CHAPTER SEVEN

'We were wondering when you would ask,' Tom said when Andrija asked if there was any connection between the extra- terrestrial civilisations and the legend of Atlantis.

This was in November, before the first trip to the Middle East. There were two other sessions largely devoted to ancient history and Atlantis during the stay in Israel and which I have deferred writing about until now in order to bring all material together in one place.

Atlantis, Tom explained in reply to Andrija's question, was a civilisation originated by a migrant group from Aksu. It had flourished for thousands of years and had come to a sudden cataclysmic end about 11000 BC. It had stretched from Greece to the Americas. The name Atlantis was in fact a corruption, and it should be known as the Altean civilisation, for its people 'were of the civilisation of Altea'.

'Could you give us a glimpse of the level of civilisation attained by the Alteans?' Andrija asked. 'What was their outstanding achievement?'

'In the field of what you call medicine they were far superior to what you are at this time. Also, your knowledge of electronics is primitive compared to their knowledge. And they knew how to use the mind to move objects and to move themselves. If it was not that below their waist, they were always in trouble, it would have been a fine civilisation.'

'Was their medicine not able to help them with that part of their problem?' Andrija asked.

'They enjoyed it,' Tom said. 'We, as we have told you before have no objections to enjoyment, except when it becomes that consuming.

Instead of using the great medical knowledge that they had to improve their minds they used it to improve their sex organs.' Altean surgery, he explained, was capable of effecting transplants of all the vital organs of the body, even of brains, and 'those organs that were transplanted were far superior to those that had existed in the physical body'. The life expectancy of an Altean who had the best medical care could run into thousands of years.

The three had been on Earth at the time of the Altean civilisation, though they had not been together. The Doctor was in the area we now call Crete. Sir John was on a land off the coast of present-day South America, and the Being was near her present home, Florida, but in a place now submerged. They had all three functioned as teachers, as they had not been physically born but had come to Earth on a mission, they had not had the same emotions as physical beings. They had underestimated the human desires and greed upon which the opposition could work. The Altean civilisation eventually became predominantly degenerate.

Andrija asked, 'Was the submergence of Atlantis an act of God or was it ....?

'We were angry,' Tom said. 'It was perhaps our ignorance in not understanding the density of the planet Earth. We are more compassionate now.' At the time of 'the great anger', he further explained, there were some peripheral colonies that were not destroyed. But also there were, on the main land masses that were submerged, some individuals 'that were not of the nature of the majority', but they had been destroyed with the rest. They had understood the necessity for the act, and when these souls had incarnated again they had chosen to come in a different physical form. There were some of these reincarnated Altean souls on the planet Earth today. 'We are not sure that in the future their appearance in the manner in which they have appeared will benefit their soul growth,' Tom said, but it was their choice, and with their understanding of the physical nature of their past experience they decided that perhaps in this form they could be of service in a proper way. And they were incarnated as dolphins.

Thus was first introduced a subject that was later to be elaborated upon and to lead to some interesting field work. Andrija did not pursue the subject of dolphin intelligence at this stage, however, but followed up the subject of the relation between the civilisation of Atlantis and that of other ancient civilisations.

'According to the Platonic legend,' he said, 'the desirable elements of Atlantean, or Altean, civilisation were brought to Egypt. Is this true?'

'Yes. After the destruction, you were each involved with the early civilisations of Egypt, Ur and China.'

Referring to the legend that the culture of Ur, or Sumer, was founded by the god Oa, and to a well-known picture of the god, Andrija asked why the founder of the civilisation of Ur had appeared in the form of a fish.

'It was not. It was a ram,' Tom said categorically.

'Then why did it come out of the sea, according to the legend?'

'That is not all of the legend. It was first as a bull, it was then as a ram, and finally, as recorded, it was as a fish. It was in truth a dolphin, and it was a merging of others with those of this planet.'

'Was it a true biological merging, or just for the occasion? Andrija asked, and Tom explained that, as in Aksu, it had been a merging of the genes of beings from higher physical civilisations with those of the people of this planet, in order to strengthen and upgrade the species.

'How much knowledge from Atlantis was given to the early Egyptians?' Andrija asked.

'The knowledge of medicine, with the exception of what could be done with the sex organs, was given to them,' Tom said. 'But you must understand that the primitive people in the land that you call Egypt were a very fearful people. Because of their primitiveness they were also of such a nature that the genetic memory of the mind recalled the destruction, and therefore they built upon their structure a great worship.'

While they were talking about Egypt, John took the opportunity to put in a question. 'I'm very interested in the great pyramid and its meaning. Could you say something about that?' Which elicited a reproach that, considering the range of Andrija's questioning, seems rather unfair:

'Your curiosity and your anxiety at times make us itch! You cannot stay on one programme.'

'Well, I assumed that the great pyramid had something. . John began, but he was interrupted.

'When the day arrives when there is understanding upon the planet Earth, and when those of other civilisations arrive to help the planet, that will be the day when the secret that you ask is given.'

Undaunted by the rebuff John had received, Andrija now changed the subject: 'We now know that there are different peoples and groups upon the planet. We know that the Israelites are the special project of Hoova, and so on. Can you tell us where the Nordic people fit in?'

'They came from the civilisation of Ashand.'

'And is there any particular significance in the fact that Uri and his work are most readily accepted in the Scandinavian countries?'

'They are in that knowledge the most evolved, because of the creativity of the civilisation of Ashand. And they have a core of understanding. It is unfortunate, though, that they have become so material.'

Tom declined to answer a similar question about the background Arab races 'until we are in the box', when John asked about the blacks he came up with an interesting statement: 'They were the originals on this planet. They were not seeded. They were the souls that evolved here from what you would call the elementals.'

Briefly summarising the story of Earth civilisations, Tom said: 'That time [32400 BC, the time of the foundation of Aksu] was the beginning of the rising of civilisations and populations. You understand that there was a collapse of the civilisation of Aksu. Then there was of course the collapse of what you call Atlantis. And then there was the collapse of Egypt. And if you continue, there has been the collapse of many other civilisations. And have you now discovered why?'

'Well, from all you have told us,' Andrija answered, ‘we understand that it has always collapsed when the desire life overcome the higher evolutionary development of the soul.'

'That is in part true,' Tom said, and went on to explain that the other part of the truth was that the people of Israel had failed to understand and to fulfil their historical mission.

Let us now compare this Earth history material with some of the findings and conjectures of scholars.

The evolutionary theory of the origins of homo sapiens and of Earth's civilisations has in recent years suffered some setbacks. Though palaeontologists have found evidence of the existence of anthropoid species going back over a million years, it is generally acknowledged today that these could never have evolved into human beings, and that true man appeared on Earth about 35,000 years ago. As one writer on the subject has put it: ‘Homo sapiens appears, suddenly, out of the blue, complete, intelligent, with clothing, weapons, fire. With a curious mythology that owes nothing to an animal ancestor, and with an ability that, at the beginning, is at least equal to that of today.'

There is no consensus among historians and anthropologists as to where what Joseph Campbell has called 'the nuclear folk' first appeared. Mid-Europe, the Middle East and central Asia have all been suggested as locations. The latter would, of course, coincide with Tom's information, for the Tarim Basin is in the Sinkiang province of Western China, and in fact some interesting material has recently come to light which not only seems to bear this out but also supports the theory of extra-terrestrial intervention.

In 1965 a Chinese archaeologist published the results of a twenty-five-year study of some strange stone disks found in caves in the Bayan-Kara-Ula mountains on the borders of Tibet and Western China. The disks belonged to the Ham and Dropa tribesmen who still live in these caves, and who have puzzled anthropologists for they seem, unrelated to any other ethnic group, being of frail build and little over four feet in height.

Eventually the key to deciphering the hieroglyphics on the stone disks was discovered, and one of them read: 'The dropas came down from the clouds in their gliders. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropas, they realised that the newcomers had peaceful intentions.'

The Chinese archaeologist speculated that these disks and the present occupants of the caves were connected with ancient Chinese legends which speak of small, yellow-skinned men who came down from the clouds. The Chinese Academy of Pre-History banned publication of his discoveries and theories for many years, but when he finally did publish them a Russian writer, Vyachedlev Zeitsev, reported the work in an article titled 'Visitors from Outer Space' in the magazine Sputnik in 1967. I am indebted to a book, Uninvited Visitors, by the American writer Ivan T. Sanderson, for this information, which of course is particularly interesting in the light of what Tom has repeatedly said about the origins of civilisation on Earth.

Now as regards Atlantis: all the theories about the nature, location and dating of this prediluvian civilisation are highly speculative, but Tom's dating corresponds with the general view that a cataclysmic event, the origin of world-wide flood legends, took place between 10000 and 12000 BC. In Plato's Critias there is a passage about the reason for the destruction of the Atlantean civilisation which Tom's account corresponds with, and which also suggests that the people of Atlantis were a hybrid species: 'When the portion of divinity within them was becoming weak and faint through being oft times blended with a large measure of mortality, and the human temper was becoming dominant ... Zeus, the God of gods, desired to inflict punishment upon them.' The punishment, according to both Plato's and Tom's versions of the story, was inflicted overnight, and resulted in the submergence of the civilisation of Atlantis. It is interesting to note in passing that the trio later learned that Zeus, Altea and Atlas were synonymous.

With regard to Sumer and Egypt, many historians have puzzled over the sudden appearance of high civilisations in these regions about the middle of the fourth millennium BC, and some have speculated that such a substantial body of knowledge must have been taught to the Sumerians rather than developed by them. The view is supported by a passage by the Chaldean historian Berosus, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, who reported a tradition already ancient in his day that: 'There appeared, coming out of the sea where it touches Babylonia, an intelligent creature that men called Oannes, who had the face and limbs of a man and who used human speech, but was covered with what appeared to be the skin of a great fish.... The entire day this strange being, without taking any human nourishment, would pass in discussions, teaching men written language, the sciences, and the principles of arts and crafts, including city and temple construction, land survey and measurement, agriculture, and those arts which beautify life and constitute culture. But each night, beginning at sundown, this marvellous being would return to the sea and spend the night far beyond the shore. Finally he wrote a book on the origin of things and the principles of government, which he left with men before his departure. The records add that during later reigns of the prediluvian kings other appearances of similar beings were witnessed.'

This was the origin of the legend, referred to by Andrija, that the founder of Ur appeared in the form of a fish. Tom's statement that 'it was first as a bull, it was then as a ram', is difficult to verify, though the symbology is consistent with what we know of the period. When Sir Leonard Woolley excavated the royal tombs of Ur he found artifacts which associated the bull with the moon and the ram with the sun.

All this is fairly recondite knowledge, and the agreement of Tom's account with these traditions again raises the question whether the communications are derivative or corroborative of the trio, Andrija is the person most likely to be familiar with the sources, and as he asks most of the questions it is possible to regard the communications, on the 'normal paranormal' hypothesis, as a dialogue he is conducting with his own unconscious, using Phyllis's telepathic receptivity as a feedback channel. Alternatively, it might be surmised that Phyllis in trance can exercise an extraordinary clairvoyant ability to pick up information from remote sources.

While we are on the subject of recondite knowledge, I should like to bring up one more point. In the course of a discussion in which John was trying to get a clear distinction between the Supreme God, minor gods and superior beings, Tom said, 'We in truth are Aeons.' And in an earlier communication he had suggested that all their people connected with their work might be collectively known as 'messengers of the Aeons'. Now, the term 'aeons', meaning an eternity, is quite commonly used, but is used in the sense of 'a being beyond space and time' is only to be found in certain rare texts of the Gnostic philosophers. Moreover, there are other aspects of the philosophy of the communications, which I shall discuss in the final chapter, that have much in common with the esoteric philosophy of the Gnostics.

After spending the festive season separately with friends and family, Phyllis, John and Andrija reassembled at Ossining at the beginning of January 1975. The two months they spent there before returning to Israel were not externally eventful though they were not lacking in drama at the interpersonal level. Communications were held every three days, and familiar subjects were elaborated and some new ones introduced. The series began on 3 January, with a talk by Tom on the subject of doubt and belief, which they all found very pertinent after having had three weeks to think over the events of the past months.

'You have doubted yourself, Doctor,' he began. 'You have doubted your ability, and you have doubted that within you and within the three of you, you have the power to accomplish all that we ask. We wish you from this moment to remove your doubts. When we inform you that you three have the power and the love and the strength to prevent chaos, tragedy and loss of life on your planet we mean this with all that we are, and we ask you to remove your doubts.'

'Thank you for that strong reassurance,' Andrija said. 'John and I do live with doubt and questions, based on the fact we cannot see the results of our work, for example when we were in Israel last month.'

'We understand that, and there will come a time when that problem will be removed. But may we ask you to hold in your heart the faith that you have in knowing that this universe is not operated by chance or simply by what many people on the planet call nature. You are aware of and do not doubt this, so may we ask you to remove the doubt that you have within you the energies to do what we ask. Do you understand of what we speak?'

'Yes, we understand,' Andrija said, 'and I think it's a very relevant lesson for both of us, and…'

'Can you see God?'

'I cannot, no.'

'Sir John, do you believe that there is a God?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Then if you can believe that, why can you not believe that you have the ability and the energy and the power? For remember this ability and energy and power comes from the, love and the desire within you, and when I say desire I mean the desire to help, which is different from the desire which seeks to control.'

Andrija asked how the existence of doubts in them had affected the work, and in explanation Tom used the analogy of a cable consisting of millions of copper wires. If some of the wires were broken, he said, it would not break the cable, but the cable would not be perfect and communications going through it would be affected. 'You have doubts,' he concluded, 'because in your explanations to yourselves and to each other you cannot comprehend the nature of who you are. Yes, Sir-John?'

The inquiry must have been prompted by an act of mindreading, for John did have a point to make. He said, 'One of my main difficulties is our acute awareness of our, inadequacies on a physical level.'

'Sir John, you are not so inadequate as you would like to believe. To believe that you are inadequate may be used at times as an excuse,' Tom said shrewdly.

Andrija suggested that it would help their understanding if Tom could give them a specific example of an occasion when their doubts had adversely affected the outcome of some project. But, Tom explained, that hadn't happened; projects had been accomplished in spite of their doubts. Had he not said that the cable with the defective wires would not break but it would be weakened? He referred to the incident of their last day in Israel, when their car had been immobilised near Yavneh for an hour. 'You prevented an explosion which, if it had taken place, the three of you would not be in your physical, you would have been returned with us. We cannot prove that to you, but must we have an explosion to prove to you what we say? You have come here with complete faith. That is your mission, as it had been in many of your existences. But sometimes we peer at you and we say, "The three of them have forgotten who they are, and they are trapped in the physical and the thinking of the physical, because in the physical it is necessary to see an object or to hold an object in order to believe." But you, Doctor, above all, should understand, for what you have accomplished in your years could not be seen before. Parts of the secret knowledge that you have held within you for many years have now been proven to this physical world.'

'Yes, that's very true,' Andrija said.

Sixty-three per cent of the people in the United States, Tom said, were now aware of the existence of other beings, and were beginning to ask, 'Who are they?'

'Yes, and not only that,' Andrija said, ‘but they also ask, "Are they good or evil?" '

'When they ask that,' Tom said, 'you must say, "They are good, and they wish to help." And if there are those who say, "But we have seen those of evil, then we would ask you to ask them to look within themselves and to understand that within each physical being there are all the elements of good and all the elements of what they call evil. But we do not like that word "evil".'

'No, neither do I,' Andrija said.

'I'd like to return to the subject of doubt and belief,' John said. 'I understand completely what you say about the effects of doubting, but on the other hand I think that blind faith can be equally dangerous, and that for us to draw the fine line between the two is difficult.'

'We do not ask blind faith of you ever,' Tom said. 'You must never just accept, and you must at all times ask questions. But if you will review your communications you will find that many things that we have related to you have already come to pass.'

'Yes,' Andrija said, 'John and I have been reviewing some of the tapes over the past week, and we are quite astounded at how much we have grown over the last few months under your tutelage.'

'Remember that we have grown with you, because when you grow, we grow.'

'That's a difficult one,' Andrija said. 'I mean the idea that growth potential still exists at your level, the level of the Nine, is quite amazing to us.'

'It is because you are in the physical and we are in the zone called cold,' Tom explained, 'and through you we are growing in understanding of the physical. If some one relates an experience to you, you might believe it but you will not have had the emotion, and what has happened with us is that because there are three of us attached to each of you and we are within your emotions, we are beginning to learn and to understand.'

'That's interesting,' Andrija said. 'We didn't realise that you were getting a refresher course in Earth experience.'

'It is not just Earth, Doctor, it is the physical. The Earth is only one of many physical planets, but it is the densest, which is unfortunate for you but means that it is the best place for us to learn.'

Concluding the session, Tom said: 'We have begun a new time in your land and your universe, and it is a time for you to drop and to remove the string that attaches you to the past time in the physical, and to remove also your doubts. We ask this of you, and we know that it is much, and we know that it is difficult for you to prove what you say to those around you. But it is not necessary, for the proof will come in time. In this world in which you exist, they use a term, "Happy of your New Year". We wish to say to you, "Happy of your New Universe".'

As if in response to the call of the new time, during January and February 1975 contacts were re-established with old associates and there was a continual flow of visitors to Ossining, including Bobby, Lyall Watson, Dr Neil Hitchen and Jim Hurtak. On 19 January I paid the visit described in the first chapter of this book, which the reader may refer back to for an impression of what daily life in the community was like at this time. It is very much an outsider's impression, though, and since writing it I have listened to the tapes and talked to the people involved and got a clearer picture of the interpersonal conflicts and underlying tensions of the time. In this narrative I have had to focus on Phyllis, Andrija and John, and have only been able to mention very briefly relationships they each had outside the trio. Nor have I been able to make more than a passing mention of the fact that when he was at home in Ossining, Andrija sometimes held communications through other psychics.

In order to preserve the anonymity of certain of these, when we speak of 'Colette' in the rest of this narrative, the reader should understand that the name is used for more than one person.

The first communication that Colette participated in is interesting both for its content and for the fact that it was the only communication of this period that was terminated abruptly, allegedly because of the activities of the opposition.

Tom chose this occasion to address the group on the subject of spurious physical and spiritual experience and the different orders of non-physical existence.

'We know that what you have done you have done in faith,' he began. 'We have asked you to understand that the nature of the project will take from all three of you great energy. You will also recall that those that oppose have not finished opposing. Now we wish you to understand clearly that what we ask we are asking from a universal point, and not from an earthly or a spirit point. There are many things in which you on the planet Earth are involved that in truth do not have the nature of the universe but only of the planet Earth or of the spirit planes that surround the planet Earth. And you have the belief that this is a way of attaining what you call the spiritual. There are many processes in which you are involved which are a waste of time and which also create a problem because you believe that this is the path on which you must go. We wish you to know that when a physical body is ill, the person often has what is called a spiritual experience. Do you understand why this is so?'

'Is it because the so-called separation of the spirit from the body occurs?' Andrija said.

'It is in a sense, but what happens is that when the physical body is ill not all the vital organs operate upon the proper vitality rate in order for the physical body to function properly. This in turn gives the feeling to the physical being that they are having a spiritual experience. It is simply because they are between two worlds. They are closer then to the spirit world than they are to the physical world.'

'Is that what we call the astral?' Andrija asked.

'There are different planes of existence in the spirit world,' Tom explained. 'But it is not a universal world. Each planetary civilisation has in its midst or around it a spirit plane or numerous spirit planes. And there are within the physical planet Earth many forms of communication with different levels within the spirit planes. There is a difference between what the Being calls Intellions and we have asked you to call Aeons, and those of the spirit planes. We wish you to understand clearly with whom you are dealing.'

'Do you wish me to end communications with the astral plane?' Colette asked.

'It serves no purpose except to drive you into its pits,' Tom answered. Then, returning to the subject of spurious spiritual experience, he went on: 'And it also came into the minds of physical beings that they could perhaps bring to themselves the experience of spiritual awareness by the intake in their bodies of substances that would bring them to this awareness.

The reason that the intake of what you would call drugs gave them the sense that they had become spiritually aware was simply because they affected the vital organs and brought them in fact closer to death, so therefore they would be between the spiritual and the physical. But if you operate an automobile on inferior oil, how long will it work without being clogged?'

A number of other topics were raised and discussed in this communication before Tom interrupted a question of Andrija's to say, 'We are having difficulty.' Suddenly Phyllis came out of trance. 'How can they do that?' she said when she had got her bearings. 'How can they bring me out so quickly?' John said he supposed they could do anything when they had to, but the question was, why had they had to? There was only one way to find out, so after a pause Phyllis went back into trance and Andrija asked Tom for an explanation of what had happened. He explained that the opposition had suddenly launched an attack of intensified vigour and all energy resources had been required to combat it, leaving none for continuation of the communication. The battle was still in progress, he said, so it would be better if they stopped again and met later in the day for further discussion.

When they met again just before midnight, Colette was not a participant, and Tom was able to explain more fully the cause of the earlier difficulty: 'The trouble arose because of the lady. There was within the lady a problem of ego. She does not mean to be of that nature, but there is a weakness in her, and as you have learned, all weaknesses can be used. This does not mean that she is not to work and to serve, but is only for you to understand that physical beings have these weaknesses, which you must have the wisdom to discern. Do you understand?'

'Yes, I understand about the lady,' Andrija said, 'but I don't understand how it relates to the opposition.'

'When there exists a problem within a physical being and they are within your box, that energy may be used. We are only telling you this out of love for you and the lady. There is within her, as there was within all three of you at one time, a great deal that needs to be purified. And you do not have the time, so she must do her own perfecting. It is important for you both to beware of those that are involved in what you call the psychic field. It is a new field for Sir John, but our, Doctor knows it well. But there is one thing within him which he is aware of but does not attend to. Of all the beings and species that exist on the planet Earth, those that are involved in what you call psychic work have great difficulty with the ego. It is important for you - and we know not how to say this to you, but beware of your weaknesses and be careful of your traps and do not permit yourself to be used to perpetuate the ego of those that are psychic. Your weakness, Doctor, has been sirens. It is an element in your nature that needs to be controlled. We ask you in the future on meeting a siren to stand back and be objective. Do not bring those with whom you have a personal relationship into the work. It cannot be. They will use you.'

Andrija did not at the time react to this advice and view of his situation, but apparently acquiesced to it, but in a later discussion with John and Phyllis he said that there were times when he disagreed with the Nine. When they spoke from their universal point of view they were no doubt infallible, but with regard to the physical he believed that they could sometimes be wrong, for on their own admission they did not fully understand physical life and its problems. John and Phyllis both felt that he was rationalising an unwillingness to acknowledge what they both considered a very relevant warning, and there followed a discussion in which they each expressed quite frankly their, views of and problems with the other two. The idea behind the discussion was to clear out, as John said, 'anything that has an energy in it that can disrupt the work', and over a period of a couple of hours there was certainly a great deal of energy discharged, though the problems were not, as John hoped, once and for all disposed of.

Since the psychology of the three and of the relationships between them may be relevant to the question of the nature and origin of the communications, I have judged that to report this personal material can be construed neither an unwarranted infringement of privacy nor as a gingering up of the narrative with spicy revelations. He who seeks a psychological explanation of the phenomenon of the communications may find something here to his purpose, and for other readers the spectacle of the three laundering their dirty linen may serve to counteract the uncomfortable implications of elitism that have emerged in earlier chapters.

The discussion developed out of a report Phyllis gave the other two of an experience she had had that morning during her session on the electronic equipment, which is why it was recorded. She had fallen into trance and been taken out of the body to appear before the Nine, where she had been given a lecture and instructed to report it to the other two. The Nine had told her that they must have the triangle in perfect balance for their work, and that at present they were not balanced, for they each had an ego problem that they were not aware of and that could ruin all their work and plans. They had stressed, Phyllis said, that the three were physical beings and were not different from or better than others on the planet, and that if they didn't understand that they wouldn't be able to function. They had analysed the faults of each of them and told Phyllis that she must convey this part of the message quite clearly. She didn't know how she could, though, because some of the things they had said were so personal.

John said she must just come out with it, for he and Andrija wouldn't hold her responsible for what the Nine had said, and he personally had no doubt that at this time she was functioning as spokesman for the Nine. Andrija agreed. Phyllis said she knew she had to do it but it wasn't going to be easy, so perhaps she could start with what they had said about herself. They had told her that she was too emotional in relating what they said and what she felt to the others, and that the reason for her excessive emotionality was a lack of confidence and a tendency to doubt. As regards John, they had said that he was sometimes like a spoiled child, that he was given to unreasonable resentments, was prone to self-pity, and that in everything he did he tried too hard. Both John and Andriia, they had said, sometimes misinterpreted what was said in the communications, and made them mean what they wanted them to mean. But it was what they had said about Andrija that she found most difficult to relate. They had said that he had not really mastered his emotions, though he thought he had, and that this made him susceptible to the manipulations of sirens. In conclusion they had stressed again that the energy of the three was vital and that if their mission failed the consequences for the Earth would be dire and they would be entirely responsible.

Andrija was apparently moved by Phyllis's account and at first showed no resentment about what had been said about himself nor any doubt that the strictures and advice that Phyllis reported emanated from the Nine. He said: 'Let's recognise that there is an outside world that presses upon us, and let's make a pledge to each other never to let any outside thing get inside the group and disrupt the work. I'm prepared to make that pledge right now.'

'Right,' Phyllis said. 'They said that unless we're in harmony we can't do anything.'

'So we must recognise where the disharmony comes from; Andrija said, 'and help each other understand and deal with it.'

So they agreed, as they had done before, to be more ' up front' with each other in future, not to hide their feelings or thoughts, to talk frankly about any problems that could cause disharmony, to be willing, each of them, to accept criticism from the other two, and to put before all other considerations the maintenance of the harmonious balance of the triangle. John said that he acknowledged that the Management were right about him, and that the problem he needed help with was the problem of his intensity.

'Sure,' Andrija said, 'your adrenaline system is just hyperactive. You've trained yourself all your life to be competitive, aggressive, a sportsman, all that stuff, and you can't get rid of it that easily. You could take a tranquilliser and you wouldn't be so hyperactive. And Phyllis should go to a gynaecologist and get her menopausal problem under control.'

'Andrija, I went through a hysterectomy three years ago,' Phyllis protested.

'I know,' Andrija said, 'and you're still in menopause, kid. You think it ends with a hysterectomy? This is a definite problem that we should be realistic about. There's no shame, there's no nothing, it's just a problem. And I'm speaking as a physician. We have to take into account the biochemistry of the body. We should look at that very carefully, and it shouldn't give rise to any more emotion than looking into the functioning of a machine would.'

They discussed at some length problems of decision-making both in the context of their work and in the context of their community life, and agreed that anything the Nine asked of them should be discussed and agreed upon unanimously before any action was taken, but that they might each act on their own initiative regarding minor decisions. It was at this point that Andrija said he retained the right to disagree with the Nine about physical matters that they admitted they knew little about. Then Phyllis brought up a problem of hers for discussion. She said she sometimes got a strong feeling that she should say something that had a bearing on their work or their safety, but she got so afraid that they would misunderstand that she avoided saying anything at all. 'For instance,' she said, 'I have to talk to Andrija about something right now, and I want him to understand that I do it because I'm fearful about what could happen if I don't.'

'We have to understand each other's personality,' Andrija said, 'and one thing you must know about me is that it's no good trying to impress me with the consequences of anything. If, like that time in Israel, you get the impression that there's going to be a blow-out in the right front wheel, just say so in a matter-of-fact way, and don't scream out as you did in a panic and say that it's going to kill me. That's what I resent, because that's laying a trip on me that I don't believe in. I don't believe in fear or death.'

'Okay, okay, I dig that, Andrija,' Phyllis said.

'You have to remember you're dealing with two very unusual people in John and me. We both, I guess, love to play games with death. That's why we've done some of the stupid things we have done in life.'

'Andrija!'

'It's our nature. You're not that type, we know that. So there's a huge imbalance in our perspectives . .

'Andrija! Hey!'

'. . . on life, on death, on safety.'

'Wow! You didn't even hear what I said.'

'Let me try to mediate a bit,' John said, and he tried to explain to Phyllis that what Andrija was saying was that he had no problem with the content of the messages Phyllis brought across, but what created the problem was the emotional way she expressed things. 'As I understand it,' he said, (you get a message from the Management from time to time which you need to pass on to us. What we're saying is that if you put it in a calm way then we feel absolutely cool about it and there's no problem.'

'But none of this has anything to do with what I wanted to talk to Andrija about,' Phyllis said. 'You're both browbeating me.'

'Oh, come on, Phyllis,' said Andrija. 'Browbeating! You use such heavy words.'

'Just let me finish, okay?'

'Okay, but choose your words more carefully, please.'

'I know you've no fear, Andrija, but that's not what I was talking about.'

'We were talking about predictions,' Andrija explained 'and the way predictions are loaded with fears of consequences.'

'Were we? I thought I was talking about a problem I have and asking for your help with it.'

"So let's come back to what you wanted to say to Andrija,' John said.

Phyllis was silent for some time, then she said, 'We'll finish the conversation another time.'

'Phyllis, you mustn't get emotional about anything we say, That's the first thing you must learn.'

'Oh God! Please! I know that, Andrija ... I ... I…'

'You're being emotional right now, and you must stop and say, "Phyllis, I'm being emotional."'

Phyllis shouted, 'I know it!'

'Okay, then stop it, baby!' Andrija shouted back, but with a laugh.

'What makes me so goddam mad is that you don't listen half the time,' Phyllis said.

'I'm listening to every word, but you don't use words very carefully. You don't realise how loaded some of your words are. I'm a very sensitive person to words.'

'And I'm a very sensitive person to feelings,' Phyllis flashed back.

John tried to mediate again, and eventually succeeded in coaxing Phyllis to say what she wanted to say to Andrija. It turned out to be that Colette had taken her aside and told her that she had come to Ossining to take care of Andrija's needs, that she had a personal relationship with him, and that she wasn't going to stand any interference from Phyllis. 'I didn't know what to say at the time,' Phyllis went on. 'Andrija, you know there's never been anything between you and me, so I don't understand someone talking to me like that.'

'Well, I don't even want to discuss it because it's in the area of competition between women, and total irrationality,' Andrija said.

John didn't agree with him. He said he knew Colette had spoken to all the other women in the house in the same terms, and that because what she had said had been hurtful to Phyllis it couldn't be lightly dismissed. Phyllis said she wasn't so much concerned about the personal hurt as about Colette interfering in the work, because another thing she had told Phyllis was that she knew about the work and was a part of it. And John reminded Andrija that they had had a warning about a siren.

'Look, I'm not involved,' Andrija protested. 'The warning was that this siren was going to take me over, right? Well, I tell you, forget it. It's a joke. It's just a case of jealousy between women.'

'Jesus Christ! I'm not jealous of her,' Phyllis shouted.

'Then you wouldn't have brought it up,' Andrija said.

Gently but emphatically John said, 'Andrija, it's not such a joke if there has been a warning about a siren. The Management do have a thing about you not getting involved with a siren.

'Well, how about yourself? Andrija retaliated, and the subsequent discussion must have become even more personal and recriminatory because the recording ends abruptly at this point.

This material is relevant to the study of the communications, I would suggest, because it is highly revealing both as regards the psychology of the three and of their relationships and as regards their attitudes to Tom and the Nine. Though Andrija doesn't like some of the things the Management have said, and though he regards Phyllis as too disposed to indulge her personal emotions, he doesn't suggest that the material she has channelled has been influenced by those emotions. At this point in time he preferred to think that the Nine were wrong about some physical matters that, on their own admission, they did not fully-understand.

The communication held the day after this discussion constitutes further weighty evidence of the independent reality of Tom, for the intelligence, objectively and breadth of view expressed in it are greater than we could expect any member of the trio to manifest, particularly in the light of what we have learnt of them through eavesdropping on their discussion.

'We were saddened and we were grieved when we saw the great discord among the three of you,' Tom said. 'The sadness we feel is because there is so much difficulty among all in the manner in which you communicate. We have observed that what you speak is often not what you think. It is tragic that your manner of communication is used in this way. The day when all can see clearly what is in truth in the mind of another will be of the greatest importance, because then no one will speak in a manner that is not of truth.

'Misunderstanding is a different thing. We realise that at times you misunderstand what we say, just as you sometimes misunderstand each other. But one thing that must not be misunderstood is that when we speak to you, we, speak through this Being, and perhaps if you would understand the manner and the difficulties of our communications it would be the foundation of future understanding.'

Andrija said that the manner in which the Nine communicated was indeed a mystery and that he would welcome more information about it. Tom proceeded to give a very informative and lucid talk on the subject of channelling, which was not only interesting but also opportune, for it had the effect of establishing Phyllis's uniqueness as a channel at a time when Andrija might have been prevailed upon to doubt it.

'In many thousands of years of communications from other dimensions to species and beings upon the physical planet Earth there has always been great difficulty,' Tom began. 'There have been but few that permit complete control. Without complete control, and without the relinquishing of the personality of the individual, there cannot be clear communication. The one whom we communicate through is in truth a physical transmitter, and it has to be a being that is willing, that will become passive in order for us to be active. We have said to you before that this Being is the greatest of the communicators, and we wish you to understand that this is because this Being transcends the individual.

'In order to communicate with you, we must take over the subconscious of the Being and at the same time Control the physical body We must, with great effort, maintain a balance in the body. We must cause the body to have its heart operating, its lungs breathing and all its major organs functioning. The reason for the drain of energy many times from the two of you is that -we are maintaining the body in a suspended state. When we maintain the Being, it is as if we take a million threads, and we weave these threads together to communicate with you if there is a situation in which the Being is not physically in condition, if for example there is difficulty of digestion or of elimination or difficulty in emotion, or if there is a negative vibration within the Being, or either of you, or an anger or a disturbance in you, we cannot then use the energy from you because it would only cause a breakdown in the threads which we weave with the Being in order to communicate. So therefore we communicate at times with great effort, which in turn causes more of a depletion in the Being. It is also very difficult, when conditions are not proper, to present the images so that they may be related, for you must understand that we do not have a vocal language and we have to communicate with the mind of the Being and it is the Being's subconscious that translates our communications into words.

'We have told you before and we will tell you again to be of extreme caution with those you use as communicators. It is important for you to understand that this Being is upon the physical planet Earth the only one to give completely to the Nine. Communications which you receive through other beings or species are of a different sort. They are relayed. You must also understand that the conscious mind of others may desire to use you. We have asked you, Doctor, to be cautious of communications through other channels. We are again giving to you, not a warning for we do not warn you we alert you, so we are giving you an alert, for although the civilisation that speaks through them may be trying with great difficulty to relay a truth to you, for them it presents an opportunity to use you.'

'Is there any reason why this kind of deception goes on?' Andrija asked. 'Are they the opposition, or are they misinformed, or what?'

'It is a consequence of their physical nature,' Tom said. 'We wish you to know that the most destructive element - and we have talked to you of this before - is the ego that controls. It is true that all three of you have what you would call a giant ego, but one thing is clear with the three of you and that is your commitment is true. Your ego does not create difficulty when we communicate. It has sometimes caused difficulty within the cage when you have brought with you your anger and your problems of dealing with each other. But this is different from the ego of ambition and manipulation. We say this to you - and we speak now to the Doctor – because in truth we are in Armageddon, and this is one area the opposition may use, even though the communicator may not be aware. Do you understand?'

'Yes,' Andrija said, 'that's very serious.’

'We just ask you to be responsive to souls,' Tom continued. 'If you are responsive to souls, we will take care of the rest. You are ambassadors for us. We have asked you before to remember who you are, and that it would behove you to act as the Nazarene. Do as he would do. You have, the three of you, the most difficult of assignments. You have a special mission but you are not special. You are no different from any other physical being. The reason for this is that it is important for you to understand their difficulties. It is important for you not to withdraw from the common folk, for it is they who will hear the message and of whom the demands will be made. When we say that you are no different, we mean in your feelings, your emotions and your sufferings. The common man must exist upon this physical planet, with all its hurt, all its sorrows and all its joys, and this is the existence of you three also. You chose this existence so that you could relate to the common man, and in this area the Being is of the three of you the most able, and is your teacher, our Doctor and Sir John, as in other areas you are her teacher.'

Andrija wasn't too happy with this last statement, and he pointed out that he had been born in the slums, had served in the army and had worked for years among simple people doing medical work.

'But you are superior in mind,' Tom said. 'They look upon you as someone special. They tell you only the things you wish to know. They do not tell you their deepest feelings. You are two different beings. You can, from a clinical position, understand the common man, but you are - and you know this - superior.'

Andrija proceeded to bring the discussion back to the subject of channelling with a question that brought an interesting answer from Tom. 'It might help us to understand what you were saying about the nature and problems of communication if you could give us an idea as to who in the past, among known historical figures, you would call perfect communicators as you say this Being is.'

'There was the one called Jesus of Nazareth. You know of him.'

'Yes.'

'There was the one that you call Socrates. There was the one that gave to you in code: Nostradamus. There was the one that was one and the same as Jesus: Buddha. But remember this: there was perfect communication, and it was in translation that it became obscure.'

'Of which figure are you speaking now?'

'In all of the translations. Then there was one, Elijah. And there was the one called Joseph.'

'Which Joseph would that be?' Andrija asked. 'There are several in the Bible.'

'It would be the one that was in Egypt. And there was one whose name was da Vinci. We speak to you only of those that have been recorded historically. There have been others.’

'To come to more recent times,' Andrija said, 'would a figure like Helen Blavatsky qualify?'

'I must consult,' Tom said, and after a pause returned with the information, 'Blavatsky was true.'

'Well, thank you,' Andrija said. 'That information answers a lot of questions. Before we go on, I have just one more along those lines. Who was it that received the communication that we call the Revelation of St John the Divine?'

Tom had to consult again, and this time he returned with a question: 'Would you be able to understand that it was John the Baptist?'

'I would never have imagined that,' Andrija said. 'That really is a surprise!

'It was before the baptism. It was that that brought the understanding of who Jesus was.'

'And was Jesus a witness to this Revelation?'

'Yes. He was a young boy.'

'And did he actually say this Revelation to St John, or did it come direct?'

'It came as we speak to you,' Tom said.

It was later explained that after John the Baptist's death, the Revelation was transmitted by him to St John the Divine who received it as a vision while in exile on the island of Patmos.

Though the powers of the opposition were supposed to have diminished since October, it was during these weeks of January and February that the balance and togetherness of the trio came under the severest pressure. It was, perhaps, the more severe for being pressure from within. In October they had rallied to withstand a common enemy, but there was no rallying against the more insidious enemy of this time, which was a disruptive force that drew its strength from their own egos, their resentments, their insecurities and their pride. Two years later, looking back on the big scene between Phyllis and Andrija in which he had acted as mediator, John said: 'I thought that Phyllis's emotions had as much right to be heard as Andrija's opinions, but at the same time my mediating wasn't perhaps as selfless and as balanced as it might seem. For one thing, I felt some guilt because in the past I'd done what Andrija was doing now, and not paid attention to Phyllis's emotions, and to an extent I was compensating for that. But also I didn't want to fall into disfavour with Andrija because I regarded him as an ally. So there was an element of self-interest in my playing the middle of the road.'

John's own crisis occurred at the beginning of February. They had agreed to split up for a short while so that John could spend some time with Diana in the Bahamas and Phyllis could go and see her daughters in Florida, and the last session they had before John's departure had a dramatic conclusion. John, no less than Andrija, had balked at Tom's statement that in certain respects Phyllis was their teacher, and also in the last weeks he had been repeatedly irritated by certain aspects of Phyllis's conduct. 'I was very much into the idea of community living,' he later explained, 'and sometimes the way Phyllis insisted on doing her own thing and set herself apart really got up my nose.'

As if exasperated by observing their interpersonal conflicts, Tom said: 'We cannot impress on the three of you the importance of what we say. When there is difficulty among you it is more serious than the difficulty that would arise among others. Your energies are of a different nature, and if they cannot be in balance they will be the destruction of the three of you. You must understand that if one of you is on a collision course it affects all three. There is great anxiety among us. We do not wish to speak of bringing you back to us, but we want you to be clear that now there are but three choices. First, we can remove the Being and return her home, and that will leave the two of you. Second, we can remove the Being from the two of you and still have her in physical existence so that her energy would still be available for us or for the civilisation of Altea to use. Or we can keep the Being with the two of you, which is in truth the situation which you originally chose. As we have told you, when the three of you are together and in harmony this creates a perfect unit which because of the power that comes through you, can prevent catastrophes. It is your choice. We cannot interfere. We give you the three.'

Andrija recalled that in an earlier communication Tom had said that sometimes Phyllis served as a thorn to goad himself and John, and he asked, 'Is this a part of your plan?'

'No,' Tom replied. 'When we said she was a thorn it was from observation. It is difficult for the two of you to accept that the Being sees to the core of the truth of a situation. It is not always a situation that she understands, and she is not always aware that she sees the truth, and it is as difficult for her as it is for you to understand how she knows. When we said she was as a thorn, it was because we realised that the Being knows the truth upon immediate communication with other people. And it is not always the truth that they would recognise in their own minds. It is the truth of what is the truth.'

This claim for Phyllis's infallibility was very difficult for John to swallow in view of the dissensions they had had over the last few weeks. He mentioned that she had sometimes accused him of generating a negative energy, and he accepted that possibly he sometimes did, but, he protested, 'I cannot help but be aware that the Being herself is sometimes the source of a negative energy that affects not only me but others around here. This she doesn't seem to see at all, and this is possibly where our problem lies.'

'We have just explained and we will explain again,' Tom said. 'The Being sees through the situation. Immediately upon observation, without thinking, she knows. You have said that there is a creation of negative energy. What we have explained to you is that the negative energy of which you are aware comes from what the Being sees, though she knows not from where it comes.'

'So what you're saying is that she's perfect,' said John, a little irascibly, 'and that the negative energy all comes from other people and not from her.'

'We did not say that. You are not perfect, the Doctor is not perfect, and the Being is not perfect. We have asked you to work in harmony, and if you allow others to implant in you a great disharmony, then you have done a great injustice to yourself and to the three.'

'Well, may I just say this,' John said. 'I feel that you've quite rightly admonished me several times for my feelings of frustration and my shortness of temper with the Being. But very often she produces those very same characteristics that you've admonished me for, and this is something I find very difficult to accept and deal with. And it's not as if it's me alone that has noticed this. I think there's a general feeling around here that she does not fit in, and she does tend to cause difficulties . . .'

John was externally being cool and reasonable, but a surge of violent anger welled up in him, and he later attributed to this the alarming and unprecedented thing that happened next. Tom interrupted him and said in a level voice but with a chilling note of finality: 'We will remove the Being.' Instantly, Phyllis slumped out of trance, and for an awful moment John thought that she was dead.

That peremptory statement echoed through John's mind repeatedly during the days he was in the Bahamas. He phoned Andrija twice a day to see if there was any news of Phyllis from Florida, still fearing drastic consequences. To 'remove the Being and return her home', Tom had said, was the first option available to them. The second was to 'remove the Being from the two of you'. So either she was to die or to stop working with them. Either eventuality would be catastrophic and was unthinkable, and John agonised over the thought that he had brought this situation about. He sat on the beach alone and went through harrowing hours of reappraisal of himself and of the extent to which his ego had caused the conflict with Phyllis. At first he was unclear how he had been so wrong but he accepted that the Nine knew best and that he would understand in time. He resolved that if the work with Phyllis continued he would finally and unconditionally surrender his personal will to that of the higher purpose of the work.

When John returned to Ossining after a few days the news of Phyllis was encouraging. She was going to be back on 25 February. But also John recalled that some time before, Tom had said that they should be in Israel again by the end of February, and he was apprehensive lest their interpersonal discord should have created a setback for the Management's plans.

It was a great relief for John to find, in the first communication they held after Phyllis's return, that nothing had substantially changed, except within him. He and Andrija reaffirmed their dedication and readiness to work wherever the Management required, and Tom said that as they were all in a low state and not fit for channelling the necessary energies they should not go to Israel yet. The situation would hold a little longer, and meanwhile there were many things to be communicated.

It was in this period just before they went to Israel for the second time that the subject of the Book of Revelation came up and was elaborated by Tom over a number of communications. I propose now to bring all this material together, but first would like to make a few points by way of preface.

The material on the Book of Revelation is in many way the most intriguing in all the communications, for the familiarity Tom shows with the text and the ingenuity he exercise in interpreting it raise and focus the basic problems posed by the communications as a whole. Do they emanate from the mind of one or other of the participants? or from a combination of them in psychic concert? or are they explainable in terms of Phyllis's cryptomnesia? or of Andrija's telepathic projection? Are they a collusive hoax? or are they the product of an intelligence or a combination of intelligences of unknown origin endowed with extraordinary powers of invention and improvisation? Any member of the group might have been or become familiar with the text of Revelation, so a 'normal explanation (hoax) or a 'normal paranormal' one (telepathy cryptomnesia) might be tenable. But close study of the material raises problems for these explanations, for Tom sometimes explains the symbolism of Revelation in terms consistent with information contained in communications channelled months before the Book was first mentioned. Which would seem to reduce the choice of explanations to two: brilliant improvisation or truth.

The subject first came up when Tom volunteered the information that the opposition forces had been in control of the planet for the last 1,300 years.

'Was this foreseen in the book of the Bible that we call Revelation?' Andrija asked. Tom complimented him on his insight and said 'There are messengers who reveal the nature of what is in the cosmos. Those that are of the opposition had until this time period. It did not matter if those upon the planet Earth evolved or did not evolve. But the fact that those that oppose have kept the planet in bondage makes Armageddon more difficult.'

'So we're to understand that we chose to come back to be prepared for the moment when Armageddon started.'

'Yes.'

'There are many obscure passages in Revelation,' Andrija said. 'Could you clarify one that bothers me? After the sixth trumpet sounds there is the appearance of the two witnesses on Earth. And it says that the two witnesses would go around in sackcloth for 1,260 days and then they would be slaughtered by the mob and their bodies would lie in the street for three and a half days unattended, then they would get up and walk away. Is that the scenario?'

'It is not in the sense of a physical experience,' Tom said. 'You understand that the passages of the final book are in symbolical language?'

'Yes, of course. But what is the true interpretation of that symbolism?'

'It is that the witnesses will not be understood. There will be great anger against them because they reveal what they are to reveal, and those who are knowledgeable and recognise that they have the truth will live in great fear of them. And they will say that those that are coming to this planet, who you know are coming to save the planet, are coming to control it. Remember also that the time of what you call the Bible is a different time from your time. When it speaks of the rising, it is simply saying that the recognition then will be given and they will come to the witnesses for help and understanding. It is true that they will first strip them of their dignity, and that is the reason for the terminology.'

'Will this occur before the landing?' Andrija asked.

'It will be after,' was the answer.

Andrija took a copy of the Bible into the next session they held, and resumed his questioning: 'As history is unfolding now, where would you say that we are in the Book of Revelation? What chapter and verse are we actively living out right now on the Earth and cosmic scene?'

'I will consult,' Tom said, and after a brief pause he gave the information: 'In your chapter number six, and it is in your five.'

'Chapters five and six, okay just let me look that up,' Andrija said, and when he had found the place he said, 'That has to do with the opening of the seals.'

'It is the third,' Tom said.

Andrija read out the passage about the opening of the third seal (which is verse five of chapter six, so' Tom's reference was exact to the chapter and verse and Andrija had at first misunderstood it), which in the translation he had went as follows: 'When he broke the third seal I heard the third creature say, "Come!" And there as I looked was a black horse, and its rider held in his hand a pair of scales, and I heard what sounded like a voice from the midst of the living creatures, which said, "A whole day's wage for a quart of flour, a whole day's wage for three quarts of barley meal, but spare the olive and the vine." '

'There is an error in part of the translation, but not enough to cause a difficulty,' Tom said. 'As you understand, the planet upon which you are existing must now be brought into balance. The scale is a symbol of balance. If the Earth is brought into balance, then the rest need not happen. So it is in truth when it says to spare the olive and the vine. It is important that you understand that the month of your December 1971 was the beginning of the first seal.'

'That would be the time when I was with Uri in Israel,' Andrija said. 'Was the awakening of Uri the opening of the first seal?'

'In a sense,' Tom said, and Andrija read out the symbolism of the first seal:

'I saw a white horse, and its rider held a bow; he was given a crown and he rode forth conquering and to conquer.'

In explanation of this, Tom said, 'You must understand what in fact happened in December 1971. It was the beginning of arrangements for the coming of Jehovah. You understand about the Hoovids?'

'Yes,' Andrija said, ' that's beautiful. I'm really grateful to you for giving us these explanations.'

'You must also understand,' Tom continued, 'that in the Book of Revelation each of the seals depends upon the completion or non-completion of the one before. If you can bring into harmony and into understanding the peoples of the planet Earth, it will not be necessary for the fourth seal.'

'I see,' Andrija said. 'Then presumably the seven trumpets would not have to be blown. I mean, the trumpets of the seven angels all spell disaster for Earth and for man.'

'That's correct.'

'And there's obviously a timetable for the opening of the seals, and there's one verse that seems to indicate the start of the final phase. It's the first verse of chapter eight: "Now when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets." The way I understand this now,' Andrija continued, 'is that if we complete the work we're doing before or at the time of the seventh seal, then the first trumpet will not have to sound.'

'Yes, this is what we explained.'

'So it's impossible to overemphasise how important it is that the three of us strive for perfection.'

'Yes. But may we say this to you. We do not wish you to berate yourself looking for perfection. There is not perfection upon the physical planet. But the three of you together are a perfect being. You must understand that by being, by the three of you just being, we are, and that by the three of you being together and being in harmony all things may be done. We do not ask you to do any particular thing if you are in harmony, because one perfect being can bring it all into balance and the three of you can make one perfect being.'

The number seven is central in the symbolism of the Book of Revelation. In one of the first communications with Tom, in the Bahamas in June 1974, the group had learnt that they were 'the primary hub' of a world-wide plan and organisation consisting of groups of seven working in different areas. In a number of other communications over the months they had also learnt that they would eventually have six co-workers. The apparent anomaly was now elucidated in a communication of three weeks after the one quoted above:

'There are seven, and we wish you to understand this. We have explained to you before that the three of you are one, and that there will be six others. This is a core, and it is no more than seven. Six and the three make seven and at the same time make nine. If you review your Book of Revelation we ask you to review particularly chapter number two, because in truth the seven are the seven angels.'

'Excuse me, but there are the seven churches and the seven angels,' Andrija said.

'That is true. The angels are the seven that will relate to the churches. The churches are different areas of beings and people. And it is as if you were in the centre and you had under you six pillars, and these pillars were giving you strength and supporting you. Do you understand that for the three of you to be complete here, upon the planet Earth, you need six supports?'

'No, we didn't realise that,' Andrija said.

'We ask you to review and to study your Book of Revelation. There are many truths and there are many symbols, but there are more truths than there are symbols. We ask you to review and to have in your heart the openness to understand the verses nineteen to twenty-two of chapter two.'

'We'll do that right after this session,' Andrija said. 'While we're talking about numbers, what does the Book refer to when it speaks about God sitting on a throne surrounded by four beasts and twenty-four elders? Is this a literal situation or is it symbolic?'

'It is a symbolism. The four beasts are the four corners of your world, your north, your south, your east and your west. The twenty-four elders are of the civilisations.'

'Do we deal with any of these civilisations? I'm thinking of Altea, Hoova, Aragon, Ashand.'

'These are among the civilisations, and they are part of the Lower Council.'

'I see,' Andrija said. 'Now for my own interest I'd like to ask about a passage in chapter ten, the eleventh verse. Speaking about the angels, it says, "Then they said to me, 'Once again you must utter prophecies over peoples and nations and languages and many kings.' " Now it seems clear to me that this means that a John the Baptist comes back and has to utter prophecies. . .'

'Are you not a proclaimer? Tom put in.

'Yes, well, my question is, when is this process to begin? Because according to this text it comes after the seven trumpets, which we now understand may not have to be sounded.'

Tom explained: 'You must understand that it also involves what you call the Battle of Armageddon. The trumpets would be in the spheres. If you complete what you have to complete, that area will not affect the physical planet Earth. Then you would be a witness in explaining the nature of what had happened, and how close the people came.'

The second chapter of Revelation contains messages to four of the seven churches, and in the Authorised Version the specific verses referred to by Tom read as follows: 'I know your works, your love and faith and service, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practise immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her immorality.' In view of the interpersonal conflicts that were going on at Ossining at this time, and the discussions in the communications on the subject of authentic channelling, there is certainly no ambiguity about the relevance of this passage. Furthermore, it constitutes convincing evidence against the Andrija-as-telepath explanation of the communications, for Andrija would surely not produce, either consciously or unconsciously, a reference so pertinent to a situation that he vehemently denied existed.

When Andrija introduced the subject of the quotation in the course of the next session, Tom immediately said, 'Are you at this time of an open mind and without anger?'

'Yes,' Andrija said.

'We wish to speak to you, but before we do we ask you to remember who you are, and to be guarded and forgiving. We have tried many times to nudge you gently, but now we have decided not to nudge you but to speak directly. There is one among you - and we speak not of among the three, but in your home - that has been a catalyst that started the whirlpool that removed one from the aura of us.'

Andrija and John knew immediately that Tom was referring to Colette. While they had been away in Israel something had happened between her and another of the psychics living at Ossining who had now left.

'Listen carefully to what we say,' he continued. 'There is nothing cleverer in the universe than one that is looking for control of others. But remember, we do not work with those that are not disciplined. Such beings and species are used by civilisations, some of which are in service to us but most of which are not evolved. Do you in your heart believe that a sophisticated civilisation would use a being or species that is not stable? The tragedy of your planet Earth is that throughout the years this situation has existed and has created great problems in that our work and your forerunner work and the work of others has been discredited because of lack of stability. And remember that there are civilisations also that have ambition. You are aware that the world that exists immediately around your planet is the spirit world, and that there are those in the spirit world that claim to be different than they are? Well, it is the same with the civilisations.'

'May I say something?' Andrija interrupted. 'May I just say you must be more direct with me? We know who you're speaking about and we want the truth, so just come out with it directly. Don't treat me like a child.'

'We asked you not to be disturbed with us when we spoke to you of this,' Tom reminded him.

'I'm not disturbed. I want the truth. Specifically, is the woman lying?'

'We are explaining to you, our Doctor.'

'Well, be direct, please. Don't give us these long-winded stories,' Andrija said vehemently.

Tom waited for his vehemence to subside and after about half a minute said, 'May we speak now?' Andrija said 'Yes' and he continued: 'You have many interpretations of your Book. The essence is there, but there were times when there was an error made here and an error made there as it was handed down and as it was translated from language to language. Parts were lost and parts were misguided. Now what we said to you was that when there is a spirit world there are situations in which things are related and there are those who say they are something that they are not, but they are receiving it perhaps at times from another source.'