The Ancient Test

By Blue

What would it be like to be suddenly thrust into the mind of an ancient human being living in the plains of Africa 15 million years ago, jumped forward into modern day Los Angeles and dropped into an event similar to those reported in ancient accounts of the oldest shamanic initiations? This is the true story of the author's extreme survival experience: a brutal, haunting and yet inspiring tale. This book is about enduring an ordeal that exists commonly throughout mankind’s history, but it does everything it can to destroy the clichés around such an experience and modernize it, for indeed the test that I experienced was itself highly modernized while still being traditional. I refer to this experience in this book as the ancient shamanic test...but it has many older names, now lost in time. I have experienced many things as I have walked this journey.

I was once running through the forest and a fire was closing in around me and the flames leapt and smoke was everywhere into the sky.

I was lost in a city I had never seen while some invisible forces guided my mind and body.

I was trapped in a hotel room being tortured, someone held a gun to my head and told to me to give up fighting or the torture would only get worse.

I walked in a desert as far as I could walk, and I laid down to die, but then stood up and went on.

I woke up one day and found myself in the mind of an ancient human...feeling the pain of being trapped between ape and man consciousness.

I have lived in mental places of pain that I did not know could exist. I have cried from creases of my heart that I did not believe could contain pain.

My story is told here in the pages of this book, this is the true story of what happened to me during one of the most difficult and terrifying experiences that a man or woman can live through...the ancient test.

I believe we live in a time when everyone on earth is being tested...being pushed ever more intensely into states of fear and doubt, sickness, war, pain, anger...and division.

And if this book seeks to do anything, it seeks to provide others with some insight into these experiences as well as to help those that are experiencing any kind of negative turmoil to find a path to light and positivity, but it also deeply seeks to destroy divisions between people, to find commonalities by connecting the ancient ways with the ways of today.

-This book contains free access to over an hour of documentary excerpts and short films made by the author, including never before seen footage of the attacks of 9/11 and it's aftermath in downtown Manhattan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue
• Release date: Oct 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370667901

Book preview

I AM IN A BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

YEAR: 1983

I am 14 years old.

Across this gigantic main channel of fast flowing muddy water is my home, on the eastern bank of the river.

I can see it clearly from where I am.

It is a red brick two-story building with two gigantic ice cream cones on it. Why there are ice cream cones on my house will have to wait for a later moment…though I will tell you that there is a smaller sign meant for the uninitiated that reads, No Ice Cream Sold Here.

The ice cream cones glimmer in the quickly setting sun, which is also lighting up the fall colors on the bluffs high above the town.

I know my father is home, unaware of my predicament, not expecting me home at any particular time other than before dark.

The outboard engine, old Mercury, has gone kaput and left me stranded by a rock pile island in an old aluminum v-bow boat. I am next to a buoy that is bobbing violently in the water, making ominous sounds. I throw in the anchor, which thankfully catches, and I am now sitting here wondering what to do.

There is only one little fishing boat off to the north and I can’t seem to raise the guy’s attention. I wave an orange flotation device until I am out of breath.

The questions in my mind begin…it’s getting dark and the mosquitoes are after me and I have only an old long sleeved shirt on and am already getting cold. I have been trained in boat safety, a required class for Wisconsin youth, as well I have been trained in all kinds of basic survival stuff that comes with living in a rural environment where every year there is a major disaster that happens called winter. Hypothermia crosses my mind. If I don’t cross the channel now, I am going to have to wait it out, wait for rescue, and I am not sure how that’s going to turn out.

A rescue party would have to be raised, friends of my dad’s would come out at least an hour past nightfall in john boats mounted with search lights. People die on this river all the time. In the winter they fall through the ice and in the summer they are sucked down into the deep and fast muddy waters. I would be putting others lives at risk by staying put. Also, if I lose my mooring from the wake of a passing boat, I may be set adrift in darkness, something one does not wish to contemplate.

But I can see safety, normalcy, a warm fire, smoke coming out of the chimney, only a few hundred yards away.

So I decide, to hell with it, I am going to row across the river.

I have oars.

There are two basic problems with this idea. The current is fast and if I don’t row hard, I could end up far, far down river.

But there is a much larger problem. The Barge.

The commercial barges that go daily up and down the river here are massive in size, as long as several football fields and as wide as four or five semi trucks. Because the dredged section of channel in which they maneuver is so small and the financial cost of getting stuck so large, they are not allowed to change course if a small vessel gets into their line of travel.

So I look both ways. I don’t see anything, but I am in a curve in the channel and can’t see that far in either direction.

I have about an hour of light left.

I begin to row as hard as I can toward home.

I don’t move very fast.

But I am moving.

And then slowly, and very menacingly, I see what I least wanted to see.

After going about 50 yards, I begin to see the corner of a barge heading upstream toward me, a half mile away. I am being pulled toward it by the current.

There is this point of no return moment that happens here.

Do I go back to my previous tenuous position or go forward to rescue?

What I experience here is the cold hard grip of fear and panic.

And then I experience something else. It is as if something envelops me, something mildly warm and calming. As if someone has placed a warm cloak of protective energy around me.

This feeling washes over me and in this moment, it consoles me and somehow communicates to me that I will be okay. This is a sense that will wash over me in the future as well.

So I row, oars in gunnels, with my back to my destination. When you can’t see where you are going, it is easy to veer off course…I look at the barge, then at the opposite shore, then I row as hard as I can, angling slightly upstream.

Blisters are forming on my hands.

The barge is going faster than I thought, and I can see the wheelhouse windows atop the huge four-story tower of the barge. I know I am visible to the captain or pilot by now.

When you are hit by a barge, my dad told me, you have to roll. As much as possible, you have to roll and try get to the side, to get out from under it, before you hit the propellers. I plan this maneuver in my head as I row for dear life.

It’s a slow motion catastrophe that is about to happen, this water has a way about it…it takes its time.

And now I can see every detail of the barge, it’s about 100 yards away and the wide splash of water at its bow seems larger and more violent, a huge inevitable mass of steel.

They see me. A kid, in a tiny boat, rowing his ass off, sweat pouring down his face.

Suddenly a horn blows so loud that it deafens me for a moment.

It is terrifying, the enormity of its volume, people can hear that horn 8 miles away, it is a sound meant to communicate in the fog over long distances.

There is nothing to do but row and look at the low front of the barge, it is so low I wonder if I could jump from my boat onto the deck, an absurd idea.

We are on a collision course and I can feel the empathy of the men in the wheelhouse, unable to change course.

I, too, am unable to change course.

As the boat gets closer, there is this strange silence. There is nothing left in my head but to command my body to row as hard as it can, but there is another presence, and it is as if it is smiling, as if it knows and controls everything. We, the mind and body, do our part; we will see how this will turn out in a few heartbeats, in a few breaths, in a few rows.

When I pass around the corner of the wide bow of the barge, I could have thrown my oar at the steel hull and hit it. Oars are heavy.

It was as close as you would ever want to get.

And then I was violently washed with the wake; I changed direction and headed into the huge waves. Surfing for a long time over the rollers. The barge remained faceless, no men came out on deck, it just went by like a ghost ship.

I made it to calm waters. I sat in the middle of the Mississippi River, fallen over my oars, watching my imminent death travel on, upriver and to far away places.

There was nothing but silence. The sun now lower in the sky.

And then I felt the mysterious presence leave me, softly departing.

This was my first and full introduction to this entity, yet it was always there, running in the background, lost to my consciousness.

I began to row home.

I made it just in time for dinner.

I made it home.

And gladly forgot about the presence.

There is, in the telling of near death experiences, a certain amount of strangeness. When you recall them, they come written in strange ink, fully formed out of your subconscious or from some other lesser-known place.

This book is written in such ink.

Such old and war weary ink.

THE WARNING

There is an old trick to beginning a story like this.

It starts with a warning.

It warns you to pay attention and seriously think it over before you dive in.

Before the God and Devil duality existed, there was a character found universally in so-called primitive cultures everywhere on this planet…the shamanistic story of the Trickster.

The Trickster encompassed both devilish and godlike traits.

Sometimes called The Old Man, the Coyote, the Raven, the Rabbit, the Fox, the Turtle, the Bear – this character is said to be the ancient mythological leader of the great tribe of humanity.

The Trickster is the personification of the person who first showed up here and made some simple guiding rules, way before the three-letter word God was ever written, said, or thought about.

You see you have in the character of the Trickster already someone who makes a lot more sense…just the name should tell you this whole thing is not going to be easy.

Be good, and good shall come to you.

Be bad, and bad shall come to you.

These are basic ideas, but often unfortunately deeply untrue.

But be crafty.

And watch out for falling rocks and sunken logs.

Learn to work in between complexities and grey areas, then fight for a niche of safety and morality.

You fight in the margins, nothing is black or white.

But good people always fight within the margins for good, and they know it.

The origin of the word Satan is literally translated as obstacle.

So now to warn again.

If I can find a way to tell you this story, I intend to loosen the fabric of your reality. And I cannot promise you happiness once you turn these pages.

In fact this book may have the capacity to open you up to the things that I have been experiencing. It may bring about new learning.

New learning can come like a cold blade.

Or it can be like maple syrup on a pancake.

Or French toast.

I will tell you that I am a good person and I have proven it beyond even my own deep doubts.

I have passed through the Trickster’s tests, seen the complexities, and gotten the terrible joke that hurts to laugh at.

I suppose, then, that you should trust me.

But I make no statements about your own character.

I only tell you that I am good, in the general context of the words and have been forced to agree with this statement beyond my own self-doubts or literally die. Few can admit such things to themselves without having gone through a terrible test of knowing. Thinking and knowing are two very different things.

These words are the story my survival of these experiences.

And there are times when it is necessary to seriously doubt someone that comes at you like this.

And there are some times…when you should read on.

That was your warning.

I will just tell you that I have learned to respect the old ways of doing things a lot more than the new ones.

And I find nothing really tricky about learning these things, other than having to unlearn the new.

BEFORE ALL THAT IS GOOD

These words are the final outcome of an experience in which I have lived in a state of constant threat of death, constant pain, both internal and external and a total loss of even the most basic human rights. These events have gone on for longer than I can fathom. I have died and lived more times during this experience than in all my earthly lifetimes put together.

Eight years and counting of terrible internal war against an invading enemy.

It was a ferocious, brutal, and very old test and the only thing that kept me alive was that I believed in something that seems so lost I can’t find it anywhere anymore. I believed in old technology, the stuff of very old myth and legend, and I stubbornly believed that even the worst things must eventually reverse toward the positive.

I believed, beyond all I was confronted with, that in the final outcome all things, there would become a place of love and happiness for myself, for my family, and for my people…the good people on this planet.

I believed in this for longer than I could ever imagine, despite an onslaught of attack that still shatters my soul to recall. To my best of abilities, I kept it contained, fought like a warrior, and waited for my death, never believing in victory.

The only benefit of which are the words I am about to write.

I was forced to follow the primitive warrior path of all tribes and all world cultures and I have seen it through and now it is up to you to interpret it as you wish.

My old soul guided me.

I should not live. But I do.

I cleanse myself of all lies and prepare for the mother spirit to take me when she wishes, my soul is clean. Knowing that I have told my soul’s truth on these pages, past lies and evil, in search of only peace, harmony and love for all those that have fought for it.

I write to you the only truth I know.

It was once my death song.

Now it is my life song.

I will put my soul upon all I say, before all that is good.

Death has been so close for so long, it means nothing.

I have been dead.

No fear now, but living more.

Where are you brothers and sisters?

Children of the Old Ones.

Hear my song.

I AM STANDING ON THE ROOF OF A BUILDING IN MANHATTAN

A massive wall of smoke and dust is billowing toward me.

Voices on the police radio scanner are screaming in pain.

I have just seen two gigantic 767s filled with hundreds of people fly directly and purposefully into the sides of two buildings that hold 50,000 daily workers, not counting the 200,000 visitors per day. The World Trade Center complex is so large it has its own zip code…10048.

I have just seen two of the largest buildings in the world fall to the ground, like a detonated explosion. But the buildings are just a symbol, what is important is the lives that were just ground to dust, and the many millions of other lives that will be traumatized because of it. Not to mention the conflict that will now begin and spread throughout the world, killing, maiming and displacing millions of people.

I have just witnessed the brutal and cold-blooded murder of 2,977 human beings.

They are so close; it is as if they die in my arms.

I am helpless to stop these events, though strong signals have been pouring in, telling me that something vast and dangerous was on the horizon.

I AM STANDING ON THE TOP FLOOR OF THE HILTON HOTEL

SAN FRANCISCO

Seven years later.

I am looking out at a beautiful view.

Someone has a gun held to my head.

The gun is loaded; bullet in the chamber, hammer back, safety is off.

Finger is on the trigger. Slack is taken up.

I never saw this coming, it just fell on me and the events that have led up to this moment echo irrevocably back through my life and back further into my past lives.

If I succumb to fear, I will not see the sun come up on another day.

I will not see those I love again.

And I will die here alone, no one knowing my story.

The only way out is to endure seasons of pain that seem impossible to imagine, let alone withstand.

I fight to stay alive.

I fight to stay alive.

Just to live for another day.

There is truly no one that can help me; it must be done entirely by myself, totally in secret, with no hope that anyone will ever really know what happened or how it went down.

Many will doubt my experience. That comes with the territory.

I only wish that somehow LOVE was the rule and not the exception.

But this is Earth.

And the clock ticks.

I am doing my part in the battle to end time, hidden deep inside the system, my actions unknown to every single person in the human race.

I am the stopwatch.

So are you.

I WAS BORN WITH THE NAME BLUE

Born into a deeply repressed German town in rural Wisconsin, population 912, named Rock Falls. The town was named after the many natural springs that came out of the limestone bluffs, formed by the receding glacial ice, which made it possible for many breweries to exist in this town.

I grew up in one of these breweries, a two-story red brick building a few feet from the shore of the Mississippi, a former stopping point for riverboats to refuel as they went up and down the Big Muddy back in the 1800s.

When I got there it was even less of a stopping point; no more riverboats…some stagnant place at the end of the world that time forgot. You might know this kind of place.

Our family was different from the other people in town.

My Father had bolted two giant ice cream cones to the front of our home, which he had gotten from a Dairy Queen ice cream store that was going out of business. He was making a comment on the power of advertising and only a select few ever understood his statement. One side effect was that quite a few people actually took us to be an operating ice cream parlor and often, total strangers would brazenly enter our home and sit down in our living room, waiting to be served. My father would quickly usher them out of the house, saying, There is no ice cream sold here. Later a sign to that effect was added to our front gate to warn off those unfamiliar with the evil power of advertising.

Another outcome was that the commercial barges that went up and down the river would use our house as a buoy, a marker point for their navigation because the ice cream cones were lit up at night.

I remember a huge searching blast of light coming through the windows into my room…a brightness of light that was terrifying in its scorching, searching intensity.

As well, the Burlington Northern train line went past my house and the loud horn blast and the rattling clash of steel going by – this I always felt was a consoling sound.

Both my parents were very avant-garde artists and filmmakers. They were out on the edge, far past the point where most people were willing to go; influenced by beatniks, filtered through a totally original pioneering mindset that is otherworldly. They were completely off the map when it came to original creativity.

If you were to go to Rock Falls today, you would find there is very little that has changed. All buildings stand where they were 200 years ago, and though there is a storybook quality about the place, it is a dark and deeply German expressionist tale that is being told. The repression I endured here is hard to forget and even today when I return there, I find it impossible to forgive the past, despite the pastoral landscape.

The time I spent in this town, in the early part of my life was a very difficult experience.

I know what it is to be an outcast, a total pariah, to live at the complete bottom of the social food chain. I never had a person I could call a friend until I was 15 and had moved away. At school, in the mid 1970s, no one,