Prophecy. An ARKANE thriller. (Book 2) by J.F. Penn Read Free Book Online Page B

been using them as a sleep aid. It had become a kind of addiction for her and now she couldn’t sleep without them. She had used a certain frequency and then a suggestion for deep sleep in the binaural beat.
    “No, I’ll wait for the results, but it looks promising so far.”
    Simone nodded.  
    “If they work, the Board will definitely give us funding. This could be a major breakthrough.”
    Maria grinned, pleased with her enthusiasm.  
    “Who would have believed that a simple headset could pave the way to the kingdom of heaven?”  
    “Do you really believe that?” Simone’s voice was serious now.  
    Maria considered her words. These experiments were challenging for all of the researchers involved and she knew many, herself included, were wrestling with personal doubts.
    “There are two positions and I flip between them. One is that God gave us this part of our brain so we could experience Him and a type of consciousness that we don’t access in everyday life. The other is that we have evolved to believe in a God who doesn’t actually exist but is, in fact, manufactured by our brains. I know believers and atheists who both think the God helmet validates their opposite positions.”
    “I don’t understand why humans would evolve to believe in God if he, or she, didn’t exist,” Simone said. “Where’s the sense in that?”
    Maria shuffled the scientific papers in front of her, unsure how far to take the discussion.  
    “Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that perhaps mankind evolved to a point where they understood the inevitability of physical death. There were some who started to believe there was more than just a physical life, and over time, these people were selected for, in a Darwinian sense, as they were the most hopeful and the ones who helped others.”
    “To reduce the anxiety of death, we came up with the unending beyond the physical. Ok, I can see that.” The machine pinged. Simone turned to check the display. “The subject is almost cooked. Who’s doing this debrief?”
    “I’ll do it. You’ve done more than your fair share recently,” Maria gathered a question sheet and a small soft toy rabbit from the pile near the door. When the light above the door went green, she stepped into the room and flicked on the low lighting. She put the toy rabbit within reach of the man but under the chair she sat down on so it wasn’t obvious. She touched his hand so that he would know the experience was now over. He tried to pull the helmet off and she slowed him, helping him carefully and removing the eye pads. He blinked at the lights, his breathing elevated.  
    “Man, that was weird,” he said, his eyes dazed.  
    “If you would just try to breathe gently, Mr Agineux,” Maria said. “I’d like to ask you some questions about what you experienced. This is being recorded, so please be as honest as you can with your responses.”
    “Of course. I’m keen to find out what the hell you did to me.”
    “Can you start by explaining what happened at the beginning of the experience?”
    Agineux leaned forward.  
    “It was dark and then I started to see shapes swirling about me in a kind of mist. They were like ghosts or maybe angels but they had flat faces, like nothing was really in there.”
    He leaned further forward, reaching under Maria’s chair at full stretch. He pulled out the toy rabbit and hugged it tightly to his chest.  
    “I could hear voices coming from them, but I couldn’t make out the words. Were those angel voices?”
    Maria remained impassive.  
    “Please continue describing the experience,” she said evenly.  
    “They swirled around me and then I felt more of a dominant presence, a one-ness but I was part of it too.” His hands had begun to worry at the rabbit’s ears, twisting them, winding and pulling them.  
    “I could smell something funny, maybe smoke, maybe incense. It was sticky.”
    “Sticky?”
    “Like it got stuck in my nose, like pollen makes