The Book of Knowledge
Playing Another Reality. C. Castaneda award
Alexandra Kryuchkova

Translated by Alexandra Kryuchkova

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© Alexandra Kryuchkova, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0068-6586-0

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The BOOK of KNOWLEDGE

a phylosophical & mystical novel,
the winner & laureate of the following awards:

• “LITERARY OLYMPUS” 2011
League of Writers of Eurasia

• “The BEST BOOK of the YEAR” 2008—2011
The Union of Writers of Russia

• “LIVING WORD” E. Blavatskaya, 2015
Creative Union “Not indifference”

• “MAGICAL REALISM of the 21st CENTURY” 2020
C. Castaneda and G. I. Gurdjieff nomination
Open Literary Club “Response”

• “The BOOK of the 21st CENTURY” 2021
C. Castaneda nomination
The Union of Writers of Russia & NP “Literary Republic”

The novel is based on the film “The Miracles of Healing”
shown on TV Channel 1 of Russia 01 September 2009,
which the writer took part in.

ABOUT the BOOK

“The Book of Secret Knowledge from the Library of the Universe” by E. Zhmachinskaya

There are books that are timeless. “The Book of Knowledge” by Alexandra Kryuchkova, written in the spirit of magical realism and based on a series of documentary films about Raisa Akhmetovna Mansurova, the first of which, “Miracles of Healing”, shown on the Channel 1 of Russian Television on September 1, 2009, has already been reprinted 13 times, with a total circulation exceeding 10,000 copies.

“Who is Mansurova?” the reader might ask.

R. A. Mansurova, a doctor of psychology, has worked closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as with international medical and scientific organizations, for many years. Having conducted a series of studies with famous geneticist, professor, and academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Peter Gariaev (1942—2020, founder of the Institute of Quantum Genetics, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine), Raisa Akhmetovna has been organizing trainings and seminars around the world for over 20 years. Her students learn the art of self-regulation and understand the unlimited resources and potential given by God to each of us. Thousands of people have not only overcome serious illnesses but also firmly embarked on the path of spiritual self-development. In “The Book of Knowledge”, unlike other authors, Alexandra Kryuchkova, a participant of the TV film “Miracles of Healing”, a seminarian, and a student of Mansurova, managed to present serious material (from Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle to modern discoveries in DNA and stem cells, neurolinguistics and psychosomatics) in a simple and accessible form – through dialogues with the main characters, who found themselves with her at a mountain seminar in China.

The novel consists of two parts: “A Path to the Light” and “The Book of Knowledge”. If at the beginning of the book the door to Another Reality only opens slightly, and a person learns to truly live here and now, without playing games invented by society and people, in order to realize their purpose and embark on the Path to the Light, the main part of the book, “The Book of Knowledge”, is a fascinating journey through Another Reality, where step by step the reader comprehends its spiritual content and learns to separate Good from Evil, ascending ever higher up the Stairway to Heaven.

The novel is autobiographical. In the interview with Evgeny Stepanov for the magazine “Children of Ra”, A. Kryuchkova, who makes no secret of her experiments with Time and Space, answered the question, “Alice walks barefoot on broken glass and hot coals, enters the Temple of the Soul, listens to the Music of the Spheres, merges with Heaven. Could this book be based on real events?” gives a clear answer, “Even as a child, someone told me, ‘Never write about anything you haven’t experienced yourself’.”

In the interview with journalist Margarita Palshina for Kulturologia news (April 2016, “A Path to the Light. The Book of Knowledge”), Alexandra shared the backstory of writing the book. The writer’s answers to questions about what magic is, whether she is a Teacher, and about the rules for those who have chosen the way to the Light, are very interesting.

“The Book of Knowledge” has been published since 2009 under various titles and by various publishers (West-Consulting, RIPOL Classic, etc.). Some chapters have been published in the prestigious magazines “Children of Ra”, “Russian Bell”, “Persona Plus”, and in the anthology “M.A.G.I.” The presentation marathon began at the Union of Writers and reached Red Square, where the author met with fans of “Another Reality” at the stand of the editor RIPOL Classic at the book fair 2016.

The book has got numerous positive reviews from Russian and international readers and was awarded from professional writers’ organizations: “Best Book of the Year 2008—2011” (Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia), “Literary Olympus” award in the Prose category (League of Eurasian Writers, 2011), the “Living Word” E. P. Blavatsky award (Creative Union “Indifference”, 2015), and the “Magical Realism of the 21st century” Carlos Castaneda and George Gurdjieff award (Open Literary Club “Response”, 2020), the “Book of the 21st Century”, nomination “The Path of Knowledge” Carlos Castaneda (Moscow City Organization of the Union of Russian Writers, “Literary Republic”).

I’ll allow myself to quote some reviews of the book, published in the prefaces of the previous editions, with which I fully agree after reading “The Book of Knowledge” myself.

“Alexandra Kryuchkova is a true Warrior of Light, and her novel is a reference book for those walking the Stairway to Heaven.”

Dmitry Tseselchuk, Chairman of the Union of the Literary men of the Russian Federation

“I am amazed by the author’s encyclopedic knowledge… Kryuchkova never ceases to amaze me with both her style and the plot. She is a master of literature, parapsychology, and a sensitive individual. How gracefully and stunningly the story of the clairvoyant Alice is woven into the fabric of scientific material and presented to the astonished reader in an accessible form. Bravo!”

Vadim Shiltzyn, writer, member of the Union of Writers of Russia

“My hat’s off to the author, it’s impeccable! A treasure trove of knowledge, indeed! The Path to the Light is thorny, but worth it!”

Irina Lezhava, writer, member of the Union of Writers of Russia

“Infinitely talented! The plot captures the mind, like a mystical treatise that cannot be deciphered immediately, but the truth is already there. The parable-like nature of the text transports you to a world of ancient wisdom, answers all questions, and returns the reader to our reality completely refreshed! Incredibly, A. Kryuchkova truly manages to connect with any reader, even the most skeptical. There’s an invisible author-reader connection, something so rare in contemporary Russian literature…”

Elizaveta Azarova, literary critic

“A book beyond time and for all times. The author’s Another Reality is our life, full of miracles we don’t notice. A kind, bright, and intelligent novel, the original of which is in the Library of the Universe!”

Alexey Ponomarenko, reader

“The main character, Alice, is a clairvoyant. She writes amazing poetry and paints wonderful intuitive pictures, experiments with space and time, and becomes aware of her dreams while asleep. Alice lives, unlike other characters caught up in games. She is real. And everything that happens to her is the absolute truth. Alice follows her destined, often very difficult, path, and signs sent from above suggest that she is on the right path. As a result of her captivating adventures, Alice finds herself on a higher rung of the endless Staircase leading to Heaven, she becomes a Teacher, transmitting Knowledge to the world. For me, the novel became a global metaphor of life, and the image of Alice is a universal symbol, a chorus of voices representing all the people who inhabit this world. I’ll pass on ‘The Book of Knowledge’ to my children and grandchildren, just as treasures are passed down from generation to generation…”

Elena Erofeeva-Litvinskaya, journalist, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, Vice President of the International Association of Citizens of the Arts, Spain

“By reading this book, you will understand your purpose in the world and change your destiny, learn to solve problems and find a way out of seemingly dead-end situations, gain the key to healing your body, soul, and spirit. You will also discover your hidden resources and talents, boldly realize your dreams, master the language of nature and the stars, recognize signs, travel in dreams, move through time and space, connect to the information field, and, realizing and feeling that the world is like a mathematical formula or a symphony, where each of us has his own sign, own note, you will become a true White Magician, using the energy given from above for the benefit of yourself and the world. This book, written in beautiful literary language, with a touch of irony and self-irony, will become your true friend and assistant, to whom you will return again and again for advice at different periods of your life. And, of course, it will be forever treasured on a shelf in the Library of the Universe, as one of those books that Time has no power over…”

Margarita Palshina, writer, journalist, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, winner of the international Golden Pen of Russia award

For me personally, Alexandra Kryuchkova has become a beacon in the realm of the Unknown. If you are truly interested in learning something new about Another Reality, don’t hesitate to read “The Book of Knowledge”! It’s quite possible that it really did come to our world from the Library of the Universe!

Elena Zhmachinskaya,

member of the Union of Russian Writers,

Head of the Creative Union “Indifference”

Newspaper “Literary News” / “Literaturnye Izvestia”, No. 1 (199), 2022

“A Path to the Light. The Book of Knowledge”, interview with A. Kryuchkova by M. Palshina (2016)

Readers have been awaiting Alexandra Kryuchkova’s new edition of the book about Another Reality (“The Book of Black and White Magic. Another Reality”, RIPOL Classic Publishing House, Moscow, 2016, Secret Knowledge Series), which consists of two parts, “A Path to the Light” and “The Book of Knowledge” for a long time.

Even during its writing, when Alexandra posted individual chapters online, readers from all over the world sent letters asking, “Where can I buy this book?” This is what usually happens with Books of Knowledge and true Wisdom, which can provide answers to numerous questions of existence and help a person change their destiny for the better.

The first author’s edition, in a print run of 3,000 copies, immediately sold out across Russia and ex-countries of USSR. A portion of the print run reached the United States, where it was highly praised at seminars by Raisa Akhmetovna Mansurova, a doctor of psychology and parapsychologist who teaches people the art of destiny management and self-regulation.

This Book of Revelation, a rare combination of theory and practice of Secret Knowledge, is truly multifaceted and unique, as it touches on various areas of the Unknown, that have come down to us from the depths of centuries, and also recounts the discoveries of our contemporaries. The writer reveals the laws, principles, and mechanisms of magic not only through examples from the mysteries and teachings of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chaldeans, Sufis, and Christian theosophists, but also in dialogues with real people from the modern world, walking with the main character along mountain paths at R.A. Mansurova’s seminar in China.

Finally, the Book of Knowledge was reissued by the Russian publishing house RIPOL Classic and has arrived in bookstores.

We publish an interview with the writer of the book, Alexandra Kryuchkova.

***

M.P.: Alexandra, why and for what purpose did you write this book?

A.K.: Having experienced the death of my parents and my own near-death state in early childhood, I constantly encountered manifestations of Another Reality in my life, both in dreams and waking life. I really wanted to find answers to the questions: Who am I? Why and what for was I brought back here, to Earth? What am I doing here? Why are people born if they have to die? What are life and death? What will happen to us afterward? What is there, in the world my parents left for? How is it structured, where is it located, and can one enter it while in a physical body? What are dreams, time, another dimension? Who are ghosts, and why do some see them and others don’t? Who are magicians, sorcerers, psychics, fraudsters or true wizards? How do miracles work? What is our soul, spirit? What about angels? Who is God? Is everything predetermined, or can we really change our destiny? I read relevant literature, met interesting people, traveled to Places of Power, and conducted research in the sphere of Another Reality, until one day I decided to compile the information I had got in order to share it with readers. I wanted to convey the Knowledge in the form of a book, written in a simple, human language, accessible to everyone.

M.P.: Is the clairvoyant protagonist Alice a fictional character, or is your book a true Magician’s Diary?

A.K.: When I started writing my first stories, as a child, a wise man told me, “Never write about anything you haven’t experienced yourself.” And I followed his advice.

M.P.: In this book, the reader is introduced to both the secret knowledge of ancient civilizations and the achievements of modern science, which is fundamentally different from the generally accepted understanding of magic. So what is “Magic”?

A.K.: Magic is our life. Everything that surrounds us in the world is Magic. Our every step, every action, every word, every thought is Magic, because all of this entails certain consequences in our lives, depending on which our destiny is constantly changing one way or another. Therefore, every person from birth is a Magician, the creator of their own destiny, their own Reality.

M.P.: So, does the title “The Book of Black and White Magic” refer more to the global, universal concepts of Good and Evil?

A.K.: Absolutely correct.

M.P.: But Evil tends to wear the mask of Good. How can an inexperienced Magician distinguish between these two complex categories?

A.K.: By analyzing actions and their consequences.

M.P.: Can a White Magician use Evil’s methods to defeat Evil?

A.K.: A person who calls himself a White Magician but uses Evil’s methods is a Black Magician. Good will triumph over Evil in any case, it’s a matter of time. And this is one of the laws of the Universe.

M.P.: You dedicated the book to your Teachers, Raisa Akhmetovna Mansurova and Vladimir Grigorievich Kurilov. Aren’t you a Teacher yourself?

A.K.: I am one of the links in the chain of transmission of Knowledge. I pass on to people the keys to those doors to Knowledge that have been opened by me to one degree or another, although, as Socrates said, “All that a man knows and can understand is nothing in comparison with what he does not know, he doesn’t understand.” But people ascend the Stairway to Heaven at different rates, so each Soul is a Teacher for someone and a Student for others. Simultaneously.

M.P.: In the book, you also talk about your acquaintance with Nonna Khidiryan, the winner of the “Battle of Psychics” on TV TNT. Did communicating with her help in writing the book?

A.K.: Not only in writing the book. Nonna is a true White Magician; she has always supported me in difficult moments on my way to the Light.

M.P.: What do you think is the most important rule for a person who has chosen the Path to the Light?

A.K.: One should remember that each of us faces our own Life Exam, where it will no longer be possible to lie or bribe our way out. Don’t think about rewards, do your best as good deeds, for those around you and for the world as a whole. Live every day as if it were your last before the Exam of Life.

M.P.: The book explores in detail the causes of various diseases, including instructions for working with oncology. What is fundamental to healing?

A.K.: The most important thing for everyone to remember is that nothing in their life happens by chance. Cancer, like any other disease, is the result of a cause, but it’s curable, and this is a scientific fact… The cure rate, unfortunately, is low because finding the true cause and eliminating it is the most difficult part of healing, but it’s possible.

M.P.: You describe the mechanisms of interaction with the Information Field, working with time and space, and give practical advice on creating a Wish-Fulfillment Program, but still… What advice would you give to people who have decided to turn to magicians and healers? How can they avoid making the wrong choice of specialist?

A.K.: Read my book and start creating your own destiny.

Margarita Palshina,

writer, journalist, member of

the Union of Writers of Russia,

winner of the international

Golden Pen of Russia award

Magazine “Literary Moscow”, No. 2, 2022

“The Library of the Universe in One Book!”

ISBN 978-5-7949-0970-8,

The Union of Writers of Russia, Moscow City Organization,

NP “Literary Republic”

Moscow City Portal, News: April 27, 2016

“The Book of Black and White Magic Will Help Change Your Destiny”

Kulturologiya. rf, April 2016

“A Way to the Light. The Book of Knowledge.”

“Love doesn’t demand anything”, Interview with A. Kryuchkova by E. Stepanov (2010)

Today our guest is Alexandra Kryuchkova, poet, writer, artist, author of 17 published books of poetry, as well as co-author of more than 60 collective editions, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, the International Association of Citizens of the Arts (Spain), the regional public fund for the promotion of modern poetry “Svetoch”, the Open Literary Club “Response”, etc.

For faithful service to the national literature, she was awarded literary prizes of A. S. Griboedov, V. V. Mayakovsky, A. P. Chekhov, etc. She got a diploma of O. E. Mandelstam as a laureate of the poetry contest “Gallery of Selected Poems” in the nomination “Philosophy of the Soul”.

Alexandra Kryuchkova is interviewed by Evgeny Stepanov.

E.S.: Alexandra, first of all, please tell us a little about yourself.

A.K.: I was born and live in Moscow. I started writing poetry and prose at about the age of eleven. I remember that my mother was categorically against my creativity, because she believed that the fate of all poets was far from the best, and she was probably right. But I continued to write without thinking about what I was writing for. It was an urgent need of the soul for self-expression. I was just following my own Path. Every person in this world is a creator.

E.S.: How do you come up with poems?

A.K.: Sometimes they come on their own. First you feel vibration at a certain frequency, it is always different, then the lines come. As a rule, you don’t know what will be in the next line, what you will hear about, what you will write down. But it doesn’t happen always that way. Sometimes you just need to throw out on paper what has accumulated inside, in this case, it’s a feeling turned into words.

E.S.: Do you have any favorite poets?

A.K.: The poetry of the Silver Age is closest to my soul. As a child, when I sang in a church choir, I read Blok, then I discovered Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva and Mayakovsky. It’s difficult to single out any person and his works in its entirety, rather, some poems by various poets.

E.S.: You write poems on different topics, but poems about love prevail. What does love mean to you?

A.K.: Love is a feeling that is familiar to everyone, although everyone understands it in their own way. Love for me personally is the most important feeling in life. It can be different: love between a man and a woman, love for parents, for children, for God, for nature, and so on. When a person is filled with love, no matter what kind of it, he is able to create miracles. The power of love is the greatest power in the world. It’s stronger than death. Love is Life, and the absence of Love is Death. The power of Love in me speaks in verse.

E.S.: Should love be mutual?

A.K.: It’s wonderful when love is mutual, but True Love doesn’t demand anything in return and doesn’t even ask for it; one’s soul needs to grow up to such Love, going through fire, water and copper pipes. Unfortunately, most people are accustomed to living in order to consume, and if they give, they want to take something in return.

E.S.: One of your recent books is in the series “Playing Another Reality”, a very mystical and esoteric one. Why did you name it that way?

A.K.: Many people believe that Another Reality is a game. People think that Alice, the main character, is playing, but in fact, people are playing. They play different games in the Earthly Reality. Alice lives in Another Reality without playing. It’s like a look from Another Reality to the Earthly one.

E.S.: Alice walks barefoot on broken glass and hot coals, ends up in the Temple of the Soul, listens to the Music of the Spheres, and merges with Heavens. Is this book based on real events?

A.K.: Even as a child, I was told by a person, “Never write about anything you haven’t experienced yourself,” although there is some fiction in the book.

E.S.: Alice is a clairvoyant. Can you predict events?

A.K.: At the age of eleven I visited the place where people usually don’t return from, and after that the knowledge of upcoming events sometimes really comes down to me from There.

E.S.: Despite possessing this gift, Alice is unhappy. Why?

A.K.: The Open Door to the Space where there is information about everything, or, in other words, hypersensitivity, as a rule, doesn’t make life easier and doesn’t bring happiness in itself. I knew about the upcoming death of my parents, but I couldn’t change anything.

E.S.: So is the future predetermined?

A.K.: Not exactly. The future is multivariate, being created by a person every second, every moment, with every word, deed or lack thereof, which instantly affects the future. Every step a person takes changes the possible options of the future, which are like an open fan. At some point, you just know that at a given period of time in a particular situation there is only one option left, no other options. If this case, you can’t change anything. You just have to take it for granted, and this is the most difficult thing in life.

E.S.: One of the main characters is the Man Who Was Not. You don’t even give him a name. Does he still exist in our earthly reality or not?

A.K.: This question is asked to me by almost everyone who has read the book. Let everyone answer it themselves, because whatever the answer is, it doesn’t change anything.

E.S.: The first edition of the book is illustrated with your paintings of the Girl with the Moon Cat. Were they painted after the book was written, as illustrations for the text?

A.K.: No, both the Moon Cat and the Girl appeared earlier. I just wanted to paint something. I sat down at the canvas and saw the pictures I painted later.

E.S.: Did you study painting?

A.K.: No, but I believe that everyone knows to paint since childhood. Everyone paints differently, and that’s great. My paintings are purely intuitive painting, self-expression of the soul. There is no need to look for correctness in them, but they do have meaning. Many people told me that they had seen what I depicted in my paintings, and this once again confirms the existence of a certain Primary Source, Information Database or Another Reality, it doesn’t matter what they call it, but hypersensitive people living in the Earthly Reality can get there. Many famous artists, such as Salvador Dali, painted Another Reality.

E.S.: Do you like Salvador Dali?

A.K.: I feel some of his paintings. It’s difficult to explain and cannot be characterized by the word “like”. I like individual paintings by many artists, but, as in the case with poets and writers, I cannot single out one of them as my favorite.

E.S.: Is your book just a story about the supernatural and our hidden resources or something more?

A.K.: This book makes everyone think. Who are we in this world? What are we doing here? Why did one come down here? What mark will one leave on Earth? And for those who have entered a dark period in life, the story, on the example of the main character, will help to realize that the Void is temporary, it can be overcome by being filled with Light.

E.S.: In conclusion of the interview, what would you like to wish our readers?

A.K.: To know themselves, find their own Path and follow It, giving Light, Good and Love into the world.

Evgeniy STEPANOV,

President

of the Union of Writers of the 21st Century,

poet, writer, PhD in Philology

Magazine “CHILDREN OF RA” / “DETI RA” No. 11, 2010¹

Magazine Hall “GORKY MEDIA”²

This book is dedicated to

you, my Reader!

as well as to:

my parents, grandmothers, grandfather,

my son Andrey, our cat Josephine,

my Teachers – Raisa Akhmetovna Mansurova,

Vladimir Grigorievich Kurilov and… Ray,

the Patriarch Alexy II,

the Higher Forces,

all the poets of the Silver Age,

and all the characters of my Another Reality,

without whom it would hardly show up.

PART I. PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY, or a Path to the Light

PROLOGUE

“What does this mean to you?”

asked the Man Who Was Not.

“A game,” I answered.

“This is not a game,” Raisa Akhmetovna corrected me. “People are playing,

we are not.”

“You are one of us, I recognized you right away, even at the airport, when you met me with the delegation,” Maria, an Italian woman, said in a whisper.

“What do you mean one of us?” I asked.

“You are a clairvoyant. You communicate with the Other World. You have the key. From the Door…”

My officemate at my first job didn’t yet know what “idealizations” and the Space of Options were, but due to certain problems, she went to a clairvoyant, taking with her the maximum number of photos of all her loved ones and not so, in order to understand who was who. The next morning, I waited with interest for the story about the results of her campaign.

Marina gave me a strange look, closed the door to the room and said solemnly,

“You have a pillar!”

I remained silent, waiting for the continuation.

“The clairvoyant looked through the photos, said that you are not tall at all, but very tall, because you have some kind of pillar… of energy or something else, coming out from your head, sorry, I don’t remember exactly, but she sees it!” Marina said in a conspiratorial tone, looking for something above my head, but obviously to no avail.

“I see, the stone flower doesn’t come out,” I said.

“Oh, if I were a clairvoyant!!! I would be the happiest person in the world! I would SEE everything!!!”

I remained silent. I don’t like arguing with people.

Many years ago I came to Malta. That day an excursion was planned somewhere. I walked down the hotel stairs. The Russian group had already gathered in the hall around one of our tourists, who was talking very loudly. Suddenly, a woman noticed me and shouted, “Do you see? Look, look at her!” Everyone followed her advice, but I got afraid that something was wrong with me. I examined myself from head to toe, and everything in my appearance seemed to be human: body, dress, shoes, bag… I approached the group and was about to ask what her scream meant, when the woman took my hand and, meaningfully looking at those around, said, “Don’t you see? There’s a glow above her head!”

Next was Rome. They told me that I was going to the Shareholders’ Meeting. Before, I didn’t know what it was – the Meeting of Shareholders. It turns out that this is when people start drinking heavily already at the airport of their hometown A, an hour before the plane departs for city B, and stop drinking on the way back at the same airport in their city A after the plane lands from city B.

One of the evenings, playing the Shareholders’ Meeting game, we went to the central square of the city, where fortune-tellers, palmists and astrologers gathered and, for a small fee, offered to tell everything that had happened and not. Everyone wanted entertainment, but due to the too trivial fates of my colleagues, they decided to use me as a lie detector. As soon as the fortune-teller looked at my palm, she exclaimed, “Wow, you are a spell-caster! I see a series of books. Not now, later.”

The fortune-teller talked for a long time about my past, then about my present and said in the conclusion, “You yourself know what will happen to you. Why did you come to me?”

A few years later I ended up in India. One comes across palmists and astrologers at almost every turn there, moreover, some of them, a little luckier for some reason, are on duty around the clock in hotel lobbies in the hope that at least someone wants to know the truth. However, judging by the sad expression on their faces, not many people want to know it.

Returning to the hotel from another excursion to the temples, I approached the astrologer on the duty and held out my palm to him.

“You know everything yourself, and not only about yourself. Are you here to check how well I see? You are a spell-caster. You’ll have a whole series of books. Not now, later. You’ll become famous. You have been writing a lot and for a long time. Few people write as much as you, and even fewer write as deeply. You are an ocean. Nobody can contain you. They are not enough for your depth. People sit on the shore, look at the ocean and admire the waves. Some swim along the shore, but are afraid to swim far. And no one, not even those who try, can sink to the very bottom to know what is there. And there is a completely different world, ANOTHER REALITY. You belong to Another Reality. Since childhood. You had no childhood, right? You were born to be the SUN, but you became the MOON. Sometimes the SUN awakens in you, as your nature, you are drawn to it in order to become it, but the absence of childhood has already forever put the stamp of the MOON on your Subconscious, not allowing you to be the SUN. You are torn between communicating with people and being a hermit. You would like to leave for a monastery. At the same time, sometimes you explode and burn like the Sun, warming those around you and illuminating their path. You are a star. Do you see the star sign? In a few years, you’ll either die or be able to change your life completely, starting from your place of work, field of activity, environment and family, and ending with the country of residence. Look here!”

He pointed to the fork of the Fate Line. Up to a certain point, the two branches diverged in different directions, but suddenly broke off on the same segment. Exactly in the middle of the gap, a third line appeared and continued down to the wrist.

“Whichever path you follow out of the two possible ones before the age I told you and where both of these lines suddenly break off, you must step on your final and unique Path or… die.”

That Saturday evening in February I was standing in an underground passage next to a bookshop. I felt bad about what I saw in my near future. In the flow of people rushing to the metro entrance, I noticed an old nun. For some reason, I already knew that she would definitely come up to me and start talking morals, but I was wrong, she came up and smiled.

“You feel bad because you see, but God loves you – you have a golden crown over your head. There is a chapel nearby, in the forest. Take the trolleybus and go two stops. Today is Saturday of Parents. Light two candles for the repose of yours. You must save yourself for the Light.”

Having said this, the nun disappeared into the crowd.

I didn’t know that there was a chapel in the forest. I knew that there was a maniac there. For several years, he had been killing those who, apparently, were looking for the chapel in the forest. “I wonder if there was someone who was looking for the maniac who was looking for those who were looking for the chapel.” Having thought about that, for some reason, I obediently drove two stops on the trolleybus, went out into the street and began asking rare passers-by if they knew how to find the chapel in the forest. It was very dark and snowing. Passers-by shied away from me, as if I was asking how to find the book I needed in the Library of the Universe. Several paths led into the forest. I followed one of them. Darkness. Snow. Silence. No one around. Deaf forest. I walked for a long time. A very long time. And that nun began to seem to me just a figment of my imagination, when suddenly a Light started flickering somewhere in the distance.

1. The MAN WHO WAS NOT

We met by chance in a bookstore. When I say “by chance”, it means absolutely not by chance, but completely purposefully, that is, in a way deliberately programmed by the Higher Forces, based on cause-and-effect relationship, the chain of which we are not able to calculate logically. I don’t believe in randomness.

Previously, books came to me through people. Random people I met instantly disappeared in an unknown direction, having managed to tell me only the title of the book that was worth reading and the name of its author. They voiced what was really necessary at that time. I learned to meet the right books directly, without intermediaries, a few years before, and since then they stopped sending me people who ran past rapidly in the Space of Options shouting out the titles of the books and the names of their wonderful authors. For example, when I was focused on a comparative analysis of the religions of our world, I went into a church shop and inexplicably, but immediately proceeded to the farthest dark corner, where on the bottom shelf of the rack, a single copy of something in a purple hardcover without any identifying marks, except for the price tag, was gathering dust. It was a photocopy of the comparative analysis of religions published on January 20, 1893, with the notes of someone who had read it in the 19th century.

That day, I was scanning the contents of the shelves in another bookstore, when He gave me a strange look and walked past, turning my life upside down. People often ask, “What is He like, this Man of yours, Who Was Not?”, and I don’t know what to answer, because I always look not at…, but through. I didn’t see His face, didn’t pay attention to His clothes. I felt amazing energy going beyond the personal space. The energy of a person who was stronger than me and could…

Sometimes I see people as geometric figures. Try it, I’m sure there is nothing easier, and you will definitely succeed. Sooner or later. If you really want to and if you are allowed to see. On the one hand, it’s quite funny, because it’s a kind of game, on the other hand, it’s useful, as it helps in communicating with these people. Ordinary people can be squares, triangles, circles, rectangles and zigzags (lightning bolts). Oh, yes, such people do exist too, take my word for it. Who are you?

For example, one of my acquaintances is a rectangle, and moreover, a vampire – the most terrible combination, probably. No, her ears are quite ordinary, and her teeth don’t betray her true nature at all. She speaks for a very long time, slowly and monotonously, in the sweet voice of the Fox from the fairy tale about Pinocchio, enveloping the victim with words, asking a lot of tedious questions or, worse, crawling into the Soul with indecently frank questions, which answers she doesn’t need in principle, but it’s precisely the fact that you get irritated and waste energy by responding that brings the vampire into a state of euphoria. Even if I say that I’m very busy, she’ll say goodbye for another ten minutes, because she understands perfectly well that I won’t be able to hang up because of my basic good manners. So, one day she called me while I was in the bathroom. I politely apologized and promised to call back, but she clearly didn’t like my proposal. She asked where I actually was. I told the truth. Then she asked what I was doing there, and I had the imprudence to answer honestly, “I’m cleaning my aura of negativity.” What else do they actually do in the bathroom after a hard day at work? However, for my acquaintance, the answer became almost the discovery of America, and she bombarded me with questions, “Why are you doing this? Do you have problems? Maybe you can tell me about them now. How do you do this? What temperature is your water? Do you pin your hair up or should it be loose? What brand of soap do you use? What do you think will happen if you add a few pinches more of sea salt to your bath than the amount recommended by the manufacturers and indicated on the label? Are you dissatisfied with something? Probably, there is someone next to you?!” Since then, when she intends to call me, I find myself unavailable. For example, in the subway, where the connection is lost, or my phone suddenly runs out of charge.

However, there are also not quite ordinary people. I see them as three-dimensional, complex-composite, in each of them there are simultaneously several figures nested within one another or intersecting in space. For example, I am a pyramid inside a sphere, which is pierced from top to bottom and exactly in the center by lightning, that goes beyond the scope of the sphere. I became such figure over time, being a triangle from birth, I turned into a pyramid, overgrew with a sphere, and was struck by lightning in the end.

Looking at the Man Who Was Not with a different vision, I immediately realized that He was a complex figure too – lightning inside a sphere located inside a cube. I needed him in order to remain on the Earth. In the last period, each facet of life, one by one, suddenly collapsed, pinning me in a corner, cutting off oxygen, curling up like a snake loop around my neck. Standing on the edge of the Void, I was looking for a Door to Another, unknown to me Reality, but on the same earthly plane, so as not to disappear into the Other World until the hour of my next incarnation.

I felt lonely and wanted to talk with a person like me, at least similar to me, in our common language, inaccessible to others. I thought about Nonna, a famous clairvoyant, winner of the “Battle of Psychics” on TV TNT.

I wanted to meet her, but I had no idea where she lived in our huge world. Sighing heavily from an unrealizable dream, I went into a cafe next to my house to enjoy a tête-à-tête with coffee at least, but at the next table by the window I found… Nonna.

“Hello!” I exclaimed in shock. “You are Nonna, I know! I need you.”

“What for? Is there anything I can do to help you?” She was surprised, because she always felt who she could help and who she couldn’t.

“I just want to talk to you.”

“Okay, sit down,” Nonna sighed with relief. “Sorry, I’m exhausted, a vampire has just called me.”

We looked at each other in silence for a while, then Nonna started, “You’re completely in a web. Torn between mother and son, you cannot combine them in this life. I see blood, a lot of blood, you are dead, just like me. You are one of us, you were There and opened the Door.”

I didn’t tell Nonna what “web” meant. Spiders were the most terrible phenomenon for me in the Earthly Reality. I delved into myself for a long time to find an anchoring point, realizing that the reason belonged to the current incarnation, since in my early childhood I hadn’t been afraid of spiders. Not getting to the bottom of the truth, I turned for help to Gera, one of my Teachers. She asked me leading questions, and I answered without hearing my own answers.

“Why are you afraid of a spider?”

“It’s scary.”

“Why? It’s so small and defenseless.”

I burst into a terrible laugh, “Defenseless? It’s huge and omnipotent!”

“What can it do to you?”

“It will kill me!”

“Imagine that you take it and put it in a box.”

“I can’t even look at it from the outside and imagine it. How can I take it with my hands?” I shuddered.

“Okay, I take it and put it in a box. In a gift box. I tie it with a ribbon and a bow. What is this box like?”

“It’s red. With black ribbons,” I answered automatically.

“Let’s make a fire. Look, I’m throwing the box into the fire. It’s burning…”

“It will never be burnt!” I screamed. “It’s immortal! Eternal! It was, it is and it will be! It never dies! Look, the box has burned down, but it’s alive! It’s crawling out of the fire!”

Gera sighed heavily. I almost cried. We parted on nothing, however, after walking about ten meters down the street, I stopped dead in my tracks because of an instant insight, a fragment from childhood that suddenly flashed before my eyes.

I was twelve. We were at our cottage. Sunday. Mom said that she felt really bad, that shouldn’t happen after the surgery, she urgently needed to return home to the city to call an ambulance. We were sitting on the bench under an apple tree. I kept silent. It was starting to rain. I felt that the several options for the future existed the day before abruptly collapsed into the only one – Death. I refused to believe it consciously and, as a result, I sent the terrible thought of Death to the Black Box of the Subconscious. And for a long, long time, almost until my mother’s transition to Another Reality, I would think that she would definitely recover sooner or later. I understood that I was about to weep. Not to upset my mother, I ran, “escaping the rain,” to the barn in the farthest corner of the garden, where my friend, the little White Rabbit, lived. It was raining. I ran very fast, weeping, biting my lips just not to scream in despair. Having pulled the door towards me with all my strength, I buried my nose in the center of a huge web, neatly woven along the width of the doorway. A huge fat black spider with a large cross on its back sat right in front of me, and I screamed, “MA-A-MAAAAAAA!!!…”

We talked with Nonna for a long time and even laughed at the ways the Knowledge used to come to us. She told me how my father had died. Then we opened our palms and held them opposite each other until Nonna said,

“You’re pushing, pressing hard! What a strong energy you have! I can’t stand that, put your hands away, put them away.”

When I told her the way I wrote spells, Nonna exclaimed, “Amazing! You dragged me along to another time! I fell through and saw a poor room, you and me inside, you were in another body, in something gray, some kind of shawl, and a kerosene lamp was burning there. What was that, Alice? Silver Age?”

I shrugged my shoulders, and Nonna continued, “Now I see a book, yours. With spells. Magic. On the bookshelves. It will be released in less than a year, and you’ll become a famous spell-caster, do you believe me? The number ‘37’ comes to me. Take care of yourself! You can die. Surgery or something else. I see blood, a lot of blood. And if you survive, so then…”

The fortune-teller in Rome predicted a terrible car accident for me, but she didn’t tell me when. The palmist-astrologer in India didn’t say what exactly, but said “36”. Nonna said “37”, a surgery or something with a sea of blood. However, I had already been dying, and Death is not as terrible as doctors.

I didn’t get sick with anything and had practically no contact with the type of people who played the game “Let’s heal everyone!” and called themselves doctors, until I died for the first time at the age of 11 and was brought back. My cousin dreamed of joining them since childhood. Every time she stated that out loud, our grandmother sighed heavily and, like monks fingering a rosary, listed all the items that her granddaughter due to her girlish memory would be able to forget during a surgery in the patient’s body. However, someone was very lucky, since my cousin didn’t become a surgeon. She works with those called insane here.

However, after resuscitation, my physical body liked to play pranks. Periodically, it asked questions that puzzled the doctors. At first they tried to treat me like ordinary people, but my body’s reaction was exactly the opposite of the expected. Then they used a creative approach, setting up experiments, prescribing everything in a row. As a child, my mother taught me to be obedient and patient, but one day I couldn’t stand it anymore and demanded at least some kind of diagnosis. The doctors resisted for a long time, pretending not to understand what I wanted from them, because all those years they tried so hard to help me, and despite the fact that several times due to their efforts I had ended up more There than Here, I was still alive. Apparently, I was too tired, so I showed excessive persistence, and a miracle happened. I was given a referral for an examination, as a result of which it turned out that what was happening to me was unknown to science, and, accordingly, I had to negotiate with my physical body directly, without intermediaries. Believe it or not, I was happy about such diagnosis. The doctors were upset just as much as I was overjoyed.

Once I came to a widely advertised center at a very cool hospital, in which, judging by what was written about it everywhere, even a fairy tale would become reality. I just came. It was impossible to get through by phone, no one had answered any of the numbers listed on the website and in other advertising sources for several weeks.

Having found with difficulty the doctor’s office for those who came without a referral, that is, for those who paid their own and quite a lot of money for a consultation, I got in line and patiently sat at the door for several hours, reading a smart book so as not to waste time. When I finally entered the office, the doctor first asked if I had an appointment with her. I asked how that could be done. The doctor silently handed me over a business card with the same phone numbers no one had answered. I said that I knew them by heart, but, unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to get through for several weeks. The doctor, in a completely calm voice, looking into my eyes, answered, “Right, and you won’t be able to. They have been out of business for a month now.”

Deathly silence reigned. I asked if there was another way to make an appointment. The doctor answered categorically, “No!” And again silence. Despite the fact that I had spent several hours in line, I was only the third and last person who wanted to get a paid consultation at their unique center that day. Somehow I didn’t want to leave there without paying anyone anything, so I just asked to listen to me, promising to pay a little more than the official price of the issue. The doctor thought for a long time and…

…didn’t agree, apparently preferring to speak at someone else’s expense rather than listen, but kindly offered to go to another hospital department and ask someone else to listen to me.

I am a stubborn creature. An old nurse in another department couldn’t figure out for a long time what I wanted from her, or how I ended up there.

“I read on a website on the Internet that…”

“Where did you read it?”

The old woman didn’t know what the “Internet” was, but that word had a magical effect on her, as a result, she dematerialized, immediately leaving her post. I was about to turn around and leave, when a man of about forty-five dressed in white appeared at the end of the corridor. As it turned out later, he was the head of the department. He came up to me and broke into a smile, “Oh, one more Leila arrived! Why did you come, eh, Leila?”

“I’ve read that it’s a center where you practically work miracles…”

“Leila, how old are you? And you still believe in miracles!” the Doctor said with a grin in a flirting tone, but I didn’t know what to answer, so he continued, “Leila, what hurts you?”

“Nothing…”

“If nothing hurts, why did you come?”

“To ask. You specialize in Woozles and Wizzles, providing consultations for payment, right? So I came to ask. Where do they come from? What to do with them? Maybe some pills should be taken or, conversely, not. In general, what’s allowed, what’s not?”

“Oh, Leila, God knows why one has some Woozles or Wizzles, what’s allowed and what’s not! Live as you lived. Nothing hurts you. What for?”

“But then it will be too late!”

“Then you will be welcomed here!”

“Don’t you cure everyone here?”

“We?” the Doctor asked in surprise. “Do we cure? You know, Leila, I’ll tell you so, as soon as you get rid of some Woozle, some Wizzle will immediately appear! Exactly! Nothing hurts you! Tell me, why did you come, huh?”

“But it’s written…”

“Leila, are you married?” the Doctor didn’t let up.

“Yes,” I answered categorically.

“Maybe, think once more? Just kidding… almost. We have friends, they come to our department and sell magic water, supposedly it lets people get rid of all sorts of Wozzles and Wizzles. So people buy it, drink it, and… half of them recover. Do you think the water is magical? The most common, drinking one, just in bottles with a magical inscription. Do you want me to sell it to you too?”

“No, thanks,” I said, nodding sadly.

“Leila,” the Doctor smiled, “relax and live your life as long as nothing hurts! Believe me, no one knows anything about Wozzles and Wizzles. It’s just a game, you see.”

Almost since childhood, I was advised to remove a small mole on my small back, but somehow I had no time for that. And then, as luck would have it, free time suddenly appeared, in an unmeasured amount, and someone told me about a wonderful commercial clinic where supposedly no one had any problem.

I arrived, obediently paid for everything that could be pulled by the ears for the upcoming procedure, and entered the Surgeon’s office. He turned out to be a strong old man of the old school. I was asked to undress, go into the operating room and lie on my stomach. The nurse rattled their instruments. At that fateful moment, I uttered one of my signature phrases, “Not Novocain.”

The nurse smiled enigmatically and called out to the Surgeon, who was still in the office, and not in the operating room, “Have you heard it, Ivan Ivanovich? The girl is intolerant to Novocain!”

“Yes, I have!” the Surgeon said joyfully.

They silently bent over my back, rubbed it with something, and… I screamed in terrible pain, feeling them cutting me alive with a scalpel. The scalpel froze.

“Without anesthesia?” I was in shock.

“Well, you can’t stand Novocain, and we don’t have anything else!” the Surgeon commented and made another incision.

I screamed again. The scalpel froze.

“Well, the last time now,” the Surgeon sang as calmly as if nothing had happened.

My third cry made a doctor with very huge eyes materialize in the operating room from the next office.

“What are you doing here? Even my patient has already escaped!”

“We’ve already done it,” the nurse answered, smiling.

Leaving, I silently but meaningfully looked at the Surgeon, and he replied me just as meaningfully, “And what if during the war?”

I realized him playing war.

However, I was lucky to know other doctors whom I respected. They first listen carefully, then think and tell you what they have come up with, voicing the pros and cons, and if you agree…

That evening I went to visit a very smart and cheerful woman, a guru in her field, who, having read my spells six months before, said that I was practicing real Word Magic, and she was sorry to be too old to experience similar emotions.

That time I couldn’t believe my eyes – the doctor looked at least ten years younger!

“Hello, Spell-caster!” she exclaimed joyfully. “You won’t believe it! I met Him! Twenty years later! Imagine, all these years I knew nothing about Him! It turns out that He lives over the Ocean. He came here to give a lecture, slipped, fell, woke up in a cast, ended up at my friend in the hospital, and I stopped by her because of some nonsense! Now I write your spells to Him in text messages. Haven’t you met your Prince yet?”

“Maybe I have, but… He doesn’t think so,” I sighed.

“It seems to me, just don’t be offended, there is no person to understand and contain you inside. Our men today are quite dead, weak, lazy. They’ll burst from you! They feel that you are stronger and a head taller, and bypass you a mile away.”

“Illusion! I am the weakest woman in the world.”

“Humble yourself, dear! To write the way you do, one has to be hurt constantly. Over time, you get used to the pain, the threshold of sensitivity decreases, so they will send you another pain, stronger than the previous one, so that you write again. Don’t expect anything good ahead. Better get ready for the trials you have never seen even in your nightmares.”

I came to the Teacher, who had been once an ordinary doctor, and then became a real White Magician.

“I see, I see what’s happening to you,” he said, smiling. “What does he look like? How old is he? Who is he?”

“I don’t know anything about Him. I remember nothing,” I whispered.

“Still, try to remember. Imagine the place where you first met.”

I looked at the white wall opposite and tried to concentrate. Suddenly, the air began to acquire color and density, just a little more and I would have felt it with my hands. It vibrated and began to move in space. The room floated. I got into a spiral. The walls, unlike the air, lost their density, became foggy, dissolving into Another Reality. It seemed that either I would move in that place, or that place would move to me.

“No, I can’t,” I breathed out from overexertion.

“You can everything!”

I tried to concentrate again, but that time I just saw two shadows on the wall, like waves, running towards each other, turning into a single whole, disappearing and reappearing on the opposite sides.

“Seven seconds!” the Teacher exclaimed in surprise.

I looked at him with a silent question.

“You merge together in seven seconds. Your energy, I mean. You are very similar. You’ll see Him again. And more than once.”

2. The SPEED

For some reason, many people on the Earth like alcohol with a good snack. I like speed with good music without alcohol.

I had a dream on the night from Thursday to Friday, when all dreams tend to come true for those who believe that they come true dreamt from Thursday to Friday. For the rest, those dreams that should come true, come true regardless of the day of the week.

I’m visiting my friend. Everything is foggy, I can hardly distinguish her outlines, as well as the furnishings of the flat, which I have not visited yet in the Earthly Reality, because my friend has moved recently. We are silent, but somehow tragically. Then she asks what really happened. I know in the dream, it’s something very bad, that I don’t want to remember at all. I brush it off, I don’t want to talk, and tears well up in my eyes.

I find myself visiting my ex-classmate. The plot repeats. We are sadly silent. He carefully begins to ask, “How did it happen, why?” I’m in pain. I refuse to remember. I start crying. Why do they torment me with their questions if I am not able to talk about it?

I come to someone else. I don’t know to whom. All the same, but this someone is too persistent and makes me remember.

Wide road of four letters. My car is in my favorite left lane. Replaying the situation, or rather, watching a movie from somewhere above, I see every car: to the right, behind me and in front of me. Is it dark or cloudy? The bridge appears in the distance. In the left lane the speed is high, 150 or 160 probably. There is an accident ahead, or something else invisible immediately, so everyone starts to slow down, except my car for some reason, as if I’m not in it and it’s driving by itself. Why? Did I fall asleep driving? I look at what is happening, but I can influence neither my car nor myself in it. Everything has already happened. Nothing can be changed. I weep, remembering, and someone continues to torment me with questions, “How? Why?”

BANG!!! Bang… bang… There is no unbroken part left from the car. The tow truck doesn’t arrive for a long time… Did they really show me the accident predicted by the fortune-teller in Rome?

Gera advised me not to drive on Monday and Tuesday, so that nothing would happen, but I missed my Fox and gave up on the warning. Moreover, it was time to renew the insurance. At the insurance office, they announced me a discounted amount for impeccable driving and handed me some paper for signing to confirm that no other my car had been stolen during the previous three years. Since my previous Fox had been dematerialized under mysterious circumstances exactly three years before, I didn’t sign it. After twenty minutes of waiting for a reaction to the problem I had voiced, I received an offer to wait another hour or two hours for the final answer from the central office. I sent the insurance company far away and, apparently, for the rest of my life. After driving a kilometer, I stopped at a traffic light. The driver of the next car opened the window and began shouting and gesticulating, drawing my attention to the Fox’s paws. I got out of the car and found the right rear tire flat, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to get back home or to my office. Having left Fox in a secluded place, I continued my way on the metro. In the evening, at the nearest tire fitting service, I was told amazing news – the wheel was absolutely normal, not punctured. No one understood why all of a sudden… They just pumped it up (and I still drive). Three years before they could have just made me a flat tire as well.

I like to drive fast. It happens rarely, since I live in a very large city, where there are probably as many cars as people, and maybe even more. And sometimes it seems to me that many people in this world love their cars much more than people. In our city there is such a huge road, which is called a word of four capital letters, similar to the synonym for the biblical “Hell”, and not so much in sound as in meaning, MRAR. They move along the Moscow Ring Automobile Road in circles. You can also drive if you manage to get into the circle before half past seven in the morning. Then everyone stands in the circle.

MRAR is a game that everyone plays by their own rules. There are, of course, rules invented by someone once, we are forced to learn them and pass exams, but I haven’t yet met a person who has never violated these rules. For example, not to occupy the left lane if it’s possible to go to the right, because the left lane is intended for those who like fast driving or are just in a hurry. It’s a good rule, but usually, in the left lane, there’s always someone, whose life principle says, “The slower you go, the further you’ll arrive.” That one wants to teach others how to live according to the rules, absolutely not going to give way to anyone and under any circumstances, inclining other players go right till the curb. There is a special category of drivers who play checkers on the road. A tragedy occurred before my eyes. A man was driving at a speed about 180. I was driving in the second lane on the left at a speed of 140, when he sharply drove to the far left, but had not enough time to carry out his plan. As a result of the impact on the barrier separating oncoming flows, he was thrown to the far right. The car sank in the clouds of smoke.

Once upon a time I played checkers at a very high speed too. To be honest, I like speed more than checkers. I even wrote the spell “Speed” after one Boy gave me a ride at 220 during our business trip abroad (although he insists on 230). After reading the spell, my ex-classmate Alexey wrote, “I tried. Two days ago. It doesn’t help.” However, despite the repeated warning signs from Above, I didn’t stop. Thus, one evening, having left Fox on the street for about forty minutes, I lost it forever dematerialized. I haven’t played checkers since then. I drive exceeding the speed. Sometimes. When everything falls down and I find myself in the Void.

…He was a Boy. Although he was no long so young. Much taller and physically stronger than me, he seemed to me so small, that I wanted to think of something to make the Boy grow up, because it was unnatural to look at him up, really looking down from the top. However, the Boy grew in breadth only. In fact, we must give him credit, he was a good Boy, or rather, the right one, and so much that he risked becoming a patient of my cousin, who had never become a surgeon, but worked in the “yellow house” (why people call so the abode of the strangers, I still don’t understand, in general, people are a mystery for me). In the head of the Boy, absolutely down-to-earth and practical, there was a terrible program that someone had once written and implanted there. Perhaps even the Boy himself. The program, similar to a virus, killed everything that came into the Boy’s field of vision, if it was not the same as him. The Boy played the rules written in that program.

That day we went to negotiations. Getting into his car and not even having time to close the door, I heard the order, “Put the bag exactly in the middle on your lap!”

My small purse was slightly to the right of the indicated place. I looked with a silent question at the Boy, and he immediately explained in a metallic voice, “When I put in sale this car in 10 years, it will be valued more if inside on the doors, there are no scratches from all sorts of iron things on women’s bags!”

There were no iron things on my bag, but the Boy didn’t tolerate any objections.

We got lost on the way. When I saw the sign to “that place” and exclaimed, “To the right!”, automatically raising my right hand towards the sign, without even touching the window with the outer side of my palm, the Boy commanded, “Take a napkin and wipe the glass urgently! My car has these rules, and if you don’t, you’ll have to wash it entirely at your own expense.”

When we got out of the car, the first thing the Boy did was open the trunk, where, in addition to all sorts of boxes, he was hiding… a ruler. He took it and began to measure something.

“Why are you doing this?” I was surprised.

“While we were driving, the boxes slightly changed their location in the trunk, and each of them should stand in a strictly designated place so as not to come into contact with each other and with the walls of the trunk. Because when I put in sale this car in 10 years…”

I breathed in and out deeply.

On the way back, the Boy bought two pies. When I dared to hint that there were two pies, he kindly invited me to enjoy one of them. As soon as I began to untie the knot of the plastic bag, the Boy looked at me disapproving and said in disappointment, “That’s not the way to untie it! Give it to me, I’ll teach you to do it correctly.”

I haven’t eaten pies since then.

On New Year’s Eve, an employee of the PR department received souvenirs for gifts to our partners, including diaries. The manufacturer put the Boy’s company logo on them. The Boy asked me to check the quality. I brought him a verified copy. The Boy took… a ruler. As a result of his measurements, the logo on the diaries turned out to be printed half a millimeter (!) higher than the previous year, so the circulation had to be redone within 24 hours in order to give away the correct diaries in time. I laughed. Probably he had a ruler hidden under his pillow at home too. And maybe not even one… It was good that the Boy couldn’t read minds.

I cast my spells to him. He sermonized.

“Do you want to become God?” I asked him once.

“I want to become King,” he answered unexpectedly.

“But Kings and morality are not very compatible, are they?”

The Boy got silent.

Sometimes the Boy really wanted something. Something so human. I saw him suffer, torn apart by contradictions, because it was not at all right, but he really wanted it. In such moments the Boy began to reason out loud, building a logical chain of consequences of what would happen if he took a wrong step. I felt sorry for the Boy. His whole life until his last breath was planned by him minute by minute and event by event. He absolutely denied the existence of the Higher Forces with their own plans.

I decided to show him a miracle, Another Reality phenomenon. I took off my ring and hung it on a thread.

“Ask any question watching it. If you see that the ring is spinning clockwise or counterclockwise, because it’s my hand rotating it, tell me.”

The Boy laughed, but still asked questions and watched carefully, very attentively. Then he exclaimed, “Well… I don’t know. But it’s wrong!”

The four of us had lunch in the canteen of the Cinema University. The Boy was discussing with one of us, but obviously not with me, the 999th episode of some television series and suddenly turned to me, “How can you live without watching TV?”

“She reads books,” the colleague retorted.

“Well, but how can you drive a car without checking traffic jams on the Internet before leaving?”

“I’m sniffing the air,” I answered the absolute truth.

The Boy winced in disbelief.

At the same moment, our table rose two centimeters into the air, moved to the right and landed safely on the floor.

“Bravo, Alice,” exclaimed the colleague, “even the juice didn’t spill!”

Since I told the Boy about the possibility of reading information from the air, he began to test the accuracy of my sense of smell. He called me in the evenings when I had already left our office and asked if there were any traffic jams on my way. As a rule, we left at the same time and lived in neighboring areas. The Boy always drove moving the right way, as it should be done according to the Internet information. I drove the way I felt. However, as a result, we moved the same way. And sometimes we even played speed together. Such game was some strange exception to the rules of the right Boy.

Apparently, the Higher Forces pushed us together so that the Boy would at least try to accept the idea that someone might be different from him and live differently. Not according to his rules. However, once the program implanted into the Boy’s head did its dirty deed, and we parted.

I met Alexey, the same ex-classmate who knew from his own experience what the speed game was. I could share everything with him, because he himself had been through a lot and was able to understand my feelings. He had known me since I was seven years old for who I really was, the real me, I didn’t need to be anyone else with him. The other day I read his 36-page story about the Void. He, like me then, reached the state in which it was no longer possible not to throw out the accumulated pain on paper.

“Love is the greatest medicine, it softens the pain and allows us to survive here and now, to get out of the Void. Later we get used to the pain, adapt to reality, it becomes easier for us, but to reach that later we need…”

“Yes, Alice. It seemed that fire, water, and copper pipes had long been passed, but no, those were flowers. A person is like a bridge which supports are cut down one by one and it falls into the abyss of Death. But you don’t need any earthly support. You have long belonged not to yourself, but to Another Reality. You are not like everyone else, you are not ordinary, deal with it.”

“I want to be an ordinary woman who is loved just because she exists. I have always loved, giving everything I had and asking for nothing in return, but no one has ever loved me. Besides, I didn’t choose Another Reality!”

“It’s not chosen. It chooses who it deems appropriate, without asking our opinion. It chose you. This is your Path.”

I returned home, where I was always welcomed by various magical attributes. For example, the magic ball I had found in the most ordinary – mystical – way on Lake Baikal.

I happened there in November at minus 20C. Baikal used to freeze in January, so in the evenings I sat on the seashore (I saw it as a sea, not a lake) and saw off the Sun. It was cold, but I took off my glove and held out my hand to it, the left one, hypersensitive. Huge waves of heat poured into me, and my hand didn’t freeze at all. One day a bird flew up to me. Whirling around right in front of my face, it whispered something, but I didn’t understand what exactly. When the Sun disappeared into the sea, I went to a mini-market where locals used to buy fish. I entered the souvenir shop and got surrounded by an uncountable number of stones in various shapes. I walked up to a display window and stopped.

“Can I help you?” the saleswoman asked.

I looked through, falling in Another Reality, “I need a stone. A ball. Like a globe. You can see water and lands on it. As if you are looking from above, from the height of an airplane, flying towards the Earth. I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

“Wow!” the saleswomen exclaimed in unison and looked at each other enigmatically.

One of them reached into the tray under the very display window where I was standing, took out something wrapped in paper and, taking it off, reverently held out a ball in her palm. It was that stone!

“Locals come to admire it,” the saleswoman said proudly. “An extremely rare stone. Many even believe that it doesn’t exist in nature, but look, we have a book about stones. Read about it. “A rare natural stone of indigo color found interspersed in malachite, stimulates the work of the Third Eye. In Ancient Egypt, it was considered magical, opening the way to Eternity, and in India – the one leading the owner to the highest levels of energy and spaces.”

In that dream, I tried to reach the Higher Spheres, where the Music of the Spheres sounded. At first, there were the usual spiral, noise or even a hum there, an invisible Force lifting you up the Flow, which resembled a pipe, at a tremendous speed. Someone was nearby. Invisibly. During the first trial, I was stuck in the Lower Astral, but I really wanted to hear what that Music was like. Thus, rising higher and higher in the same Flow, I began to catch magical sounds at some point. The speed decreased, everything around was filled with Light, muffled and bright at the same time, and all that Light was permeated with Music. I heard It quite distinctly. I hovered in space, enjoying the sounds.

I smiled – I reached it.

3. The MAGIC of the WORD

I found Him, the Man Who Was Not, many, many months later. That day, in order to meet Him finally, I had to use again a dangerous technique of working with Time and Space. I use it extremely rarely, in critical situations, that is, when failure to achieve a result threatens with disaster. I can’t explain what happens in such case, even in terms of Another Reality – a huge distance is covered in just a few minutes. Usually, while moving in space, I close my eyes, and look at my watch only upon arrival. We met. I didn’t want to tell Him why, but I said that… There was nothing to lose. He was coolly surprised. I was afraid that I would never see Him again.

“Are you crazy?” he asked without any emotion.

I wasn’t surprised by His reaction. Of course, many people take me for crazy. For some reason, people tend not to believe you when you tell the truth, and, conversely, to believe you when you deceive them.

“No,” I answered calmly and not at all offended by His assumption.

“So who are you?”

The answer to this question, no matter how strange it may seem from the outside, interested me much more than, perhaps, it interested Him. I didn’t know what to answer, so I recited a few of my poems.

“I see, a spell-caster,” He said, thinking about something, and suggested visiting a haunted basement in the center of the city, where a lot of different people used to gather to cast spells.

I said, I didn’t want to go to the place with a lot of different people, because I had little interest in people, but He replied that witches sometimes needed to materialize and ground themselves. I promised to think about it, and we said goodbye. I had an official reason not to go, being already invited to cast spells in the district library, but even if I had had a hundred reasons, or not reasons, but a real cause, I knew in advance that I would have definitely gone with Him to that basement. I didn’t answer “yes” right away, since I wanted Him to write or call me. So we corresponded for the second day. I lived by His messages, as if each of them prolonged my life.

Flirting with the MWWN, I jokingly accused Him of giving me at our last date someone else’s magic wand, which I successfully gave back to Him. I complained that, despite my requests, He had never sent His photo to me, apparently, being afraid of a love spell. I said to have finally understood why the next meeting was scheduled for the date on which, according to the old calendar, exorcists cast out demons. In conclusion, I wrote, it was a pity that He saw me only as a spell-caster, and I secretly hoped for something pleasantly tender in response.

Oh, men!!! If you want to say something to a woman, better write! In messages, every woman can see what she wants to see if she wants to. For example, in commas, periods, spaces or ellipses, or even in their absence, as well as in the absence of the messages. If you call her, the result may be completely unpredictable…

The MWWN suddenly called me and said the following. His fingers were tired of typing messages for me. That someone else’s magic wand was nothing. It turned out that he had bought a magic ring to me, which, having forgotten to gift me last time, just as happily gave to someone else. He didn’t have His own photo, because He didn’t appear in them. He didn’t see me as anything, thought nothing about me and didn’t care at all whether I had demons inside or not. He didn’t care if I went with Him to that haunted place, and even, perhaps, I would do the right thing going to the library and not to the haunted place, because, according to His own experience, which He was ready to share with me (!!!), amazing encounters with people of the opposite sex sometimes took place exactly in libraries. Then He dictated the address of the basement. I was about to exclaim “Bravo!”, but kept silent, since He wouldn’t appreciate it. I remembered the phrase of a great woman, “If you need to explain something, there is no need any more to explain anything.”

I was often invited to cast spells, but most of all I liked reading to children. Children are such small people who have not yet acquired a shell. Light predominates in them, so they feel Another Reality. A little and very vulnerable girl who has no shell still lives inside me. When I cast spells to children, no matter how old they are, they look not at… (me, my appearance, clothes), but through… and see that little girl who is close and understandable to them. Children are fond of asking questions. Their questions are much smarter, deeper and more interesting than adults’ questions, so I like answering them. Many children write too, but often secretly, because they are afraid of being hurt, because they have no shell yet. I tell them the story of the beginning of my Path.

I was ten years old when suddenly and in large quantities I began to write both poetry and stories. It was not that my mother didn’t want me to become a spell-caster, she was categorically against it, being very scared that if I didn’t give up such activity, a hard destiny awaited me, like all those who cast. Mom gave me examples of the great spell-casters of the Silver Age: poverty, unhappy love, loneliness, death of their loved ones and, in conclusion, their own, and tragic! I was offended and tore my notebook, but… half an hour later I collected the small pieces and glued them together with adhesive tape. Mom didn’t talk to me for a long time, but she secretly took my creations to her office and read them to her employees.

Since then, I have been writing something down almost constantly. Without setting a goal to get on the list of officially recognized spell-casters, I followed the dictates of the Soul, step by step approaching the day when some of my works were published in the White Book, as Nonna predicted, and six months later I was accepted into the Most Important Society of Spell-casters of our Kingdom …Mom, are you proud of me?

We met, me and the Man Who Was Not, and headed to the haunted basement. I didn’t feel like reading. I wanted to stay close to Him. However, as soon as we went inside, He grabbed me like a kitten by the scruff of the neck and threw me onto the stage saying, “You are a spell-caster, aren’t you? So cast!”

All people who say that they write poetry are divided into poets and spell-casters. Poets write poetry. They write and exactly poems. Poems can be good or not so good. With a beautiful or terrible rhyme, or without it at all, even where there is no need for its absence. Poems can be kept in a strict rhythm, or they can limp. All poets want to write poetry. Many people first retire to a proper place, take a notebook, a pen, sit in a chair and decide to write something. Some write with difficulty, being exhausted by every line or even word, in their opinion, such is the fate of a real poet. Others write, without straining at all, about everything in a row, not missing anything that comes under their feet and in their hands, happens in front of their eyes and even behind their backs, because they believe that the amount of writing will make them spell-casters.

Spell-casters, as a rule, write down or record poetry. And often, unlike poets, they don’t feel like writing at all. They feel a surge of vibrations in a certain rhythm, the Soul starts vibrating to the beat, and the words fall on their heads like an avalanche, sometimes at the wrong time, in the wrong place, when there is nowhere and nothing with to record them. For example, at night, when you are almost asleep, or in the snow or pouring rain outside, or while you are driving and crossing space at a high speed. Poems torment the spell-caster until he deigns to give up everything to record them on an earthly data storage, or they get offended and leave, never returning. Sometimes they dictate too quickly, and one never knows what’s next, but there is no time to think – just to write everything down maybe, and only re-reading, one delves into the meanings.

They don’t always dictate clearly, or rather, it’s not always audible, so after the dictation, in some places the spell-caster begins to rack the brains. Sometimes they prompt you how it should sound in the original, sometimes not. Sometimes you don’t know exactly the meaning of the dictated words, and you have to consult a dictionary to make sure that such word is appropriate in the context. However, it never happened in my practice that a word turned out to be inappropriate. Once I had to get the Gospel to clarify the description of a historical event. I read about it in all four Gospels in turn. When you read each of them from beginning to end, you don’t notice the difference in the description, but reading the same event described by all the Evangelists, you see it quite clearly. As a result, I had to replace two lines, since they touched on the place where the texts of the Gospels diverged. It’s surprising that, on the one hand, the verses come from Above, and on the other hand, all of them, with some exceptions, are a reflection of yourself, your thoughts, feelings, of what is happening to you in the Earthly Reality.

The spell-casters’ poems always carry meaning, but they are as laconic as possible to convey it. Like the poets’ poems, spells can have rhyme or do without it. The works of the spell-casters carry the very vibrations that permeated the Soul at the time of their recording, therefore, being read aloud to other people, they produce the effect of a spell – listeners are immersed in that very state of the Soul when the Flow captures and takes you to the single Primary Source, Consciousness turns off and gives you the opportunity to feel Another Reality around you and inside. Ordinary poets don’t connect to the Flow, therefore their works don’t possess such heavenly power, they are earthly. Of course, spell-casters have also ordinary poems. Anyhow, quantity means absolutely nothing for spell-casters. There are periods when spell-casters don’t write anything down for years. The poems stop knocking on the invisible Door, or they knock, but the spell-casters don’t open it for some reasons known only to them.

Some people believe that spell-casters should write poetry from childhood. However, everyone starts writing at different age, and the quantity of years one writes doesn’t say anything at all. Everyone’s soul grows at its own pace. Many people think that they need to enter special institutes to learn to write good. You can learn to write perfect poetry. It’s impossible to learn to write spells. They are written in Another Reality. Its Great Power is present in them. Only the one to whom It provided the Key to the lock of the invisible Door, can become a spell-caster. Poems always belong to the Earthly Reality, as well as the poets themselves. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I stood on the stage blinded by the light in the black-black basement. Yes, I am a spell-caster and do Magic. White Magic. The Magic of the Word. Every time I read, people looked at me as if I were a miracle, enjoying the flow of energies pouring into space, which I passed through myself and gave to them. They plunged into the lakes of Another Reality and, returning, didn’t remember what exactly I had read and in what sequence, but they talked about the magical state they had been during my reading. Their kind words used to warm me in return. However, there was a hungry flock of greedy vampires gathered in the black-black basement. I put my Soul into my words. I loved. He said I should take it as a game. Game with the Soul.

Returning home by metro, completely exhausted by vampires, I suddenly felt a colossal flow of energy beating to both palms. Good energy. I knew it as well as the opposite, negative one, which once used to enter me through my heels. Anyhow, I scanned the people opposite me and redirected the flow to the one who needed the energy much more.

I called Maria in Italy. Her abilities manifested themselves in early childhood. She showed the place where her mother would be buried in a year, although there was no cemetery there yet. After her mother’s death, Maria lived with the aunt, was often sick, more There than Here. When the war began, the girl left for Italy. Her personal life left much to be desired, but as she once told me, it’s always difficult to find someone who is stronger than you, but even more difficult if you can see. Maria saw everything that had happened to me lately, including specific dates and the appearance of people she had never seen, and the atmosphere of places she had never been, and ended our conversation, saying, “He was sent to you from Heavens to let you go your own Path. Pray to our Saint!” At home, I have a collection of Orthodox icons brought from Holy Places scattered around the world. There is an icon with the Saint, I knew nothing about at the time of purchasing, but I was drawn to Her. A few years later, I learned from Maria that She was the Saint protecting children with extrasensory abilities. That evening I turned to Her for help.

At night, I found myself in an intermediate dimension, from which one could pass to the World of the Dead. I realized myself, that is, I realized that I was sleeping, and it was a dream. It’s better not just to become conscious in dreams, but to take something from the Earthly Reality into the dream. The strongest ones know to take something out of the dream. I’m pulling out only texts for now, but once I took a ring into my dream. I have never parted with it since then.

An unfamiliar man and girl came up to me and said that I had to get the Moonstone from the bottom of the lake. Why me? And why Moonstone? Anyhow, I obediently moved to the shore. The bottom was invisible. The water was dark and didn’t move. Lake with dead water. Lake of Death? My Teacher says that the Moon is dead too. I lay down on the water surface without closing my eyes. Too deep! I would drown, having not enough breath.

“You can do it,” the girl encouraged me. “Everything is different here. You can breathe underwater or not breathe at all.”

I stepped into the lake, concentrated and went to the bottom, breathing. At the bottom, there was a huge shell with an irregularly shaped Moonstone, illuminating the lake from the inside with a ghostly glow. I pulled the stone ashore. What for?

4. A DREAM

“You are urgently called to school,” my son muttered when I crossed the threshold of our flat, and instantly disappeared into his room.

The teacher was no longer young and gave the impression of a fairly intelligent and kind woman. I could imagine anything of the possible reasons for the urgent call, except for what she said.

“I don’t know what to do with your child, it’s a nightmare! He wants to be the first in everything! Is this really conceivable? He raises his hand without waiting for me to finish formulating the question. He is the first to hand over the tests and begs to go to the blackboard. Not to mention the fact that he is always inventing some games for children and wants to lead them somewhere!”

I was ten or eleven years old when, during the winter holidays, my mother sent me to the largest and most famous in our Kingdom Christmas party, where parents were not allowed at that time. The central hall where the event took place accommodated an insane number of children of completely different ages. After the party, the children had to walk in a circle on the Square of the Three Cathedrals, which looked like a corral for horses and was fenced with iron partitions. Parents, standing behind the partitions in several rows, tried to get closer in order to find and have time to catch their kids out of a huge crowd of children wandering in that circle before they started another round.

The game “Find Me!” was a real stress for both children and adults. Firstly, because winter was still real then, the snow creaked underfoot, thus, after standing in the cold waiting for the kids for quite a long time, parents could catch a cold. Secondly, at that time it was customary to wear “uniforms” there. So it was very difficult to find among the thousands of identical felt boots marching sadly in a circle those on which your kid had struggled to put on the rubbers in the morning. On the other hand, the game developed the sixth sense – just feel yours!

My mother and I agreed that she would wave a scarf of the same color as the flag of our Kingdom at that times. However, it turned out that at least half of the Christmas party participants agreed on the same conventional sign. I felt sorry for my mother and decided to give her a gift – to go outside the first. I walked along the wide road to the magic circle, far apart from the main crowd. I don’t know how I managed that. I entered the circle and heard the joyful and excited exclamations of parents, “They are coming!” And I also heard them whispering, “God, who is so lucky? Whose child is this?” Then I saw my mother. She was smiling. So was I.

After my mother’s death, I often found myself in an unpleasant dimension, in a tense space with “gummy” time, where an inexplicable vacuum of something was felt. You leave almost all your energy there and come back completely exhausted. I usually passed into the World of the Dead (or rather, of those stuck between Here and There for some reason), where various entities live, including gray-wax ghosts, through a huge screen similar to a mirror, in a dream. My mother got stuck There, and we took turns visiting each other, she came to me Here, then I went to her There. The boundaries of spaces (dimensions?) became thinner even in grandma’s old flat, and There turned out to be right Here. First, the Door to Another Reality opens slightly, then you physically feel another space flowing into your local one, and almost immediately you hear Its sounds and, less often, see It.

Having adapted, I wasn’t afraid of drafts. However, due to the specific ability to take with me into Another Reality those nearby when the Door was opening, I was afraid for my son. I purposefully didn’t read him bedtime stories about Another Reality, tying him to the Earthly one. Once, when we were falling asleep and the Door creaked, I pretended that nothing was happening, but my son looked me in the eyes and asked in a whisper, “Have you heard that, mom? These sounds, what are they? Who is there? Tell me that you hear them too!”

I went to the child to say goodnight.

“Once I died, and then I was born,” the son suddenly said. “And then, when I die again and am born again, I will have a different mother.”

“Not necessary. Souls can meet in subsequent lives, but they don’t always recognize each other in their new bodies.”

“No, mom, we won’t meet again.”

“Why?” I was surprised.

“You will never be born again. I feel so. I know, they will let you stay There. And I began to see also a Man in Black. Who is he?”

“How do you see him?” I tried to keep calm, because after my mother’s death I had often seen the Man in Black; all wrapped in black cloth, he looked like a monk and, standing at the window, silently looked at me.

“He comes to me. Sometimes in a dream, and recently in the room, at the window. He always appears unexpectedly. I’m afraid of him. He’s all in black. Like monks. In some kind of cloth. I don’t know. I can’t see his eyes, but he looks at me in silence. I’m scared. Why does he come?”

“Ask him who he is. The next time he comes. Don’t be afraid, just ask what he wants.”

“It’s easy for you to say, you’ve never seen him! It’s more difficult in a dream. When I begin to understand that it’s a dream, I wake up.”

I saw my son several years before his birth. I knew how he would look like on the Earth. He was born an unusual child, preferred solitude and violently showed dissatisfaction when he was picked up or surrounded by calf tenderness. My son didn’t allow anyone to feed him with a spoon. His first word wasn’t “mom” or “dad”, but “myself!”

Before he started speaking, he often had nightmares and screamed heart-rending. I used to enter his room, turn on the light and observe horror pictures – he was fighting off someone invisible and didn’t react to me at all. I hardly managed to wake him up, but when he woke up and remembered where he was, he instantly calmed down and smiled.

In early childhood, my son had a favorite game with balloons. We used to come to the park, he asked me to buy him at least one, so I did. He took it and, as if unnoticed by me, released it into the sky. Then he turned to me and, looking plaintively into my eyes, asked me to buy another one. That could go on ad infinitum. It seemed to me that my son was teaching himself in advance to let go of everything earthly he really liked, just as in smart adult books we are taught to get rid of idealizations and attachments.

Later he began to talk in his sleep, very clearly and absolutely seriously, in an adult way, perhaps with his Teacher. “I can’t do this now,” my seven-year-old son once said in his sleep. And I was afraid that he wouldn’t become a Warrior of Light.

The MWWN disappeared… For several days, I clearly felt my astral body moving further and further away from the physical one. When one leaves, this starts about seven days before, the physical pain disappears a couple of hours before… I know this from my own experience. However, that time I wasn’t leaving, at least in the way people do because of illness, nothing hurt, just the other day I had received several bad news at once, cutting me without a knife. Not unexpected, I had a premonition of them for a long time. Anyhow, even if you feel and know that it’s impossible to change anything, you hope for a miracle until the last moment. No miracle happened. I didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone, except for Him. I sent Him a spell about me standing on the windowsill by the open window. He replied that standing on the windowsill in February was quite cool, at least for people, but I was a spell-caster, so it was even good for me to clear my head with fresh air a little. I wrote, I didn’t want to live and asked Him not to disappear.

“Don’t be sad, or wrinkles will appear,” he answered and disappeared again.

After exiting through the window, I found myself in an area that looked like a large, light corridor located in close proximity to the Earth. The Voice, neither good nor evil, absolutely impartial, guided me. Nobody condemned me for anything. We communicated mentally.

“Remember what you see to tell people,” the Voice said.

I visualized a sheet of paper and a pen and tried to write down, but almost immediately I realized the futility of the idea, I wouldn’t be able to take my notes out of There. The paper obediently disappeared into the air along with the pen. I waved my hand and looked around, closely examining the details.

The Voice led me along an intermediate state – corridor, where there were those who had just ‘died’. They were slowly floating in the distance. On the way, each of them looked through some pictures of the earthly life, as an exam. At the beginning of the corridor, everyone was shown the same pictures, a standard set revealing the Soul’s reaction to what was viewed, depending on which its further fate was determined. The deceased women were shown women with newborn children. Some souls began to rush about, being drawn to Earth to give birth to the babies they had killed in the womb. I was absolutely calm, so was the Voice, as if it knew that the subject didn’t concern me. I saw murderers, and then drug addicts, who were shown the places where they could quench their thirst. Tormented by the realization that nothing like that existed in Heavens, their souls felt an incredible attraction to Earth. I still remained absolutely calm. I remembered the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” and the books of a famous psychologist about idealizations and attachments.

One needs to get rid of them, still being alive in the body in order to die in a state no longer experiencing any attachments, i.e. unfulfilled earthly desires, otherwise one won’t be able to reach to the end of the corridor.

“Now look,” the Voice said calmly.

I stopped at the Window to the World. The Space of Light slowly decreased in brightness. I saw a city, cars and people, a metro station. It was raining. A woman came on a date with her beloved man. I saw them meeting. Astral tears started pouring from my eyes. The picture floated. The Voice looked at me with sadness, although it was invisible to me. An insane desire to live out love for the Man Who Was Not spun me around in a spiral and instantly pulled me back into my sleeping physical body. I collapsed into it and woke up horrified by hopelessness. To escape There from the nightmarish loneliness that day meant to be incarnated the next day in another newborn Here.

Escape to Another Reality lost any sense.

5. The TEMPLE of the SOUL

“Tonight you are going to RAM,” my colleague said in an orderly tone after listening to my retelling of the dream.

“No,” I objected, “I’m invited to the Beau Monde to cast spells tonight.”

“You won’t be casting any spells tonight. You need to get to know RAM. She comes twice a year for a week seminar. I just found out yesterday that she is here now.”

RAM, Raisa Akhmetovna Mansurova, sat in the center of the huge hall, talking about the amazing capabilities of everyone. A dazzling emanation along the contour of her earthly body seemed even to be real fire. We studied for five hours in the evening on weekdays and all day long on Saturday and Sunday. During the week of the seminar, I had the opportunity to talk privately with the Teacher several times. She read my manuscripts, looked in my future and saw the Light there. RAM taught us a lot, but I liked most meditating to music combined with mantras recorded during her expedition to Tibet.

…I closed my eyes. Having ceased to feel my physical body, I found myself in a picturesque place in the mountains, in a meadow with a babbling brook. On the right, there were ordinary mountains that I had seen in Tibet several years before in reality. To the left, there was an abyss, with other mountains behind, of Another Tibet, unknown to me. Somewhere in the distance, a small monastery rose on the top of a mountain to the right. The air took on blurry contours. Suddenly, I felt that I was about to see my mother. Mom had long been very, very far away, and it was difficult for her to gather herself into the earthly image that would forever remain in my memory, but I would still recognize her from a thousand foggy outlines. Being as transparent as she was, I realized that we could neither hug in an earthly way nor speak in words. My physical body was in the hall at RAM seminar, I could look at “Me in the Hall” from There and move Consciousness into it, observing “Me in the Mountains” from the side. It was a game of instant movement, and I liked it. I was incredibly happy to see my mother. We were walking There, at the slightly open Door, where ordinary and other mountains coexisted, and communicating in silence, I didn’t even formulate phrases mentally, because only feelings remained, and everything else was unnecessary. Mom led me to the monastery on the mountain, where the fire was burning, although perhaps I mistook for it a huge vat with incense, shrouded in the misty haze from which our bodies, my mother’s and mine, were woven There. It was funny – we were transparent, while the monks were dense, wearing real clothes. It was strange that they didn’t pay much attention to us, just glanced at us briefly and continued their business.

After some time, the monks began to walk clockwise around the vat with incense or a fire emanating smoke, dancing, chanting mantras and striking musical instruments similar to tambourines. Mom invited me to dance with them. I had a strange feeling of joy and absolute peace dancing with my mother and the monks, who looked at me as if my appearance There was completely natural. Mom called me to the abyss, a bottomless one. I had once climbed mountains higher than 5,000 meters, but at that moment we were at an altitude of hundreds of thousands kilometers above sea level… or Earth? Indescribably beautiful and majestic. I felt the Earth so far from There that I needed to fly to it, and for quite a long time. We stood on the highest mountain of the World, Another World. The black mountains seemed to be monks’ souls. The fiery red sky resembled a sunset, but the earthly Sun was barely visible at the bottom of the abyss. There was nowhere to go higher, that was the Highest Sky, the Sky of Fire color. Mom wanted me to walk over the abyss, she took my hand, although that was an illusion, I just felt her supporting me. I took my first step into the void. We walked with her through the Fiery Sky, like people walking through an autumn park. Then I realized it was time for my mother to leave, and her outline slowly dissolved, merging with so called God. The last mantra sounded, and it seemed that all that Fiery Sky was contained in the single sound – AUM.

The next day I found myself in the same meadow in the mountains. The level I found myself at the beginning of each meditation was below the level of the Fiery Sky, from where I returned to Earth. I knew in advance that my mother wouldn’t come and that I needed to talk to the monks. I moved to the left and discovered 108 springs with holy water, walked through them and went further, skirting the mountains. I saw the already familiar monastery in the distance, but the path ended at an abyss. I stopped in thoughts. Mountains surrounded me on all sides. A thin thread was stretched over the abyss. I suddenly felt someone approaching me from behind, turned around, finding myself with my back to the abyss, at the beginning of the thread leading to the monastery, and saw a smiling monk. He came so close that I instinctively took a step back on the thread. The monk continued to smile and hold me with his gaze so that I wouldn’t stumble, moving backwards, with my back to the monastery and my face to the monk. We walked slowly until I felt the ground under my feet. The monk pointed his hand in the direction of the fire, and I sat down nearby. I asked him for help, telling him about my emptiness, but he smiled back. The rest of the monks appeared and began to dance around the fire. I approached each of them in turn and asked to help me, but they smiled and silently invited me to dance with them. I realized that it was time to return to Earth, and I found myself on that highest mountain where the Sky was fiery red. I went into that Sky until it all merged into the single sound – AUM.

On the third day the Monk met me at 108 springs. I asked him for help again, but he silently smiled and showed the pool with holy water from the springs. I lay under the water with my eyes open, breathed and saw the smiling Monk bending over me above the water surface. He didn’t allow me to leave the pool while the water cleansed my astral body. I relaxed, closed my eyes and flew in a fiery stream at a great speed. Then the Monk made me understand that I was free, and I ran to the abyss over which the thread was stretched. The Monk looked at me with a smile, he knew that I could easily get to the monastery without anyone’s help. However, as soon as I set foot on the monastery grounds, I remembered the Man Who Was Not. I wanted to show him those magical places. I returned back to the springs, imagined Him as foggy as I was, standing at the edge of the abyss, took Him by the hand and guided with my gaze. He looked into my eyes, and I smiled at Him, just as the Monk had smiled at me the day before. I led Him to the Monastery and again returned to those 108 springs to lead my son as well. The Monk called me to the fire, and everything repeated – I danced with the monks, went to the top of the highest mountain to walk through the Sky of Fire color, and returned to Earth, when everything around me suddenly merged into the single sound – AUM.

On the fourth day, each of the seminarians brought four bottles of champagne. We had to walk on broken glass. Many people ask why this is necessary, thinking that RAM teaches walking on glass only. Firstly, during the previous three days not a word was said about glass. Secondly, walking on broken glass seven times was just a fragment of the seminar. The purpose of this action is to hack the program written in Consciousness as “Impossible! Forbidden! It doesn’t happen like that! I won’t succeed!” People live according to the rules of the programs implanted in them, so they consider their problem insoluble. If the program is rewritten, hidden abilities wake up and help to find the right solution. Having created a small miracle by walking on broken glass without cutting heels, a person begins not only to believe in miracles, but also to know that one creates them oneself, with God’s help, of course.

Television arrived. The glass was divided into two piles. The seminarians who had already practiced walking on glass lined up to the place for “the advanced people” and started walking as if on a soft and fluffy carpet. I froze at the carpet for the newcomers. RAM said I would be the first to go. Looking at the fragments sticking out pointing upward, I couldn’t believe that it was possible not to cut myself. RAM took me by the hand and asked to repeat just one phrase after her. I repeated and was sure that the Teacher wouldn’t let go of my hand until I had walked the entire carpet, but RAM, slapping me on the butt, ordered, “Go!” I took the first step. To be honest, I’m hypersensitive and, when going to the sea on vacation, I choose a sandy beach or pebbles, since it’s easier for me to learn to fly than to walk on stones with bare heels. That day I heard the glass crunching beneath me, digging into my heels, but felt no pain at all. I reached to safe land unharmed. The procedure should be repeated at least seven times. All the newcomers cautiously moved to the carpet for the advanced people.

“I am no longer here. You can do everything yourself,” RAM smiled.

I walked and walked on the glass. When they were taking my photo, a seminarian shouted, “Alice, show the swallow!” I had to jump on one leg on the broken glass to keep the swallow balanced until the next click of the camera because of the pauses between shots. During one walk in a bad mood, having taken the first step, I felt a sharp pain in my left heel. The rug seemed to be about to turn from green to red. I froze like a one-legged heron so that I could re-encode myself before landing my second heel on the glass. Afterwards we took off our clothes to the waist and lay down on the glass with our bare backs (including necks and heads). RAM pressed everyone into the carpet with all her might, turning one’s body on all sides, and did other exercises so that the glass would merge as much as possible with the naked upper body. The lying person rose not alone, but together with the pieces of glass sticking out from his back, like the needles of a hedgehog. RAM took out those needles, that left indentations, as from driven nails, but no blood, no cuttings of the skin on the back. Based on the color of certain areas of the back, RAM immediately told what health problems the person had.

Late in the evening we played a fifteen-minute game called “Tell someone you don’t know about something you don’t know.” RAM asked each of us to come up to three or four seminarians to whom we would be drawn and say the first thing that would come to mind. I came up to strangers and said something I couldn’t know about them, and they wondered how.

On the last day of our seminar, we were awaited by a special meditation “Temple of the Soul” with a short briefing beforehand. RAM asked each of us to clearly formulate a question we needed an answer to.

“When you get There, pay attention to the details. Who will meet you? Perhaps a relative or a friend, an Elder or an Angel, or maybe no one. It’s different for everyone. Take a look around. What does your Temple, or the place you will end up, look like? Someone ends up in a maze. Someone is in a castle. Try to go around it all, entirely. Go through all the doors, since the answer to your question is hiding behind one of them. If a door is closed, find the key and open it. Music without mantras will play during this meditation. I’ll guide you to the front door and leave you alone. I’ll warn you when time is running out so that you can return on time. One more request or advice. There are a little fewer of us now than usual, so it’ll be more difficult, but still, if any of you can, go to the Library of the Universe. Try it, will it work? Ask the Elder or the Guardian to show you a book. Open it and try to read. There will be some advice there. Perhaps the answer to your question. It happens that a book is written in an unknown language. Try to feel what it’s about. Sometimes the Guardian transmits information through you to me. As you leave There, don’t forget to thank everyone you have met.”

The music started playing. We closed our eyes. Unlike previous meditations, we didn’t lie down, we were standing. I had never thought that it was possible to meditate while standing, and, worse, I couldn’t imagine that Temple of my Soul. RAM guided us to Heavens, and I suddenly saw it, a silver-white and pyramid-shaped crystal, dazzling, or rather, almost blinding with its radiance, through the center of which a powerful flow of energy was pouring in a vertical direction. The Temple was located in the blue-black Sky so far that the Earth was invisible at all there. I came up to the front door. RAM asked us to recite prayers we knew, or just pray somehow with the Soul, and she left everyone alone with one’s Temple.

Being scared to enter it, I still opened the door and stepped inside. I looked around – not a soul. The architecture of the outer part of the Temple didn’t correspond to the inside at all, as if they were two different buildings. The two-story house had the shape of a cross, formed by two corridors intersecting at right angles. The first thing that caught my eye was the absence of a ceiling and roof, just a starry sky above my head. However, there was no need for a roof there – neither rain, nor snow. A completely different world. It was even great without any roof, since the whole Universe lived in my Temple of the Soul. The walls were whitewashed, like village houses on the outside. There were my paintings and pots of beautiful flowers on the walls and a lot of doors along the walls on both floors. The floor, doors and beams were wooden, dark brown. The Temple was very light, despite the absence of a light source and the presence of the blue-black Sky above. A wooden staircase, located to the right of the front door, led to the upper floor. It seemed unrealistic to go through all the doors of the Temple, but I went up and entered the first four rooms on the left. No one. Although, in one of them I found several coffin lids. I helplessly dropped my hands, sat down on the stairs and wept. Even there, in my own little house, I was completely alone.

Having gone down, I noticed a foggy niche with climbing green plants opposite the front door and decided to see what was there. Getting closer and closer, I suddenly saw… He sat writing something at a wooden table with old books on it. Without a headdress, but in green robes embroidered with gold, the typical attire of clergy for Trinity. Having noticed me, he smiled, as he had done for five years when I sang in the children’s church choir. The Patriarch wasn’t surprised by my appearance, as if he had known that I would have come. I cried from the unexpected joy of our meeting. The Patriarch looked alive and absolutely healthy, although he had left Earth exactly a month before. I looked into his eyes and asked mentally, “Why is everything like this? Why do I have such life? For what? What for? Why doesn’t anyone love me? I want That Man to…”

The Patriarch answered me with eyes filled with Universal Love, “You know everything yourself, Heaven loves you.”

“But why?” I asked again.

He pointed with his gaze at the books on the table, saying, “And you write too.”

“So that I write?”

The Patriarch nodded and handed me an open book with… words in Sanskrit. I got surprised, Patriarch and… Sanskrit? I didn’t understand anything, but he told me to go to my relatives and showed me exactly which door on the upper floor I needed. They all really gathered there: both grandmothers and their sisters, grandfather, mom and dad, aunt and uncle. I recognized each of them in the foggy outlines of astral bodies and was glad to meet them. Nobody asked me questions. Everything is known in Heavens about everyone living on the Earth. Only the aunt asked how her youngest daughter was doing. I replied that everything was fine. There was no pain left in me, I had let them go a long time before, and the other day, I had talked with my mom in the mountains and danced with the monks. Suddenly, I remembered about the Library of the Universe and returned to the Patriarch asking to take me to it. The Patriarch led me along the left corridor of the ground floor, a far door of which was the entrance to the Library. We walked through several halls, each was huge. We met people along the way. They came there to find their books and paid no attention to us. The walls were lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and countless shelving flanked the central passage that connected the endless chain of halls. Everything was there. I looked around in confusion.

“I was told to find a book or books that would answer my question.”

The Patriarch smiled and led me to the bookshelves in the center of the hall, looked at me carefully, reached out with his hand to the top shelf, took out and handed me… my first two books, one of which titled “On the Road to Heaven,” and the title of the second had been made up of three names, two great spell-casters of the Silver Age and my own, “Marina. Anna. Alexandra”. I asked if I could get some other book by myself, he nodded. I walked to the far corner of the hall, took a ladder and climbed to the top shelf. My hand was drawn to an old book of dark green color with no title on the spine. I pulled it out and read the single word ‘WORD’ engraved on the cover in gold letters.

“You have three minutes left,” came the voice of RAM.

I put the book back. Having gone down, I ran into a famous priest. He smiled at me. “He’s probably looking for some information here, too,” I thought wondering if he was still alive.

“Say goodbye, go to the Door you entered the Temple through.”

I stood at the front door. The eyes of the Patriarch, as many years before, emanated Goodness and Love. I thanked him. “Mine” were looking at me from the upper floor and waving their ghostly hands.

“Open the Door, come out.”

I opened the door. The Patriarch blessed me at parting.

“Close the Door behind you, turn your back to it…”

After a couple of minutes, I opened my eyes. On the Earth.

6. The GIRL with the MOON CAT

I liked painting since childhood, my works even participated in exhibitions. I painted with gouache and watercolor, then I drew with a simple pencil. A few years later, I became interested in painting glass, wood and ceramics. Immediately after returning from the seminar, I felt an urgent need to paint what I had seen during the meditations. No, I am not a professional artist, my works are the expression of the Soul, transferring my feelings and emotions, something like intuitive paintings. So I depicted the meadow in the mountains where I had appeared at the very beginning and met my mother, the path at the cliff near the mountain with 108 springs, the thin thread over the abyss leading to the monastery, my walks in the Fiery Sky, exiting into the Astral through the seven colors of the rainbow, entering to the Flow, the Temple of the Soul inside and outside, the Library of the Universe and that book with the single word ‘WORD’ engraved on it.

Nonna called me. I told her about the seminar. We agreed to meet in the city the next day in the evening. Nonna asked to take some of my paintings with me, so I had to take them to my office in the morning. I placed the paintings against the wall. The colleague, who had invited me to attend the seminar as a must, came to visit me as usual and froze in front of my creations.

“Wow! I flew in that Flow too, just like you painted! Do you feel what kind of energy your pictures have? During meditation at my first seminar, where I ended up completely by accident, monks came to me, performed astral surgery on my broken leg, and I woke up and went home without crutches.”

“Could you paint something for me, too, Alice?” asked Svetlana, financial director at the Boy’s company.

We worked with her in the same office room in silence. When my spells were first officially published, I couldn’t help jumping for joy, so we started talking. Svetlana asked me to tell her about Another Reality, and later, after reading many wise books and meeting my Teachers, she became a different person. Being an eyewitness to such phenomena as lifting of the table into the air, Svetlana often recalls the day of our acquaintance and can’t imagine what a boring life she would have now if I hadn’t started jumping around our office with joy. Subsequently, I painted her soul in an opening lotus flower. Oddly enough, despite my lack of any skills in portraiture, as, indeed, in another types of painting, all of Svetlana’s relatives and friends, not knowing what was painted there, claimed that it was she.

Nonna and I met in a cafe on the outskirts of the city in the evening.

“What are you doing, Alice! Your paintings gave me goosebumps! You painted Another Reality. Amazing! Your paintings transfer us There.”

We talked for a long time in our own language.

Nonna’s speech looked like the following.

“I sat at my desk yawning. Afraid to oversleep. The Teacher came up to me and said, ‘Nonna, stop looking at the clock!’ I felt so ashamed. Think about it, if you don’t realize it, absenteeism becomes an issue. And I want to sleep so much!”

Nonna studied at the Academy There while sleeping Here. To get to that Academy in a dream, as well as anywhere else, I mean a specific place There, one must become aware of it while sleeping. And then wake up on time Here so as not to be late to a specific place Here and not to forget everything that you have been taught that night There. In general, you see, it’s not easy, but interesting.

Suddenly, Nonna’s gaze stopped somewhere behind my shoulders.

“Listen, take out the Temple of the Soul again, what it looks like from the inside,” Nonna asked, shifting her gaze in turn from what I had painted to what was behind me. “Turn around! Doesn’t it remind you of anything?”

My earthly vision was poor. At first I didn’t even understand what exactly to look at. Suddenly, I discovered that the far part of the cafe was decorated, unlike ours, identical to my Temple of the Soul.

“A sign,” said Nonna, “you are on the right Path. You and I were supposed to meet exactly in this place and exactly after you painted that. Well done!”

I told her what was going on at my work. The Boy was overplaying with his rules, the company began to get problems, I would have to look for another place soon.

“Listen, let’s play a little game with you,” Nonna suggested, and I happily agreed. “Imagine a bag of money. A big-big-big one.”

“Okay.”

“Have you imagined a big-big-big or just a big one?”

“A very, very, very big!”

“Very good! You play well. Now imagine a small thread going from the bag to the place the money came from. Now tell me, just honestly, where did you get so much money?” Nonna asked smiling.

“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully.

“How can you not know? Here it is, your money!” Nonna pointed to the empty space where I had just imagined that very huge and almost impossible-to-lift bag. “Mind you, this is your money, not mine! Just tell me where you got it from.”

“True, I don’t know!”

“Alice, why? I am not a tax inspector!” Nonna exclaimed offended. “Awake your memory! Now! Well, did you sell anything?”

“No, this is not trade.”

“Maybe… did you steal it?” Nonna asked with insinuating laughter.

“You know, I don’t do Black Magic!” I got offended.

“Okay, sorry. Well, do you produce something?”

“No, this is not production. You see, this is something personally mine. What I can. Something that only I know and can do.”

“It’s already warmer… Come on remembering, don’t be lazy!”

“I see books,” I breathed out.

“Great. What books?”

“Not these. Maybe they are about Another Reality.”

“Nothing surprising. You are here to tell about what is There. Just think, you pulled out the word ‘WORD’ from the Astral Tablets! Do you understand who you are? Perhaps, you can’t still come to terms with it.”

“I want love. An earthly one,” I said sadly.

“You and I ourselves chose such life,” Nonna stated. “We knew what would await us. We knew it There before coming down here. We both came for a reason. Nobody forced you and me to fall here, but we both wanted to touch these objects and eat this lamb. By the way, how do you like the lamb?”

“Maybe someone came here to eat lamb! I came to LOVE! Understand? With earthly love! I want to love! A man!” I exclaimed offended.

“Alice, you are stubborn as a sheep! Where do you see MEN in this world? Open your Third Eye wider! There are just BOYS all around. Who can understand you and me? You will meet, fall in love, and then be disappointed. For example, I see all ‘men’ at once. And I’m bored, because I already know everything in advance: who they are, what will happen next. Isn’t it the same with you?”

“The same. But sometimes I feel, this is he, while he thinks this is not me.”

“You came to tell people about Another World through the Word and paintings, deal with it! You should write and paint, create!”

“I can’t write in His absence!” I stated.

“It’s funny,” Nonna said thoughtfully, “once upon a time, in Ancient India, yogis had the Third Eye, but already weakly expressed. They periodically scratched it with special sticks so that it could see better. It means that men will still be sent to you so that you write, but kept at a great distance, because if one suddenly turns out to be HIM, and you realize your kindergarten dream of earthly love, you’ll obviously stop writing. Men for you are like that stick of the yogis, to stimulate the work of the Third Eye, so that you see Another Reality. By the way, I see an exhibition of your paintings,” Nonna said casually, biting into what once had been a lamb. “Of course, like with your book then, it seems unrealistic to you now, but it will happen. So paint, my dear, paint.”

“I’ve already painted everything I saw There,” I said sadly.

“No, not everything!”

“I really don’t know what else to paint!”

“If you can’t remember, this doesn’t mean at all that you don’t know. Therefore, sit down in front of the canvas and ask yourself, ‘What do I see There?’ You don’t have even to invent anything, your hands will do everything themselves, believe me. Your Path is creativity. You have to somehow combine it with work and money. In my opinion, there is no need for a fortune-teller, everything is too obvious.”

“Nonna, just don’t swear at me. Please, hear what I’m telling you now… I… WANT… LOVE… EARTHLY Love. Understand?”

“No, I don’t understand, and I don’t want to,” she said calmly. “By the way, what do you see about me?”

“You are a nomad. Wanderer. You can’t stay in one place for long. You’ll be moving. A lot of. Countrywide. Maybe even abroad. This is your Path. You have to help everyone.”

Nonna nodded in agreement.

“Nonna, but if you have to help everyone, so help ME!”

“I do help you… on your Path.”

“You are a sadist!” I couldn’t help exclaiming from a feeling of complete hopelessness.

The waitress brought dessert and was about to put it on an empty place on the table when Nonna said, looking at me reproachfully, “Get your bag away!”

“It’s heavy! I can’t move it by myself, and you don’t send me a man… Help!”

I did as Nonna had said. I took canvas, paints, brushes and suddenly saw There… a girl with a Moon Cat. They walked together in Another Reality. Both were ghostly, almost transparent, against the dark blue sky, very far from the Earth. The girl was recalling what had been on the Earth and what not. It’s enough There to imagine something as it immediately appears. As ghostly as everything There. The girl recalled her acquaintance with the Man Who Was Not and her spells written to Him, which He had just flipped through and never answered. The girl visualized autumn alleys in the park, since she wanted to walk with Him on the Earth, but she was walking along the Heavenly Alleys with her Moon Cat. The girl built a small astral house. She lived next to the majestic pyramids, the same as on the Earth, but There. The six sacred geometrical bodies of Plato’s and Ancient Egyptian symbols appeared before her eyes. So I painted what I saw through the eyes of that girl. She felt very lonely. At night, she used to open the Window to the World and look at the Earth with longing. The Moon Cat couldn’t understand her. The girl wanted to return, because she really wanted Love, earthly Love.

Once a year on the Earth they celebrate a day when everyone suddenly begins to recall you. It took me a long time to get used to this. It turns out that here you can forget about someone for a year, and then, on that very day, call or come and say a bunch of compliments so that the person doesn’t inadvertently think of being accidentally forgotten by you, and disappear again for a year. It’s a pity that on the Earth such a day happens only once a year.

Some days before I had to stop at a glamorous place where I didn’t want to go at all, because I knew in advance that I would definitely meet Him there, the MWWN. By chance, not according to the laws of the Earthly Reality, He was to be exactly in that place and at the time when I was there. After the spell-castings in the haunted basement, He disappeared, and I didn’t want to remind Him of myself, because He didn’t care if I still existed in the Earthly Reality or no longer. The other day I had a dream. We were sitting at the table in that glamorous place. He spoke to me about the stars, ordered to paint pictures for Him the way He wanted them, with such colors, of such size. I didn’t want to paint like that. That was why I didn’t want to go there, but I couldn’t help but go.

I was standing by the elevator when I saw Him approaching the building. The elevator arrived. I went in, pressed the button for the desired floor, “Please, close the doors! Let’s go! Please!” The elevator didn’t obey, the doors remained open. I felt Him coming closer and closer, climbing the steps, he would enter the elevator soon. Out of complete impotence, I leaned against the wall, lowered my head and closed my eyes.

“Alice? What are you doing here?” a familiar male voice said in surprise.

The elevator closed the doors immediately and started moving up. I sighed heavily. I didn’t know if He understood why I wasn’t surprised at our meeting. I didn’t know what to say. I was just silently looking somewhere through. He explained confusingly something about a difficult period, that He was very busy, but I turned off my hearing, since he was playing words which already meant almost nothing on the Earth. The elevator stopped. The MWWN expressed a desire to talk with me. We were sitting at the very table I had seen in my dream. He spoke to me about the stars. I listened silently. He ordered to paint pictures for Him the way He wanted them, and even began to show the way, but I interrupted Him, finishing what He had already said in the dream. I said that I didn’t want to paint like that. He was probably offended. Saying goodbye, I hinted that I would be pleased if He called me on Sunday to congratulate me on the day that happened once a year. He smiled and asked three times the exact date. I repeated three times that it would be the nearest Sunday. He said he would certainly not only call me, but invite me somewhere on such occasion the next week.

For better or worse, that Sunday I realized that I hadn’t had much contact with ordinary people for many years. I used to meet those speaking a different language, incomprehensible to mass, or if not speaking, listening and trying to understand, and even asking questions, smart questions, not to keep up a conversation or out of politeness, but in order to find out something interesting. My guests remembered me more than once a year. I showed them my meditation paintings with the Girl and the Moon Cat as protagonists. The guests tried not to look, but to see. Then we sat at the table like ordinary people exchanging mystical life stories. Svetlana asked me to tell a funny story about homeless people.

I often take the subway, since I haven’t recalled yet the way to get around the city without earthly means of transportation. That day, I was returning from work late in the evening in a half-empty train and, while reading an interesting book by a Teacher, I came to a chapter saying that under no circumstances one should experience negative emotions towards the homeless ones. The train stopped at the next station, the doors opened, several people entered it, and a bum fell down from Heavens onto the seat to my right. Everyone around grimaced and waited with interest for my reaction. Curiously and without negativity, I shifted my gaze from the book to my new neighbor. He was suitably creepy dressed and smelled like all homeless people without exception were supposed to smell. In one hand he held a huge dirty bag stuffed with only he knew what. The bum seemed to be about fifty years old. He studied me with the same interest, trying to see what lived inside my earthly body. Suddenly, with his second and bag-free hand, the man reached into the pocket of what had once, apparently, been a jacket. After rummaging in it, he pulled out… glasses (!), immediately and somehow in a completely not bums’ way rubbed them on his dirty sleeve, put them on his nose, leaned towards me and almost hovered over the book, which I continued to hold open right on the page about his fellow sufferers. The bum started reading the book.

Less than a week later, I had to go to the city center. That time there were a lot of people in the train, and as soon as a seat was freed up next to me, another bum immediately landed on it out of nowhere. That old man with a blurred look of small gray eyes, but, as it seemed to me, with the same huge and dirty bag in his hand, barely moving his tongue, was not at all drunk. He wondered when his station would happen, but no one responded. So I said it was the next one and, without expressing any negative emotions, continued reading another interesting book. The train stopped, the doors opened, but the bum continued to meditate. I was afraid that my neighbor would drive past his path, so I warned him about it. The man looked intently into my eyes. His cloudy gaze, directed through, became completely clear and deep. He took a step towards the doors and, continuing to scan me, sadly and kindly said, “You are from Heavens, aren’t you?”

The third homeless man happened to me on the way home from the grocery store. He sat on the steps with a piece of white bread in his hand, washing it down with milk from a paper bag and, in pauses between meals, sang something loudly to the whole street. Having seen me, the homeless man fell silent for a moment and suddenly said seriously in an absolutely sober voice, “Be careful! You can fall, but you… you must not!”

“Right! You must not fall!” Svetlana supported the homeless man. “You have to give your knowledge into the world.”

“As my cousin once said, if you do something in your life that someone else can do when you’re gone, you do nothing at all here. My spells are what I did in the Earthly Reality myself, not someone else. I’ll turn them into books. I’ll move them from the desk drawer to a bookshelf.”

“Books are books, but you need to come up with some kind of personal business. Maybe… Could you heal people?” asked Stasya.

Stasya was a successful businesswoman. She had different Teachers, but… periodically indulged in Black Magic, the danger of which I warned her more than once. I didn’t know why, but unlike me, my friend was sent men by the handful without a break so that I had no time to remember their names. My friend got probably offended, when she asked once again on the phone what I thought about Vasily, Peter and Konstantine, and I was silent, recalling who of them was who, not even trying to understand what had happened to Ivan, Pavel and Michael, about whom she had asked a month before. No, I didn’t envy her. Of course, I wouldn’t have managed a similar situation myself. However, the logic of the Higher Forces sometimes puzzled me.

I looked at Stasya with another vision. She noticed my gaze and asked with fear, “What do you see?”

“Wings,” I said calmly and added, “black ones.”

“So you’re the second to tell me this! What kind of wings?”

“Beautiful,” I laughed and glanced helplessly at the silent phone.

The MWWN, of course, wouldn’t call, I knew He wouldn’t, but I still wanted a miracle.

“Listen, open a training center. Let those you know teach people something too. It’s so simple!” proposed Svetlana.

“No, I can’t,” I shook my head, “I won’t succeed.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know to fill out tax returns.”

Svetlana laughed, but quickly forced herself to calm down and said, “Sorry, you’re right, lifting a table in the air is much easier than filling out a tax return, but I will teach you.”

I picked up the guitar. I sang looking at the silent phone. Nothing seemed to be easier than to get angry and send the Man Who Was Not to the far side of the Moon in order to see Him never again. However, I had long forgotten the way to get angry, and I would still see Him, no matter how far I sent Him, because He had long been a part of me, He was present in me all the time and would be already forever.

7. PEOPLE of LIGHT

Andrey was my earthly friend, who had known me for many years, or rather, like others, he thought he knew. After reading a fragment of my diary on the Internet, Andrey suggested having lunch at a cafe.

“Alice, let’s get acquainted! I saw only a part of you, the earthly part. And you are completely different.”

“Like everyone else, you see only what you want to,” I stated sadly.

“Doesn’t it bother you to communicate with ordinary people? Well, for example, with ones like me?”

“I look at a person and know immediately whether we can communicate or not. We have been friends for a long time, so don’t worry.”

“Can I ask you stupid earthly questions?”

“Of course, I’m even pleased when people ask questions.”

Andrey had to undergo surgery. I told him about the types of diseases, the causes for their occurrence, the ways to work with different types, which books to read and in what order. We smoothly moved into the field of Consciousness and Subconscious. I drew a lot of circles on a napkin, starting from the multifaceted Self to Anima Mundi (Soul of the World), talked about patterns and stereotypes, self-programming, the body-saving trance each of us involuntarily used to fall into several times a day, methods of Teachers, phobias and much, much more, up to comparative religion analysis in the context of the theory of reincarnation. At that point, Andrey awoke.

“When I was little, about four years old, I insistently asked my parents to take me to my mother’s grave in Germany, repeating that these parents, although good, were… in fact not quite mine. I said that my mother was transferring me in a baby carriage across the bridge in 1944 or 1945, when the bombing began and she died. Of course, they didn’t take me anywhere. Then I gave it up and forgot almost everything.”

“So you’re not so earthly. You’ve recalled a lot.”

“It’s you who are unearthly. I still remember you help us give birth to your namesake.”

Andrey had three daughters. When his wife was pregnant for the second time, I didn’t know about it. All that night I dreamed myself giving birth to a girl, so clearly that when I woke up, I was painfully wondering the meaning of my strange dream. I retold it to my colleague and immediately received a message from Andrey, saying, “The Earth has got one more Alice tonight!”

Andrey asked what anchor meant. I talked about the types of anchors and the possibility to anchor our Places of Power, which could help us in hard times.

“What are your Places of Power, Alice?”

“There are few of them. Nikolina Gora, for example, both grandmothers had cottages there. Funny, right? Being poor, I spent my summer time at two cottages among the royal castles. As a child, I used to merge with the Soul of the World through nature there, and it will forever remain my Place of Power. Then my French grandmother moved out and the second house was set on fire. But every summer I come to the river there. Mount Athos and Tibet also. I’d like to live in Lhasa or on the border with Mount Athos. I feel calm and comfortable there. Like at home.”

“Paris, no? Your French grandmother lived there.”

“My French grandmother, a light person, wanted me to visit Paris as soon as I could go abroad. She told me the street and the house she had lived. I ended up in Paris after her death, I walked the length and breadth of the city. Walking around the center, I came across her street and found her house. Several times I dreamed us walking together in Paris, but it’s still grandma’s city.”

“What other are yours?”

“I like Venice. I’ve been there many, many times. I don’t even remember how many. I often visited it with Brother. A strange city. Someday it will go under water,” I involuntarily shuddered, “like another city I see in my dream.”

“Another?”

“Not like others. There were no cars in it. There are no cars in Venice either, at least in its pedestrian and water area. And there was water too. Water everywhere. All around… My dream is also connected with water. I’ll tell you sometime later about my dream and that city. I think it used to be mine once. It was situated on the ocean shore. On an island or on some continent in the ocean. But it’s no longer there.”

“Doesn’t St. Petersburg remind you of Venice?”

“It reminds me of Venice and something I don’t want to remember at all. Therefore, let’s change the topic.”

“What kind of a person is that man of yours?”

“He is not a person,” I answered automatically for some reason.

“Who is he? Well, what do you see about him?”

“He is stronger and smarter than me. I look at Him from the bottom up, I am drawn to Him. He is the leader. I am the follower. I find it interesting and not boring with Him. We speak the same language and accept each other as we are.”

“Well,” Andrey sighed heavily, “you said too much in few words. Where is such one to be found? Who can speak the same language with you? In all my life, I have never met people who were as strong as you. And you need an even stronger one.”

“You don’t understand. You’re talking about people. He is like me, a different one.”

“Alice, who are you? Well, how did you end up here? Why did you come? Everything here is different.”

“I don’t know who I am. Nonna believes we both came down on our own, because we wanted to. I don’t know why, maybe, as she says, to feel this world, these objects,” I touched the table we were sitting at, “to try the food they eat here. To tell people here about what’s There. I haven’t recalled almost anything yet. I paint, and Nonna has goosebumps from my paintings, because she has already seen them There. I rejoice finding in the books of Teachers something I have known for a long time, but I don’t remember where from. Although the Voice I heard in my dreams in childhood taught me something. Many of my wishes come true instantly. But… I really want Love, no one has ever loved me for my existence here, just loved, just the way I am. However, I am not given such Love. I can’t explain why. It looks like a vicious circle. I don’t understand something. I can’t recall it.”

“You should feel yourself like someone, no?”

“A little silent girl from a stingy childhood, who every summer early in the morning went with her grandfather into the forests and wandered through them in complete silence. My grandfather picked up medicinal herbs, I picked up flowers, mushrooms and berries. He taught me to communicate with Nature: with trees, flowers, animals. By lunchtime we used to return to our cottage, where my friends were waiting for me: a hedgehog, a wild Siamese cat Panther and a White Rabbit. Probably every Alice should have her own White Rabbit. My grandfather built me a hut, a real house for a fairy. When the Sun was shining, I used to open the window. There were also two chairs and a small table inside. I used to seclude myself there and read books. The walls and roof were made of straw, laid out in several layers, with a waterproof film between, so I could stay in the house even in a downpour, and the door had a real lock. I remained that little girl.”

“I knew you as the general director of a large factory with a turnover of a billion.”

“You won’t believe it, once in anger I told a man who looked down on me and offended me very much that I would become, like him, a general director. And my words were taken there for an order. Well, let’s not talk about earthly things, rather let’s play. Trees are often played in art therapy. You should imagine yourself as a tree. What kind of tree are you? Where are you growing up: on the edge of a wood and alone, or inside a deep dense forest? What are your branches? Roots? Foliage? Is your tree sick or not? What is it afraid of? What’s the way to help it? Well, imagined?”

“I’m probably growing up in the forest. Everything is great there, and I’m not afraid of anyone.”

“I painted my tree upside down.”

“How is that?”

“Its roots are in the Sky, like snakes or lightning. The Moon lives in them. The tree is transparent. On a dark blue background. Its trunk is a guide from There to Here. And its branches hang over the sleeping city, creating something like a dome. But almost no one sees my tree.”

“Wow!”

“When I showed the picture to my son, he really liked it, but asked, ‘Mom, why did you do so with it?’ I said this tree was me. He sighed and said, ‘Now I understand.’ But I don’t know who I am. It’s just a game.”

“What other games do you know?”

“Visualization, for example. Imagine your dream as if already implemented. In detail, very colorful, with all the positive emotions that you experience. Then describe the picture in the Present Perfect tense, as if you have already got it. Return to the recording as often as possible, re-read it rejoicing.”

“So what? Will it come true?”

“Certainly.”

“Have you played this game?”

“Of course, I even came across a special notebook with the inscription ‘Book of Wishes’. So I used to write everything down there. For example, when the company I worked froze all projects due to the financial crisis, I described in the book a portrait of the owner of another company who would offer me a new job. Very detailed. Well, I mean the portrait not in terms of appearance. And he called me two weeks later.”

“And?!”

“I forgot to write down an important detail, to get a job in my city. He offered me a job too far away. So when you play, try not to forget anything.”

“Okay, what else can you do?”

“In general, nothing special. Everything that happens to me is as simple as two plus two. The youngest group of kindergarten.”

Andrey chuckled, but then he made a serious expression again and asked, “Do you always see the Future?”

“I never look into it on purpose. The Future is multivariate. Sometimes I see an option for the development of events, sometimes several at once. However, I always feel the point of no return, the moment when, out of the possible roads, only one is left, thus, there is no choice in the given period of time. At the age of four at our cottage on Sunday, I felt my father’s death. Dad was getting ready to go home to the city, and I began to sob heart-rending for no apparent reason, repeating, ‘He won’t come back’. Nothing foreshadowed his sudden death a few days later, but at that moment there was no other option. It’s always like that in life. There are many options at first, then their number decreases, the space narrows until all options collapse into the single possible. Usually, each step (choice) you take leads to another choice from several subsequent steps, as if a peacock tail is opening. Sometimes, when I need to know something, I pick up cards. Cards themselves are a kid’s game of fortune-telling. I receive answers and see what interests me not through cards, candles and similar attributes such as a pendulum ring, a bowl of water, coffee grounds. Knowledge comes by itself. But sometimes, I still take out the cards, light the candles, take the pendulum ring, make myself some coffee, because I want to feel like a little girl again and play.”

“Alice, have you ever practiced Black Magic?”

“This is what Black Magicians do.”

“So are you a White Magician?”

“I told you, I don’t know who I am. Anyhow, I can tell you about People of Light. It’s very difficult to accurately divide them into groups, because, as a rule, everyone who carries the Light within oneself can already do everything, but one needs to recall that. Some people need several lives for recalling, some need just one, and some even don’t need, since they come already awaken and able to do everything from birth. Some people are better at one thing, others at another. Someone succeeds in everything, but does only the necessary in each particular case.

My grandfather was a White Magician, emanating a warm Light. Possessing a strong but calm energy, he was mostly silent. I always felt his thoughts, and he felt mine. My grandfather reminded me of a mountain hermit. He loved nature and taught me to love it. Every summer, in addition to the cottage, we went for a week to visit his brother in the village, where I was taught to make hay and milk cows. I rode horses, and once spent a whole day tending a flock of sheep from all over the village. My grandfather never took any medicine, but he collected herbs, although I don’t remember him getting sick. I was born on his birthday, and we used to celebrate the holiday together. He told me the date of his death about a year before, while still healthy. A month before leaving, he dreamt his dead relatives calling him to Heavens. My grandfather died in my arms, with his arms around my neck when no one was around. He remained nearby for some time. I felt his presence. I wanted to leave the dark flat, where everyone had died and stuck after death, since the flat became a Portal to the World of the Dead, but I was afraid that my grandfather would condemn me. Then he came in a dream and let me leave.

There are Real Teachers among White Magicians. They teach people to use their own hidden resources and the Forces of Light, in particular, to heal the body. True, it’s rare for anyone to succeed. I mean people. White Magicians and Teachers, as usual, see and know clearly, some have other unique abilities.

Healers can see clearly, but they don’t have to. It’s imperative to unearth the cause of the disease in order to first eliminate it, then proceed to eliminate the effect on the physical level. Healers should be light and use not their own power in healing others, but the Power of Light. One of my Teachers is a Teacher and a Healer at the same time. It happens that I ask him some question, he immediately gets an answer from There, but clairvoyance is secondary for him.

Warriors of Light take the path of struggle against the Forces of Darkness, that is dangerous for them and their loved ones. Warriors of Light should know to both heal and see clearly. There are few real Warriors of Light, and, as a rule, no one around them realizes that they are Warriors of Light.

Those who just see clearly don’t practice healing, don’t take the path of struggle against the Forces of Evil, don’t teach others. If their energy is light, they are donors of energy. If a person sees clearly, but he is a vampire, he belongs to the People of Darkness. Usually, clairvoyance is an intermediate stage, because if you see something, sooner or later you’ll want to influence it and / or tell about it. So you can become either a Healer, or a Warrior of Light, or a Teacher. Nonna is a clairvoyant and, as she calls herself, Genie-woman, a performer of good wishes. At the same time, Nonna teaches people she meets, knows to remove darkness from them, and also makes amulets.

There are simply White People. It doesn’t matter whether they believe in the Higher Forces or not, the main thing is that they do Good. White people may wear black clothes and even have flaws, but Light predominates in them, therefore, one way or another, they are servants of the Forces of Light, too.”

8. PEOPLE of DARKNESS

I didn’t know why I came there. The Woman was late for an hour to spend about half an hour more telling me how cool she was and what cool people she had to work with. A too sweet doll-like smile froze on her masked face. She repeatedly called me by another name, at first I corrected her, but soon stopped, it was useless, since the Woman listened only to herself. Having finally spoken to her heart’s content, she said, “You must come to cast your spells to the Passage Court on the 5th of September!”

“Dad’s birthday,” I breathed out.

“Great, Marina! Invite dad!” exclaimed the Woman.

“I have everyone dead for a long time,” I said calmly, but the Woman didn’t hear and continued to talk nonsense about her cool friends who had come to the Passage Court on the day of someone’s birthday.

“So, Marina, invite your dad!”

“Of course. And dad, and mom, and others too,” I nodded, realizing that dialogue was inappropriate.

The girl at the next table cringed and tried to convey my previous words to the Woman. However, she was not at all embarrassed and with the same doll-like smile, looking at me as if at a child from the youngest group of a kindergarten, in an insinuating voice, as if sharing a terrible military secret, said, “Marina, there is a belief that the souls of the dead do not die, but… remain close to us!”

“Unbelievable! Really?!” I asked, supporting her sudden image of Christopher Columbus.

The Woman almost jumped at the discovery announced to me, “So invite dad! And one more thing… You must come shocking!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” the Woman looked displeased at my dress and hair. “You must come… how to say… to shock the audience!”

“Do you want me to come naked?”

The Woman didn’t understand that I was joking, got scared and cried out, “No, no! In no case! But you should do something at least with your hair!”

“I have horns at home. They can crown my hair,” I said absolutely seriously, and the Woman barely restrained herself from losing the smile.

“You will cast spells for about half an hour and exclusively by heart!”

“I don’t know my spells by heart.”

“Take it as your home task. You must cast by heart,” exclaimed the Woman, simultaneously opening my White Book of Spells at random, and as a speaker on the podium added, “You will be casting like that…”

Very loudly, with a pretentious look and the same smile never leaving her face, throwing her right hand in the direction of someone’s bright Future, the Woman began to cast my spell dedicated to the memory of my deceased mother, which was very sad and not at all intended to be cast from the podium before the public.

“Stop, enough, I got it.”

The Woman closed the book.

“Have you ever read my spells?” I decided to clarify, although the answer was obvious even to non-clairvoyants.

“No, Marina, I can’t stand spells! I read detective stories!”

“I understand you,” I nodded, mirroring the Woman’s smile in response.

“Anyhow, sign your book for me! By the way, how do you write spells?” the Woman asked, holding out her pen, and I thought, “If I don’t sign it now, will she finally part with her fake smile?”

“They come, I write them down.”

“So, maybe they are not your spells.”

“Maybe not mine. Perhaps yours.”

“Do you really think I could write a spell?”

“Certainly! Take any rhyme and put it at the end of the line. For example, Love – Dove.”

“So simple? I’ll try it today!” the Woman rejoiced.

Saying goodbye, she once again scanned me from head to toe with a disdain look, clearly unsatisfied with my appearance, and demanded that I come at least in a witch hat.

“Why?”

“All spell-casters correspond to the image that includes at least one element as a must. And this is a hat! You must also prepare a list of questions that I will ask you in public!”

“You may ask me any questions,” I said, thinking that I would gladly make a list of questions long enough for all the spell-casters in the world, but for a part of the Woman’s salary.

“No, Marina, you must think of the questions yourself!”

“Meanwhile, there are crowds of the unemployed outside,” I sighed at the elevator and…

…went to meet Olga, a spell-caster who had decided to publish her first book and wanted to consult with me. Besides, agree that, it’s always nice to talk with a kindred soul.

We met in a cafe in the city center, talked for a long time about spells and were just about to say goodbye, when Olga asked, “How are you doing… well, in life in general?”

“Hard times. You know, everything has been collapsing since January.”

“What else expect from the age of Christ? We all go through a kind of breaking. We must give to the world what we know.”

“Who are you?” I asked, already anticipating the answer. “Can you look through?”

“Yes, I can, but I don’t do Black Magic and advise you the same,” Olga said, simultaneously peering into my palm. “Oh, your extrasensory line is so clearly expressed that I may say nothing to you! And who are you according to the stars?”

“Mars in Cancer, Venus in Pisces, Lilith on the Sun, Selena and Sirius on the Ascendant, the Master of VIII in I, the Master of the I in XII, evil Pluto in V in opposition to the Sun.”

“Wow, ‘lucky’!”

“Yes, all the same in every Sphere: Spells – Magic, Magic – Spells, Love – Death, Death – Love. Anyhow, I don’t know who I am. If count the name, my full name means the Sun, and the short one means the Moon.”

“You must urgently sort out the knowledge you have acquired in your life and systematize it. Your head is overloaded with information in a chaotic form. At the age of 33, a new Solar cycle begins. If you don’t start doing for the world what you came into it for, you’ll be punished. I went through this myself. I didn’t have a childhood either. They say you paint. Would you show me your paintings?”

Then we talked about earthly things. I told Olga about the Creepy Woman, and we laughed, and I was happy that, fortunately, other women still existed on the Earth.

…For four months I had been asking the Man Who Was Not to meet me. I wanted to tell Him about my spells, job, the Creepy Woman. He promised to materialize himself on Wednesday or Thursday, but on Monday I knew that the meeting wouldn’t take place. He disappeared. On Thursday night, I wrote to Him, “Are you alive?” and got the answer, “Yes, why?”

So for three days I had been lying on the bed looking at the ceiling, when suddenly a word appeared on the phone screen, “Come”.

It was Ray, a mystical creature, I would even say, a real Black Magician, with whom we had known each other for about 100 years, but recently communicated exclusively mentally.

“Mistaken the number?” – “No, you just need it now.”

“So where, when?” – “Tomorrow afternoon.”

Ray always felt me, knew what was happening to me at a great distance, suddenly appeared on the horizon, and then just as suddenly disappeared. Memories of Ray took me back to the distant Past. Returning to the Present, I met the Sun in the window and went to the cottage.

The next day, waking up in the old attic, I felt that the depression had gone. The weather corresponded to the real summer, and I wanted to swim in the lake. I sent Ray a question mark and immediately received an answer, “Don’t come. You don’t need it anymore.” I got out of bed, stamped my foot and… laughed.

I looked around, as if seeing the attic for the first time, and suddenly realized that its strange decoration was nothing more than a mirror of my Subconscious. The bright Tunisian blue colored walls with Indian paintings with Arabic script, Moroccan lanterns and candles, oriental lounge with black bedspreads and a lot of lilac-orange-burgundy pillows on the floor, a hookah and cards, a pile of carpets underfoot, a red-yellow-black plaid on the bed under a white ceiling with black wood beams as all sorts of other things reminded me of Ray and Brother. In those years when they had been nearby, I felt truly happy. Parting with them was one of the biggest wounds not yet healed. They both saved my life that terrible autumn. How could I choose between them? And then I took a step into Another Reality, where none of them existed anymore.

Brother (that’s what I call him, we are not relatives), ten years older than me, is an oligarch, who, despite the enormous money and power, managed to remain a child at heart, a mischievous and eccentric boy I love very much. We are incredibly similar in character and appearance, although he is very tall and very, very handsome, next to him I seemed a fairy dancing on his palms. Full of doubts and hopes, Brother played business always moving forward, no matter the cost. Possessing excellent intuition in business, he understood nothing in people. I wanted to protect him, but he used to get angry when I tried to explain what I saw. We often quarreled at full, but quickly made up. He read no books, but my spells. Once I said, “Someday you will be proud of me,” and when I was officially recognized as a spell-caster, despite the fact that we almost didn’t communicate anymore, Brother called me and somehow embarrassed said, “Alice, I’m proud of you!” I caused him pain he couldn’t forgive. Of course, I can call him at any time, just like then, and he will definitely help, but we both know the door to that reality of ours is forever closed and will never be opened by any magic key.

…I met the Man Who Was Not two weeks plus those four months later… I wanted to wander with Him around the city, but we had dinner. He was hungry, I couldn’t eat at all – a common reaction to food when I was nervous. I was afraid of Him. He could hurt me and kill me with a word, deed or even just with silence. He, and not someone else, because no one had any power over me, except for those whom I loved.

I wanted to sit not opposite, but next to Him, pressing my cheek to His shoulder in silence, but… He was interested exclusively in earthly food, therefore, in order to avoid useless pauses, I told Him everything that came first to mind: about my job, Brother, that terrible autumn, the attic in the cottage, acquaintance with the Creepy Woman; but all that aroused no interest in Him. The MWWN was worried about one thing only – whether I had written in the Blue Book, which should be published by the date of the spell-casting at the Passage Court, that it was all dedicated to Him. I asked if He had received my paintings by email.

“I rarely check my mail.”

“How can I communicate with you?”

“We are already in communication!”

“I can’t see you.”

“Am I not with you now?”

“I write, but you don’t read my letters.”

“I’ve already said that I rarely check mail, and I don’t like writing letters.”

“I can’t call you, and you don’t call me.”

“I don’t talk to anyone on the phone.”

We were so similar! I liked neither talking on the phone nor writing letters. I almost never called anyone myself, and my home telephone was in mute mode for many years.

Having returned home, I wrote that I would like Him to remain in my life as a person with whom I would have the opportunity to simply communicate. As always, He didn’t answer.

…The world continued collapsing. Nonna said that she didn’t see me at the place where I had recently got a job, and that the Higher Forces wanted me to start giving people what I know. I completed the project in three weeks instead of eight, realizing that the owner still didn’t and wouldn’t have money for its implementation, and on the day the project was started up, the company was closed for an inventory with confiscation of property for non-payment of debts. I invited the owner to pay me out and let me go. The owner invited me to wait for the evening and get drunk with him in a haunted place with the last money he had, clearly not enough to cover even a negligible part of the promised to me for the project. The owner was all dark.

People are dark in different ways. In the dream called life, Black Magicians were sent to me repeatedly. They immediately recognized me, as I recognized them. During my student years, our teacher, a Black Magician, taught me not only a foreign language, but also the identification of the dead by photos. I was grateful to him for making me watch a film I would hardly have watched myself, since even then I had almost never turned on the TV. Few people like the film, basically everyone criticizes it for its immorality. Few people realize that one may not watch the screen at all if one sees what is left behind the scenes, but when asked why the girl kills the man – they both are the main characters – everyone answers differently.

Black Magicians offered me to play with them on their black field, but I didn’t agree. Thus, the wars used to begin, because the Black Magicians, as well as the White ones, know that two magicians – Black and White – cannot exist on the same territory at the same time, someone must leave. To be honest, I don’t like wars. Therefore, if I don’t have to communicate with Black Magicians due to forced circumstances beyond my control, for example, at work, I prefer not to communicate with such Entities at all. Black Magicians are not vampires. They are strong, clever and know to play well. They play so that ordinary people don’t even suspect who is nearby. The only advantage of Black Magicians over White ones is that the latter will never allow themselves to use the methods of Evil to defeat Evil. Evil will be punished in any case, and Black Magicians are well aware of it. Once it seemed to me that I could turn a Black Magician into a White one. However, this is an illusion, because Black Magicians themselves and quite consciously chose their Path. It is impossible to change the Magician unless the Magician himself wants it. If he wants to, he will do it without anyone’s help.

There is another category of Dark Entities. My grandmother the witch was not a Black Magician, but a clairvoyant vampire. She seemed to be an absolutely harmless old lady, but she had negative energy, so people tried to avoid her. Grandma knew everything about those near and far, about what was happening anywhere in the world, but she constantly needed outside energy to go on living. When I was eleven years old, the grandma was about to die, and I found myself in the intensive care unit in hospital. My mother wished in her hearts to change places with me. I was back. Mom died. The grandma survived. Exactly a year later, my mother’s sister moved to Another Reality too. Everyone around was dying, the grandma continued to live. She was unbaptized and never went to church even to listen to me singing there. She didn’t attend her daughters’ funerals and never went to the cemetery. When she fell down breaking her hip and was chained to bed, doctors gave her a maximum of six months to live, but she lived for five years. Feeling the approach of her death, the grandma asked me to bring her a cross, but immediately returned it back, saying that it was strangling her. The priest refused her communion and absolution, and ten days before death, she admitted to see the Lower Astral, where the sorcerers were intensively dragging her to. Relatives were so afraid of her posthumous power that cremated her body. Anyhow, I had to thank my grandma, since she taught me a lot. For example, to see without intermediaries. As a child, I asked her to tell fortunes by cards and say what each of them meant. The grandma chuckled, assuring that she didn’t know the meanings, but just knew. I understood her words many years later. All magical attributes are theatrical scenery. They help people open the Door to Another Reality. The highest level of obtaining information is when you know without intermediaries, and no cards are needed anymore.

There are simply Dirty People. These are precisely people, whose Light has gone out. I had to communicate with such man on business. Every minute of his life, every body movement, every ‘yes’ and ‘no’, as, indeed, everything in the world, had a certain value for him, expressed in pieces of paper. Someone once invented those papers, painted them in different colors, put numbers on them, and since then they have been called the magic word ‘money’. Magic, yes, because in this world money has a black magical power with a hypnotic effect on practically everyone. After communicating with dirty people, I always want to wash my aura.

However, there is one more category of Darkness as a Disease of the Soul that can affect the most ordinary People of Light and even White Magicians when the Higher Forces put them in a difficult situation. Such disease doesn’t manifest itself on the physical level immediately.

It’s necessary to dig out the cause in time so that, on the one hand, the body doesn’t get sick, and on the other, and more importantly, so that the Light doesn’t go out.

We were sitting in a cafe. The owner was all dark. He talked for a long time about his factories and the people who worked with him, about what could have been done and what could not. It was a pity, I couldn’t help him, since I had so little energy left that I didn’t even go out into the Flow.

“Alice, you’re so cool,” the owner said sadly. “If you had been with me from the very beginning, we would have already… Sorry, I played too much. I owe everyone a lot of money and I don’t know the way to get out of that Darkness. I wanted to take out a loan, but the banks refused. A jail or a shot… A shot or a jail…”

We said goodbye. He called me several times just like that, and then disappeared. So I was left without money, without job, but with a bunch of problems that snowballed at me from all sides.

All I had was the Man Who Was Not.

I tried to think what I could do on my own, giving out my knowledge to the world. I wanted to talk to Him. He promised to call back when he was free. He called me late at night. I managed to say only a couple of phrases before He said He couldn’t speak anymore, so He would call me back the next day. However, tomorrow has a habit of never coming… I wrote to Him several times, but His monosyllabic answers indicated that He didn’t read my letters at all.

9. EXAM of LIFE

I was woken up by a call from the Creepy Woman’s assistant, who specified the time of the performance at the Passage Court and reminded me about the shocking way I should come. I said I would come as I was. The girl didn’t agree. So I proposed them as a compromise option to write and cast spells instead of me. The girl was unsatisfied, she invited me to the Creepy Woman for face-to-face negotiations. The Woman had my phone number, but apparently considered herself too cool to call me directly. I didn’t want to meet her again, so I asked the girl to tell the Woman that I was waiting for her call. The Woman called only on the eve of the performance and, barely hiding her anger, demanded to appear at least in a hat.

Until recently, I was considered a trendsetter. I could afford to dress myself on the most expensive streets of Milan and Venice. Brother trusted no one but me to choose his clothes. I never wore the same evening dress twice. I gave it as a gift after going out in it. I could go for a walk and return home with diamonds, because butterflies were fluttering on a random ring, and I really loved butterflies. I always made spontaneous purchases because I had everything and didn’t need anything. However, I didn’t attach any importance to clothes, rings and other decorative nonsense, because I looked at people through their bodies and expected the same in return. The words of the Creepy Woman awakened in me the desire not to wash the time left before the performance and to take a bath in the garbage in order to appear at the Passage Court in the guise of a homeless person. Wouldn’t it be shocking? I never planned my clothes for the next day, dressing according to the mood of the morning. However, I wanted to come to the Passage Court in the dress of my official initiation into the Spell-casters, the MWWN had barely touched my back then, but I immortalized His touch in my “Dress” spell. So I asked if it would suit Him if I came to the Passage Court in That Dress, and He answered, “Of course.”

Of course, I was very worried, not about the casting of the spells at the Passage Court, the spells all written to Him, because of Him and for Him. I felt nervous as everyone before meeting the person one loved. He would be there, nearby. He promised to come. The only person, the virtual presence of whom in my life kept me on the Earth.

I came to the Passage Court to meet Him. He was absent. The Blue Book with my spells, promised to be published, never came out. The girl kindly offered me coffee, I agreed. There were ten minutes left before the performance. The Creepy Woman appeared with the same doll-like smile. Rolling her eyes languidly, she burst into exclamation to the entire Passage Court, theatrically holding out her hand to me, “Oh, thank you!!!”

“For what?” I asked, trying to restrain myself and, as always, already knowing the answer in advance.

“You did as I had asked and came looking like this!”

“I’m always looking like this,” I said calmly and turned away.

“First, you cast spells for half an hour, then questions. By the way, have you brought a list of questions for me to ask you?”

I wanted to dematerialize her, I couldn’t stand the presence of the Creepy Woman in my personal space.

It was uncomfortable for me to cast spells while sitting in their chair, moreover, casting spells for half an hour without a break, as the Woman ordered, was stupid. I got up and started as I should at that time in that place. He was absent. I was casting. He was absent. They were asking me questions. He was absent. I even managed to answer something and smile. To all of them. Someone came up and asked to sign my White Book. I signed automatically. Someone took a photo of me. I was already somewhere very, very far away. I was leaving. The girl asked me to stay for ten minutes to wait for the flowers, which they suddenly thought of and decided to gift me. She promised coffee and ran away. There was no place to sit down, I had to settle, like a poor relative, on the edge of the aisle, where I was constantly getting in the way. People around were talking about something, but I didn’t hear them.

Suddenly, the MWWN called. He said that he hadn’t managed to come because of something. I actually didn’t care why. I didn’t know what to tell Him. Or rather, there was too much to tell, and also… I just wanted to see Him. That potential meeting, I was looking forward to, and maybe the last one, looked like a ray of Light, but someone extinguished the Light, and the black tunnel of the Void was absorbing me again.

15 minutes passed, I constantly got in the way to all of them walking back and forth. The coffee was never brought, although I reminded the girl of her promise. The black walls of the Passage Court seemed to be about to collapse. I couldn’t stay there any longer, some Force pushed me out to run, run, run away. I was leaving. The Creepy Woman called out to me, but I didn’t stop, and she began to wail, “Oh, are you leaving already? Why? What about the flowers? They are coming soon! I didn’t even think you cast like that! May we invite you again?”

I nodded. The Woman let me go, but the girl called, asking where I was. A good question. Very appropriate. I didn’t know myself where I was then. The girl asked to come back for the flowers. I said it was a bad omen to return.

“What should I do with the flowers?”

“Gift them to the Woman,” I advised.

He didn’t call or write anymore. I was in a complete Void, and there was nothing and no one to lighten the Darkness.

…For five days I seemed to be dead. Someone performed automatic actions for me. I could no longer write spells, because, on the one hand, I had no strength left for anything at all, on the other hand, the one I wrote and cast them to didn’t need them.

Automatically turning towards the subway on the outskirts of the city, I heard the sound of a message from Ray, it consisted of the question mark only.

“I’m at metro A…” I answered.

“One stop down, exit to the right.”

It was not interesting to me how Ray ended up in these area, but I was glad to see him after so many years. We were having dinner in silence until Ray broke it with a question on a sore subject, “How does your Brother do? Are you in communication with him?”

“Almost not,” I sighed.

I accepted them both for who they were. However, Brother couldn’t communicate with Ray, moreover, the pathological tendency of Ray towards Black Magic…

Ray was a very powerful magician, although no one couldn’t say that from his appearance. They were the same age, but, unlike Brother, who played business, Ray played Black Magic, professionally and constantly, just as he constantly played with his own life and death. Anyhow, it was Ray who taught me to play with Time and Space. He artificially created extreme situations, setting, at first glance, absolutely impossible tasks, but I ended up completing them. Every time I scolded him for such experiments, feeling like a guinea pig, and he laughed. It was Ray who, by uttering a simple phrase, suddenly made me understand what Love is. Love meant Life for me, and the absence of Love meant Death, because Love gave me the strength to live. I had never realized the real Love essence before meeting Ray. It turns out that Love is when you accept your loved one as one is, without any exceptions and without setting any conditions, you accept and continue to love only for the fact that one lives in this world, to love just like that, and not for something, let one be free, without limiting in any way. You are happy that you can see your loved one, to talk even silently, and you are grateful to the Higher Forces for the fact that this person exists in your life no matter as who. Besides the fact that Ray had unique abilities to connect to the Universe Astral database, he was fluent in hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming techniques. I often witnessed how he confused people completely, splitting their Consciousness into many small pieces, masterfully playing words, and no one understood what was actually happening.

Ray brilliantly manipulated the Consciousness of others, but exclusively within the framework of Black Magic, and, as a result, paid for his game. Life constantly put him on the threshold of Death. For a long time, I tried to hold Ray energetically and began to die myself. Once he sadly stated, “Two polar magicians of equal power cannot stay together, one of them must die.”

“What are you going to do?” Ray asked, feeling everything happening to me, otherwise he would hardly have happened nearby then.

“I have to give into the world what I know from the category of practical Magic. White one.”

“Well, as for me…”

Ray spoke, as usual, in broken phrases that could be understood only by those who read minds and not listened to words. I interrupted him with a question, the answer to which would let me know whether Ray’s plan involved White or Black Magic. Ray sighed heavily. I shook my head sadly, “You barely survived then.”

Ray drove me to the subway. We sat in the car hugging in silence. We both didn’t care who had been present in the other’s life all these years.

“Do you know where I have been?” I recalled my trip to a haunted place suddenly, and Ray laughed, instantly scanning me. “All those people were so funny and strange! They asked stupid questions. One of them was a murderous maniac, and I got scared. Why do others see nothing? It’s all written all on his face!”

“You see it, Alice, and I do, but are all people like us?” he said, stroking my hair. “I don’t want anything else. Emptiness. Tell me,” Ray suddenly asked quietly and somehow compassionately, inviting me to tell about the Man Who Was Not, I had never mentioned before, at least out loud.

“I’m tired of the Void too. I need HIM to be near. Somewhere. Somehow. Him, do you understand? What do you see about me? Tell me!”

Ray shook his head negatively and again stroked me so tenderly as once upon a time, the same September, when I had been at the edge of the abyss as well. So I didn’t want to think about anything, and I fell somewhere again, closing my eyes, pressing my cheek to his cheek, fell somewhere where there were no thoughts, but the music of tenderness was playing. Time stopped. The world stopped.

“Well, I’ll go,” I said, abruptly tearing myself away from his cheek when a very beautiful, but sad song sounded on the radio.

“You had short hair then,” he sighed.

I got out of the car and walked a few meters. He beeped to me. I turned around. For some reason, like many people, he didn’t like that I never turned around when leaving. Ray waved at me. I didn’t know when I would see him the next time or if I would ever see him again. Alive.

In the evening, I received a call from the Most Important Society of Spell-casters with an urgent request to find portraits of the most famous spell-casters of the Silver Age and put them in frames, I had to paint in the appropriate silver color, in order to hang them in the end in the central office. My soul shrank as I remembered that some of the spell-casters had hung themselves. I tried not to think about Death, but less than in a day I got a call from a small Community of Spell-casters. I was asked to urgently send my spells to a collective book dedicated to Sergey Yesenin. I shuddered involuntarily. At the same time, I had to release my own book on the topic of “A Spell-caster and Suicide” called “Dance with me on the windowsill!” with dedication to Marina Tsvetaeva. Death was wandering somewhere nearby.

Re-reading Yesenin, I entered the Flow. Everything merged together – their feeling of hopelessness, my loneliness and absolute darkness. I seemed to feel the same they had once felt. For several days, while in the Flow, I wrote spells, trying in vain to return to Earth. Standing on the edge of the Abyss, I thought that I lived in a huge city with a lot of people. They surrounded me everywhere: in the subway, on the streets, in shops, cafes, offices… Like me, they were always in a hurry somewhere and often late, because sometimes one needed to stop and help someone feel not alone in a crowd of people in a big city, just a few kind words were often enough for that.

Many people argue about the Silver Age spell-casters whether they really left on their own. Read what they wrote in their last years, isn’t it obvious that they were already more There than Here? Death is always attracted by ourselves. If those nearby, instead of watching from the auditorium what was happening, had climbed onto the stage and helped those leaving to emerge from their dying state, their spells would have been different, and Death would have gone away. Life can take everything away from people and put them on the edge of an abyss, but not everyone, hovering over the abyss, shows others what is going on in one’s soul. At that moment, someone utters an unkind word, and another one is no more on the Earth. They wonder why suddenly, but in fact, that word was the last straw of the patience. However, if there is at least someone nearby to support a person with simple human communication… Please don’t be late.

I used to open my personal email about once a month because I communicated with everyone through my office box. When another one “once a month” came, I discovered a letter of a stranger sent to me three weeks before. As I read his suicide note addressed to me, my heart sank closer to my heels, and the feeling of guilt came up to my throat and eyes. He wrote it in an absolute calm manner, like someone who had already decided everything for himself – no cries, no emotions, no accusations of anyone, not even a story about why in fact the person decided to leave. The stranger said that he had read my spells having by chance run upon them on the Internet, and he felt that I had passed through fire, water and copper pipes, so I would understand and not judge him. He didn’t ask me for help, just said goodbye to our world through the letter addressed to me. Of course, I immediately wrote an answer, but I knew that I was late. I cursed myself for opening my email once a month, perhaps I could hold the stranger. And until now, even though everyone says that I am not an employee of the Rescue Service, the feeling of guilt lives in my Subconscious, periodically surfacing.

The next morning on the subway, I ran into an ex-classmate who, after graduating from school, had taught me theory at driving course and recommended the best teacher of driving practice, an instructor. A bright man of about fifty, he used to joke kindly when I knocked down some sticks, trying to imitate driving into a virtual garage in reverse. When the practice course was over, my ex-classmate taught me the rules of the license getting game with the flirting name “Get me!” Actually, everything you need to receive from someone in this world, is subject to approximately the same rules. Sharing the latest news, my ex-classmate suddenly became gloomy and said that the instructor had left on his own. I didn’t even believe it at first. However, one day a girl incredibly similar to his late wife and with the same name Elena had come to him as a student at the driving course. She became a ray of Light for the instructor. He explained to the girl what caused his reverent attitude, and asked to communicate with her sometimes in a purely friendly way. Elena laughed at him and left his life forever. Considering himself unworthy of communication, the instructor decided to leave his life as well.

I wrote a spell about the spell-casters leaving for Another Reality unable to pass the exam of life, and I couldn’t help but send it to the Man Who Was Not. His answer killed me, “Meanwhile it would be better to be glad that your body with its nine holes is intact, that you didn’t get the fate of being deaf, blind or lame, that you have a human appearance! Why grumble against Heavens? Go away!” I was standing on the ground at that moment, but if I had been at home, I would have gone out the window.

10. SIGNS

I lay home looking at the ceiling. Spells were sent to the collection of dedications to Sergey Yesenin, portraits in silver frames were transferred to the central office. The doorbell rang. I reluctantly got out of bed and saw Lera on the threshold. We had got acquainted a month before in literary circles.

“You are all dark. You won’t last that long. I felt you and decided to stop by,” she said and added with a smile, “Don’t be scared, I see through, too, and like attracts like.”

We sat in the kitchen. She talked about herself. Lera was my age and, like me, had been a successful businesswoman, the owner of five salons that had to be closed instantly. Lera went through the same breaking period, as me, although the immersion into Another Reality happened to her not so long before. I suggested experimenting “on cats”, holding out two photos, of Ray and Brother, which I had shown to Nonna. Lera told the truth, as well as Nonna, but looking at the same photos, they didn’t say the same thing, each of them saw their own fragment of the picture.

“Sorry, I didn’t come to you at the Passage Court. I saw that everything would be dark there, and you as well,” then Lera spoke without photos about people she had no prior information, and I watched the flow of information coming upon her, in numbers and images, which Lera tried to interpret.

I placed my left palm opposite her right. Almost immediately, an energy wave appeared between the palms, and, beating into the palms in turn, it couldn’t dissolve or disappear in one of them. My left hand was the “receiving” one, like Lera’s right hand. Lera tried to read information from my palm, and I tried to read it from hers. Thus, we pushed the wave back and forth, but due to the equality of forces, no one could drag the blanket over oneself. It was funny to me, but I was waiting for Lera to feel the same. At some point, she gave up and laughed, “Well, what are you doing? You are taking it away from me!”

I gave her my right palm. Lera closed her eyes and started, “You are walking on the edge of an abyss. The abyss is on the left. You are on the right. There are mountains everywhere around. You are going to the highest one. And you’ll definitely get there if you don’t look into the abyss. You’ll gain secret knowledge. The Book of Knowledge is there. Usually, there is a Guardian Angel, or spirits, or someone else nearby, but you are alone. It’s the first time I see such thing. You probably came from the Higher Spheres. It seems, before you were born, although you decided to be born yourself, and not because it was necessary, you told them There, ‘Don’t touch me! I want to do all by myself!’ Now they are looking at you from There and have no right to help, since it was your decision. Do you understand?”

“I have a picture, painted after meditation. You’ve just described it. It was in Tibet, but in some other Tibet, I didn’t see it when I was there in reality. Imagine, some of the mountains are real, while others are different, ordinary people cannot see them. I don’t know what kind of place this is, but everything merges there, visible and invisible.”

“Shambhala!” Lera breathed out deeply. “You have been to Shambhala!”

We exchanged some mystical life stories, enjoying communication, because it was rare to meet a person who, like you, knew how easily it was to transfer Consciousness from the physical body to the astral one and back.

“Imagine, Lera, I went into a monastery shop on the Solovetsky Islands, realizing that I needed to find icons that could be purchased only there. It’s a waste of time to look at the contents of the shelves with my weak earthly vision. There was no one in the shop except me and two saleswomen. I asked permission to come closer, explaining the reason, but they refused, saying, ‘Tell us which one you need, and we will show you.’”

“Great test for the Third Eye!” Lera laughed. “Once again, you felt like a guinea pig in the hands of the Higher Forces, didn’t you?”

“Well, I closed my eyes and asked for a monastery in the sky, but the result didn’t impress the Higher Forces, the saleswomen got lost in thoughts, and I had to clarify without thinking, ‘The 3rd from the left on the 2nd shelf from the top.’”

“So did the monastery in the sky turn out to be on the third icon from the left on the second shelf from the top?”

“Yes, I wouldn’t have believed it myself, it was the icon with the founding elders seeing their future monastery. The same way I got the Stove icon, found behind the stove in which monastery bread was baked in the 16th century, and the Solovetsky image of the Virgin with a handkerchief in Her hand.”

“I finally understood to whom I brought Holy Water from the Caves!” Lera exclaimed joyfully. “To you! They forced me to take it, but I didn’t understand for whom, however, I took it!”

“It happened to me, too. I went far away to the Thirtieth Kingdom to admire a huge temple complex. For some reason, I wanted to take three of my books with me. On the plane named after a famous Spell-caster, I decided to re-read my book to pass the time. The stewardess hovered over me several times, and then asked for a book as a gift, as it turned out, she was fond of spells.”

“Aerobatics! Who was the second one for?”

“I was supposed to stay for a week in a transit Kingdom, traveling to its different cities. In the last of them, our guide had made her dissertation on comparative religion analysis, as I had done in my time. We started talking. It turned out that she liked spells, moreover, that day was her birthday.”

“Great! And the third one?”

“The third one was still languishing in my rucksack when a local driver from the Thirtieth Kingdom came to take me to the airport. I was already nervous. He knew no languages, except the local dialect, so we drove to the airport in silence, said goodbye with smiles, and I was already approaching the door, when suddenly he caught up with me and exclaimed in English, ‘Book!’ I looked at him with a silent question. Helplessly apologizing, he pointed his finger at my rucksack saying several times, ‘Irina… Travel agency… Book… Irina… You… book…’”

“Of course, you didn’t know any Irina!”

“As anyone else in that Thirtieth Kingdom, indeed. I took out the third book and happily got rid of it!”

“Amazing!” Lera laughed. “Tomorrow I’ll bring you water. You know, I see your Sun on a black background. You should re-paint the background. And the number ‘37’ comes. Be careful at that age, okay?”

I nodded obediently, Nonna mentioned the same number.

…When you don’t drive a car for a long time, it has a habit of not starting, being offended that you forgot about it. As people say, the battery discharged. I came to the abandoned Fox. It apparently sympathized with me and therefore, in spite of everything, started up. I had to take it for a walk. I went to the cemetery. I don’t like cemeteries. The Lower Essences, feeding on the energy of people grieving for their dead, live there. Usually, I come to the cemetery only in spring and on my father’s birthday, in the fall, to check if everything is safe and sound, and not at all in order to communicate with those who are not at the cemetery. I silently looked at the photos of my parents. My father was killed, and my mother died so that I could live. I had to live for some reason, but there was no life in the Void, existence only. It started to rain and I went home. On the way, I stopped at the newly opened gift shop. On a shelf, right at eye level, I noticed… the Girl with the Moon Cat, the same ones I had painted! I froze, not believing my eyes. I stood looking at the statuette for a long time, without touching it for fear that it would disappear. There was no price tag, but the inscription, “Enigma. Girl with the Cat.” A blond-haired Girl in a purple-blue, sleeveless, toe-length dress, straight out of my paintings, walked somewhere into the distance, holding a smoky Cat in her hands. Finally, I took them in my hands, afraid to drop the statuette. It was in a single copy.

I showed the find to my son at home.

“Where did you find it? This is a sign, mom!!!”

Nonna called me at midnight. She talked about herself. I told her about the Girl with the Moon Cat. Nonna agreed, a sign.

“Just which one?” I asked thoughtfully.

“A sign that you are on the right Path, Alice. This year has become a year of creativity for you. Remember, my dear, how many books of spells from your table drawer have been published! How many pictures have been painted about what you see There? Am I wrong?”

I agreed, but what was the sense, if the man I asked for human communication had written, “Go away!” Was it so difficult to give another person the possibility to talk to you? For some reason, I took the phone and wrote to the MWWN that it seemed like I had gone through everything on the Earth and it was time to leave. He replied, “Don’t die. The World of Magic will go out”. Very funny. I offered to meet to gift him my Blue Book, finally published and dedicated to Him, and He disappeared again.

Signs are sent to people all the time, but for some reason people don’t see them or don’t want to, continuing to search and even find them where there are no signs at all. It’s advisable, in addition to obvious signs, to learn to feel the Wind of Change. I like to receive signs of displacement in the Space of Options, getting into a transit zone. A transit zone is an intermediate state between two lines of life, like changing those of the subway. You are clearly no longer where you were yesterday, but not yet where you will be tomorrow. Everything seems to be the same, but something, barely perceptible at first, looks different. For example, you go to the same cafe every morning for many years, and the waitress knows that you drink coffee with two sugars. But for some reason, today she brings you… tea… without sugar. You leave the cafe, approach the car, but it won’t start, although yesterday you parted on a friendly note, and there is no reason for its whims. Then you take the subway, glance at the book the girl sitting next to you is reading, and snatch out, “Never say never”. Then, as in a chain, you get exactly what you always and absolutely sincerely believed would never happen to you.

One day, having left work early, I was wandering along the main street of the city in search of a gift. It was very hot and stuffy. To get to the other side of the street and continue the search, I went down into the underground passage, where there were many small shops with various things, and stopped at one of them, looking at the display window. Suddenly, I got so terrible headache that I decided to go down into the saving coolness of the metro and go home. While waiting for the train, out of habit, I glanced at the clock above the tunnel. As soon as I entered the train, my headache instantly went away. In the evening, it turned out that I had got a headache two minutes before the explosion in that very underground passage.

A few years later, I was going abroad for the New Year holidays. The travel agency said that I was late, since the airplane tickets had run out, but they offered me another place five days earlier, I agreed. On the eve of departure, some tourists returned their tickets, and I was glad to come back to the initial option of my trip. The next morning, I was woken up by a phone call of Brother, who didn’t know that I had changed tickets. “Where are you?” Not understanding his anxiety, I answered in surprise, “At home”. He sighed with relief and told me to turn on the TV, which performed a decorative function in my flat, since I hadn’t watched TV for many, many years. That morning I betrayed my principles and was horrified by huge waves, a tsunami, everything was in the water.

Water is known to cleanse, although, not all and not always. For some reason, the word ‘geese’ immediately came to mind. You can do a lot of interesting things with water. For example, you can write on it with a pitchfork. You can charge it and spell to it. Or you can silently look into the water and see. Since birth, I was terribly afraid of water, though not just any, but a selected one in such natural places as rivers, lakes, ponds, seas, oceans. Mom didn’t understand why, and tried to teach me to swim in the river near our cottage. I resisted in every possible way, scratching and even biting. At the same time, I was not at all afraid of water in bathrooms and swimming pools, no matter how deep they were, so as a result, I was sent to learn swimming in the pool. As I grew up, I learned to overcome my fear and even swam behind buoys in the sea. However, subconsciously… any waves, including small ones evoke in me (and, probably, will always do) a persistent desire to run away as quickly as possible.

That night I got the very same strange dream, shown to me periodically in numerous variations throughout my life. A City. A different one, not like all the cities on the Earth. There are completely different houses and no cars, in general everything is different. And then a huge wave appears. So big that it’s difficult to imagine in reality. Everything dies in this wave. I’m trying to run away, hide somewhere, but there is so much water that I’m drowning. The whole city is sinking. Everything is drowning. There is no one left. No one at all. At all.

In the morning I found Lera’s page on the Internet and read her spells written after our meeting. One of them was clearly not in her spirit.

“What have you done!” Lera said, laughing into the phone. “Yesterday I returned from you and went headlong into the Flow!”

“Were you hanging out in my sector, by any chance?” I asked laughing, and, without waiting for an answer, reassured, “Come on, relax, there are enough spells for everyone. If you got them from my sector, I don’t mind. Welcome again. If you meet me, we can chat right there. You know, the other day I had a long, long spell flowing down all night, sounded like the ‘Black Man’ by Yesenin, as if I was talking to my mother. I still remember some lines. Anyhow, I forced myself not to write it down. It was so painful that I purposefully left the Flow.”

“I need to pass you the Holy Water, Alice! Let’s meet in the city, the city is a distraction.”

I lived at the end station. An empty train arrived. The doors opened, people rushed to take their seats, but I crossed the threshold of the carriage with difficulty because I smelled Death. I knew its smell since childhood, a smell that you feel not with your nose, but with knowledge. A girl was lying on the seat between the doors in an unnatural position; long blond hair completely covered her face, and her bag was missing. Everyone thought that she was drunk and asleep, so they bypassed her and took places further away. I knew she was dead.

The doors closed, the train entered the tunnel. I wanted to go to the small gray box with a red button to inform the driver about the girl, but I realized that I wouldn’t be able to contact him. When the train arrived at the next station, a woman approached the box, tried in vain to press the button and shouted, “The girl is sick here! Do you hear?” But no one heard her, since the connection didn’t work. I began to think about why and how the girl had died, but… what difference did it really make, why one was no longer alive? The main thing was that one no longer existed.

We met in the city center. As Lera was handing me the water, the bottle slipped out of our hands.

“Yes!” Lera exclaimed joyfully to the surprise of those around. “Yesterday I saw it falling! So I have poured it into a plastic bottle today! Water is a crystal. It’s all glowing. You’ll realize it while drinking. There is a source with an enormous glow there.”

Lera often went on weekends to her Teacher the Hermit, in another country, from where she brought water. I immediately saw him as soon as Lera began her story, and my picture completely coincided with her description of the Hermit.

“Alice, have you ever noticed in the metro, that no one seems to notice you? Well… as if you are in your own reality, and people are in another?”

“The metro is one of the flows. You can work miracles in it, play with time and space, while remaining invisible to others.”

“I agree! You know, the last time I visited the Hermit, I recalled myself coming down Here. Like in your picture with the snake, back and forth, remember? The Earth was a small ball, I was getting closer and closer. It was spirally, and the spiral twisted clockwise. Then I began to distinguish continents, mountains, forests and saw a city. I was not alone. A lot of people just like me were flying nearby… Exactly as you painted.”

I smiled, remembering Nonna’s words, “You must recall everything! Become aware of a dream called life. As soon as you become aware, you will recall what is There you came from. I remember you, we talked There. I read your poems in the Library of the Universe. There is your sector there, you have already written them all, and now you are reading them. And you don’t remember me! You don’t remember almost anything at all, my green one!”

…I got out of the elevator and headed towards my flat, when… I was abruptly stopped by a familiar smell. Death had been there, not long before.

In fact, Death is always nearby. People don’t want to think about it, but if they don’t think, it doesn’t mean at all that Death is somewhere far away. Death is the best adviser; facing it, we realize what is really important in life and what is nothing.

Last winter, I went out in the corridor with elevators at night and suddenly heard a Voice, neither female nor male, Voice of Death. It said something quickly in an unfamiliar language. Instantly a picture appeared before my eyes – a coffin near the flat on the left. Some minutes later, Tanya, the daughter of my neighbors from that flat, came out of the elevator. I looked at her with a silent question, and she said that her mother was dying. Later, Tanya stood at the door of their flat being afraid to enter it.

“Is she there?” I asked, nodding towards the door.

“No, but I’m still scared… First dad, then mom. Mom had suffered from cancer for four years, and when something had happened to my dad’s spine, he couldn’t stand it and cut his veins. I still talk to him, he didn’t leave, he says they don’t allow. And now… mom.”

“Let your mom go. I didn’t let go mine for a long time. She suffered.”

“Well, what to do with dad?”

When I came to the Temple, I used to stand at the icon, the name of which I didn’t know, but I felt it was mine. From the age of thirteen, when I first found myself in the Void by the window, I was drawn to it like a magnet. Ten years later, I found out its name, and ten years more later, in a book by a clergyman, I found a mention of the icon in the chapter “Advice for relatives of suicides”. It turned out that one could pray for those who had left on their own. So all my life, or rather the last two thirds, I had been praying not to leave like them. I told Tanya the name of the icon.

That day Death visited the flat on the right, of Maria and her old mother, both doctors. Not so long before, the old lady had come to look at the Girl and the Moon Cat and asked me for a book with my spells. I was afraid of being judged for my frankness, but, surprisingly, returning the book, the old woman sadly said, “You are unearthly, Alice. It’s so hard for you to live among us!” Later Maria would say, “Mom came to say goodbye on the eve of her 40th day. Do you know what she looked like? An exact copy of your Moon Girl on the dark blue background of Eternity. Her ghostly outline with my mother’s face. I will never forget that.”

At night, I received a message from Lera, “You won’t believe it! Just now during meditation I saw your painting! The one with the Pyramid!”

“It’s interesting,” I thought. “People look at my paintings recalling each their own. Did I paint to make it easier for them to recall?”

…We still met, me and the Man Who Was Not. He had made me the appointment a day before in a specific way, reminding me of Ray, “Tomorrow. At lunch. Downtown. There is some kind of a haunted place there. Not far from a gourmet restaurant. I don’t remember the name. But it’s somehow very reminiscent of something…” Try to make an appointment with someone, preferably in a city with a population of some millions, by copying and sending the above text.

We were sitting opposite. He ate, as always. As always, I couldn’t eat anything. I gave Him my Blue Book dedicated to Him. He took it in hands and politely leafed through it. As usual, he was looking at, I was looking through, meanwhile we talked about Magic and spells. Everything seemed to be the same as always, but something was wrong. I couldn’t understand what exactly.

“You’re a witch,” He stated calmly.

“What kind of witch am I? What a witch out of me?” I asked without being offended at all.

“You are wandering along some Flows, playing Another Reality and hiding your true essence, periodically working in some offices on the outskirts of the city… It’s all written on your face. When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

I realized that it was a compliment.

He fell silent, lowered his head, closed his eyes for a moment and then silently looked at me again, and I was frozen by what I saw. His eyes became huge and changed color to black, his pupils disappeared. A horrible Creature, who had moved into Him or awakened in Him, looked at me from His eyes, which no longer seemed to be His eyes. A whiff of cold. He remained silent. Of course, I urgently needed to put a virtual mirror between us so that the Creature would admire itself and not harm me. However, it looked at me with genuine interest and curiosity, the way one looked at something one saw for the first time. Suddenly, the Creature burst out of His eyes into many snakes and approached my face with some caution, without touching me. We studied each other until the Creature finally went away. The MWWN closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. Everything changed for usual, it was Him again.

The MWWN asked if I kept copies of my spells somewhere besides the computer. A strange question as a sign from Heavens. I felt the urgent need to copy them somewhere else. Just in case.

We said goodbye. I wanted to stop the world, stop Time.

Nonna says that I feel Time differently. People think that I am moving by leaps and bounds, accomplishing in a year what they cannot achieve in several years. However, I seem to be always late, that’s why I rush even more to get everything done before leaving the Earth. Nonna thinks that I still have not been able to adapt to the local Time from the Time of There, which flows differently. Once, I was struck by the sound of an alarm clock, since I suddenly realized what Salvador Dali had painted. His liquid clocks, for example. Dali had been There, surely, so he tried to explain to us through the picture that Time was different.

Anyhow, Time didn’t stop. The MWWN, as always, kissed me on the cheek. As always, I left without looking back. Who was He? Who sent Him to me and why? Why was everything going that way and not another? What kind of Creature was that? What did the sign mean? What else should I understand or recall? Why did I come on the Earth? The pictures were painted. The spells were published. What was I doing there?

11. TURN ON the LIGHT!

I was drinking tea in a cafe with my friend and ex-classmate Alexey, who sometimes played with the speed.

“Alice, can you really tell from photos whether a person is alive or not?”

“Photos are no longer needed,” I said thoughtfully.

“Could you help me?”

“Tell me what.”

“Ten days ago, six fishermen went to the lake. Three people per boat. One boat returned, the others did not. The lake is large, in some places it reaches even 100 kilometers by 100 kilometers, and its shores are invisible. They are looking for people, walking around villages.”

I saw the night, a boat. As if I was nearby standing on the water to the left. A big wave hit the bow of the boat, as well as on the left side, coming exactly to the middle. One man was sitting at the bow, the second one at the back, and, for some reason, the third one was standing at full height on the right side of the boat, closer to the second one. The boat capsized to the right.

“Dead,” I said.

“Why? What happened?”

“Are there waves there? Isn’t it a lake?”

“There are. Rarely, but they do happen. Nobody knows where they come from. Suddenly, a strong wind and waves arise. Big ones.”

“No need to look for them. They’re dead. Do you have a map to look at the lake?”

“I’ll send it to you tomorrow.”

“Okay, I’ll take a look again at home at night… Do you happen to know whether post-impregnates are used in short-cycle presses? And what does Anima Mundi need to gain as a result of this earthly cycle?”

Alexey looked at me meaningfully and laughed.

I returned home, lit candles, closed my eyes and tried to imagine the lake again. There was something at the bottom, they got caught on something sunken. Perhaps they would find one, maximum two, but definitely not three of them. I imagined a map in the shape of a rectangle, divided it with a vertical line in the center, they were to be looked for on the right. Then I made two horizontal lines to get three equal parts. They were in the middle part, to the right of the center. “Okay, I’ll look at the real map tomorrow to double check!” I thought and went to bed.

The first thing I did in the morning in the office was checking my email. I saw the letter with a map attached. As I opened the letter, the mail froze. Then everything collapsed. I tried to open it again, it didn’t open for an error. I restarted the computer. It repeated 5 times in a row. The system administrator would be there in the evening. I sat down to work at an empty computer nearby and wrote to Alexey, “Call me”. He called back, I told him about what had happened to the computer and what I had seen without a map.

“Years ago, many villages were flooded there. In some places the domes of churches still stick out. Christmas trees at the bottom, flooded, are growing. But it can’t be as you say, Alice. Do you know why? One boat has been found now below, on the left side.”

“Sorry,” I smiled and even rejoiced, however, not for long – two hours later I received a message, “One was found. Dead. In the place you had told me.”

In the evening, I received a letter from an emigrant spell-caster. She felt my bad mood and offered to count me. No longer surprised by anything, I sent the required dates. According to the miscalculations made a year before by my godmother, almost a fairy, I accidentally ended up on the Earth, my roots were lost somewhere in the Universe, and I really missed my real home. According to the midnight miscalculation of the emigrant, I had extrasensory abilities of bio energetic healing, magic, magnetism, influencing the world through Love and Creativity, and carrying vibrations of the Higher Spheres. I clenched my head in my hands, “What should I do here? Why did I come down anyway? Who am I?” My Future was still closed. I always saw something ahead before and walked into the distance. At that time, nothing but the Void, which in its essence was Death.

That day I was informed that RAM came in our city again. Six months passed since the previous seminar, and after the film shown on the 1st TV Channel, there were twice as many people wishing to get to the Teacher as the hall could actually accommodate.

I entered the hall where about two hundred people had gathered. Sea of flowers. TV team. I walked up to RAM and silently handed her the books. She smiled, “Is that YOU?! Are these your books?!” Millions of people passed before her eyes, but she recalled me. The hall fell silent. The TV cameras turned on. At first, RAM, as usual, spoke about herself, about the capabilities of everyone. People came to her from all over the world, expecting a miracle, but for a miracle to happen, we must create it ourselves.

I was looking at the golden glow around her head when RAM introduced me to the seminarians. I came out with books, said that after the seminar they had published my spells written two-thirds of my life for the table drawer, I had been officially recognized as a spell-caster, awarded a medal, and I had painted a series of meditation pictures about the Girl with the Moon Cat. At that moment the audience burst into applauses – I seemed to be the happiest woman in the world.

Then the mantras came again. I didn’t feel my body. The body was petrified and empty. I knew, when I returned, it would be difficult to assemble it, and for a minute or two it would be still alien. The same meadow, the same mountains, ordinary and other. 108 springs, the abyss, a thin thread to the monastery on the hill. My Monk, that time all in white. He emanated such a strong dazzling radiance that his face was invisible. Radiance, similar in shape to a huge luminous egg. I walked to the monastery. The same monks. In orange, as usual. I wanted to enter the temple. If I had no right, they would stop me. So I stepped inside. There was a statue of Buddha in front of me. I held in my hand the cross bought in Tibet in reality, similar to the Orthodox one, but made of metal wire tied with threads of rainbow colors, with a multi-colored tassel of the same threads at the bottom. I stopped at the Buddha statue and asked to help me understand who I was. I entered the room to the left, the book depository. There were a lot of old books there and almost no light. Very quiet. The racks were located at a distance of a meter from the floor to the ceiling, along all walls. There was a niche under the shelves. I bent down and passed under the books when a monk appeared in the room. I didn’t know him yet. I was afraid he would say I must not be there, but he smiled, and a book flew off the shelf into his hand. He opened it and showed to me. I saw entries in Sanskrit. I said mentally, “I don’t understand”, and smiled. The monk pointed with his eyes at the third room, located to the left, the entrance to which was hung with a thick black cloth. I was scared, but the monk silently waited for me to enter it, and I did. The secret room was small. Blue walls were in a foggy haze. Exactly in the middle, a silver light was pouring straight from the sky. I stood under it, and it poured into my astral body, filling it with energy. Monks appeared in the room and recited mantras, walking around me in a circle with ancient books in their hands.

A small monastery garden. An old well. Monks took up silver-colored holy water with wooden buckets. Each of them came up to me in turn and poured the water on me. I rejoiced and smiled at them, and they at me. It was getting dark. The monks began to dance around the fire or a vat of incense. I used to dance next to them, but that time with each of them in turn, and then they walked around me, dancing inside the circle. I tried to count them, but I kept getting confused, due to the misty haze of incense (or fire?) I could hardly see their faces, and they were constantly moving, probably twelve of them in total. I felt the time for me to leave. The monks came up to me in turns, and as a farewell, passed their second and third fingers, without touching, exactly in the center of my forehead in the area of the Third Eye, blessing me. I left for the fire-colored Sky and felt good floating in it. I was not even a ghost. I had no contours anymore. I had nothing else. My Self didn’t exist anymore. I threw away the superfluous and became everything. I was Sky.

During the break, I was lying on my rug with my eyes closed, when I suddenly heard RAM’s voice.

“Alice, wake up! You know, I’ve read what you wrote about Another Reality.”

“Who am I?”

“You are the same as me. You can everything. The Universe database is open to you. You can take any information from there. There is nothing strange or bad about this. It’s just given to you.”

“I am in the Void.”

“I realized it, but you did the right thing to give people what you created and carried in yourself all these years! Just think of what a heavy burden you have just got rid of!”

“I don’t see my Future. I cannot understand what I’m doing here. Why did I come down? If it’s all about those books…”

“No, not those. It will be a completely different and higher stage than the previous one. First, publish your ‘Another Reality’ as a must and as soon as possible. After all, everything you wrote is true. It’s not a game. People are playing on the Earth, we are not. You are real. Publishing your book will make you freed. Something new will be revealed to you, not seen yet.”

“I’m so lonely.”

“Yes, I know, but the Higher Forces gave you much more. Imagine how strong you are in Spirit and what your Man Who Was Not should be like! Such people are rare! He will come, but the path is very long. I said to you six months ago that I saw the Light. You must wait instead of screaming into the Sky, thus blocking your Path.”

“What else should I do, besides the book?”

“Find the key to your Door. Make an important decision. In fact, step over yourself. The only thing you feel yourself unable to do today. I don’t know what. You need to understand yourself. If you do so, you will move to a new level, the next round of the spiral will begin.”

“I know what I have to do, but I can’t. I want to, but I can’t, because if I do it now, I’ll die.”

“You must die. As everything old. As your Past. To be born again. This is the only way you can save yourself. For the Light.”

…I entered the Temple of the Soul. Everything was the same, but… not the same. Where was the Light? Darkness. As if all the invisible light bulbs had burned out. Dazzling white walls looked gray. I needed to turn on the light. I tried to find the switch, but it was missing. No switch. I went to the niche where I had met the Patriarch the previous time. The table and chair were in place. No Patriarch. Very dark.

“Turn on the light!” I shouted into the Void, going up to the upper floor, where my dead relatives had gathered waiting for me the previous time.

Dead Darkness! I needed to find the switch. The Light must be on there! I was scanning all the walls as I moved. In vain. I opened the door to that room. No those of mine. The room looked different. The same rectangular wooden table, chairs, but the window was covered with thick black fabric. White plasterboard partitions, usually built at exhibitions to separate the stands of neighboring companies, divided the room into several compartments. There was something hanging on the walls. I saw everything bad for a foggy haze. It looked like a museum, but a dead one, because no one visited it.

Suddenly, the Patriarch appeared from behind the right partition. The previous time he had been wearing something green, embroidered with gold, without a headdress. That time he was in black. White headdress. White-green-red ribbons. The Patriarch sat down at the table opposite. I looked at him and mentally asked, “Mine won’t come, right?”

“Right, you let them go.”

“Where are we? What is this? A museum?”

The Patriarch nodded in agreement.

“But it’s dead. Nobody comes here, right? And why? Is it possible?”

The Patriarch didn’t look at me as the previous time, he was dissatisfied with me.

“Look carefully. What is it?”

I entered the first compartment on the right and saw… my photos on the walls, my childhood photos. Black and white. One of them was enlarged. I was four years old. Summer. I rode my bike waving to my dad. There were my spells under glass next to the photos.

“Is this MY museum?” I asked in surprise.

The Patriarch nodded silently. My whole life was there, from birth to…

“This museum is exactly half full,” said the Patriarch and repeated slowly and distinctly, “Exactly half.”

And indeed, the right side was filled and ready, the left was absolutely empty. The museum was dead, because I was still alive!

We went down to the ground floor into a niche. The Patriarch stopped and looked at me, expecting the question with which I came to the Temple of the Soul, but for some reason I remained silent. It was so dark. The Light must be on there! I needed to find the switch…

Suddenly, fiery letters began to appear in the air to the right of the Patriarch. They were lit up with a foxy-red flame. The first letter, then a dot. The second letter, a dot. I already knew what would be next, the surname, in full, the surname of the Man Who Was Not.

“He was not there! He doesn’t exist! I invented him!”

The Patriarch silently held out a photo. Standing somewhere to the left behind, someone had taken a photo of the MWWN. I saw a part of His face, but not the eyes.

“He doesn’t exist! Do you hear me? Phantoms, ghosts and mental images don’t appear in photos! He doesn’t exist!”

I started weeping. The Patriarch was silent. The letters continued to burn, and the photo was hanging in the air right in front of me.

“WHAT SHOULD I DO?”

A giant church candle appeared in the Patriarch’s hand, and he held it to me. I took the candle with my right hand and mentally lit it.

“What should I do? Pray? For him? For myself? Or burn it?”

The Patriarch kept silent.

“Okay. I’ll think about it later. Show me what will happen.”

The Patriarch turned and quickly walked to the right. We hadn’t walked along that corridor the previous time. I followed him, or rather, we seemed to be flying. The corridor was very narrow. There was a shabby burgundy carpet on the floor, like in the old flat of my grandma the witch. On the ceiling at the end of the corridor, a switched on light bulb in a rusty metal cap that looked like a plate, was creaking, swaying in the wind, although there was no wind there. I realized, that was the last Ray of Light in my Temple… The light bulb was very dim, it clearly wouldn’t last long. It blinked, then suddenly went out, then shone again, but very, very weakly. As we moved, the doors on the right spontaneously swung wide open, and I looked inside the rooms.

The first one. Small. White walls. Small window. Small bed. Black pillow. Black blanket. A piece of white sheet was visible. Nobody there. Only in the middle, right opposite the front door, a huge black… LOOP… was hanging down.

The second door. There was no one there either. The same small room. The same walls. The same bed with a black pillow and a black blanket. A piece of white sheet. There was no loop there, but a WINDOW was wide open…

The third door. Nobody inside. The same small room. The window was closed. There was no loop. The bed was rumpled. There was… BLOOD… on the white sheet.

“No!” I shouted. “Stop! Enough! I don’t want it like that! No need!”

The Patriarch stopped. So dark it was, so dark! There must be the Light on there!

“I need to go to the Library,” I said decisively, turned around and ran along the left corridor, because I knew which door would lead me there.

The Patriarch came up to my shelf on the rack to show me my books. I could see for myself, it was there, the Blue Book I had written to the Man Who Was Not.

“Are you sure of it now?” the Patriarch asked.

I nodded and heard a Voice, the earthly voice of RAM, “You have 3 minutes left.”

I ran to the shelf from where I had taken out the book with the word ‘WORD’ the previous time. The ladder was no longer needed. No ladders were needed there. It was hard to understand where you were only the first time. I reached the very top shelf under the ceiling, took a book. Brown. Old. In the dust. There was nothing written on the spine.

“BIBLE”. I opened it randomly. Page 235. Book of Judges. Very small typing. I read, “Awake, awake, Deborah! Utter a song! Arise… Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people: the Lord made me have dominion over the mighty… They fought from Heavens. The stars in their courses fought against… The river swept them away, the ancient river… O, my Soul, thou hast trodden down strength!”

I closed it, blew off the dust, carefully put it in place. There was no time to finish reading the page. The main thing was not to forget, so that later I could think about the meaning. We returned to the Temple. So dark it was! There must be the Light on there!

“2 minutes left. Say goodbye! Come to the door!”

And then… suddenly… I rushed back to the Library. Or rather, I was pulled into it by some Force beyond my control, as if I had something left there, something very important, and I was unable to resist. I found myself next to my shelf and saw in the aisle between it and the neighboring one… the ghost of a woman who looked like a nun floating towards me. I recognized Akhmatova and recalled that Stalin had called her ‘Nun’. She looked at me with interest, scanning, and addressed me simultaneously with notes of arrogance and condescension in her voice, “So that’s what you are like, Alice… We’ve read you… We know… Hey! Everyone, come here! Look who came to us!”

Immediately, ghosts began to flock from all the halls of the Library. Ghosts of the spell-casters of the Silver Age. They surrounded me. I heard their voices whispering to each other. I turned around and saw Marina. Waltzing merrily around the hall, she flew up to me, looked kindly into my eyes and said with a smile, “Alice, live! For all of us! Do you hear? LIVE!!!”

“A minute left. Open the Door!”

Someone took my hand, I turned around and saw Sergey Yesenin, and he whispered embarrassed, “Don’t drink there, okay?”

I smiled. I didn’t drink. From somewhere to the right, from the crowd of ghosts, Mayakovsky appeared. He sat down on the floor, leaning against the shelf on the right, so as not to put pressure on me with his height. Carefully and seriously scanning me from head to toe, he sighed heavily, put his ghostly hand to his temple, without looking away, jokingly imitated a shot and winced, “Do you know what is good and what is bad, Alice? This is not good…”

I nodded in agreement. There were many, many, many of them. The ghostly fog enveloped the Library so much that I could no longer see either the shelves or the books.

“Close the Door behind you!”

Meanwhile I was still in the Library! And I couldn’t move! I needed to get away from them, otherwise I would never come back. They were telling me something, they continued talking more and more, everyone and all together at the same time… Where was the Patriarch? I urgently needed to see him! He would help me get out of there!

“Turn your back to the Door. Go down the Stairs. Back. To the Earth. To our hall. The VIOLET step… You see your Temple moving away and remaining somewhere far, far in the sky…”

The Patriarch stood at the door that connected the Library to the Temple.

“What should I pass to the Earth?” I asked quickly.

“And now you are already on the INDIGO step…”

He shrugged his shoulders, “Well, in general, nothing…”

“There is a BLUE-BLUE sky above your head.”

I was already about to run out of the Library into the Temple in order to get to the Door and exit in time…

“And there is GREEN-GREEN grass under your feet.”

…when suddenly, the Patriarch stopped me. He took something out of his black clothes.

“Take it,” he said, putting something in my palm…

…heavy.

“You see a YELLOW field of dandelions in front of you.”

“Thank you!” I said to the Patriarch.

“And in the distance this yellow field seems ORANGE to you…”

I looked at what he had given me.

“And you see this ORANGE color coming closer and closer to you.”

Ancient Egyptian Symbol. Sign. ANKH the KEY.

“And RED poppies grow behind it…”

I ran into the Temple. God, it was deadly dark!

There must be the Light on there!

Door! Where was the Door?!! I urgently needed to imagine that I was already at the Door!

“And now you enter the field of RED poppies…”

I needed to get out before RAM said, “Open your eyes”.

“Light! Someone, turn on the Light there!!!”

If she uttered her phrase before I left the Temple, I could get myself back together incorrectly. My head was cracking there, in the hall, where I had left my body.

“RED, RED poppies… You have reached the end of this field…”

That was all! I knew what phrase RAM would say next…

I got to the DOOR finally! With all my might, I pulled it towards me and slammed it behind me.

Faster!

Down, through all the rainbow colors!

Back to the Earth, to people…

12. WARNING! The DOORS are OPENING!

I knew the Teacher and Gera for many years.

“Help me close the Door,” I asked them from the threshold when we had met the first time.

Gera scanned me silently for a long time, and then said, “… ‘The door! Door! Please hold the door!’ Was it you who shouted?”

“Yes… I was twelve then. Mom was lying on the table in the living room, the door was constantly opening. I was scared to see my mom, so every time I passed by, I asked someone alive to hold the door. I spent those three days outside, at school and walking on the streets, in the evenings I stayed in the kitchen until late, and at night I went to my aunt. Those three nights in dreams, I saw my mother entering the flat, taking off her coat, changing her shoes, washing her hands, as usual. I felt uneasy, but she laughed assuring me that she hadn’t died and would continue to live nearby.”

“Did you start to see through after her death?” asked the Teacher.

“No, after mine. I died a year before her, being eleven years old. They refused to take me to the intensive care unit, but my mother signed some documents, and they took me, although my blood tests indicated that I was a corpse. From three o’clock in the afternoon until midnight, my body lay under drips. The nurse was assigned to sit next to me guarding my soul not to let me fall asleep, but the nurse was knitting something and fell asleep herself. Rejoicing freedom, I instantly moved into the hospital corridor, and on the wall, there was a clock showing ten minutes to midnight. I heard everything, saw everything, but I had neither a body nor any other boundaries of myself. The doctor on duty in the staff room was discussing with a colleague on the phone what to do with me. I was afraid of being noticed by him, so I returned back. The doctor entered the intensive care room and woke up the nurse. She asked what time it was. The doctor replied, ‘Ten minutes to midnight’, shook his head, looking at me, and retired to the staff room. The nurse dozed off again. I opened my eyes and saw my mother at the door. I ran up to her and hugged her. I was so glad that she came for me… However, mom sighed sadly and said, ‘You have to stay, and I have to leave’. She repeated that phrase several times, probably to make me remember it for the rest of my life. Of course, it turned out later that mom hadn’t come, but I came back to life, and she got sick to die instead of me… When my soul stopped moving away, and my body was still in the hospital, two nurses asked me to predict their destinies. I didn’t know to do that and tried in every possible way to sneak away, but they didn’t want to hear anything, since I had been There, it meant I could do everything of that kind.”

“And…?” Gera was all attention.

“Information started pouring out in a torrent. I spoke without hearing myself, and one of the nurses, with her eyes wide open, whispered, ‘You really know everything! You said what had already happened in my life!’ And then I returned home to nightmares. About mom. I begged her to go to the doctor, but she believed that my visions were the consequences of the stress I had experienced. It’s terrible when they don’t believe you, and you can’t influence the course of events in any way. Mom believed me too late… On the eve of her death, falling asleep, I heard the Door opening and someone’s steps, felt the icy breath of Death and realized that mom was about to die. She died in the morning. On the day of her funeral, some bearded man told me, ‘Your mother is not dead. She will be by your side. You are very strong now, because she gave her strength to you. You will be able to see a lot that you haven’t seen before, hear something you haven’t heard before. Now you are not like everyone else. Be careful’!”

“So did you begin to suffer from drafts?” the Teacher supposed.

“Yes, it was real hell in reality and in dreams. The door to my room used to spontaneously swing wide open. I heard footsteps, floorboards creaking, breathing behind me. I saw a Man in Black standing at the window. Icons fell from the walls, and neither pins in clothes nor needles stuck in the door frame helped. I was afraid to fall asleep at night, because my dreams were too true. Simultaneously with the attacks of the Lower Astral, I dreamed about a Voice from the Higher Spheres. It drew diagrams of the structure of the Universe. Holographic geometric figures, mathematical calculations and complex formulas appeared on the background of Eternity, but when I woke up, I couldn’t reproduce them on paper. The Voice talked about planetary cycles, taught astronomy and levitation. I saw creatures from other dimensions, people from other times, giants in lethargic sleep, pyramids, labyrinths, strange mountains and heavenly guards. Everything that the Voice taught me, I found many years later in the books of the Teachers. But then, at the age of twelve…”

“You were scared, weren’t you?” Gera said sympathetically.

“Yes… My relatives sent me to a church school. For five years I had sung in the church choir of the Epiphany Cathedral of the Patriarch Alexey II. When the Patriarch went abroad, we used to see him off at the airport. All the children brought flowers, gave them to the Patriarch and received his blessing. I had neither flowers nor money to buy them. I remember myself embarrassed approaching the Patriarch and asking for forgiveness. And he smiled, ‘Alice, you yourself are my flower!’”

“So you felt better, but the door wasn’t shut, right?” asked the Teacher, at the same time looking meaningfully at the slightly open door to their room.

“At the age of eighteen, I left the flat where the spirits lived, but continued to hear and feel Another Reality. One night, woken up by strange sounds, I looked towards the wall with furniture. The doors of the upper shelves of the closet used to be locked with keys, but that night the keys were slowly turning themselves before my eyes. They came out of the keyholes and fell loudly to the floor. I realized that my friend had died, and in the morning, in fact, I was informed about his death. Sometimes I felt an obsessive need to speak in an unknown language. The words were coming down like an avalanche.”

“Sanskrit… Once you lived in Atlantis, or Tibet,” the Teacher stated. “How did information come to you from There?”

“It happened that I already knew the answer, while formulating a question. The information came in numbers, in images, in words that I tried to decode.”

“By the way, do you know why errors occur at the stage of decoding and interpretation?” Gera interrupted the kaleidoscope of my memories and, without waiting for an answer, said, “At that moment, the brain and earthly logic start working, following patterns, stereotypes, settings, the programs embedded in them. So do you want to be like everyone?”

“Yes, I really want to be like everyone! Help me close the Door! I probably didn’t shut it behind me when I returned from There at the age of eleven.”

The Teacher and Gera sadly shook their heads and said that I could do it myself only.

Many years passed since then. Finally, I brought them my manuscript about Another Reality, but when I was about to say goodbye, Gera smiled, “Stay for a while! It won’t take you much time, but you’ll get tremendous pleasure. Something very, very funny will open our earthly door now!”

In less than a minute, a portly woman of indeterminate age burst into the room. The first thing that caught my eye was her horrible make-up, huge beads made of skulls and an abundance of mismatched rings on both hands. She looked at each of us from head to toe and, without waiting for an invitation, plopped her large body on a small sofa, “Hi, all!”

“Hello! Why did you come to us?” Gera asked with a smile.

“I don’t know where to start,” the stranger said mysteriously. “I worked in a hospital, intensive care…”

I shuddered, glancing at her terrifying beads, and involuntarily began to count the number of skulls.

“As cleaning lady,” the woman added.

I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed.

“I heard all sorts of different stories. You know, imagination works well when people are dying! They are flying along the corridors… supposedly… Others believe them so much, even lining up for stories, don’t feed them bread! Really, I felt somehow offended. Am I worse? Everything has been fine with my imagination since childhood. I had to lie too, where would I be without it? So I decided to become a fortune-teller,” the woman said and meaningfully added, “hereditary! I gave ads to newspapers, and it took off. Well, I arranged an office…”

The hereditary Fortune-Teller looked around Gera’s room, smiled smugly and said sympathetically, “It’s somehow modest in here. Few customers, I guess!”

“Financial crisis,” Gera answered, nodding in agreement.

“I have all sorts of witchcraft gadgets everywhere: on the walls, on the ceiling, and even more on the table! There is no room to lay out cards! Everything as it should be for my image. And they do believe! But sometimes I come across bores. They just keep throwing questions at me! So I came to you, I heard that you are real, maybe you can teach me something! Or at least, give me a hint! I have a customer, a regular one. A man about forty-five to fifty years old. So-so, nothing special, but… blond! He’s making an intellectual out of himself, keeps asking and asking the same thing. I just don’t know, what does he want from me? Flirting, maybe, huh? Or is there something wrong with his head?”

“What does he ask you?” asked the Teacher.

“Well, about the fish! You know, the fish! He says he has been looking for it for many years and still can’t find! I say, ‘have you ever been to a fish market, darling?’ And he says, he has been in a bookstore!”

“Did he say what kind of fish he was looking for?” Gera asked.

“Well, that one, what’s it called? I forget it all the time… He can’t even pronounce it properly! Ah, I’ve recalled, he is looking for flounder, or as he calls it plaice Shambhala.”

I almost exploded with laughter, Gera sighed heavily, and the Teacher looked out the window finding Autumn there, time of suicides and mental exacerbations.

“So I wonder,” continued the hereditary Fortune-Teller, “whether I should send him somewhere far away?”

“Great idea!” Gera agreed. “Send him to Tibet!”

The hereditary Fortune-Teller thought for a moment and, switching to a whisper, asked, “Tibet, where is it?”

“Listen, what do you need all that for?”

“What does your what for mean?” the Fortune-Teller got surprised. “For the same thing as you! There’s no money lying around on the road!”

“The doors open on their own towards the one who is coming to them,” the Teacher said thoughtfully.

“What doors?” the Fortune-Teller was even more surprised.

“We have to disappoint you, we are just students ourselves, therefore…”

“What a hell of you! Why didn’t you tell me that right away?!” she muttered in disappointment. “What a fool I was to spend two hours to get to you! I could have got some of my customers! That’s a lot of lost profits!”

Gera remained silent. The Teacher spread his hands helplessly.

“Well,” the hereditary Fortune-Teller said condescending, “I won’t tell anyone that you’re not real! But as some advice for you, at least furnish the room more impressively, well… get candles in candlesticks, throw some playing cards on the table, stick some needles into an old doll and put it in the most prominent place! Otherwise, you will be left without any customers at all! Who will believe you without such entourage?”

With some difficulty, the Fortune-Teller lifted her portly body from the small sofa, walked up to the door and didn’t have time to open it, as it swung wide open, hitting the woman on the forehead. There was another mysterious stranger on the threshold. The hereditary Fortune-Teller cursed.

“Be careful!” Gera said menacingly and added thoughtfully, “The doors are opening.”

However, no one, except the Teacher and me, heard her words. Probably, it wasn’t necessary.

Having returned home, I habitually pressed the magic computer button, but that time the magic didn’t happen, the computer didn’t turn on. I called my friend, programmer, he arrived, but… too late. He asked if I had managed to save my files somewhere else. I shook my head negatively, and the programmer smiled, “In this case, give it up and forget everything kept there!”

I had exactly one copy left of each of my spell-books. I recalled a not very rich oligarch whom I had seen only twice in my life just for work questions. The oligarch turned out to be not only a businessman, but also an artist. Compared to me, a professional one. I didn’t tell him even that I wrote spells, and, of course, I kept silent about my pictures.

I stopped by the oligarch’s office on the other side of the city. The secretary asked if we had an appointment. I shook my head negatively and asked to hand over my modest gift without an audience. The girl cast an incredulous and suspicious look at the books. Apparently, I was the first one who allowed oneself such audacity to gift books to the oligarch.

However, an hour later the oligarch called me. He was touched by the gift and regretted that I hadn’t dropped in without knocking, because he would have gladly offered me a cup of coffee. The oligarch praised me for writing down the feelings while I was experiencing them. If one doesn’t do this, the state that motivates to create disappears somewhere, one will never reproduce it. He said he would also try not to put off until later what was obviously feasible only ‘here and now’, and suggested that we meet and just chat.

“Surely… Someday later,” I said automatically, and I felt very, very sad.

…We met in three: Nonna, Lera and me.

“Congratulate me,” Lera said, smiling, “last weekend I was initiated into the Warriors of Light!”

“Well, I finished my studies at the Astral Academy,” said Nonna. “Now I can sleep at night without being conscious. I was lucky not to be expelled for absenteeism.”

“I have a task for you,” I said. “I need urgently to… ground myself.”

“What’s that, to ground?” the girls exclaimed in unison.

“I don’t know the way to do it either,” I sighed. “Everyone teaches people how to get rid of grounding, but keeps silent about the way to ground. Earthly attachments prevent us from living and cause us pain. We are gradually being taken away from what we are too attached to. However, I…”

“Do you want to become… ordinary?!” Lera was horrified.

“No, you don’t understand,” Nonna interrupted sadly. “Alice is in the Void. Nothing keeps her here. Meanwhile Another Reality will be Reality for her There as well as here.”

“I want to cling to something, but… I feel like I have nothing more to do in this world. And if one has nothing to do, one is to be returned.”

“I’ll think about it,” Lera promised. “Everything you say is true.”

“Listen, I got it!” Nonna exclaimed. “You must come up with some new Game you have not played yet! Understand?”

It was snowing outside. I was walking somewhere very far away. As usual, without looking back. Following me, quietly purring the Music of the Spheres, my Moon Cat softly walked along the snowy path.

“Alice! Wait!” a familiar voice was heard suddenly.

I stopped on the bridge between the Earth and Heavens and turned around. RAM came up to me and, looking meaningfully at my Third Eye, said, “Would you go with me to the mountains to visit the monks? They will help you with your abilities in the field of Another Reality.”

The Moon Cat, walking around us in circles, suddenly pushed me with his tail towards the Earth, “Agree, Alice! Eternity will wait. Looks like you haven’t finished something downstairs.”

13. BIRDS

“Light the candles,” SHE asked, knowing that candles were the only thing to be found in my flat always.

SHE was sitting across from me, at the kitchen table. It was the first time I saw HER so close. SHE was unusually beautiful for the Earthly Reality, so describing HER in words was an absolutely thankless task. Mostly SHE was silent or spoke mentally, urging me to do or not to do something. Sometimes I didn’t understand at all why and what for, but SHE disliked stupid questions. If I asked HER about nonsense, SHE ignored me. At first I was offended, but later I realized that my worthless questions would lose their relevance the next day, thus I began to ask less and less, and feel more and more.

SHE was looking at the flame.

“What are you doing?” I asked cautiously, afraid to seem stupid.

“I’m communicating with God, don’t interfere, it’s better for you to talk to Him too.”

“God knows everything even without my speeches,” I said sadly.

“That’s why I communicate with Him silently,” SHE said.

In the morning, I dreamed about someone persistently calling me on my mobile phone in the Earthly Reality. I knew I should wake up and turn on the phone urgently, but I didn’t feel like waking up. I wondered who it could be so early on Sunday morning, and I heard a voice, “Alice, hello. How are you?”

I tried to imagine a phantom of the MWWN. Maybe it was Him. The phantom appeared in all its glory, but the voice came not from the phantom, but from someone to the right. “Alice, why are you silent? Tell me what’s going on in your life! You didn’t leave, did you? You stayed here, right?” It made me sad, because it was not Him. Why wake up? What time was it? Probably, around nine in the morning. I answered something to the voice, at the same time, being tormented by the question, who it was.

I still forced myself to wake up, found my phone under the pillow, took it out and turn it on. A minute later, I heard the familiar sound of an incoming message and smiled, since the answer was close. It must have been a message from the telecom operator saying, “This subscriber has called you today at that time.” Imagine my amazement when I read a short message by Nonna, “Alice! It’s me who called you!”

“How are you?” asked the Teacher, carefully looking somewhere very, very deep inside me.

“You were able to combine the Earthly and Another Realities, you became a Teacher. I don’t know what to do. I have to create something important for the world, but what exactly? Nothing interests me, nothing holds me here. I want to live, but I don’t see my Future. Previously, I always knew where I was going and what for. I set goals and put the puzzles together. But I did everything I could and indeed wanted to do. The only one who could keep me here is the Man Who Was Not, however, He Is Not either.”

“People like you, Alice, tend to be lonely. You know it perfectly well. You need to find something that hooks you. I have been going through various options for several minutes, but your brain is rejecting them. Not yours. The scale is not yours. Let’s set up a program. Let Another Reality tell you the option. I see one more problem also. You are broken, like a vase, into small pieces. You lost your integrity.”

“How could it happen?” I was surprised.

“You didn’t break the laws of Another Reality, but someone from There did it. He is not here. You’ve gone too far, Alice. I’ve rarely met people who went so far. It’s very dangerous. I’m shown a Black Shadow now. It broke you up not long ago, when you walked There.”

“Did I walk too far?”

“Someone didn’t want that. They managed to break you because you lost your goal. Set a clear goal. What are you going There for? It helps you stay focused and integrated. Otherwise, when you find yourself in Another Reality, you disintegrate and become absolutely defenseless and vulnerable; they can do anything to you.”

“Attach parts of another one and take mine away before assembling?”

“Exactly. As a result, you can come back different, assembled differently. However, you were hit purposefully. You came back the same, but the inner connections were broken.”

“What about in a dream?”

“Firstly, most people don’t go There in their dreams. Secondly, we have protection of the Subconscious program. If something is wrong, one is immediately thrown back into the body. Of course, any program can be hacked. But you go to other places, and not just in your dreams. Moreover, you must remember that you don’t have a guard. You do everything by yourself. You came Here on your own. You open the Door yourself and go There for a walk. Therefore, you have to protect yourself There too, no one to count on.”

“What to do with it now?”

“I’ll have to direct you to the Center of the Universe, guide you through the Crystal… Relax. Everything will be fine. Just don’t forget for a moment about your goal, what you are going There for.”

…I got on the plane. So they call here a variety of artificial birds bred by people who, apparently, really wanted to fly, but had no wings. Funny! People were smart enough to come up with such a complex bird, but they still haven’t recalled that in order to take off and fly, and even move in spaces, it’s not at all necessary to resort to such sophistications. Iron birds don’t fly of their own accord. They will never become real birds. Meanwhile, a man is a real bird, who just doesn’t want to spread the wings given from birth. Of course, they are invisible to earthly vision, but if you close your eyes… I closed my eyes. The plane took off.

Perhaps, having failed to find the Stairway to Heaven, people invented iron birds to rise above the clouds, and find God there, and talk about all sorts of different things, everyone about one’s own. People are always looking somewhere very far for something that is actually very, very close and, as a rule, within themselves. Anyhow, I love iron birds. I love the planes which fly away, no matter where, because it feels like moving forward. The main thing is ahead and not back. I don’t like going back.

I had a business trip to an exhibition in Italy, the country where I had been many, many times and felt at home. I spoke Italian as a native, knew several local dialects. Many of my friends, including Maria the clairvoyant lived in Italy. That time I didn’t want to go there, because RAM was coming to my city, however, I couldn’t refuse the business trip, since the bosses, well versed in the Earthly Reality, understood nothing about Another one, therefore they were the bosses.

It was snowing in my city, meanwhile there was green grass in the city of M. The company, our business partner, booked me a hotel with a huge number of stars.

People assign stars to hotels. Why stars? They could have assigned something else. For example, birds. Why are birds worse than stars? I learnt already that people are strange creatures. One of them once came up with something, and now it’s accepted as the way it is here. Nobody even thinks why? And why accepted? Accepted by whom? For what purpose? Is there any divine meaning? As a rule, it makes no sense, just the way to do. And everyone does what is accepted, because they are afraid of not being like everyone else, of not being accepted by others, and they stop being themselves – being birds, even in their souls. People put on masks that gradually merge with their real faces and lose themselves.

The exhibition was to open the next day. It was about six in the evening, so I wanted to take a walk around the city center. I left my things in the room and asked the receptionist the way to Cathedral Square.

“There is a tram stop right in front of the hotel. It’s about forty minutes to Cathedral Square.”

“How is our tram stop called?” I asked, as it seemed to me, a completely harmless question, but the man hesitated, as if he didn’t want to answer, so I explained, “When I go back, it will be already dark, what if I pass it by…”

“No,” the man sighed. “You won’t pass it by. This is the final stop, called Cemetery. There is the largest cemetery in the city nearby.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “A five-star hotel in the cemetery! Feel at home! Stay at our hotel and you are guaranteed an unforgettable experience!” Great ad, admit it. It was strange that no one had used it yet. Anyhow, in the name of the final stop of the local tram one could see a certain divine meaning.

Having entered the tram, I noticed on the wall the rules for traveling on that type of public transport. If you ever find yourself in the city of M., and not alone, but with a cat or a dog, I advise you to read the text in advance. One of its paragraphs regulates the relationship between cats and dogs if they find themselves on the same tram at the same time and one of them expresses displeasure at the presence of the other, up to which of them should give up their seat, leaving the tram, and wait for the next one to continue the path.

Cathedral Square in the city of M., named after its main attraction, the City Cathedral, is surrounded by galleries with expensive shops, cafes and restaurants. To feel a city (no matter which one), you need to wander around it alone, ride public transport, sit in a cafe where locals drink coffee, go to shops not intended for tourists. You can read a smart book about the city, visit its sights, listen to a guide, but you won’t be able to feel its soul if you don’t stay face-to-face with it at least for a while.

There was nowhere to rush, the whole evening belonged to me, and the whole city of M. that evening belonged to me. Believe me, even just one evening is not so little. I smiled, took a deep breath of the city air, spread my wings, but in order not to seem strange to those around me, I didn’t fly off, but walked with a leisurely light gait towards the majestic Gothic Cathedral, which looked like a bird. For many years, it had been trying with all its might to break away from the Earth, dreamed of soaring in the beautiful blue-blue Sky. I walked inside and felt like a little girl. There were almost no people there, the mass was over. It was dark.

Every step I took exploded the Silence peacefully dormant in the Cathedral. I approached the altar and suddenly heard music. Quiet, quiet, barely perceptible, it poured from somewhere above, from the eternal and inexhaustible Primary Source, and my soul smiled.

When I was twelve, my French Catholic grandmother took me to the Gothic Cathedral. I had to choose between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. I chose the latter because I felt uncomfortable in the gloomy Cathedral. However, I soon realized that any religion was one of the Paths to God, who was the same for everyone, regardless of which Path you took to Him.

If I had been born in a country with a different faith, I would have come to God through it. I always remember that people are guests on our Earth, and their true home is Heaven. God lives not only in Heaven. God permeates everything and everyone on the Earth. There is no place where He is absent, well, almost no…

I left the Cathedral. My wallet was content with business trip allowances, but I decided to allow myself a cup of coffee in a cafe on Cathedral Square. Coffee in Italy is one of the best, at least for my taste. Italian friends taught me to brew their coffee. But the original is always better than the copy. I sat down at a table and enjoyed the view of Cathedral Square, along which, besides people, many birds were walking.

I have never thought why birds love squares near Cathedrals. Maybe because traditionally the Holy Spirit is depicted in their image and something attracts birds to the Cathedrals as strongly as me since childhood.

I was looking at the buildings surrounding Cathedral Square, when suddenly on the roof of one of them I noticed a huge sign with three letters, ‘RAY’. There were no signs on all other buildings. Ray liked to remind me of himself.

We saw each other the last time at a major exhibition held a few months before in the industry which I had been sent to work by the Higher Forces. The exhibition took place simultaneously in eight large pavilions. I knew that Ray had to be there, and even in which pavilion to the left of the main entrance, so I purposefully walked to the right. My day was scheduled with meetings and negotiations, but I arrived earlier, since I disliked to be late. Having walked two thirds of the pavilion, I froze at a stand. People walked around me, but I continued to stand rooted to the spot, meditating over the earthly exhibition samples. There was nothing special about them, and I didn’t understand what I was doing there. After about five minutes, I wanted to turn around and continue the aimless journey into the distance, when the hypnotized state of my Consciousness was destroyed by the phrase of a familiar, like twice two, grinning male voice that sounded very close, “Hello, Alice.”

“Ray! What are you doing here?” I exclaimed.

“What do you think? Waiting for you!”

I looked at the name of the company located on the stand. Ray had nothing to do with it, or its products. He shook his head sympathetically, appreciating my gaze.

“I watched you standing enchanted at what you had no need at all, just like me, and I thought, after all, you felt that you should go to the right and stop here, but you couldn’t turn your head to find the reason. Just a little bit missed, Alice, as always. You walk the right Path, unmistakably feeling which way to turn, but at the next intermediate point on the route you don’t raise your head to see the main thing and understand what you are doing there. Would you really be able to turn around and leave if I hadn’t called you out loud? Okay, let’s go, I know you still have time for a walk.”

We wandered around the pavilion almost in silence, but not at all because we had no news to share. Having exchanged a couple of words and glances, we already knew everything, Ray knew all about me, as I did about him.

Many people reproach me for communicating with People of Darkness. However, on the one hand, the world is characterized by duality, on the other hand, each of us meets someone on the Path for a reason, because there are no accidents either in This or in Another Reality. Any person with whom we intersect in life is our Teacher and Student. The Higher Forces push us together so that we give something and receive something. Ray taught me the Universal Laws inexorable for everyone. In particular, to accept people as they are, or simply not to communicate with those whose essence is completely unacceptable to you. Each person is a Universe. Reshaping someone else’s Universe in your own image and likeness, or even condemning it for not being the same as your own, is the same as telling God, the Creator of the Universes, how deeply He was mistaken in the process of Creation, and that one of them has no right to exist. God the Creator knows the original plan of the Creation of this particular Universe, which doesn’t suit you for some reason. Fighting with it, you are fighting with God and the Higher Forces, and such a struggle is obviously doomed to defeat and punishment.

At the same time, Ray was a litmus test for my force of Light. I could have walked the Path of Black Magic with him, but I didn’t. Each of us continued to follow the own Path, knowing full well where it would ultimately lead.

Ray offered me a lunch in the canteen, carefully hidden from prying eyes on the second floor in the first pavilion. Ten minutes before the appointed time, I went up to the second floor and stood at the door to an intricate labyrinth of corridors with stairs, the only way to get to the canteen. There were almost no people there, but it was very noisy. So noisy that I wanted to turn off my hearing. I stood at the door holding my mobile phone and periodically glancing at it. The phone was silent. Ray was missing. Fifteen minutes passed. I really wanted to eat. Ray could have warned me that he was late. I decided to call him myself and… to my surprise, I found exactly seven (!) missed calls from Ray on my phone display. I dialed his number and heard laughter instead of ‘hello’.

“Where are you?” I asked, already sensing some trick.

“I’m in the canteen. Where are you?”

I was speechless, trying to figure out how that could be.

“Would you like some advice, Alice? Throw your phone to hell, why do you need it? Tell me, why do you need a phone, Alice?! Well, what for? Come here, we agreed to have lunch together.”

We were sitting in the canteen. Ray grinned. I continued to look at him with my silent question.

“How did you do that? I was standing at that door.”

“Yes, you were.”

“There’s only one door here.”

“Exactly,” Ray nodded, enjoying his cutlet by both cheeks.

“My phone was turned on.”

“Indeed, it was,” Ray was mocking.

“I was holding the phone in my hand. It didn’t ring.”

“What’s the difference, whether it rang or not, if you didn’t hear anything?”

“Well, let’s say I didn’t hear it exactly seven times in a row, but I couldn’t help but see you!”

“What were you looking at?” Ray asked with a smile.

So I realized that I had looked at ordinary passers-by exclusively with my earthly vision, trying to catch Ray among them, at the same time turning off my ears so as not to hear the crazy hum and constant advertisements.

“I see you still haven’t let go of your Past, Alice. Drop it! It will never be the same as it was then. Never, admit it. And throw away your phone. I assure you, you have had no need of it for a long time. It only bothers you. You are a bird, what do birds need a phone for?”

I finished my coffee.

The city of M. is a real city of contrasts. A trendsetter for decades, it attracts to the streets with boutiques of famous brands both oligarchs and those who pretend to be oligarchs. Meanwhile on the neighboring streets, poor emigrants sell ‘brands’ in bulk at such prices that all the goods in their store seem to cost less than a small rag handbag in the window ‘around the corner’. I used to come there with Brother, to the exhibitions. In the evenings, we walked along the streets ‘around the corner’, tried on something and, if we liked it, bought it. However, some people are ready not to try on, not to choose, but immediately to buy even what is not needed, but the most expensive, so that, upon returning home, they can show in front of numerous witnesses the stunning acquisition, including the price tag. As for me, it’s tantamount to demonstrating one’s own stupidity.

That evening the contents of my wallet clearly left much to be desired. Anyhow, wasn’t it possible to wander ‘around the corner’, admire the windows of elite stores and even enter them, to look at something, try it on and tell myself that the thing was good, but there was another one, much better, somewhere looking forward to our meeting in the nearest future? However, I wanted to visit the street where Brother and I had lived the last time, to feel again that absolute calm and freedom I had felt then. That was the happiest chapter in my Book of Life. I remembered our hotel, its name and metro station. I entered the train, sat down on an empty seat and closed my eyes.

Brother sat opposite, shifting his gaze from me to those around and back with curiosity.

“Alice, you are the spitting image of a local resident, no one will say you are a foreigner!”

We flew to the city of M. on my birthday. Brother, like me, didn’t remember anyone’s dates and was very embarrassed when it turned out once again that he was late. Just like a child afraid of getting lost in a dark forest, Brother never let me go one step away from him in the city of M. under various pretexts. In the city where we lived, he was occupied with his own business, which I never asked him about, but he constantly called me with his crown question, “Where are you?” Over the years spent together, we learned to understand each other without words, and we had unspoken, not stated out loud, rules. For example, if I sent him a message that didn’t even require a response, Brother would definitely call me back at the first opportunity. Or, if I was silent, it meant I didn’t agree with him, but I didn’t want to argue or lie, so Brother tried to make me talk in any way.

Then, in the city of M., after another congratulation call on my phone, having guessed what kind of day it was, being embarrassed, Brother apologized and immediately began to list numerous gift options, “Do you want me to give you the coolest…” I found it kindly funny. I didn’t really need anything cool. So I uttered a fateful phrase, as if feeling that it was our last trip with him to the city of M., as, indeed, to all other cities and countries, “Gift me something as a memory of yourself that I can keep forever, when you are no longer around.” Brother gave me his gift, which I still keep as a memory of that chapter of my Book of Life… But at that time, in the city of M., we were full of life, cheerful and young. We were birds.

That street was ours. I stopped for a moment, feeling my heart clench. We had walked it up and down. I took a deep breath and walked along the same street, but in a completely different chapter of my Book of Life. After walking a few meters, I suddenly realized that there was no our hotel there. At least, where it had been before. I took out the map – no changes, the hotel should be right there. I began asking passers-by about it, but as if by agreement, they knew nothing and had not heard anything. I walked along the street for quite enough, recognizing on the way every house, every shop, every kiosk where they sold tickets for the metro and tram. Having reached the last house, I crossed the road to return to the metro station on the opposite side. And everything was repeated: familiar houses, shops, kiosks. We had bought a lot of shirts for Brother in that shop, and there, yes, in the next one, I had bought myself cool clothes when Brother reluctantly let me go for a walk alone, but after half an hour he couldn’t stand it and called with an offer to join me.

I entered the shop. The same cool clothes, of course, were no longer in sale, and, naturally, I disliked everything that was there. I left the store and immediately froze finding right in front of me… Death. Yes! It was Death, in a long black cloak with a hood, with a scythe over the shoulder. I closed my eyes and opened them again. Death was looking at me from the depths of the hood, holding out a flyer and exclaiming in the local dialect, “LIVE HERE AND NOW!”

I shuddered, but didn’t take the paper invitation to follow Death. I sent it to hell not very politely in the same local dialect. Death obediently headed there, pestering people who came under its scythe along the way.

I returned to the metro, there was no hotel on that side of the street either. It was already completely dark and sad… time to go back to the hotel in the cemetery. Suddenly, I recalled the dialogue with Ray when he had walked unnoticed past me into the canteen.

“How did you do that? I was standing at that door… Let’s say I didn’t hear. But I couldn’t help but see!” – “What were you looking at?”

Yes, I had been looking at my Past. It was no more there. The Past had passed, that was why our hotel was not and couldn’t be in the Present. There was that hotel on the same street, of course, but no more ours, therefore, I didn’t find it. I couldn’t see it, because I tried to return to where one must not.

“Cemetery, the final stop.”

I returned to the hotel. Having entered the bathroom, I found four taps, besides the serpentine shower hose. I checked the taps, hot water started pouring from two of them, cold water – from the other two.

“It’s interesting,” I thought. “Is it so only in my hotel, or in all hotels located in cemeteries? Maybe two taps are with alive water, and two ones with dead water…”

That night I had a not at all scary, but a very exciting dream about my own… funeral in Venice. However, at the most interesting point the phone rang. It was ringing so persistently that turned out to be stronger than me.

“Alice, are you still sleeping?! In half an hour, we are waiting for you in the car. We’ll go to the exhibition together!”

As a result, I didn’t get, how I would end up in Venice, what would happen to me and who was the Man in Black to bury me, but someday I would definitely find it out, it was just a matter of time.

14. KEYS

We arrived at the exhibition an hour before its opening, and as soon as we entered the pavilion where the partner company’s stand was located, I froze being surrounded by doors. All sorts of doors one could imagine: classic and modern, wooden, metal and plastic, glass and mirror, hundreds of shades with endless variations of patterns and a myriad of built-in locks and handles, doors with and without illumination, closed, slightly and even completely wide open. I found myself in the real Kingdom of Doors. Noticing my confusion, an Italian colleague said,

“The product we offer on the Italian market is intended mainly for door manufacturers, so our stand is located on their territory.”

Have you ever had problems with doors? On the eve of my business trip, an incredible story happened to me. Being the last one to leave the office that evening, I couldn’t close the front door to the building for about 15 minutes. As I got behind the wheel, I noticed the open door indicator light on, and it was on during my way home, even though I triple checked all the doors, including the trunk. Then I had to use a magic liquid to unfreeze the lock of my garage. The intercom on the front door to my house was buggy and constantly gave an error. The elevator closed its doors, but didn’t move. It apparently had no intention of going anywhere; it was not part of its plans for that evening. I sighed, pressed the button of the ground floor, the doors opened. I walked up the stairs, but the door to our floor didn’t open either! The neighbor examined my key and came to the conclusion that some piece had broken off. Neither the neighbor nor I understood how a whole piece could break off from a metal key. However, it didn’t matter anymore. The doors to the Earthly Reality were closing for me, and the open door indicator in the car apparently belonged to Another Reality.

I like keys. There is something mysterious about them, from Another Reality. Once, in the country with many Buddhist and Hindu temples, I bought an intricate lock with two keys. I still don’t understand why. I was drawn to it. So it fulfills not its direct earthly mission, but a secret task of the Higher Forces that sent it to me. My favorite sign is the Egyptian Ankh, which means key. I mark with it my pictures about Another Reality. The Patriarch gave me an Ankh when I was returning to Earth from the Temple of my Soul. The program of RAM seminars is called ‘The Key’.

Besides keys, I also inexplicably like butterflies. I surrounded myself with butterflies on all sides. Butterflies which I embroidered for about a year. Miniature figurines of butterfly girls. Butterflies under glass and butterflies out of glass. I have a dress with butterflies, a jacket with butterflies, shoes, a scarf and a bag with butterflies, various jewelry in the form of butterflies. I had never wondered why they were so dear to me, until I was asked during a literary party what butterflies meant in general and for me in particular. It’s good that people can ask questions that make one think. Usually, people have no time to think. Being asked, you need to answer, so you have to think, although this statement is true only in relation to people who are able to think in principle. Butterflies are something tender, light, airy, heavenly, beautiful and almost unearthly, magical. They are similar to what lives inside me. And, probably, not only in me, but in many others as well. Butterflies have wings. They not only can fly, but, basically, they are flying. Butterflies love the Light. Probably, I surrounded myself with butterflies so as not to accidentally forget about Another Reality, which not only surrounds me, but also lives in me.

I met Maria and we walked around the pavilions, exchanging our latest news. Of course, mostly about love. Or rather, about its absence – its presence in us and the absolute absence towards us in those we loved. Maria invited me to stay with her after the exhibition was over, but…

To get a visa, I had prepared a lot of documents in advance, having spent an insane amount of time. I like traveling to unknown points of the planet, opening them as an unread book. This is very interesting, like everything that contains an element of some new knowledge. Going to the same place is like reading a book from which I will learn nothing new, just waste precious time. This statement is true, except for the Places of Power, where one can return at the call of the Soul as many times as it wants.

I traveled to Italy quite often for work, and my boss advised me to apply for a multiple-entry annual business visa. One of the requirements for it was to provide an invitation, preferably with a note that the host party would cover all costs of your stay in Italy. I received such invitation for a year and made annual medical insurance, which obviously cost me more than insurance for a short-term period. The consulate also required to provide my personal account data, indicating the presence of a gigantic amount, which, of course, I didn’t have. The boss gave me the necessary amount for two days so that I had time to put it on my account, get the documents from my bank and immediately return the money to him. I didn’t understand why it was necessary for the consulate, in case the host party covered all my expenses, and it was a business trip for me. An employee had the right to have no bags of money in reserve. If all business travelers had had fabulous accounts, it would have meant that only millionaires worked with foreign countries, but everyone knew that millionaires didn’t work, since they watched others working.

I stopped by a branch of the largest bank, which actively advertised its impeccable customer service. After standing in line for about half an hour, I went to the window and said that I wanted to put money on my account and get a statement. The bank employee stretched sweetly, yawned and said that was the wrong window. I asked politely which was the right one. The employee replied that it was probably the next. I stood in line at the next window, where the employee didn’t know what to do with people like me, so she left for advice. As a result, I was sent to the farthest window, which turned out to be… closed. I came up to the window to the left of the closed one. The young man listened to me and was even about to say something in response, but his mobile phone rang. Having placed a “15 MINUTES BREAK” sign right in front of my nose, he disappeared. At the last window they didn’t listen to me, but finally said, “100 rubles”, and at my questioning glance they added, “for the paper”. I think, if you were me at that moment, you would have agreed to 101 rubles, just to free yourself from the money you had borrowed before it disappeared. After ten minutes the girl prepared the papers and asked me to go to the cashier. Having stood in line, I finally passed the heavy load into the hands of the cashier. She checked the money for lies, hid it and began typing something on the computer. Five minutes passed. The cashier was nervous, she frowned and called someone. Someone came and did something on her computer, but… The cashier returned my burden to me, “We don’t know why, but we can’t put money on your account. Try going to the bank branch where it was opened for you.” It sounded promising. So I arrived where I had been sent, and received a ticket with the number of the electronic queue, in which there were 59 more people in front of me! I approached the administrator, explaining that I was late for the consulate, and was happy to hear the familiar, “100 rubles!”

Imagine my amazement when in the end I got… a multiple-entry tourist visa for three (!) days. So, having tried to count in my mind how many times in three days I could fly there and back, I said to Maria that I would definitely accept her invitation with pleasure, but… sometime later.

“Listen, Maria… I just can’t find the key. One of my Teachers said that I had been broken by the Black Shadow from There and there was no integrity in me. Like I’ve gone too far. I want to do something for the world, but I don’t know what exactly, therefore I don’t understand, what I’m doing here. For example, you, Maria, what are you doing here?”

“To be honest, I spend most of my lifetime on survival, but I also love. Don’t you love?”

“I love.”

“That’s it. You love with the Love of Another Reality, the Universal Love. Only those who have gone through a lot can love like that. Your love extends not only to the one you love non reciprocally. It just seems to you that it’s going into the Void. No, not into the Void, but into our world. Moreover, you are full of Light, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to love like that. So you give a little of your Light to everyone who communicates with you, and the world becomes brighter. That’s what you are doing here.”

“Okay, I agree. Who do you think defragmented me?”

“A person of Light has a rather strong protection, the one of the Higher Forces. Once you said that no one and nothing has any power over you, except for the person you love, that is, the Man Who Was Not. I think He did it. You love Him, therefore you take off your protection in front of Him and become defenseless, like a warrior returning from the battlefield, takes off his armor and leaves his sword in the hallway. He doesn’t expect someone to stab him suddenly in his own beloved home. Remember what happened the last time you saw Him.”

Oh, yes, the MWWN changed his face, and the Black Essence crawled out of His eyes bursting into many snakes.

“One of two things, Maria, either it’s not the Shadow from There, but the Man Who Was Not, or the Shadow from There settled into the MWWN to break me.”

“Or, Alice, the MWWN is that Shadow from There.”

“No, Maria. He is NOT from There! He really exists!”

“Another Reality really exists too, doesn’t it?”

“Are you saying that there is no the MWWN in the Earthly Reality?”

“It seems to me that you yourself called Him so. Alice, you are going to the mountains with RAM soon. She appeared in your life not by accident. The trip will be the beginning of something new and definitely bright for you.”

I didn’t know if RAM realized that she had kept me on the Earth with her offer. I was interested in Another Reality much more than in the Earthly one for a long time. Everyone wanted to go with RAM to a place of power, but she used to collect a group herself and, usually, of no more than twenty people. The trip with her became a goal for me, automatically manifesting itself in the Future, which had seemed to be completely empty and closed just a day before.

I call it hammering a nail into the Future.

Imagine a bare gray wall. A man used to pass it by without paying any attention to it. However, the desired picture, which he will paint himself, will appear on that wall soon. The man has hammered a nail into the wall, which stimulates him and reminds him of the goal – the picture should be painted, and the wall should come to life. So the wall gradually comes to life, the man transforms it with the power of his thought, his imagination, with his whole being rushing to the moment when, finally, the picture decorates the bare wall. This program helps when working with seriously ill people and with those in the Void. True, you first need to find and begin to eliminate the cause of the disease or Emptiness, and simultaneously, work with nails.

The most difficult task is to select for a specific person something that he really wants to realize in the Future, what hooks him to the quick and will keep him Here. Then specify a deadline, hammer the nail. The person will begin to paint his picture, to do what will allow him to achieve the goal within the time frame. When one really wants to reach a goal, the Subconscious helps in every possible way, since it acts as an assistant in solving any problems and tasks, removes obstacles, for example, illness, because it no longer fits into the tempting plan and interferes with the realization of the goal.

A girl in her childhood dreamed of becoming a singer, but her mother categorically forbade her to think about it, despite the fact that the girl really sang wonderfully, played the guitar and composed good music. Once the girl became seriously ill and the doctors refused her. Suppose the cause of the disease has been found and is being eliminated, because it’s difficult to do it immediately. Why not plan to release her own CD with songs in six months? Even if not at a professional level, but for friends and family. As a gift. Like a mark to leave on the Earth. It’s important for the girl to believe that she can do it. Why not?

Or, for example, someone dreamed of painting, but heard, “What kind of artist are you?” Schedule an exhibition of your own paintings. No matter what kind of, but, finally, they should be painted! Paint something that you have been going to paint all your life, but someone and / or something didn’t let you do it. No matter where the exhibition will take place, even if in your own home or in the nearest library. It’s important that you do what you really want, what your Soul wants. So you can become yourself. As a rule, until the verge of Death, people don’t do what their souls ask them, but are engaged in routine focused mainly on their bodies. Faced with the fact that the body will soon be thrown off like a dress before going to bed, a person gets a wonderful opportunity to finally think about the Soul. Stop for a moment! Right now. Ask yourself a question and answer it honestly, if tomorrow your body disappears, what did you not have time to do that you would like to do before moving to Another Reality with a calm Soul, regretting nothing?

I returned to the hotel in the cemetery. The door to the room didn’t open. I went down to the reception asking for help. The door obeyed to the hotel employee. At night, in the city of M., to the surprise of local residents, it began to snow. I realized that everything I had to do there was done. The next day I returned home.

Arriving late at night, I turned on my mobile phone and received a message from a friend who attended the RAM seminar in my absence, “She wants you to come. Tomorrow”. I realized that tomorrow had already arrived; there were only a couple of hours left until the morning.

It was the last day of another RAM seminar in Moscow.

RAM joyfully hugged me and asked me to tell those present about Another Reality. I talked about unrealistic things to do in a year by earthly standards, but in Another Reality everything was possible. People are capable of creating miracles. The main thing is to discover Another Reality in ourselves, to find the Key. Another Reality is everywhere, permeating everything around us, and invariably present in us from the moment of birth. We don’t notice it, we don’t want to hear, see, feel. RAM smiled, periodically commented on my words, praised me, comparing me with Anna Akhmatova and my Another Reality with the truth of life. RAM said that in a couple of days she was leaving to work in Sri Lanka, and in June we would go with her to the mountains in China, where we would have serious work. The world seemed alien to me, but at RAM seminars, I returned home, to myself, to my Soul, and I felt a kindred energy in her kindred Soul. When RAM was nearby, I had a desire to talk to her about everything, but “everything” was superfluous, empty, petty and not at all worthy of her attention, meanwhile to questions that really made sense to be spoken out loud, I seemed to know her answers in advance. So our virtual conversation was constantly postponed ‘for later’.

Before saying goodbye, I asked RAM to tell me something.

“Your book will go around the world and will be translated into many foreign languages. Do you believe me?” she said absolutely seriously.

A week later I received two letters from Sri Lanka. One of them said the following, “Alice, hello! My name is Inna. One evening (we were gathering on a large veranda) RAM read us a chapter from your book about Another Reality, in which you met her. We didn’t have a tape recorder to listen to mantras, so we meditated to the sounds of RAM’s voice reading your book to us. It was very interesting and at the same time curious, what would be next? RAM said that we would read it in turns, a chapter each one. I was the next to read it, but I have a complex, it’s hard for me to speak in public. However, I began to read, and the seminarians said I seemed to be reading my own book. Everything you wrote is very close to my heart, although I am not a clairvoyant, I am just recalling who I am. I asked for the book and devoured it in half a day. Since then, during meditations, it was only me to read it to them. Thank you very much! I know that you will go with RAM to China. I was there, and it was the beginning of my new life!”

Then I read a letter from Tatyana. She told me the way RAM and the Professor had put the ankh on a crystal, as I used to mark my pictures about Another Reality with, and took the crystal at sunrise to the top of Adam’s Mountain for charging.

RAM called me on her return from Sri Lanka and asked my books for St. Petersburg seminarians, to whom she was going by night train for a week. I arrived at the station. RAM asked how I was doing. I smiled and replied that everything was fine. When we talk about bad things, we re-experience them as if in reality, and attract even more negativity. If we talk and think about good things, sooner or later they will definitely visit us.

The next day, RAM asked to deliver another batch of books about Another Reality by night train. And then, and later, I was happily going into the night, a sacred mystery of transferring my books by unknown trains to different parts of the country.

A week later, RAM was returning from St. Petersburg. Early in the morning at the station, I met her and her friend, the Professor, who was persecuted by official sciences after the publication of a book with his discoveries in the field of physics and the influence of vibrations on the human body. The three of us were walking from the train to the metro. RAM’s conversation with the Professor consisted of broken phrases that would seem to ordinary people from the outside to be the ravings of crazy ones.

“She proved it, you know?!” said the Professor. “Five years! It took her five years, but she did it! The same as we did with rats back then, remember? No matter, if there are already a hundred of them, everywhere further!”

“Stamp, the stamp remains in that place after!” RAM exclaimed with the joy of a child.

“Yes! And this means that…”

“Bring the same number of people there right after that, and they, so they too!!!”

“Right!”

“I always knew it!”

“She worked in a secret laboratory, but she was allowed to give a lecture at that university.”

“Do you remember the girl from Sri Lanka? So, she says, she entered the laboratory, and they were already preparing a new virus there, she came with the documents, and the computer exploded!”

“In reality or in a dream?” asked the Professor.

RAM stopped and said meaningfully, “What’s the difference, in fact?”

The Professor and I nodded in agreement.

“And then, our teleportation on the mountain? How many of us were there? And all of a sudden at the top! We entered the Flow, but they won’t believe it,” RAM sighed.

“Is it true that in Sri Lanka you charged a crystal with Ankh, carried it to Adam’s Mountain?” I asked.

“How do you know?” RAM was surprised.

I told her about the seminarians’ letters. We approached the metro.

As usual, I asked RAM to say something personal to me. She paused for a while, then looked straight into my eyes and said absolutely seriously, “A miracle will happen in China, and I will gift it to you.”

15. CASTING

That evening I took part in a literary event in a cozy bard art cafe in the city center. Poems were interspersed with romances and songs. The poets performed at the Free Microphone, although it was always occupied, and, like for many other things in the Earthly Reality, one still needed to fight for it. Having cast my spells, I was talking at the bar with Svetlana when an elderly stranger approached us.

“I want to tell you something,” he said quietly, smiling. “You are a spell-caster!”

“Thank you!” I smiled. “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t really matter. Consider me a professional critic and editor. I listened to everyone, but I heard only you. I want to give you a small gift… Please write me down your email address. I’ll send it to you tonight.”

I wrote the address on a napkin. The critic thanked me and disappeared. Another man immediately called out to me. I had met him there a couple of times. He was already in ‘Another Reality’ and just ordered himself a little more.

“Alice!” he exclaimed, shaking his head painfully. “You’re creating at the level of the Last Century spell-casters! Where does all this come from to you?! Such power! I gave your books to my friends, but people need no poetesses, but… money! Money rules! What injustice! World has gone mad! I can’t help you!”

I smiled and suddenly saw a portrait of Boris Pasternak in front of me.

“Svetlana, do you know anything about Pasternak?” I asked.

“Why are you asking?”

“I feel some spell-casters of that time, as if I knew them personally, but now I see Pasternak in front of me. I would like to meet him and talk. Who was he? What was he like?”

“You will still have time to meet him in Another Reality,” Svetlana reassured me, and we fell silent.

It came from the stage, “Oh, Kay! Everything will be okay!”

I think, I have no right to criticize anyone. Switched myself off, I don’t listen if it’s not mine. Usually, one who criticizes writes nothing or writes even worse. Even created by a genius can be criticized. It’s impossible to please everyone. Any work carries certain vibrations and feelings that are either close to you or not. So we say, “Yes, it’s mine!” or “No, not mine!” However, our own perception doesn’t mean at all that the work has no right to exist, because someone else can like it.

I turned off my hearing until another poet got the free mic. I had often seen him in our underground sphere, but never talked to. When I heard him for the first time, he reminded me of Alexander Blok. They had nothing in common in appearance, but the themes and style of poems were very similar.

I got acquainted with Blok as a child, when I sang in the church choir. Or… even earlier, in a past life? I instantly absorbed a huge volume of his spells, feeling them by my soul, and suddenly entering the Flow and connecting to his sector, I felt him as well. It seemed that he had written a lot about me or for me, so that after so many years I would read and recall something. I knew his spells by heart. My favorite one, read for the first time after my mother’s death, was “Poet”. If you think, it’s about poetry and poets, you are deeply mistaken. It’s a dialogue between a poet-father and his little daughter whose mother died. I painfully tried to understand why and to whom Blok had written his “Poet”, but whoever I asked, no one knew anything. Incredibly, Blok played an important role in my destiny. Both in written and oral exams both at school and at the Academy, Another Reality gave me the opportunity to tell what I knew about him and to recite his spells to people.

The free mic passed to the next one. The poet came down from the stage and for some reason sat down at my table.

“Well, hello, Alexander,” I smiled.

“In this case,” the poet laughed, “hello, Anna?”

“I’ve got many names in this life, as well as the lives within one. As a child, my relatives and neighbors called me Tatyana, my mother’s name. At school, Eugenya, the teachers confused me with my friend. At the Academy, the Italian teachers called me Sandra, the English teachers – Alice. At work, Italians call me Alya, and Germans – Alex. Close ones – Fox, very close ones – Lily, because I have Lilith on the Sun.”

“You are Anna, I would even say Nude, since you appear naked in your poems. I want to gift you something.”

The poet handed me a book, a film, and a rosary, Buddhist wooden rosary with one hundred and eight stones. The book “Alexander and Love” was about Alexander Blok, and the film “Moon at Zenith” was about Anna Akhmatova.

“You always write about Harlequins and booths. Didn’t you have time to say something then? You can experiment with other images, why not?”

“I don’t want. This is my favorite character. I love Theater. You know, I could become an actor in this life, but the chance was missed. Are you still looking for the Man Who Was Not? You couldn’t get along with anyone then, right?”

“Have you found your Beautiful Lady?” I retorted.

“Sorry. A book of dedications to Akhmatova will be released soon. Presentation in St. Petersburg. Shall we go?”

“Too much connected to that city,” I answered evasively.

“I agree, but that Petersburg exists no more. At least, the same as I remembered and loved it.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a woman flew up to us. She was no longer young, looked quite extravagant and was all… buzzing.

“So! Sign up for the casting, everyone! Come on! Sign up! I have listened to all of you. You all are geniuses, so come here, come quickly! Here! To me! Everyone! Just, comrades, take turns and, as they say, according to the staffing table!”

“What kind of casting?” I asked.

“Well, girl! I see you are active! It’s great! I’ll sign you up now!” the buzzing woman exclaimed and took out a notepad and pen from her bag.

“Where do you write her down to?” asked one of the attendees.

“What do you mean, where to? On TV! So you, girl, don’t you want to get on television? There is a broadcast there!”

“In this case, sign up our Alice for sure! She is a spell-caster!” a poet confirmed.

“She’s not just a spell-caster. She is a great spell-caster,” a bard added.

“So, you are Alice! I’m writing it down… Your phone number, please!”

“And who are you?” I asked carefully, having dictated my phone number.

“I’m the casting! And Casting is me! Don’t interrupt, baby, otherwise I’ll forget to ask you something… So… The hair is black. Long. The eyes are black. Huge… Appearance… Turn your head to the left. Yeah, the appearance has a touch of the East… Very good! I’ll write it down… Well… What else did I want to ask? Ah! Here it is, how old are you?”

I told the truth. The woman recoiled from me in horror.

“What are you saying, baby? Is it really possible to say that to someone? And even more so on television?! Remember once and forever, you are eighteen! Got it? I’m writing down, eight-teen,” the woman wrote it down and added in my ear in a conspiratorial tone, “Write it down somewhere for yourself too so as not to forget, if someone asks later!”

“They released a lot of her books!” Svetlana added proudly.

“Okay, keep silence, everyone! I’m writing! What about your height?”

“I am a meter… and a half… plus eight… centimeters…” I raised my eyebrow in surprise and quoted my own verse.

“Ugh… It won’t be enough! Well, what do you want me to do with you?! I’ll have to write it down like this, a meter… and a half…” the buzzing woman dictated to herself.

“Alice is a member of the Main Society of Spell-casters in our country!” someone shouted from the crowd already gathered around us.

“And what is your… weight?” ignoring the exclamations, the woman continued.

“Is it important for spell-casters?” I was even more surprised.

“No, it’s not important for spell-casters, but it does matter to television!”

“I don’t know,” I was confused.

“How can you not know?”

“It’s not important for the spell-casters. So I didn’t weigh myself.”

“Outrage! Branded outrage, stop… or brandy outrage? Anyhow, in fact, apparently, it doesn’t matter to you either… So, where did we stop, baby? Ah, your weight! We’ll definitely have to weigh you! I’ll write it down now, ‘to weigh!’ Remind me before the show!”

A voice from the crowd came again, “There, on the show, let Alice recite more! Have you heard the way she casts spells? Everyone will be delighted!”

The buzzing woman finished the word ‘weigh!’, gave an appraising glance at me and asked, “What is your bust size?”

The hall froze… A silent scene… However, the woman, realizing that she would not get an answer until the Apocalypse, instantly ducked under my furs, found a thin blouse and sighed heavily, “Not Hollywood, of course, but for the second roles it will fit… So we’ll write it down… And that’s all with you! The next one!”

…I returned home. SHE met me at the door.

“A gift, you have already forgotten about, awaits you. Open your email. This letter now is rightfully yours as well.”

In fact, I found a letter in my email, from the old critic who, as it turned out during the literary event, was a well-known poet-translator in the literary circles of the last century. The text of his letter was quite laconic, “Dear Alice, I am sending the gift I promised you. Sincerely, M.V.” I opened the attached file, a document called “Letter”, and… It was a letter by Boris Pasternak, with whom I had so suddenly and so strongly wanted to get acquainted just a couple of hours before!

In his letter dated December 15, 1955 and addressed to the old critic, poet-translator, Pasternak expressed in black and white his attitude to poetry and poets in general, and to spell-casters in particular. He wrote about the existence of some Other Secret Power which was selecting spells that would remain for centuries. “The power of spell-casters is usually recognized late. In some cases, they initially have tragic notes leading to suicide, in others – features of foresight, revealed by posthumous victory…”

Pasternak’s letter was a greeting from Another Reality, and SHE sat opposite smiling, “The surprises are not over for today. Open the book about Alexander.” Unable to resist, I took out the gifted book of 400 pages. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t read it all at once. “Just look it through!” SHE hinted.

There were almost no poems in the book, just a life story of Blok, whose mysterious “Poet”, enchanted my soul in childhood, remained a great secret for me. I obediently leafed through, when suddenly I came across that poem inside the text. “Wow!” I breathed out and started reading. A year before his death, Blok had got an unofficial daughter, named Alexandra, the same name that my parents gave me at birth. Her mother died. The woman who adopted the girl gave her that poem with a note that it had been dedicated to Alexandra by her father, and indicated his name, although the poem had been written almost 15 years before Alexandra’s birth. “He saw the Future, too,” I thought. So, almost 20 years after my acquaintance with Blok, the Higher Forces told me the secret of the “Poet”.

I was about to fall into the realm of dreams, but as soon as my physical body touched the bed, and my eyes hadn’t yet closed, I suddenly saw the Patriarch right in front of me. I jumped out of bed and rubbed my eyes, but the vision didn’t disappear.

“Come in, be bold,” he said with a smile, and I clearly saw the Temple of my Soul.

Landing my head on the pillow, I closed my eyes and opened them again, but the picture remained the same. I was in the Temple of my Soul and at the same time in my room, so both Realities combined in one, there were no boundaries anymore there.

“You are very tired, Alice. You need to relax. Let’s go.”

Since my last visit to the Temple of my Soul, nothing changed in it, but the Light was on again. I still didn’t understand where it was coming from. However, I was very tired and really wanted to rest. We approached the niche with climbing plants and white flowers, where there was a table, at which the Patriarch used to write something. I glanced down the left corridor and saw my Moon Cat. The Cat came up to me and climbed onto my shoulder humming the Music of the Spheres.

“Hello, Moony!” I whispered joyfully, scratching the Cat behind the ear. “Do you know what’s there, behind the door at the end of the left corridor?”

The Cat obediently jumped down to the floor and walked with an important gait towards that very door. I looked questioning at the Patriarch, whether I could look behind that door. He nodded in agreement. The Cat opened it with the paws, and I saw the bottomless dark blue Sky. The same one that I had painted as a background in the paintings about the Girl with the Moon Cat. I took a step into the Sky following the Cat. We walked through the Sky, although it seemed that we should fall and fall-fall-fall, since there was the Void under our feet and around us. Then I saw the Earth as a small ball which could easily fit in my palm.

“Where are we now, Moony? What kind of place is it?”

The Cat meowed in response something like, “What’s the difference? Take a walk to your health.”

The Sphere where we found ourselves was an intermediate state belonging to both Realities. One could return to Earth from there or observe the Earthly Reality through the Window to the World.

“They mostly fly this Sphere through, and at a fairly high speed,” it flashed in my mind for some reason.

I thought that there should be a vertical tunnel there, through which I had once flown up from the Earth to listen to the Music of the Spheres. One could get Knowledge there, since Heaven was an open Book, and everything one wanted to know instantly appeared on its pages. In my childhood, a Voice had taught me the structure of the Universe there. Both formulas and geometric figures appeared on the screen of Eternity, as if the stars were forming into certain patterns, figures and words.

“Moony, can it be the place of a Higher Educational Institution?”

The Cat purred contentedly. I realized that my Moony lived in the Temple of my Soul. I had never met him before, because the Cat was fond of walking by himself in different Spheres, otherwise, how could he know the Music of the Spheres? I mentally invited him to return, but the Cat purred, “I’ll probably wander around here, and you go back.”

I returned to the Temple. So I got to know where the door, located next to the entrance to the Library of the Universe, led to. I approached the Patriarch, remembering that all the doors in the right corridor, which he had shown me the previous time, were associated with the sin of suicide. I asked him if the final door of the right corridor was the entrance to Hell, the Lower Astral. The Patriarch nodded, adding that I needed another door. He pointed with his hand to what could be seen behind the climbing plants with white flowers parting in front of me in the niche opposite the entrance to the Temple.

Another level of Heavens, one of the Spheres where I had never been before. I stepped inside. Everything was flooded with the Light, but not that of the Sun. Permeating the entire space, it didn’t blind the eye at all. Emerald grass was underfoot. Multi-colored butterflies were fluttering over the flowers. A beautiful huge meadow, a friendly forest on the right… everything was just like in childhood, when my grandfather and I had used to wander through the forests next to our cottage in summer. Voices were heard in the distance. The bright souls of the departed lived there. That Sphere was filled with joy and tranquility. Nothing negative reached that level, being settled downstairs. All that existed There were mental images created in the likeness of what we got used to on the Earth, and / or (?) vice versa, on the Earth like in Heavens. There was nothing to be afraid of, but I was afraid of going too far, since the morning would come soon, and I needed to get back on time.

Therefore, I fell into the flowering grass, listened to the birds singing, watching the magical butterflies and the Light that surrounded me. My own inner Light was slowly merging with the Universal One. I was dissolving in It, because I was a part of It. We had the same nature or structure, or composition, or whatever it was. Call it something for me. All I knew then – I was That Light.

16. NO MAGIC WANDS

Every ‘Good Morning’ started in my garage. Sometimes the garage also greeted me with its ‘Good Evening’. The house of my silver Fox, the furthest one in the corridor, was located right next to the Never Opening Gates. Or rather, one could open them only inside, because right behind them, there was a hill. The Gates were crooked, therefore, the right door of my garage opened until 45 degrees. Another convenience was the distance between the opposite garages, too small to turn around, so I used to drive in, weaving along the entire corridor in reverse. It was more fun to do it when someone had left the car right in the corridor, not in the garage. Especially in winter evenings, because the car with an automatic front-wheel drive didn’t like to eat porridge of snow, moving in reverse, and expressing its protest, stopped, demanding me to pick up a shovel and clear the way from the beginning of the corridor up to those Never Opening Gates. However, the Gates were already walled up with snow. People dumped it unexpectedly, and I kept thinking, why those with obvious vision problems were allowed to drive vehicles, because an inscription on the Gates shouted in capital letters, “Don’t cover me with snow! Let me drive too!” Even I could still see it from afar. So, until the snow melting, every morning started for me with exercises, which I often had to repeat in the evening, and God knew what exercises it would consist of the next day.

In spring, the snow from the hill behind the Never Opening Gates started melting and flowed directly to my garage door. At night, the ‘sea’ was covered with a thick crust of ice, so in the morning I chipped it off to open the doors, and then, with a shovel, scooped out the water under the ice. By evening, a new portion of melted snow used to arrive. So, if any of you lacks physical exercise, welcome, let’s do it together.

In summer, people dumped garbage at the Gates. Once, someone wasn’t even lazy to bring and put on public display heavy windows with a balcony door. I informed the security guard I couldn’t drive out, and he asked in surprise, “Don’t you need windows?” I said I needed to go to work. The guard thought for a moment and offered me to sell those windows to someone.

That morning I found both garage doors covered with snow up to the lock level. No, it wasn’t even snow, it was a stone wall of snow. I understood that the Tractor had arrived at night and done its best for everyone, except me. It had gathered snow from all over the corridor, safely locking with it the Never Opening Gates and, to increase my physical activity, my garage, which I had been clearing about half an hour the previous night. At night, as luck would have it, frost set in and the snow turned into stone. “Immured!” I breathed out involuntarily, realizing that the tools were inside the garage.

Of course, if I could get to work by public transport, I would have done so, but the Higher Forces sent me to an industrial zone outside the city, reachable by public transport right by the end of the working day.

I sighed heavily and headed to the Chairman’s booth, whom I had repeatedly asked to warn me about every planned visit of the Tractor, so that I would leave my Fox for a night outside its house. It was interesting that when everyone should hand over some money, they called everyone in advance and several times in a row, but informing only one person about the Tractor was an insoluble problem.

The Chairman sat in the booth drinking tea.

“Good morning!” I said and looked at him questioning.

“500 rubles!” the Chairman said happily and handed me the receipt.

“What for?” I asked, already knowing his answer.

“For clearing snow from the area!”

“Could you give me a shovel instead of a receipt?”

The Chairman smiled.

“500 rubles first, and then a shovel!”

“Listen, did you see what happened to my garage after clearing snow from the area?”

“Yes, I did,” the Chairman chuckled.

“So what should I do now?”

“Pay 500 rubles and pick up a shovel.”

“Why should I pay for clearing snow from the area, if after it, and not for the first time, my private area, which I clear every single day by myself, turns into a stone wall and I have to pick up a shovel?”

“Because you got the furthest garage at the Never Opening Gates. It’s not me to be blamed!”

“Who is to be blamed for that?”

“It’s you, of course! If I were you, I would never agree to get that garage for anything in the world! I know what it means!”

“Did I have a choice?”

“No! Anyhow, I can do you a favor.”

“What favor?” I became interested.

“500 rubles first.”

I handed over the money. The Chairman smiled and said in a condescending voice, “For paying double fees for your garage, I will allow your car to spend the winter outside. The same problems are in the next corridor. The Land Cruiser has been spending nights without a roof for the second winter.”

“Are you saying that I have to pay the fees for the garage and the same amount in addition so that you allow me to leave my car in the corridor and not in the garage?”

“Why do they say that there are no beautiful and simultaneously smart women on the Earth?” The Chairman laughed.

“Give me a shovel!”

Having dug up the immured Fox, I noticed traces of cat’s paws on the bonnet.

“Moony! Have you decided to be materialized?!”

There was a rustling sound in the corner.

“Listen, I don’t mind if you’re not at all gray, as you are on the figurine of the Girl with the Cat!”

The Cat crawled out into the Light and looked at me with interest. He was exactly gray, smoky, with white paws and a white tie around the neck. I smiled.

“Hello! How beautiful you are! Sorry, I don’t have time to communicate with you now. I’m already late for work. See you in Another Reality. But if you have some business on the Earth, you can live in the house of my Fox!”

The Cat jumped onto the shelf and curled up into a ball.

I almost got to work. I worked in an industrial zone in the southern direction, not far from the take-off point of the iron birds. I needed only to cross the railroad tracks, which no one had traveled on for a long time, as evidenced by a giant stone left by someone onto the rails to the right of the roadway. Suddenly, the car in front of me stopped and died right on the rails. I patiently waited for the continuation, but even after ten minutes the situation hadn’t changed. There was no one observed on the road, which had only two lanes for driving – towards work and back home. I decided to drive around the stalled car. Performing that action, all of a sudden, I noticed a Magic Wand waving out of the snowy bushes to make me stop. Disobeying the order of the Magic Wand was a sin. I stopped.

The Magic Wand looked satisfied rubbing his hands.

“Finally, at least someone drove into the Middle of Nowhere!” he muttered under his breath and added loudly, “Good morning, girl!”

“Hello,” I said.

“Well, you got caught! How could you get caught, huh? Get in my car. I adore small, stupid and inexperienced girls!” the Magic Wand licked his lips.

“What would you do in my place?” I asked after getting into his car.

“The same. It’s just unclear to me why you stayed there for ten minutes waiting for the stalled old stuff to re-start. Wasted time. I’m completely frozen! Okay, give me your docs.”

I handed over my driving documents. The Magic Wand studied them for a long time and suddenly exclaimed in surprise, “Wow! Are you a city girl?! What are you doing here, in the Middle of Nowhere?”

“Working.”

“Do you work here?!” the Wand was even more surprised. “Is there no work left in the city?”

“It happened to me so.”

“Where do you work here?”

“Right around the corner.”

“Well, you got it in full, the city girl! Have you realized how badly you are trapped?”

“Yes, I am late for work.”

“No, you seem not to understand it yet. Okay, let’s find it out now. Tell me the truth like the Saint Spirit, about your work. What are you doing there?”

The words concerning my work most likely would seem Another Reality to you, although they had nothing to do with it. Many things often seemed to be different than they were in reality. In brief, I worked with capital letters.

“ABS, PVC, HPL, CPL, MDF, fiberboard, chipboard,” I said the usual abracadabra of abbreviations.

“Hey you, the city girl, better not show off!” the Magic Wand got angry.

“You got it wrong! Just one thousand and one things that…”

“Well done, already closer to the point… So, one thousand and one, you say… And how many thousand do you get for your one thousand and one things?”

“Almost nothing, catastrophically,” I told the absolute truth.

“If you earn almost catastrophically nothing, it’s cheaper to be late for work for the whole day than to get caught on the road!”

“How much cheaper?” I asked.

“I’m even afraid to scare you voicing something.”

I suddenly thought that, probably, apart from spiders, there wasn’t much in life to scare me, but just in case, I asked, “So say something not scary!”

“You are kind of a slow-witted city girl! Tell me something that won’t scare you too much. It’s you who got caught, not me.”

“I am afraid too… to offend you,” I said, since I couldn’t even imagine the current prices of the Magic Wands.

“Okay, let’s do this way. Take out your wallet. Everything we find inside now will suddenly fall out onto the floor and will be lost for you! Agreed?”

I thought that God existed, and nodded in agreement joyfully, because I remembered very well that, fortunately, only few days were left before the salary.

Seeing the contents of my wallet, the Magic Wand became very upset and asked in surprise, “Is the city girl a beggar?! Do you really have nothing else?!”

I spread my hands helplessly, dropping the contents of my wallet to the floor.

“I have spells!” I suddenly recalled. “Do you want me to cast them?”

“My Lord, you’re also crazy! Take your docs and leave, save you God! Just as my advice for the future, you may break the laws, everyone does it, but you must never be caught!”

When I got to the office, I didn’t rejoice for long, since the electricity suddenly turned off, and after a couple of hours we were allowed to go home. Thus, another theorem in my life was proven, if the garage was walled up in the morning, there was no need to drive out anywhere.

I returned to the city and was about to leave my Fox in its house, when a passer-by suddenly stopped me. His face beamed with a satisfied smile. Without even hiding his joy, he said, “Your headlight bulb burned out!”

Why were people always happy to give bad news and receive only good news? With such thought in mind, I went to a branded car service. I was put in a queue and assured that they would definitely change the light bulb in a month.

“You have no light bulbs,” I supposed.

“We have no time to change light bulbs!”

“How long does it take to change one?”

“Not more than five minutes. Usually, two…”

“Are you saying that I have to wait a month for you to change my light bulb in two minutes?”

“Why do you need us to change it? You can change it Around the Corner. They change everything for everyone there, right away and for a penny!”

“Should I buy a light bulb from you, at least?”

“There are more than enough light bulbs Around the Corner!”

Never expected to receive such practical advice from a branded car service, I sincerely thanked them and hurried Around the Corner.

…I was drinking coffee in a cafe near my home, when a man at a distant table by the window, impossible to be recognized with my earthly vision, having pierced me with his gaze, stood up finally and approached me.

“Good evening, lady! Excuse me, could you remind me the way I know you?”

“Ruslan, hello!” I exclaimed joyfully, recognizing my former colleague.

“I’m sorry, I’m not kidding. I had a stroke, I remember almost nothing… I saw you, and it seemed to me that we had met somewhere. Who are you? What’s your name? Please tell me.”

“Ruslan, I am Alice.”

“Alice… What an unusual name! I remember your eyes. I’m waiting for a friend here. I have a plane at night. Now I work far away. In an investment company. As General Manager. Would you sit with me for a while? Shall we drink coffee?”

The Black Box of Memory was opened. It always happened at such moments. I usually tried to keep it locked up just to learn to live ‘here and now’.

“We worked together, Ruslan, and were on first-name terms. Do you remember my Brother?”

“Brother? Ah… yes! I remember! What were you doing there?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Listen, Alice, I think I start recalling. You are like greetings from my past life! Was it you who wrote poetry?! My God! Where were you supposed to fly to that early morning, when I accompanied you to the airport in a motorcade with flashing lights?”

“Probably on vacation,” I said, smiling.

“No, it was a business trip to Italy, you often went there with Brother!”

I definitely remembered myself fly to Switzerland then, but I didn’t argue.

“Tell me about yourself, Alice, so many years have passed!”

I told him something, then he told me about him. Ruslan hadn’t changed at all, the same character, the same speeches and actions.

“You know, Alice, at first, you spoke like a stranger, no emotions, but recalling out job and Brother, your eyes were shining. It’s nostalgia, right?”

“You can’t live in the Past, Ruslan. That’s wrong, really.”

“That’s why they took it away from me,” he said thoughtfully.

…That evening, I watched already the second TV film about RAM, saw familiar faces in the hall, laughed and wept. We were all her students and… children. Irina from the city of Kazan appeared on the screen. She was 36 years old and had two children, a girl and a boy, her son was six years old, her daughter was a high school student. Irina had the terminal stage of cancer, diagnosed shortly before the seminar. She placed her rug next to mine, and I thought, maybe I could do something for her, help her with something. During the break, we started talking, and I asked if Irina had found the cause of her illness.

“Yes, Alice, I have the wrong attitude towards children. I’m going to Saint Matrona, and a miracle will happen! She’ll cure me, everything will pass right away! You’ll see!”

“What do you mean, wrong attitude?”

“I scold them. Especially my daughter. Instead of doing her homework, she reads romance novels.”

“Are you just scolding?”

“Yes… Imagine, I enter her room in full confidence that she is studying history, but find out a love story book on her lap! So I start scolding, because she has exams soon, meanwhile she’s occupied with all sorts of nonsense! Then, of course, we make up. I know I should not do that, but…”

I looked into her huge brown eyes and understood perfectly well that the reason was not at all the voiced. Most children tried to avoid doing homework, and almost all parents scolded them for that, but not all parents got cancer.

I gave to Irina as a gift my book of spells dedicated to my mother. She opened the book. Pointing to one of the few photos survived, of me at the age of four, sitting on my mother’s lap, Irina asked, “Is that your mother?”

“Yes, she died when I was twelve.”

“And mine died when I was 6. The same cancer. At the same age of 36, like me now. How might she die? Leaving me alone in this world? Such a grudge for all life, isn’t it, Alice? Our moms abandoned us.”

“Irina, are you really still offended by your mother for her death?”

“Are you not?”

“Not… Did our moms abandon us on purpose? Do you think your mom wanted to leave you here alone? Do you understand what you have just said? That’s your reason! That’s why you fell ill at exactly the same age and with the same disease, and your son is now exactly the same age as you were when your mother died. Don’t you get it?”

“I don’t!” she said coldly in response, offended already by me. “My reason is quarrels with my daughter.”

…Lera came to visit me at midnight. We drank tea in the kitchen sharing news about ordinary miracles.

“You know, Alice, I arrived at the Caves late in the evening, when the entrance was already closed, but I wanted to get to Saint Agapit so badly that suddenly a monk came out of the Caves and allowed me to go in!”

“When I went to the Caves, I visited seven monasteries nearby. The last of them contained the relics of St. Anastasia. The temple with the relics was almost always closed. I walked up to the doors, and they opened suddenly,” I smiled. “Another Reality will open any door for you, the main thing is to move in the right direction, along the Path to the Light.”

“I’m going to paint!”

“I see an exhibition of your paintings,” I said. “A large picture in a white frame is hanging on the bright wall to the left. It’s picture of a field. I see flowers. Two flowers, very large, are in the foreground; another one, a bit smaller, is nearby, and the rest are very small. Everything is flooded with sunlight.”

I saw poppies, but was afraid to specify.

“Alice, yes, you see the steppe with poppies! I’ve been to a poppy field several times. I want to paint it! Moreover, I understood what you meant writing about Divine or Universal Love. I felt it myself.”

“It’s a pity that few people know what it is.”

“A student asked our Hermit Monk why you painted the Moon Cat. The Monk replied that you don’t serve the Earthly Reality, living in it on your own, so you are close to the Cat walking by himself in Another Reality. He told me also to write my own book as well as you did. We must wake people up from their sleep. Those deaf for Another Reality won’t be able to receive the support of the Forces of Light and…”

“I performed in another country not long ago. They asked me questions. One of them struck me. Where can I find time for God in my life?”

“I wouldn’t even have figured out what to answer right away!”

“People cry that they feel bad, however, being told to do basic things, for which they need nothing but their own will, people disappear. A woman wrote to me for a month that she had been ill for a long time and was getting worse and worse, no specifics, only complaints about injustice and intoxication with her grief. A month later, it turned out that for seven years she had hated the man with whom she had broken up long before. I suggested that she write a Notebook of Forgiveness, as RAM taught us. You write for a week, many, many times, a phrase that you forgive and let go of the person for whom you experience negative emotions, and if other people emerge from the Subconscious, after finishing writing to the first person, you write to the next one. After that write a confession to God, but write it honestly, because no one but God will read it. In conclusion, describe a picture of your future happy life. What do you think the woman answered?”

“She doesn’t believe in God.”

“On the contrary, she considers herself a very religious person. She said she couldn’t write essays! Then I suggested that she paint, at least with her fingers, without bothering about the correct rendering of figures and lines, just paint with colors such abstract concepts, as Happiness, Love, My Bright Future and so on.”

“So she said she couldn’t do it, since she is not a painter!”

“Yes! People go to fortune-tellers expecting that someone will sooner or later say, ‘A miracle will come down to you in exactly six months. At three in the afternoon. If you pay me right now the amount you keep inside your bedside table’.”

“Such people always ask for advice, but almost never follow it, because they want to be pitied. Receiving pity in response to complaints, they are fueled by the energy of those who feel pity for them. If the vampire’s life gets better, the energy used to be received in the old proven way, will stop flowing. Thus, the vampire’s Subconscious constantly gives new reasons so that there is always something to complain about. Magic Wands don’t exist,” Lera smiled.

“Only because of our global laziness. I agree.”

17. The HOUSE that GOD BUILT

Have you ever wondered what a house is?

“Alice, get up! It’s time for us to go. Don’t let your Soul be lazy!” I heard HER familiar voice and woke up.

We went outside. SHE was in a hurry somewhere. I could barely keep up with HER.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Home,” SHE said calmly, without even turning around.

“What do you mean home? We’ve just left home for the exact opposite direction.”

SHE laughed and finally turned around, giving me a piercing look.

“Every moment in the Earthly Reality, Alice, even when we take no steps, we are going Home.”

“I agree, but what awaits us on the way Home, or rather, what intermediate point of the Earthly Reality are we heading to?”

“We are going to the temple.”

“Is the temple also Home?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a house where God lives, right?”

“Yes.”

“But God lives in every flower, in every person, in everything, everything, everything that exists in the Universe.”

“Yes.”

“So, am I also a house? Is everything around a house for God?”

“Yes.”

“It means that God is everywhere, everywhere is God, right?”

“Yes.”

“In this case, why are we going to the temple if God is everywhere around us?”

“I don’t say that we are going to God. I say, we are going to the temple.”

“What for?”

“Your house is running out of candles,” SHE laughed.

“You’re up to something again!”

“Don’t you like surprises?”

I bought candles in the church shop. SHE whispered, “The prayer for 40 days,” and I ordered it. SHE pushed me towards a bookshelf, “There is something interesting there, especially for you!” I chose several books and went into the temple, where the liturgy had just begun. I had studied there at the parochial school twenty years before. I approached the soleya at the left (small) altar gates, where I used to sing in the children’s choir for five years.

There was a nun behind the gilded fence which separated the parishioners from the altar. After a couple of minutes, she walked up to the fence and held out her hand to me. I decided that the nun was going down ‘into the world’, but she opened the door saying, “Come up to me, you should stand here.”

Her words made my Soul tremble. Only girls and nuns were allowed to stand there, but Another Reality gave me its permission, and I was in childhood again. It was the place where I first felt the presence of Another Reality and God everywhere: in icons, lit candles, incense, in church singing, in the voices of clergy, in the air. During the liturgy, I was in an altered state of Consciousness, merging with the immense Everything. The liturgy became for me a sacred mystery of Another Reality. Later I learned to see God outside the temple walls, but the Path to Him lay through the Temple.

People need a temple. It’s a place located simultaneously in both Realities. People come there to communicate with God, because in other places it’s difficult for them to communicate with Him, they don’t see Him there. In the temple, energy is concentrated (by summing up the energies of those present), and a colossal Flow connects everyone to Another Reality. One’s energy becomes balanced and purified, although not everyone’s, but of those who deserve it. Many people come to God solely for selfish reasons and ask for something more appropriate to be addressed to the Prince of Darkness; they lit the biggest candles at the icons, firmly believing that the fulfillment of wishes depends on their size and quantity.

I never speak to God in words. The word is always a limitation of thought. I speak to Him with my Soul, but the Soul doesn’t know words, having only feelings. God sees and knows everything about me at every moment. He even knows about me what I don’t know yet. He is always in me and everywhere. He loves me, like each of His creations, and everything that happens to me happens by His will. If I don’t like something, or it seems unfair to me, there is a reason for that. I can be unaware of the reason, but it’s well known to God. I ask Him to forgive me for everything that, consciously and unconsciously, I have done not in the way He would like, to open my eyes to the reasons, to give my Soul the strength to survive what will still be sent in order to walk my Path, deviating as little as possible. To tell me what else I can do for the world, because each of us, God’s creations, came to the Earthly Reality, first of all, not to consume, but to bring Light and Love into the world, to create good things and do something good and useful for others.

Everything is possible for God, and you can ask for everything that your Soul desires, and even for whatever that pleases not your Soul, but your body. Only doubt makes the possible impossible. Disbelief in miracles is a program in Consciousness, because of which many people have forgotten how to dream.

Get yourself a “Book of Wishes”. Write a letter to the Higher Forces, tell them what kind of life would be ideal for you. Describe your earthly home, the people you communicate with, your job, and so on in as much detail as possible. Write in the Present tense, here and now, avoid the particle ‘not’. For Another Reality, ‘not’ doesn’t exist, so everything that you write with ‘not’ will happen exactly the opposite. Don’t be afraid to ask, but be afraid of fulfilling of your wish if it violates in any way the Divine Laws, because you will certainly be billed.

I stood on the soleya, listening to the choir singing. Many people like to sing, or rather, they mostly sing than talk. In exchange for a portion of pity, blaming others for their troubles, some people sing about the cruelty of the world and flagrant injustice. Others, who are doing well, on the contrary, sing about their charity and the way they have practically reached holiness. However, they help only if others immediately learn about such feat of generosity and admire them, that is, in exchange for a portion of glory. Try to help quietly, so that no one knows about it except the one you help, or so that even that one won’t know. I assure you, it’s much more difficult than it seems at first glance.

I remembered one of my relatives who became very rich. As we met, she talked for a long time about her charity, and after that, she reasoned out loud which of her wallets to take money from to furnish the newly purchased cottage. I gave her three copies of each of my books as a gift and, being unemployed, asked her to buy ten of my books for gifts as her charity towards me. The relative paused and said in a serious voice, “You are great for leaving your mark on the Earth. I have to think about it, ten is so much! I’ll call you back!” Those books are long gone. She hasn’t called me back yet.

After the liturgy, I approached the tombstone of the Patriarch, located next to my favorite icon of the “Seeking for the Dead”. “You are always in my heart!” I said mentally, and the Patriarch smiled in response from his portrait. His eyes radiated Universal Love.

I returned to my earthly home. If you consider me completely alien to the Earthly Reality, you are mistaken. That day I had to iron a lot of things. Turning on the iron, I recalled our casting for a TV show, which was kept secret. I hadn’t done it for many years, but I turned on the TV so that I could get an idea of which show one could get into.

It was Sunday, the Sun was shining…

On the screen, there was a corpse in a pool of blood and people carefully studying it: someone was taking photos, someone was examining the contents of pockets. The girl-investigator, apparently the main character, was about to leave the frame when someone exclaimed, “This is the corpse of a transvestite!” Well, I’m certainly not a Saint, but…

…it was Sunday, the Sun was shining, I wanted to see some kind of light on the screen!

I switched to another TV channel. A documentary investigation of a series of mysterious rapes with the following murders of old women in a village. Ominous music. The voice-over was going into detail. They showed in turn those untouched by the nightmare, talked about those who had left for Another Reality and enjoyed the interview with the miraculous survivor. All that, as it turned out, had been done by a young guy living in the same village, but…

…it was Sunday, the Sun was shining…

I pressed the button for the next TV channel. Action movie. Everyone was shooting. It was not clear who hit whom, the main thing was that it was very noisy, continuous abuse, screams and blood. Five minutes without a break. I couldn’t stand in front of the TV screen, the flow of negative vibrations was turning my Soul inside out, it wanted to run away from me.

I pressed the button again and found myself in a fantasy movie. I was already delighted, but… A couple of minutes later, on a huge pole of an unknown tribe of the next century, but for some reason living in something similar to a cave, where people in tattoos with skulls were dancing wildly, a tied up man from the second tribe, living behind a wall from the first one, appeared. The man was put into a seething cauldron, then pulled out, and pieces of his mortified flesh were cut off and eaten (!) with wild joy turning into ecstasy. My Soul howled. I turned off the TV because…

…it was Sunday, the Sun was shining…

So what show did they sign us up for?

For more than thirty years I had been a guest of the Earthly Reality. Once upon a time in India, an astrologer predicted that I could completely change my life at that age, starting from the place I lived and ending with everything. On New Year’s Eve, at a literary party, we were telling fortune, pulling candies with prophecies hidden under the wrappings out of Santa Claus’ bag. I got a phrase that made me smile, “It will be peace throughout the world, and you will live in a new flat”. Do you know the cost of a new apartment? That was why I smiled.

However, after several months, I dreamed myself coming to a large and practically new flat. The interior decoration had just been completed. I looked around: the ceilings were high, the walls were bright, the hallway was spacious, the strange arrangement of the rooms even pleased me. One of them was intended for my parents, although I remembered in my dream that their home was located in Another Reality. I didn’t go to see them, and it seemed they wouldn’t let me in there. Their room smelled cold, I knew it was flooded with moonlight, but I didn’t feel any fear or other negative emotions. Meanwhile, I felt the next room as my own and entered it.

It was very bright and completely empty. A large window with a balcony, behind which there was the Light. The walls were of a light color. I visualized a sofa and sat down on it. I didn’t know the way I had got the flat, but I had to furnish it, and I liked everything related to design and decorating spaces. I thought I would put up bookcases there and take away books from the category of literature useful for the Soul. I imagined shelves and mentally placed them on the opposite wall. The shelves were light too. Then I filled the room with the few things dear to me, I didn’t like to clutter the space with earthly things. I was about to make a list of items to purchase, but the alarm clock rang. I had to return to Earth. Perhaps the flat in that dream was my life. The parents’ room, the black part of it, was left in the Past. I was entering the second room. It should be full of Light. I was going to take there only the most important things from my Past.

A month later, I saw an equally strange dream. I was offered to buy a house. I never understood why the owners were leaving. They didn’t live long there, a family with two children, although I saw only a dark-haired boy of about 13—15 years old. I came to see the house with two men, one of them was a lawyer or realtor. The reddish-brown wooden front door opened directly onto the street. I couldn’t make out the inscription of white letters located in a semicircle above the house number; perhaps it was in a foreign language. They opened the door, and I got inside. There were many rooms with expensive furniture. In general, I liked the interior design. The boy told me about each room. Opening the next door, I found myself in the bathroom with a shower stall only, albeit an overly sophisticated one. “The bathroom is next,” the boy said with a smile. Indeed, the bathroom was located further, and more further I found… a swimming pool. “Wow, I can swim right at home now!” One of the rooms opened onto a terrace in the courtyard, flooded with light. The floor was made of wooden planks. I saw also a round white table and white chairs in the French style. There was something like a sun canopy on the roof, the same white, but not so long to cover the entire terrace. “I’ll put pots of flowers here, and something to lie on and read a book,” I thought. We started discussing the details. The agreement had already been prepared.

“How much does it cost?” I asked.

“One and a half million euros only, but you may pay it in parts as long as you like.”

I was horrified by what had been said, remembering in the dream my salary, which was not enough even to save money for a rainy day. I began to think frantically, what else I had, besides my salary. A small flat on the outskirts of the city and an old cottage in the middle of nowhere.

“So do you agree?”

I looked at the man next to me, but I couldn’t see him at all. The realtor or lawyer handed the contract to me for signature, but I put the documents aside, saying that I wanted to read them in a calm atmosphere. At the same time, I knew that the house already belonged to me, at least in Another Reality. My earthly guard, the alarm clock, rang as usual under the pillow. I hastily returned to Earth, forgetting to pull the docs out of my dream.

That evening, I opened my email as usual in the hope that, having remembered me, the Man Who Was Not showed Himself in my reality.

I had gifted Him my book, and we didn’t see each other anymore. It seemed like an eternity had passed, and I still couldn’t understand why it was difficult for Him to write me at least a couple of words or just call me to ask an absolutely non-binding, purely earthly question, “How are you?” He knew perfectly well how glad I was for rare communication and how lonely I felt. I loved Him without reasons, with unconditional Love, feeling something close in Him, and I wanted Him to be somewhere nearby – in letters, calls and meetings, as a Person Who Simply Is. But the mailbox reported as usual that it had received zero point zero of new letters. I decided to write to the MWWN, sharing my latest news about the RAM film, the casting, the trip to the city of M., where I had been settled in the cemetery, and so on. I wrote for a long time, but, as it turned out, to Nowhere. I pressed the ‘Send’ button, and the mail froze. No matter what I did, the letter remained not sent, and finally it… disappeared. There was no point in rewriting it again, the MWWN didn’t read my letters. What if Maria was right, and He didn’t exist in the Earthly Reality? Was He sent by the Forces of Darkness to push me to leave the Earth failing the Life Exam? Was He the Black Shadow that the Teacher spoke to me about?

I glanced briefly at the breaking news on the Internet. All social and political news could be divided into 2 categories: someone kissed someone, and someone’s tail was stepped on. After that everyone began discussing whether it had happened by accident or done on purpose, and if on purpose, for what purpose. Another kind of news was about the transition of a famous person into Another Reality. That person might have been already forgotten by everyone, but suddenly reminded the world of his former existence. And immediately, out of nowhere, numerous ‘friends’ of the deceased used to appear. They recalled him only on that day, which happened once a year, or even less often, but after his death they wanted to get a moment of glory and tell about the departed one that he didn’t want to tell anyone in the Earthly Reality for some reason. Someone mysteriously hinted at the existence of an unofficial reason for leaving, and the death began overgrowing with legends, the more the better. A magnificent farewell with the erection of a luxurious monument followed, because it was customary. Anyhow, the memory of a person clearly remained in another place, not in a cemetery.

I felt sad about such news, and there was almost no other news there, so one day I stopped reading the news, and life became easier. Moreover, everything that happened, is happening and will happen is in the information field around us. I assure you, there is much more news there, and not distorting reality. Instead of reading the news, it’s better to remember your friends and loved ones and communicate with them before their leaving for Another Reality.

I was just about to close the Internet, when in one of the announcements I noticed a photo of a man whom I had often seen lately as a portrait on the walls of almost all executive offices, but had never seen in the original. The man looked directly at me from the monitor and even somehow questioning. I wanted to talk to him. I didn’t know his phone number or email address, but I took a pen and wrote in my notebook the following.

“Hello… I know almost nothing about you, just like you know about me, but I wanted to talk to you. You will ask who I am, but I still don’t know the answer to this question, despite the fact that I came to Earth more than thirty years ago. I know that Life in the Earthly Reality is too short to play any games in it and not to be ourselves.

I am absolutely apolitical, but I am embodied in the country that you lead. This country is like a large and beautiful Garden. I know how difficult it is to keep track of everything that happens in the garden, because I have a house in the country. The garden seems small, but I constantly need to work in it so that it doesn’t become overgrown with weeds and pleases me in the fall. I often think, it’s so difficult to be God, because God’s House is much larger than my country house and any country. The entire Universe is His House with the Garden, and God must watch and hear everything that happens every moment in every corner, and make sure that His Garden doesn’t become overgrown and doesn’t cease bearing fruit.

I feel like a guest in this world. People compare me to a nun, call me a spell-caster, because I write poetry in the spirit of the Silver Age spell-casters. If you want, I will give you my books when we meet. I invite you to my house. I have few things, but many mysteries. To tell the truth, I don’t have your portrait on the wall, but I think you don’t have mine yet either. In my flat, icons from Holy Places and my own paintings about Another Reality live on the walls. I painted them after the RAM seminar, you might be interested in meeting her.

Each of us comes to Earth to do something good and bright. I want to be useful to people and leave my mark before I return home to God. You are very busy, having a little less to do than God, but still… I want to talk to you about poetry. What is Garden without birds?

They say that in the Past good poems were published at the expense of publishing houses, literary parties were held free, poets were valued and people knew them. Today there are many worthy poets. Being representatives of Another Reality, they have no money, but are forced to publish works at their own expense, organize literary parties for friends and relatives, paying for the rent of the hall. It’s almost impossible to bring one’s creativity to people in our large country without money. The people who have a lot of money, as a rule, don’t have the unique gift of real poets. And it’s painful to realize how many talented works and their creators will sink into oblivion, while they could form part of the cultural heritage for everyone who lives now and will live after us. I want to help talented people, but I don’t know how. Perhaps we will come up with something together, because by helping them, we will help our Garden not to become overgrown with weeds, and it will certainly bring us worthy fruits in the fall.

Anyhow, I sincerely wish you to walk your Path, doing Good and bringing Light into the big and beautiful House that God built…”

I signed the letter, pulled out the sheets of paper from the notebook, folded them in the shape of a bird, opened the window and released them into Heavens. I knew that someday it would definitely find its addressee.

18. DARK LIGHT

He invited me to cast my spells on the Roof. He was an Oligarch. I suddenly wanted to feel pity for him. Just think about it, it was not as easy for Oligarchs to live as for ordinary people; they had to maintain, among other things, various roofs.

The Roof was one of his flats, located on the last two floors of a sky-scrapper, from where one could see a lot of beautiful things of the Earthly Reality, but nothing of Another one at all.

I had already climbed onto the Roof for an exhibition of some Artist’s paintings held by the Oligarch. The Oligarch, we must give him his due, in addition to factories, ships, yachts, villas and other earthly nonsense, oddly enough, was fond of arts. Many funny characters gathered on the Roof for that exhibition, most of them considered themselves glamorous. I modestly stood aside, because I had no idea how I could be interesting to those people. They were discussing the weather, the breaking news, television stars and the tabloids. I could tell them the way to the Library of the Universe, but they would hardly get there, even if I wrote out the route step by step or by real stars.

Having approached me, a woman introduced herself as a Writer and pronounced her last name, informing me, as if by the way, about the half a million circulation of her books, and said that my face reminded her of someone. Obviously offended by the fact that her great name meant absolutely nothing to my ears, she asked who I was. If I had said the word ‘spell-caster’ in response, she wouldn’t have understood me, so I said that I wrote poetry. The woman thought about it a bit. Of course, my name was unknown to her, but she didn’t give up, listing in a glamorous voice with a glamorous look all the glamorous parties she had once visited, in the hope that she had met me at one of them. I wanted the Writer to turn her attention to someone else of the guests, but I didn’t know to lie in order to stop her with the words, “Oh, yes! I remember, it seems, it was there that I accidentally lost my favorite gold ring with a huge diamond!” Having listened to the elite list to the end, I smiled sadly, stating that I hadn’t been at any of the mentioned parties.

I cast a few spells to them all. Someone asked, “How do you manage to write spells like that?” I didn’t want to offend them, so I shrugged my shoulders. If I had constantly gone to glamorous parties in my life, I would have written nothing like that. In order to write like that, one had to live many lives in one, each time dying and resurrecting again.

That day the Oligarch pleased me, “There will be few people on the Roof.”

I arrived on the Roof in the evening after a rehearsal of a creative performance, having had no time to eat, so I really wanted to bite something and hinted to the Oligarch about it.

“Would you like some cheese? Do you prefer expensive or very expensive one?”

“I don’t care,” I answered coldly, remembering my church childhood.

The Oligarch cut off two small pieces, in fact, I didn’t understand of what kind of cheese, but I took one of them and headed to my favorite far corner, where there was a lonely, like me, leather chair in the niche, and a Tibetan thangka of the Buddha of the Future on the wall.

“Do you need some bread, maybe?” the Oligarch asked ironically and started listing the varieties of glamorous bread he had in stock.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to pay for your bread already,” I said, involuntarily remembering how much money was left in my wallet until payday.

There were really few guests that time. While I sat in the secluded corner, like a gray mouse, savoring the piece of elite cheese given to me, they were discussing the unique, but, as it seemed to me, somewhat gloomy interior of the Roof.

Finally, one of the guests said that it would be nice to have something to eat. The Oligarch admitted that in his refrigerator, there was a piece of the freshest Australian beef, because the Oligarchs ate exclusively Australian beef, but… he would eat that beef the next day, so the guests had to eat something or someone else. For example, Swiss chocolate, brought to him personally from Switzerland according to his order.

Poor Oligarch! I was horrified. It’s so difficult to be an Oligarch! Can you imagine how much money one needs to constantly spend just to eat exclusively Australian beef and order chocolate from Switzerland?! I can’t. And how many other similar points, which the Oligarchs must have in order to be Oligarchs, do exist!

I thought, “It’s so good that I am me.”

A girl materialized on the Roof, bringing with her some couscous she had specially prepared for the guests. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and headed to the table. Thus, the issue of the attack on Australian beef was safely removed from the agenda.

After the meal, the Oligarch invited me to cast spells. He told them that I was a Great Spell-caster, and already well-known. I grinned, it turned out that Oligarchs tended to exaggerate reality! I remarked that, according to my Natal Chart, only posthumous glory awaited me.

“Don’t worry, we will see it,” the Oligarch assured me, waving his hand at my Natal Chart, as if my Death was already wandering on his Roof.

I stood in front of the window at the door to the balcony. It was snowing outside. It was very beautiful, but there was not enough Light somehow.

“What a Dark Light is here,” flashed in my mind when I took out my papers with the spells and saw almost nothing, either because of my poor earthly vision, or because the Light there was really Dark.

While I was reading, one of the guests managed to take a nap and snore. I was happy for him. He took a break from the Earthly Reality. I didn’t know where the others had been during my spell-casting, but when I asked if they liked anything, they all fell silent for a long time. I didn’t bother them, returning to the secluded corner of the niche with the Tibetan thangka of the Buddha of the Future.

Saying good-bye, the Oligarch gave a book, not mine, to each guest, except me. Probably, unlike me, they hadn’t eaten cheese. However, I wasn’t offended at all, because I remembered well since childhood that free cheese could be found only in mousetraps.

…Ray appeared always unexpectedly. That time we met on a street in the city center. I was walking into the distance when suddenly, looking up, I noticed Ray approaching me.

“Have you come here to walk with me on purpose?”

“I feel when you are sad, and I know that you like this street.”

We walked slowly along the pavement, hand in hand, looking at paintings by unknown artists put up for sale by merchants.

“You always appear when I feel bad. Why, Ray? You are not a Warrior of Light at all.”

“As paradoxical as it may sound, I am the only Ray of Light in your Past. Do you remember why you started calling me that? I show up because you want me to. You call me, and I can’t help but come.”

“Why can you not?”

“Once you helped me. Moreover, you are strong and bright. You are too bright, Alice. Even the most sinister Darkness can’t disobey the order of the Light.”

“Who are you, Ray?”

“A person from your Past. You may say a phantom or just a ghost.”

“You are cunning, as always!”

“When one stops living in the Present, one turns to the ghosts of the Past or draws phantoms of the Future. When you stop recalling and living in the Past, I will stop appearing.”

“Does one live in the Past because one doesn’t have the Present, or does one have no Present because one lives in the Past?”

“It’s the same thing, Alice. One and the same, like you and me.”

“Are you saying that I am you, and you are me?”

“Exactly, you understood it yourself long ago. Everything that exists in the world is all ONE. It’s just that the Divine Light prevails in you. As for me…”

“What will you tell them about me when they come for you?”

Ray stopped, looked into my eyes and fell silent for a long time.

“Okay, don’t tell me. I have a much more important question.”

“Are you going to ask me about the Man Who Was Not?”

“Were they some of Yours to send Him to me? Well, you should know.”

“What do you think?”

“He reminds me of you. You are somewhat similar.”

“What do you feel, Alice, thinking about Him, besides Universal Love?”

“Pain. So unbearable that I don’t want to live. It poisons me. This Man seems to have no Soul.”

“You answered your own question yourself. I have nothing to add.”

At that moment, the street musicians we were passing by started playing something beautiful, similar to a slow dance. And we were dancing on the pavement in the crowd of passers-by, as once upon a time, when it had been snowing outside the windows of the Tower with the Dark Light inside on.

“Imagine what these people would see now if they could!” I whispered to Ray with a smile.

“Believe me,” Ray chuckled, “nothing unusual, the same that they don’t see every single day! Darkness coexists inseparably with Light. Two Forces are constantly fighting for the souls of even those who are unaware of this struggle. We are two huge spheres, one is full of Darkness, the other of Light. You are Light, but dark outwardly. I am Dark, but light outwardly.”

Ray was blond and blue-eyed, and I was dark.

“They just don’t see us, Alice.”

“Why?”

“These people are absorbed by the Earthly Reality. Look at them mesmerized by It! We are in Another Reality. You can approach them and even say something or shout in their ears, but they won’t hear and will pass you by. By the way, do you think there is a lot of… you in these people? I don’t think so. But there is plenty of me in them.”

I sighed heavily. The music was over. We continued walking along the street into the distance.

“Do you think I will find That Man?” I asked, but Ray laughed, and I looked at him reproachfully. “Do you find it funny?”

“I taught you to love with Divine Love. Why do you need earthly?”

“I want to live, Ray, live in the Present, because you are no longer there. You said yourself that you are just a ghost of the Past.”

Ray remained silent. He stopped, took my right palm in his hand, looked carefully at the Life Line and stroked it with sad tenderness.

“Do you sometimes think about me?” I asked.

Ray unbuttoned his shirt and showed me the chain I had once given him in the City-on-the-Water. I smiled.

“I have nothing of you, Ray.”

“You have the most valuable thing, bright memories. Can anything earthly replace them? You must continue to shine always for everyone. In spite of everything,” Ray said for some reason, looking at the faintly flickering lantern.

We reached a crossroads. He hugged me, stroked my hair, kissed me like in our Past.

“Ray… I don’t want you to disappear one day forever.”

“It’s necessary, Alice. Remember, when one day you think, Well, that’s all! and let go of the last thread that connects you with the Past, the Door to the Bright Future will open in front of you. This is the Key that you are always trying to find somewhere far away, but, in fact, it’s within yourself.”

“What do you see in my Future?”

“You can already start rejoicing!” Ray smiled.

…A couple of days later, I was called by the Monopolist. He was holding in his hands a diploma with the medal, the Most Important Society of Spell-casters awarded me for ‘Chants’ and ‘Flows of Consciousness’, two of the three types of spells I used to cast. The first meant emotions going off scale with the voice breaking into a scream, and the second were spells similar to the Flow of Consciousness at such a frantic speed that I barely had time to write down fragments of thoughts and phrases.

The Monopolist asked where I was performing in the near Future so that he could come there for the official award ceremony. A good question, since lately I was so tired that I preferred not to manifest myself in the Earthly Reality in my free time, completely flowing into Another. I promised the Monopolist to call back as soon as something cleared up, realizing that it would be impossible to meet my award officially in the near Future, it would be easier to meet with the Monopolist.

“Listen, Alice, you are our clairvoyant. I’ll tell you something now, and you tell me what to do,” the Monopolist asked, switching my gaze to Another Reality. “I have a cottage. It’s small, but everything suits me as it is. The people around are good, except for a neighbor, an old man like that, who is very annoying. There is a ditch between our gardens, a common one. So, every year he moved his fence closer to my site. I moved the fence back, and he moved it again. I got my own fence built then. The neighbor broke it and installed his own. As a result, he conquered the entire common ditch. I went to sue him, but I lost the case because the ditch was considered a common one. It belongs to everyone and nobody at the same time. It really irritates me inside. I don’t want to see my neighbor, and I don’t want him watching my property all the time!”

Instead of that ditch, Another Reality stubbornly showed a mirror to me. The Monopolist constantly bought up or acquired in some other way, about which history was silent, small enterprises and companies in a certain business area.

“In your life, in terms of work, you are engaged in getting everything that seems to be common and over no one’s property under your control, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. I am a Monopolist!”

“Your neighbor mirrors you. He does the same thing with that ditch. In fact, it was your trial with yourself.”

That same night, I received a call from an unknown number, and an equally unknown male Voice calmly said, “Alice, good night.”

“Good night,” I answered, thinking about who it could be.

“I haven’t parted with your books for several days now. I would like to invite you to cast spells the day after tomorrow in an old mansion, in the evening.”

I looked at the clock, it was midnight, so I thought, “Is the day after tomorrow Wednesday or Thursday?”

The Voice read my thoughts and added, “I mean Wednesday. This Wednesday, the Tsar’s Birthday.”

“Who are you?” I asked cautiously.

“A Nobleman. That mansion sometimes gathers what I call ‘the remnants of the former luxury’. They call themselves the Noble Society. The next Noble Assembly will take place on Wednesday. I have the honor to invite you.”

“Thank you! What’s your name?”

“My name is Dmitry. To be honest, I’m already 102 years old,” the Nobleman laughed. “Save my mobile number. Let’s meet at 18:00 at the metro station N., but call me closer to the point. And also, please, take your books with you. Good night, Alice!”

On Tuesday, I called the Monopolist and said that I had been suddenly invited to cast spells to the nobles on Wednesday evening. The Monopolist was just about to leave the city, but the nobles interested him, so he asked to call him on Wednesday at about midday to make a final agreement.

On Wednesday, I got an emergency at work. As a matter of fact, I had been asked to completely redo the website of their company with as many as four departments. The deadline for submitting the website was expiring, but the developers were pulling the cat by the tail. The tail of the poor animal hadn’t yet been let go when the three of the four departments suddenly changed everything. Thus, on Wednesday, I had to rewrite all the texts urgently, making changes to the polyamide thermal bridge and the polymer spacer frame, and in the section with the mysterious threshold protection, I had to replace the technical documentation, and besides, as I was told, it opened in the wrong window.

I needed to leave office, located a few kilometers south of the city, no later than at 16:00 in order to be at the metro station in the very north at 18:00. I called the Nobleman to find out if everything was in order and whether it was possible to invite the Monopolist with the medal, but the Nobleman didn’t answer. The Monopolist was at the meeting, which the secretary called with the mysterious word ‘Presidium’. Finally, having caught the Nobleman by mobile at 15:00, I joyfully exclaimed, “Hello, this is Alice!”

The Voice thought for a moment and asked somehow suspiciously, “What Alice?”

“A spell-caster with books,” I breathed out.

“What are the books about?” the Voice clearly didn’t recognize me!

I thought, perhaps then, at midnight, it was a dream. How could I explain to the Voice what I was writing about?

“You called me the day before yesterday and said, that we were to meet in the subway tonight in order to…”

“Ah!” the Nobleman exclaimed joyfully. “Alice, you did the right thing by calling! You know, memory at the age of 102 years is not at all the same as at the age of 100! So you haven’t changed your mind! And where are we meeting?”

“At 18:00 at the metro station N.”

“Great! Do you have the books with you? Is your spirit ready to fight?”

My spirit was quite peaceful, it didn’t like wars, battles or similar earthly games, but there was no time left for philosophical reasoning.

“Yes. How will I recognize you?”

“I wear glasses on a chain. See you soon, Alice!”

We said goodbye. I realized that I had forgotten to ask for permission to bring the Monopolist with the medal, but I thought that they would forgive me. I got through to the Monopolist, and we agreed to meet in the same place as with the Nobleman. I left work towards the city to leave my Fox in the garage and calmly get to the meeting point by metro. At 17:00, entering the subway, I heard the usual trill of a mobile phone. Noticing the Nobleman’s number on the screen, I responded “yes” and expected to hear anything, even that the meeting was canceled because the Noble Assembly would take place on Thursday, not Wednesday, but not what the Nobleman said, “Who are you?!”

I froze speechless. Together with the heart. At the entrance to the metro.

“Alice the spell-caster. With books.”

The Voice began to breathe heavily, the Nobleman launched a search program in his memory.

“Have you called me today?”

“Yes, and we’ve agreed to meet at the metro station N. at 18:00.”

“Ah! Alice! So you haven’t changed your mind. See you soon! Do you have the books with you? Is your spirit ready to fight?”

“Listen, may a man come with me to award me there?”

“Certainly! It will be very appropriate to introduce you!”

Finally, I was standing in the center of the hall at the station N. Crowds of people. It seemed that all the residents of the city had made appointments for each other right at that time there. My earthly vision categorically stated that it was tired of looking into the crowd for glasses on a chain. I replied that it could doze a little and opened the Third Eye. What else was left to do? The Nobleman’s phone was switched off, as well as the Monopolist’s one. A couple of minutes later, I felt the vibrations of the glasses on a chain and grabbed the hand of an elderly man passing by. The Nobleman turned out to be a gentleman, who had done many good deeds on his Path and was suffering from manifestations of the Dark Forces in the Earthly Reality. I asked him to wait for me right there with my books until I found the Monopolist.

“Whom?” the Nobleman was surprised.

“A man with a medal.”

“Do you want to find a person with a medal in the subway?!” the Nobleman was even more surprised.

“No. I mean, yes. He’s somewhere here. I asked you on the phone if he might come to award me. You said to come.”

“Ah! Yes, yes, of course, I’ll wait.”

The Monopolist stood modestly in a corner, reading a literary newspaper. Having left the metro, we followed the Nobleman in an unknown direction and soon found ourselves at the entrance to a beautiful old building.

“You need to go to the Blue Hall,” said the guard.

The Nobleman introduced me to an important man.

“This is Alice! She is a Great Spell-caster. She has many books released! Alice, this is the Leader.”

“I’m very glad, but I can’t help you!” the Leader said.

“In what sense?” I tried to clarify.

“Nothing is possible! Everything is strictly prohibited!”

“What is prohibited and by whom?” I asked with a smile.

“Books are not allowed!”

“But…” the Nobleman said somehow embarrassed.

“No buts. This is firstly, and secondly, you are not in the program. We have exclusively mono evenings, and today we have the Great Woman.”

The Nobleman felt very uncomfortable.

“It’s all my fault, I didn’t ask your permission in advance, but could we introduce Alice to the Noble Society?”

“Excluded! I don’t know any Alice among the Great Spell-casters.”

“Alice is a Great Spell-caster, indeed!” exclaimed the Nobleman. “And, as proof, here is a man to award Alice a medal!”

“I don’t know any men except those I know. Alice, who are you and where are you from?” the Leader asked.

“I’m telling you, she is a Great Spell-caster!” the Nobleman repeated. “Member of the Most Important Society of Spell-casters!”

“No, I definitely haven’t heard anything about Alice!”

“You will be proud to have had the honor of meeting her!”

‘The remnants of the former luxury’ began to flow out of the Blue Hall, indignant at the absence of the Great Woman. They had absolutely nothing to do. The Leader became nervous, apologizing for her delay, and asked not to leave. The nobles were not interested in communicating with each other for some reason. Their faces expressed nothing but displeasure.

“Listen,” asked the Nobleman, “while the Great Woman is late, let’s introduce Alice to them! Let her cast spells a bit, and the man will give her the medal.”

“Well, write me your name on a piece of paper.”

I nodded and wrote, “ALICE.”

We entered the Blue Hall. The Leader was talking about nothing for a long time, apparently expecting that the Great Woman was about to appear, so he would not have to introduce me, but she didn’t appear, thus, the Leader still had to keep his noble word. Getting onto the stage, I realized with horror that the nobles and my Flows of Consciousness, I was going to cast out loud, were completely incompatible things, as, indeed, was the medal named after Vladimir Mayakovsky, the mention of whom to those gathered, especially on the birthday of the Tsar, was similar to the flashing of a red rag before the eyes of a bull. As a result, I cast five philosophical spells, quiet and wise, addressed to God. The hall froze. Someone in the front row whispered, “Divine!” The Monopolist solemnly presented me with the medal, without focusing the attention of the public on whom it was named after. At that very moment the door to the Blue Hall swung open sharply, and we saw the Great Woman.

The kindhearted Nobleman, who had acted as an instrument in the hands of the Higher Forces, fell asleep immediately after the start of the Great Woman’s lecture and remained in Another Reality, snoring peacefully until the lecture was over. I couldn’t sleep thinking, “Why did Another Reality decide to give me that particular medal there and on the Tsar’s birthday? To demonstrate once again that both the Tsar and the revolutionary were one and the same thing – the diversity of the manifestations of God in the Earthly Reality? Or did I have something to do with the Tsar in the Silver Age?”

Having returned to my earthly home, I took out the medal to take a closer look at it finally. On the red flag fluttering above the head of Mayakovsky, there were only two words in gold letters burning, “SHINE ALWAYS!”

19. STARS

Time is a great deceiver, illusionist. It only seems to people that they have learned to measure it with hours and that it always flows evenly. Time speeds up, then slows down, or even stops. It seems to me, it doesn’t stop, it is stopped by people. It’s very dangerous to play with Time. The word “play” for me personally already carries something negative and false. As RAM once said, “People are playing. We are not…” Time flies faster over the years, and the realization of how much I had no time to do is painfully gnawing at me inside. So suddenly and completely unnoticed, Spring came to our city again.

“Hello,” I said, opening the door for her.

“Hello, Girl the April,” she said with a smile.

“Have you accidentally brought with you the Man Who Was Not?”

“Who is he? What a funny name!”

“I don’t know, but I want him to become the Man Who Is.”

“No, I haven’t heard anything about him, but I brought another stone for your rosary, with which you count the years in the Earthly Reality,” Spring answered, holding out a moonstone with another two-digit number engraved on it.

Nonna congratulated me in the morning. The star of the “Battle of Psychics” series, it was easier to see her on television than in the original. They started making a documentary film about her, Nonna invited me to participate in it by telling people about our accidental acquaintance, my books and paintings about Another Reality. I was happy for her. Unlike many psychics, Nonna was real.

My friend, Larisa the astrologer, had worked in a highly advertised center of wizards in those days when there was almost nothing on store shelves. Her colleague used to tell clients to bring as a gift to the gods something that, for some reason, was absent at her own house. In fact, everyone was required according to their financial capabilities, which had been clarified in advance by the clairvoyant. For example, for happiness in their private lives, girls gave the gods a set of bed linen (of course, a new one), and old women brought a variety of food to remove magic damage. The wizard did nothing for them, since she possessed no abilities, except for convincing clients of the need for sacrifices.

Once again despaired by no manifestation in the Earthly Reality of the Man Who Was Not, I decided to turn to the stars, or rather, to an advertised astrologer on an equally advertised website. For a stellar consultation, one needed to send the date, time and place of birth, one’s name, question and email address, and transfer some money. As you had already understood, my question was the following, “When will I finally meet my man?”

In the evening, I received a multi-page answer, but I was happy not for long. Until the last sentence, it was the description of the location of the planets in the Zodiacal Spheres at the time of my birth, which for a person ignorant of Astrology was like reading a book in Sanskrit. Only the last phrase was the desired answer, saying, “Taking into consideration the mentioned above, you must get married and give birth to your first child before the age of 35!”

I burst out laughing, the Astrologer didn’t realize that I could have managed to do all that many years before, but I had never met my man.

If you have questions for the stars, contact Larisa. She hosts a corresponding broadcast on television and can talk about Luminaries until the end of time. Larisa compiles Natal Charts, a multi-page document about the planets at the time of one’s birth and, as a result, what the newborn is predisposed to in the Earthly Reality.

I read my Natal Chart, having already lived long enough on the Earth to appreciate the level of the truth, and to assure you that if it is not truth itself, it’s at least something very similar to it. The Natal Chart is compiled once in the current incarnation, and if you don’t have one yet, take a look at your Star Solitaire. It’s very interesting. Perhaps such information will help you answer the question of who you are and for what purpose you are sent to Earth.

Larisa makes me also a forecast for the New Year, which begins on one’s next birthday. The main trends of the next year depend on the location of the stars above the place on the globe where you will find yourself on New Year’s Eve. If you look at them in advance and the forecast doesn’t suit you, you can look at the location of the stars on the same date over other cities and move in space. Thus, unlike the Natal Chart, which one cannot avoid, the next year plan can be adjusted.

The main leitmotif of my current year according to the stars was life as a hermit, immersion in creativity, completion of literary work. In general, it all turned out to have passed that way. Agree, no matter how much I wanted something else, they sent me no one, except for the Man Who Was Not and the Moon Cat. I had almost come to terms with it. “The same deal won’t happen twice,” I thought, waiting for the approach of my New Year with a secret hope for…

On my birthday, I invited all my close ones and not so close, including the MWWN, who had disappeared from my horizon many months before, to a cozy cafe. Everyone who couldn’t come for some earthly reason called to congratulate me, or sent me a message, one of the dearest was the following, “Dear Alice! Happy birthday!!! Good meetings with interesting people on the wide open spaces of the distant roads of Your Path! I know YOU ARE GREAT! With love, RAM.”

The MWWN didn’t come, didn’t write, didn’t call.

Larisa solemnly handed me the forecast for the coming year. As usual, hoping for the best, I excitedly opened the star gift and read the first paragraph.

“A year often brings a radical change of residence, leaving for a monastery or solitude. Favorable for everything secret and not manifested. Communication with monks, astrologers, occultists, theologians and philosophers. Occult, philosophical, theological, literary works. Training in secret knowledge, involvement in mystical and magical processes. Rethinking and transforming of life goals…”

“Thanks to all the stars for everything at once!” I thought, not without bitterness.

I cast a bit of spells on the stage. They asked me questions and gave me flowers. I asked people not to give me flowers, but for some reason they thought that I was flirting with them like that, and every time gave more and more.

I love flowers very much, even, perhaps, much more than the givers do. I love all flowers, except for carnations, since my mother was buried strewn with carnations, although I perfectly understand that carnations have absolutely nothing to do with it. However, I love flowers growing no matter where: in a field, in a flowerbed or in a pot on the windowsill. In my garden, I don’t grow potatoes or others like that, but I plant flowers along the path from the house to the well. Moreover, there is a clearing with daisies, clover, buttercups, cornflowers, bluebells, yarrow and other local residents, which make me and the butterflies, that constantly fly to visit us, happy. Cut flowers remind me of people whose days before the transition to Another Reality are already numbered.

When I left the stage, bards began to sing romances composed on my spells, and a stranger invited me to dance.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Misanthrope, although it doesn’t matter. I love your creativity. One day it will be appreciated. At least by the Higher Forces. Unfortunately, our world is too cruel. The wrong stars are lit up in it, the fake ones. This is done for money on the Earth. But real stars are given to us by Heavens, and they don’t know what money is,” the man said.

“Have you read my ‘Another Reality’?”

“I read it in one breath, Alice. You are an amazing woman, but the Man Who Was Not is just…”

“He just didn’t wish me a happy birthday.”

“You know, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why?” I was surprised.

“You immortalized Him with your spells, making him history. His name is forever written next to yours in the Astral Tablets,” the Misanthrope stated with a sad smile.

“Do you know His name?!” my heart sank.

“No, but I hate Him. For the pain He caused you.”

“You can’t hate people, even if they hurt you.”

“You deserve the best in the world, not pain.”

“Everyone has what they deserve. My stars say that glory will reach for me… Posthumous.”

“Alice, you will never die. But, you know, if I were you, I would already start compiling a list of Dark People who offended you during your lifetime, so that the descendants would anathematize them!”

The Misanthrope smiled. I laughed.

Having returned to my earthly home after midnight, I put the roses to bed in the bathroom, lit the candles, and opened my email. New Year’s Eve smoothly flowed into the First of January. I found no letter from the MWWN (of course), but a congratulation from a friend who communicated with Tarot cards, scattering them like astrologers were scattering the stars.

“Alice, I took out three cards to see your Future. You got the ‘Wheel of Fortune’, which means that success and luck are coming to you! The Wheel of Fortune is picking up speed, beware of interfering in the course of events, don’t make unnecessary movements, otherwise it will blow you away! Strive for the center of the wheel, for its only fixed point, your own Self. Stop and watch. Look at your problems through the eyes of an outside observer; this is the only way to find their solution. Your most reliable support is yourself. Be confident in yourself, don’t change your principles. Change is inevitable. If you have a streak of bad luck now, everything will turn out for the better soon. If you have a streak of good luck, get ready for the situation to worsen. This is a regularity, no need to be afraid, just remember that Fortune usually doesn’t come by itself, it’s brought by other people!”

I thought, “What kind of streak I have now?” A rhetorical question, the answer to which one could find out only after moving to the next one.

“The second card is the ‘Chariot’. Some Power will force you to leave what you cannot forget – home, work, friends. You are overwhelmed with energy, looking for a new field for its application. Changing places is a great way to change your surroundings, take your mind off everyday life and the problems of a noisy city. Embark on a Path which will become the discovery of a New World. Don’t forget to be careful, the Path is full of sharp turns and surprises. The card means the end of a life stage; a change of residence is possible…”

I was going with RAM to the mountains, and, as many predicted, the trip should be the beginning of a new stage in my life. However, the sentence about the change of residence, like the stars of Larisa, the prediction of the palmist-astrologer in India, the prophecies of Santa Claus, as well as those strange dreams about my new home, spoke of something having no prerequisites in the Earthly Reality.

“The third card is the ‘Orchid Tower’. In the very near future you will meet a Man with whom you will find happiness and love. If you have relationship already, expect a fan to appear with whom you will have a whirlwind romance.”

It was apparently some kind of mistake or joke, or the woman had simply decided to please me, but I thanked her for the gift. As they say, hope dies last.

I looked at the Saint, who, according to Maria, protected those who belonged to Another Reality on the Earth, saying, “Listen, please give me a gift by showing this Man to me. Who is he? I have almost got a house in Another Reality, and He’s still absent. Show me His face so that I can be sure that He really exists.”

I put out the candles and left for the Kingdom of Dreams. Of course, you won’t believe me, they showed Him to me, exactly on that very night and very clearly, but he was…

…the Man Who Was Not…

20. The MAGIC of COLOR

My ex-classmate Catherine asked me for a meeting, since something bad had been happening in all areas of her life, and, as a result, she got a depression. So Catherine was sitting opposite, all in black.

Any color has a continuous impact on one’s physical and mental state. The color of clothing, like the color design of the interior, says much more about a person than he does about himself. People, as a rule, don’t think about the essence of a particular color. The choice occurs on the Subconscious level and means one’s hidden need for energy corresponding to some color, or rejection of it if we avoid a certain color.

“Why are you in black?” I asked.

“It happened somehow. What does BLACK mean?”

“You don’t know where to go. It’s a pause between two periods of life. In the East, Black, oddly enough, symbolizes winter. You put your thoughts in order, delve into yourself, concentrate on your problems, try to solve them. You have withdrawn into yourself, keeping distance, isolating yourself from the outside world, you don’t want to communicate. If someone invites you to a party now, you’ll refuse, and in vain. Black clothing increases depression. It’s suitable for solitude and seclusion. By the way, do you know who chooses Black in their clothes, besides the monks who purposefully wear Black? Sadists and masochists. I don’t think you are a sadist. Why be a masochist? Concentrate on the Light, think about the Good, and you’ll definitely attract them. I wear Black on rare occasions, although there was a period when my wardrobe had no other color. However, it was a long time ago when my mother died. They thought I wore Black in mourning, but the Subconscious chose it so that I could survive her death. Black protects from external influences. The terrible year was over, and the color scheme changed.”

“What color did you choose next?”

“Not me, the Subconscious. DARK BLUE, or indigo. It’s close to Black, but it opens the doors to the outside world. Dark Blue also indicates deep thought, attention and self-absorption, but it provides will and confidence, strength of character, courage, gives awareness of one’s own strengths. You set a goal and go towards it. Dark Blue is the color of faith and hope, a symbol of Eternity. It connects the Present with the Past and the Future, like a bridge. It stimulates the functioning of one’s brain and imagination, favorable for creativity and any earthly work, promotes career advancement. With what do you associate Dark Blue?”

“With water. Well, with the sky too.”

“In the East, it’s a symbol of the depths of the sea and the heights of Heavens, of mystery and immersion in meditation. The color of the deity Shiva-Shakti is half-male, half-female. Dark Blue represents the unity of two principles. It’s the color of the sixth chakra, which is located between the eyebrows, the center of wisdom, intelligence and intuition. The color stimulates the Third Eye and develops psychic abilities. My first Dark Blue happened when I was 13 years old and I went to the church school. Guess my last Dark Blue!”

“It was when you were painting the Girl with the Moon Cat, right? All those paintings were Dark Blue!”

“It’s no coincidence, I painted them after RAM seminar. Wearing Dark Blue, don’t forget that it reduces your appetite. Dark Blue color slows down any biological processes in the body and makes one calm. It’s good to use Blue in bedroom decoration. Many people make baths in blue tones, but Blue is a cold color. Despite the influence of the Moon, I’m still a person of the Fire element, so I have Orange in my bath for balance.”

“Is Light Blue the same as Dark Blue?”

“LIGHT BLUE is softer, more romantic. It sets you up to dream of the sublime and distant, like Heavens. People who prefer this shade of blue tend to be open. It’s important for them to be understood. This is the color of harmony and tranquility. It can mean a sophisticated Soul, tenderness, elegance and delicacy. The fifth chakra, called clean, is Light Blue. Located in the throat, the thyroid gland area, it’s responsible for one’s speech and creative self-expression, revealing hidden talents.”

“But you’re not in the blue period anymore, are you?”

“Don’t you see it yourself?” I looked at my clothes. “VIOLET came to me after Dark Blue, both in childhood and now. Note that Violet is close to Dark Blue, just as Dark Blue is close to Black. It increases creative activity, but it’s the color of Spirituality, sophisticated feelings and relationship. It helps you relate to everything that surrounds you, both people and the world in general, with a light heart, to look at what is happening from the outside. Not indifferently, but as if from somewhere in Heavens. I call that the fourth level of view. The first is when you look at the situation with your own eyes. The second is looking with the eyes of the interlocutor. The third is looking from the outside but still on the Earth. The fourth is looking from There, I mean Another Reality. Although the Violet color itself carries a lot of contradictions in terms of feelings and desires. It can throw a person to extremes. This color tests everyone in which direction one leans – towards the Forces of Darkness or Light. Violet also improves immunity, regulates metabolism and promotes the production of the hormone of happiness in the body. Keep in mind that Violet has a lot of shades. Light and pale ones carry something fragile and romantic, while dark ones carry strength, royalty and even tragedy.”

“It turns out that Dark Blue comes out of Black, as Violet does out of Dark Blue? You were flowing from one color to another, right?”

“Dark Blue doesn’t come out of Black. I made such an intuitive transition subconsciously. Everyone has their own way. By the way, a mystical story happened to me, just at the junction of the last Dark Blue with the Violet one.”

“Does it have to do with that Man Who Was Not?”

“With a book dedicated to Him.”

“I like mysticism. Tell me!”

“I wrote two books for Him, one was in the Dark Blue time, the second – at the moment of transition to the Violet. The first cover was dark blue. I wanted the cover of the second book to be the same color, but with another painting of the ‘Girl with the Moon Cat’ series. Paintings made by mixing blue and white colors produce an impure background, which can cause color rendering problems when printed. To be 100% sure of the Dark Blue color, I made an analogue in a computer program, setting the parameters for a pure Dark Blue background. I sent the files to the publisher and asked to double check it. They confirmed that there would be no problems with the cover, the background parameters were set correctly. Imagine my surprise when I received the book with a Violet cover!”

“So what did you do?”

“I laughed, it was a Sign from Heavens that I had entered the Violet stage.”

“What chakra is Violet?”

“The seventh one, with thousand petals. It’s located outside the body, above the crown. The Kundalini energy connects with Pure Consciousness there, causing enlightenment and awareness of Divinity.”

“Wow! You’ve gone so far! It’s truly breathtaking! I still have to crawl and crawl to get to Violet through all the rainbow colors.”

“I like Rainbow. Divine Harmony is manifested in it. It contains the colors of all our chakras, from the lowest to the highest, as well as the colors of all our bodies, from the earthly to the heavenly. The best way is to surround yourself with each color a little or alternately, without getting hung up on any one. For example, today you are in Red, tomorrow you are in Orange, then in Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, and so on. Or combine primary colors with complementary ones.”

“Did you have times of other colors? Or are you always within these three?”

“Of course, I had – Orange for a long time, then a little of Green and Brown. Other colors were present in my life as touches.”

“I remember your Orange. You have a lot of it at home.”

“ORANGE, like Yellow, reminds me of the Sun. Active, not aggressive, but very energetic, warm color, juicy, like the fruit. Orange inspires optimism, cheers up, tunes in to positive, makes you sociable, energizes, stimulates movement. A person in Orange has originality and non-standard vision, including in the area of thinking, which can lead to self-centricity. The Orange state is similar to an approaching explosion of emotions, passion. Small elements in clothing or interior are enough for Orange to work. It’s the color of the second chakra, ‘Abode of Self’, which personifies the sensory world of a human, including earthly love.”

“Orange is close to Red, but you passed it by, why? It’s also fiery, that is, your color, right?”

“RED is associated with Fire, symbolizes the active principle of Yang. It’s the color of leaders, gives energy and determination, creates a mood for victory, attracts the attention of others, means passion, glory and power, sometimes even aggression. A dangerous color. Do you remember the colors of the traffic lights? What is Red associated with?”

“Stop!”

“Exactly. Although in China, Red is considered a symbol of longevity. I’ve heard they sew red wedding dresses. In flats, like any other warm color, it’s good to use Red in the rooms where there is a lack of heat. It also improves blood circulation and increases blood pressure, stimulates mental and physical activity, but at the same time it negatively affects the nervous system and leads to overstrain, so you can’t constantly stay in Red. Imagine you are always in a room where the walls, floor and ceiling are Red, and there are no windows or doors. You’ll go crazy.”

“I agree, Red is only periodically, according to the mood. What chakra is it?”

“The very first one, the repository of Kundalini energy. The first chakra is responsible for one’s connection with the Earthly Reality.”

“That’s exactly what I’m missing. As well as the earthly love. So do I need Orange and Red?”

“Try PINK first. They say it affects men like a boa constrictor affects rabbits,” I smiled.

“To look at the world through rose-colored glasses?”

“Pink smells like childhood. My friend after the birth of her daughter told me, ‘We urgently need to buy her pink blouses!’ I think she will buy not only pink blouses, but also pink rompers, dresses, shoes, toys, and the world around will turn Pink. Pink is installed into the Subconscious, like a program, it means the feminine principle and everything connected with it: softness, tenderness, sensuality. People in Pink tend to be followers, not leaders. This is exactly what men need from women. Pink is the most sensual color. It’s also the color of Love. If you show up in Pink for a job interview, you’ll probably get rejected. If, dressed in Pink, you walk the streets…”

“I can’t imagine myself in Pink!” Catherine was horrified.

“If you want love, fall into Pink. But, as I told you, I had no Pink, even as a child. My parents wanted to give birth to a boy. The doctors promised my mother a boy. They called me a male name, dressed me in trousers, cut my hair short. Unconsciously, they installed a program in me with no Pink color initially. I prefer the raspberry one. They say this color often brings money and stability. During the happiest period of my life, crimson-colored clothes predominated in my wardrobe.”

“Don’t you have anything Pink?”

“Very little. For the mood.”

“Wait, you say you had Orange, Green and Brown times. Why did you bypass Yellow?”

“YELLOW is close to Orange in their meaning and energy. It symbolizes abundance and health, promotes communication, and strengthens the immune system. Those who prefer Yellow are considered to be alien by some people. They are predisposed to creativity, impractical in everyday life, fond of dreaming. They live in the future. A person dressed in Rich Yellow, lacks hope for a bright tomorrow and self-confidence. A person in Light Yellow strives for communication. The category of Yellow and its shades includes also Golden color, the color of purification and healing. It awakens intuition and promotes wise decisions. I prefer beige tones, since Rich Yellow involuntarily evokes negative associations in me. Perhaps in childhood someone said that yellow flowers were a symbol of dislike and separation. In the East, Yellow is revered. In India, it’s a sacred color; girls used to wear yellow dresses at weddings. In the West, the yellow traffic light is a warning of danger. People call the places where those unlike themselves live as ‘yellow houses’. I read somewhere that the color of Judas’ clothing was yellow. I don’t remember that personally, and you?”

“Do you mean, whether I know what the Bible says about this?”

“No, whether you know this not from the Bible. All information is stored in the air and inside you. I can neither recall it nor read about it There. I just thought maybe you…”

“Sometimes I want to write down your phrases! Okay, God be with him, with Judas. Are Yellow and Orange the colors of the same chakra?”

“No, Yellow is the color of the third chakra, it’s located in the solar plexus area, symbolizes physical strength and at the same time is a source of Spiritual strength. It’s good to grow Lotus there.”

“Lotus?!”

“Exactly, look, I have it already grown up. It’s blooming like a big, big flower, and its petals go beyond the boundaries of my physical body.”

Catherine looked incredulously at my solar plexus area.

“Doesn’t Lotus bother you there?”

“On the contrary, it’s great!” I laughed. “I periodically look at Lotus, checking if everything is okay with it, if it has decreased in diameter, if the petals have faded.”

“What for?!”

“Lotus prompts where and what is wrong. It’s an indicator of human health, both spiritual and physical. The larger the flower, the brighter its light, the better. If something hurts, apply the petal to the sore spot. But you should constantly talk to your Lotus, take care of it mentally and fill it with Divine Love.”

“Listen, honestly, I’m unlikely to succeed! I even forget to water the flowers at home.”

“The main thing is that you know about it now, and you can do as you wish. Every moment of life, everyone makes a certain choice that determines their movement in the Space of Options. You are always in motion, your every step, every word, thought, deed, as well as their absence, is a movement to the right, left, forward or backward,” I took a napkin and drew a bold dot below. “This is the point you were an hour before our meeting.”

I depicted several rays diverging from the point in different directions upward to create the spokes of an open fan.

“You had a choice to meet me or not.”

“Well, theoretically, yes.”

“One of the rays means to come here, and the second means not. You came and we met,” I marked the next point on the ray and drew several more rays fanning upward, but from that point. “These are options for whether you ask me about colors, whether you tell me what’s happening at work. Let’s say you asked. At that moment another fan opened up. So you are sliding up some of the rays again. Another fan will open again, when you decide to go on wearing black or choose clothes of a different color. There are many colors for you to choose. So, for example, walking down the street in pink, you will meet a man tomorrow. Another choice from the next point, you will smile sweetly at him or send him in the Middle of Nowhere.”

The napkin was already scribbled. It definitely showed many options for the development of events while moving in the Space of Options.

“Not only global decisions, such as entering college or changing your place of residence, are a step that determines your Future. You create your life every moment completely imperceptibly to yourself and those around you, gradually moving to the left or to the right of the place where you were a moment before. If you choose non-standard steps, you’ll get more chances of quickly moving to another Option of Life.”

“You talk about it so simply, but in fact…”

“In fact, you’ll forget to ask me about the colors we’ve passed by – green and brown.”

“GREEN is the color of grass, the color of summer, but few people wear green clothes.”

“Yes, because Green speaks of stability, and most people don’t have it. Green is the color of hope, an indicator of harmony, symbolizes the energy of nature, life, growth. It uplifts, balances, invigorates, adds strength and restores energy balance, calms the nervous system. Green color is well suited for relaxation and various cultural events. You can go in green clothes to an exhibition or to the theater. It’s interesting that people dressed in Green are perceived as wise advisers. It’s easier for you to convince people that you are right if you are wearing Green. People who prefer Green are vulnerable, awkward and even clumsy in some way. However, being soft, they have sufficient flexibility and diplomacy. I have almost no green clothes, but I like to look at Green in nature, it has a positive effect on the Earthly vision, with which I am not very friendly. It’s interesting that Green can be warm or cool, depending on the color next to it. So with warm colors it’s warm, with cold ones it’s cold.”

“Does it have its own chakra?”

“Yes, it’s located in the area of the heart, personifying purity and innocence. The center of Divine Love, that is, unconditional love for the whole world, the point of balance between male and female energies.”

“You seem to have already said about all the chakras, but there are still colors left.”

“Not in the rainbow, but we have three more colors, such as BROWN, GRAY and WHITE. I won’t tell you anything interesting about them. Brown is the color of conservatism; it grounds a person, immersing in the whirlwind and bustle of everyday life. Gray means boredom, routine, formlessness, sometimes fear and even hidden anger. People who are pedantic and neat often wear gray. I like the Silver color as that of my Fox. During meditation, I saw a silver-colored Flow pouring onto me in the monastery from somewhere Above.”

“Yes, I remember you told me. Does White mean purity?”

“A symbol of renewal, the beginning of a new stage, from scratch.”

“Should I step straight to White after Black?”

“You should feel yourself what is best for you. There is no one recipe for everyone. Everyone has their own, because everyone has their own Path. There are many smart books about the colors. As well as about the best way to arrange one’s earthly home in terms of color. But everyone is unique and lives in their own context. In the West, White is the embodiment of purity and Light; brides usually wear white dresses at weddings, meanwhile in the East, White is a symbol of Death. Don’t overstep yourself, listen to your inner voice. Your Soul is the best advisor.”

EPILOGUE

“Everything I tell you now will seem ridiculous from the outside,” I said to the Teacher right from the doorway. “A person on Sunday…”

“Cross yourself, breath it out and say, ‘Thanks, God!’”

“Why?”

“The word ‘death’ comes in. If it had happened otherwise, it would have been tantamount to death for you. You would have died.”

“Why?”

“When information comes to you from There, can you always explain why?”

“No. So what should I do?”

“What do you want?”

“To erase. Everything.”

“Relax, close your eyes. Imagine yourself entering a cinema and sitting down in the first row. The big screen turns on. This is a color movie. You are watching yourself going to work this morning. Do you see this? Now you are standing in the hall and looking at yourself sitting in the first row and watching the color movie. Now you, sitting in the first row, get up and go upstairs, to the very last one. Sit down there. The small screen turns on. Black and white tape. You are watching everything that has happened to you since the moment you want to erase. Watch slowly as much as you like, only in black and white. At the same time, you are standing in the hall and looking from the side at yourself watching a non-color movie… Did you finish watching? Now start rewinding. When you reach the shot you need, tell me.”

I thought about where to stop and decided not to erase the shot with me in a scarlet dress and a pearl necklace. He had asked me then, “What does this mean to you?” I had answered, “A game…” I had been so happy.

“Get up from the last row. Go to the staff room. Take out the tape. Find the black and white fragment. Take the scissors. Cut it out. Glue the two pieces of the color movie tape together, ‘before’ and ‘after’. Pour gasoline over the cut piece and set it on fire. Throw the ashes into the wind and open your eyes. What are you feeling now?”

I uttered a phrase completely unexpected for myself in an imperative tone that didn’t allow any objections, “I want that this man…”

The Teacher interrupted me with a gesture and finished the sentence with my words. I looked at him in surprise.

“Alice, I see this picture as clearly as you do. This is the third time this evening that we go out into the Astral Tablets and see the same. Today is the fourth day. You have come on time,” he said, and I felt the energy flowing through my body in a circular motion.

“I feel an invisible wall around me. People don’t notice me, as if I don’t exist.”

“You are under a glass cap. I can’t do anything with it. It’s stronger than me. Recall, Alice, what you promised There before you came here,” the Teacher pointed to the sky with his hand. “I don’t know what was that. Only you can remember. Your contract, not mine. There was some condition. You came into the world not as ordinary people do. Of course, they also have certain tasks, but they are ordinary, and you are another. You have to do something that is not on the average person’s plan. In brief, you have some kind of debt hanging over you. Until you pay it off, life won’t change, and the heavenly cap won’t disappear. By the way, note, the body is not eternal. If the Higher Forces understand that you cannot fulfill your promise in this incarnation, well… you know perfectly well what They will do to you. They don’t give you earthly things to make you fulfill something heavenly. That’s not all. Do you see a picture while receiving information from There?”

“Sometimes a picture, sometimes numbers, sometimes I hear words, but now more often I know something, just feeling it, and that’s all.”

“Okay, let’s say so. When you feel that at the moment there is only one option, the worst possible one, left for the development of events, do you see some picture?”

“No,” I sighed. “I feel the knowledge falling from above, ‘Well, that’s all.’ Not even in words, but like a blow to the head, and I start weeping. It rarely happens, in case of tragic losses. Such as of mom, dad, Brother, Ray, the Man Who Was Not. I feel it long before, when there are no reasons, but I already know the end.”

“What do you do after that?”

“I try to find other options, do something to prevent what I felt from happening. I even imagine good pictures, but I can’t change anything.”

“Well done, Alice. Do you know why it doesn’t work? The initial information from There was received first. It registered in the Subconscious and launched the program. Later you try to launch other programs, but you didn’t erase the first one, it goes on working.”

“How to erase it?”

“The picture must be burned.”

“This information doesn’t come as a picture!”

“In this case, imagine a sign with words or something else and burn the incoming information with a categorical order, ‘It will be different!’ After that, write down immediately the option that suits you. And the last thing. When you complete your heavenly mission, in order to find happiness, you will have to say goodbye to Another Reality and return to the Earthly Reality.”

“How is it?” I was surprised.

“If I knew it…” the Teacher sighed.

***

I decided to swim at Nikolina Gora, my Place of Power, as well as to visit a distant relative, who had turned into a real yogi over time. He lived in a small house near the river.

The yogi had known me since I was a year-old. My grandmother the witch was his mother’s second cousin. We had often come to visit them. He seemed a strange person to me. I understood absolutely nothing of what he said until I went to the church school. When I became interested in philosophy as a student, the incomprehensible words of the yogi began to clear up.

***

Eight years before, I had finished writing a manuscript about Life and Death, I had been working on for about six years, and decided to share my joy with the yogi. The gate obediently opened and I entered the garden. It seemed like no one lived there. I bent down, walking under the branches of trees. There were thickets of uncut grass and wildflowers along the path. Rounding the house, I saw an open window in the kitchen, the yogi was having lunch. His signature dish, a salad of forty different herbs, left a lasting impression on me.

“I finished the book!” I said joyfully over tea.

“Well done, you are on the right Path,” he said calmly, “but it took you a lot of energy.”

“That’s why I’m here. This Place gives me strength.”

“I hope you remember how dangerous the Path you have taken is. By the way, did nothing happen to you at the moment when you finished writing your work?”

“Oh yes! I wanted to tell you! That evening I entered the subway train, smiling and glowing with happiness. The train left the tunnel and was passing along the street when a passenger turned to me and asked if I knew what the house in the window was. I didn’t know. He got upset and asked if I knew how the gas mask had been invented. I shook my head negatively. Then he asked about nuclear weapons and several more questions, which I constantly answered ‘no.’ The man sadly waved his hand at me and said reproachfully, ‘Eh, you don’t know anything in this life!’”

“Great story!” the yogi laughed. “But books aren’t enough for you. You need a Teacher.”

“Yes. I came to you so that you tell me where to find one.”

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Примечания

1

https://magazines.gorky.media/ra/2010/11/aleksandra-kryuchkova-lyubov-nichego-ne-trebuet-vzamen.html

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2

https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=2361

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