They drove along the Rim Road and stopped at a turnout to walk the edge of the Colorado Plateau and take in the valley below.The Yavapai and later the Tonto Apache were drawn to this area more than a millennium ago. But the Army drove them off in the 1870s after gold was discovered near Prescott. He remembered the story. In the summer of 1882, not far from where they were standing on the Mongollon Rim, the high escarpment of the plateau that ran across central Arizona, the Apache had made their last stand.
The drive had been soothing, and when they reached the plateau Ryan Crown began with the tale of Nock-ay-del-klinne, the Apache medicine man who had set the battle in motion. Nock-ay-del-kinne had begun a ghost dance cult, he said, and had predicted that dead warriors would return and lead them to victory. The Army was worried enough to send almost two hundred soldiers from Fort Apache to arrest him. In the shootout that followed the medicine man was killed and the troops were slaughtered. But the uprising ended when the Army tracked a band of Apaches to the rim just north of Payson and killed most of them.
The Yavapai and Apaches recognized the natural energy of the area, Crown said. They didn’t need shiny scientific toys to sense that powerful forces were at work. He talked about the abundance of Iron Oxide, which gave the soil, the rocks, even the bark of trees their reddish hue. That and other metals and minerals common to the area helped to focus the earth’s geomagnetism, produced by its molten outer core. Below the surface quartz was embedded in the sandstone. Years of research with Fluxgate magnetometers and induction coils confirmed the intensity of the resulting electromagnetic activity, he explained.
As stimulating as he found such ideas he couldn’t turn off the other questions collecting and colliding in his brain or the roiling emotions they reinforced. Crown recognized the problem and shifted the conversation, pivoting to a recap of government experiments with paranormal abilities, beginning with hypnosis in World War II. The classic Hitchcock movie The 39 Steps turns out to be pretty close. Hypnosis was used with couriers, apparently splitting their personalities so that one could remember a secret message while the other wouldn’t be aware of it or crack under pressure.
In 1983, while Crown was recording the images of remote viewers, the army was pursuing the Jedi Project. Visualization, positive reinforcement and suggestion became tools to increase concentration and willpower. They were the keys to high performance in battle, while neuro-linguistic programming accelerated the training.
He claimed to have no direct knowledge of what DARPA was doing then, or of the specific tests Tonio Wolfe had undergone long ago. From his descriptions and Crown’s own knowledge of the agency, however, he speculated that it was probably connected to aerospace research. Children were considered good test subjects because they reacted more spontaneously and had fewer preconceptions. They might also have been looking for kids who showed above-average potential for NASA or other space program projects, perhaps trolling for the astronauts of the future.
That made it sound only slightly less offensive.
Once they were back from walking the Rim for an hour, Crown suggested that Tonio could use some time “off the grid,” a period with no email or calls, time and space to get centered. It sounded like the right idea.
“When?”
“Right now. I have gear in the trunk, sleeping bags, food, everything we need.” Tonio hesitated. “Be prepared, the scouts have at least one thing right.”
That night they camped at the foot of Schnebly Hill, a high plateau with views of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. After dinner Crown turned the discussion to what he had learned since leaving the government. The techniques he and others were attempting to control in the service of national security had existed for millennia, he said. In ancient Mexico Aztec dream interpreters used sleep deprivation and drugs to sharpen their minds and, so they claimed, travel through space to spy on enemies. Remote viewing, Crown suggested, might be a modern version of what was once called soul traveling.
He explained that human beings specialized in mastering their power to reason, and also gave considerable attention to their emotions. What they did not practice nearly enough was the control of dreams and will. The focus on reason reinforces our ordinary perception of the world and the “rules” we believe govern it, he said. But it is also possible to transcend reason and mobilize the will.
Beyond the personal level, he said, there are places that can amplify natural abilities, some of them conducive to introspection, others more helpful with skill development or expanded consciousness. Schnebly Hill was such a place, he said, a center of energy that can heal and purify.
Tonio wanted to object. He had heard his mother enthuse about Sedona’s vortices, places where the earth’s energy is somehow enhanced and helps with self-awareness and health. Tourists treated them like spiritual hot tubs. As a teen he had witnessed hundreds of believers, his mother among them, waiting at Bell Rock in 1987. They had convinced themselves that the top of the rock would open to reveal an alien craft. The fact that nothing happened failed to prevent people from believing that the area was a vortex buffet.
Sensing the skepticism Crown returned to basics — the spinning motion around an imaginary axis known as vortical flow. He pointed out that vortices exist in numerous forms — stirred liquids, smoke rings, whirlpools, hurricanes — and move in complex ways. Their most evolved form is the spiral.
He had selected their campsite because of its location near a magnetic inflow vortex, where energy flowed toward the earth. This tended to generate pensive reactions and a cleansing focus that could help with introspection or on a spiritual quest.
He had to admit feeling “heavy” since settling down for the night. Not depression, but definitely an increased intensity in the air.
“What are you afraid of?” Crown asked. “Not superstition or personal secrets, the real deal. Do you know?”
He thought about it before answering. “Being trapped, I suppose. That I can’t escape my circumstances or change anything. Also, that there may be no answers out there, that there’s just chaos.”
“That makes sense. You remind me of Stephen Dedalus, from Ulysses. Joyce has him talking with a teacher who believes that history is moving toward one goal — the manifestation of God. But Stephen, who is Irish, thinks history is filled with chaos and violence — to begin with, the violence of excluding people who don’t believe in God. And he thinks people who are responsible for terrible violence too often get away with it.”
“Yes. So, he’s feeling pretty hopeless. But he also feels that his personal history must somehow be overcome.”
“I can identify.”
“And so he says ‘history is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake’.”
“Can’t argue with most of that, though I don’t accept the chaos part. At least I hope he’s wrong.”
That night he slept soundly for the first time in almost a week.
— adapted from Greg Guma’s novel, Dons of Time
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