The Key by Whitley Strieber Page A

the Middle Ages.
    Be objective. Remember that God is in everything. The whole of creation is the matter of God. Nothing is separate from God, nor can ever be. Your sense of independence is an illusion, so that you can take the journey of discovery. So also, no matter what you may call me, I am in God.
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    But what about the people who keep the secrets, for example, about aliens? Or the secrets about the past as it really was, or conceal the truth about Mars?
    When they die, they will see that they have crystallized imperfections in themselves by the indulgence of self-will. They will suffer the fire of love, as I have already described it. Some of them will die in eternity and be part of you no more. Others will go on to become companions of God.
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    What about me?
    You know what you are. Don’t ask me.
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    You are saying that the demon is not evil, that he is—what—the bringer of knowledge?
    We learn from our mistakes. But those who give themselves to evil suffer. Make no mistake. They can become so heavy that they sink into the earth. Just as the energetic body can enjoy extraordinary pleasure, it can suffer excruciating pain. You have in your body a few million nerves. But in your energetic body, every tiny bit of being can experience the totality of ecstasy or agony.
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    There are those who experience eternal agony?
    A fallen master may, one who by some foolish intention rejects the joy of the kingdom. But remember, always, that were it not for the darkness of the night, you would not see the stars. Look into your astrophysics texts. You will find that your science does not understand the darkness. The darkness is the compassion of God, which gives us our vision of the universe. So also, the darkness in your heart is your own compassion toward yourself, for unless you bore evil, you would not be able to discern good.
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    This suggests to me that the fall of man has to do with a mistake of some kind. We failed to understand something. What did we fail to understand?
    That the kingdom of heaven is within you. Not one human being, living or dead, has ever been able to face that, not since it was uttered. But if you cannot find the kingdom, you cannot gain the kingdom.
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    How can we regain our vision?
    Fear is blindness. Fear rules this world. It is extremely deep. When a microbe is threatened, it will recoil. That’s how deep fear is. In the fields, fear rides. In the struggle of the deer to survive the jaw of the wolf or gunfire of the man, fear rides. A shadow has fallen here, into the very atoms that construct this place.
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    This is an impossible problem. It’s beyond our ability to correct. If one of you could live one moment without fear, then all the world would be free. The emergence of physical life is at once its fall and its salvation. How can you be fallen and ascended at the same time? In other words, how may the elemental world gain communion with the energetic one? The hidden meaning of mankind is that you may reconcile the irreconcilable. You are here to save all that lives on earth from the fear of death by surrendering your will to God’s. Read the Koran, listen to Muhammad. He brought the message of surrender impeccably. You say that it is impossible. It is. But you are here to square the circle. This is why earth evolved intelligence. The aim of mankind is to clear the vision of the living, so that you can join in full consciousness to the dead, and thus learn that fear of death is fear of nothing.
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    There seems to be something very extraordinary hidden in what you’re saying. You’re saying that the fall of mankind was the emergence of life on earth. Am I right?
    You are, but that is a three-dimensional view, and thus limited by the limits of three-dimensional vision. Remember the analogy of how the two-dimensional being sees a solid object. As a ball passes through the flat plane on which such a being would be confined, it would not see the real