About the Author
John Randolph Price is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. Formerly a CEO in the corporate world, he has devoted over a quarter of a century to researching the mysteries of ancient wisdom and incorporating those findings in the writing of many books. In 1981, he and his wife, Jan, formed The Quartus Foundation, a spiritual research and communications organization now headquartered in the Texas hill country town of Boerne, near San Antonio.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
The material for my previous book, The Angels Within Us,1 began as a research project several years ago to help explain the unusual happenings that were taking place in our home. Now, I should tell you up front that I am not some mystical guru who delights in dazzling others with personal stories of phantom adventures. Most people—at least those who know me well—perceive me as a practical, down-to-earth sort of fellow not given to flights of fancy.
To give you a brief overview of my background, I grew up in the ranching and oil field country of south Texas, and in my adolescence the most important activities in life were dating, going to parties, and participating in sports. High school was completed without a single strange, unexplained happening.
My college years were also “normal”—I ran track, joined a fraternity, and changed majors five times until I finally decided on communications. After graduation, I spent twenty-five years in the pressure cooker of advertising, supervising the campaigns of several nationally known corporations and serving as president of two agencies in the seventies. Still no odd experiences, unless you consider the idiosyncrasies of a few weird clients.
Then, in 1981, my wife Jan and I formed the Quartus Foundation for Spiritual Research. That same year I wrote my first book, The Superbeings,2 and a world of phenomena opened up. Strange lights began appearing in our bedroom at night, objects were moved, voices from out of nowhere were heard, and miraculous provisions in the form of money suddenly appeared in our bank account. There were other such occurrences, which Jan and I attributed to serendipity.
A particularly unnerving experience occurred one night in July 1985. While lying in bed, wide awake, I saw a large Being of Light walk through our bedroom door and move toward me. I was beyond frightened and pressed back against the headboard screaming, “No! I’m not ready yet!” The Being paused for a second, then turned and headed out the door.
Jan woke up and asked what was going on. I told her, then felt almost frozen—not with fear, but with a strong sense of having encountered something beyond the normal. Jan held me until my mind, emotions, and body returned to some degree of normalcy.
I started looking for answers, using meditation as a way to get in touch with a higher consciousness. After a period of time, I heard the words “archetypal plane” in my mind. I followed this up with extensive library research and eventually found those exact words in The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall. He wrote: “The archetypal plane was considered synonymous with the intellect of the Triune Divinity. Within this divine, incorporeal, and eternal sphere are included … all that is, has been, or ever will be. Within the Kosmic Intellect all things spiritual or material exist as archetypes, or divine thoughtforms.…”
In checking the dictionary I found archetype defined as “the original pattern, or model, from which all other things of the same kind are made; prototype.” This meant that the original patterns of everything in the invisible and visible worlds exist in the omnipresent Mind of God, and thus within the energy field and mental sphere of each individual man and woman. Think about that for a moment. The model or prototype of everything “that is, has been, or ever will be” is within us; nothing is outside, all is a matter of consciousness.
Fascinated by the archetype idea, I was led to the works of astrologer-metaphysician Edwin C. Steinbrecher and the eminent psychologist Carl Jung. Steinbrecher wrote that “the archetypes are those energies which create and sustain our personal realities—aspects of God, if you will, that are experientially available to each and all of us.”4 And Jung taught that humanity’s collective unconscious was a storehouse of primordial images, which he called archetypes, each having the power to affect human circumstances. He also believed that the Major Arcana of the Tarot were early representations of these archetypes.
Did an archetype from my consciousness walk into our room? Since everything is in consciousness, including the rooms of the house, it was certainly possible. But why did I yell that I wasn’t ready yet? Probably because I wasn’t ready to accept what this Light Being from the inner planes had to offer. (I learned much later that this was the Angel of Death and Rebirth who had come to help me give up the unredeemed characteristics of my personality—a dying of the old self in favor of a more spiritual consciousness—which was a frightful experience for the ego.)
By now I was beginning to wonder if archetypes and angels were not one and the same, that the substance of these messengers of God and guiding influences was intelligent energy in the universal subconscious that took form as living beings. Determined to understand their purpose, I turned to the Bible and found no less than eighty-two references to angels, “a race of beings of a spiritual nature … to aid and succor men on earth.”
After reading the accounts in the Bible, I was convinced that angels were beings of a spiritual nature living in the archetypal sphere of our energy fields—just beyond our conscious awareness. And how do they “aid and succor” us? I was reminded of a letter that I had received several years ago, one of many documenting the miracle-power that is continuously at work in our lives:
My sister and I were driving into town, and I was clipping along about 55 miles per hour and approaching a wide, sweeping curve. We were heavily engaged in conversation when all of a sudden an audible voice from somewhere told me with some urgency to slow down. When I didn’t slow immediately, the voice literally screamed … “NOW” at me. I was so startled that I jerked my foot off the accelerator. Thank God! There around the curve stood a little boy about two years old. Had I not jerked my foot off the accelerator at that precise moment, I honestly believe I would have killed that little baby boy. As it was, I managed to stop about two feet from him. Can you imagine the feeling when you finally stop and here’s this little blond fellow just smiling up a storm?
Can you accept the idea that an ancient archetype—an angel—residing in deep consciousness spoke to this woman, that a causal power within her was responsible for saving the child? The natural response would be to attribute this divine intervention to God. After all, God is Immanent, dwelling in all forms and “nearer than hands and feet.” The Bible also tells us that God is “Father of us all, who is above all, and through all, and in all” (Eph. 4:6). And we know that our Divine Consciousness is God in expression as us, as the very Reality of us.
Yet the masters, sages, and saints have understood for eons that this great Indwelling Identity remains in the absolute and does not control the world of effects: “The I AM is Spirit, and it cannot move directly on substance.… It uses the spiritual faculties as its agents.”6 Furthermore, “Healing does not come directly from God, Who knows His creations as perfectly whole. Yet healing is still of God, because it proceeds from His Voice and from His laws.”
As I was contemplating these ideas, it came to me that the guidance, the protection, the healing—all the aid, help, and relief—came from the Light radiating from the God-Self within, the intelligent conscious energy of the Spirit of God flowing into our minds and hearts. And I was reminded that this Shining into our personal consciousness has also been called the Holy (Whole) Spirit, the third aspect of divinity.
At that point in my meditation, it seemed that I stepped away and was looking back at myself, and I saw a brilliant Light, the Holy Spirit, entering my auric field and diversifying as distinct rays of radiant energy—as multiple streams of divine qualities representing the archetypes of all things spiritual or material. These were the angels, ready to provide everything needed in the journey through life. It was then that I knew I was involved in one of the most exciting research projects of my life.
