Mysteries

JOURNEY OF THE STONE

by Michael R. Hathaway, D.C.H.

Something inside of me said, “It’s time to go and get the stone,” on that frosty early November Sunday morning in the fall of 1997. It wouldn’t be long until snow covered the ground making it impossible to look for any further clues until the spring thaw. I had been posting the land a few days earlier when either I discovered it, or it brought me to where it lay in wait of my appearance. Its crisscrossing lines caught my eye, and I bent down to get a closer look where it rested near the base of an old stonewall built well over a century ago. I guessed that whoever was clearing the rocky landscape for gardens or pasture found it interesting enough to place it on top of the other stones making up the wall, and sometime afterwards it toppled to its current resting place on the forest floor. My pulse quickened as my mind raced back over events of the past five years. Was this a piece of the puzzle I was searching for?

I marked the spot where the stone was located and continued on with my task of nailing “No Hunting” signs every hundred feet or so to trees that followed the property lines of our 115 acre site nestled in the foothills of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Now it was time to go back and retrieve it before the weather took a turn for the worse.

“I’ll be back in plenty of time for church,” I told my wife Penny, as I slipped my red hunting coat over my sweatshirt.

“Where are you going?” She asked me.

“I’m going up back to bring out a rock I found the other day. I need to get it this morning.”

She gave me one of her looks, but she had become used to my less than normal behavior whenever I felt a need to act on my intuition. My thinking process had changed after a near death experience in the summer of 1989. A car struck me when I was crossing a street on the campus of the University of New Hampshire. My life would never be the same again, nor would my wife’s.

Scraping the frost off the truck, I drove the half-mile up Colby Hill to the old Class VI town road that passed by the Center’s log landing and parking lot for the hiking trail. Following the rough surface, I parked at a spot where Cliff’s and our property joined. I labored to find a path through the slash left from last winter’s wood harvest. I hoped I would not cause Cliff’s dog to make a commotion. I could see the wood smoke coming from his chimney. Within a few minutes I was there. I found the stone again. The groves in its surface stood out in the morning light. I picked it up and examined it. I felt like a thief as I cradled it in my arms for the hike back to the truck.

“Man, this is one heavy rock!” I told myself.

My muscles ached and I looked for a place to rest. I found some tree trunks that stood several feet tall, left by the logger when he was cutting in the deep snow. I was thankful for them as I paused and regained my strength. I needed to watch the clock, remembering my promise to my wife to return in time for church. I stumbled on through the slash and uneven ground. Finally, I made it to the truck. Sweating and exhausted, my arms feeling like lead, I drove out of the woods, the stone riding on the seat beside me.

Back at the house I propped it up against the garage door. My wife came out to see my treasure.

“That’s kind of interesting,” she observed. “It looks like it has half a face.” (1)

I stopped short! I had only been concentrating on part of the stone’s surface, the right side. The lines ceased in the center and the left looked as if it was a completed sculpture of half a face.

“This thing is even more mysterious than I thought!” I said out loud.

I took some photos and went to church, but my mind wandered far from the sermon.

After my accident, I found that I was not physically able to continue my profession as a music educator. Retirement would not provide an adequate income to live on, and I knew I would have to do something to help make ends meet. I received just enough insurance settlement from the accident to cover the bills and help finance my doctorate degree in clinical hypnotherapy, which I completed in December of 1993. I had been involved in hypnosis since 1980, and it seemed like this was the direction my life’s work should follow. I endured the physical pain in my knee and leg caused by the accident and continued teaching until the spring of 1994.

In the summer of 1992 a mystifying set of circumstances were set in motion that are still evolving even as this writing project unfolds. My wife and I had the opportunity to make a bid for a piece of property that had been owned by our elderly neighbor after he had died that past winter. This seventy acre wooded land lay directly behind our house, and we feared it would be a prime target for a developer. We overbid the appraised value and were successful in winning out over another interested party by only a few dollars. That fall we bid on another part of the estate that included a forty-five year old house and another twenty-five acres. I had convinced my wife on the last day of the sale to hand deliver our proposal to the lawyer’s office. Something inside of me said that it was the right thing to do. Within a few days we were notified that our offer had been accepted. We had thirty days to close the deal and no money. The first bank we approached had a statewide policy that would prohibit any trees from being cut on land that they held the mortgage on. We wanted to establish a conservation plan with a productive timber harvest. Fortunately the next bank gave us their blessings, and we had the loan by the end of the month. We now had a house that needed a lot of work and a hundred acres of land.

The building was to become my hypnosis office, and we had a forestry plan drawn up for the land. That winter my wife went to work on the house every day. She painted and papered and stenciled and sewed. Our son helped rebuild counters and refinished my grandfather’s roll-top desk. The logging started in the winter and continued for almost a year. The woodcutter was a bearded Harley Davidson rider who loved going up on the hillside to harvest the timber. He seemed to have a special feel for the land and enjoyed driving his old skidder up to the height of the mountain. He would tell us of the deer that he would see watching him from a safe distance. By the end of the summer in 1993 we held an open house and officially opened The White Mountain Hypnosis Center.

“Did you know that you have some kind of an old grave site up there?” the woodcutter asked us sometime later in the fall.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Well a couple of days ago I took a walk into the woods where I will be logging in a few days and I came upon this formation. It looks like two graves behind a big boulder. (2) There seems to be some sort of carving on one of the rocks, a small cross or something like that. It reminds me of a site on the coast that was possibly made by the Vikings.”

He told us the approximate location, and we spent the weekend hunting for the site. The mountainside was strewn with small boulders looking like some ancient god had caused them to rain down upon the land. Our efforts proved fruitless. We had to have him mark the route with red surveyor ribbon, and the next weekend we successfully followed the streamers.

We were almost upon it before we saw it nestled in the woods in the quiet of its surroundings. We examined its shape. It had been undisturbed for many years. On the downhill slope facing Mount Chocorua was a boulder (3) that was approximately three feet high, tapering from a point furthermost away from the formation, back uphill to about nine feet at its widest end. It was here that three stonewalls were set into the ground and connected to the boulder. The walls were four and a half feet apart and the same length. Another wall on the back completed the two squares. The walls were about two feet deep, and there seemed to be a set stone bottom in the middle of the two squares. A large birch tree grew over a rock placed in the wall on the opposite side of the boulder.

This rock contained the carving our logger had described. We could make out the outline of a cross about two inches tall. (4) The stone was well worn, and other marks were not decipherable by my eyes. We visited the site several more times before the snow came and brought others, hoping to gain from their insights. One of the viewers was a friend, Don West, a retired National Forest employee. He had spent several years working on archeological finds in the White Mountain National Forest, but he had not encountered a similar site. He took photos and measurements, and the following spring he invited the government archeologist in charge of the National Forest in this area to visit the site. He likewise had no comparisons. Our questions went unanswered. Was this a grave, an old foundation, or a ceremonial place for a forgotten culture?

I wondered if there was a connection with Mount Chocorua, considered to be a sacred site of Native Americans. Chocorua, an Indian chief, is said to have evoked a curse as he fell to his death from the mountain after being shot by white settlers. I took a compass bearing. It read about 330 degrees. The site did not exactly line up with the mountain. I had a feeling that I should return on the evening of the summer solstice. (5) Sure enough, as the sun went down, its last rays lined up almost exactly with the centerline of the formation. Was it just a coincidence or something more?

There were other odd and fascinating things happening. Just after Penny and I purchased the building, we asked our friend Janet if she would do a reading on the property. I believe she has a psychic gift, and she doesn’t understand or acknowledge this talent, but she went along with the “game”. I asked her to imagine how the land might have been and to see if our purpose for it was in harmony with the past. She could smell an old root cellar, and she pictured a cable extending up the mountain. She saw and drew horses pulling logs and described where the old logging road had been. She felt no resistance to our proposed use for the land and building. It seemed that we were moving in the right direction. A month later our forester showed us the remains of the old road he had found while inspecting the land! The cables she had seen in her mind were used as a breaking system for a horse logging operation a hundred years ago. As the horses pulled the sawn timber down the steep slope, the cable, which was fastened to the back of the load, was slowly unwound. This practice helped protect the animals and crew from the ever-present danger of being crushed by a runaway load.

With the discovery of the site on the mountain, I continued to press Janet for more clues. She begrudgingly agreed.

“Here, will this make you happy?” She would often complain after my persistence had convinced her to sketch me something just to keep me quiet. “You know this doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s ok.” I would reply, as the wheels in my mind turned, trying to make something of what she considered nothing. I dated each sketch and started to fill a scrapbook we kept at the hypnosis center. I showed them to anyone who indicated even the slightest interest in the subject.

In the late winter I got a call from a psychic who indicated an urgent need to visit the center. It was late in the evening when she arrived, and she immediately went into a trance. She lapsed back to a point in time where a murder, in her mind’s eye, took place up on the property. She described how a burly older man, who was hiding in the woods, killed a young adult male. It seemed as if the soul of the dead person was still trapped on the earth’s plane up on the hillside. We helped release it to the other side. The psychic revealed that the murderer also died on the mountain of natural causes. His body was never discovered. Later that night, back in my own home, next door to the center, I was awakened by the most “bloodcurdling” scream of agony one might ever imagine. The sound echoed through the darkness as it bounced off the surrounding hills. Whatever it was, it woke my wife also.

“Did you hear that?” I asked her.

“I think it was an owl.” She sleepily replied.

I had never heard one that time of year before. It was as if the mountain was giving up a negative energy that had held its grip on the land for an unknown period of time. I found out sometime later, from our neighbor Cathy that there had been a dark entity at her house, which is located on the other side of us. The previous owners of that property had sold our house lot to us. Cliff, who lived on the height of the land behind us, told us of similar experiences. Ed and Kathleen, who also live in the same area, had felt negative energies, and my “psychic friend”, unknowing of these stories, had sketched a figure that looked strikingly like some of the descriptions of what they had envisioned. Cathy’s dark figure left her house about the same time as my visit from the psychic. Was there a connection?

By now a second site on the mountain about 125 feet from the first had been identified. (6) It was a boulder four feet wide and four feet high at the front end where it sloped backward to the ground. A large mound was located in front of it, and there was a small hole in the top, just above a v-shaped grove that became wider as it descended down the rock until it reached the ground. Then Ben found a third site about 400 feet above the second (7) - a flat topped boulder with a hole in the top.

One of Janet’s drawings was of an arched “stone” bridge. “It had some sort of ornamental purpose.” She told us. My wife and I searched for this new clue. I thought it might have been a bridge over the small stream that flowed down the mountainside. Some five months later on a bright November afternoon, as we stood at the second site, Penny exclaimed, “Look across the valley. Do you see the bridge outlined in the cliff?” (8)

There it was, exactly where Janet had drawn it! I checked the sun. It was lined up with the long edge of the boulder, and we were standing on top of it looking out from its right point. The next spring we set candles in the holes of sites two and three and they lined up directly with the bridge. The sun’s shadow cast over the center of the ledge while the outside was bathed in light, made it seem as if we were looking into a tunnel that led into the center of the earth. My mind raced for answers. Was this an ancient ceremonial place? Were we a part of some unseen drama that was playing out with the land? Had this area once been used in a positive way and had then been polluted by negative energies? Was it now realigning itself with its original purpose?

Another one of those feelings kept whispering a message in my ears. It was time to start a metaphysical discussion group at the hypnosis center. We began this adventure with a couple of friends in the spring of 1996. We met every Wednesday, and soon a small nucleus of people interested in everything from ancient mysteries to UFOs to religion to alternative health was participating. I had my book of sketches and photos of the different sites ready to show the new visitors. I felt as if I was part of some sort of play, and each week the characters were assembled to address a predetermined agenda set in motion by the forces of the universe. I was always being taught new lessons or being given new clues to investigate. Some of the participants came every week, while others were only passing through. Many had wonderful artistic talents that lay dormant from lack of use. Some had developed their skills only to let their works languish without a market. The center was like a homing beacon for souls looking for lost connections for their pasts. We began to receive donations of books on metaphysical subjects, and we started to develop a lending library.

Ever since we acquired the land I felt as if I was only a steward of the property, charged with the responsibility to help facilitate the way its universal design would develop. My wife and I seemed to be like a team of mountain climbers. We were walking along a very narrow trail, and below us was a long drop to the valley floor. I was oblivious to where I was walking; my eyes fixed on the majestic peeks above. She on the other hand, was very aware of the hazards of our journey and preferred the safety of firmer ground. Together, with me pulling her ahead and she holding me back, we inched forward, balanced by our belief in the purpose. Miracles, large and small, were a part of our everyday lives. I was on a disability retirement that was 40% of what I had made as a teacher, and she had not worked for several years, but she started again to help support the cause. In the meantime we had a chance to purchase an additional thirteen acres that provided an easy access to the height of the land.

As we moved forward, others were directed to the center. Martha Douglass, who studied hypnosis with me, soon became a part the work. She possessed great psychic abilities, and through her eyes I could experience what Edgar Cayce called the Invisible Empire, a group of beings that have no physical form.

We had an extensive timber harvest on the latest land acquisition, as well as a seven-acre clear-cut off the summit. The view toward the west and north was spectacular. The local Boy Scouts helped establish a hiking trail. It was now possible to park a vehicle at the log landing and walk all the way down to the center on our own property. The path led through a small granite quarry, (9) which made a delightful sitting and meditation spot. Martha dowsed the top and found a powerful energy area. There were some more interesting formations, one a pile of stone with a dirt center with one rock standing on edge, and it seemed to be pointing in the direction to the Granite Bridge on the other side of the valley. A small ledge on the summit appeared to have a set of steps carved into it with a seat on top. It was great for my leg to be able to reach the height of the land without the steep climb required from the center.

Finally, I feel I need to mention another mental feeling that continues to stay with me, and that is the connection between whatever is taking place here and the work of Edgar Cayce. Since 1991, when I first heard of the psychic who died in 1945, my life keeps running into many aspects of his beliefs and readings.

Several of our discussions at the metaphysical coffeehouse in the fall of 1997 centered on manifest and un-manifest reality - manifest being that which we can see and touch, and un-manifest being that which is real that cannot be seen or touched. We related these concepts to psychic ability, speculating that such a gift was the ability to perceive a reality that to others might not seem real, until it was actually manifested in some way.

Now, perhaps, you can imagine the range of my emotions when the stone appeared to me while I was posting the land.

After church I made several phone calls. “I may have found something that could change the history of the world.” I told Cathy.

She came over that afternoon with her sister Mary, who is very sensitive to psychic impressions taken from objects. She received confusing signals, as her mind saw flip-flopping images. The next day Jan took several rolls of film and had the developed pictures back to me the following day. There was a steady steam of visitors to see the stone that occupied the middle of our living room. I tried not to let my imagination fly high, but it did. What was the best way to research this? Who should I take it to? Was it really carved or was it the act of nature? My nights were filled with tossing and turning as I searched for answers in my own mind.

“That stone is taking over our lives!” My wife complained. “I think you have rocks in your head.” I moved it to the Center.

I met an archeologist from Harvard, and he came to see it. He said he was very disappointed that he could not find any carving marks on its worn surface. I slept better that night than I had in days. I took it to a local geologist who said it was carved by the glaciers. He also said the stone was not native to this area. I did not argue with whatever I was told, and I thanked them all for their insights. Yet, that old feeling stirred inside of me. Was there really more to the story of the stone? Many of my metaphysical friends felt there was, and at my request, they gave me their impressions. My task was to stay objective and not influence others’ thoughts, and so the project, JOURNEY OF THE STONE was born.

THE PROJECT

I discovered early in my life that my mind did not process information like most people. I used to explain my differences by telling people I had negative vision. It was not until I studied hypnosis that I found out how much I do differ from most others. I learned that I have no recall in four of the five senses. I have no pictures in my mind’s eye, as well as hearing, external feelings, taste or smell image abilities. Simply put, I cannot recall or project into the future by any of those means. I am constantly amazed at what others can do that I cannot. I have to be aware of what is happening around me, and to pay attention to what I am being told or shown. Therefore I knew I would have to rely on the talents of others to help this project come to fruition. My wife gives me some of my greatest insights even though she would take no credit for the knowledge she has. I am beginning to listen carefully to what she might say. She is not psychic in the normal sense, but there is often a parallel purpose to her actions. She is the one that found the bridge, and many times when I go with her on errands, I run into someone who has a clue for something I am working on at the time. Then there are the insights of many others who each make a contribution to this story.

The first fragments of information that suggested there might be something more to the property than we knew came from Janet Grady. Starting in 1992, she made a series of sketches for me relating to the land. These drawings were done almost automatically, as often she would be in sort of a daze, not knowing exactly what she was producing. It soon became apparent she was tapping into more than one period of time. The ancients appeared to migrate to this area over the land bridge that once connected Northern Europe to North America. This primitive culture came following the wild animals that were their food. Dewey, a perceptive high school senior, drew a sketch of a similar culture that searched for a red powder to use in their rituals. She imagined a passageway leading down to the base of a cliff. It was Janet’s bridge. She felt there was a battle over this precious red material. The next day Penny and I went to visit my cousin Gil and his wife Liz on the coast of Maine. I filled them in on the latest goings on with the mountain. His father had started me in music many years ago, and Gil told me he had had a great interest in the metaphysical back in the 1930s.

“Have you ever heard of the Red Paint People?” He asked. “They covered their dead with red okra.”

“No I haven’t.” I replied. “ Was this ancient culture related to the Red Paint People?” I wondered to myself.

A young woman named Lisa and a friend asked if they could visit the sites. The night before they came, they both had the same dream, in which they saw a chieftain of a primitive tribe standing on a boulder watching a battle take place below him. When they visited the area they felt it was a place where the dead were buried, and possibly a portal through which souls entered and left this world. The idea of some sort of a battle was also put fort by Dewy, who saw a fight over the red powder.

Martha Douglass said to me a couple of years ago, “I can’t wear a crystal for very long, it builds up some sort of energy inside of me and makes me uncomfortable.” She continued on. I also can’t stay in a gem store for any length of time. The energy gets so strong it feels like it’s going to explode, and I have to get out of there.”

“That’s interesting.” I replied. “I wonder how you first learned what it feels like to be in an explosion?”

Without hesitation she went into a trance, and back to the location where the explosion took place. She was on a mountaintop. She was supervising a group of bodiless beings who were shaping three large crystals which were about eight feet if height. They were tuning the vibrations so the energy might be sent out into the universe. Evidently these crystals got out of phase with each other and the result was a gigantic explosion. As she spoke, Martha unconsciously spread her arms outward, and she opened her fingers between the ring and the middle, as if she was using an antenna to communicate with an unknown source.

The following is a transcript of a recording made with Martha Douglass and myself and several others, including Cathy McGuire, on April 3, 1996. We began by talking about the crystals.

Q: “Can you tell us about the crystals?”

A: “Some of them are very large.”

Q: “Can you tell us how large the crystal are?”

A: “Eight feet, some of them are different sizes.”

Q: “How many are there?”

A: “Three here, and others in parts of this area.”

Q: “How close?”

A: “You can see them, but they are some distance away.”

Q: “How do you see?”

A: “I see intuitively. I see without eyes. I feel it. I know. We see as a blind man would by just knowing and sensing, seeing and feeling color, and having a heightened awareness of everything around us.”

Q: “How many of you are there?”

A: “There are five beings with each groupings of crystals, each working, and I am observing.”

Q: “How are they working?”

A: “They are working upward on the crystals so the energy moves upwards and out. It is a constant, constant flowing of this energy.”

Q: “How would you describe the sound?”

A: “It’s really many sounds becoming one harmony, one sound all balanced. The sound flows within. Perhaps many people have difficulty bearing this sound in too great a concentration.”

Q: “What is the purpose of the sound?”

A: “The sound is a vibration that flows throughout our entire universe, and brings us all into contact with each other so we are all together in one great spiritual form ourselves.”

Q: “How did these crystals get there?”

A: “It was a gradual process, slowly through time as the light came and became stronger so did the crystals grow.”

Q: “Where did the light come from?”

A: “The light is an expression of power that comes when everyone combines the source of all our creation; the basis of all creation.”

Q: “How large is the universe?”

A: “There is no end to it. There is no size to it, it’s immense.”

Q: “”How long have you been on this planet?”

A: “In human form?”

Q: “In spirit form.”

A: “This human has gone through many changes, and many changes in physical form, and has been here long all kinds of time.”

Q: “Is it possible to track or to follow each one of the human lifetimes?”

A: “Perhaps but not worth it.”

Q: “Are there other lifetimes that one could learn from?”

A: “Knowledge comes from every lifetime, even a lifetime that is very short. As the beings open and are ready to receive and carry through to the lifetime.”

Q: How many human lifetimes does the soul have?”

A: “This can’t be counted. As many lifetimes as it will need for this being to achieve this pure simplicity, this clear pure simplicity at the source.”

Q: “Once the simplicity is learned, then what?”

A: “Then this being drawn home.”

Q: “Where is home?”

A: “Home is in this spirit place that has no form. There is pure love and light and has only love.”

Q: “How long is that existence?”

A: “The existence can be as long as the Spirit is willing. The Spirit will return if that is what is necessary to be of help and guidance to those below who are working their way.”

Q: “Are there other places besides this planet where this is taking place?”

A: “Yes.”

Q: “You said that a person takes as many lifetimes as is necessary before they rejoin the light, but at each interval, are they not part of that light?” (Asked by Cathy McGuire)

A: “The light is with everyone, but it is so hard to recognize it.”

Q: “You said that it takes for as long as they need, for as many lives as they need. What is it that they are supposed to be doing?” (Cathy)

A: “In this process it’s like a snake sheds its skin, with the coat removed it grows. In this case, these beings are experiencing many things that teach them. As they learn, they shed some of the confusion.”

Q: “In between lifetimes where does the soul go and what are the purposes for in between lifetimes?”

A: “In between lifetimes the soul is lovingly drawn back in readiness for its new experience.”

Martha was unfamiliar with Edgar Cayce, and did not know of his thoughts on Akashic energy or his readings that spoke of the earliest form of soul development, that had no physical form. When he was in trance, his mind seemed to go to a place in the universe where the Akashic Records were kept. He could seek and retrieve information on the history of the soul of an individual, often over many lifetimes. He was also able to give a reading on the potentials of successes and failures of the individual’s current lifetime. His earliest soul readings went back to an ancient place he called Lemurs. Here at the beginning of the humane race, there were at first no physical forms. As the evolution of the soul progressed, physical forms began to evolve. At the time of Atlantis, there were souls in different stages of development, physical and non-physical. Cayce called these early souls the Invisible Empire.

It seems as if Martha had somewhere inside of her unconscious mind a memory that related to Cayce’s concepts. Martha took this one step further by being able to communicate with the invisible beings. While she was in her trance, I pressed her for some sort of a description of these beings. Looking back, that wasn’t too smart, since of course they can’t de seen. She sketched a space alien.

“No, that’s not right.” She said, almost as soon as she had finished. “They have no physical form, but they are here to help look over the human race. They appear to each person differently, in a way that they can accept what they see.”

The notion that there was an invisible or perhaps a parallel plane that co-existed with the human race intrigued me, especially if they are here to watch over us. I wondered how they appeared when needed. I pressed for more answers. Was I in contact with a memory of the beginning of the human race?

Q. “Where do they exist?” I asked her.

A. “In the beginning there was only thought form.” Her voice sounded slow and deliberative, not as she usually spoke. “Many years ago, the mountains in this area were much taller, and we used the energy that was here as a way of resting and building strength for our travels. That energy is still here and we are still here also and are pleased with how you are using the land.”

Q. “How did you begin I asked?” Not sure whom I was talking to.

A. “We began from a mist, and over a long time evolved into physical forms. As each soul develops it travels through many lifetimes until eventually returning to where we began. We then return to watch over the human race.”

Q. “How do we see you?”

A. “We appear to you in many ways. It is how each of you will accept what you see or experience.”

I wondered if these experiences were what are often referred to as unexplained encounters with beings or angels, or the stuff that miracles are made of.

MARCH 16, 1998: I saw Martha today and she made a drawing of how she saw the Stone as it sat on a body of rock. She sketched a covering that hid the scarred side of the face, and there was some sort of a round metal emblem on the chest and another at the waist. The right hand of the figure held a spear, which represented life and death, not good and evil. She felt that a long time a go a group of spiritual leaders went on a journey led by the invisible ones. She gave a name for the stone as Udahl. Cathy Cooper recognized Martha’s drawing as close to an image she had seen at the site with the two squares.

. . . to be continued

wmccd@wmccd.org

This page last updated on 3/27/07