William Ellery Channing

I rested well and awoke the next morning fully refreshed but as I thought about the previous day, the excitement of the knife battle and the discussion that had followed, my mind was stimulated into a philosophical train of thought. While there was a feeling of emptiness that crept over me from time to time when my thoughts strayed back to the loved ones I had left in the past, yet the adventure of being with such remarkable people kept me from dwelling upon such things. Each day brought me in contact with so many new ideas that these longings were temporarily checked. Now breakfast was over and the sun was shining brightly on a beautiful Sunday morning. I was going to be alone with my thoughts for awhile as Dr. Karoll's family was preparing to attend a worship service that would entail their leaving the mountain home for about three hours.

Dr. Karoll explained that it would probably be better for me not to accompany them until I understood more about their beliefs and why their worship service took the form that it did. As they left, I could see that there evidently were some changes in Sunday morning worship. The entire family was wearing nicely tailored but loose fitting coverall-like garments with a hood hanging from their collars. In their hands each was carrying a pair of knitted slippers. Their clothing was of a soft, unreflecting, pearl gray material with a series of small royal blue and bright red religious symbols along the hems, around the cuffs and over the hood. Seeing the family leave this way sharpened my already keen desire to know more about their idea of religion.

Responding to a suggestion by Louise Karoll, I walked slowly to the stone walled enclosure in the garden that had been prepared as a secluded spot for meditation. It was far enough away so activities around the house and tennis court would not disturb a person who wanted to be alone with his thoughts. A comfortable wooden bench and a low flat table were placed within the carefully kept area. Inside, it was about fourteen feet in diameter. A small cabinet built into the wall contained cushions and a soft warm blanket. Dr. Karoll often used this spot for meditation himself, sitting in the full lotus position of the yogi on the low table amidst the lovely flowers, Mrs. Karoll had told me.

As I sat quietly studying the various flowers that were in bloom, I noticed there were a number of delicately colored and perfumed blossoming plants which I didn't recall ever having seen before. I wondered if there were not many new plants and vegetables and trees developed since the times with which I was familiar. This led me to think about Luther Burbank, the great American genius in horticulture and his psychic ability to select the plants that were superior and those which should be culled, when both were little more than sprouts with no visible sign to distinguish them. His personal journals indicated that he was a deeply religious person, very humble and served God by serving people. I also knew of the achievements in medicine and science by men of similarly deep religious convictions, such as Pasteur, Paracelsus, Hippocrates, Helmholtz, Tesla, Steinmetz and many, many others. They were all men who used their great intelligence to make practical application of the understanding of natural laws which they had arrived at through inner experiences in meditation.

Then, as my still roaming thoughts reviewed the early beginning of the industrial age, I moved along in time toward the years of my own youth and how I saw the highly accelerating development of industry through modern science. The novels of Jules Verne were still popular but his more farfetched visions were fast becoming realities. It was a time when philosophers realized that the common man no longer needed to live and die in ignorance, a slave to long hours of toil to furnish bare necessities for his family. Mass production methods, science, and the means for mass education and communications offered a new opportunity in the history of the world. America had the practical knowledge to lead the earth into a golden age of peace, an age of freedom for the bodies, minds and spirits of the masses of the human race.

Then I began to think upon how I had seen this opportunity abused, how in America science had become the tool of shortsighted self interest, how the educational system and the mass news media became the means to delude and enslave the minds of the people. By the early 1970's, the fast spreading moral disintegration of a great nation, a nation that once held forth hope for the whole world, had begun to look irreversible.

I had come to the meditation garden to dwell upon thoughts of the Creator and the noble deeds of great men but control of the mind was not easy for me. Hardly realizing what I had done, I had allowed my mind to turn to thoughts about the political events and social conditions that were so very painful for me to see during the years just before my last experiment with suspended animation.

America was in a deplorable state. The spiritual ideals upon which the nation was founded were regarded impractical by leading educators, political figures and even the clergy. Truthfulness was considered irrelevant to the conduct of international diplomacy. The flagrant immorality on every level of the Military was a byword. Our State Department appeared to be little more than a tool serving special interests and the information released to the public concerning its actions only a smoke screen. Our National Security Council seemed to be concerned chiefly with the security of investments of private corporations, especially those which were exploiting the resources of small countries. America's reputation for stripping third world countries of their natural resources resulted from an unholy alliance between the State Department, the great conglomerate corporations, and our "Intelligence" Agency.

The Nation's courts had become a mockery to justice. The practice of law made men wealthy. They spent their energies upon litigation that involved property, inheritances, insurance settlements, commercial transactions and corporate business. A selfless and dedicated lawyer serving the cause of justice was hardly to be found. There were men with high ideals who took up the practice of law but they soon found how difficult a challenge they had accepted.

It was not a matter of the legal system being either all black or white, since many honorable men were involved. However, the jury system of law was abused and perverted. The hypocrisy of suggesting that it was an effective tool serving in the cause of justice was transparent to any intelligent person. Strict rituals and specialized terms were used so that, regardless of how the jury was selected, the lawyers and the judge dominated the rulings. Often, the spirit of the law was flatly denied while the technicalities of its letter were twisted to suit the private interests being served. This attitude was incomprehensible to a jury of laymen. They were bullied into submission to the court experts. By using obscure legal terminology, it was easy to make them feel they were incompetent and ignorant of the law and helplessly dependent upon these "experts." The legal terms and court procedures combined with the array of legal devices designed to confuse the layman had made a farce of the jury system. The right to a speedy trial had been stretched to mean years and legal fees had become astronomical.

Like fish spawned in dirty water, with few exceptions, neither the legal brains of the country, nor the educators who grew up with these conditions seemed to notice the discrepancies. Law, politics and wealth had become interwoven. By inheritance they were family tradition. Cooperation among the "Haves" preserved political power with the group. The prisons played a special role. Geared to the mistreatment of slum offspring, instead of being intelligently operated rehabilitation centers, they were hells that exposed prisoners to insensitive guards and to brutality from each other. Homosexual rape was the rule. The inmate who complained of mistreatment from his cellmates was tortured and sometimes murdered! The legal profession was able to take credit for the condition of the prisons because from their ranks came the overwhelming majority of the nation's judges and lawmakers.

In flagrant denial of every principal of Christianity, it was the educated and influential people of the land who owned the slum houses. These people knew children would live in the hovels they owned. The under-privileged were nursed up where filth, malnutrition, greed, vice and violence ruled. Just as the poor of Europe in earlier times had sold their babies to monster makers who would deform them into sideshow freaks, so the "respectable" people of America condemned the children born in slums they owned to be deformed mentally, morally and spiritually. Of course, their real estate agents handled all the details of the lucrative slum property investments.

The sleeping public was uninformed concerning its stake in the natural resources of the land. Oil, minerals, coal, timber and water power were sold to private interests at a small fraction of their value by uncaring or corrupt government agencies. Plans were being pushed to clearcut America's National Forests to the ground and to reforest by planting single variety crops of fast growing trees. Then it would be necessary to kill the life within the soil and streams with tons of poisons to allow the single growth crops to flourish in defiance of natural law.

Occupied by such thoughts, I had sunk into a hunched position with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. My body was tense and my face drawn. About that time I heard foot steps approaching. In a moment Dr. Karoll appeared at the gate to the meditation enclosure.

"You don't appear to have had a very satisfying meditation, David," the Doctor's voice carried an undertone of concern. "Surely you are not longing to be back in your old circumstances."

"Oh, Dr. Karoll, I hadn't realized that you were back from the worship service. I hope that you enjoyed it."

"We surely did...Well, enjoy is not quite the right word. It was a joyously elevating time, a renewal of joyous spiritual fellowship with each other and with our Maker." The doctor paused a moment, then he asked how I like the meditation enclosure.

"This garden sanctuary for meditation is very beautiful, Dr. Karoll, but this morning I was not able to keep from thinking about the past. For a time I was back agonizing in the midst of the confusion again but not longing to be part of it. Being with your family and friends has shown me a contrast that made me more aware of the insanity of my time. It is depressing to think of the anguish that was experienced by so many people. Why had a nation like America, founded upon beautiful ideals, with a wealth of natural resources, so quickly become a land of incredible wastefulness, greed and selfishness, and of such monstrous cruelty to other peoples?"

"You were living in a great testing time for human beings, David, a testing for the individual character which had been built into each soul, you might say."

"Hmmm," I paused, "Well, there was certainly a special test coming from one particular direction and we were not looking so very good. I guess there was a sign of our condition in the phenomenal success of slick, expensive pornographic magazines which outsold by far all popular home magazines. They were on sale almost everywhere and even carried on the racks in some of the large chain grocery stores. To compete with them, the women's magazines were beginning to imitate them. Indulgence in every human weakness was encouraged by newspaper advertisements, radio and television commercials, and by motion pictures. Cigarette and soft drink advertisements used sex hand signs and phrases of the younger generation which made them actually pornographic for those who understood them. There was pressure from every side upon the youth of the nation to seek the immature values of short-sighted self-interest. They were taught to ridicule and to despise those who tried to oppose corrupt government, those who were willing to speak clearly to the issues and to make the kind of personal sacrifices that their ancestors had made in founding the nation. Their heroes were the notoriously immoral actors and actresses and their measure of success was money regardless of its source.

"David, you did live in desperate times. There are many parallels in earlier history to what you saw happening in America. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire is an example of the growth of a nation into greatness through industry and discipline followed by a rapid decline through immorality and self-indulgence. Rome was notable for justice in the days of its greatness. A fair trial was guaranteed every Roman citizen. Changes were coming quickly when Apostle Paul made appeal to Caesar for his right to a fair trial. He would have been freed by an honorable man like Julius Caesar but Nero had him beheaded with no more concern for the justice due him as a Roman citizen than if he had been a rebellious galley slave."

"I must say, Dr. Karoll, that does sound like a parallel."

"All of these things were necessary experiences, David." Dr. Karoll did not sound like he was able to appreciate the tragedy of what I was relating to him.

"You've made statements like that before, Dr. Karoll. I'm sure you've good reasons for making them, but will you take time to explain what you mean?"

"We'll get to such questions soon enough, David."

With that statement the Doctor turned and motioned to me with a nod to accompany him to the house. I knew Sunday dinner must be ready. Some friends had been invited over for tennis and to spend an evening of fellowship with the Karoll family.