The Witch of Portobello Page 0,55

you listen to yourself and are surprised at how capable you are. Remember your job at the bank? Perhaps you never properly understood that what happened there was a result of the energy flowing out your body, your eyes, your hands.

'You'll say it was the dance.

'The dance was simply a ritual. What is a ritual? It means transforming something monotonous into something different, rhythmic, capable of channelling the Unity. That's why I say again: be different even when you're washing up. Move your hands so that they never repeat the same gesture twice, even though they maintain the rhythm.

'If you find it helpful, try to visualise images flowers, birds, trees in a forest. Don't imagine single objects, like the candle you focused on when you came here for the first time. Try to think of something collective. And do you know what you'll find? That you didn't choose your thought.

'I'll give you an example: imagine a flock of birds flying. How many birds did you see? Eleven, nineteen, five? You have a vague idea, but you don't know the exact number. So where did that thought come from? Someone put it there. Someone who knows the exact number of birds, trees, stones, flowers. Someone who, in that fraction of a second, took charge of you and showed you Her power.

'You are what you believe yourself to be.

'Don't be like those people who believe in positive thinking and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that, because you know it already. And when you doubt it which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humour. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it.

'Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything: it's merely a question of believing.

'Believe.

'As I said to you in Bucharest, the very first time we met, groups are very important because they force us to progress. If you're alone, all you can do is laugh at yourself, but if you're with others, you'll laugh and then immediately act. Groups challenge us. Groups allow us to choose our affinities. Groups create a collective energy, and ecstasy comes more easily because everyone infects everyone else.

'Groups can also destroy us of course, but that's part of life and the human condition living with other people. And anyone who's failed to develop an instinct for survival has understood nothing of what the Mother is saying.

'You're lucky. A group has just asked you to teach them something, and that will make you a teacher.'

Heron Ryan, journalist

Before the first meeting with the actors, Athena came to my house. Ever since I published the article on St Sarah, she'd been convinced that I understood her world, which wasn't true at all. I simply wanted to attract her attention. I was trying to come round to the idea that there might be an invisible reality capable of interfering in our lives, but the only reason I did so was because of a love I didn't want to believe I felt, but which was continuing to grow in a subtle, devastating way.

I was content with my universe and didn't want to change it at all, even though I was being propelled in that direction.

'I'm afraid,' she said as soon as she arrived. 'But I must go ahead and do what they're asking of me. I need to believe.'

'You've had a lot of experiences in life. You learned from the gipsies, from the dervishes in the desert, fromo'

'Well, that's not quite true. Besides, what does learning mean: accumulating knowledge or transforming your life?'

I suggested we go out that night for supper and to dance a little. She agreed to supper, but rejected the dancing.

'Answer me,' she said, looking round my apartment. 'Is learning just putting things on a shelf or is it discarding whatever is no longer useful and then continuing on your way feeling lighter?'

On the shelves were all the books I'd invested so much money and time in buying, reading and annotating. There were my personality, my education, my true teachers.

'How many books have you got? Over a thousand, I'd say. But most of them you'll probably never open again. You hang on to them because you don't believe.'

'I don't