Mitch Visits Mt. Shasta

Mike

As Sheila, Lynn, and Mitch get out of the car at Shasta Abbey, they are greeted by a male junior monk. All the monks, men and women, are in full tonsure, heads shaved completely bald.

"The Reverend Master Jiyu is expecting you. She's currently in meditation with novices but she'll be available in a half-hour or so. Please, I'll show you to your rooms in the cloister."

After unloading their baggage, Sheila, Lynn and Mitch are led by the junior monk to the Grand Buddha Hall, where about 60 seats have been arranged facing a dais upon which stands a heavy-set white woman in grand dark-red monastic robes.

"Sheila, Lynn," she says with a plummy upper-class English accent, "How good to see you both here again," beaming a wide smile at the women. Sheila says, "Likewise, Reverend Master. This is Matthew Hearst, our guest who we told you about on the phone." Master Jiyu looks deeply at Mitch. There is no one else in this Hall from the monastery but the Reverend Master and her junior monk, and Master Jiyu beckons to Mitch.

"How fortuitous, the Gospel of Matthew is the most dear to my own heart. The tax collector who turned from his life of sin and serving Mammon to following the Christ. Please, sit with me, good Matthew." She beckons Mitch to sit opposite her, lotus position, on the dais in front of this empty theater of awaiting seats. With a gesture she dismisses her junior monk, and Sheila and Lynn walk to the back of the Hall and sit as far away from Master Jiyu and Mitch as they can.

Jeff

Mitch is unsurprised to see the ... whole deal, of this place. "Hi," he says, a little later than he shoulda. "Thanks for, uh, seeing me." He'll try to read Master Jiyu's aura, hesitating only briefly (it takes him two seconds) before sitting where she indicates.

Mike

Master Jiyu's aura is powerful; not Illuminated like our friend Pete from the Mexican restaurant, but potent. Her Will is tremendous. While the aura which extends from her body does ripple with a tremendous amount of psychic (not literal, you know what I mean) power, the elements of her aura closer to her physical being are tremendously unhealthy. Locking your eyes on how her aura extends from her power points and chakras, you can tell that the illness that plagues her is systemic and has been at her a long time, a couple of decades or more: a combination of diabetes, other endocrine dysfunction, and some sort of long-lasting autoimmune disease. Moreover, one of the interesting things is how you can see her physical unhealth and spiritual health affecting one another. It's clear that the pain and discomfort she is in is having a detrimental effect on her spiritual aura, which would be even more powerful (and tranquil) were she not suffering physically.

One more bit: you wouldn't be surprised if Master Jiyu has been near death's door before and/or is likely to be there again soon, that's how serious her health problems are.

Master Jiyu takes a long gaze into Mitch's eyes. After a good 10, 15 seconds (as Mitch is himself examining her aura) she says, "What have you done to your karma, Matthew?" Her voice is raspy, yet confident. But as Master Jiyu goes on, she begins to sound like more like a strict upper-class British headmistress taking demerits than a Buddhist nun. "You are bruised. Battered. You've been through much suffering. And yet, you seem to have learned nothing from it. Have you taken the easy path? Do you surround yourself with bodhisattvas... or with demons?"

Jeff

Faced with a vice-principal, Mitch struggles to resist his instinct to revert to an insolent teenager. "That which goes into the mouth doesn't defile a man," he says, a little more sourly than he meant to. "I do the best I can."

Mike

Master Jiyu smiles. "What do you know about zazen, Matthew? The art of remaining rooted and remaining silent. I sense that you are a restless wanderer. More a tumbleweed than a redwood."

Jeff

"Different strokes for different folks ... and clearly you're quite well-traveled, yourself ... but I've gone wherever I've been pushed, and done what I needed to, when I got there. Or at least, I've tried."

Mike

"The wind buffets the leaf upon the branch. And the leaf does flutter and land where it must. But if I asked you to remain rooted and silent—for three days—in silent contemplation of self and universe—could you do that? Could you direct that gaze you so expertly trained upon me inward? Because if so I welcome you to this abbey and will be there for you when the breakthrough happens, to help you understand your kenshō. If you are not brave enough to take on this challenge," she says dismissively, "then to hell with you."

Jeff

Mitch can tell this is, like, her thing — coming down on petitioners like a schoolmarm and challenging them to be their best, and stuff. He’s still a little touchy about it, though, because he resents being treated like an insolent teenager and he resents being put in a position where acting like an insolent teenager is his instinctive response.

But he stops himself and says he’s up for whatever and, sure, if he’s going to sit for three days to prove a point about whether he deserves teaching and help, then fine, it’s not as if a test of worthiness ran counter to any major religion’s tenets about charity or anything — and then he stops himself again halfway through that thought, and tries to clear his head.

In effortlessly sinking into a meditative state, Abbess Jiyu is somewhat taken aback (of course Mitch doesn't really notice, as he has gotten into alpha wave territory very quickly). In moving into this state, Mitch is able to sense further around himself, essentially pushing his Aura Reading out of this little Buddha Hall, through Sheila and Lynn (who Mitch can sense now don't have anything near the aura of himself and Master Jiyu) and into the web of life outside the door. The trees, the bugs crawling in the dirt, the distant cloisters full of novice monks in prayer and eager visitors settling into their rooms ... Mitch can feel it all. And he's never had this kind of trip from meditation before; in fact, Mitch believes it might have something to do with the place, the genius loci of this tiny sanctuary running alongside Interstate-5 in the shadow of the Mountain. But it's the Mountain that really hits Mitch hard in his trance state. It's ... both there and not there, if that makes any sense. In its massive presence it is a quivering needle in the body of the World, expertly tuned into dragon currents and ley lines stretching across California and the American continent. But it's also not there at the same time! Mitch wonders if he's also accidentally triggered his Detect (History B) ability through this web of meditation, and he's seeing through to the Other Side, but it's at that moment that the trance ends suddenly.

"Matthew." Jiyu's voice says. "Matthew, it's time to release yourself." When Mitch comes to, the sun is shining through the louvered windows from a completely different angle. It's been over an hour.

Jeff

“There and not there” sounds like a History-B leak thing, Mitch is unnerved by that, in a whole additional layer to his meditative experience.

“That was more than I was expecting,” Mitch says after a few seconds. He’s probably ready to stand up and walk around, now, but if Master Jiyu remains unimpressed he’s prepared to drink a few swallows of water and go back to it.

It wasn’t three days, Mitch can tell.

Mike

A tiny patchwork-coated cat comes up to Mitch and rubs against his leg. "That's Ophelia," Jiyu says with a (somewhat) astonished smile at Mitch. Jiyu stands up and offers her hand to Mitch. "Go get settled in. We'll have lunch in a bit, then a welcome orientation to all the retreat participants, then our first group meditation."

Jeff

Mitch moves to let the cat sniff his fingers, which is a habit he got as a kid around dogs, then pets the air over her back. Then sure, he stands.

Mike

It seems from the look Jiyu gives to Sheila and Lynn that Mitch has definitely passed some kind of test in the Abbess's eyes.

Mitch

He will walk around rootlessly a bit, no doubt ending up at some little tucked-away side garden or shrine or something.

Mike

Sheila will come up to Mitch after he's had a moment or two to relax at the Zen garden. "So what do you think of Master Jiyu?" Sheila says with a smile.

Jeff

Mitch thinks a moment before responding, because on the one hand, she initially rubbed him the wrong way--he felt like she was talking down to him--but on the other hand it's far from the first time he's had this reaction to gurus of all stripes, and if you meet nothing but assholes all day...

So he puts that aside and says "I'm pretty sure she's not an agent of the Red King, I'll say that much."

Mike

Sheila says, "Well, that's for certain. I know her attitude can be ... abrasive. But if her estimation of you was such that she decided to break out the tough 'love it or leave it' approach within five minutes of meeting you ... that means she must think highly of you. Honestly, you're more likely to see her tender side this weekend; when the seekers come from Berkeley and the City for a weekend silent retreat like this one, she's certainly not going to go around slapping paying donors around."

"But most importantly ... she's got vision as well, Mitch. Maybe not as acute and powerful as yours, but SANDMAN knows she's a preternatural judge of character. And for those who have had their minds harmed by the Red King, her unique approach, combined with the energies of the mountain, have had a profound healing effect on other Sandmen."

Jeff

Energies of the mountain. Mitch lets that one bounce around in his head for a while ... Mitch looks uncomfortable, because he'd just chalked his initial antipathy towards her to being a problem on his end (NB Mitch's similar reaction to Marshall), and now Sheila is trying to reassure him about it. "I'm sure," he says, finally. "The energies of the mountain, as you say ... it's more than I was expecting."

Mike

Sheila nods. "It's a potent place. You know, there are all the spots on the map that have been fought over by the great powers over the past century or so. You know they have reverberations — throughout both our history and on the other side — from all the archaeological and geographic and historical riddles around them. Mt. Shasta is ... a little different. It has attracted over that same period a series of channelers and psychics and magicians and holy men and, yes, charlatans, and they all seem to agree that something having to do with a lost or ancient or subterranean civilization exists here, either on or inside the mountain. Any Sandman reality archeologist worth their salt would immediately assume we're talking about a giant subduction zone where ordinary non-sensitives have caught glimpses of Irruptor architecture or fauna. (Remind me to regale you with the tales of the Siskiyou bigfoots sometime.) And yet aside from some highly suggestive anecdotal evidence in the historical record—mostly on the part of those same spiritual seekers and crackpots — nothing. Folks from the Project have tramped up and down that mountain and never found anything to suggest such a massive subduction zone."

"So what's the explanation? Some psi-altering or boosting mineral in the mountain and the area around it? Some form of awakened ancient Indian meme that's persisted in human memory down to today? Just a mass delusion, as sometimes happens thanks to our Anunnaki-ruined brains? No one in the Project is sure."

Jeff

Mitch considers trying to explain to her his [noun not found] that Mount Shasta doesn't exist in History-B, somehow, and elects to save that for after he's had a chance to tramp up and down the mountain himself.

Mike

"Do your abilities seem ... stronger at all?" Sheila asks.

Jeff

"I don't know. Maybe. It's too early to say one way or the other. But I'm glad I came."

Mike

The bell is being rung for lunch. Sheila smiles. "This is a hard life we've all had thrust upon us, Mitch. Honestly, none of us asked for this. I know I didn't. We've got to take the little moments whenever they come. Serendipity, you know? I'm not saying things won't be hard when you're back on duty. But there's no reason for the Project to make your job and your life harder. Let's get us some lunch, eh?"

After lunch, over the course of which Mitch and Sheila and Lynn meet some of the other attendees of the weekend retreat (they do match what Sheila and Lynn expected: affluent folks and ex-hippies from down in the City (and Sacramento, and a few from Oregon and Washington) who are looking for enlightenment on the installment plan. Master Jiyu and five of her fellow monks call together the group after the meal to give the introductory lecture for the silent contemplation weekend.

In this lecture, Jiyu keeps her headmistress vibe but without the overt chiding. She uses numerous Christian parallels to explain basic Zen precepts, talks a LOT about medieval monasticism and how her abbey uses the Christian hours to organize prayer and meditation. She's trying to make Zen Buddhism as approachable for the Western, largely Christian-raised crowd here as possible.

"There were those during my novitiate in Japan," Jiyu says, "who didn't like it when I used Western correspondences to understand and explain my own understanding of Zen. There were conservatives there, just as there are here, who did not like the mixture of culture, of worship, of intention. But I said to them and I say to you that our only defense against the illusions that seek to trap us, that seek to bind us to this world, is to unite together not as Westerners or Easterners, not as Christian or Buddhist, but as humans, with all the basic human wisdom that centuries of seekers have provided all of us. It is the only way that we will stay free from the blandishments and evil words of the demons that exist in the universe next door." And in her rhetoric and delivery up to this point, she's been equally involving everyone with eye contact and such, but in this last bit? Her eyes are squarely on Mitch, and Sheila, and Lynn.

Jeff

Mitch sits and listens to Jiyu's lecture. He thinks about the ecumenical message in the context of the Red King's psychic lingual programming; are all religious traditions fundamentally tainted even as they speak to essential human truths? Are those essential human truths themselves intrinsic to the warrior-slave nature of History-B humanity?

Mike

Mostly Mitch's interest is in his suspicion that Mount Shasta doesn't exist in History B, somehow, and also somehow he's the first SANDMAN person to realize this despite there having been many SANDMAN people around the mountain up to this point.

It's pretty interesting that during this orientation ceremony, Master Jiyu decided to drop a hint about demons in a reality next door. Whether that means she's totally clued in or just partially, Mitch isn't sure, but between SANDMAN's trust of Jiyu and her ability to peer into people's souls... you're guessing Master Jiyu is at least a little aware of what The Deal is. In any event, after the late afternoon orientation, it's off to sequestered silent contemplation. In these "breakout groups," which Mitch and Sheila and Lynn end up in the same pod being led by one of Master Jiyu's older more senior monks. He speaks before the two-hour session, instructing the class in the breathing techniques that are used at Shasta Abbey during their own routine meditations. Sheila and Lynn seem like fast studies, and I'll guess Mitch even more so.

As Mitch drifts effortlessly into deep meditation, this time his awareness seems to travel yet again. But this time his ghostly presence does not travel to the big mountain to peer at its dragon lines more closely. After quite some time sensing the pulsing life-web of the dense pine forests around the town of Mount Shasta, the vision sends Mitch off to the smaller, conical peak that sits to the northwest of Mt. Shasta proper. It's covered in dark volcanic rock; Mitch may have seen on a road map or heard from a local that it's called "Black Butte." And at the base of Black Butte, amidst the pines, Mitch sees a tiny campsite. Army surplus tent, stone ring for a fire, some clothes and supplies hanging by a branch. And near the tent, washing his pans and plates after lunch is ... hey, it's that kid Peter from the restaurant yesterday. He's walking toward his camp now and while Mitch watches, he seems to stop short, and to look over towards where Mitch's "presence" is manifesting in this vision. And in this vision, Peter locks eyes with "Mitch" and, yes, screams. He backs off and begins to run as quickly as he can backwards, all while keeping his eye on "Mitch." And this jarring occurrence is the thing that wakes Mitch up from his trance, about an hour and a half after going under.

Mike

Over the next two days of intensive meditation, Mitch seems to develop, with the help of Master Jiyu and her acolytes, some rudimentary semblance of remote viewing talent, just the sort of thing that ISOCLINE and Red Star tried to hammer into his psyche (but got pyrokinesis out of it instead), but Mitch also seems to be developing a finer-tuned talent for both controlling his ability to detect History B and over his pyrokinesis. After a full weekend of meditation, contemplating nothing, and forgetting about the Secret War Between Parahistories, Mitch seems to sense the formerly-jarring nature of his more outré abilities seeming to meld better with his body and spirit.

But before Mitch leaves on Monday morning to the next stop on Sheila and Lynn's itinerary, Master Jiyu requests a private audience with Mitch.

Jiyu's office is simple, but there are a few photos framed on the walls, mostly of her, looking a little younger, at what presumably is a Zen temple in Japan. Jiyu posing for a photo with a dozen or so other Japanese monks, dwarfing them in every way.

If she catches Mitch looking at them, she'll say, "That was the toughest couple of years I've ever had in my life. Elder monks out to get me kicked out and put the brash Western woman back on a plane to London." She bites her lip thoughtfully, sighs under her breath, and begins to prepare some green tea.

"Matthew, I'm very glad you came here this weekend. When Sheila called me last week and asked for a last-minute addition to this weekend's retreat, of course I sat up and listened. She told me about you, about your sensitivity and meditative mind... and something of your troubles. War. Many years lost. And a mind and heart that's almost too sensitive. When you arrived on Friday I saw you looking at me, with deep vision. What did you see?" All traces of the Zen drill sergeant are gone; after witnessing Mitch's supreme meditative soul all weekend, it seems she now looks at Mitch as some kind of bodhisattva brought into her life for some reason.

Jeff

Mitch pulls out his Tarot deck and shuffles it in his hands. Jiyu doesn't seem like a Tarot kind of person but ...

Mike

Jiyu notes the use of the Tarot deck and doesn't make any big protests or exceptions to the idea of having her cards read. Her expression is kind of neutral, though, and she watches Mitch carefully.

Jeff

... it's how Mitch frames stuff. "I saw an uneasy balance. Your illness has plainly been with you a long time, you don't need me to explain it to you. If you seek reassurance that your spiritual mastery will keep your illness at bay indefinitely ... it's metastable."

Mike

Mitch's interpretation of his Tarot reading is that Jiyu is in for a very difficult, very touch-and-go near future. The Death card does show up in the reading, but in its usual meaning of transformation and transfiguration. The context here seems to be that life is going to be very hard for Master Jiyu in the immediate future, but if she gets through it (and it is if and not when), she will emerge ... changed. Transformed. Leveled up.

Again, up to "Matthew" how he poses that to her.

And the cold reading: well, she knows her health is bad. She's not in denial. Meditation and prayer keep the worst of it at bay but she knows that her time is limited and that things could very well get worse, quickly. It's clear she doesn't have much truck with Western doctors.

Her contributions to the reading over the course of Mitch and her occasional chat while the cards are coming down indicate that she is bearing the suffering because, well, that's what you do if you're Buddhist. But she also doesn't seem aware or willing to admit that It Doesn't Have To Be Like This. She is, in other words, simultaneously Accepting of the fact she is critically ill and in Denial of the fact that a visit to the doctor might do her some good.

Jeff

Hmm. “I don’t think you would want me to sugarcoat anything. The cards suggest that things will get worse before they get better, if they get better. A new approach might help, if there’s a path you haven’t considered, I don’t know why I’m being coy, it’s drugs.”

Mitch shrugs. “Western medicine. Drugs.”

Mike

Jiyu finishes her cup of tea. "Yes, well." She looks uncomfortable for the first time all weekend. Some color rushes to her ordinarily quite pallid face. "Matthew, please do not take this the wrong way but I am sad to report that will not be an option for me. I don't trust doctors, you see."

Jeff

"I don't trust plumbers but if my toilet's overflowing I can't pray it clear."

Mike

"Let me ask you something, Matthew. Have figures of authority ever let you down? Ever abused your trust and your faith?"

Jeff

Mitch does the hands-up-in-mock-surrender-leaning-back-from-the-poker-table thing. “I take your point. I’m just saying, there are avenues you haven’t explored, maybe they could help you. Maybe not. This isn’t death and taxes, we’re just muddling through. You’ve been fighting your fight for long enough I know I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already thought about. Maybe think about it again, is all I got.”

Mike

"If this is indeed why the winds of the world deposited you at my door ... who am I to deny such a message." Master Jiyu then lets a mischievous grin spread across her face, reaches down into a deep drawer of her office's desk ... and pulls out a bottle of 18 year old Glenlivet. She grabs Mitch's empty teacup and her own and pours each of you a healthy splash. "I allow myself an indulgence every now and again, and to work up the courage to do what's necessary I have a feeling I'll need a little bit of this. To Sheila and Lynn," she toasts, holding up her cup.

Jeff

Mitch most def goes for that, he’s a fan of drinking scotch with Zen monks.

Mike

So as Mitch arrives in the courtyard of Shasta Abbey and makes his way to the Abbess's residence and office, he meets with one of the monks who serves as Master Jiyu's personal secretary, a young man named Edward. The abbess is in meditation now so Mitch has to wait about 15 minutes in the antechamber outside her office, the one where she and Mitch meditated and chatted and drank tea (then whisky) three months ago. When Jiyu lets Mitch in, she seems overjoyed to see him. "Matthew, what a pleasant surprise," she says, her voice a little raspier than it was three months ago. "Please, come, sit. I'm so happy you've decided to visit us again. How have you been?"

Jeff

"It's been a time," Mitch says as he shakes her hand or gives an awkward little wave or whatever. "Been interesting places, met interesting people. Thought of another interesting place with people in it, headed up here."

Mike

Master Jiyu's aura, when she first caught sight of Mitch, was dark and clouded; purple-grey undulating shadows swirled through it. But as she began to realize who was this surprise appointment, as if rays of sunlight were breaking through, the dark clouds cracked and showed golden-pink light, as after a storm. By her mood, she was sullen and depressed before Mitch arrived; after, she is experiencing true joy and hope. Physically, Jiyu's aura shows that her health has deteriorated in the past three months. Not drastically or catastrophically, but subtly, chronically, like returning to a crumbling edifice after a few years of wear and tear. All the chronic problems she had before in March — endocrine issues, the weight and diabetes, the physical frailness even though she looks strong as a bull ... they haven't gotten better. "Well, you must tell me all about those places and people." She's not sneaking any whisky this time: it's green tea in the teapot and cups for her and "Matthew." "Have you seen Sheila and Lynn recently?"

Jeff

Mitch chuckles ruefully, sips tea before answering. "We had a bit of a falling out, as in, I got drunk and made an ass of myself at the end of the last trip up here. Haven't spoken to them since." He shrugs. "More recently I was at a hotel in Colorado, a convention where I met a couple of old acquaintances, made a few new ones. Had a revelation about the nature of the universe, had that revelation challenged, did a Houdini seance, you know. Like it goes."

Mike

Jiyu, expecting the odd non sequitur out of Matthew from their past interactions, takes this rattling-off of information very much in stride ... but then very seriously peers into Mitch's eyes, like a master looking for unexpected wisdom in one of their students. "And what is the nature of the universe, Matthew?" Her eyes pleading, seemingly almost hungry for wisdom, for direction, for purpose, Jiyu's aura flaring with a strange simultaneous sense of hope and emptiness.

Jeff

Mitch is nonplussed a moment. "So," he says after a pause, "you know how none of this is real, right? Like, not in a shadows on the cave wall sense, but in like a, the world we know is a story God tells to keep Himself entertained kind of way."

Mike

Jiyu's eyes close and open very slowly, and she nods, still holding Mitch's gaze.

"And there's other stories, and on the one hand, they're just as valid as this one, the one where the bum and the monk are having tea. But on the other hand, this one with the bum and the monk is the one we're in, the one we're stuck interacting with, so unless we want to just quit the game entire, it's where we are."

Mitch can sense a moment of satori flare up in Jiyu's aura: she Understands on some level, even if she doesn't quite get the context of how Mitch is approaching his explanation. More silent nods from the Master as Mitch continues.

Jeff

"And this world is full of people pushing up against the edges of it. This world is a balloon, fit to burst, we're a gas filling the space available and probing for cracks. And on the one hand, the bones of the world are strong and we press against them, press and press and all we do is deform ourselves."

"But in another sense, there's a way that they're fragile — so fragile! The wrong word at the wrong time and it comes tumbling down."

"And then we're in a different story that isn't the one we thought we were in ..." Mitch breaks off suddenly, sips his tea, frowns. "This sounds like I'm making some kind of metaphor for self-actualizing or enlightenment or something, but I'm being more literal than that."

"Words and meditation and thought can change the illusion of reality we all labor within, Matthew. I understand. We all do this every day, with words and thoughts and actions. Whether we go with the flow or rage against the dying of the light, we either float along or make waves."

"Once you start seeing how this is all one big shared story that we're all agreeing to live in, you wonder, how could it be different if we decided it ought to be? And who's this we in this idea?"

Mike

"Some would argue that we surreptitiously and subconsciously ask for the suffering we experience. That we only wish it to be so because our natures are not refined." With this, Mitch can see a flare of pain in her aura as she shifts on the mat she's sitting on across from Mitch. Sciatica? Back and hip pain? Whatever, it is the plain suffering she speaks of on the most personal level.

"What are the demons in the corners of the world but our secret wishes?"

"The makyō, the hell of our illusions, the cave of our desperate attachments, by which we are distracted and fooled."

Jeff

"Well, yeah." Mitch tries briefly to think of something helpful or sympathetic to say regarding Jiyu's pain and diabetes-ravaged body and such, but draws a blank. "But it wouldn't be much of a story if there wasn't conflict. 'Once upon a time an infinite number of people were happy forever, the end,' that isn't a compelling narrative. That's not the best of all possible worlds."

Mike

"'Much of a story,'" Jiyu says, chuckling. "There is no master narrative, Matthew. And if there is one, it is the tortured logic of one seeking explanations for 'why'. There is no why. There will not be universal tranquility because existence is dukkha in and of itself. There is no other story that can be told." "I believe you speak of the work we each do to perfect the self and therefore perfect the larger web-work of selves that make up society. I don't believe that healing the larger tapestry of society is futile per se, of course ... but let me ask you, pupil. If you could make everyone think the same and thus end discord and war and conflict and suffering, simply by imagining such a world full of concord ... would you do it?"

Jeff

Mitch chuckles a little himself. "I think the more interesting question is, if I wanted to do that, could I? But no. Either way, I don't think magical infinite comity would... well, it would by definition solve a lot of problems, but..." Mitch trails off. He's confused himself a little. "Let me take it from the top. My incredible revelation was that we constrain ourselves in boxes that we make for ourselves out of lies we tell ourselves. It was challenged when I was forced to confront... another story that I couldn't so easily deny and toss aside, not without breaking something I don't want broken."

"By 'we' I mean me, you, all us fake folks."

He shrugs. "I think I might have invented Gnosticism."

Mike

Jiyu raises an eyebrow. "Gnosticism and dualism is always a temptation, even and perhaps especially for those of us who've got a strange personal spiritual evolution from the C. of E. to Zen Buddhism," she says with a smirk. "And of course, gnosticism finds itself deeply intertwined with theodicy. What was this 'new story' you encountered?" From Mitch's first encounter with Jiyu:

It's pretty interesting that during this orientation ceremony, Master Jiyu decided to drop a hint about demons in a reality next door. Whether that means she's totally clued in or just partially, Mitch isn't sure, but between SANDMAN's trust of Jiyu and her ability to peer into people's souls... you're guessing Master Jiyu is at least a little aware of what The Deal is.

Just in case you were concerned about how much you could say.

Mitch

Mitch is silent for a few seconds.

"It's the kind of thing where when you say it plainly you sound like someone with schizophrenia," he says.

"Let me show you something."

Mike

Master Jiyu drains her tea and scooches forward to see what Mitch is proposing to show her.

Jeff

There's, let's say a decorative candle on a table near the window in Jiyu's office, right? Mitch points at it, lights it up.

"I'm not schizophrenic," Mitch says, and has to pause again for a second to reflect on what he just said and whether he believes it. Then he nods. "Yeah, no. I'm not schizophrenic. But that doesn't mean my perspective on what looks like the cold objective fact-based world is the same as everybody else's."

He could go on but wants to see if Jiyu is with him so far or if she's shrieking and casting holy water at him.

Mike

She's waiting patiently and, if Mitch peeks at her aura, curiously, with an acute sense of anticipation she's trying not to betray on her face. She's just gotten finished talking about the demonic illusions of the makyō, so she thinks she knows the general kind of thing you're going to tell her about.

Jeff

"Okay, yeah," Mitch says, reacting to his perception of her aura as if she'd voiced her position out loud. "The thing about mysticism is that sometimes you're talking about the coffee being cold and the person you're talking to thinks, oh, that's a metaphor for how the universe doesn't bend to our expectations, or whatever, and really, you just meant the coffee was cold."

"But yeah. There's another way the world could be, right, and it's got a few good qualities you got to admit. Less deprivation. But the food would be shitty and the people wouldn't dance, so, all in all a net loss for humanity, if that's the way the world was. Lots of other downsides, I'm being glib. Demons.

"It's not the case, though, that those are our only options. You ever read Lord of the Rings? That's a different way the world could be. One of a billion or more. All these different ways, different stories, and we're fighting to hold onto this one and not let the story where the communist-fascist demons rule everything, not let that one win.

"And none of these stories are the REAL story. The underlying story. I don't know what the real world is, but it's not ..." He gestures around him. "It's not this."

"And this isn't even a big deal. I mean, it's not like some kind of wholly original revelation on my part. It's boring, even. It's an everybody-knows kind of thing. But it's true."

Mike

"Those kind of 'boring, everyday revelations' are the ones that cause even venerable monks to fall off their plinths in shock, Matthew."

Jeff

"Well, you don't seem surprised, Rōshi, so now I'm feeling kind of embarrassed for making a whole thing out of it."

Mike

"You've already conceded that one man can't change the world. Or, if he could change the world single-handed by some means, it would likely be a disaster. We are not figments of the mind of God, Matthew. We have awareness, we have consciousness. Sometimes the phenomena we witness in the world are illusions meant to mire and trick us. Our attention and presence is the only thing under our own control." Jiyu sighs as she shifts. "The only way you or I will ever see that underlying story you talk about, the true nature of all things, as revealed only to the very few who have found their light as bodhisattvas, is to react to all things with calmness and placidity and lovingkindness. Even to the demons next door. This does not mean to acquiesce to their wishes, to bend ourselves to their wills which place further onerous illusions upon us. On the contrary. It means to bend in the tempest they create but not to break. It means to clear the mind, to clear the body, to find no attachment, to ring with compassion, to receive the Buddha-nature." With this, Jiyu closes her eyes slowly again, directing her gaze to Mitch. "Often your meditative mind ... takes you places, doesn't it?"

Jeff

"That's one way to put it." Mitch smiles. "After the thing in Colorado ... a run-in with demons, frankly I don't know how we survived...after that, I thought it'd be good for me to come back here and see. Or at least, look."

Mike

"You were in Colorado. Interesting. That mountain," she gestures east towards Shasta, "I'm no fool. I know its energy, I feel it; I've lived near it for three years now. But it's honestly not just Shasta. Everywhere in the East — China, Korea, Japan — the mountain is holy. Monks chase the Buddha at elevation, their breaths cold with frost, walking up countless stairs with buckets of water, learning to ignore the illusion of pain. Hell, even in the West there are mounds and hills and mountains that have been steadily venerated going back to pre-literate times. Why is that, do you think? What is so special about the mountain and why does it seem to cause humanity to focus their powers of worship and awe upon it?"

Jeff

"I can think of two things. One, mountains are big and cool. You can see a mountain from a long way off. Big pile of rocks...driving west out of Kansas, you see the Rockies coming up and it looks like somebody dumped handfuls of gravel on the horizon ...it's dramatic. It lasts a long time. Climbing it is an experience, and if it's a big mountain the top is a weird magic treeless place, somewhere regular people aren't welcome the way we are down in the valleys.

"Two, mountains are landmarks that are too big and persistent to ignore, if you're looking to line up your story with another. They're an axis, right, a thing to orient yourself with.

"There's a story about a guy who climbed a mountain and when he went down the other side he was someplace else. You know what I mean?"

Mike

An aura flare of Jiyu at this, which also seems to ... kind of knock something loose in Mitch's mind as well? Not in a "Jiyu is using a psi power" way but in a "there is just something that passed between the two of them that seems spiritually significant" way. Satori. "Yes, all those things are correct. Viewing the mountain — as you say, the mere act of being in its presence — extends our senses beyond the dimensions we usually look at in our boring everyday lives: side to side, ahead and behind. Before the aeroplane and the skyscraper, men looked to the skies at the flights of birds for signs from the gods. But those are ephemeral and you have to be lucky to witness one. A mountain is, seemingly, forever." "If a mountain bursts through our normal conception of a side-to-side, front-to-back world and gives us a sense of a third dimension, what's to say it doesn't extend into other dimensions as well."

Jeff

Mitch is nodding in agreement at the concept of mountains extending in other direction.

Mike

All this is pretty boilerplate "the common metaphors of mankind" type anthropological stuff: the mountain is mighty, it is massive, it scrapes the heavens, it's where John Keel thinks the aliens come down to exchange monatomic gold with humankind's priestly caste. Jiyu is essentially saying that mountains touch other places, that they're ways in to another place. And that's also valid given what you've been talking about and given what you've found in your impromptu remote viewing into Shasta. But the vision that Mitch got was of the interior of the mountain being riddled with golden corridors and chambers. What Jiyu is saying is that when you make it to the top of a mountain, when you consider its height and its stealing away of human attention into another dimension, maybe all it takes to follow those lines into a fourth dimension is ... attention. Concentration. Meditation. In other words, if inside Shasta is the honeypot, the golden trap meant to entice the gullible, foolish, greedy, and occult-power-hungry ... maybe the true way through to the other side is finding the secret angle at the summit. Doing the climb. Suffering and sacrifice and pain. Going to "a weird magic treeless place, somewhere regular people aren't welcome" and seeing what happens.

Jeff

"You know somebody who does, like, tours of the peak for people, right? They live near here. You know who I'm talking about, Rōshi. And they had a last-minute cancellation this weekend, or something; they're available. Can you give them a call for me?"

Mike

Jiyu says, "Come to the lobby of the guest lodge. There are brochures there and we'll find someone who can make arrangements on short notice."

Jeff

Mitch shrugs, because that works too.

Mike

"Also?" Jiyu stops as she laboriously gets to her feet. "Can you ... can you take this to the top of the mountain?" She reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out a handful of dried flower petals, white ones. "Spread these there for me. I want ... well, I'll never make that trip to the top, but at least something of mine can dwell there."

Jeff

"Of course."

Mike

Pete and Mitch manage to set up camp a couple thousand feet shy of the summit. The weather holds pretty well overnight; some tough winds but the campsite stays safe under an outcropping. I'm not sure if Mitch remains a little wary overnight or not from his aural encounter with "the Comte," waking up occasionally, starting at sounds on the mountainside, but the important thing is that Mitch can get a good night's sleep, there's no weird sounds, sinister European whispers, Bigfoot roars, or other oddities overnight. And with the coming of daybreak, Pete wakes up, breaks camp, salutes the sun with some more yoga, and the two of you make your way to the top.

The two of you are alone up there; given your slightly-staggered start and slow ascent, none of the other organized excursions have made it up here by now. So it's funny, but as Mitch takes a deep deep breath of mountaintop air, he tries to reach out and feel any of the weird entryways or cracks in reality that he was able to "scry" for lower down on the slopes of Shasta. The top of the mountain feels... important and portentous but Mitch just isn't able to sense any kind of fracture into the Golden Halls of Lemuria.

Jeff

"See, this could be anywhere," Mitch says as he looks out from the summit. "We're not in California any more, this doesn't look like any part of California I've ever seen. Maybe this is Lemuria or the Heaviside Layer."

Mike

Peter looks over to Mitch and kind of vaguely smiles at him with his "Lemuria or the Heaviside Layer" comment, and then his face crumples as he sees behind Mitch ... something. Mitch's Detect ability flares into life; not only is poor Peter currently being affected by some kind of Anunnaki mind-whammy, but behind Mitch he can suddenly feel an intense vortex of History B energy in the form of a living being. "Don't make any sudden moves, mon commissaire," a voice emerges from behind Mitch. "It would be terrible if, well, any of us took a tumble from this majestic peak, non?"

As Mitch turns around, he first sees an Anunnaki glyph.

The man before you is short, stumpy, with bulging eyes and fishy lips... he looks almost frog-like: he is about 5 feet tall and clad in a weird mix of contemporary cold weather gear and actual furs. On his head is a golden crown, there's no other way to describe it. It is bedecked with crystals and gems and has a broad area in front. Carved into the front of it is (Hidden Lore success by 1) a KI.AG glyph, "Love me." And that glyph seems to have done the job on Peter. He stands before the Stumpy Fur-Clad Man, open-mouthed and tears flowing down his face. "Go ahead then. Try to melt me." The man smiles an infuriating grin.

Jeff

I set his crown on fire.

Mike

"Wouldn't you rather talk, and learn, from your Master?"

The crown remains markedly un-melted.

Jeff

Man comes out with a magic hat and acts like he’s not the aggressor?

“Fuck you,” Mitch says, and tries to burn him more.

Mike

"Let's talk. You must have questions."

"He can't hear us," he says, gesturing at poor mesmerized Peter.

The crown begins to wilt a little bit just as Mitch is getting ready to give up. The Count very gingerly picks it up off his head before it really starts getting going, puts it down on a nearby rock, and pulls a second KI.AG glyph on a slab of stone out of his heavy coat and grabs Peter's eyes with it. "Yes, yes, you've had the kusarikku section of your ape-brain stimulated by our surgeons, we're all very impressed," the Comte says as he makes sure Peter is still mesmerized. "I know everything about you, lad. And I'm trying to give you that knowledge."

Jeff

“If you knew anything about me you would know—“ Mitch breaks off, too angry to form a fully coherent sentence. “You don’t talk to me like this!”

On the one hand, Mitch would like to set his lower-level pyrokinesis on that stone, but even if he was able to destroy it it would probably end up working badly for him. Vision of Peter with little swirls over his eyes jerkily picking Mitch up and throwing him off the mountaintop.

Mike

"Mitchell. You are such a special, special person. And you don't even realize it. Or perhaps you do, but you haven't put all the pieces together yet." The Comte amiably sits down on a rock on the summit, gesturing to a nearby rock for Mitch to sit on. "Let us break bread. I have such sights to show you and secrets to reveal. You are special."

Jeff

“I am so tired of you people telling me things.”

He sits down.

Mike

"Mitchell," the Comte says, reaching into his knapsack and bringing out a large round crusty bread, a serrated knife, and a plastic Thermos and two cups, "I know what happened to you in Los Angeles was infuriating. Frightening. Unfathomable." The Comte pours forth from the Thermos what looks to be red wine. "You felt hard done by. Mind racked with amnesia. Suddenly possessing of powers you could neither understand nor control." He picks up the knife and cuts a couple of sizeable wodges of bread, offering one to Mitch.

Jeff

Mitch ignores the offering. “You think?”

Mike

"I'm very, very sorry for that. What's more, we're very sorry and they're very sorry." The Count looks around shiftily while he says that, and Mitch can feel a weird fluctuation in the History B energies surrounding him and the Count as he does, like someone approached and then retreated on "the other side."

"If I told you that the reasons that that business in Laurel Canyon happened are four-dimensional and will only become apparent around the year 2012, would you believe me?"

Jeff

“No. Does that surprise you?”

Mike

A weary yet amused smile and chuckle passes the Comte's lips as he eats the bread and drinks some wine. "Mmm. Quite nice." He brushes the crumbs off his lap. "Very well, Mitchell. This is the truth. I will try to explain it as clearly as I can. What you call History B exists. It is as real as the mountain you and I sit atop. But it cannot ... express itself fully since you people revolted 1400 years ago. But humans live there, under the guardianship and guidance of our Masters. And even though these two timelines diverged so very long ago, every now and again a collision of sperm and egg occurs on one side of the barrier that precisely matches one on the other side, as impossible as that might seem to believe. You, Mitchell, are one of these people." "Your double was born 73 years ago on the other side, to two people genetically identical, in essence, to your parents here. He was a trusted commissar for the Children of Heaven. He did what his Masters told him to do, he put into play a hundred plots and schemes he might not even see the results of, but at some point ... well, Mitchell this is very embarrassing... your doppelgänger is missing. He has gone rogue. He does not respond to our Masters' entreaties. And we don't know what he has planned. Which is why, in large part, our Masters provided your gifts to you. To be able to track him, find him ... and kill him."

"You may now protest, 'Oh no, I'm not doing your dirty work,' and fume and stammer but Mitchell, what I am telling you is that your encounter with your double is fore-ordained. There is no choice in the matter. You will meet him, sooner or later. And when he does meet you, he will likely want you under his control for any number of ontological reasons. But he won't expect you to be ... in essence, a living weapon. So our Masters have given you the precise spread of cerebral evolutions necessary to defeat him."

Jeff

"I'm sure you think all that's true," Mitch says flatly. "Your sincerity is not compelling evidence."

Mike

"All right. If evidence is required, I'm more than happy to tell them that they need to find a way to put some in your path ... gently. Sometimes, Mitchell, they do not understand how fragile we are, you see. They believe they're doing us a favor when they grant us ... extraordinary gifts but they forget that our bodies and souls can sometimes ... wither under that intense attention. I was just here to make contact and enlighten, as I have the past 100 years. Proof of faith? That's their department." The Comte once again offers a sip of wine or a crust of bread to Mitch as he gets packed up.

Jeff

"That's your we and they, then? The sorry ones?"

Mike

"'We' meaning the human race in this case, and 'they' meaning the Children of Heaven, yes."

"I'm a man, like you."

Jeff

“Sure.” Mitch scowls.

Mike

"Oh, and one more thing," the Comte says. "Keep an eye on this one," he says, gesturing to Peter. "He's special as well. Not as ... unique as you, of course, but he's got special qualities, a focus of mind, quantum vision, a receptiveness to excellence and self-actualization. He could end up being of great help to you and your, heh, 'Sandmen.' À bientôt, Mitchell." The Comte begins the slow climb down the northern face of the mountain.

The KI.AG crown slowly melted into a puddle covering the rock while Mitch was angrily talking with St. Germain. The Comte left the KI.AG stone here, like a littering backpacker.

As you stow the KI.AG stone, Peter slowly comes out of the daze.

"What a view. What ... what an experience," he says, shaking the cobwebs off. "Do you ever get that feeling of just universal acceptance and love and beauty? Like you've fallen in love with ... well, the whole mountain, the whole Earth?"

Jeff

"Not lately." Mitch's demeanor is markedly more grim than it has been. "Something always comes along to ruin it, seems like."

Mike

Peter raises an eyebrow and breathes deeply. "Aw, man, I'm sorry to hear that." He gently pats Mitch on the back. "Need any more time? Or should we do descent now?"

Jeff

Mitch sighs, because he came all this way. "While I'm here ..."

He trails off, looking west.

"While I'm here I should at least try meditating. It's what I came for. Don't think I'm in a good headspace for it but hell, maybe I can turn it around. Kill some demons with my mind."

Mike

Mitch's consciousness sits at the peak of the mountain. In meditation, he feels himself present, with the entirety of the honeycombed-with-History B-embassies Shasta beneath him. A vision of "le Comte" comes and goes from his consciousness as he drifts into a pure state, remembering the things that Jiyu taught him about control and release. Mitch gets just the least little jolt of his past dalliances with "remote viewing," but this time it feels a little different than the last time when Mitch drifted into the golden halls of the mountain. One of those "contact" sites among the pines on the southern slope of Shasta appears in Mitch's vision, but as Mitch's remote viewing eye swoops over the treetops to approach it, he sees no freeway, but instead a well-trafficked railway and a few dirt roads. A couple of 1920s cars trundle up the road kicking up massive plumes of dirt. And from one of the cracks in reality that Mitch had explored and investigated with his consciousness previously, he sees a man emerge, Cooper-from-the-Red-Room style, out of the very side of the mountain. He's wearing a shiny silver suit, a strange silvery scaled coif over his curly dark hair, and has a weird ray gun by his side. The face he presents is Mitch's own, maybe 5 or so years younger. Right around the age he got back from 'Nam. The "Mitch" walks up to a campsite where three... prospectors? Loggers? are cooking up some vittles, they look at this weird dude in a silver suit and one of them laughs, and "Mitch" proceeds to vaporize two of them with his ray gun. The third tries to scramble away, and "Mitch" says a single word to him, and his consciousness shuts off. "Mitch" steals his clothes, buries his silver duds, and vaporizes the third camper. Then, "Mitch" walks off into the distance in his borrowed togs, and into History.