The Altai Chronicles: Tablets of Light

By Carol Hiltner

At the invitation of angelic Light Beings, Carol Hiltner and her adult daughter Aimee set off on the journey of their lives—a mystical quest on the other side of the planet. Traveling west, they walked the Great Wall of China, rode Mongolian geldings, swam in Lake Baikal, and took the Trans-Siberian Railway on to Novosibirsk, the jumping-off point to the Altai Mountains.

But they didn’t know until they arrived that approaching sacred Mount Belukha required a 60-mile wilderness trek—with a mountain guide who spoke no English. Psychics in Seattle had told Carol that she would meet a “special person” and find a dozen stones on the trail that were keys to mystical information. But nothing was obvious and Carol left Altai fearing that she had failed on all counts, including a romantic encounter with the mountain guide. Upon arriving in Moscow, however, Carol experienced a vivid vision of “opening the door” that rocked her world. And back home in Seattle, she experienced a miraculous healing of an old shoulder injury.
Having still not found or translated the Tablets of Light, Carol accepted the help of an acquaintance from the Altai trek—a young philosophy professor—to revisit Moscow and Novosibirsk that autumn. Was he the “special person”? Or was the mountain guide?

The next summer, Carol joined this professor, his wife, and another couple to trek again in Altai, for a month. Still seeking the Tablets of Light, Carol was given a helmet of light by the Greek pantheon in a lucid dream. Two days later, Carol survived lightning. Unstated expectations and a serious shortage of food shattered the group accord.

Meanwhile, Carol had deduced that, to find the Tablets, she had to cross the threshold of the mystical door she’d opened the previous summer—into an altered state—and she needed the mountain guide’s tantric sexual energy to do it. She returned to Moscow with the other couple, who found her an empty apartment in which she could spend a month writing this book and which the mountain guide agreed to visit. At the end of a difficult week together, he did propel her through the door, where she discovered that the translation of the Tablets was her, or anyone’s, vital force expressing itself in the tumult and polarities of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Hiltner
• Release date: Jul 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9780983369509

Carol Hiltner

Carol Hiltner's purpose is to encourage and inspire with her internationally recognized writings and visual art. Both are sourced from her dreams and visions, in communication with angelic Light Beings; her creations convey the healing energy imprint of these beings. In 1998, Light Beings invited Carol to the Altai Mountains in Siberia -- a place where the beings are well known. Altai is recognized as the source of Siberian shamanism and, in 2006, Carol founded and still supports Altai Mir University, an NGO focused on restoring Altai's ancient and sacred indigenous culture, which was ravaged by Communism. Twelve times, she made the 60-mile trek to the high-energy Altai hot spot, Mount Belukha -- twice solo and twice leading international expeditions. Ninety of Carol's visionary paintings are on permanent display at Hotel Portal Beluha in the town of Ust Koksa near the mountain. Prior to visiting Altai, Carol traveled widely in the former Soviet Union as a "citizen diplomat" on humanitarian missions. In 2009, the National Peace Foundation initiated an international peace prize named after her "peace quilt" projects, with Carol and her daughter Sunny as the first recipients. Professionally, Carol has been involved with every aspect of the publishing industry, from concept to end-user and from community newsletters to multinationals, leading the presentation team at Boeing that won them the coveted United Way "Spirit of America" award. Carol grew up in Seattle, skiing and sailing with her family as well as competitively. She was a National Merit semi-finalist, all-city hurdles champion, and skippered her boat to first place in the Tri-Island Yacht Racing series. She and her (now ex-) husband (and whole family) climbed to the summit of Mount Rainier for their wedding. She would love to hear your thoughts about Altai, Russia in general, mysticism, shamanism, and human potential.

Book preview

The Altai Chronicles

Tablets of Light

by Carol Hiltner

www.altaibooks.com

Carol Hiltner weaves a spellbinding tale that is all the better because it is true!

Nicki Scully, author of Alchemical Healing

Her writing sparkles; it explodes off the page. Hiltner is an original—a gate-keeper to secret knowledge.

Jay Moore, reviewer

Carol’s books are powerful tools for bringing the mystical Altai energy out into the world.

Lloydine Argüelles, co-author of

Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013

A remarkable story of one woman’s journey to find herself. I found myself immediately hooked.

Sandra Ingerman, author of Shamanic Journeying

The Altai Chronicles: Tablets of Light

by Carol Hiltner

Published by Altai Books at Smashwords

206-525-2101 • [e-mail]

This book is also available in print at most online retailers or at www.altaibooks.com.

Text and illustrations copyright 2018 Carol Hiltner

ISBN#: 978-0-9833695-0-9

About this series:

When angelic Light Beings invited Carol Hiltner to make a spiritual quest into the sacred Altai Mountains of Siberia, they requested that she journal her experiences. They asked her to publish four books with the following titles.

Book 1: The Altai Chronicles: Tablets of Light—also available in Russian translation

Book 2: The Altai Chronicles: Out of Time

Book 3: The Altai Chronicles: Off the Map—also available in Russian translation

Book 4: The Altai Chronicles: Home Again

For links to view the author’s mystical paintings based on her visions in the Altai Mountains, as well as other creative work by Carol Hiltner, see the last page of this book.

Author photo by Leonid Doroshenko: Carol on 10,000-foot Karatyurek Pass with sacred Mount Belukha in the distance

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

List of Illustrations

Cover Mt. Belukha, reflected in Lake Akkem

Invocation

Part I: Opening the Door

Early morning at the computer

Louise and her little white dog, the girls, and me

On the train

Shamans’ markings on trees at Kuzuyak Pass

Valley of moss

Mt. Belukha at sunset

Log bridge at Lake Akkem

Mountains of luggage

Part II: Crossing the Threshold

Castle visions

Mountain-climbing contest

Part III: Helmet of Light

Susan’s schematic

Forest fire in Kucherla Valley

Valley of the colored water

Belukha from the ridge

Apartment in Moscow

All paintings and illustrations are by the author.

Table of Contents

Invocation

Opening the Door Excerpt

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Map 1: Asia

Map 2: Altai region

Map 3: Belukha area (topographical)

Part I: Opening the Door

Prologue

1: The Call

2: Setting Out

3: The Trek

4: Belukha

5: Leaving the Mountain

6: Going Home

Part II: Crossing the Threshold

7: Off Again

8: Moscow

9: Novosibirsk

Part III: Helmet of Light

10: Visas

11: Altai

12: Akkem

13: Psychology

14: Moscow Again

15: Translation

Epilogue

The Tablets of Light

About the Author

Invocation

To fully enter into the reading of this tale, tune your ears to the primordial sound of the living earth; of the trees and the bird songs and the rushing rivers. The smell of pine and wood-smoke must be always at the edge of your awareness.

Drift further, into the stillness of your own knowing, and allow the drama chronicled here to transmute itself, finally, into simply another sparkle of the light and glory that is life.

Opening the Door Excerpt

...But the psychic events of the day were not over. I had been told that the reason I was to go to Mount Belukha was to open a vortex in the energy grid of the earth—a gate, a door between humanity and other dimensions. I had looked during the entire trek for that door, which was where I thought the visual fireworks would occur—in an opening between dimensions.

As I dropped off to sleep, an image began to coalesce in my mind’s eye of light glinting around the edge of a round gate or cover. I realized that I had actually been seeing this image in the back of my mind for several days. Later, I realized that I had been seeing this image my whole life. It looked like two round grids set crossways in such a way that they had to be rotated to line up, but I had not yet figured out how to do that. That night I dreamed:

I realize, clearly, that I am the gate and, for it to be open, I must become transparent—which I do. Now, I can see that the gate is really a passage and has length.

Suddenly, my whole body is a crystal, which must be aligned with the light from the gate. I rotate myself to align the polarity—which, when it lines up, registers in my body as a deep shock.

Colors and patterns of the energy make kaleidoscopic shifts simultaneously inside and outside of my transparent body, as I move my crystal self into place between the dimensions. This is the place, and I am the door.

The light from the gate is rotating and spindling out sideways like the beacon from a lighthouse.

I woke abruptly then, bedazzled, excited…exhausted. Here were the visual fireworks I’d sought—breathtakingly beautiful, deeply profound. But oh, what a shock this was to my body. I needed to sleep now—to sleep forever. The timing had been perfect, I realized. I could never have managed this while we hiked.

Acknowledgments

This story is true—as I experienced it. But even for me, it is a thin slice of a broad journey. Different stories may be equally true for me as my perspectives change.

Each person described herein also has a true story, and it is certainly different as well. But my characters don’t get equal time. So, I have changed everybody’s names, with the exception of my immediate family who couldn’t escape anyway.

I thank all the wonderful people with whom I shared this adventure—through all the ups and downs. I am particularly indebted to my daughter Aimee for her willingness to walk this path with me, considering all that it entailed. And to Dmitri who, despite all my denials, turned out in the end to be my important person.

Introduction

The Altai Chronicles: Tablets of Light is a true saga of my personal, contemporary, mystical quest. I was invited to please come to remotest Siberia, to find my way through an interdimensional door—a gate of transformation—and to discover and return with a treasure for humanity, the translation of the Tablets of Light.

All human stories, great and small, are essentially quests. These are the threads that make the fabric of history.

But it could be argued that human history as a whole is also a quest, and that we have now arrived at a collective gate of transformation. Humanity is always transforming, of course, but there are many, myself included, who believe that we are now in the midst of a greater transformation—one which has been prophesied in the great religious and spiritual traditions.

We are at a balance point, where individual dramas can have great leverage for all of humanity.

This transformation appears to be an evolutionary expansion of human consciousness into the fourth dimension—that of time. We are leaving behind the limitations of that unidirectional vector which we call a time-line, and gaining access to an entire dimension, a geometric plane, within which we can move in all directions.

Because this expansion of consciousness enables one to see or know everything simultaneously (like looking down at a maze), all secrets will be exposed and all polarities dissolved.

One of the most evident signs of the end of secrets is the immense increase in available information. Concurrent with the scientific explosion, there has been a vast increase in personal psychic awareness, as well as the publication of spiritual and religious materials that have been held secretly for millennia. This is because all pasts and futures become accessible to us as we learn to move around freely in the dimension of time.

And as we expand our consciousness, polarity—good/bad, light/dark, love/hate, etc.—will cease to exist as such, because linear time is the mechanical constraint which makes polarity possible: linearity allows us to see only part of ourselves at any given moment, rather than to experience everything simultaneously.

Although the shift seems to be gradual, there are certain milestones—prophesies fulfilled or revelations received—which anchor and support our transition.

The changes I had to be willing to make for my own transformation—to get through my own door—were essentially the same challenges as in the greater human story: to expose my secrets and to dissolve my polarities.

I had to begin uncovering my own secrets: my own fear and pain—twin gremlins of linear time—which I had buried in ever deeper spirals, until I forgot even about their existence. Their offspring, unconsciousness and confusion, had fully asserted themselves in my life.

And since I was essentially unconscious and confused, my bigger challenge was to even recognize the extremity of my personal polarization, especially around sexual intimacy. As events forced me either to modify my behavior or abandon the quest, I chose to modify my behavior—but confusion was my constant companion all the way through.

And I eventually realized that, compounding my sexual polarization, I had also withdrawn into my intellect—polarizing myself in a different direction, by hiding so far from my feelings that I forgot about them as well.

So before I could move through the door into the new dimension, I had to begin to feel again, and to re-incorporate masculine energy in my life. Only then could I find and translate the Tablets of Light.

My translation of the Tablets consists of two parts: first, my journal describing how the promises contained therein became real for me in my own journey; and second, my best effort to put the patterns of light, which are the Tablets, concisely into words. Please understand that the transmittal of the Tablets of Light is the entire purpose of this book.

My quest was only one reflection of the Tablets’ principles—which are promises to all of humanity. Therefore, these are principles are promises and an invitation to you personally.

Map 1: Asia

This is the route of our circumnavigation in 1999.

Airplane sections are marked with solid lines. Train and car sections are marked with dotted lines.

The Altai Region map is marked with the rectangle, and on the Altai Region map, the Belukha Area is marked with the rectangle.

Map 2: Altai Region

Map 3: Belukha Area

▲campsites where we spent the night

Part I

Opening the Door

…

It’s just that step follows step

And suddenly, I’ve walked a long, long way.

I lean into my dreams, you see,

Until I’m inside them, looking out.

Prologue

Come. The thought rang like a bell through my dreamspace.

Please come. Words formed as I drifted awake that winter morning two years ago.

This was not the first time I had been awakened by my dreams. Life-changing insights and wonderful poems had come to me this way. I decided I had better get up and record them before they dissolved in the daylight. Sleepily, I climbed out of the warm cocoon of my bed into the morning chill. Groggily, I groped my way over to my computer and sat down, hunching, drawing in my arms to maintain the warmth in my naked body.

Early morning at the computer

As the November sun slowly bleached the sky from silver blue into silver gray, I wrote down what came through my mind:

11/7/98

Greetings, beloved. We are so glad to have reunited with you. We are light beings, who hold light for mankind. The mountains of fire are belching forth and the portal is open.

Please come.

The river of light springs from these mountains. The will of the Lord is made manifest on this plane. Put aside your fears and hesitations. This is the time you have been waiting for.…

I sat for a long time that morning, slowly awakening into a world that was altered by the dream. This was clearly a call, an invitation, from the mysterious spiritual realm of dream and altered state. Of course I would follow it, if I could.

1 – The Call

Tuesday, July 6, 1999

And so, here I was, midway across the Pacific, folded into the last seat available on a Boeing 747, flying from San Francisco to Seoul, on the first leg of a mystical quest—to the Altai Mountains in the heart of Siberia.

I had launched myself with only the sketchiest information—gleaned from dreams, intuitions, and stunning coincidences. I had certainly sought more concrete information, but hadn’t found it. Finally, I chose to go without information, because staying home was not an option.

So I didn’t really know where I was going, what I would find there, or what I was supposed to do once I arrived.

Nonetheless, I felt a physical, tangible certainty that this quest was necessary, right, and valuable. Also, I knew from experience that, if I didn’t willingly commence, I would somehow find myself there anyway—wherever there was. Words from my dream came back to me:

We are indeed inhabitants of earth—as much as you are. There are one hundred in the ruling council. As you hold space for transformation, we hold space for you. Yes, we too once enjoyed bodies. We will assume them again soon.…

Even with this certainty, though, I could hear my mother’s voice pulling me back to practicality, "Carol, I worry about you. When are you going to get a job like a responsible adult. You can’t just do what you want!"

Just the thought of this made me flare with frustration, tears springing into my eyes. We had had this conversation so many times: "I worry about me, Mom. You know I’ve done the best I could. I have gotten jobs—they just haven’t lasted, or I haven’t been able to make them work."

She and I both knew that was true. I had tried a variety of career paths, all of them with hard landings. I seemed to have all the components of culturally-defined success, so she suspected, wrongly, that I wasn’t really trying. Nonetheless, in a quarter-century, I had yet to find a place to settle in.

I, with an artist’s sensibilities, had been raised in a family of intellectuals. My family appreciated the arts, but only once they were accomplished—there was no place in our intellectual paradigm for the exuberant, unpredictable process of the artist. If the intellectual paradigm of my childhood could be represented as the proverbial square hole, then I was a starburst-shaped peg.

Time had passed anyway, though, and things had changed. My children were grown, and my desperate need for financial security had dissipated. Through the years of working very hard at what seemed to me like failure after failure redeemed by an occasional unexpected success, I had developed three related characteristics:

First, I actively reserved judgment: at any point, a failure could re-emerge as a success; an adversary could be transformed into an ally.

Second, I was powerfully driven to finish what I started: I would do that last difficult one percent, when I could see what needed to be done. At the same time, when I could not productively take a project further, I was willing to set it aside for months or even years until the inspiration and resources reappeared. And then I would pick it up again.

Third, I took every opportunity for adventure: I had much to gain and little to lose. And, in the most wonderful interludes of my life, my heart had led. So, why should I not simply follow it? Maybe thereby, I would finally find a place for myself.

You will find it easy to do the work that we have requested of you. You will not need to lose awareness of yourself when we are present. We are present now. In fact, we are always and have always been present. Now, however, we choose to speak.…

Awareness of myself, at this moment, included the stench of urine and disinfectant from the airplane’s rear bathroom next to me, and the clatter made by stewardesses preparing dinner immediately behind the bathroom. Somewhere forward in this writhing sea of compressed bodies, vague anxieties, and half-stowed luggage, in the next-to-the-last available seat on the airplane, beside another bathroom, sat my twenty-four-year-old daughter—my traveling partner for this journey—wedged, with her cassette recorder and her thoughts, into her own space.

You ask for some indication that this information is coming from us, rather than originating in yourself. Know that we are all one, and the thoughts must indeed come through your mind for you to write them down. You do not know—since you are and have always been close to us—that your thoughts have always been aligned with ours.

Had the quest started with that dream? Or had I, somehow, been preparing for this my whole life? Certainly, I had always been committed to be of service to humanity: my queries about that were a substantial part of my journaling as an adolescent. And, several times in my life, I had commenced on trips which had turned out to be journeys of initiation—of profound spiritual awakening.

But I had backed into those. This time, my eyes were wide open. I had been given both time to prepare and at least some information, if riddles and prophesies could be considered information. I was ready for this trip—as ready as one could be, to knowingly commence on a process of spiritual rebirth.

No, I wasn’t backing into this quest, and I was excited to be doing it. But I also discounted it and joked about it—to hide from myself how deeply unsettled I was by the extraordinariness of what was occurring. I couldn’t afford to really believe it.

•••

At least I had no question about where I was being called to. Years ago, my friend Marguerite told me of the Altai Mountains in the middle of Siberia—of which Mt. Belukha, my destination, was the centerpiece. Marguerite herself had been invited to go to Altai several years back—to document shamans who now wanted to communicate with the outside world. Her invitation had also been filled with strange coincidences and psychic events. Never wishing to miss a good adventure, I had immediately volunteered to accompany her. But the years went by, and her trip never did happen.

Finally, Marguerite told me in the fall that a documentary film crew was applying for a grant and, if I still wanted to go, to plan for the coming summer—which I did.

So Altai had been on my mind that November morning when I awoke still hearing the reverberations of the invitation, Please come. And when the invitation mentioned mountains, Altai was the obvious answer to the question, Where?

But Marguerite’s grant didn’t come through, so she had pointed me toward time and place. The journey was my own, not hers.

•••

Shoe-horned into my economy-class seat for the twelve-hour flight across the Pacific, unable to get comfortable enough to sleep, I had plenty of time to reflect on the events of the past six months.

Just two days after that startling first dream, I had been awakened again—this time with brilliant images of a rose-colored star and green glass writing tablets fading from my vision. Again, I got up out of my warm bed to make notes:

11/9/98

The rose star. Green glass tablets

I asked, in my mind, what this was all about. The thoughts continued:

We are