Chapter 1October 5, 1968

(Mother is unwell again. Satprem could not see her for a week.)

Everything is in a daze.

I can no longer see, no longer hear, I spend my nights coughing.

The doctor can’t make any sense of it. Medically, everything is supposed to work very well, then in a few minutes everything gets disorganized.

I see you as if through a thick fog.

All that is inside seems to want to come outside.... I am familiar with this sort of magic.

V. has had another vision. He went to the Vatican.

To the Vatican!... In his sleep?

He wasn’t asleep: he could hear the noise of the [Ashram’s] generator. It was a vision at 5:30 in the morning. He found himself in an immense hall with red carpets. There were all kinds of people there, each moving about according to his order. Then, in a corner, seated in a big armchair, there was a man wearing a red hat, a sort of miter,89 and in concentration. He was concentrated, and was repeating something with a certain gesture of the hand, as if turning something in a circle. V. instantly knew it was him. A man with intense blue eyes, long eyelashes, not strong physically but with a very powerful appearance, a thin, pointed nose, a sparse beard like that of someone who doesn’t shave properly or hasn’t shaved for two or three days, about fifty-five years old. A man who gave the impression of a great egoistic ambition, says V. And he was intently watching P.L., particularly your symbol which P.L. wears around his neck. And he was repeating something while turning his wrist.

Oh, that’s it! That’s why: P.L. went back there, and it’s since then that the attacks have come back.

Yes, P.L. is the link.

(after a silence)

Yes, they have come back.

At times, in the space of a few seconds it falls on you in such a way as to make you think you’re going mad. Last night, it was terrible.

And you, are you better?