Pathwork Center August 1992  Mantak did gather interesting people – myself included, having at the age of 51 dropped my career, dispossessed myself of a property portfolio and all belongings apart from a few clothes, a narrowboat and a Moto Guzzi, picked up my rucksack and set off round the world making the most of the mid-life crisis.

Almost falling in love with astonishingly beautiful Marie S, a philosophy professor who, having decided six years before to have children, chose a lover she could be sure would leave her alone after the event, gave birth to a girl and a boy a year apart, saw no doctor or obstetrician, went to no classes, bore each child at home, in the squatting position with only a friend present in case anything went wrong. She cut the cord when it stopped pulsing, which was about an hour. She allows the children to eat what they like and sleep when they want for as long as they want, and taught them at home until they said they wanted to go to school (they’re 4 and 5 now) to be with other kids. From their photographs they look healthy and extremely beautiful. How unusual for someone to take their beliefs all the way!

I learn that actually everyone is interesting once you get past the BS!  But there does seem to be a lot of it about. Sitting at the back of the class with my friend Richard R, scion of a family whose business was supplying wine to royal households, who had dropped out to photograph animals and later found Gene Keys after an encounter with a man in a cave, we listen to the questions Mantak so patiently answers and come to the conclusion that they all have but one meaning: do you love me?!

We’re going into the third week, the second of Chi Nei Tsang and I’m getting more familiar with the politics of the Taoist Court.  A burly guy, big bushy beard, dark glasses and baseball cap, voice like a high-pitched chainsaw, talks in the third person, seems to have influence. Turns out a power broker who helps me with my own coup ten years later.

Meanwhile people are starting to head out, Michael M to Florida to open a scuba school, Gary to somewhere his pendant hovered over on a map of the US, me to New York and a dancer in Harlem.

Before I go, a last deal at Pathworks, trading a few pieces of my fake turquoise – yes, I told them what it was – at the Pathwork Gift Shop for $40 cash and $135 gifts to take home.  Thanks, Mantak – I took your advice and followed the money!

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