p. 39
She ordered me to place my feet into the stream and feel the smooth rocks along the bottom. The water was ice cold and made me shiver involuntarily. "Move your feet at the ankles in a clockwise circle," she suggested. "Let the running water draw away your fatigue."
After a few minutes of circling my ankles, I felt refreshed but my feet were nearly frozen.
"Now try to feel all your tension flow down to your feet, then throw it out with a sideward snap of your ankles." Clara said. "This way you'll also get rid of the coldness."
I continued flicking the water with my feet until they were numb. "I don't think this is working, Clara." I said, pulling my feet out. "That's because you're not directing the tension away from you," she said. "Flowing water takes away tiredness, coldness, illness and every other unwanted thing, but in order for this to happen, you must intend it. Otherwise, you can flick your feet until the stream runs dry with no results." She added that if one did the exercise in bed, one would have to use the imagination to visualize a running stream.

p.43
Clara said that every procedure she was going to teach me, or every task she might ask me to perform, no matter how ordinary it might seem to me, was a step toward fulfilling the ultimate goal of the art of freedom: the abstract flight. "What I'm going to show you first are simple movements that you must do daily," she continued. "Regard them always as an indispensable part of your life. "First, I'll show you a breath that has been a secret for generations. This breath mirrors the dual forces of creation and destruction, of light and darkness, of being and not-being."
She told me to move outside of the cave, then directed me, by gentle manipulation, to sit with my spine curved forward and to bring my knees to my chest as high as I could. While keeping my feet on the ground, I was to wrap my arms around my calves and firmly clasp my hands in front of my knees or, if I wished, I could clasp each elbow. She gently eased by head down until my chin touched my chest.
I had to strain the muscles of my arms to keep my knees from pushing out sideways. My chest was constricted and so was my abdomen. My neck made a cracking sound as I tucked my chin in.
"This is a powerful breath," she said. "It may knock you out or put you to sleep. If it does, return to the house when you wake up. By the way, this cave is just behind the house. Follow the path and you'll be there in two minutes." Clara instructed me to take short, shallow breaths. I told her that her request was redundant since that was the only way I could breathe in that position. She said that even if I only partially released the arm pressure I was creating with my hands, my breath would return to normal. But this wasn't what she was after. She wanted me to continue the shallow breaths for at least ten minutes. I stayed in that position for perhaps half an hour, all the while taking shallow breaths as she had instructed. After the initial cramping in my stomach and legs subsided, the breaths seemed to soften my insides and dissolve them. Then after an excruciatingly long time, Clara gave me a push that made me roll backward so I was lying on the ground, but she didn't permit me to release the pressure of my arms. I felt a moment of relief when my back touched the ground, but it was only when she instructed me to unclasp my hands and stretch out my legs that I felt complete release in my abdomen and chest. The only way of describing what I felt is to say that something inside me had been unlocked by that breath and had been dissolved ar released...

...Clara said that if this breath is performed regularly, with calmness and deliberation, it gradually balances our internal energy.
Before I could tell her how invigorated I felt, she asked me to sit down because she wanted to show me one other body maneuver crucial for erasing our false dualism. She asked me to sit with my back straight and my eyes slightly lowered, so that I would be gazing at the tip of my nose.
"This breath should be done without the constraints of clothing." she began. "But rather than having you strip naked in the patio in broad daylight, we'll make an exception. First, you inhale deeply, bringing in air as if you were breathing through your vagina. Pull in your stomach and draw the air up along your spine, past the kidneys, to a point between the shoulder blades. Hold the air there for a moment, then raise it even further up to the back of the head, then over the top of your head to the point between your eyebrows."
She said that after holding it there for a moment, I was to exhale through the nose, as I mentally guided the air down the front of my body, first to the point just below the navel, and then to my vagina where the cycle had begun. I began to practice the breathing exercise.
Clara brought her hand to the base of my spine, then traced a line up my back, over my head, and gently pressed the spot between my eyebrows. "Try to bring the breath here," she said. "The reason you keep your eyes halfway open is so that you can concentrate on the bridge of your nose as you circulate the air up your back and over your head to this point; and also so you can use your gaze to guide the air down the front of your body, returning it to your sexual organs."
Clara said that circulating the breath in such a fashion creates an inpenetrable shield that prevents outside disruptive influences from piercing the body's field of energy; it also keeps vital inner energy from dispersing outwardly. She stressed that the inhalation and exhalation should be inaudible, and that the breathing exercise could be done while one is standing, sitting or lying down, although in the beginning it is easier to do it while sitting on a cushion or on a chair.

p. 63
Clara put down her chopsticks and began curling her fingers as if she were making shadow pictures on the tablecloth. At any moment I expected her to do a rabbit or a turtle.
"What are you doing?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"This is a form of communication," she explained, "not with people though, but with that force we call intent."
She extended her little and index fingers, then made a circle by touching her thumb to the tips of the two remaining figers. She told me that this was a signal to trap the attention of that force and to allow it to enter the body through the energy lines that end or originate in the fingertips.
"Energy comes through the index and little finger if they are extended like antennae," she explained, showing me the gesture again. "Then the energy is trapped and held in the circle made by the other three fingers."
She said that with this specific hand position, we can draw sufficient energy into the body to heal or strengthen it, or to change our moods and habits.

p. 69
"The mind is like these shadows," Clara said softly. "When our breathing is even, our minds are still. If it is erratic, the mind quivers like stirred leaves."
I tried to notice if my breathing was even or disturbed but I honestly couldn't tell.
"If your breath is agitated, your mind becomes restless," Clara continued. "To quiet the mind, it's best to begin by quieting your breathing." She told me to keep my back erect and to concentrate on my breathing until it was soft and rhythmic, like that of an infant.
I pointed out that if a person is physically active as we had just been, hiking over hills, one's breathing couldn't possibly be as soft as an infant's, who just lies around and does nothing. "Besides, "I said, "I don't know how infants breathe. I haven't been around many of them, and when I was, I didn't pay attention to their breathing."
Clara moved closer and put one hand on my back and the other on my chest. To my dismay, she pressed until I was so constricted that I felt I was going to suffocate. I tried to move away but she held me down with an iron grip. To compensate, my stomach began moving in and out rhythmically as air again entered my body.
"This is how infants breathe," she said. "Remember the sensation of your stomach popping out, so you can reproduce it regardlessless of whether you are walking, exercising or lying around doing nothing. You probably won't believe this, but we are so civilized that we have to relearn how to breathe properly." She removed her hands from my chest and back. "Now let the breath rise to fill your chest cavity," she instructed. "But don't let it flood your head." "There is no way for the air to get into my head." I laughed.
"Don't take me so literally," she scolded. "When I say air, I'm really talking about energy derived from the breath, which enters the abdomen, the chest and then the head."...
...Upon seeing my attentiveness, she became serious again and continued to explain that our emotional well-being is directly linked to the rhythmic flow of our breathing.
"The breathing of a person who is upset," she said, leaning closer, "is rapid and shallow and is localized in the chest or head. The breathing of a relaxed person sinks to the abdomen."...
...It's harder for big people to breath from the abdomen because their center of gravity is just a big higher. It's therefore even more important that we remain calm and unperturbed...
...Clara took a deep breath before continuing. Since emotions are directly linked to the breath," she said, "a good way to calm ourselves is by regulating our breathing. "For example, we can train ourselves to absorb more energy by deliberately elongating each breath we take."

p. 71
She told me to stand on my left leg with my right leg raised and bent at the knee. I wobbled as I tried to keep my balance. I marveled that she stood on one leg as easily as she had stood on two, and her shadow was absolutely motionless.
"You seem to have a hard time keeping your balance," Clara noted, setting down her leg and raising the other one. "That means that your thoughts and feelings are not at ease, and neither is your breathing."
I raised my other leg to try the exercise again. This time my balance was better, but when I saw how still Clara's shadow was, I experienced a sudden pang of envy and I had to lower my leg to keep from falling.
Whenever we have a thought," Clara explained, setting down her leg again, "our energy moves in the direction of that thought. Thoughts are like scouts; they cause the body to move along a certain path.

p. 74
Clara held her left hand in front of her body with the wrist resting just above the navel; her palm faced sideways, the fingers pressed together, pointed downward to the ground. She told me to adopt this hand position and gaze at the tip of my middle finger. I looked over the bridge of my nose, which forced me to look downward while slightly crossing my eyes. She explained that the gaze fixedly in that manner places our awareness outside of use onto the ground, thus diminshing our inner agaitation.
Then she said I was to inhale deeply, pointing at the ground, intending to get from it a sparkle of energy, like a drop of glue, on my middle finger for a count of seven and then shift my awareness immediately to my forehead, to a spot in between the eyes and just above the bridge of the nose. This shift, she said, must be accompanied by the intent of transferring the sparkle of energy from the middle finger to that spot between the eyes. If the transfer is accomplished, a light appears on the dark screen behind the closed eyes. She said that we can send this luminous spot of energy to any part of our body to counteract pain, disease, apprehension or fear.
She then moved her hand and gently pressed my solar plexus. "If you need a quick surge of energy, as you do now, do the power breath I am about to show you and I guarantee that you will feel recharged."
I watched Clara do a series of short inhalations and exhalations through her nose in rapid succession, vibrating her diaphragm. I imatated her after twenty or so breaths, contracting and relaxing my diaphragm, I felt warmth spreading throughtout my midsection.
"We're going to sit here doing the power breath and gazing at the light behind the eyes," she said, "until you're no longer frightened."

p. 83
She told me to relax and to take deep breaths because she was going to show me how to exercise my inner hearing. "For it is with the inner ear," she said, " that one is able to discern the spirit's biddings.
"When you breathe, allow the energy to flow out of your ears," she continued. "How do I do that?" I asked.
"When you exhale, fix you attention on the openings of your ears and use your intent and your concentration to direct the flow."
She monitored my attempts for a while, correcting me as I went along. "Exhale through your nose with your mouth closed and the up of your tongue touching your palate." she said. "Exhale noiselessly."
After a few attempts, I could feel my ears pop and my sinuses clear. Then she instructed me to rub the palms of my hands together until they were hot and to place them over my ears with my fingertips almost touching, at the back of my head. I did as she instructed. Clara suggested I massage my ears using a gentle circular pressure; then, with my ears still covered and my index fingers crossed over the middle fingers, I was to repeatedly tap behind each ear by snapping my index fingers in unison. As I flicked my fingers, I heard a sound like a muffled bell reverberating inside my head. I repeated the tapping eighteen times as she had instructed. When I removed my hands I noticed I could distinctly hear the faintest sounds in the surrounding vegetation, while before, everything had been undifferentiated and muffled.
"Now, with your ears clear, perhaps you'll be able to hear the voice of the spirit." Clara said. "But don't expect a shout from the treetops. What we call the voice of the spirit is more of a feeling. Or it can be an idea that suddenly pops into your head. Sometimes it can be like a longing to go somewhere vaguely familiar, or a longing to do something also vaguely familiar."

p. 86
As I tried to find flaws with her reasoning, Clara jolted me out of my mental speculations with a tap on my ribs. She said that she was going to show me another exercise for stopping thoughts and for feeling my energy lines. Otherwise I would be doing what I had always done: be enthralled with the idea of myself.
Clara told me to sit in a cross-legged position and lean sideways as I inhaled, first to the right, then to the left, and to feel how I was being pulled by a horizontal line extending out of the opening of my ears. She said that, surprisingly, the line didn't sway with the motion of one's body but remained perfectly horizontal, and that this was one of the mysteries she and her cohorts had uncovered.
"Leaning in this manner," she explained, "moves our awareness - which normally is always directed to the front - to the side."
She ordered me to loosen my jaw muscles by chewing and swallowing saliva three times.
"What does this do?" I asked, swallowing with a gulp.
"The chewing and swallowing brings some of the energy lodged in the head down to the stomach, lessening the load on the brain," she said with a chuckle. "In your case, you should do this maneuver often."

p. 93
The time you saw him, he just showed you how to fight the cold with a specific posture: squatting with the arms wrapped around the chest."

p. 94
Driven by a strange urge, I slid the crystals between my index and middle fingers. The crystals fit comfortably, as if they were attached to my hands. "I see you already know how to hold them" she remarked. "The master sorcerer instructed me that if I saw that you could hold them corectly by yourself, I was to show you one indispensable movement that you can do with these crystals." "What kind of movement, Clara?"
"A movement of power," she said. "I'll explain more about its origin and purpose later. For now, let me just show you how it's done."
She told me to firmly press the crystals between my index and middle fingers. Helping me from behind, she gently made me extend my arms to front of me at the height of my shoulders, and rotated them in a counterclockwise direction. She had me begin making large circles that became increasingly smaller until the movement stopped and the crystals became two dots pointed into the distance; their extended imaginary lines converged at a spot on the horizon.
"When you make the circles, be sure to keep your palms facing each other," she corrected me. "And always begin by making large smooth circles. This way you gather energy that you can then focus onto whatever you want to affect, regardless of whether it is an object, a thought or a feeling.
"How will pointing the crystals affect them?" I asked.
"To move the crystals and point them the way I showed you takes the energy out of things," she explained. "The effect is like defusing a bomb. This is exactly what you want to do at this stage of your training. So never under any circumstance rotate your arms in a clockwise direction while holding the crystals.
"What would happen if I rotated them in that direction?"
"You would not only make a bomb, but you would light the fuse and cause a gigantic explosion. A clockwise movement is for charging things, for gathering energy for any enterprise. We'll save that movement for a later occassion, when you are stronger."
"But isn't that what I need now, Clara? To gather energy? I feel so depleted. "Of course you need to gather energy," she agreed, "but right now you must do it by demolishing your indulgence in absurdities. There is plenty of energy you can harness simply by not doing the things you are accustomed to, like complaining, or feeling sorry for yourself or worrying about the things that can't be changed. Defusing these concerns will give you a positive, nurturing energy that will help to balance and heal you.
"On the other hand, the energy you would gather by moving the crystals in a clockwise direction is a virulent kind of energy, a devastating blast that you won't be able to withstand at the moment. So promise me that you will not under any circumstances attempt to do it."
"I promise, Clara. But it sounds rather tempting."
"The master sorcerer that gave you these crystals is wathcing your progress." she warned. "So you must not misuse them."

p. 105
Clara sat on the rattan armchair at the edge of the pato, brushing her shiny black hair. Then she arranged it with her fingers until everythng was in place. When she had finished grooming herself she brought her left palm to her forehead and stroked it in a circular fashion. Then she moved her hand over the top of her head and down the back of her neck, after which she flicked her wrists and fingers in the air. She repeated this stroking and flicking sequence several more times.
I was fascinated watching her movements. There was nothing careless or haphazaard about them. She performed them with intense concentration, as if she were engaged in a most important task.
"What are you doing?" I asked, breaking the silence. "Are you giving yourself some sort of a facial massage?"
Clara glanced over at me, sitting on the matching armchair, imitating her movements. "This circular stroking prevents wrinkles from forming on the forehead," she said. "It may appear like a facial massage to you, but it isn't. These are sorcery passes, movements of the hand that are designed to gather energy for a specific purpose." "What specific purpose is that?" I asked, flicking my wrists the way she had done.

"The purpose of these sorcery passes to keep one looking youthful by preventing wrinkles from forming," she said. "The purpose has been decided beforehand, not by me or by you, but by power itself."
I had to admit that whatever Clara was doing certainly worked. She had lovely skin that set off her green eyes and dark hair. I had always believed that her youthful appearance was the consequence of her Indian genes. I never suspected that she deliberately cultivated it by means of specific movements.
"Whenever energy gathers, as in the case of these sorcery passes, we call it power," Clara continued. "Remember this. Taisha, power is when energy gathers, either by itself or under someone's command...
"I'm going to show you some sorcery passes that you must perform every day of your life from now on," she announced.
I let out a sigh of complaint. There were so many things that she told me to do every day of my life; the breathing, the recapitulation, the kung fu exercises, the long walks. If I lined up back to back everything she told me to do, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day for even half of them.
"For heaven's sake, don't take me so literally," Clara said, seeing my pained expression. "I'm cramming all I can into your peewee brain because I want you to know about all these things. Knowledge gathers energy, therefore knowledge is power. To make sorcery work, we must know what we're doing when we intend the result - not the purpose, mind you, but the result of the sorcery act. If we intended the purpose of our sorcery actions, we would be creating sorcery, and you and I don't have that much power."
"I don't think I'm following you, Clara," I said, moving my chair coser. "For what don't we have enough power?"
"I mean that even between the two of us, we can't gather the overwhelming energy it would take to create a new purpose. But individually, we can certainly gather enough energy to intend the result of these sorcery passes; no wrinkles for us. This is all we can do, since their purpose - to keep us young and youthful looking - is already set."
"Is it like the recapitulation whose end result had been intended beforehand by the ancient sorcerers?" I asked.
"Exactly," Clara said. "The intent of all sorcery acts has already been set. All we have to do is hook our awareness to it."
She moved her chair across from me so that our knees were barely touching. Then she vigorously rubbed each thumb on the palm of the opposite hand and placed them on the bridge of her nose. She moved them outward with light; even strokes over her eyebrows to the temples.
"This pass will keep furrows from developing between your eyebrows." she explained. After quickly rubbing together her index fingers, like two sticks starting a fire, she brought them vertically to each side of her nose and gently moved them sideways over her cheeks several times.
"That's to clear the sinus cavities," she said, deliberately constricting her nasal passages...

"The next one is to keep the cheeks from sagging," she said.
She briskly rubbed her palms together, and with long, firm strokes, she slid them up each cheek to her temples. She repeated this movement six or seven times, always using slow, even, upward strokes.
I noticed her face was flushed, but she didn't stop yet. She placed the inner edge of her hand, with her thumb folded over her palm, above her upper lip and rubbed back and forth with a vigorous sawlike motion.
She explained that ths spot where the nose and upper lip join, when briskly rubbed, stimulates energy to flow in mild, even bursts. But if greater bursts of energy were needed, they could be obtained by pricking the point at the center of the upper gum, underneath the upper lip and below the nose septum. "If you get drowsy in the cave while recapitulating, rub this point briskly and it will temporarily revive you," she said.
I rubbed my upper lip and felt my nose and ears clear. I also experienced a slight numbing sensation on the roof of my palate. It lasted for a few seconds but took my breath away. It left me with the sensation that I was just about to uncover something that was veiled.
Next, Clara moved her index fingers sideways, under her chin, again using a quick back-and-forth sawlike motion. She explained that stimulating the point under the chin produces a calm alertness. She added that we can also activate this point by resting the chin on a low table while sitting on the floor. Following her suggestion, I moved my cushion to the floor and sat on it, and rested my chin on a wooden crate that was just level with my face. By leaning forward, I put a slight pressure on that chin point Clara had indicated. After a few moments, I felt my body settle down; a pricking sensation rose up my back, entered my head and my breathing became deeper and more rhythmic. "Another way to awake the center under the chin," Clara continued, "is by lying on the stomach with the hands in fists, one on top of the other, under the chin."
She recommended that when doing the exercise with the fists, we should tense them to create pressure under the chin and then relax them to release the pressure. Tensing and relaxing the fists, she said, produces a pulsating movement that sends small bursts of energy to a vital center directly connected with the base of the tongue. She stressed that this exercise should be done cautiously, otherwise one might develop a sore throat.
"This group of sorcery passes I've shown you," Clara continued, "must be practed daily until they cease to be massagelike movements and become what they really are: sorcery passes. Watch me!" she ordered.
I saw her repeat the movements she had shown me, except that this time she was making her fingers and hands dance. Her hands seemed to penetrate deeply into the skin of her face; at other times, they passed over it lightly as if gliding on the skin's surface, moving so rapidly that they seemed to disappear. Watching her exquisite movements kept me mesmerized.
"This way of stroking was never in your inventory," she laughed when she had finished. "This is sorcery. It requires an intent different from the intent of the daily world. With all the tension that rises to the face, we certainly need a different intent if we are going to relax the muscles and tone the centers located there."
Clara said that all our emotions leave traces on our face, more than on any other part of our body. Therefore we have to release accumulated stress using the sorcery passes and their accompanying intent.

p. 112
Clara told me to wash my hands in a bucket of water and to sit on a log by a clearing outside the fenced garden, for she was going to show me how to begin to direct my attention to the sun. She said that I should always wear a wide-rimmed hat in order to shield my head and face. She also warned me never to do any of the breathing passes she was about to show me for more than a few minutes at a time.
"Why are they called breathing passes?" I asked.
"Becase the preset intent of these passes is to pass energy from the breath to the area where we place our attention. It could be an organ in our body or an energy channel or even a thought or a memory, as in the case of the recapitulation. What is important is memory, as in the case of the recapitulation.
What is important is that energy is transmitted, thus fulfilling the intent established beforehand; the result is sheer magic, because it appears as if it had spring out of nowhere. That's why we call these movements and breaths sorcery passes."
Clara instructed me to face the sun with my eyes closed, then take a deep breath through my mouth and pull the sun's warth and light into my stomach. I had to hold it there for as long as I could, then swallow and, finally, exhale any air that was left.
"Pretend you're a sunflower," she teased. "Always keep your face toward the sun when you breathe. The light of the sun charges the breath with power. So be sure to takes big gulps of air and completely fill your lungs. Do this three times."
She explained that in this exercise, the ernegy of the sun automatically spreads throught the entire body. But we could deliberately send the sun's healing rays to any area by touching the spot where we want the energy to go, or simply by using the mind to direct energy to it.
"Actually, when you have practiced this breath long enough, you don't need to use your hands anymore," she went on. "You can just visualize the sun's rays oozing directly into a specific part of your body."
She suggested that I do the same three breaths, but this time breathing through my nose and visualizing the light flowing down into my back, thus energizing the channels along my spine. That way, the sun's rays would flood my entire body. "If you want to bypass breathing through the nose or mouth altogether," Clara said, "you can breathe directly with your stomach or your chest or your back. You can even bring the energy up the body through the soles of your feet." She told me to concentrate on my lower abdomen, on the spot just below my navel, and breathe in a relaxed fashion until I could feel a bond forming between my body and the sun.
As I inhaled under her guidance, I could feel the inside of my stomach becoming warmer and filled with light. After a while, Clara told me to practice breathing with other areas. She touched the spot on my forehead between my eyes. When I concentrated my attention there, my head became flushed with yellow glow. Clara recommended that I absorb as much of the sun's vitality as I could by holding my breath, then rolling my eyes in a clockwise direction before exhaling. I did as she instructed and the yellow glow intensified. "Now stand up and try breathing with your back," she said, and helped me to take off my jacket.
I turned my back to the sun and tried to place my attention on the various centers she pointed out with a touch. One was between my shoulder blades, another was at the nape of my neck. As I breathed, visualizing the sun on my back, I felt a warmth move up and down my spine, then rush to my head. I became so dizzy that I nearly lost my balance...
"The light of the sun is pure power," Clara said. "After all, it's the most intensely gathered energy there is."
She said that an invisible line of energy flows out directly from the top of the head, upward to the realm of not-being. Or it can flow from the realm of not-being down into us via an opeing at the very center of the top of the head. "If you like, you can call it the life line that links us to a greater awareness," she said. "The sun, if used properly, charges this line and causes it to spring into action. That's why the crown of the head must always be protected."
Clara said that before we returned to the house, she was going to show me another powerful sorcery pass, one involving a series of body movements. She said that it had to be executed in one single motion, with strength, precision and grace, but without straining.
"I can't urge you enough to practice all the passes I've shown you," she said. "They are the indispensable companions of the recapitualtion. This one did wonders for me. Watch me closely. See if you can see my double."
"Your what?" I said, panicking. I was afraid I would miss something crucial, or not know what to make of it even if I saw it.
"Watch my double," she repeated, enunciating the words carefully. It's like a double exposure. You have enough energy to intend with me the result of this sorcery pass."
"But tell me again, Clara, what is the result?"
"The double. The ethereal body. The counterpart of the physical body, which by now you must know, or at least suspect, is not merely a projection of the mind." She moved to an area of level ground and stood with her feet together and her arms at her sides.
"Clara, wait. I'm sure I don't have enough energy to see what you're referring to, because I can't even understand it conceptually."
"It doesn't matter if you understand it conceptually. Just watch closely, maybe I have enough power for both of us to intend my double."
In the most agile movement I had yet seen her perform, she brought her arms over her head, with her palms touching in a gesture of prayer. Then she arched backward, forming an elegant bow with her arms stretched out behind her, almost to the ground. She flipped her body laterally to the left so that instantly she ended up bending forward almost touching the ground. And before I could even open my mouth in surprise, she had flipped back and her body was gracefully arched backward.
She flipped back and forth two more times, as if to give me a chance to see her inconceivably fast and graceful movements, or perhaps a chance to see her double. At one point in her movement, I saw her as a hazy shape, just as if she were a life-size photograph that had been double exposed. For a fraction of an instant, there were two Claras moving, one a millisecond behind the other. I was completely perplexed by what I saw, which when I thought about it, I could explain as being an optical illusion created by her speed. But at a bodily level, I knew that my eyes had seen something inconceivable. I had had enough energy to suspend my common sense expectations and allow another possibility to enter in.
Clara stopped her exquisite acrobatics and came and stood beside me, not even out of breath. She explained that this sorcery pass enables the body to unite with its double in the realm of not-being, whose entrance hovers above the head and slightly behind it.
"By bending backward with the arms outstretched, we create a bridge," Clara said. "and since the body and the double are like two ends of a rainbow, we can intend them to join.
"Is there any specific time when I should practice this pass? I asked. "This is a sorcery pass of the twilight," she said. "But you have to have lots of energy and be extremely calm in order to do it. The twilight helps you to become calm and gives you an added boost of energy. That's why the end of the day is the best time to practice it."
"Should I try it now?" I asked. When she looked at me doubtfully, I assured her that I had studied gymnastics as a child and was eager to try it. "The question is not whether you have studied gymnastics as a child, but how calm you are now," Clara replied.

p. 124
There's one secret to the breathing and the passes I've taught you that makes them invaluable."
"What is that?" I stammered.
Clara tapped me on the head. "They have to be practiced every day or else they're worthless. You wouldn't think of going without eating or drinking water, would you? The exercises I've taught you are even more important than food and water."
She said that the movements she was teaching me, whether she called them breaths or sorcery passes, were important because they operate directly on the reserve system, and that the reason they can be called indispensable passes is because they allow added energy to pass into and through our reserve pathways. Then when we are summoned to action, instead of becoming depleted from stress, we become stronger and have surplus energy for extraordinary tasks.
"Now before we summon the shadows' world, I'll show you two more indispensable sorcery passes which conbine breathing and movements." she went on. Do them every day and you not only won't get tired or sick, but you'll have plenty of surplus energy for your intending."
"This movement is particularly important for you, Taisha, because your lungs are weakened from excessive weeping," she said. "A lifetime of feeling sorry for yourself certainly has taken its toll on your lungs."
Her statment jolted me to attention. I watched her bend her knees and ankles and assume a martial art posture called the "straight horse," because it simulates the sitting position of a rider mounted on a horse, with his legs a shoulder's width apart and slightly bowed. The index finger of her left hand was pointed down, while her other fingers were curled at the second joint. As she began to inhale, she gently but forcefully turned her head to the right as far as she could and rotated her left arm at the shoulder joint over her head in a full circle all the way to the back, ending up with the heel of her left arm around her waist to her back and placed her right fist over the back of her left hand, wedging it against her bent left wrist.
Using her right fist, she pushed up her left arm along her spinal column, her left elbow bent akimbo, and finished her inhalation. She held her breath for a count of seven, then released the tension on her left arm, lowered it to her tailbone again and ratated it at the shoulder joint straight overhead to the front, ending up with the heel of her left palm resting on her pubis. Simultaneously she brought her right arm around her waist to the front and placed that fist on the back of her left hand, and pushed the left arm up her abdomen as she finished exhaling.
"Do this movement once with your left arm and again with your right one," she said. "That way you will balance your two sides."
To demonstrate, she repeated the same movements, alternating arms, and this time turning her head to the left.
"Now you try it, Taisha," she said, stepping aside to give me room to circle my arm backward.
I replicated her movements. As I swung my left arm back, I felt a painful tension along the underside of my extended arm, running all the way from my finger to my armpit.
"Relax and let the breath's energy flow through your arm and out of the tip of your index finger," she said. Keep it extended and the other fingers curved. That way you'll release any blockage of energy along the pathways in your arm." The pain grew even more acute as I pushed my bent arm upward along my back. Clara noticed my pinched expression.
"Don't push too hard," she warned, "or you'll strain your tendons. And round your shoulders a bit more as you push."
After performing the movement with my right arm, I felt a burning in my thigh muscles from standing with my knees and ankles bent. Even though I stood in the same position every day while practicing kung fu, my legs seemed to vibrate as if an electric current were running through them. Clara suggested I stand up and shake my legs a few times to release the tension. Clara emphasized that in this sorcery pass, rotating and pushing the arms up in conjunction with breathing moves energy to the organs in the chest and vitalizes them. It massages deep, underlying centers that rarely are activated. Turning the head massages the glands in the neck and also opens energy passageways to the back of the head. She explained that if awakened and nourished by the energy from breathing, these centers could unravel mysteries beyond anything we can imagine.
"For the next sorcery pass," Clara said, "stand with your feet together and look straight ahead as if you were facing a door that you are going to open." Clara told me to raise my hands to eye level and to curl my fingers as if I were placing them inside the recessed handles of sliding doors that open in the middle.
"What you are going to open is a crack in the energy lines of the world," she explained. "Imagine those lines as rigid vertical cords that make a screen in front of you. Now grab a bunch of the fibers and pull them apart with all your might. Pull them apart until the opening is big enough for you to step through." She told me that once I had made that hole, I should step forward one hundred and eighty degrees counterclockwise to face the direction from which I had come. By my turning in this manner the energy lines I had pushed apart would wrap around me.
To return, she said, I had to open the lines again by pulling them apart the same way I had done before, then step out with the right foot and quickly turn one hundred and eighty degrees clockwise as soon as I had taken the step. In this fashion, I would have unwrapped myself and would again be facing the direction in which I had begun the sorcery pass.
"This is one of the most powerful and mysterious of all the sorcery passes." Clara cautioned. "With it we can open doors to different worlds, provided of course that we have stored a surplus of internal energy and are able to realize the intent of the pass."
"When you step in," she said, "your body has to feel rooted, heavy, full of tension. But once you are inside and have turned around, you should feel light and airy, as if you were floating upward. Exhale sharply as you lunge forward through the opening, then inhale slowly and deeply, filling your lungs completely with the energy from behind that screen."
I practiced the pass several times as Clara looked on. But it was as if I were only going through the outward motions; I couldn't feel the energy fibers forming the screen that Clara was talking about.
"You're not pulling the door open hard enough," Clara corrected me. "Use your internal energy, not just your arm muscles. Expel the stale air and pull in your stomach as you lunge forward. Once inside, breathe as many times as you can, but be on the alert. Don't stay longer than you need to."
I mustered up all my strength and grabbed the air. Clara stood behind me, held my forearms and gave them a tremendous pull sideways. Instantly I felt as if some sliding doors had opened. Exhaling sharply, I lunged through it, or rather Clara had given me a shove from behind, pushing me forward. I remembered to turn around and breathe deeply, but for a moment I worried that I wouldn't know when to come out. Clara sensed this and told me when to stop breathing and when to step out.
"As you practice this sorcery pass by yourself," Clara said, "you'll learn to do it perfectly. But be careful. All sorts of things can happen once you go through that opening. Remember, you have to be cautious and at the same time bold."
"How will I know which is which?" I asked.
Clara shrugged. "For a while, you won't. Unfortunately, prudence comes to us only after we've gotten blasted.
She added that cautiousness without cowardice is hinged on our ability to control our internal energy and to divert it into the reserve channels, so that it is available to us when we need it for extrordinary actions.
"With enough internal energy, anything can be accomplished," Clara said, "but we need to store and refine it. So let's both practice some of the sorcery passes you've learned and see if you can be cautious without being cowardly and summon up the shadows' world."
I experienced a surge of energy that began as small circles in my stomach. At first I thought it was fear, but my body didn't feel frightened. It was as if an impersonal force, void of desires or sentiment, was stirring inside me, moving from the inside out. As it ascended, my upper back jerked involuntarily. "Close your eyes," she whispered. "When your eyes are closed, it's easier to use energy lines that are already there to keep your balance."
I shut my eyes and started to move in unison with Clara. I had no trouble following her cues for changing positions, yet I had difficulty in keeping my balance. I knew it was because I was trying too hard to do the movements correctly. It was like the time I had tried walking with my eyes shut, and kept stumbling because I desperately wanted to succeed. But gradually my desire to excel diminished and my body became more limber and subtle. As we kept on moving, I became so relaxed that I felt I had no bones or joints. If I raised my arms overhead, it seemed I could stretch them all the way to the tops of the trees. If I bent my knees and lowered my weight, a surge of energy rushed downward through my feet. I felt I had grown roots. Lines were extending from the soles of m feet deep into the earth, giving me an unprecedented stabiity. Gradually the boundary between my body and its surroundings dissolved. With every pass I did, my body seemed to melt and merge with the darkness until it began to move and breathe all by itself.

p. 141
Then, facing me, he explained he was ging to show me a simple method for shifting awareness from my physical body to the ethereal net that surrounds it.
"lie down and close your eyes, but don't fall asleep," he ordered. Embarrassed, I did as he asked, feeling strangely vulnerable lying down in front of them. He knelt down beside me and spoke in a soft voice. "Imagine lines extending out from the sides of your body, beginning at your feet," he said.
"What if I can't imagine them?"
"If you want to, you certainly can," he said. "Use all your strength to intend the lines into existence."
He elaborated that it was not really imagining those lines that was involved, but rather a mysterious act of pulling them out from the side of the body, beginning at the toes and continuing all the way up to the top of the head. He said that I should also feel lines emanating from the soles of my feet going downward and wrapping around the length of my body to the back of my head; and also other lines that radiated from my forehead upward and downward, along lines that radiated from my forehead upward and downward, along the front of my body to my feet, thus forming a net or a cocoon of luminous energy.
"Practice this until you can let go of your physical body and can place your attention at will on your luminous net," he said. "Eventually, you'll be able to cast and sustain that net with a single thought."
I tried to relax. I found his voice soothing. It had a mesmerizing quality; at times it seemed to come from very close, and at other times from far away. He cautioned me that if there was a place in my body where the net felt tight or where it was difficult to stretch the lines out or where the lines recoiled, that was the place where my body was weak or injured.
"You can heal those parts by allowing the double to spread out the ethereal net," he said.
"How do I do that?"
"By intending it, but not with your thoughts," he said. "Intend it with your intent, which is the layer beneath your thoughts. Listen carefully, look for it beneath the thoughts, away from them. Intent is so far away from thoughts that we can't talk about it; we can't even feel it. But we can certainly use it." I couldn't even conceive how to intend with my intent. Mr. Abelar said that I shouldn't have too much difficulty casting my net, because for the past few months, unknowlingly, I had been projecting such ethereal lines during my recapitulation. He suggested that I begin by concentrating on my breathing. After what seemed to be hours, during which time I must have dozed off once or twice, I could eventually feel an intense tingling heat in my feet and head. The heat expanded to form a ring encircling my body lengthwise.
In a soft voice, Mr. Abelar reminded me that I should focus my attention on the heat outside my body and try to stretch it out, pushing it out from within and allowing it to expand.
I focused on my breathing until all the tension in me vanished. As I relaxed even more, I let the tingling heat find its own course; it didn't move outward or expand; it contracted instead, until I felt I was lying on a gigantic balloon, floating in space. I experienced a moment of panic; my breathing stopped and for an instant I was suffocating. Then something outside of myself took over and began to breathe for me. Waves of lulling energy surrounded me, expanding and contracting until everything went black and I could no longer focus my awareness on anything.

p. 181
She took my hand and guided me to sit on a cushion on the floor with my back propped against the front of the sofa.
"When you are agitated as you are now, prop your lower back against a piece of furniture. Or bend you arms backward, pressing your hands against the top of your kidneys."
To sit on the floor with my back propped in that fashion had a definite relaxing effect on me. In a few moments, I was breathing normally and my stomach was no longer tied in knots.

p. 183
I shut my eyes and didn't care what she thought of me. Nelida's laughter was like an endless cascade of water, soft and bubbly.
"You are perfectly relaxed now," she said. "Look at me again and take a few deep breaths to charge yourself."
"Wait just a moment, Nelida," I said, stuck by sudden fear, not of looking at her vagina, but of what I had just realized. Showing me her nakedness had done something inconceivable to me: it had soothed my anguish and made me abandon all my prudishness. In one instant, I had become extraordinarily familiar with Nelida. Stammering pitifully, I told her what I had just realized.
"That's exactly what the energy from the womb is supposed to do," Nelida said cheerfully. "Now really, you must look at me and breathe deeply. After that, you can analyze things to your heart's content."
I did as she said, and felt no shyness at all. Breathing in her energy made me feel strangely invigorated, as if a bond had formed between us that needed no words.
"You can accomplish wonders by controlling and circulating the energy from the womb," Nelida said, pulling her skirt over her calves again.
Nelida explained that the womb's primary function is reproduction in order to perpetuate our species. But unbeknownst to women, the womb also has subtle and sophisticated secondary functions. And it was these, she said, that she and I were interested in developing.
I was so pleased when Nelida had included me in her statement that I actually experienced a tickling sensation inside my stomach. I listened attentively as she explained that the most important secondary function of the womb is to serve as a guiding unit for the double. Whereas males have to rely on a mixture of reason and intent to guide their doubles, females have at their disposal their womb, a powerful source of energy with an abundance of mysterious attributes and functions all designed to protect and nurture the double.
"All this is possible, of course, if you have rid yourself of all the encumbering energy men have left inside you," she said. "A thorough recapitulation of all your sexual activity will take care of that." She emphasized that using the womb is an extremely powerful and direct method of reaching the double. She reminded me of the sorcery pass I had learned in which one breathes directly with the opening of the vagina.
"The womb is the way female animals sense things and regulate their bodies." she said. "Through the womb, women can generate and store power in their doubles to build or destroy or to become one with everything around them."
Again I felt a tingle in my abdomen, a mild vibration that spread this time to my genitals and inner thighs.
"Another way of reaching the double, also called the other, besides using the energy of the womb, is through movement," Nelida continued. "This is the reason why Clara taught you the sorcery passes. There are two passes that you must use today to prepare yourself adequately for what is to come."
She walked to the closet, pulled out a straw mat, unrolled it on the floor and told me to lie on it. When I was flat on my back, she asked me to bend my knees a bit, fold my arms across my chest and roll once to my right side, then once to my left. She made me repeat this movement seven times. As I rolled, I was to slowly curl my spine at the shoulders.
She told me then to sit cross-legged once more in the floor leaning my back agains the couch, while she took her seat on the armchair. Slowly and softly, she inhaled through her nose. Then she gracefully wiggled her left arm, and hand out and upward as if she were boring a hole in the air with her hand. Then she reached in, grasped csomething and pulled her arm back, giving me the total impression of a long rope being retrieved from a hole in the air. She then did the same movements with her right arm and hand.
As she performed her sorcery pass, I recognized it to be a movment of the same nature as the ones Clara had shown me, but it was different too, lighter, smoother, more energetically charged. Clara's sorcery passes were like martial art movements; they were graceful and filled with internal strength. Nelida's passes were ominous, threatening and yet at the same time a pleasure to watch; they radiated a nervous energy but they were not agitated.
While she executed her pass, Nelida's face was like a beautiful mask. Her features were symmetrical, perfect. Watching her exquisite movements done with utter aloofness and detachment, I remembered what Clara had said about Nelida having no pity.
"This pass is for gathering energy from the vastness that lies just behind all that we see," she said. "Try making a hole and reach behind the facade of visible forms and grasp the energy that sustains us. Do it now."
I tried to replicate her swift, graceful movements but felt stiff and clumsy in comparison. I couldn't feel I was reaching through a hole and grasping energy, not by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, after I had finished the pass, I felt strong and bursting with energy.
"It doesn't really take much to communicate or reach the ethereal body," Nelida went on. "Besides using the womb and movement, sound is a powerful way of attracting its attention."
She explained that by systematically directing words to our source of awareness - the double - one can receive a manifestation of that source.
"Provided, of course, that we have enough energy," she added. "If we do, it may take only a few selected words or a sustained sound to open something unthinkable in front of us."
"How exactly can we direct those words to the double?" I asked.
Nelida extended her arms in a sweeping gesture. "The double is nearly infinite," she said. "For just as the physical body is in communication with other physical bodies, the double is in communication with the universal life force."

p. 234
He took me by the arm and without another word, he practically dragged me to the back of the house. There he positioned me under a tree, with the top of my head a few inches below a low, thick branch. He said that he was going to see if I could project out my double again, this time in full awareness, with the help of the tree.
I seriously doubted I would be able to project out anything, and I told him so. But he sisisted that if I intended it, my double would push out from inside me and expand behond the boundaries of my physical body.
"What am I supposed to do, exactly?" I asked, hoping he would show me a procedure that was part of the sorcerers' rule.
He told me to close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing. As I relaxed, I was to intend a force to flow upward until I could touch the top branches with a feeling the came out of the gate in the crown of my head. He said that this was going to be fairly easy for me because I was going to use my friend the tree for support. The tree's energy, he explained, would form a matrix for my awareness to expand.
After a time of concentrating on my breath, I felt a vibrating energy rising up my back, trying to push out of the top of my head. Then something opened inside me. Every time I inhaled, a line elongated to the top of the tree; when I exhaled, the line was pulled down into my body again. The feeling of reaching the top of the tree became stronger with my every breath until I truly believed that my body expanded, becoming as tall and voluminous as the tree.
At one point, a profound affection and empathy for the tree enveloped me; it was at that same moment that something surged up my back and out my head and I found myself viewing the world from the top branches. This sensation lasted only an instant, for it was disrupted by the caretaker's voice commanding me to come down and flow inside my body again. I felt something like a waterfall, an effervesence flowing downward, entering the top of my head and filling my body with a familiar warmth.
"You don't want to stay mixed with the tree too long," he told me when I opened my eyes.
I had an overwhelming desire to embrace the tree, but the caretaker pulled me by the arm to a large boulder some distance away, where we sat down. He pointed out that aided by an outside force, in this case uniting my awareness with the tree, one can easily make the double expand. However, because it's easy, we run the risk of staying merged with the tree too long, in which case we might sap the tree of the vital energy it needs to maintain itself in a strong and healthy state. Or we might leave some of our own energy behind by becoming emotionally attached to the tree.
"One can merge with anything," he explained. If whatever or whomever you merge with is strong, your energy will be enhanced as it was whenever you merged with the magician, Manfred. But if it is sick or weak, stay away. In any case, you must do the exercise sparingly for, like everything else, it is a double-edged sword. Outside energy is always different from our own, often antagonistic to it."