We are very privileged to have at the July Glastonbury conference, not only some of the world’s leading investigators of orbs, but also of the crop-circles, which regularly appear in the surrounding countryside during the summer. Conference information is at www.greatmystery.org/events/glastonbury08.html.

This leads to a mystical musing on how these phenomena may have played a role in our founding of The Prophets Conferences in the 90s.

We (Robin & Cody Johnson – conference founders) lived for a number of years in a small isolated house at 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), a pristine setting on the slope of Haleakala (House of the Sun) volcano on the island of Maui, Hawaii. At the time we were seeking a peaceful retreat from the everyday world and were enjoying growing food, study, and spiritual contemplation. The vista of the ocean and other islands was magnificent and each evening the mountain mist would add to the beauty as if in a Chinese watercolor. The rutted dirt road up to this place kept the tourists at bay. The surrounding land was used for animal grazing but devoid of people except the occasional cowboy. The house sat right next to a ravine that stretched from the top of the 10,023 foot mountain all the way down to the ocean. Each of the Hawaiian Islands had a similar ravine which the old Hawaiians called the cracks between the worlds. Their stories told of the entering and exiting of the cracks by spirits of the land and ancestral spirits and other spirit beings. We were told that we had to be either crazy or very powerful, or both, to live in this place. Whatever, the place felt welcoming and peaceful to us.

Volcanic crater of sacred Mount Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii photo by Martin Gray

One evening soon after we moved in we were sitting on the porch overlooking the crack and to our astonishment we saw colored balls or orbs about the size of grapefruits moving up and down the crack. We thought that this was something like ball lightening, but later, when talking to an old Hawaiian cowboy in Grandma’s Coffee Shop in Keokea a few miles down the mountain, we were told it was the spirit of the mountain showing off for us. The glowing balls were regular visitors during our time on the mountain.

They weren’t the only visitors. Often we would see mysterious lights moving around the volcano which would appear to hover and then rapidly shoot off into the sky. They were too fast to be helicopters but we conjectured that they may have had something to do with the not so secret government Star Wars installation on the top of the mountain. But, once again the Hawaiians set us straight telling us that these lights had been around much longer than the government facility, that there ancestors had spoken of the spirit lights.

One day we decided to go for a hike in the surrounding grass land but the fields hadn’t been grazed in months and the grass was in many places as high as our waists and difficult to navigate. We decided to walk next to the stone fences where the grass was a little shorter. On a rise above us about a quarter of a mile distant stood a single large eucalyptus tree which was called the grandmother tree by the Hawaiians. Even though the grass was difficult to walk through we found ourselves being drawn toward the tree. About half way up in our path we saw a shimmering above the grass ahead of us, similar to what you would see coming off a hot desert roadway in the summer. But this day the temperature was perfect. As we drew near the shimmering, to our amazement we saw that the tall grass was pressed down into a perfect circle about 20 feet in diameter with the pressed down ring being around a yard wide, nothing fancy, just a perfect circle. There wasn’t any trace in the surrounding grass of any entry by person or animal. We stepped into the grass in the circle center and felt an inexplicable energy surrounding us, as if transporting us into something unknown, a place of power that we couldn’t explain away. We sat and meditated in the circle for what we thought was an hour and then headed up the field in an ecstatic state to the grandmother tree and then headed back across the mountain to our nearby home. It was early morning when we began our hike which only covered a mile or so from our house, but as we entered our porch we could see the sun nearing the ocean horizon. We looked at the kitchen clock and to our surprise we had been gone for almost seven hours. We both thought that we had been gone for no more than two or possibly three hours. We had simply lost track of time.

Keokea

Later at a conference we told crop-circle aficionado Michael Glickman about our experience and he told us that the crop-circle was there just for us. Similarly, we have come to feel that the appearance of orbs in people’s photos are there as evidence that there is something profound going on just for each person. We can’t explain any of this at this time, but as we proceed deeper into the mystery we hope to find more light shed upon these kinds of phenomena and thereby see openings into greater understanding for us all.

One day following our circle experience while sitting on the same porch, we both flashed upon the thought that we should be doing something more than just sitting there in our perfect little place on this magic mountain. It was time to become active in helping others to find their way, and in so doing help ourselves to open into greater good. At that moment we decided to create The Prophets Conference, a non-dogmatic, non-doctrinaire, non-religious, non-cultic organization, not based solely upon the teachings of any one charismatic leader, but open to many new as well as ancient ideas and teachings. We saw this creation as a place where people could come together and avail themselves of the teachings of many powerful and profound teachers, where people could be safe in rethinking their lives and their world, where they could connect with each other, and where they could delve into and create a personal relationship with the Great Mystery.

We express our deepest gratitude to all those who are helping along the way.

For information on Orbs: Interacting with Other Realms Prophets Conference Glastonbury & Sacred Site Tour www.greatmystery.org/events/glastonbury08.html.