Human history, E.J. Michael tells me, has an inner, hidden stream that can only be explained by the existence of a higher level of being class of consciousness that I call Adept, Master or Initiate. And I think these beings are part of a grand scheme which they follow according to the ages and different astrological influences. We're talking about ancient mystery school sites, discussing whether there might not be a common thread in the building of the Pyramids, Machu Picchu, Tiahuanaco, Stonehenge, and other astounding edificial feats.

Mystery schools are one of Michael's favorite subjects, one he deftly weaves into the storyline of his recently published book, Queen of the Sun. It's another self-start success, one that New-Age author Louise Hay couldn't put down, and one that Bookpeople' calls the next scorcher, in the mold of The Celestine Prophecy and Mutant Message. Indeed, parallels to the bestseller Celestine (which Michael deliberately didn't read) are many. Both are autobiographical adventures set in South America; both involve an awakening hero on a spirit quest that's hampered by malevolent pursuers; both use an exciting storyline to communicate spiritual truths the authors feel are essential to a world hanging on the brink of enlightenment or unparalleled cataclysm.

In the better written Queen, a young artist named Jason finds an ancient relic, a powerful amulet bearing an image of Isis and seven mysterious glyphs. His efforts to discover its meaning embroil him in a dangerous struggle for global dominance involving the corporate, financial and ecclesiastical establishment. Along the way, he experiences intense initiations represented by the glyphs.

Emery John Michael, who calls the book a metaphor for my personal life, was born in Damascus and brought up Baptist in Maryland. He says he sort of outgrew that theology in his teen-age years, pursuing instead the writings of Edgar Cayce, the Bhagavad Gita and books like Phylos the Thibetan and Brother Philip's Secret of the Andes. Since I was a teen-ager, he says, I've never had a question about the pre-existence of the human soul, the after-life and reincarnation. If you believe in the law of causation and that we are responsible for our actions, you almost have to believe in reincarnation, because it's practically impossible to balance things out in one life. To think we live for just a moment seems awfully shallow; just look at the cycle of water it's a beautiful example of the eternal cyclic nature of life. Spiritual questing led him to South America in 1971, where he spent six weeks in the high Andes mountains north of Lake Titicaca in Cuzco, Peru. Assisted by a Quechua Indian guide, he and two friends sought to discover the hidden valley retreat of an ancient spiritual brotherhood. The rigors of the excursion were severe; one of his friends disappeared into a fog along a narrow llama trail from which he never returned. Michael's own experience nearly cost him his life; he lost nearly one-third of his body weight, but not his burning enthusiasm for the spiritual adventure he says all of us are called to experience. After obtaining a degree in Education from what he calls the modern-day mystery school' of Gertranum, Switzerland, he continued to travel, always searching for threads of the ancient wisdom tradition evidence of which, he says, exists in every country in the world. Michael believes some of that ancient wisdom lies in lost cities cities which may be found when a seeker has attained a level of self-mastery that matches the vibration of that particular civilization. A fascinating aspect of his book involves a spiritually advanced culture hidden deep within the recesses of the Mayan Yucatan. Though he notes that when the Spanish arrived in Mexico, the ancient mystery schools of the Americas were in decline, he intuits the existence of a remnant of Mayan civilization which remains in the Yucatan jungles, cultivating the seeds of advanced spirituality.

As a forty-something baby-boomer, Michael himself leads a rich spiritual, or inner life, fueled in part by prayer and meditation-practices he has faithfully engaged in almost every day for the past twenty-five years. Recently, he's been studying the Western mystery traditions dating back to Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and the Church of Saint John, an esoteric Christianity largely repressed by the established church in Medieval times. The fundamental core of all spiritual teachings and metaphysical doctrine, he states, is that your inner life creates your outer life. You start by noticing your thoughts and feelings, then intervene and redirect, if necessary. It is through each of us contacting and purifying our inner life that Michael feels we can successfully navigate the coming planetary initiations. He expresses this in a letter to Queen's protagonist, written by the adept Brother Arthur':

Dear Jason, It is a mistake to think you live in your external conditions. In truth, you live in your consciousness...in your heart. Make not the mistake of most who think they dwell in this or that nation, city, mansion, house or hovel. All of us live in our innermost thoughts, feelings, moods, and reflections. The sum of this inner life is our soul, which we create anew each day. See to it that you fashion an inner world worthy of attracting the most exalted beings. In so doing, you will never be alone, for blessed spirits of light will accompany you on your journeys, both inner and outer.

Michael says the essence of what he hopes to communicate in Queen is what he calls, The Divine Sophia the love/wisdom of the universal feminine archetype, exemplified in Isis, the ancient representation of the Divine Mother/Feminine/Goddess. According to Michael, Isis was an actual being, and Greek mythological figures point to a period in time when divine beings interacted with human beings. Accordingly, when Jason' meditates intently on the medallion he holds, a goddess-like woman appears, bestowing divine experiences and intercession. The book culminates in an awe-inspiring appearance of the Queen of the Sun,' manifest as the Virgin Mary, whose well-documented appearances worldwide are of keen interest to Michael; There are so many validations of her appearances that established institutions that want to suppress this won't be able to, he comments.

Through the voice of a beautiful adept whom he named Celeste, Michael addresses relationships between men and women, advising women to know when to let a man brood, and suggesting that partners need to play together, take walks in nature, read the same books, and surprise each other with love notes and gifts. By heeding his own advice, Michael has sustained a positive partnership with his wife Mia, whom he met a number of years ago when they were both teachers in California. Now living in Prescott, Arizona, they own a metaphysical bookstore/tea/espresso bar and are parents of a daughter, Sera Maria. Though he doesn't drink (alcohol tends to impair the development of the spiritual organs, or chakras), living in Italy gave him the caffeine habit he says he enjoys moderately. He speaks passionately about the role of interpersonal relationships; Relationship is one of the testing grounds of initiation in this age. It's a path of development. He's speaking of interpersonal relations in general, but believes the Platonic idea that humans were created whole and divided into two may be more than myth. I think, he says, there's lot of truth in the idea of a Twin Flame, HermAphrodite,' or other half. We also form profound links with many people who are our soul-mates; family karmic groups make total sense to me.

On a less personal note, Queen delves into the conspiratorial activities of the Trilateral Commission, the Federal Reserve and the effect of big business and banking on third world nations, including the manipulation of the food supply through the hybridization of seeds (which cannot reproduce themselves, rendering growers dependent upon petrochemical producers). It's a subject well-researched by its author, who read financial insider Carrol Quigley's Tragedy and Hope nearly twenty-five years ago. Quigley had access to secret documents of Cecil Rhodes' Round Table, an inside organization founded after the First World War. According to Michael, that's where many of the conspiratorial ideas were hatched. You can trace the development over the decades, he says. It's undeniable. It's objective history and anyone who cares to look at it with an unbiased eye will see that it's true. Michael takes a tolerant view of conspirators, noting that many people involved in these power groups are good people, even spiritual people. I think, he says, we need to critique these activities solely on the flaws in the economic thinking. He cites the policies of the Federal Reserve ( an interesting name for an organization that isn't federal and has no reserves). The problem lies with the current system of credit and money creation lying in the hands of a private banking monopoly that creates money out of nothing and then charges interest on it. Michael says the key to economic understanding is you will reap what you sow' a principle he thinks we're distorting through taxation and interest repayment that smacks of extortion. Until this system is remedied, he warns, we're going to have a world on the verge of chaos.

Michael believes the spiritual community has to face this manipulation head on. As he puts it, you can't build a spiritual worldview that ignores the economic order we're going to have to transform the economic situation, and do it through the establishment. He sees such a transformation being accomplished at the level of the individual. We influence each other, he says, and if enough people change and we have an expansion of hearts and minds, we'll force some of these secretive organizations to be more aboveboard and humanitarian. We have to demand individual freedom; then we can have a global consciousness and a one-world family. But an economic order controlling the issuance of credit and creating debt slavery isn't a one-world family. If present trends continue, there will be one bank, one pharmaceutical company, one petro-chemical company. The only thing that will prevent an Orwellian state from coming about is consciousness. We need redirection where communities have choices and where small businesses can thrive.

Michael believes that the karmic moment has come, and views the decisive turning point for the planet as a collective initiation which, since we have been given free will, contains the possibility of failure. Fascinated by Cayce's prophecy for the future, he acknowledges there are always multiple scenarios when it comes to prophecy. Even though there is very little time, he says, I think we still have a choice in the way things will go. If we don't wake up to a higher spiritual life, perhaps we are doomed to a life of servitude. We need to open our spiritual organs to become sensitive to higher beings who are our allies. Prayer is a solution. We need to make that link with a higher dimension; we need to invoke that power so we can generate enough light to chase the shadows and make the people who would like to enslave us be honest. We have to show them we're not going to submit. We can't be weak, sniveling little followers.

Just as readers were shown insights in The Celestine Prophecy to attain spiritual development, Queen of the Sun offers us steps to take to reach a higher plateau in consciousness to become leaders rather than followers. These steps are represented by six petals on a flower in the center of the Medallion of Isis: 1. All thoughts and emotions must become positive; negativity must be transcended by finding the good, beautiful and true in everything; 2. Concentration of thought; we must guide the flow of our thinking, and become the master of our minds; 3. Guidance of will and action; when we resolve to do something positive and good, we must have the strength of will to carry it through. Be not a leaf in the wind! 4. Inner tranquillity; nothing must for long throw us off our emotional balance; 5. Tolerance for viewpoints other than one's own; we must listen carefully and attentively, withholding snap judgments; 6. Cultivation of Gratitude; we must develop a profound gratitude for life and the gifts and opportunities each moment brings.

Taking the steps is, of course, a non-linear endeavor, and one associated with an initiatory process which results in spiritual attainment. Michael feels there is a connection between lost cities, mystery schools and rites of initiation. Lost cities represent cultures of spiritual attainment which was achieved through participation in outer mystery schools. In ancient times, he says, initiation took place in a sacred chamber of these mystery schools after studying with a hierophant or master. Today it is in the temple of daily life, the temple of relationship...we have to make everywhere we go a temple. Our bodies are our temples. The challenges and difficulties of life are our initiations. How we respond to these tests will determine our fate. We need to take our daily retreat into prayer and meditation so we are ready for the tests when they come. If we pass the test on a planetary scale we really will realize we are spiritual beings and a shift in consciousness will occur one of the great tasks of the human race will be to make the entire earth a temple. We are meant to bring spirituality down into the very substance of the planet earth and make it a Grail.

While his vision is global, Michael has mundane tests of his own to pass. Will he, for instance, maintain his spiritual practices in the face of potentially overwhelming success? To date, eight foreign countries have bought the rights to Queen of the Sun, and his agent recently received three film bids within a twenty-four-hour period. For now, he probably has some positive karma in the bank, having used his writing talents to entertain, inform and inspire thousands. The proverbial torch has been passed the Medallion of Isis, with its secrets and challenges, rests in each of our hands, to do with as we will.