Book excerpt: A Prophet had appeared in the early part of the twenty-first century, the last in a long line of healers, visionaries and mystics down through the ages. People around the world heard his message of oncoming devastation and his warning that the only shelter that would save them would be their own inner strength and nobility of spirit. Religions and technologies had failed humanity. Only these few men and women inspired by the wisdom transmitted to them by the Prophet could offer desperate people a path to sanity and renewal. But the odds were amassed against them. Not only was the planet facing utter destruction from wild weather changes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and a dreaded pole shift, but the world government considered them their fiercest enemies. The time of reckoning was here. Everyone would have to face this age of transition in one of two ways -- in utter horror and despair or with the slim hope that renewal lay on the other side of catastrophic earth changes. The second option would vanish entirely if it was known what forces were at the heart of the destruction, forces that were darker and more savage than Nature's mightiest upheavals.