A New World

by Whitley Strieber

  This and the next chapter are, very specifically, about our nonhuman visitors. The two chapters concern what they want and what they have to give, and what they will take if we abandon it.

  Their needs are going to seem as strange to us as our lives do to them. Because of the way they are structured, as I have discussed, they cannot experience surprise. Their lives, trapped in what amounts to an eternal present, are absent all the excitement, wonder and beauty, all the pain and terror, all of the living that defines the human experience.

  They are here for surprise, for beauty, for excitement. They, living and yet dead, are here for life. Our blindness to the future, which to them is our most precious asset, is what enables us to have novel experiences and learn from it. It is what enables us to journey toward ascension and ecstasy.

  They have all the knowledge there is, but they cannot make this journey. This is why they are so desperate that we survive, for we are their main chance to participate in the wonder of life and touch its joy. They want us to join together, to cooperate with one another. We will provide the excitement of the journey, they the knowledge that keeps it from going off the rails—which, right now, it is in the process of doing.

  I don’t know why they are as they are or have the needs that they do. I think it’s damned lucky for us, though, because without their help, I don’t think that we’re likely to survive. With it, we are going to become a huge, extraordinary engine of experience, travelers in every place that the new is to be found. We will cross the reaches between the stars and find new paths in the mirror universe and other universes, carrying with us our brilliant companions, who will be providing all the knowledge we need to make the human journey grand and to make it last, and to give them what they so desperately need, which is a share in our wonder.

  Perhaps it’s because they have learned so much that they are ranging the firmament in search of a new experience, as Kuiper and Morris speculated. Perhaps it’s because they are conscious machines and cannot make the journey through heaven’s gate except hand in hand with us natural beings.

  However they have ended up as they are, I am rather sure that I am talking here about the core reason they want contact, and the deepest meaning of communion. Their chance to join the expanding wave front of ecstasy that is the true goal of life depends on gaining some sort of partnership with us, who cannot help but be on that journey.

  As I have come to know them, I have come to feel compassion for their need. I have also found that we have common ground, and I have used that to find also a basis for relationship.

  Frankly, I’m excited about the partnership. To many, it will at first be frightening. They will fear that it is possession. Of course, that’s exactly what it mustn’t be. They must be silent sharers, or they will not get what they want. Not only will there be no possession, they will do everything in their power not to expose us to the totality of their knowledge. That would ruin communion for them. Their adventure, and their joy, depends on our not knowing everything. In this sense, we’re a perfect match for each other: we need their knowledge; they need our innocence.

  We have the potential to share because, deep down, we are woven from the same fabric. We are both among nature’s predators. As I will explain in the next chapter, I also have reason to believe that, while their involvement with us can be made to benefit both sides, there are situations where their predatory instincts prevail, and I know why.

  Normally, they live among us as they do with me, in a symbiosis that is, for the most part, secret and therefore limited in ways that are very frustrating for them. Without openly sharing the journey, they must ride in silence, never taking the rudder of life, not even when it would be in our best interest that they do this.

  Right now is a good example of such a time. If they were sharing their knowledge more directly, we wouldn’t be on the point of extinction.

  Normally, in my experience, they share, they do not take—by which I mean, take the richness of experience that we gather into ourselves as we journey through life. From what I have seen and learned, they will remove from our souls only what we have abandoned of ourselves. This is why being awake to our lives in a richer way—the sort of acute consciousness taught by G.I. Gurdjieff and others—is so important. If you at once live your life and see yourself living it, they must share your experience. They cannot take even the smallest bit of life that enters you. But there is evidence that they feel free to take what of ourselves we abandon, and that, if we abandon ourselves entirely, they feel that they may take everything.

  When you are physically face to face with them—which I have been on a few rare occasions—you feel not only the devastating power of their reflective eye, but also the sense of the predator. They’re wary, too, I suspect because they sense our predatory nature as well. The difference is that they hunger for our souls while we think in terms of lashing out at their bodies.

  When I first started trying to engage with them, I was just amazed at the level of fear I was experiencing. When I saw how my cats reacted on the night of the nine knocks, I was shocked. Those animals were more frightened than I thought they could be. Cats’ tails puff up when they’re scared, but when they’re really scared, as they were that night, they apparently become head to tail fuzzballs. Their yowling was just unearthly. I think that they were like this because they have souls, too, and their souls were under threat and they knew it, and that is much more terrible than the threat of death.

  While I do not think that we necessarily need to fear them, we do need to be aware of the nature of the threat that is present. The reason that I don’t think that fear is necessarily an appropriate response comes from my own life experience: I have had them in my life for thirty years and I’m still here, still free, and living a richly satisfying life.

  Another is how our relationship has evolved. In the early days, I would walk out into those woods at night almost unable to put one foot in front of the other. During the ten years I did this, I was afraid the entire time. In other words, proximity didn’t help. This is because this is not about somehow getting used to them. It is about understanding yourself as well as they understand you, so that when their gaze penetrates to your darkest, most hidden places, you will not be shocked by what you see there, and therefore you will not be terrified. If my experience is any example, what you will be, once you really get to know yourself, is understanding. Your shame, your dread of your failures, your imperfections—all of that stuff that you don’t want to face—will gather together in a great flood of acceptance, and you will be free. Still the same but free. And then, deep in your life and deep in yourself, you will start trying to repair what you can of any hurt you have brought into the world.

  It’s called being a seeker, and when you join that motley crew, you will find that the visitors, awful though they sometimes seem, are your companions.

  In February of 2019, I spent the night alone in a house with them that was miles from any help and from which there was no quick escape. We had a meeting, and it wasn’t pleasant. They were angry because this book was going too slowly. The meeting was not a sit-down discussion. Hardly that. But it was certainly a meeting. What happened was that I proposed to work on this book during the day and on a novel I’ve been aching to write at night. The answer was a decisive “no.”

  Twenty years ago, I would have run out of that house, gotten in my car, and driven straight into the depths of the nearest city. On that night, once our business together was concluded, I went upstairs and went to bed. I had a good night’s sleep, interrupted as usual by the 3 AM meditation, during which they were so close to me that it was like being stared at by a hungry tiger from three feet away. But there was love, too. Lots of it. Yes, I was face to face with a tiger, but I am not the tiger’s prey and my soul knows it.

  So how did I manage this little act of legerdemain? I’m still full of imperfections. The difference is that now I’m not in denial about them. I know them and accept them, so when the visit
ors see them so do I, and I’m neither repelled nor surprised. I have accepted myself, warts and all.

  The result is that I am comfortable sharing myself with them.

  Nevertheless, it feels incredibly dangerous to let them in. I know this for certain because I have been doing it, and struggling with the fear involved, for years.

  What I have come to is that I don’t think they’re dangerous to me, and I don’t think they will be after I die, either. Anne wasn’t perfect, and she ascended. I saw her do it. In fact, the great majority of us die into a higher state, all of the richness and complexity and beauty of the lives we’ve lived adding to the ecstasy that is the greater aim of all life.

  Ecstasy, though, does not involve only pleasant experiences. It is the process of accepting all experience. Ecstasy is everything, reconciled.

  It’s said for good reason that the devil is a tempter, and I have had them draw me toward all sorts of angers, lusts, and so forth, simply because it was exciting. In the real world, though, that same entity, who as a demon, tempted me in ways that would have left me with regrets that would impede my eventual ascension, would also glow with excitement when I was feeling love.

  They have taught me over all these years, with endless determination and patience, how to be the best man I can be, so that I can be their partner instead of their victim. It is my impression that I’ve lost the deep fear of them because my instincts are now telling me that I’m not going to be preyed upon. I’m no longer a potential food source but a partner in the journey. I share my life and they share their knowledge.

  It is this trade, incidentally, that I think has the potential to save us. What if there were ten thousand scientists like Ed Belbruno, all receiving knowledge like he did? We’re looking at another enormous increase in human knowledge, which will bring with it also the collapse of the barrier between the physical and nonphysical sides of our species, and a subsequent new vision of what death means and how to live a moral life.

  Just as they are predators in the realm of the nonphysical, we are in the physical world. We won’t prey on another creature if we live in symbiosis with it. Dogs and cats are not eaten because they work for us. The cats came into the granaries of the Egyptians and ate the mice and rats. The Egyptians were so pleased that they didn’t just treat them with respect, they considered them gods. Dogs hunted with us, of course. With horses, it’s the same. For ten thousand years, they carried our burdens. Other things that we keep, like monkeys, birds and so forth are safe from our larders because we enjoy their presence in our lives.

  Nature is full of symbiotic relationships, and there is every indication that this is exactly what is trying to happen between us and the visitors. There is a difference between this symbiosis, though, and, say, ours with the dogs. It is that we, also, are highly intelligent. For this reason, there is potential here for a truly electrifying partnership, with both sides gaining tremendously from it.

  For us, it means empowerment in the face of looming catastrophe. For them, it means freedom from the death in life that is always knowing for certain what your next step is going to be.

  The question then becomes, “How can I become a symbiote instead of supper?”

  The answer could not be more simple: become a strong soul, and it doesn’t matter whether you believe in the soul or not, you can still do this.

  The world is filled with texts about how the soul works, why it is there and what its fate may be. All of these texts address the matter in the context of one set of religious beliefs or another. The modern secular script, which I followed for most of my adult life, says that there is no soul. For visitors who are just looking for a nice dip into the thrill of life, that’s a lovely turn of events because it leaves the victim of that belief so vulnerable.

  As we explore the reality of soul life and soul vulnerability more objectively, the question arises as to whether or not there is any way to build a strong soul outside of the religious context. Is it possible to be a modern, secular person and still be attentive to one’s soul?

  Indeed it is, and you needn’t even address the question of whether or not you have one. Living a good life as insurance will work just as well as living it with the belief that the soul is real. On the other hand, if religion is your preferred way, it does offer paths to build a strong soul that are effective. It also offers pitfalls, of course, the chief one being that the faithful should kill off everybody who doesn’t believe as they do. As Anne says, “The human species is too young to have beliefs. What we need are good questions.” This is particularly true when it comes to religion. We don’t yet have a ground of certainty to support any religious belief that exists now or ever has.

  This doesn’t mean that they’re wrong, and certainly not that they’re useless. The most sublime text on meditation ever written, the ancient Chinese Secret of the Golden Flower is a Taoist religious text. It is also a brilliantly insightful exploration of how to use soul energy and increase soul strength.

  When the visitors first started showing me that the soul could be understood outside of a religious context, I began looking for some way of doing this. Could there be an objective science of the soul? Was there one somewhere, or had there ever been?

  I think that there is a very old text that is not entirely religious but rather addresses the life of the soul through an objective lens, which I am calling soul science. This is because it is about the life of the soul, the health and feeding of the soul and the journey of ascension, but with few religious references. It is, in other words, a sort of craft book of the soul based on what I think of as a lost, objective science of the soul.

  I suspect that there was a time when we could perceive our souls more directly and had not caused them to disappear into the illusion called the supernatural. By science here, I mean the systematic study through observation and experiment, in this case of the soul, carried out just as if it was part of the physical world like any other natural phenomenon—which I believe that it is.

  The text I am referring to is the 3,200-year-old Pyramid Text found in the Pyramid of Unas, which I mentioned in the last chapter. Before I begin describing how, exactly, it describes the soul and its connection to the body, I would like to discuss the energy that is involved here.

  We now commonly call it things like prana, chi, and kundalini. From the fact that it can be demonstrated to work in acupuncture, some western scientists now believe that it exists, but it has never been successfully detected. I think that it goes undetected for the same reason that the visitors do: it is not going to submit to detection by anybody who does not understand that it is conscious. There is little written about it as such, but the enigmatic Master of the Key spoke extensively about it during our 1998 meeting. He said, “Conscious energy is not like unconscious energy, the servant of those who understand its laws. To gain access to the powers of conscious energy, you must evolve a relationship with it. Learn its needs, learn to fulfill them.” I then asked how to do this. He replied, “By first realizing that you are not cut off. There is no supernatural. There is only the natural world, and you have access to all of it. Souls are part of nature.” He also said that it was part of the electromagnetic spectrum and detectable as such, but also that it isn’t passive and will decide whether or not it is to be detected, and the degree.

  The visitors are full of this conscious energy. When one of them touches you, you feel waves of it coursing through your body. This can be pleasant, as it was for Raven Dana. It can be so powerful that it is incapacitating. I’ve experienced this. It can be painful, which is what happened when it shocked me awake in September of 2015. Coming into contact with it as it flows through the body can be healthful, which is why acupuncture works and why doing the sensing exercise is so healthy.

  If my reading of the Pyramid Text is correct, at this early time in their history, the Egyptians still had an objective understanding of this energy. Where it came from, I don’t know, but it would seem that a good bit of our past is lo
st. (There’s really no mystery about this. When the last ice age ended, the oceans inundated coastlines around the world to a depth of thirty feet and more. Underwater archaeology is costly and very difficult, with the result that we know little of what once lay along those shores.)

  They saw the energy in the spine as the link between the physical body and what I see as the energetic body. They believed that there are basically three spiritual bodies, the ka, or nonphysical double of the person, the ba which was able to travel between the world of the living and that of the dead, and the akh, which is the part that survived death. They believed that the evil don’t grow the akh, and just disappear after death, just as Anne observed happening after she died.

  The Pyramid Text describes the spine as a serpent of energy that is linked to the body by seven smaller serpents that surround it, the ta-ntr. I think that those seven serpents became the chakras, or circles of energy that we know today from Indian mysticism, and that ta-ntr may have evolved into tantra, although there’s no scholarly evidence for this.

  What matters, though, is understanding that linkage. I have been out of body a number of times. On three such occasions, I was visible to other people, so I am quite sure that the belief that this is actually an internal state is wrong. One was Linda Moulton Howe who will attest to it, another was broadcaster Roy Leonard, who has passed away, and the third is a scientist I can’t name.

  I have tried many times to do it on my own but with little success. Twice when I have been taken out, and I feel that this is important, I have experienced either a sensation of something being unlocked along my spine or a shock going down it. Then I have been able to roll out and move through the world around me, remaining conscious and aware. When I was seen by the scientist, I was able to have a conversation with him. I was not able to control what we talked about, however. I was there as a messenger, saying to him that he needed to face the reality of his soul and to do whatever he needed to help him strengthen it by coming to terms with himself. He chose to go in the direction of religion. This is fine. As I’ve said, religions offer useful paths.