Gregg Braden - The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy

Beginnings

I listened carefully to what the voice on the radio was saying, to be certain I had heard correctly. On the dashboard of the new van, rented only days before, the lighted buttons felt awkward and unfamiliar. I fumbled with the volume control to drown out the roar of a relentless crosswind paving the way for a winter storm that had been visible just as the sun was setting. For as far as I could see along the interstate, there was only the hint of distant lights reflected from the low clouds above. As I reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, my eyes followed the asphalt that we had just traveled until it disappeared into the blackness surrounding us. Not even the glow of headlights announcing their arrival on the horizon was visible behind. We were alone, absolutely alone, on that county highway in northern Colorado. At the same time I wondered how many other people, in their cars or homes, were hearing what I was hearing from the man on the radio.

The moderator was interviewing a guest, inviting him to share his view of the close of the present millennium and the birth of the twenty-first century. The guest, a respected author and educator, was invited to share what he saw in store for humankind over the next two to three years. The radio crackled briefly as the man's words described a future that was immediately unsettling. Confidently, authoritatively, he spoke of his vision of an inevitable end-of-the-century collapse in global technologies, especially those based in computers. As he developed a worst-case scenario, a future emerged in which the essentials of life as we know it would become scarce, perhaps unavailable, for months or even years. He cited limited supplies of electricity, water, natural gas, food, and the loss of communications as the first signs of a breakdown in national and local governments. The guest continued, speculating about a time in our foreseeable future when national law would be suspended, and martial law imposed to maintain order. In addition to such frightening conditions, he cited the growing threat of uncontrollable diseases and the potential of a third world war with weapons of mass destruction, all leading to the loss of nearly two-thirds of the world's population, approximately 4 billion people, within a span of three years.

I had certainly heard such terrifying forecasts before. From the visions of biblical prophets to the prophecies of Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce, in the sixteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, rising oceans, great inland seas, and catastrophic earthquakes have been a consistent theme in predictions for the close of the second millennium. Something was different about that night. Perhaps it was because I felt alone on the highway. Maybe it was because I knew that so many others were hearing the same message, an authoritative voice of an invisible guest carried into their homes, offices, and automobiles. I found myself immersed in a range of experiences that ran from powerful feelings of hopelessness and tears of deep sadness to equally powerful surges of anger and rage.

No! I found myself screaming out loud. No, it does not have to be the way you have described! Our future has not happened yet. It is still forming and we are still choosing the outcome.

Topping the crest of a hill, I descended into a valley and the reception faded. The last portion of the interview that I heard was the guest advising people to head for the hills and be prepared for the long haul. For those whose lives were immersed in poverty, living on the fringes of society or oblivious to the events unfolding as our future, the guest offered three words of advice: God help them. As the voices from the radio crackled and faded, the impact of their words remained.

I share this story now because the perspective that echoed through the airwaves that night was precisely that one perspective, rather than a certainty that awaits as our future. In addition to describing scenes of tragedy and despair, ancient prophets foresaw equally viable futures of peace, cooperation, and great healing for the peoples of the earth. In rare manuscripts over two millennia old, they left the secrets of a lost science that allows us to transcend catastrophic prophecies and predictions and the great challenges of life with grace. At first glance, the science encoded within these rare documents may sound more like fiction, or at least the subject of a futuristic film. Viewed through the eyes of twentieth-century physics, however, the principles contained within these ancient texts shed new light, and new possibilities, upon our role of directing the outcome of our moment in history. Tattered fragments of these texts describe a lost science with the power to bring a lasting end to all war, disease, and suffering; initiate an unprecedented era of peace and cooperation between governments and nations; render destructive patterns of weather harmless; bring lasting healing to our bodies; and redefine ancient prophecies of devastation and catastrophic loss of life.

Recent developments in quantum physics support precisely such principles, bringing new credibility to the role of mass prayer and ancient prophecy. I first saw hints of this empowering wisdom in translations of Aramaic texts written over five hundred years before the time of Christ. The same texts stated that records of secret traditions were taken from the homeland of their authors in the Middle East into the mountains of Asia during the first century A.D. for safekeeping. In the spring of 1998 I had the opportunity to organize a group of twenty-two people on a pilgrimage into the highlands of central Tibet, to witness and confirm the traditions referred to in these two-thousand-year-old texts. Coupled with large-scale research carried out in Western cities, our journey adds new credibility to these ancient reminders of our power to end the suffering of countless numbers of people, avert a third world war, and feed every child, woman, and man living today, as well as those of future generations. It is only after climbing to the monasteries, locating the libraries, and witnessing ancient practices carried into modern times that I can confidently share the subtleties of such traditions.