Could there be a lost science that allows us to transcend the themes of war, destruction, and suffering long predicted for our time in history?
Is it possible that somewhere in the mists of our ancient memory an event occurred that has left a gap in our understanding of how we relate to our world and one another? If so, could the filling of that gap avert the greatest tragedies ever to face humankind? Twenty-five-hundred-year-old texts, as well as modern science, suggest that the answer to these and similar questions is a resounding ‘Yes!’ Additionally, in the languages of their times, those who have come before us remind us of two empowering technologies with direct relevance to our lives today. The first is the science of prophecy, which allows us to witness the future consequences of choices that we make in the present. The second is the sophisticated technology of prayer that allows us to choose which future prophecy we live.
The lost sciences of prophecy and prayer
The secrets to our lost sciences appear to have been shared openly by societies and traditions of our past. The last vestiges of this empowering wisdom were lost to Western tradition with the disappearance of rare texts in the fourth century. It was in A.D. 325 that key elements of our already ancient heritage were taken from the general population and relegated to the esoteric traditions of mystery schools, elite priesthoods, and sacred orders. Through the eyes of modern science, recent translations of such texts as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic libraries of Egypt have shed new light and opened the doors to possibilities hinted at in ancient folklore and fairy tales. Only now, nearly two millennia after they were written, are we able to authenticate the power of a force that lives within us, a very real power with the ability to end suffering and bring a lasting peace to our world.
Ancient authors left us their empowering message of hope described in the words of their time. The visions of the prophet Isaiah, for example, were recorded over five hundred years before the time of Christ. The only manuscript discovered intact among the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946, the entire Isaiah Scroll is unrolled and mounted upon a vertical cylinder displayed at the Shrine of the Book Museum in Jerusalem. Considered irreplaceable, the exhibit is designed to retract into a vault covered by steel doors to preserve the scroll for future generations in the event of a nuclear attack. The age, completeness, and written nature of the Isaiah Scroll provides a unique opportunity to consider it as representative of many prophecies regarding our time in history. Beyond the specifics of precise events, a generalized view of ancient predictions reveals threads of a common theme. In each glimpse into our future, the prophecies follow a clear pattern: descriptions of catastrophe are immediately followed by a vision of life, joy and possibility.
In the oldest known manuscript of its kind, Isaiah begins his vision of possible futures by detailing a time of global destruction on an unparalleled scale. He describes this ominous moment as a time when ‘the earth is utterly laid waste, utterly stripped.’ His glimpse into a time yet to come closely mirrors the descriptions of many other prophecies from various traditions, including those of the Native American Hopi and Navajo, as well as the Maya of Mexico and Guatemala.
In the verses that follow Isaiah's description of devastation, however, his vision shifts dramatically to a theme of peace and healing: ‘Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools and the thirsty ground, springs of water.’ Additionally, Isaiah suggests that ‘the deaf shall hear the words of a book; and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.’
For nearly twenty-five centuries, scholars have largely interpreted such visions as a description of events expected to occur in precisely the order in which they are described in Isaiah's scroll: first the tribulation and destruction, followed by a time of peace and healing. Is it possible that these visions from another time were saying something else? Could the insights of the prophets reflect the skills of adept masters slipping between the worlds of possible futures and recording their experiences for future generations? If so, the details of their journeys may offer powerful clues to a time still to come.
Echoing the beliefs of twentieth-century physicists, ancient prophets viewed time and the course of our history as a path that may be travelled in two directions, reverse as well as forward. They recognized that their visions merely portrayed possibilities for a given moment in time, rather than events that would occur with certainty, and each possibility was based upon conditions at the time of prophecy. As conditions changed, the outcome of each prophecy would reflect that change. A prophet's vision of war, for example, could be viewed as a future to be expected only if the social, political, and military circumstances at the time of the prophecy were to continue unimpeded.
The same line of reasoning reminds us that by changing our course of action on the moment, sometimes in a very small way, we may redirect our entire future. This principle applies to individual circumstances such as health and relationship, as well as to the general well-being of our world. In the case of war, the science of prophecy could allow a visionary to project his sight into a future time and alert the people of his day to the consequences of their actions. Many prophecies, in fact, are accompanied by emphatic pleas for change in an effort to avoid what the prophets have seen.
Surprisingly similar to quantum principles which suggest that time is a collection of malleable and diverse outcomes, Isaiah goes one step further, reminding us that the possibilities of our future are actually determined by collective choices in the present. By sharing a common choice, many individuals amplify the effect and accelerate the outcome. Some of the clearest examples of this quantum principle are found in mass prayers for miracles; sudden jumps from one future outcome into the experience of another. In the early 1980s, the effects of focused prayer were documented through controlled experiments in urban high-crime areas. Through such studies, the localized effect of prayer has been well documented in the open literature. Do the same principles apply over larger areas, perhaps on a global scale?
Miracle in the Andes
I was guiding a prayer trek through the mountains outside of Cuzco in May of 1998, when our Peruvian guide and translator shared a story that touched each member of our group deeply: When lightning had ignited fires in the high Andean jungles earlier in the year, the local communities had organized to battle the blazes and save their villages. Despite their efforts, the fires had burned out of control, spreading for days as government officials and local people looked on, helpless and exhausted. The fires cut a widespread path of destruction, appearing to be burning in all directions at once. One afternoon the winds shifted and the fire headed directly toward the temples of Macchu Picchu. Mobilizing the few resources available, firefighters mounted an effort to smother the flames before they reached this most famous example of Andean history. With little equipment, railroads washed out, and trails blocked with mudslides from earlier rains, the only source of water was the narrow Urubamba River, in a canyon several thousand feet below. Efforts to rescue the temples were fruitless. The front line of the fire advanced, razing the peripheral sites of the multi-acre complex. As the flames scorched the outlying temples on the peak of nearby Wyannu Picchu, the situation looked hopeless.
Exhausting all other means of stopping the inferno, local villagers resorted to a technology that had been a part of their culture for centuries. In groups of families and as individuals, publicly and privately, they began to pray. Though the specific prayers varied, the underlying theme was consistent: they prayed to spare the temples of Macchu Picchu. Collectively they were directing their prayers to a common challenge. Within hours the people of Southern Peru witnessed an event that many consider to be a miracle. A low-pressure system developed over their portion of the Andes. A mass of moist, warm air from the coast merged with the cold, dry air of the mountains, the skies clouded, and it began to rain.
The rain became a downpour, soaking the dense forest where the fire had jumped from treetop to treetop. Rainwater poured down through gullies cut from the bare mountaintops, into the parched earth below. Mixing with the rich soil to create a thick black mud, the slurry steamed as it poured over heated rocks into the fire zone. Within hours the flames had disappeared, leaving smouldering tree trunks in the wake of the worst fire in the recorded history of the area. Outsiders looking on had witnessed what they believed was a fortunate coincidence. Government officials were mystified. Local villagers were simply relieved. To them there was no mystery. God had heard their prayers, and answered.
Similar stories have been shared regarding mass prayers accelerating the peace process in Northern Ireland, avoiding the loss of life from NATO bombing raids in Iraq, and the mysterious course change of an asteroid on a path to collide with earth in 1996. In each instance, circumstances that were certain to result in a tragic outcome, with the equally certain loss of human life, shifted unexpectedly. In each instance the shift was coincident with the effort of many individuals and groups coordinated in mass prayer. Western science has now validated that, at least to a degree, our outer world of atoms and elements mirrors our inner world of thought and emotion. Could creating peace and cooperation in our world be as simple as joining in unified prayers of the same?
To think the thoughts of angels
Prayer has often been referred to as a passive act. On many occasions I have been asked what I am ‘really going to do,' with regard to a particular world crisis. In these instances prayer was viewed as secondary to actually ‘doing something'. From the perspective offered by ancient traditions and now supported by modern research, our ability to commune with the forces of the cosmos, to choose our path through time and determine our course of future history, may be the single most sophisticated and empowering force to grace our world.
Prayer is a concrete, measurable, and directive force in creation. Prayer is real. To pray is to do ‘something!’ What else can we do? The solutions of the past are failing us in the present. Prayer is the act of redefining the foundation of hate, ethnic violence, and war. The doing simply occurs in a form very different from our idea of doing in the past. Could it be so easy? Is it possible that to mirror the peace in our hearts in the reality of our world, we are simply asked to choose such a reality by feeling the outcome as if it had already happened? Recent events, in the eyes of the world, appear to say that the answer is yes.
At the doorway to the twenty-first century, we stand on the threshold of a time when the survival of our species may actually depend upon our ability to marry our inner and outer sciences into precisely such technologies. As we redefine the roles of political affiliations, military alliances, and the boundaries of nations, the power of mass prayer cannot be discounted. The implications of applying our technology of prayer on a global scale are of immense, perhaps unfathomable proportions. Our lifetime represents a rare moment when, perhaps for the first time in our history, we can determine the outcome of this moment! Transcending science, religion, and mystic traditions, the Essenes suggest that it is during this time in history, through the use of our lost science of prayer and prophecy, that healing comes to all beings, those formed and unformed, and that peace prevails in all worlds. It is during our lifetime that the people of earth will know all of the secrets of the ‘angels in heaven.’
Without judging the events of each day as good, bad, right, or wrong, we are invited to choose a new viewpoint, a higher option in response to the horror of such events. If the tenets of prayer and peace are valid, then the pain of those in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, and anywhere else where human life is suffering is our suffering as well. The ancient secrets of healing remind us that there is only one of us here in our world. As we alleviate the pain of others, we alleviate our pain as well. As we love others, we love ourselves. Each man, woman, and child of this world has the power to create a new possibility, to change the thinking that allows suffering.
Those who have come before us prepared us well for this time in our history. We have the opportunity to choose a new way in the presence of challenges that appear to be mounting on a daily basis. We are invited to think and do in our world as those of the heavens do in theirs. In so doing, we awaken a forgotten technology from the sleep of our collective memory and, at last, bring the conditions of heaven to earth.
In their own words, the scholars of Qumran recorded the teachings of their great masters preserved for moments such as this, when the encouragement of those who have come before us gives us the strength to live and love in this world, one more day. We are reminded that ‘to lift our eyes to heaven when the eyes of others are on the ground is not easy. To worship at the feet of the angels when others worship fame and riches is not easy. But perhaps the most difficult of all is to think the thoughts of the angels, to speak the words of the angels, and to do as angels do.’ [Neil Douglas-Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus.]
From The Isaiah Effect, copyright 2000 by Gregg Braden, published in 2004 by Hay House.
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