Now I had to find the money to pay for the training.  I already had my round-the-world ticket and arrived in Los Angeles to find it smoking.  The airport people advised us not to go downtown because of riots over the killing of Rodney King.  I took the next shuttle, watching from the window as smiling people ran out of stores carrying new tv sets and other goodies.  Outside the Greyhound station the whole street was lined with menace.  A huge guy put a heavy hand on my shoulder, growled, ‘Man a’m hongry and you gonna buy me a burger!’

Following Mantak’s advice to make friends with money energy I headed south to Mexico, catching the last bus out of LA before they put the whole place on lockdown.  My plan had not included visits to the dentist in Mexico City but I used the time between drillings to haggle with the gypsies in the Zocala and stock up with turquoise beads I strung into bracelets and necklaces to sell back in the States.  Plus the exchange rate was going my way.

I got the money!  Tao friends I’d met in Pattaya put me up as I hitched east, bought my turquoise, and enthusiastically helped me sell it in bars along the way.  But I got a shock in Memphis: the friend there was a jeweller who told me my stones were fake!  ‘Yeah, man, those gypsies conned you!  Look,’ he shows me, ‘rub it on nail-varnish-remover on paper,’ and there it was, undeniable dye.

On Monday July 27^th 1992, after many adventures hitching and hiking across America (arrested for ‘stepping on the highway’ but released because the sheriff didn’t want the paperwork), I arrive at the Phoenicia Pathwork Centre in upstate New York.  Encountering a pack of people running barking through the woods, I kind of get an idea of what the place is about.  I thought Healing Tao a bit far out, but nothing in comparison with some of the stuff going on here. Or so I thought.

It’s good to see Mantak and Maneewan again and to reconnect with the Michaels.  Most of the group are American, with a quota of Swiss and Germans, a couple of French, two other English and a saucy Hollandaise.  I make a new friend in the nether lands, learn strange new (to me!) practices, but  gain a disturbing insight into the inner court.

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Next week – Conspiracy!

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