Soul Identity (8 page)

Archie led me to
the depositary and through its automatic steel doors. We stood in a waiting room. A lady receptionist sat on the far side behind a thick acrylic window. Archie walked up and leaned on the countertop.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan.” The receptionist smiled. “What can we do for you?”

Archie smiled back at her. “I would like to bring a guest to see my soul line collection.”

“Sure, just fill out this waiver for him.” She slid an index card-sized form under the window.

Archie filled it out and passed it back.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now if we can verify your identity, you’ll be all set.”

Archie picked up the goggles and put them on. “Like this?”

“That’s right. Now just a sec. Ok, Mr. Morgan, we have you verified.”

Archie took off the goggles and straightened his hair.

The receptionist passed him a badge-sized card. “Here’s your smart card, Mr. Morgan. Room number four is available.” She pressed a button, and a door behind her opened. “Just through there—it’s the second door on your left.”

Archie inserted the card into the door of room number four, and it swung open. I heard a hiss as it closed behind us.

“The room is hermetically sealed to keep out dust and mold,” Archie said.

“What about the dust and mold we just carried in?”

“That will be removed after I do this.” He slid the card into a slot on the wall. “You may want to close your eyes.”

I heard a low humming, and a bright light made me see red through my eyelids. I felt the air swirl around me, and I smelled some sort of disinfectant. The humming stopped and the bright light switched off.

I opened my eyes. “Now what?”

“Now we wait for them to deliver my collection,” he said. He pulled out of his pocket a small stack of laminated cards, wrapped with a rubber band. “But take a seat and let me give you a taste of our history.”

I sat down.

“I told you that we started almost twenty-six hundred years ago, correct?”

I nodded.

He slid the rubber band off the stack of cards and handed me the first one. It showed a bust of a bearded man with curly black hair. Underneath the picture I read, “Thales: Soul Identity founder, circa 580 BCE.”

I flipped the card over. The back showed a map labeled “Anatolia (
Asia Minor
).” It appeared to cover the lands in the northeast corner of the
Mediterranean Sea
. A small star about two thirds down
Turkey
’s western coast marked the city of
Miletus
.

I flipped back to Thales’ face. “This is the man who started it all?” I asked.

Archie nodded. “Thales was a philosopher, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, and a businessman. Aristotle called him the father of modern science. He lived in
Turkey
, and he mastered Greek mythology, Egyptian mathematics and astronomy, and the ancient Phoenician and Jewish legends.

“We like to tell a story of how Thales made a fortune by cornering the market on olive oil. He bought all the olive presses in his city after he predicted there was going to be a bumper year for olives.”

“I like this guy,” I said.

Archie smiled. “I like him too,” he said. “Now when Thales was studying in
Egypt
, he discovered a band of priests who had spent centuries painting exquisitely detailed images of people’s eyes on papyrus. These priests claimed if you calculated the difference in the patterns of a person’s eyes, the difference would exist at most once per generation.”

Archie handed me the next card, and I saw a painting of a group of priests sitting cross-legged under a tent in front of a pyramid.

“The mainstream priests persecuted the band because they did not teach that a glorious afterlife awaited each good person,” Archie said. “Thales persuaded the group to return with him to
Miletus
.”

“So what did Thales do with them?”

He smiled. “This is where we enter the picture. Thales set up a new society which he called
Psychen Euporos
, which roughly translates from ancient Greek to
Resourceful in Soul
.”

He handed me the next card, and I saw Soul Identity’s logo, with “Psychen Euporos original shield” written below. So this was the original name of Soul Identity.

Archie flipped the card over, and I saw a picture of a large stone building with huge pillars holding it up. “That was our first depositary,” he said. “Thales realized the business value of being able to connect people between their past and future lives, and he established Psychen Euporos as a way people could invest in their future selves.”

Thales seemed to have been all about the money, much like Soul Identity acted today.

Archie smiled at me. “Our historians believe that Thales also had a personal reason to found our organization—he had no children, and he wanted to pass down his accumulated scientific wisdom to his future self.” He let out a chuckle. “We would not call it wisdom today—Thales believed that everything in the world was made from water.”

“It’s nice to see the ancients didn’t know everything.” I held up my hand. “Before you continue,” I said. “Thales believed his future selves would inherit his characteristics, and I’ve talked to Bob and others—they also expect their future selves will be like them.”

“Most of our members expect that.” Archie leaned forward. “What is your question?”

“Are they right?”

Archie sat back. “As you might imagine, we have performed centuries of research on soul line inheritance. And the results are inconclusive. We know for sure that one’s memories and physical characteristics are not inherited, but our writings are filled with anecdotal evidence of passed-down intelligence and personality traits.”

I thought about what Archie didn’t say. “So you can’t prove it,” I said.

“We cannot. Other than the soul identity, that is. Anything beyond that, and what it means, is left to each member to work out for themselves.”

Bob had also hinted that Soul Identity didn’t delve into the spiritual realm. “You’re telling me Soul Identity forces no special beliefs on its members?”

Archie was silent for a moment. “Not all overseers have felt like me. In fact, throughout my tenure, I have fought many battles against those trying to force their own views on the rest of us. But these days, the business of Soul Identity is business. We let the churches run the spiritual side.”

I nodded. “Thanks. Let’s get back to Thales.”

He handed me another card, and I saw a picture of two armies on a battlefield. Instead of fighting, most of the soldiers stood pointing in the sky at a solar eclipse.

“Thales advised the Lydian general Croesus, who was embroiled in a five year war with the Medes. Thales predicted an eclipse of the sun, and he told Croesus to plan for a battle. When the eclipse darkened the day, the Medes and Lydians spontaneously put down their weapons and made peace.”

“Good news for Thales,” I said.

“Yes, and even better news for Psychen Euporos,” Archie said. “With the war over, we flourished. Thales had a motto—
sophotaton chronos aneuriskei gar panta
—which means
time is wisest because it discovers everything
. We still live by that motto—we mark the time and aid the discoveries by keeping the soul lines intact.”

If nothing else, the concept was fascinating.

Archie handed me the next card, and I saw man with shoulder-length hair, wearing a white robe and sandals. Underneath it said “Cyrus the Great, circa 550 BCE.”

He continued his tale. “Over the next thirty-five years, Croesus sided with the Medes and together they fought the Persians, until they lost to Cyrus the Great. Cyrus spared
Miletus
and gave it favorable terms, mainly because he and most of the Mede and Persian nobles became members of Psychen Euporos.”

I was getting overloaded with history. “When do we get to the overseers?” I asked.

“Only one more card,” he said. “Thales died in 543, leaving behind a solid set of Greek and Persian members. The organization was wealthy, and many people had deposited riches for their future selves.” He paused. “But when Thales died, Psychen Euporos floundered. The priests kept care of the images and the investments, but the organization lacked a leader.”

I thought about this. “Without somebody driving a vision, no organization lasts for very long,” I said.

“That is correct,” he said. “We drifted while
Persia
grew. Cyrus captured
Babylon
in 539, and a generation later Darius married Cyrus’s daughter and became the King of Kings.” He handed me another card, this one with a man with a long beard and a gold cap on his head. It was labeled “Darius the Great, 522 BCE.”

The other side of the card showed a map labeled “
Persian Empire
.” It extended from
Egypt
to
Romania
in the west to the India-Pakistan border in the east.

“Darius and his court joined Psychen Euporos and invested heavily in their own soul lines,” Archie said. “He uprooted the priests and moved us east to
Babylon
, and there we stayed until Alexander the Great came through two hundred years later.”

“Was Darius an overseer?” I asked.

“No, although he was a great financier and organizer, he was too busy running his vast empire. However, Darius did create the institution of the overseers.” Archie smiled. “The best part about having a King of Kings as a member was that we had a chance to find some matching identities.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Remember the original eye images?”

“The ones Thales brought with the Egyptian priests?”

“Correct. Darius had the priests train thousands of mystics how to read soul identities. He sent these mystics out with copies of the original images to the far reaches of his empire and charged them to search for matches.”

I tried to picture how Darius had all the millions of people in his empire read. “It must have been a massive undertaking,” I said.

Archie nodded. “The mystics spent nine years. Altogether they uncovered thirty-five matched identities and sent the people to
Babylon
.” He spread the remaining cards onto the desk, and I saw pictures of farmers, fishermen, and philosophers, old men, young women, and even a baby.

“They were forcibly sent,” he said. “Darius put them in school to learn Persian and Greek, then castrated the men and plucked the hair out of the women’s heads.”

I winced. “Why would he do that?”

“To focus them on the organization, and to keep them docile and out of the harems. They became our first overseers. Their job was to administer and guide the organization for all time.”

I shuffled through the cards on the table. The women in the images had hair—maybe they wore wigs. “So the first overseers were the people whose soul identities matched the ones from the ancient Egyptian paintings,” I said.

“That is correct, Scott. I am a proud member of the soul line of one of those original overseers, a young woman from
Scythia
.” He plucked one of the cards off the desk and handed it to me.

I stared at the current head of this twenty-six hundred year old organization—a man who believed he was the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian and a Scythian woman whose picture I held in my hand. “Bob told me he had an eight person soul line,” I said. “How long is yours?”

“Not very long, I am afraid. I am only the fourth member in my line. Either we missed finding my predecessors along the way, or I have a wandering soul.” He put the card back on the table. “The last member lived over two thousand years ago. I caused quite a stir when my dormant overseer line was recovered.”

“Does that happen often?”

He shook his head. “The recoveries are usually well distributed. Each of the thirty-five overseer soul lines has been recovered several times.”

But none recently, according to the chart he had shown me in his office.

“I think I’m following,” I said. I tapped the table. “But we didn’t come into this itty bitty room so you could tell me this story. We could have done that in your office. How long does it take to bring up your soul line collection?”

Archie looked at his watch. “It should only be a few more minutes. It would have been faster if I had thought to warn them of my visit.” He gathered up the cards, put the rubber band back around them, and slipped them into his pocket.

“What happened to the mystics?” I asked.

“They became our recruiters and soul seekers. We pay commissions to those who bring in new members and find soul matches.”

Something clicked. “Like Madame Flora,” I said.

He nodded.

Madame Flora did tell me that her family had been involved with the organization for a long time. But was every mystic involved? I shook my head. “Are you telling me that all the palmists and fortune tellers in the world are Soul Identity employees?”