Ancient Voyager Book 2 Mental Poisoning: Ancient Voyager, #2

By Brian Afton

  This is the story of four students whose education is interrupted by an education.

 

  It is a journey through time space and mind where they learn not only about the world but themselves. We come into this world so weak and undeveloped that we can't even hold our own heads up and with a brain so complicated it will not finish growing for another 25 years. With these meager resources we must face a very hostile world we know nothing about while having not the slightest idea of why we are here in the first place. But our primary problem is not the hostile environment, it is the fact that we do not understand how we work, or even what we are.

 

  How would you feel if you found out someone had programmed your brain so it could not work properly? How would you feel if you found out it was you? It turns out that there is a vast potential residing within everyone they do not know is there. This book explains how we turn away from that path, how our minds are hijacked, and why the world is so screwed up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Afton
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201973988

Book preview

Ancient Voyager

Book 2

Mental Poisoning

Brian Afton

Copyright © 2022

All Rights Reserved  Brian Afton.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chapter 2: The Cafe and the Swim Test

Chapter 3: Back at the Tibetans

Chapter 4: The Halls of Mershak

Chapter 5: Mind Model Control Room

Chapter 6: Guardian of the Threshold

Chapter 7: Return to the Control Room

Chapter 8: Berlin 1939

Chapter 9: Johnny Appleseed

Chapter 10: Mark Twain

Chapter 11: Review in the Control Room

Chapter 12: Thomas Jefferson

Chapter 13: Think and Grow Rich

Chapter 14: Ireland

Chapter 15: Julie's Question about God

Chapter 16: A Jew Named Rothschild

Chapter 17: The Church

Chapter 18: Benjamin Franklin

Chapter 19: Back Home

Chapter 1: The Beginning

N one of us could believe that anyone would be so stupid as to do what they were doing.  I'll spare you the details.

At the end the ship was on fire; they were screaming for my help and begging for the mercy of God.

I can't begin to explain the fire and the breakup of the ship in any way you would understand.  It wasn't just fire as you are accustomed to it:  It was time, space and experience woven together in a burning collapsing tsunami punctured with flying metal like something from your worst nightmare.

I fought for control of the ship, I fought for the lives of my masters for what seemed like forever, but I could not undo what they had done.

At the end I was blinded by flame and heat and dying myself.  Only my faith in everything they did not believe in brought us down.

We crash landed where you found us, smoking and badly hurt but not quite dead.  I've been doing repair work ever since.

Chapter 2:  The Cafe and the Swim Test

Julie plops her books down on the table of a street side cafe near their college and more or less collapses into one of the chairs.  This was supposed to be the start of a great weekend but her mere body, as she called it, and her emotions are giving her serious problems. 

Not for the first time, Julie who is determined to become a scientist, finds herself once again appalled at the control her feelings, hopes, and in this case, fears can have over her intellect.  Worse than that, it is a fear the others who are meeting her here, Jim, Bruce and Carol would think nothing of.

Julie has just discovered that she must pass a swimming test to complete the Phys Ed requirements for her degree program and Julie can’t swim.  In fact, Julie is terrified of the water.  Sitting there, waiting for Jim, Carol and Bruce, she has no idea what to do.

Carol is the first to arrive.

Hi Julie, said Carol.

Hi Carol, have a seat, answered Julie.  Where are the boys?

Carol unloads her purse and sits down.

They’ll be along, said Carol.  They stopped at the bookstore to pick up something for their Master's Degree Programs.  And, of course, they’re still arguing about how to solve all the problems in the world and going into business.  They've been doing that a lot since we talked to the Tibetan.

Julie laughs, Right now, I’d be pretty happy just to solve my own problems.

Still worried about the swimming test? asked Carol.

Terrified, admitted Julie.  "I can’t swim Carol. Not now, not at bible camp. I just can’t do it and now I find out I can’t graduate unless I fulfill the swimming requirement in Physical Ed.

I guess everyone has problems Julie, said Carol.  But with all the people here at college you have to believe that someone can help you.  In fact, here come the guys, maybe one of them knows who to talk to about swimming.

It's not something I like to talk about, Carol.  Having people find out I am afraid of the water, answered Julie.

You’re going to have to talk to someone or it will always be a problem, said Carol.

Jim and Bruce walk up to the table, unload their books, and take seats.

Talk to us about what Julie? asked Jim, Maybe your swimming test?

Oh sure, tell the whole world! said Julie

Well you’re gonna have to tell someone pretty quick Julie, or you’re gonna drown during the test, answered Jim somewhat unsympathetically.

Julie cringes at that remark and glares across the table at Jim.  They have had this discussion before.

Ya, sure but who, Jim? answered Julie.  They’ll all laugh at me.  I’m 22 years old and everyone else has been swimming since they were 5!

I don’t think so Julie, said Bruce.  Everyone else hasn’t been swimming since they were 5, or the college wouldn’t have the test.  You just need to get a hold of the right teacher so you can stop worrying.

You make it sound so easy, Bruce!  said Julie.

Julie, I’ll bet the class will be nothing compared to what you have blown it up to be in your mind, Bruce replied.

That’s what I keep telling her, said Jim.

Oh sure!  Well It's not just in my mind Bruce!  I get in the water, and I sink!  I sank in bible camp, I sank at the YMCA and I’m sure I will sink now, snapped Julie.

Well, I’m not trying to make light of that, Julie, answered Bruce.  But, the real problems, for all of us, I am starting to discover, are almost always in our minds, and Bruce points to his head to emphasize that.

Just about everything we think changes who we are in some way or another.  It even affects the external world, Bruce added.

I guess that one is too deep for me Bruce, said Julie somewhat sarcastically.  Yes, I’m scared but I don’t see how my thinking is going to change the water.  I’ll still sink!  I always sink and the only thing I can think of is fear of drowning.

No, in this case changing your thinking wouldn’t change the water but it will certainly change you, answered Bruce.  Julie, you can’t swim because you’re afraid.

And, you’re afraid because you won’t get lessons, added Jim.

When that fear is replaced with the knowledge of how to swim by somebody who knows how to do that you will, for all practical purposes, be a different person, continued Bruce.  But the only real change will be in your mind.

Hearing all of that, Julie just wanted to slap him with a big wet fish, or something.  She hated it when these upperclassmen started pontificating, but after a moment realizes that, yes, she supposed she would be a different person.

She would not just be a person who could swim she would be a person who wasn’t afraid anymore.  And then, caught up by her scientific thinking, she suddenly wondered if you could just take fear out of someone’s mind somehow.  What a thing that would be!  It would be wonderful, she thought, if she could learn how to do that!

Only the idea was just a distant consolation because she was still afraid of water in the here and now and because she was all too familiar with the reality that just wanting to be different than you were, didn’t make that happen.  But, of course, she was going to have to do something.

Well, I suppose you might be right Bruce, in principle anyway, she finally answered, but that all sounds far off somehow.  Just change my thoughts and it will change me!

Well, I didn’t say it would be easy Julie, said Bruce.  The idea is simple.  That doesn’t mean it will be easy, but if you can change how you think, it will change who you are.  And, believe it or not, you're thinking also changes the world. In fact, that’s the very thing Jim and I were talking about at the bookstore.

You were talking about swimming? said Julie.

No! said Jim.  We were talking about prejudice.  That’s a perfect example of something that exists in people’s minds but it doesn’t end there.  It affects the world we all have to live in.

Yes, I suppose that does, answered Julie.  But it's hardly the same thing.

Well I’ll admit that with prejudice you are more likely to notice the effect on yourself, but that doesn’t mean prejudice isn’t doing anything to the world or even to the person holding it.

Of course, you are more likely to notice how another person's prejudice affects you than what it does to them because we are all a lot more interested in us, said Bruce.  Nevertheless, bad thoughts do affect the people holding them.

I see what you mean, said Carol.  It's obvious how those kinds of thoughts affect the world, but it would be very interesting to see some health data on people who hold hatred inside themselves for many years compared with those who haven’t.

There would be a problem with that I’m afraid, said Bruce.

Why? asked Carol.

I’m pretty sure many of the worst offenders would be convinced that they didn’t have a problem, answered Bruce.  It’d be like trying to tell an alcoholic that he’s drunk.  They just don’t see it.

Tell me about it Bruce, said Jim.  But you hit the nail right on the head there.  Most of them don’t even know their doing it.  It just seems natural to them.  I, on the other hand, have no problem in noticing it in them, and how!

I thought that as soon as we got our Bachelor's degrees and got into the Master's program all our problems would vanish; that the new laws would fix it all.  Voila: education, ticket to instant jobs and success.

Well, you all got jobs and it looks to me like you’re doing OK, said Julie.

Yes but we’d all be doing a lot better if it weren’t for prejudice, answered Bruce.  For something which exists only in people's minds I, for one, never dreamed what an obstacle it would be.

That doesn’t make any sense Bruce, said Julie.  You’re white.  How could prejudice be a problem for you?

Everyone faces it to some degree Julie, said Bruce.  Nothing in school prepared any of us for how hard it was going to be to find a job and simply earn a living, or to understand how other people's perceptions of us would affect what we could accomplish.  You don’t have to be a certain color. Someone important may just not like you.  Some bosses don’t like young people.  Some bosses don’t like old people.  Someone may also not like something you said.  They may not tell you what it was, but they can still always hold it against you.

And, my personal favorite, injected Carol,  some bosses don’t like women.

And they don’t need any reason for it either, said Jim.  I mean, I expected discrimination but not so much of it.  I thought it was supposed to be going away.

Tell me about it, added Carol.  Women have always been treated unequally in the workplace and that just isn’t changing.  There are token jobs, of course, but, there is no way we can ever get to the really good jobs.  A woman can get in now, but there will always be a glass ceiling above her.

Well don’t look at me, Carol, said Bruce.  I didn’t make the world.  It's bad enough working on a master's degree while trying to hold down a regular job, but let me tell you things aren’t so great out there for white adult males as you might think.

Oh come on now Bruce, said Julie.  It’s just a fact that there are a lot more opportunities for someone like you than for me or Jim or even Carol.  You’ll probably always make more money than we do.

Don’t be too sure Julie, answered Bruce.  "I will earn more than some minorities.  I just don’t think any of you understands that I am as much of a victim of discrimination in some ways as any of you and in some ways, worse.

How can you say that to someone who is black? demanded Julie.  Even if I get a degree here I still probably won’t make as much money as a lot of white boys who didn’t even go to college.

I could say the same, Julie, answered Bruce.  Now, I’m not saying I have exactly the problem you have, but, don’t any of you suppose for a second that the rich, high and mighty think I am one of them just because I happen to be a white male.  Believe it or not Julie, I have no more chance of penetrating the glass ceiling than you or Carol does and probably less.

That can’t be so, Bruce, said Carol.  Men simply have more access to higher level positions.

No, that isn’t true, Carol, answered Bruce.  "Some men have access to it.  A lot more of us do not.  If you don’t have the right parents, didn't come from the right address, if your father didn't earn above a certain amount of money, if you didn’t go to the right schools, and don’t know and play golf with the right people, a white male has no more chance of breaking