That evening I had dinner with Karl and Neda and I explained to them that I felt that Elgon's thousand followers with their telepathic mind net were just too much for me to overcome.
"In other words," Karl said, "no matter what you might try to do they could stop you by overpowering your mind."
"And the reason you're having this experience is because when you were a priest in ancient Atlantis and had Macro powers you frustrated others by controlling their minds. Right?" Neda asked.
"That's right," I agreed. "But being able to remember the classes I failed doesn't mean I like taking them over."
"Well," Karl said, "then the solution to saving Carol is rather simple. All you have to do is cooperate with Elgon."
"You mean," Neda added, "all he has to do is sell his soul to Elgon."
"No, that's not true," Karl protested, "because once he has let Elgon and his gang complete the time translation he will have freed Carol and become a permanent resident in 2150. Then he has the rest of his life to escape from Micro Island with or without the help of the Macro society."
"You forgot one thing, Karl," Neda reminded him. "The wisest people of the Macro society said that if the time translation came before he had attained level-three awareness he would soon regress and lose his Macro awareness."
"But not necessarily my Macro powers," I added, "which would really cause me trouble because Macro powers without Macro awareness are always used for micro purposes."
"Oh, hell!" Karl complained. "The more the two of you talk, the more hopeless it becomes."
"Is it really as hopeless as it looks, Jon?" Neda asked
I shook my head, "I can't see any way out. It looks like the perfect double bind-I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't."
"But, Jon," Neda said, "certainly the Macro society wouldn't have allowed you to walk into an impossible situation. After all, Rana said she believed in you. That must mean that she knew your future wasn't hopeless."
"She also. believed that the greater the failure, the greater the success-another thing that doesn't make sense from the micro viewpoint," I reminded Neda.
"Wait a minute," Karl inserted, "if you could just attain level-three awareness in the next two weeks the Macro society would know it and then they would complete translation, right?"
"I thought of that," I said, "but going from level two to level three is like going from first grade to ninth grade, according to C.I., and no one has ever done it in just a month."
"Well," Karl replied, "then you can be the first! After all, they've never had a time translation before, either."
"No, Karl," I replied, "that's just too simple a solution. In all my experiences in 2150 there has never-not even in a single case-been an easy solution. Every time I tried to find one I ended up embarrassed by my own ignorance. I've always had to use my head-I've always had to stretch to my limits. This is no exception.
"I can't just up and make level three with a snap of my fingers without giving up some of my micro ways of thinking. And there's the key, Karl, giving up my micro ways of thinking. If I could just see the situation from a Macro perspective the solution would probably jump out at me.
"I don't know, Karl. I'll go back upstairs and sleep on it. Maybe when I wake up in 2150 I'll think of something."
When I got to the door I came out of my daze and turned to say, "Hey.. thanks. Thanks to you both. See you tomorrow." I closed the evening and did just what I said I was going to do.
When I woke up in 2150, however, I didn't think of anything new.
For the rest of the week I kept making futile attempts to contact Carol and to break out of my suite of rooms in 2150, while back in 1976 I spent my time pacing the floor or discussing this maddening puzzle with Karl and Neda. But in spite of all the hours of thinking and talking, no solution came to me. Then one evening Neda asked me if Elgon's telepathic mind network blocked out all my Macro powers. I responded affirmatively, and that was that.
Later the same evening while I was trying not to go to sleep, so I could postpone waking up in my 2150 prison, I remembered Neda's question and began to review the seven Macro powers. I considered clairvoyance, telepathy, and precognition. Of these the first one worked, but was no help. The second one was blocked, and the third one I had never developed much but doubted whether knowing the future would be of much help to me with this problem. Considering the next three, retrocognition, PK (psychokinesis), and telekinesis, I again drew a blank, for the first one worked but was no help, while the second and third were blocked. This left only the seventh, which was astral projection. Was that, too, blocked? I didn't know because, since it didn't seem very practical, I had never consciously tried it.
For a prisoner, though, surely astral projection, in which one leaves the physical body and its limitations and moves about in an astral body with no physical limitations, could have definite advantages. I could visit Carol, the Macro society, and Lea. I had wanted to talk with these people, and astral projection was the only way left to do it. Or was it? Could I learn to use it, and even if I could, would the telepathic mind net interfere and stop me? I decided that the only way I could answer these questions was to put them to the test, so I immediately began trying to free myself from my physical body. I failed.
After thirty minutes of failure in my attempts to separate my astral body from my physical one I gave up and began trying to remember everything C.I. had told me about this seventh Macro power.
I remembered that my trips into the future had been via my astral body, which was connected to the 1976 physical body by a sort of electrical-energy umbilical cord that had unlimited elasticity. This was the silver cord that mystics throughout the ages had talked about as maintaining the life-giving contact between the astral and the physical bodies. Once this silver cord, made up of very rapid electrical vibrations, is severed, the physical body dies.
When I had first come to 2150 I had been provided with a new physical body and a second silver cord to provide the necessary connection between my astral body and this new physical body. This worked because the Macro society had my twin soul, who shared an identical astral-soul pattern with me. They used this as a model from which to fashion the physical body, the silver cord connection, and to supply the, psychic translation for attracting my astral body through time and space.
If this seems not only complex, but incomprehensible, it is-to the micro self. C.I. had given me a far more lengthy and complex explanation but I had decided that I didn't need to know all about this Macro area so I hadn't paid very close attention. Now I desperately wished that I had. Still, however, the two essential ingredients in all learning were desire and belief, and if I had these, then I could learn astral projection. I certainly believed it was possible because I had already experienced it. The problem, therefore, must lie in the area of desire.
I practiced the Macro pause, in which one instantly expands his perspective from micro to more Macro. It became immediately obvious that, as usual, I had been desiring not to fail in accomplishing astral projection, which meant that my mind had been focused on failure rather than success.
Once I was able to see my efforts from a Macro perspective I could remember that all failure is success (leads to success) and, thus, forgive myself so that I could start again without the interfering load of anxiety and guilt. I began by recalling the sensations I had experienced on my first visit to 2150 when I had awakened in my astral body. Then I began gradually imagining and desiring my astral body to stand at the foot of my bed. The desire built until I began imagining the perspective of my bed and physical body from the foot of this bed.