The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [14]
I looked at Wil. “Won’t that take forever?”
Instead of responding, he nodded toward the rest of the Document in my hand. When I began reading, I realized I had only one page left, which was torn off at the bottom and contained only one paragraph. It said that each person who holds the truth of his Synchronistic journey, while listening for the truth in another’s journey, helps to build a new, more truthful worldview. And because of this honoring of evolving truth, that person exudes a special influence on the world. All we had to do was keep our energy up.
I perked up, thinking again of the Document’s reference to the last group of Integrations we would discover as a Rise to Influence.
I looked back over at Wil. “It’s the centering of ourselves in truth that creates the Influence, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “We’ll find out once we discover the rest of this Integration.”
Indeed. I had no doubt. We were only on the Second Integration, yet everything was occurring just as the Document had said it would. The First Integration showed us that expecting Synchronicity and telling the absolute truth to others kept these mysterious coincidences coming. And now the Second Integration seemed to be saying that if everyone was doing that, and thus staying awake, we would discover what we needed to know. The only things mentioned that weren’t fully clarified yet were the idea of influence and the cryptic remark about “keeping our energy up.”
Suddenly, Wil was pulling the Cruiser over to the side of the road.
“It’s your turn to drive,” he said.
All morning, I drove west. The big sky had stayed blue, and the sunshine vivid, over hundreds of miles of wheat fields and pastureland. For hours I just gazed out on the flat horizon until, at one point, I felt myself get slightly bored and hungry.
Just before noon, I stopped at a roadside gas station and filled up the Cruiser with gas. Unable to resist, I bought a packaged apple pie from the counter and ate it slowly as I drove. It tasted really good, maybe too good. Within twenty minutes my head began to hurt and I felt a sudden drop in energy. The funk lasted for several hours. When Wil finally woke up, I told him what I’d done.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You, the disciple of Blaylock, ate a mass-processed pie right off the shelf. You know better than that.”
I knew he was talking about the problem with glutamates that Blaylock railed against. Glutamates, MSG-type substances resulting from the processing of various proteins and oils, are often added to processed foods, mainly because they, like MSG itself, are taste enhancers. They don’t have a taste themselves, but the first bite sends immediate signals to the brain that you are eating the tastiest thing in the world, despite what are probably very bad ingredients.
The food industry says they’re not harmful, but according to some experts, glutamates have been proved to inflame the brain and disrupt other organs, contributing to a myriad of modern diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and especially obesity.
“Let me guess the symptoms,” Wil said. “Maybe a little nagging headache, tired eyes, low energy, absolutely no inspiration to do anything. All for a small initial hit of taste euphoria.”
He shook his head. “Eating is one of the most obsessive things we do in the Modern world. If your particular feel-good distraction is food, it by definition has to taste really good, because otherwise it won’t give you that pacified and satisfied feeling that comes when glutamate receptors in the brain are activated. The food makers find a way to artificially do that for you with glutamates.
“The big problem,” he went on, “is not just the health impact. It’s how it affects your consciousness. You can’t keep your energy up and stay alert spiritually if you are drugged.”
He stopped and looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“The Document