After evening program on the third day of the conference, I caught sight of Fred and Monica conversing intensely at one of the cafeteria tables, and wandered over to join them. Fred was saying: “So as he was walking by the Ganges as a young man he sees this boy healed. For twenty years he studies unified field theory and everything Tesla ever wrote. Finally he understood it, but he couldn’t do it. Then one day in the desert, he puts some petrol on a stone and lights a match several yards away and the stone lights up. He understood. I don’t understand,” said Fred with his crooked smile and bulging eyes, “but he understood.” He looked my way and added in way of explanation,” I was just telling Monica about the guy who invented our sand product – you know, the one that keeps the vegetables fresh. Well would you believe the two guys who manufacture the stuff are about eighty years old and every time they walk out of that room they look younger!”
Monica broke in: “Fred just spoke on the phone with his lady in London. She is a clairvoyant. Tell him what she said, Fred.”
“She got some information very similar to our message. The New Age begins in l985, “said Fred. Believe me, I have known a lot of clairvoyants. She is the very best.”
“And Fred is to change his name…to Christopher,” added Monica, with a slightly concerned look on her face.
“Oh?” I said, having some uneasy feelings myself. “Why?” Fred looked a bit uncomfortable:
“That is my real name,” he offered.
“You mean like on some other plane?” I asked.
“We are all here to do a job. These are not our real identities”, said Fred. “And we have done it before. We just have to remember how we did it. You too, Ross. You’ve done this before. Your problem is, you think too much. You try to work it all out in your head. You have to learn to get out of the way and just let it happen. Go with the flow. And remember…! ” He slowed down and raised his fist:
“We did not come here to fail!”
“Where are you from, Fred?” I asked, frowning.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Some other planet, you mean? Some other system?” asked Monica.
“Yes.”
“But you have been here before,” I suggested, wondering whether he was pulling our legs or dead serious.
“Yes,” said Fred crisply.
“Maybe you’d like to tell us about your earlier incarnations, then,” I said, still not sure whether to take him seriously or not.
He was silent for a moment: “All right,” he said. “The last time was as Thomas Jefferson. Before that Joseph ‘the-coat-of-many-colors’. Before that…” He looked around to see if anyone was listening, “Moses.”
“No peasants?”, I whispered.
