
Dear Dr. Emerson:It appears your fixation on fighting "evil" has somewhat abated and you are using some of your time to begin working toward self-knowledge.
You ask what next steps you might take in preparing to study in the Perennial Tradition. I'm not certain that it will be advisable for you to study with me, but you could benefit from thinking about how sly, deceptive, and subtle is the False Self. Jesus' teaching is tremendously insightful on this subject, a parable directed toward people who trust in themselves that they're righteous, and despise others. Two men went to church to pray; the one a Christian fundamentalist and the other an IRS agent. The fundamentalist stood and prayed to himself: "God, I thank you, that I am not like other men such as criminals, corrupt judges, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I refrain from eating meat two days a week and I give ten percent of my income to the church."You're quite correct that people who enter the scholarly life often find ego-satisfaction in realizing how little most people understand. If you can observe contemporary social issues as the struggle of the uninformed against the wrongly-informed, and if you can embrace this knowledge without cynicism, then you become capable of refined insights beyond the self-importance that comes from concentration on the inadequacies of others. I'm going to be in Washington for a conference next week, beginning on Wednesday. If you want to phone the Plaza Hotel (near the Pentagon) we could arrange to have a brief chat.
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Senator Craig Binkley had married his wife, Penelope, when they met at Alabama State College. To Craig, she was the prettiest girl in the school and he had to wage a battle with three other competitors to win her affection. Penelope had been sixth runner-up in the Miss Alabama contest. Unfortunately, Penelope was now fifty-six years old, thirty pounds overweight, and the kindest remark made behind her back was that she had a pretty face.
Penelope had helped Craig become Alabama State Representative and then insisted he start working toward becoming a U.S. Senator. It had been her belief in him--and her control over his entire campaign--that won him that exalted position. Craig still loved Penelope for all she had meant to him.
Gorgon had decided that Penelope must go when they first met because she questioned his plans for Binkley. She wasn't sure Craig was genuine presidential timber. At times, Binkley had to stretch himself to fulfill the demands of being a U.S. senator. No, she had said to Gorgon, she wasn't sure Craig Binkley really should try to run for the presidency.
"You'll have to get rid of your wife," Gorgon said to Binkley during their first serious private planning session. Gorgon had invited Binkley to the Parallax headquarters to discuss long-range strategy.
"But she's been my right hand all these years," Binkley objected.
"She's an albatross around your neck," Gorgon said dryly. "I've explained why I think you have a good chance of becoming the next president. But you'll never make it with her dragging you down."
Gorgon had first met with Binkley a year before; he knew it would take considerable time to remake this sow's ear into a politically acceptable silk purse. And the public would forget Binkley's divorce within a year.
Gorgon had not pursued the issue of Binkley divorcing Penelope. But he had told Binkley that he would be assigning one of his assistants as Binkley's political strategist. The Senator was to follow her direction in every detail.
"Oh, by the way, your assistant's name is Angela," Gorgon had informed Binkley.
Gorgon had been grooming Angela for this job for almost a year. This was her first world-class assignment. She'd proven herself in some preliminary training exercises: seducing an Indian diplomat, filching important documents from a sexually obsessed senator from Nebraska, securing incriminating evidence on a federal regulatory agency official. Even her seeming failure with Ben had been acceptable to Gorgon; he had learned of Ben's alliance with Joan Kendall. Angela was a natural, with an inborn talent for larceny and seduction.
Within two months, Craig Binkley was sexually obsessed with Angela and couldn't stand to be around Penelope. Angela explained to him, as they lay together in a secluded motel room in a rural Virginia hamlet, that he must now make the break with Penelope complete; the divorce must be started as soon as possible.
Penelope was served with the divorce papers in less than a month. Gorgon told Angela to wait a discreet two months following the final divorce decree before marrying the senator. The talk on the hill was that Senator Binkley's new wife was forty years younger than he. Actually Angela was only twenty five years younger.
"I don't know why I have to marry the guy," Angela had objected when Gorgon first told her of the assignment. "Okay, he has to get rid of that pig of a wife. But can't he make it as a presidential candidate without a wife?"
"Who was the last single president you can remember?" Gorgon had retorted. "Americans want their president to be a married man. He doesn't have to be a faithful married man, as Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton made abundantly clear. But he has to have a wife to take along on the campaign trail, looking pretty if possible, loyal at least. And there aren't many people like George Bush I who can get elected with a wife that looks like his grandmother."
Gorgon had smiled at Angela and put his arm around her. They were meeting in his private office, sitting together on his imported French sofa. "You're going to have to make the supreme sacrifice; you'll have to become the first lady. I need you in the White House so we can realize all our objectives."
Angela had looked at him earnestly. "I can't stand the guy, you know that." She wasn't sure if Gorgon was jealous of her assignment with Binkley or not. She and Gorgon had remained lovers for a considerable time.
"Look," Gorgon had assured her, "as soon as you're married and have a good press image as the new senator's wife, we'll get Binkley involved with some other woman. I want him to have an illicit affair, in case I need something to hold over him as I remold the bastard into a minimally acceptable presidential candidate. You'll be rid of him sexually within six months tops."
Binkley's divorce went through without a hitch. Penelope had money of her own--her father owned a razor blade factory in Alabama--so she settled amicably once she realized that Craig no longer cared for her and was cavorting with a young hussy.
Angela proved to be as valuable a political asset as Gorgon had anticipated. She now served multiple roles in Gorgon's plans. She remained Binkley's campaign strategist--Gorgon was Binkley's official campaign manager. Angela assisted in the remold of Binkley's psyche to become a presidential candidate. And Angela could make high-level contacts as the new Mrs. Craig Binkley at Washington parties and official gatherings. She was an invaluable source of intelligence for Gorgon, zeroing in on specific targets that Gorgon assigned her.
The only difficulty was that Angela was insanely jealous of Gorgon. When he showed up at a formal reception for a Jordanian diplomat with Kathryn on his arm, Angela had almost blown her cool. As soon as she saw them enter the large reception hall at the Jordanian embassy, she stalked over to them and confronted Gorgon.
"So this is my replacement?" She glared at Gorgon. "Does she go around with her tits bare like I did?" Angela had had four glasses of champagne.
Gorgon took her by the arm and led her to an outside balcony where he calmed her. "Kathryn is merely my required escort for the evening. You know I can't come to an affair like this by myself. Single men are seen as competing for all the wives. Get ahold of yourself. Kathryn means nothing to me!"
Gorgon had been only mildly surprised by Angela's outburst. The profile he had developed on Angela revealed strong tendencies toward insane jealously. He had deliberately brought Kathryn to the reception to test the strength of Angela's reaction. He was pleased with the results. It proved to Gorgon that even her marriage to Binkley had left intact her emotional need for her psychiatrist-lover-control.
The next week, Gorgon had scheduled Binkley to take a series of psychological inventories at Parallax. From the results, Gorgon had constructed a new profile on Binkley.
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Ben received the letter from Cartwright at the office. He was elated. He wondered what conference Cartwright might be attending next week. It turned out that Cartwright was giving a presentation at the same National Defense University conference on Psychological Profiling at which Ben was a featured speaker. Ben hadn't had time to look through the entire conference brochure, so he'd missed Cartwright's name. Sure enough, as he glanced through the brochure, there was Cartwright's presentation on Thursday:
The title intrigued Ben. He phoned the Plaza Hotel on Wednesday to speak with Cartwright. The young lady answering the phone said Dr. Cartwright was currently in a meeting at the National Defense University. She told Ben that Cartwright would like to meet with him on Friday for lunch if that was convenient with him. Ben assured her that it was and she suggested they meet in the food mall next to the Plaza.
Ben could hardly wait to hear Cartwright's presentation on Wednesday. The presentation room was packed--a somewhat unusual occurence at a conference where everybody was already bored silly by Wednesday. Ben was glad he had arranged to get there a bit early because by the time he entered the conference room there were only a few seats left in the back.
The session convener and Cartwright were seated at the front of the room behind the usual speaker's table with white table cloth, an ice water pitcher, and drinking glasses. Cartwright wore a green sports coat, a bright red shirt with a blue tie, and navy trousers. He looked very sporty.
The convener stood and clinked her spoon against an empty drinking glass on the table. "I'd like to get started right on time because I'm sure we're going to enjoy today's presentation. Our invitation to Dr. Franklin Cartwright is a first for us--the first time we have asked a person in the field of philosophy and metaphysics to present at this conference. Since many of us had read his highly informative books, the conference committee agreed unanimously that we would like to hear what Dr. Cartwright had to say about personality profiling and predicting human behavior." The convener cleared her throat and proceeded.
"Dr. Franklin Cartwright received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University and his second Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics from Cornell University. He taught at Cornell for several years before devoting full time to writing. He is the author of fourteen books on such topics as humor, brainwashing, language and human evolution, and the Perennial Tradition." She paused. " The title for Dr. Cartwright's presentation is: 'Esoteric Knowledge as the Prerequisite for Predicting Human Behavior.' We're very pleased to have Dr. Cartwright with us today." With that she took her seat and Cartwright stood up where he had been sitting, without moving to the rostrum.
"I predicted, when I chose the title for my presentation," Cartwright began, "that some persons would dislike my choice of the word 'esoteric.' My predictions were highly inaccurate in regard to the degree of dislike. I received no less that forty-two letters or email messages criticizing the use of the word 'esoteric.'" The audience burst into laughter.
"I found it interesting that none of those forty-two critics in any way inquired as to what I meant by 'esoteric.' They assumed that what I meant by 'esoteric' was what they thought I meant: secret, arcane, cryptic, clandestine--and worst of all--elitist." Another howl of laughter from the audience.
"As a scientific experiment, then, this proved the following:
"You can understand, then, why I have been looking forward to this presentation to make it clear precisely what I mean by 'esoteric' and to explain why I chose this word. First, I must confess that I chose it in part because I thought that the predicted response would be amusing and informative at the same time. But I also chose it because I consider it the most accurate word for what I want to convey.
"Let's say you want to predict the behavior of three different people:
"But let's take it a step further. Some of us, I dare say, would not claim to possess such esoteric knowledge. We would admit to being clueless as to the future behavior of our spouses. They constantly surprise us because either we married highly unpredictable people or because we haven't the special knowledge of their personalities that would make prediction of their behavior possible. Some of this kind of hidden or special knowledge of our spouses is something that we wouldn't particularly want to have. We don't see our spouses as lab rats or college sophomore psych subjects on which to run our experiments. We like them being unpredictable and if we ever began to think in terms of trying to gain special knowledge to predict--or control--their behavior we'd know something was wrong with us." Cartwright hesitated and smiled. "At least I'd hope we'd feel that way." The audience laughed quietly.
"So some 'hidden or esoteric' knowledge we want to remain hidden. But when it comes to someone like the ruler of North Korea, people in the Pentagon or the War Colleges might like to have special knowledge that would allow them to predict his behavior. And they might want that special knowledge to remain esoteric in the sense of limited to only a few persons." Cartwright paused and looked out at the audience, finally focusing on Ben.
"We have in the audience a person who has actually written a monograph on how to gain just such esoteric knowledge about the ruling group in North Korea. Dr. Benjamin Emerson completed a study at the U.S. Army War College entitled "Strategic Personality Simulation" in which he shows how we could go about compiling information about political ruling groups, then reconstructing this information into useable knowledge through a process of analysis and hypothesis-formation." Cartwright paused to allow the audience to catch up.
"One of the parts of Dr. Emerson's monograph which I found fascinating was his admission that the knowledge that comes out at the end of his highly-complex process is completely dependent on the mental state of the persons involved in the information gathering, analysis, and application. The same is true of any such knowledge that we use in predicting human behavior. It's reliability depends on whether the persons compiling and converting it have remained free from personal bias and have allowed their investigation to include all relevant information and hypotheses.
"And here we enter a very esoteric, hidden, arcane field of knowledge: psychological self-knowledge. The scientists compiling and adapting information must monitor themselves as to their objectivity; no one else will. But in terms of self-knowledge in ordinary affairs the requirements are very low. It's strange that when a pilot flies a commercial airplane we require, by law, that he and his co-pilot go through a checklist of preparations for the flight. But when it comes to running an important scientific experiment, writing an important book, or directing a large corporation, we have no such psychological checklist for a person to run through to see if she or he has remained unbiased or rational.
"I dare say that if I spoke to each of you privately, you would have terrifying war stories about people in your field who allow their own biases and prejudices to distort their findings. And it's conceivable that each of us has the same difficulty with our own lack of objectivity.
"So there's a completely hidden, arcane, esoteric field: self-knowledge. And apart from a few cryptic maxims such as the Delphic Oracle's 'know thyself' or Mohammad's 'he who knows himself knows Reality,' our modern technological world possesses very few methods of self-study.
"If we pursued this idea of self-knowledge in relation to this conference, we'd come up with some interesting questions:
"However, we still have the third person whose behavior we might want to predict: next year's winning Superbowl quarterback. But, you say, we don't know who that will be. Let's examine that assumption.
Cartwright picked up a remote control device and activated the overhead projector which displayed an image and a quote on the screen in back of him. Cartwright read the quotation.
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"Stewart Edward White, an American Perennialist teacher, wrote that in 1937," Cartwright said.
"Human knowledge has always advanced through the efforts of persons who did not allow themselves to be restricted by the limitations of commonly acknowledged ideas. To develop the capacity for new forms of knowledge, it's first necessary to conceive of them. So let's go beyond the current boundaries of human knowledge and consider some hypotheses that might lead to interesting innovations.
"In your War Colleges you study the military tradition. It contains some highly esoteric areas of knowledge such as combat strategy, state-of-the-art weaponry, and information operations, among many others. The military tradition has been formulated and studied since the earliest days of human history. There are similar traditions which have an equally long past: the financial-monetary tradition, the medical tradition, the intelligence tradition, the manufacturing tradition, to name but a few.
"Your military tradition has created doctrines, training centers, rankings, strategies, administrative organizations, and so on. So you have your highly-efficient war-fighting capabilities, your staff command structure, and a center such as the Pentagon. All based on highly advanced technologies.
"Consider for a moment the possibility that there could be a Spiritual Tradition that would also possess knowledge, training centers, and powers of its own special kind. It might be as highly organized as your Pentagon and possess capabilities that would be as esoteric to the uninitiated as is the concept of non-lethal combat or laser weaponry to the ordinary person.
"Suppose that one of the doctrines of this Spiritual Tradition is that the world we see about us is actually a local, approximate manifestation of a Higher Reality." Cartwright paused and looked around at the audience quizzically.
"Suppose that there is a genuine Spiritual Tradition which has taken many names and forms: Platonism, Gnosticism, Sufism, Alchemy, for example. This Perennial Tradition might be the single stream of initiatory teaching flowing through all the great schools of mysticism. The teaching would have been perverted by bureaucratized, totalitarian institutions such as organized religions, but might have persisted in every age, with teachers reinterpreting the esoteric discipline according to the contemporary needs of apprentices." Cartwright paused again to look at the audience.
"Let's take a single concept that this hypothetical Spiritual Tradition might work with: that human beings are capable of higher forms of knowing than we now recognize or use. These higher forms of knowing may have become atrophied through disuse over centuries. Now, if such currently unrecognized powers of perception were somehow activated, it might be possible to know who is next year's winning Superbowl quarterback.
"Your military tradition keeps secret many of its weapons, strategies, and operations, to make sure they're not discovered and misused by untrained, incompetent, or enemy persons. Quite understandable.
"In a similar way, this Spiritual Tradition might make sure that its powers, concepts, and operations are not discovered and misused by the untrained and incompetent and those who oppose it. Otherwise we'd have a Dr. Stangelove using these extra-normal powers to make a killing on next year's Superbowl. He might misuse esoteric powers to predict--and control--the behavior of a Superbowl team or the behavior of a lone psychotic assassin or the behavior of a diplomat telling a dictator that it's okay for him to invade his neighbor.
The hypothetical Spiritual Tradition I've been speaking about is actually said to exist, in a book published privately in 2001 titled The Supreme Confluence, from which I quote:
"The organization known as The Supreme Confluence is headed by a person titled the President of the World. She is said to possess vast temporal as well as spiritual power. Her identity is known to only a handful. It is said that only through the work and life of this Teacher of the Age are human beings able to continue to exist in physical form. She maintains communication only with the Directors of the Confluence. Communication, including personal interchange and conferences are held telepathically, or else by what is termed 'time and space annihilation.'"
That didn't stop the people in the audience and there was a flurry of hands. The convener picked one person with her hand up and she stood to ask her question.
"I'm Rachel Weiss; I'm an analyst with the Navy War College. I'd like to ask you whether you're suggesting that there are such extra-normal powers, as you call them, or whether you are merely hypothesizing that there might be such powers."
Cartwright arose and addressed the young lady. "Meaning no disrespect, let's put your question into another framework. Suppose an unknown person came to a top secret military psy-ops workshop and asked one of the workshop leaders: 'Do we now possess the capability of traveling psychically and observing the activities of enemy leaders?' What do you think the response would be?" Cartwright waited for the young lady to reply.
She looked around her, wondering if she should answer. "Well, I guess the workshop leader might not answer such a question, if he wasn't sure that the person asking the question had the appropriate level of clearance. Or he might not answer the question because he knew that we don't possess that capability but he didn't want that information to become common knowledge."
"Precisely," Cartwright replied immediately. "Now, I want to make it perfectly, Nixon-esque clear that I am not claiming to possess any extra-normal powers which such a tradition might possess."
Another flurry of hands went up and the convener picked another person.
The middle-aged man stood quickly, identified himself as working for the NSA, and spoke with noticeable exasperation. "Then why even refer to such a merely hypothetical Spiritual Tradition if you don't claim to be in it or work with its extra-normal powers? And who wrote that book you mentioned?"
"If you will permit me, I'd like to answer that question by again shifting our framework. Let's go back to the year 1250 A.D. to a Middle Eastern town named Konya. In this town there is a strange man who gets up in front of people, as I have today, and speaks to them--in poetry, yet--about how humans have evolved from lower forms to their present state. Now remember, this is 1250 A.D. Darwin wasn't even a glimmer in his great-great-great-great-grandfather's eye and here's this ridiculous man talking about human evolution. And someone asks him: 'Why do you talk about human evolution when this has no empirical evidence to support it?' Do you claim to know, in some extra-normal way, that human evolution is actually true?'
"Well, this peculiar man--whose name was Rumi, by the way--might say to this public audience that he just wants to suggest that people expand their mental framework, that physical, mental, and psychic organs come into being as a result of the need for those organs. And the person who wrote the book I mentioned was named Stuart Thompson."
The questioner was not satisfied, in fact, irritated with such a non-answer, as he saw it. "I don't care what some Middle Eastern towelhead said in 1250 A.D. I want to know why you waste our time with conjectures if you're not willing to stand behind them?"
Cartwright spoke in an even voice. "All I'm saying is that human knowledge advances through the efforts of persons who don't allow themselves to be restricted by the limitations of commonly acknowledged ideas. And it is unreasonable to give information to the unprepared. If someone were to ask you if the NSA has the capability of listening to every telephone conversation on this planet, you probably wouldn't answer. I'm suggesting we begin to prepare to go beyond the current boundaries of human knowledge and consider some hypotheses that might lead to interesting innovations. If my effort didn't work for you, it's unfortunate."
The convener interrupted the process to say that this would be the last question. Another person could hardly wait to be recognized before he burst out with his question. "Why did you mention astral projection in your earlier remark?"
"If human powers go beyond what we now conceive of, then all these extra-normal powers may soon be 'discovered' in a way that science can no longer deny. If so, we'd better give serious consideration to how to keep the knowledge 'esoteric.'" Cartwright smiled. "I don't like to think of a Dr. Frankenstein telepathically messing around in my head, for example, trying to predict and control my behavior." He paused briefly before continuing. "But the real purpose of my talk was to suggest to you that you consider the possibility of a Spiritual Tradition that would be analogous to other traditions such as the military, the medical, the industrial, and the financial--and the esoteric or hidden knowledge it might possess. Thank you."
As Ben headed home after Cartwright's presentation, he began to reflect on his response to Cartwright's ideas. I get the same feeling that I had when I was younger. The desire to experience something, not just read a lot of words about it. It's exciting to think that there is--or may be--a Spiritual Tradition which has its own purposes and carries them out in ways which I have no idea about. I wonder if I can contribute to those purposes; I'd certainly like to try.
On Friday, Ben made sure to be at the food court next to the Plaza Hotel right at noon. He was surprised when Cartwright suggested that they eat in a simple Chinese restaurant. After ordering, while they were sipping their tea, Ben said, "I was intrigued by your presentation."
"It was a bit dangerous to speak as I did," Cartwright said. "Our phone and email conversations have been monitored by the NSA for years, and one of my associates called to say that a CIA man is now camped out in his car at the access road to our center in Healdsburg. A lot of people will merely be emotionally challenged with the idea that there might be a Spiritual Tradition with these gee-whiz powers. "
Ben was somewhat taken aback. He suddenly realized that that had been his reaction to Cartwright's presentation.
Cartwright continued. "It was necessary to put those ideas into place so they could have their effect on both those who attended and society at large." He smiled at Ben. "That must sound rather pretentious."
Ben smiled. "Not if you're one of them it doesn't." He hoped he hadn't offended Cartwright by his flippancy. Cartrwight was smiling, so it seemed he was okay about it. "I did wonder," Ben continued, "why you spoke as you did at a National Defense University conference."
"We chose this conference from a number of others," Cartwright said. "The people at this conference are either decision-makers or report directly to decision-makers, so it was a mainline injection into the policy-making stream."
"Do you mind if I ask you what response you anticipate from your presentation?"
"We expect some interest on the part of the merely curious or the paranoid. We'll probably hear from some CIA people wondering if we already have astral projection, telepathy, and telekinetic capabilities. We'll put them off as pleasantly as they'll allow us to. A few others will be merely emotionally aroused by my remarks, and they too will have to be quickly shunted off to the appropriate gurus who provide that kind of circus. And a small number will have heard precisely what I was saying about a Spiritual Tradition and begin reviewing what else we have to say. Those are the few we'll watch and some among them we will ultimately be able to work with."
"I appreciated the story in your letter to me--about the Scholastic and the IRS agent."
"Yes, the Pedant and the Tax Collector."
"I found it more helpful to put myself in the shoes of the pedant," Ben said. "I hadn't realized all the ego traps of the scholarly life. But I hope I'm beginning to get some understanding of them."
"It's interesting how people's ideas and conceits determine exactly what they can see. This Higher Reality of which we are all a part has no place for invidious distinctions. So as long as we are still seeing with eyes that place us above others, that Reality remains invisible. In that Higher Reality there is no such thing as time or place, so the extra-normal capabilities I spoke of at the conference are merely concomitants of the capability to enter into that Reality."
Ben wondered if he should ask the question he'd been thinking about since he'd met Cartwright. It might seem too presumptuous, he reflected.
"You're puzzled as to why I don't speak out against social evils, aren't you." Cartwright seemed to read his mind. It was a statement, not a question. "I know you're involved in 'causes' and want to avenge what was done to your mother."
Ben was completely taken aback. "Yes," he faltered.
"It's necessary to place things in perspective. In a hundred years, earth time, what will be important to you?" He looked at Ben for a moment to allow him to reflect, then he continued. "Trying to get revenge on Gorgon, joining organizations fighting against the evils of globalism, talking to people about conserving the environment? No, you'll be concerned about eternal issues: fellowship, unity, courage, devotion, loyalty, knowledge, growth. I concentrate mainly on those, sometimes in an indirect way albeit. It's just a matter of priority, Khidr and Moses again."
Cartwright looked at Ben with a serious expression on his face. "In a novel, such as this, it's not easy to retain a lasting impression of the importance of that higher dimension."