CHAPTER SIX

If any imagination invented the tale this chapter is going to tell, it was an imagination of extraordinary audacity and with a well-developed sense of melodrama. Melodramatic, yes, and apparently quixotic were the activities of Andrija, John and Phyllis in November-December 1974. To venture out into the world in order to set things right, to attempt to turn the tide of historical events, to move heroically through a world of hazard and adventure superimposed on the world of ordinary reality: it was by virtue of such actions that Cervantes' hero won immortality as an epithet in all the European languages. But poor Don Quixote was deluded, was a noble fantasist, and all the hazards that he faced and the heroism he manifested were of his own imagining. Whether the same was true of our trio when they embarked on their first mission to the Middle East at the behest of the Management is more of an open question than that of the Don's insanity.

It was on 2 November that John, Andrija and Phyllis reassembled at Ossining. John came from London and Phyllis from Florida, and they came earlier than they had planned for Andrija had phoned them both to say that the Management required them to work again. He himself had been working with two other psychics in the interim, which was how he knew, for a message had come through one of them that the international situation was getting worse and the trio ought to be back in harness. Andrija had continued to work independently with other psychics throughout the period of the Tom communications, one of whom had channelled some highly complex and interesting scientific material, again allegedly from an extra-terrestrial source. In sessions held during the week John and Phyllis were away, information had been channelled that corresponded with that of recent communications with Tom, speaking of Ashand, the civilisation concerned with creativity, and also of the threatening war situation in the Middle East, which by the end of October had apparently become so serious as to warrant the funnelling of some positive, balancing energy into the area.

One didn't have to possess paranormal faculties or special sources of information to know that there was tension in the Middle East situation at this time, for during the last days of October the leaders of the Arab nations had held their summit conference at Rabat, Morocco, and European and American newspapers had carried reports of their decisions. The most controversial and provocative of these was a decision to recognise the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) as official spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs. The Israeli government regarded the PLO as a bunch of bandits and murderers, and refused to consider ever negotiating with them, so the Arab decision was regarded, as one Israeli official put it, as 'counterproductive'. On 1 November, the London Times carried a headline: 'Israel Puts Troops on Exercise as Precaution', and reported ominous troop movements in the disputed Golan Heights territory, which had been annexed from Syria in the war of October 1973 The same report stated that 'American diplomats are concerned over the fatalistic talk of a new war in Israel in the wake of Rabat', and the Israeli Prime Minister, Air Rabin, publicly stated that only the United States could act as an intermediary in the Middle East for the European countries were all pro-Arab on account of their oil interests. Arrangements were hurriedly made for the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to visit the Middle East in the course of the next week.

So the Middle East crisis was public knowledge by the beginning of November, and the information that brought John and Phyllis back to Ossining could just as well have been read in the newspapers as channelled from an extra-terrestrial source. But if there was nothing particularly remarkable about the recognition of a state of emergency at this time, the fact that it had been predicted by Tom nearly three weeks before was impressive, for there had been little about the Middle East in the news at that time. Moreover, his prediction that the worst crisis period was to begin on 8 November was, as we shall see, not far off the mark, though he would have been closer if he had made it a few days earlier.

'We explained to you before about the explosive situation in the Middle East.' Tom said at the beginning of the first communication they held at Ossining after their return. 'We thought that perhaps we could hold, but we cannot.’ He went on to say that at present there were negotiations taking place which were not going well, and that on 4 November the decisions would be made in the US concerning oil which, if put into effect, would precipitate a war. 'And as we have told you before, your nation, with the Russian and the Chinese, will be drawn into it, and it will be a major war,' Tom warned. The ideological and border disputes of the Russians and the Chinese had direct bearing upon the Middle East situation, for if they came to a head the Chinese would support and incite the Arabs and upset the balance of power in the most politically sensitive area of the world. 'We know what needs to be done,' Tom said, 'but it is perhaps not possible.’ And he put to them the proposal that they should make two trips, the first keeping within a 1,500-mile distance of Moscow in order to have a stabilising influence on the Russian leaders, and the second to Israel itself, where it was of vital importance that they should be between the 5th and the 13th of December. Between the trips, Tom said they must be in Ossining for the period 18-22 November, for this was the time allotted for the TV and radio intervention project and their energies would be needed for that. 'Can you arrange?' he asked. Daunted by neither the expense nor the awesome responsibility laid upon them, John and Andrija said they could.

'We've been looking at maps,' Andrija said at the beginning of the next day's communication, 'and we've found out those places that are within 1,500 miles of Moscow, and we have the feeling - at least I do - that this is to some extent a test exercise to see how well we can operate at such short notice and in foreign circumstances. One of the possibilities is that we could move from country to country around the perimeter of Russia .. .'

Tom interrupted: 'We have told you many times that your thoughts are not your own, but there is one exception in this: it is not a test. Your moving is very important, because remember, every time you move, whether it be 500, 100, 50 or 5 of your miles, it then overlays. Do you understand? When you have been in an area, for twenty-eight to forty-eight hours afterwards the trace of you, of the three of you, remains.'

Andrija said, 'So if I may interpret what you say: if we could make a sweep, an arc, around the Soviet capital from the north all the way round to as far south and east as we can get conveniently, this will leave a trace around which will keep radiating. Is that the idea?'

Tom said he was right and John asked what difference it made with regard to intensity of influence to be actually in a place, for instance Moscow. Tom answered in effect that the intensity was in proportion to the proximity, which was the reason why they were here, within a few hundred miles of the US capital, and also why they bad been asked to go to Israel, and if they could arrange to actually go to Moscow it would be so much the better. So the route decided on was to begin at Helsinki, proceed by way of Warsaw and Ankara to Tehran, then fly north to Moscow itself and return to the US with a stop-over in Copenhagen. 'Can you arrange to be in the Soviet by the tenth of November?' Tom said. They said they'd try, though the travel and visa arrangements were complicated and would take some days to complete.

Dr Henry Kissinger, of course, didn't have visa problems and he was able to fly to the Middle East without much delay. He was unaware as he jetted from Cairo to Riyadh and then to Jerusalem that back home near New York three people were daily meditating in a sealed metal box in order to channel energy that would protect him as be pursued his peace-keeping mission. This they did on Tom's instructions, for Kissinger, he said, was in danger of assassination and there was nobody who could replace him at the present time. 'Your nation is no longer running on an intellectual plane, it is running on an emotional plane,' he said, and predicted that 'within six of your months there will be problems with your Dr Kissinger, simply because those in office that will be operating emotionally will not understand the intellectual and will plot to discredit and remove him'.

When they had arranged their itinerary, John and Andrija found that en route between Ankara and Tehran they had a wait of about an hour at Beirut Airport, and John asked if they could do anything to help the Israel situation at this time. Tom said, 'the fact that you are in the area creates a blanket', and instructed them to sit in meditation in the transit lounge during the hour they spent at Beirut. Again he stressed how critical the situation was, saying: 'The danger to Israel, if allowed to develop, will cause what you call a major confrontation, and it will be the beginning of the end.' By a major confrontation, they ascertained, he meant a nuclear war. At present (this was 5 November, the day Kissinger was conferring with President Sadat in Cairo), Tom said, the probability of war taking place was as high as ninety per cent, 'but, as in all of your worldly situations, this may be changed’.

'Do you think there is a real chance that if we are there at the proper time we can help to keep it down to minor local skirmishes?' Andrija asked.

'Yes,' Tom said. 'Your presence would do that because of the vortex of the three.'

Andrija asked whether, if the situation got worse, they should not spend time in Israel on their first trip, returning from Tehran that way instead of through Moscow. But Tom said: 'It is important that you go to Moscow. Within the time you will be in the area, and for four days afterwards, there will be major decisions made. The reason for you being in the area is to reverse some of the decisions that some of the Council of Soviet Russia would like to make. By your presence, you will bring light and sanity!

So on 7 November the peace mission of the scientist, the psychic and the aristocrat set out from Kennedy Airport on the first leg of their journey, destination Helsinki. And a motley trio they must have looked, John wearing the blue track suit he often travelled in and carrying his only luggage, a shoulder bag, Andrija still managing to look profession0al even in a blue denim jean suit, Phyllis encumbered with three suitcases and looking like any middle-aged American tourist doing Europe. The suitcases irritated John, who believed in travelling light, and so did Andrija's insistence on carrying with him a load of gadgetry for photography and recording. He reflected that under normal circumstances none of them would have chosen either of the others as a travelling companion. But this was no holiday.

As spokesman for the Nine, Tom assured them that 'as you proceed upon your journey to lessen the evils on your planet Earth, we will be with you each step of the way. This is a time when we shall not be separate, we shall be one, and when we are one our energies are not dispersed.’ John had not been able to accept that meditation, particularly when performed by the trio alone, could achieve anything of the nature the Nine spoke of and even the idea that the three of them, when balanced, functioned as a kind of lens that focused energies from another source, as Tom had once explained, was hard enough. But there was more to it than that, apparently, for in the same communication Tom told them that 'when a decision is reached by the three of you, from the moment it is made that decision goes into effect and radiates out from you; so before you arrived here work that you had decided to do was put into action'.

Of Helsinki, Tom said: 'This area has its own vortex of energy which we are tapping, and which will then feed you more energy for you to radiate out.' In nearby Russia there were crucial discussions taking place about Middle East policy, and though some members of the council were 'coming to an area of sense in their human minds' they were not yet in the majority, 'so it is important for these next days that when you do your meditation you extend it for another period of time in order to bring all the leaders involved into the vibration'. In the next few days more was going to be demanded of them than ever before, Tom told them, and he concluded with the assurance: 'You are here together on a great mission. In your minds you could not possibly understand the extent of what you are in and why you are here. You are trusting and you do as we ask, and this we are grateful for, and though you may not see dramatics we wish to assure you that what you do is of the utmost importance to the universe, and we understand also that this may be difficult for you to comprehend.

They spent two nights in Helsinki, during which they held four thirty-minute meditation sessions and three communications. Tom had said that when they went out they should always remain together, which caused some problems because Andrija spent an entire afternoon going from shop to shop looking for a particular type of short-wave radio receiver. This irritated John because the addition to their load of gadgetry was still more heavy hand baggage and was likely to cause them longer delays as they passed through customs control in all the countries they visited.

The third Helsinki communication was held at 5.30 in the morning of 10 November, just before they left the hotel for the airport on the next leg of their journey, to Warsaw. Tom had asked them to communicate at this time at the end of the previous evening's session. He explained: 'The reason for requesting a meeting before proceeding with your journey is that there has been a meeting of your government and a date has been decided for proceeding with the plan. If the Israelis do not commence war on their own before approximately the twenty-ninth or thirtieth of your November, it will be commenced for them.' This was a staggering allegation, implying that Dr Kissinger's peace-keeping missions in the Middle East were a front for quite a contrary policy. But according to Tom he was not a party to these machinations: 'Your Dr Kissinger will be in a disturbed state because of the decisions of others.' When Andrija asked where the flashpoint would be if the plan for the 29th/30th November were put into effect, they learnt it would be Saudi Arabia and that 'the consequences of this aggressive act by the United States would be to mobilise those that are in fact already mobilised and are waiting for the opportunity'.

'So if the decision has been made to go ahead,' Andrija said, 'this means that we didn't succeed in Washington.'

'But remember, the energy can still change that,' Tom said. 'At this time, though, your physical presence and energy is needed to cover this area. The Russians have not yet agreed to the American plan.'

'Are they aware of it, then?'

'Not officially, but they have a thought, and for them to agree they must benefit. With you in the area, it may be prevented. Your purpose is to prevent.'

The scenario was becoming increasingly bizarre, more and more like the plot of an extravagant political thriller, a 'James Bond' fantasy. Recapitulating in a later conversation all the bits of information they had had over the past weeks, and drawing only the most obvious inferences from them, Andrija and John put together the following version of the alleged situation. The United States, foreseeing that the Arabs, armed with their 'oil weapon' and substantial capital reserves, could soon become a formidable and unpredictable third force in world politics, had decided to seek an opportunity to intervene militarily in the Middle East in order to gain control of the oil. The opportunity would arise if war broke out and they could move in ostensibly to prevent Israel being overrun, and if war didn't break out during the present period of high tension they could precipitate it by themselves mounting a simulated Israeli attack on Saudi Arabian targets. Their main problem was what Russia would do in these circumstances. Since World War II the two great powers had reached many tacit agreements as to where their respective spheres of influence should extend, agreements reached by a strategy in which the unofficial 'leak' of information in order to sound out the other side's reactions was standard practice. So they had now leaked their plan to the Russians and if the Russians agreed the two great powers would in effect share the Middle East between them. But if China in turn intervened the partition might not be so easily effected and there could be danger of world nuclear war.

It is very difficult to believe that such a cynical realpolitik could be entertained by a great nation in the present day and age, but such, unmistakably, was the gist of Tom's reports on the international situation during these weeks. In the light of it several items that were widely reported in the press at this time are interesting. A military member of the US Defense Department made a public speech in which he expressed strong anti-Israeli sentiments and had to be formally rebuked by the President. Ford himself made a statement implying that the US was prepared to recognise and negotiate with the PLO, issuing it just before Kissinger visited Jerusalem and thus in effect undermining the Secretary of State's peace-keeping efforts. Then the leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, was interviewed in Lebanon by an American television reporter, and the interview, in which he appealed to the American people to stop helping Israel, was widely shown in the States. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, it was publicly announced that President Ford was going to meet the Russian leaders at Vladivostock (near the Chinese frontier) on 24 November.

The radio receiver that Andrija had bought was not for their entertainment en route, but for experimental purposes. Tom had said that Ultima would try to come through directly if the receiver were kept tuned to a specified frequency, and also would try to co-operate in an experiment during one of their sessions, so at night Andrija slept with the receiver switched on and tuned, and during a communication they held in Warsaw he tried to set up an experiment.

This occasioned an amusing exchange. Having checked with Tom that it was all right to attempt the experiment at this time, Andrija said to John, 'Could you just carry on this interrogation while I get the machine ready?' John said he would, but, before he could ask a question, Tom put in: 'May we first of all say that your term "interrogation" we assume is in error.' Andrija laughed and apologised and Tom said: 'It is the influence of this country you have come into.'

While Andrija was adjusting his radio receiver, John asked some questions on Phyllis's behalf. She was puzzled and disturbed by information they had reported to her from earlier communications to the effect that of all of them she was the one who possessed no free will, but that after the landing she would be free to choose, if she so wished, to return home. Tom explained: 'When this Being made her commitment to return to this planet, her commitment was for the period to the end of the landing. This was the time limit that at that time she put on a physical existence.' Until the landing took place there would be limitations on her free will for she had voluntarily turned it over to the Nine at the time of her incarnation with a commitment which was total and irreversible, but after the event she would be free to return home, which meant not to her physical home but to her place of origin. Her commitment, however, would last as long as she opted to remain in the physical body, which the Council hoped that she would do because after the landing there would be years of follow-up work for all of them to do. The period between now and the landing, Tom said, was 'what your book has called Armageddon', and was going to make great demands on the three of them.

Andrija, who had completed his radio adjustments and was participating in the discussion again, remarked that, talking about demands, he had felt, during the last two days, uncommonly tired and drained of energy, and if he felt like this at the beginning of the work he wondered how it was going to be later on. Tom explained that his physical body had to adapt to working over a larger area than before, and that as more was demanded of them all they would find the resources within themselves to meet the demands. 'Sir John would understand,' he said, and used the analogy of driving a car for a long period non-stop, which presumably was a reference to John's former career as an international racing driver. The energies they had radiated over the last two days, he said, had 'created many thoughts of peace and suppression of aggression in those in the area in which we are working'. John, who still had difficulty with the idea of energy transfer, took the opportunity to express his doubts that the energies they channelled during their meditations could produce such great effects, particularly as, speaking for himself, he didn't feel at the time that he was giving anything out. 'We understand what you mean,' Tom said, 'but you spend no time and patience to feel. And we would ask you to remember: it is not action always that is necessary; being is necessary.'

This Warsaw communication session was suddenly terminated when the telephone rang in the hotel room in which they were holding it. Andrija answered it, but nobody spoke, although he was aware of somebody on the other end of the line for a few seconds before the connection was broken. 'They must be checking on us,' he said, and returned to continue the communication, but Tom was no longer there and he had to bring Phyllis out of trance.

They didn't have an opportunity to ask Tom for an explanation of this event until the following day, when they held their first session in their hotel in Ankara. The journey from Poland to Turkey gave rise to other experiences that they were also anxious to ask Tom about. A suitcase of Andrija's disappeared for an hour at the airport. Phyllis had seen it on the trolley coming from the plane but it didn't turn up in the collection area, and when Andrija reported it missing he had to wait an hour before it was brought, by a porter who spoke no English and who appeared with it from the opposite end of the building to the arrival area. Then John noticed a man at the airport who he suspected was observing them, and his suspicions increased when he saw the same man later in their hotel.

Could some authorities be taking an interest in their movements? It seemed a preposterous idea, but although their mission was essentially non-political and they were not taking sides in the Middle East situation, they were aware that if their activities were known it might not seem that way to the respective government authorities. They tended to have different views as to the degree of official interest in them, and consequently how they should behave, and these differences were a part of the interpersonal difficulties, problems and tensions that further heightened the drama of this trip.

Tom confirmed their suspicions in the first Ankara communication. He said that the break in communication in the Warsaw hotel was because a bugging device had been activated and 'if what had transpired had been recorded, you would have had great difficulty in explaining'. They were reproached for being careless in conversation: 'When you assume that all those around understand you not, you are assuming an error.' John asked when and where they had erred, and Tom answered, 'In places of consumption,' which reminded them that they had talked about the work in the dining-room in the hotel in Warsaw, and that twice there had been a man sitting alone at a table nearby. Their suspicion that the contents of Andrija's suitcase had been examined at the airport was correct, but nothing had been found. Part of the reason they were regarded with suspicion was that they hadn't been behaving sufficiently like tourists, and they should now spend an extra day in Ankara, taking pains to look and act like tourists. They should remain together at all times and be careful what they said in public places, but they would be able to talk freely in the hotel room. Meanwhile they could continue their good work of defusing the explosive political situation.

On the present state of play in the war game, Tom reported: 'Soviet Russia has not bowed to your nation, Doctor. They will go to a point, but not beyond that point, and at this time they are considering the possibility of doing it themselves and saying that your nation has done it. It is important that the power that the three of you generate negates the Soviet Russia's thinking. It is also of the utmost importance that you be in Israel not later than the twenty-fourth of your November.'

Andrija asked what they would be able to do in Israel since it seemed that all the important decisions were being made elsewhere, and Tom answered: 'It is through your energy that the leaders of Israel will be given the strength to make the proper decisions and proper negotiations without giving their souls.'

The plan to interrupt television and radio transmissions during the period 18-22 November was still on, they learnt, and would be carried out whatever the international situation was at the time. 'Speaking for the civilisation that is handling that project,' Tom said that 'it may not be with the fullest of force, but it will be the beginning.’ Also, it might afford an opportunity to alert the people of the world to what their governments had in mind. 'We are already in effect overriding at this time with experiments,' he told them. As if to demonstrate the fact, Andrija's radio, which throughout the communication had remained tuned and silent on the specified frequency, began just as the session was coming to a close to emit curious noises, a cacophony of sounds made by musical instruments, with a cornet predominant. 'Is that Ultima's sound?' John asked. 'Yes, they are testing,' Tom said, and to listen to the tape today and hear that pat response makes one ask again the question: is he truth-teller or opportunist? The sounds are certainly unlike anything one would expect to hear on a radio, even in the Middle East: rather like a brass band frenziedly tuning up in the middle of a battlefield. But to paraphrase Shakespeare's Prospero, 'The air is full of noises.' And as Coue demonstrated, men are infinitely suggestible.

The extra day in Ankara afforded John and Andrija the leisure and opportunity to take a long look at certain problems that they felt were undermining their efficiency in the work. In the second Ankara session, they discussed these problems with Tom, and the discussion, which lasted an hour, is interesting both as evidence of Tom's insight and for the light it throws on the relationship and interpersonal problems of Phyllis, Andrija and John at this time. I will have to summarise it briefly in the present context, and such a summary will not convey so strongly as does listening to the tape of the discussion, with all its give and take and repetitions, the impressive way that Tom, by means of Socratic questioning and analysis, obliged John and Andrija fundamentally to change their view of the situation.

The situation, as they at first saw it, was that Phyllis was causing them problems by being moody and sometimes appearing reluctant to work, and as she had told Andrija some days ago that she was lonely he suggested that things might be better if she had her husband with her. 'This is not true,' Tom said, but Andrija argued that it must be, because Phyllis herself had said that she was lonely. 'You understand not,' Tom said categorically.

So John had a go, and explained that recently Phyllis had come to need much more attention than formerly. She was like a child, and when it came to work she was always finding reasons to postpone it or to do it in a different way.

'You are reading into the situation things that are not there,' Tom said. 'Look within your own hearts, the two of you.' Andrija did, and admitted that he had the same problem to an extent and would feel better if he had an 'emotional companion on these trips', and he asked if it might not help alleviate some of their interpersonal strains and tensions if they travelled with such companions. Tom professed not to understand the question and Andrija had to spell it out in different terms before Tom said he would consult.

While he was consulting, John told Andrija that he didn't feel quite the same as he did about it, and Andrija said, 'I don't particularly need you know what, but there is this emotional thing in the air all the time,' and when Tom, having consulted, asked how they thought the presence of others would affect the work he repeated that he thought it would help by preventing 'ridiculous emotional problems' arising all the time.

'Whose are the emotional problems?' Tom said.

'Well, both John and I feel that it's the Being, Phyllis.’

'In what manner?'

'She is lonely. She says so.'

'You are creating the problem. You understand not.'

'I'm sorry, but you're wrong. She told me herself that that's her problem. She gets upset because of being lonely and takes it out in little ways on us.'

'And you have no knowledge of doing the same?'

Andrija was becoming exasperated. He said, 'I don't feel lonely. That's not my problem. And I think we're getting into an impasse here that isn't very elevated!

'You are correct,' Tom said calmly, 'but you do not understand.’

'I don't think you're trying to understand us, and I don't know why.'

'We understand what is inside. Now would you speak, Sir John?'

After this exchange in which Andrija's exasperation came close to turning to anger, John tried to be conciliatory and reasonable. He said that part of Phyllis's problem was probably that he and Andrija didn't give her all the support they could, and that they could try to help in future by being closer and more supportive. But Tom wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted them to examine the question whether the central problem really was Phyllis's loneliness. With regard to the work, Andrija said, he felt that the problem was her lack of enthusiasm and unwillingness to accept all the responsibilities the work entailed. For instance, when they tried to play her the tapes of the communications her mind tended to wander, is if she didn't really want to face what the tapes said. John supported this interpretation, saying, 'Yes, there is this reluctance. She says she will always work, but many times she is rather morose before she does, and I don't understand that.'

'You understand not communication,' Tom said bluntly. The doctor should.' Had she, he asked, ever refused to work, to go somewhere required by the work? They had to admit that she had never actually refused. 'And do you understand that it is important for many things not to be in the mind of the Being?' he said, implying that this was the reason for Phyllis's unwillingness to listen attentively to the tapes. This too they had to admit. So what was the problem?

'I think it is the situation of the relationship between the thee of us that is the problem,' John said.

'Who has created it? One or the other or all three?' Andrija answered that undoubtedly all three of them had personal problems, but he thought that he and John were more successful in keeping them out of the work than Phyllis was.

'There have been times, Doctor, when you have involved yourself and have created problems, and we have not chastised you for that.' Andrija, and then John in turn, had to admit it this was true. Tom proceeded to demolish the theory that the root cause of the trouble was lack of emotional companionship, forcing them to contemplate what it would be like if their perspective partners were with them on this trip, and to admit that in that situation 'there would be nothing but trouble'.

Then he said 'May we bring into the open what is the core of the problem?

'I wish you would,' said Andrija.

'The one who is most unbalanced is the one who is the balance. Sir John, have you looked within? Have you understood that it is your frustrations that have created the problem?' Suddenly, transported, as it were, from the jury box to the dock, John was defenceless. He listened as Tom gave examples from his recent conduct of how he frequently got frustrated because the others, Andrija as well as Phyllis, did not do things as he thought they should be done or at the time he wanted them to be done, and of how these frustrations built up into resentment, which Phyllis felt and was affected by. There was nothing that John could deny or defend. He was chastened. He could only say, 'I'm sorry, but I think you know that my motivation is that I'm trying always to do the right thing to help the work.'

'You are not the only one who is trying,' Tom persisted. 'All three are trying and all three have frustrations, and no one is better than another. You say you must treat the Being as a child, but part of the reason you have a problem is because you treat her as a child. You must treat each other as equals, not even as man or woman, because this is not the nature of the three of you. Do you understand?

'Yes, I do,' John said, and he thanked Tom for his insight and his counsel.

'There are things that are going to be very difficult in the next two years,' Tom said in conclusion, 'and if you cannot deal with this how will you deal with those?' Andrija said that he was sure that with Tom's continuing help and guidance they would be able to deal with their interpersonal problems and maintain the harmonious balance of the triangle which they all understood was essential to the work.

In spite of their problems and very human failings, they were, according to Tom, succeeding in their apparently superhuman mission. En route from Ankara to Tehran, they unobtrusively held their meditation session in the transit lounge at Beirut Airport, and in the next communication they held Tom told them: 'What we have asked you to do you have done, and let us assure you that though you may not see or feel or think that there are any effects, there truly are. Because you see not a tangible result you understand not.' They had succeeded in preventing a Russian/American conspiracy, but they had still to 'negate the Soviet Russians of their intent'. Their influence was working to that effect, and from their present situation it was also spreading to the South and West and affecting the Arab leaders. Moreover, a little influence in Iran itself was not going to go amiss, for the country was going play an increasingly important part as a balancing influence in the Middle East in the future. 'The Shah of Iran', Tom predicted, 'will become a strong and very important spokesman in deterring, though not at this time.' They spent two nights in Tehran before setting out on the last leg of their journey, which would take them to Copenhagen via Moscow. They had not had time to obtain visas for Russia before leaving New York, but Tom had stressed that it was important that they should at least pass through the Russian capital, so they had scheduled the journey so that they had four hours in Moscow Airport in transit.

There were only four or five other passengers on the Iran Air Boeing 707 from Tehran to Moscow, so Andrija conceived the idea of taking the opportunity of the relative privacy to attempt to hold a communication. They waited until they had seen Mount Ararat on the left side of the plane and they were flying at 35,000 feet above southern Russia when they established contact with Tom. 'We wish to speak in another language,' was the first thing he said, and proceeded to utter a few phrases of musical chanting. He then explained: 'You are close to your homeland, and we wish that all adjustments were in order so we could speak to you in the original.' calling the earlier occasion when he had heard that chanting language Andrija understood that by his 'homeland' Tom meant the Tarim Basin, and he asked if he could now tell them more about the civilisation of Aksu. 'Doctor, you were one of the founders.' Tom answered, 'and you are now coming full circle. You are now one of the savers. Remember, Sir John, that you carried on the thoughts and service of the founders, as this Being did at a later time.'

As conditions were not favourable for a prolonged communication, Tom changed the subject, giving them instructions as to what they should do in Moscow. He concluded with the shrewd comments on the Russian mind that I quoted in Chapter one (see p. 28). Then Phyllis came out of trance and described a place she had visited during her trance. 'There was something in the clay there that made it shine, and there were all kinds of bird symbols of some sort, all kinds of birds. The singing, it was fantastic. I can't describe it. It was like . . . talking in levels. And there were hundreds of people and they were singing, and it was like they were singing a hosanna. It was beautiful.' In earlier communications, John and Andrija had learnt that the original language of Aksu was a tonal language, which would sound like singing, and that the predominant symbology of the civilisation had featured birds, so Phyllis's description was consistent both with this earlier information and with the content of the communication that it followed.

Arriving in Moscow, they tried to get a special dispensation to tour the city in the company of an Intourist guide, but were refused. They had to spend the hours between flights in the transit lounge and do their meditation there. They found a quiet corner of the cafeteria, and as they were undisturbed John suggested when they had completed that they might attempt a second communication of the day under unusual circumstances. So as not to be too conspicuous they did not record this session, which was a short one, but later in the day they recorded the fact that it had contained one thing of significance. Tom had said that there was an assassination plot under way aimed at the PLO leader Yasser Arafat, and that they should meditate at three o'clock New York time in order to prevent it. The prescribed time fitted well into their day's schedule, for it fell shortly after they had settled into their hotel in Copenhagen in the evening. Shortly afterwards they held another communication and obtained a longer explanation of the Arafat situation.

Tom informed them: 'A meeting was arranged for the leader Arafat to view installations of a military nature. There were to be journalists of different nations, and the plan was to have a conference and when the photographs were to be taken this would be the time. The conference is still in progress. There are two that have been pulled out because of previous knowledge, and that in effect is what you have done.'

This is the kind of information that should be checkable if one had access to the relevant records. From the newspapers all I have been able to ascertain is that Yasser Arafat was in Cuba on this day, 15 November. He had been in the news all the week because two days before he had made a speech to the United Nations Assembly in New York in which he had accused Israel of preparing for a fifth war in the Middle East. On 14 November he had flown to Cuba to spend two or three days, and it is certainly likely that his programme there would have included a press conference and a viewing of military installations, as Tom said.

Reviewing the past week, Tom went on to say: 'Your project has been successful. The Russians are no longer inclined to become involved. They have become more stable, and truly now because of your trip they are considering going forward with their own nation and the nations they control. There have been leadership problems, but they are stabilising, and they have also realised that they may be the goat. They like to be the bear, and they would not like to be the goat.'

The journey had also been a learning experience for the three of them. 'In reviewing the past eight of your days you will find that besides the work which you have accomplished, there have been many things within you which you have mastered.' And they had learnt about the energy that they could channel and how doubts and negative thoughts could undermine a project. This was a thing they should never forget, and in the coming months they were going to have many demonstrations of the effects of their positive thinking. There was still a need for them to be in Israel the following week because 'by being in that area you will not only stabilise the leaders of Israel, but also put a dampener on the Arab leaders'.

But during the following week they should be, as originally planned, back at Ossining for the experiments in television intervention.

It was early on Sunday morning, 17 November, that John, Andrija and Phyllis arrived back at Ossining. They did not see the following day's issue of the London Times, though they would have been amused and perhaps gratified if they had, for it carried on its front page the headline: 'Threat of New Middle East War Recedes'.

On the face of it, the idea of communicating to the people of the world by using their radio and television networks would appear a most efficient way for an extra-terrestrial civilisation to get its message across. Beings capable of interstellar travel should not, we imagine, have any difficulty with the technology such intervention would require. This, however, may be an unwarranted assumption. Because we can form no conception of either technology we cannot assume that command over the one must imply an equal facility in the other. That would be illogical, but of course men are often illogical, particularly with regard to matters in which they have invested faith, love or money, and it is understandable that after all that had happened in the past weeks Andrija and John were eager to have some visible and irrefutable evidence of the reality of the intelligences and the forces that they were trafficking with. Tom had cautioned them about expecting too much: 'Ultima says you think he is what in your world you call a magician. He is a refined technician and he is a perfectionist, but he is not a magician, and he does not want to blow out the Being.' Nevertheless, they returned to Ossining expecting something like a miracle.

When they were in Ankara Tom had told them that the communications transmissions project could not be initiated 'with the fullest of force'. Andrija took up the point a couple of days later in Tehran, and asked: 'Is it not possible somehow to make a stronger showing during our communications initiation on 18th to 22nd November, in such a way that men's minds will be taken off war and will begin seriously to wonder about your presence and possible coming to Earth?'

Tom answered: 'We understand what you are speaking about, and we wish we could help. We wish there was the power to help. Remember that when we sent you Uri, this was a primitive power and a power that could do many things. But then there was the problem with Uri. Then we sent you Bobby, and we had the same difficulty. And so this Being and the two of you were willing to be used. But the work that had been done on this Being for many years was not in the field of what we are now attempting to do. This, you must understand, is a different power from that power we originally planned. We can put power through this Being of that nature, but it could create a problem for the physical body to the extent that we would no longer have a Being.'

The point behind this, and behind the earlier mention of the danger of a 'blow out', is that Phyllis was to function as the main channel for the energies required for the communications transmission. When transmission was being attempted, she was to sit in the Faraday cage, wired up to Andrija's electronic equipment, and all three of them were to meditate in order to focus the required energies. They did this three times daily for the four days 19-22 November inclusive, and all the time Andrija kept his radio tuned and connected to the tape recorder so that if anything came through they would have a record of it. Nothing did. On 21 November they had the television programmes on channels 9 and 3 videotaped between 2.30 and 3.30 in the afternoon, because they had been told that an attempt would be made to communicate on those channels at that time, but again nothing happened. It seemed that the entire project had been a failure, and at the end of the period Tom admitted that it had been in most areas, but nevertheless Ultima was satisfied because the experiment had been successful in twenty-seven per cent of the areas in which it had been attempted, and only regretted that these didn't include the areas monitored by the group at Ossining. 'He says that you as a scientist will understand,' Tom reported to Andrija, adding that after this moderately successful first attempt Ultima and his unit would continue working at the technical difficulties.

Even in the areas where intervention had been successful they had not succeeded in creating any effect that would start people asking questions. They had accomplished only short blackouts and faint superimpositions of images alien to the programme: irregularities that viewers would shrug off as technical faults. Ultima clearly had a great deal to learn before his technology awakened the world to his and his colleagues' existence. The project had first been mentioned in the course of the communications held in the Bahamas in June, and since then Andrija and John had built up great expectations around it, and though Tom had on several occasions told them about the problems involved and how Phyllis was really too sensitive a channel for the rather primitive energies that the project necessitated they were disappointed that the results of the 18-22 November series of experiments were not more positive and evidential.

One of the sessions held over these four days consisted of an hour-long and very impressive lecture that Tom addressed to his terrestrial colleagues. The Nine, he said, were disturbed by certain directions that their conduct and their thoughts were taking, and it was necessary to repeat and clarify a few points:

'We have told you before that zeal is futile. It is of great importance that this be understood, and especially by you, Sir John. And it is of importance - and we speak to the three of you now - that you do not think of yourselves as special. You have a special function, but this does not relieve you of the problems of the physical plane or give you a special dispensation to remove yourself from the affairs of the physical world. Your purpose is to help the physical world, and for that you must exist on the physical plane. What we have asked of you is that you balance it. There is no way you can help people if you understand them not, if you understand not the joys, the fears, the sadnesses, the despairs, the loves and the angers of people that exist in a physical world. In truth you are to master these things, but a person does not master them by escaping from them. A person masters them by existing among them. If you remove yourself from the physical world you have no temptation, you have no anger, you have no joy, you have no love, and by removing, yes, you can master these things because there is no temptation and there is no touching of other beings ...

'The most important of all, it is ego that must be dealt with, and all three have difficulty with that. Remember this: for the three of you to come as far as you have it was important to have an ego, and it is still important. We do not ask you to be ego-less, because if you were you would not have character. But it is important to be balanced and to exist in the world and to realise that you are not more important than any other. None of you is a perfect being, but each of you has qualities that, blended together, make a perfect being. And when you understand not each other, how can you understand the world that you are trying to raise the consciousness of? Remember, you cannot escape your destiny; you can only turn round and walk towards it; and the destiny of the three of you is to be involved with the peoples of the world to help them.'

The directness, the pertinence and the eloquence of this pep-talk impressed both John and Andrija. If Ultima had limitations as a technician, Tom made up for them by possessing in good measure those other attributes expected of superhuman beings: wisdom and insight. Indeed it is largely on account of these latter qualities that the trio have kept faith over the years, and that I undertook this chronicle, considering it not unworthy of the attention of serious readers.

Two other passages from this long speech of Tom's are worth recording, the first for the light it throws on one of the most problematical themes of the communications, and the second for its wisdom and a nice touch of invention that it contains. The first has bearing on the problem posed by the previous lives material:

'We speak of the time in your lives when the three of you were beings together. In the first communication when we told you who you were, in your mind you asked a question because you were convinced that you could not have been who we told you were. Because it was not of great importance then, we simply said that in truth it was so.

Do you recall the conversation? It is important now that the three of you review that which is written of your past lives. If you do, it will give you greater understanding of what is important.'

The previous lives material is difficult and embarrassing because it seems to polarise the possibilities: either you accept it as literally true or you dismiss it as a monumental ego-trip, which would of course put the authenticity of the material of all the rest of the communications in doubt. This passage suggests another way of regarding the previous lives material: as symbolically true, as an instructional aid, a way of directing their attention to characteristics and possibilities pertaining to their present lives; which leaves open the possibility that the intelligence producing the information exists independently of the three of them. While we are on the subject of previous lives, one other piece of information divulged by Tom in this speech should be noted. They had not always incarnated as figures of extraordinary distinction, but had each lived many obscure lives. 'We understood not the physical world, and you did not either, and so you lived many times to try to understand, and although you are pure soul, each time you live on the physical planet you are open to be trapped by it.'

The second passage for the record was addressed to Andrija and referred to a conversation earlier in the day at which most of the household had been present:

'I will now speak to the doctor. In your speech to the group of your people, when you explained that all of your people had been gods or goddesses, this was in error. You cannot speak to people in that manner, for when you do they begin to believe that they are special, and the problem of the physical world has always been the people who think that they are special. It is only in humility that the people of the physical planet Earth can grow and understand.'

Andrija acknowledged the justice of this, but asked, 'Is there any other term that might be more appropriate and accurate so that these people might understand just a wee bit?'

Tom answered promptly, 'Would you be satisfied with the term "messengers of the aeons"? - because in truth this is what they are.'

'Yes, that's beautiful,' Andrija said.

And so to Israel, where the greater part of the sequel of this story takes place. When Andrija, John and Phyllis arrived in Tel Aviv on 24 November 1974, they had specific instructions from the Management to be out of the country by 11 December because if they stayed longer they might be in danger. None of them had any idea at that time how prolonged and complex their relation to Israel would become.

To contemplate the various strands that relate the trio and their work to Israel is to be persuaded of the validity of the Jungian theory of synchronicity. Ostensibly they first went there because Israel was the potential flashpoint for a war situation which could engulf the world. But Andrija had worked there before, with Uri Geller, who of course is an Israeli. And the Israeli people, according to Tom, were genetically related to the space people, particularly those of the civilisation of Hoova. Also, Israel had been the place where the last attempt to upgrade human consciousness had been made, through the agency of the Nazarene, Jesus Christ. And the stress, in the teachings of Tom, on the importance of humility, love and service, is reminiscent of Christian beliefs, just as a great deal of the symbolism and some of the dramatic themes of the communications are reminiscent of esoteric Christianity and Judaism, of the Book of Revelation and the Kabbalah. Israel brings into focus, interrelates and catalyses many of the disparate themes of the communications; so much so that one is tempted to speculate that the trio's being drawn there when they were, at a time when their work needed to be given focus, direction and coherence, was not a fortuitous but a synchronistic event.

Andrija had had problems with the Israeli immigration and customs authorities before. When he last left Israel he had had all the notes, research documents and tape transcripts of his work with Uri confiscated for some time. Now when he presented his passport the immigration officer called another over and they went into a huddle for a couple of minutes before returning it to him. His arrival had been noticed. He wondered how it would have been if Uri had been with them. Some days before, Tom had said that it would be advantageous for Uri to join the party. Andrija had phoned him and at first he had said he would try and arrange it, but at the last minute he had backed down.

They had reserved a two-room suite at the Sheraton, a tall modern hotel overlooking the Mediterranean at the northern end of Tel Aviv, and they made this their base during the three weeks of their stay, using a hired car to get around the country and generally looking and behaving like tourists. According to Tom, in the first communication they held, there was no need for dissimulation, because the Israeli authorities were aware of their presence and some of the leaders knew their true mission and were grateful to them. But they could be in danger from other factions, and should be particularly cautious on 28, 29 and 30 November. They could begin their work, he said, by spending a day driving around Tel Aviv. This would spread a pacifying influence in this time of high tension. 'We are now in a time of war,' Tom said. 'A greater war has never happened, and when we say this we do not mean just on your planet Earth, but we mean in the surroundings and in the heavens and in the universe.' He was referring to Armageddon, the cosmic conflict of the Biblical 'End of Days' period, of which Earth's present troubles were but the microcosmic reflection. Motoring around the streets of Tel Aviv seemed to Andrija, Phyllis and John a modest way of contributing to the war effort, but for their second day the Management came up with a rather more dramatic situation.

In a state of waking consciousness, Phyllis got some figures which seemed like map co-ordinates. Andrija went out and bought a map, and when they checked the co-ordinates on it they found that they indicated Yavneh, which is the site of one of Israel's nuclear power stations, about twenty miles south of Tel Aviv. In a communication they asked Tom if there was any significance in Phyllis's getting these co-ordinates, and he said that there was, for a sabotage plot that could have very serious consequences had been formulated and it would be their task to help frustrate it by spending thirty minutes in meditation as near as possible to Yavneh. So they drove down the coast and sought a suitable spot where they might meditate without being too conspicuous. The power station area was enclosed by tall barbed wire, the roads around it were patrolled by security vehicles, and there was a low flying helicopter overhead, and they had to settle for a place some four or five miles from Yavneh for their meditation. After about twenty minutes Phyllis said that Ultima had 'told' her that they could go now, and she described what she had 'seen': the dematerialisation of the core of a tube which she presumed was an explosive device of some sort. So when they held their evening communication in the hotel, Andrija's first question was, 'What did we accomplish at Yavneh?' and Tom answered, 'A complete de-fusing.'

During this period Phyllis again became very vulnerable to psychic attack when she was coming out of trance, perhaps because she no longer had the protection of the Faraday cage. She also became very visionary during the meditation sessions, getting imagery that seemed incomprehensible but which Tom could usually later elucidate. During one meditation she kept seeing four umbrellas. Tom explained that as they didn't have the cage it would be beneficial for them to use umbrellas during their communications because the metal frames would help concentrate energies and afford protection. 'It is sad that there is not among all the possessions of your world a copper umbrella,' he said, but suggested that the lack may be compensated by placing something of copper on the open umbrella. So the next day they bought umbrellas, and thereafter used them as Tom had suggested, attaching them to the backs of the upright chairs they sat in for communication in order to keep their hands free. If the Israeli authorities were, as Tom had said, keeping an eye on them, and if one of their agents had caught a glimpse of them sitting hour after hour in a darkened room in the Sheraton under open umbrellas while the woman pointed her two index fingers at the other two. and talked in a strange voice, they would surely have been dismissed as a group of crazy American cultists. They themselves often joked and laughed as they made their preparations, imagining how they would appear to others, but the umbrellas and the copper bracelets really did seem to improve communications and minimise attacks.

In another meditation, Phyllis got a very strange sequence of images. It started with birds, large and colourfully bedecked birds. 'They're coming from North Bravna, that word's very clear,' she said. The birds swooped down to where people were signing a paper with a quill pen. 'I don't know if the paper is a surrender or a peace treaty,' Phyllis said. Then she saw scenes of savagery and wanton murder, the beheading of women and children, performed by men wielding curved swords and wearing ornamented robes. There was some connection between the men and the swooping birds. And perched on a wall were a number of eagles, just watching. They could quite easily stop the marauding birds, but they didn't move. The name North Bravna kept coming back. Where was North Bravna? she asked. Neither Andrija nor John knew, but Andrija suggested that the savage killers she saw were Saracens and that she was seeing a replay of historical events. 'Did the Saracens ever take the city of Jerusalem?' Phyllis asked, and Andrija was able to tell her that they had done so at the time of the Crusades. 'Well, that's what they're going to try to do this time,' Phyllis said.

Tom later confirmed that her interpretation was basically right. There had been a building up of terrorist infiltrators in the city of Jerusalem over the past three months. They were armed by supplies that originated from a munitions factory in a small Russian town named North Bravna. The eagle that watched and would not intervene was the United States. The outbreak of terrorist activity was imminent, and they should project their energies and their concentration over the next days to the city of Jerusalem. 'Should we physically go there. John said, 'We can easily do so.' Tom had to consult before he could answer. 'There is danger,' he said. 'You will be protected, but we cannot make that decision for you.'

Of course, they went. They spent the greater part of two days wandering about the narrow alleys and visiting the holy sites of the old city of Jerusalem. This walled city within a city, this bustling relic of many pasts thriving in the present, fascinated Phyllis. She soon learnt how to haggle and joke with the Arab traders, which embarrassed John though he had to admit that she was playing the tourist pretty convincingly. Several times they lost her and had to retrace their steps up a thronged alley, looking into every shop as they went until they found her, bargaining with a trader over an embroidered galabeer or a piece of jewellery or an ornament. It was quite credible that some of these traders or some of the young Arabs lounging about or sitting drinking coffee should be the terrorist infiltrators that Tom had spoken about. There were plenty of heavily armed Israeli soldiers around, too, some casually patrolling the alleys and others posted on roofs and surveying the scene below. It wasn't difficult to imagine violence suddenly erupting and the panic that would ensue in the narrow streets if shooting started.

Accompanying them on this trip was Leon Berg, a friend of John's from England. Leon had been one of the helpers at the time of the May Lectures, but John hadn't seen much of him since that time. He had gone to Tel Aviv on an impulse. He knew that John was there, but assumed that he was on business and knew nothing about the work or his involvement with Andrija and Phyllis. He had contacted him at the Sheraton when he arrived in Tel Aviv, and he joined them on several of their trips over the next couple of weeks, though he still had little idea of what they were engaged on.

I have to bring Leon Berg into the story at this point because it was because of him that they went to Ein Kerem. Ein Kerem is a village just outside Jerusalem. Leon said he had some friends who lived there and would like to take the opportunity to pay them a visit. He had been told that they lived near the church, so when they reached Ein Kerem John drove up a lane which wound up towards the church, but only to find that it terminated in a cul-de-sac. Then an extraordinary thing happened. When John tried to reverse back to find a place to turn, the car simply wouldn't move. All four wheels were locked.

He tried everything he knew to release them, but to no avail. The car was obstructing the lane, but the only way they could move it was by sliding it downhill. This they did with some help, and the car nearly veered into a wall as they negotiated a bend. Eventually they got to the bottom of the hill where the road was wider, and John tried again to release the locked brakes. It was a hydraulic system and in spite of his long motoring experience John couldn't imagine how all four wheels could remain locked in this way.

Leon went on foot to try to find his friends, hoping that they might be able to help at least by recommending a local mechanic. The car was stopped just outside the big church, which Phyllis said they should go into. She was quite insistent about it, so John and Andrija complied, as they always did when she got strong impulses to do something, knowing from experience that the thought wasn't always her own. The church was locked, but soon after they had tried the door it was opened from within by a priest. The church seemed ordinary enough, and after wandering around it for some minutes they were about to leave when the priest called them back and led them to a corner of the church that they had missed, where a short flight of steps led down into an illuminated grotto. Here, they learnt, was the spot where John the Baptist had lived. That was interesting. They spent some time reading the texts and looking at the pictures on the wall of the cave, then left the church and returned to the car. John could never explain why, but he knew with absolute certainty before he stepped into the car that the mysterious fault would be rectified. And he was right. After a couple of minutes Leon reappeared, still having failed to find his friends, and they drove back to Jerusalem without further trouble.

We have had occasion before to wonder whether the intelligence that is Tom is a clever opportunist, ingenious in thinking up explanations for events that fit them into his own scheme of things. With regard to this incident he admitted to being an opportunist, but in a rather different sense. He claimed that the Management had seized the opportunity of Andrija's being in Ein Kerem to make a point.

'It was Altea* using the energy of the Being. It was on our direction,' said Tom when Andrija asked for an explanation of the incident.

* Tom explained that Ultima's true name was 'Altea' and that he would use that form in future. The true identity could not have been revealed before but they would later understand its significance.

'And why did you have us stop right there?' Andrija said.

'You are the proclaimer,' Tom answered.

John the Baptist, of course, proclaimed the coming of Christ.

Here, clearly, was a pointer to Andrija's role in the present-day situation. Tom spelt it out quite unambiguously: 'You are the proclaimer, and it is now the beginning.'

'What specifically is to be proclaimed at this time?' Andrija asked. He half expected to be reproached by Tom for asking something he already knew, but Tom didn't mention the landing, as he had anticipated, but said:

'It is important for you to have those of the nation of Israel understand from where they came, and for what purpose.'

Both Andrija and John understood the allusion. In earlier communications they had learnt that the Israelis were descendants of the extra-terrestrial civilisation of Hoova, whose leader was Jehovah. They were what Tom termed a 'species? nation. A 'species', he had explained, was a hybrid. 'All beings on this planet have lived on other planets, but there are those that are a mixture. Physical beings may be reborn on another planet. A species is a mixture of two or more planets at the time of its physical existence. It has a strong ego and it has free will.' The Israelites were not the only hybrid people on the planet, Tom said, but as they were the descendants of Hoova, the extra-terrestrial civilisation that had special responsibility and concern for the development of the planet Earth, they had a particularly important role to play in history.

This was the gist of the message that Andrija, as 'the proclaimer', was supposed to convey to the people of Israel. As it is one of the major themes of the communications from now on, and allegedly one of the most important things to get mankind to understand, I will digress to summarise the whole story and message as it emerged through a number of communications held over this period. By way of introduction I should like to quote part of a communication which I recently participated in, when I was able to put a question and a point of view which I am sure many readers would want to put at this stage. This was in May 1976, when I paid a visit to Israel, and this particular conversation took place in a trance session with Phyllis in the Neptune hotel in Eilat. After spending nearly two weeks in Israel I had formed the impression that its people were efficient, aggressive, sensual, hidebound and quite unspiritual, and I couldn't reconcile this with what at that time I knew about their alleged role and history. So I put my problem and point of view to Tom:

'As the aim of your programme, as I understand it, is to heighten consciousness on this planet, and to unite the people of this planet, I find it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that the Israeli people are the chosen people for this work. It would seem that in this time the idea of a chosen people is a rather retrograde concept, and that if it has any meaning it is not racial but applies to people from all over the world and from different cultures.'

'Do you understand that in the nation of Israel there are represented all the nations of this planet Earth?' Tom asked. I said I realised that, and he continued: 'Do you understand that when we use the term "chosen" it is not necessary to relate to them that they are chosen, but what we are trying to say is that if they had followed their programme we would not be in the situation we are now in, for all of the nations on the planet Earth would be chosen. In this nation of Israel there are representatives of each of the nations on the planet, and if you reach this nation its energy will generate then to all of the other nations, and what should have been thousands of years ago will then come into being. It is not that they are chosen in specialness, for what they have chosen and been chosen for is similar to service. It must be understood that being chosen is not necessarily to be elite, for being chosen brings great difficulty.’

'Yes,' I said, 'I understand that, but my problem is that the Israelis as I see them today must be one of the most difficult people in the world to bring round to higher consciousness. I feel, though, that the higher consciousness is being generated by a large number of people scattered throughout the world, and that mankind's greatest hope lies with these people rather than with any special group.'

'We understand what you are saying,' Tom said, 'but if you imagine the universe as a whole and you see the planet Earth as a black spot in the universe which has bottlenecked the evolution of the universe and stopped the growth of the souls that should by this time have evolved further than they have, and if you then look upon the Earth as the universe and see the nation of Israel as the black spot of the planet Earth, you will then understand that it is important to reach the nation that has all nations within it in order to raise the level of all the nations.'

The logic may be difficult to follow, if you are not au fait with the view, which is central to Tom's philosophy, that events in the microcosm affect the macrocosm and vice versa, but the answer does quite ingeniously dispose of the suspicion that the Management are a kind of cosmic Zionist faction which must be the invention of some fanatic Zionist brain on Earth.

In the following paragraphs I will attempt to summarise the story of the history and role of the Jews using the framework of known Biblical history to supplement and elucidate the information volunteered by Tom over a period of time.

The land of Mesopotamia, which historians regard as the cradle of civilisation, was peopled by one of the groups that migrated from the nuclear civilisation of Aksu. About 2000 BC the space civilisation of Hoova launched another attempt to upgrade the planet Earth, and chose as the most promising group to work through the tribe living in Mesopotamia. It was Abraham of Ur who initiated the experiment, the aim of which was to produce an improved stock of human beings who, would lead the planet into its next evolutionary stage. The improvement was to be accomplished by engineering into the genetic code the essence of Hoova in order to produce a new hybrid species on Earth.

The children of Abraham were the first to be so implanted, and the plan was that they should eventually interbreed with all the nations and races of the world in order to produce a more highly evolved genetic strain, and also that they should raise human consciousness by teaching the skills and knowledge that were their heritage from Hoova. Chapter 17 of the Book of Genesis records Jehovah's covenant with Abraham: 'You shall be the father of a multitude of nations ... and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.' But the plan went wrong, because the Jews forgot their role and their cosmic origins and became an inbred ethnic group, forced in upon themselves by the struggle for survival in harsh physical conditions and by the enmity and resentment of other people who did not understand them.

Hoova had to intervene again to attempt to bring its errant protege people back to an understanding of their role and mission, in the thirteenth century BC, when Jehovah appeared as Moses. He led the Jewish people out of bondage and gave them the Law that was to become the basis of their religion. The purpose of the Law was to inculcate principle and self-discipline in the people. The forty years they spent wandering in the wilderness was a time of trial for the Jewish people, a test of their faith and their obedience, and though on occasion they denied God and rebelled against Moses' leadership, the generation that eventually inherited the Promised Land was a generation that had never known bondage and in whom a life of hardship had cultivated discipline and principle and its consummation had strengthened a faith in God.

There followed a time of internecine struggles and an attempt to build the earthly kingdom, and again the Jews made the error of forgetting their origins and their purpose. They isolated themselves from the world, they deified Moses and trivialised the Law by elaborating it into a code of religious observances. They enjoyed independence and sovereignty for a time, but they did not fulfil their intended function, and when this period ended with the Roman conquest Hoova took advantage of the conditions of social and spiritual upheaval and Jehovah incarnated again as Jesus of Nazareth, coming among his people as an example and a model of man's next phase of evolution. As Moses he had brought the principle of Law, and as Jesus he brought the principle of Love, in order to guide the Jewish people towards the fulfilment of their destiny.

'The book does not always tell the truth,' said Tom, referring to the Bible when Andrija said that as he understood it Jesus's betrayal and crucifixion were foreordained. The truth was that if the Jews had accepted Jesus as their leader and had followed him he would have shown them, and in turn the rest of the planet, the way to individual and global transformation. The crucifixion was not part of the plan, nor was the religion that centred its theology upon that event which only signified another failure on the part of the Jews to understand and fulfil their role in the process of planetary evolution. Thereafter they lost their homeland and were dispersed about the Earth, and though they contributed knowledge, invention and beauty to the other cultures they lived in, they never integrated completely with these other cultures but remained jealous of their traditions and their identity. The re-creation of the State of Israel in modern times presented the first opportunity since the diaspora for the Jews to be reached collectively and reminded of their true heritage and role. It is, however, now too late for the original plan of gradual planetary evolution through their agency to be carried out, and Hoova has adopted a new policy towards the Earth, a kind of shock-strategy because of the seriousness of the situation, in which a period of preparation will be followed by a landing on Earth. The process of preparation will not this time involve sending a special individual whom humanity might deify, but the, appearance of a number of individuals endowed with the powers of Hoova, of whom Uri Geller was one, and at the same time the work of trying to develop planetary and cosmic consciousness in the people of Israel will continue, if only because of all the Earth's peoples they are the most intractable, and if they can be raised and made aware of their cosmic connections there is hope for the rest of the world.

To return to the communication that took place after the visit to the church at Ein Kerem:

'You didn't have to lead me to the grotto of St John the Baptist,' Andrija told Tom. 'I mean, as a proclaimer, I didn't need to know of that particular place. But now the subject has been raised, can you tell us more about the strange tale of how St John's life ended? Is it true that Herod's daughter requested his head to be cut off ?'

'It was not Herod's daughter. It was his step-daughter.'

'And did she indeed order his head. ..'

'She was a child. She did it for her mother, for John spurned her.'

'I see. You mean that Herod's wife tried to lay St John?'

'We understand not that term,' Tom said. Andrija explained and he confirmed that this was in fact what had happened, and took the opportunity to give Andrija a bit of advice: 'You must be careful of your she-people who use the wiles of a she. You will not be beheaded, Doctor, but if you are not careful your personal life could interfere with your knowledge of truth, and that would be like a beheading.'

Andrija brought the conversation back to an earlier point. 'When one proclaims, one usually proclaims on the basis of knowledge, and that knowledge has a source...'

Tom didn't let him complete the sentence. He interrupted: 'John didn't have knowledge, and he proclaimed. Because he knew in his heart. You speak of knowledge as written or established. But true knowledge and wisdom is in the heart.'

There followed a long discussion of the means of proclaiming, and Tom said that Andrija should write another book, which would be based upon the communications and would serve as a source for material for television and film. They discussed what should go into the book and John raised the question of the past lifetime's material, pointing out that many mediums and other people in the past had totally discredited themselves by claiming to have been important people in other incarnations. 'We three are on the face of it very ordinary people,' he said, 'and people are going to wonder why we have this particular information.'

Tom had a suggestion. 'May it be possible in your publication to review your own lives in this lifetime in order to make sense of your past lives? Can you show the fine line of what you have brought forward?'

'Well yes, it would be possible if we knew more about our past lives,' Andrija said, 'and then we would have to decide if we could relate our present existence to the past ones. But the subject doesn't really concern us from a personal or ego point of view, and it isn't our main problem. The problem is, I'll tell you frankly, that we believe that you've given us what we call a "mission impossible". And when I say this I mean that for us, who are in this world as Gentiles, to try to convince the Jewish people, the Israelites, of their true origins and their true responsibilities, and of who is coming in the next few years, seems to me almost impossible.'

'Do you not understand that with the Nine and you three working together all things are possible?'

'Yes, you've told us that before, but we also know that there are certain things that you don't understand about the physical, about desire and about emotion, and it is we who have to deal directly with the emotions, with the blocks, with the negativity...'

'Do you not think that we are learning when we deal with the emotions of the three of you?'

'Yes,' Andrija conceded, 'we know you're learning because you tell us quite clearly things about ourselves that we aren't aware of. But then you must also recognise the unusually stubborn, hard-headed and disbelieving nature of this Israeli people.'

'Are you not stubborn and hard-headed? If you were not you would not have come this far. And Sir John, he is very much of a stubborn nature and with a hard head. And this Being at times we cannot reach because of the closing. Do you understand that the three of you are of the nature of those of Israel? And if you can reach each other you can reach those of the nation of Israel.'

'Well, I accept that.' Andrija said, 'but you have to remember that we have had your presence and guidance and even so have made many mistakes.'

'And you will do for those what we have tried to do for you,' Tom said with a note of finality.

They spent two days in Jerusalem on this first visit and at the end of the time were told by Tom that they had accomplished a great deal. 'Because of your presence and the energy that has been utilised from the three of you there is now greater hope and stability of emotion among the leaders of the nation,' he said, and went on to give an interesting brief analysis of the international political situation with regard to Israel: 'It was planned by the most powerful governments in your world that this nation would in fact be crucified. In the reasoning of the governments, it would have been justified. This has been averted at this time, but this does not mean there is complete peace. As you know, in all times of crisis those of the nation of Hoova have always taken the blame. It is because the rest of the people of the world need a reason for their emotion and it is projected on those of the nation of Hoova because of the lack of understanding. We are saddened that these people have come no further. It is true that those of the nation of Israel because of the physical conditions of the planet Earth have not followed the path of truth, but it is also true that those of the other nations have not done so either. In order to exonerate themselves they will cause a blemish upon another, and will throw the other into a pit of cobras. They will be ashamed at another time. But that has been the history of the planet Earth. We cannot have it so in the future, nor at this time. It is a time for each individual to stop, to respond, and to realise that it is within them that the blame lies, not within others.'

This was the kind of message that the three were now expected to proclaim, but as proclaiming was a new task laid upon them and one requiring some preparation, their activities during the rest of this stay in Israel were directed towards fulfilling their earlier instructions so travel about the country and thus help bring peace and stability to all its people.

There were a number of people in Israel who knew about Andrija's work in the parasciences and who somehow- got to know that he was in Tel Aviv, and John kept answering calls from people who wanted to meet him or to ask him to give a talk. Andrija was feeling pretty exhausted with all the travelling and generally refused such requests, but one invitation that they accepted because it happened to fall in with their itinerary led to interesting developments. It came from a Mrs Judith Stahl who lived in Amirim, a village in the hills of Galilee which was well known throughout Israel as the home of a vegetarian community. Mrs Stahl herself was a dietician and, judging from her phone call, seemed to have some ideas worth getting acquainted with, and as Andrija, Phyllis and John were planning a trip to Safed in Galilee the day after she phoned, they said they would visit her on their return journey to Tel Aviv in the late afternoon.

They made an early start the next day because Andrija, who had done this trip before, wanted to take the others to and spend some time at the ancient site of Megiddo on the way to Galilee. There was something about Megiddo, he said, that drew him back and made him feel he could spend hours there. The site of settlements going back, according to the guidebook, to about 6000 BC, Megiddo, is a mound of fairly modest height and dimensions which commands a view over the largest and most fertile plains of Israel, the plains that are supposed to be the physical battlefield of Armageddon, on the other side of which rise the symmetrical Mount Tabor and beyond that the rugged hills of Galilee. Archaeologists have cut away sections through the mound of Megiddo, and in the deepest of these excavations is situated the old Canaanite altar, a circular platform of rough stones. This was the particular spot that Andrija said he felt drawn back to. There were hawks nesting in the rock face flanking the altar, and hawks had a particular significance for Andrija. They stopped to meditate for ten minutes in this spot before continuing their journey.

Galilee, John thought, could have been a Swiss or South German lake but for the names familiar since the scripture lessons of childhood: Tiberias, Migdal, Capernaum. There was an east wind and the lake was green and choppy. The other side, where the Golan Heights rose, sand-coloured and streaked with gullies, looked uninhabited. After driving along the lakeside and visiting the sites they completed the journey to Safed, the hill town, ancient centre for the kabbalists, that from Galilee stood out conspicuously among all the other hills, crowned with a forest of tall trees. In Safed they spent some time walking through the narrow streets and up to the park, and they admired the view of the sun setting over the hills to the west. It was nearly dark when they arrived at Amirim and found the home of Mrs Stahl, who turned out to be a woman aged about forty-five, deeply tanned and bursting with energy. She was a woman of the commanding, insistent type, and her chief concern was to get Andrija to do research to validate her findings and theories about various diets. Andrija was interested in the theories but non-committal about working on them.

They had come to Amirim at a good time, said Mrs Stahl, because today was the festival of Hannuka and in the evening the children of the village were presenting a special Hannuka entertainment in the community hall, which they should certainly see. They went, and they enjoyed the entertainment despite the language barrier, for it was tuneful and zestful, and the drama was heightened by the conditions under which it took place, with soldiers standing around with uzi guns ready, for a neighbouring village had recently been attacked at night by infiltrators from Syria. One item in the entertainment made a particular impression on John, Phyllis and Andrija. A painted screen was brought on stage. It had a twofold frame and therefore consisted of three panels. On the lower half of each panel were painted three figures, curiously slant-eyed and unearthly looking beings. On the top half were mushrooms of the Amanita muscaria type (the 'Sacred Mushroom' that Andrija had written about in his book of that title). The symbolism was so obviously apt to their situation that John, Phyllis and Andrija all registered it independently while the screen stood on stage and they were waiting for the sketch to begin. It was not only the way that the nine figures were arranged in three groups of three, but also the fact that they each had over their heads this mushroom, for in recent communications Tom had referred to the umbrellas they now regularly used as 'mushrooms'. Then, as if to reinforce the already staggering impression made upon the visitors, when the sketch began nine children danced out from behind the screen carrying umbrellas. Once again, it seemed, synchronicity was at work, and the three could not help wondering whether their visit to this place was as accidental as it seemed.

It was not until the following day that they were able to confirm with Tom that the events of their trip were not mere chance coincidence. Andrija said, 'It was odd to find our symbol so clearly spelled out in this remote little village in the Galilee hills. The preparation for that must have been very long.'

'It was not overnight,' Tom said.

The screen had looked about thirty years old. To minds just getting emancipated from thinking in terms of cause and effect and of linear time the implications were mind-boggling. It was natural to assume that the village must have some special significance.

'Is there any lesson to be learned from the situation in Amirim,' Andrija said, 'and from the way those children are fed and brought up, which could be applied to the new generation of young people?'

'Those children are of a different nature,' Tom answered, 'and it could be said that the way they have been raised has in part given them this nature. But also they are all species, and all of them have within them the ability of Uri. Did you not see that?'

'Well, we saw that they were different,' Andrija said. 'We didn't know how it would manifest, though.'

'There is a difference. It is that Uri is aggressive and has fears, but there are no fears in these children.'

Amirim had another significance. 'It is a place of special importance to you, Sir John,' Tom explained, 'because of the many times that you have existed in the area. You were there for many of your physical lives before the time of the Nazarene. You knew of this.'

'Well, I did have a very special feeling for the place,' John said, 'but I didn't realise that was why.'

On a future visit to Israel, Tom said, they would go again to Amirim and spend more time there.

In the same communication they asked Tom about Megiddo and obtained an interesting response. The first settlement there was three thousand years earlier than generally supposed, in 9228 BC to be precise. Then a migrant group had come from afar 'at the time of the destruction of our great anger' (a phrase which will be explained later). 'It was a stronghold of those that were in truth, but those that opposed sought to destroy it.’

'How did Megiddo come to be associated with Armageddon?' Andrija asked.

'Have we not explained that those that opposed tried to destroy the colony that was of the essence of truth? It left in the area a vibration, and this was always an area of battle, both in the physical and in the spheres.'

'What puzzles me,' Andrija said, 'is that there's only one mention of Armageddon in the Bible, and that's almost a passing reference.'

'We did not control what men put in your Bible,' Tom said. 'Remember, there are parts of your Bible that are not in your Bible.'

In several communications over this period Tom reiterated that they must leave Israel by 11 December, and three days before this date Andrija mentioned in a communication session that they had not yet been able to cover the whole of Israel in their travels and asked if they should extend their stay in order to complete the project. Tom said that on no account should they leave later than midday on the twelfth, and that already they had accomplished enough to ensure stability in the Middle East situation for three months, but they ought to plan to return in February. This reminded Andrija of a report he had just read in a newspaper of a speech given by King Hussein of Jordan warning that war in the Middle East could develop to planetary proportions and stressing the importance of working towards peace in the area.

'Parts of the statement were almost word for word what you have said to us,' Andrija told Tom. 'Did you have any direct influence on him?

'We had not. You had,' Tom said. 'Have we not explained that you are here in order to stabilise the leaders, and that you have a radius of 1,500 of your miles?'

'Yes, we understand these things,' Andrija said, 'but I think you have to respect our modesty. It's hard for us to believe that we could have such influence.'

'We will explain again,' said Tom in that tone of indulgent patience that was becoming familiar. 'When a project is important and we request you to put aside your personal life and to proceed upon the project, each of you has three of us with you. Have you not seen what has been accomplished? Have you not noticed what has happened after you have been in an area? Have you not seen that there are those of the Arab nations that are now beginning to soften and to understand this nation? Have you not seen that within some of the Arab nations they are fearful that Arafat will begin to take over and control them? They are now turning their attention to internal problems.'

Well,' said Andrija, 'we've been a little too busy these days to keep up with all of that detail, but thanks for putting us in the picture.'

On their last day in Israel, 10 December, they planned a trip that would take in as many as possible of the parts of the country they had not yet covered. They left Tel Aviv early and by mid-morning they were in Hebron, where they visited Abraham's tomb. They went to Bethlehem for lunch, then drove on to visit Jericho and the Dead Sea. In falling darkness they drove south along the road coasting the Dead Sea, then cut across the Negev to Beersheba, whence they planned to cross to the Mediterranean coastal road and drive directly back to Tel Aviv.

They were not long out of Beersheba when Phyllis got one of her flashes. She said that there was something wrong with the tyre on the right-hand front wheel. John pulled up and he, Andrija and Leon, who was accompanying them again, examined the tyre, but they could find no fault in it. John was a little irritated, because he suspected that Phyllis had said that just to slow down his driving. With a big distance to cover, he had tended throughout the day to drive faster than Phyllis found comfortable, and she had several times made her discomfort known, but John had only paid cursory attention because he knew he was driving safely. Not long after they had resumed their journey after examining the tyre John carelessly hit a kerbstone, and a few miles further on he felt on the steering the pull that signals a flat tyre. Fortunately it wasn't a burst but only a leak due to damage to the rim of the wheel when he had hit the kerb. It was the right-hand front wheel that was damaged, so obviously Phyllis had had a precognitive flash. They changed the wheel and continued their journey. They were about thirty-five kilometres from Tel Aviv when they ran into a quite spectacular storm, and suddenly, simultaneously with the occurrence of a particularly bright lightning flash, the car's engine cut dead. John found a suitable place to pull in off the road as the car coasted to a standstill. He tried several times to start the engine, but it did not fire once. Remembering the incident at Ein Kerem some days before, he said, 'What are we supposed to do this time, Phyllis? I don't see any church.'

'I guess we'd better just sit here and meditate,' Phyllis said. They did as she suggested for five minutes, then John tried to start the engine again but still nothing happened. Phyllis thought a longer meditation was required, but Andrija suggested that she should go into trance and try to find out what was happening. She did so, and came up with the information that there was a great battle taking place in the spheres and that in order to send helping energy to the forces of light they should immediately meditate for a longer period. Phyllis came out of trance and they meditated for a further twenty minutes. During this period of meditation John kept getting an image of two people, a man and a woman, the latter with her face badly mutilated as if she had been in an accident. After the twenty minutes John tried the starter again and this time the engine fired instantly and in another half hour they were back at the Sheraton.

It wasn't only Phyllis who was annoyed at the way John had driven on the trip. That night Tom chastised him severely saying that but for the protection of Hoova and Altea, 'you would no longer have been in existence on the physical planet Earth, but you would have been returned with us'. A lot of energy had been deployed protecting them, which could have been put to other use if John had not put all their lives at risk. 'We cannot waste the energy of Hoova or of Altea or of you three to protect you from your own foolishness,' Tom reproached him. As for the stopping of the car, that too had been the work of Altea, for a contribution of energy from the three was required at that particular time.

'Was there some major event going on in the battle of Armageddon?' Andrija asked.

'The battle of Armageddon is between what you call the sons of light and the sons of dark, but remember that it also affects physical planets,' Tom said. 'Those that oppose had set in motion a situation to help those that they work through on the physical planet.' There had been a difficulty prevented at the Yavneh power station, though two lives had been lost in the process. They hadn't realised it at the time, but the place where the car had stopped was near Yavneh. The situation, Tom said, both in the spheres and on Earth, was now stabilised, and they would be able to leave as planned the following day.

'May we hold with you now ten minutes of prayer,' Tom said in conclusion. 'The twelve of us will pray together, and then we will close and leave.' And the prayer he proceeded to give them, which is also a summary of the main motifs of the communications, will make a fitting conclusion to the present chapter: