But in the darkness of a northern Michigan night, still angry and upset from memories of Atmananda's experiments, I sensed that a New Age of enchantment and wisdom had passed me by. Yet I also felt cleansed and refreshed, like the air of a city after heavy rain. I stood up and began gathering the fallen gear in a pile by the trailer. Suddenly, I was staring into headlights which did not disappear. A man got out of the pickup. "What happened, son?" As I recounted the bicycle incident, I tried to control the quiver in my voice. "Officer Brown," he said, showing me a badge. He dropped me, the dog, and the rig off at a motel in nearby St. Ignes. He also left me his number at the station, in case I needed help getting back on the road. The following afternoon, the policeman pounded the wheel back into shape, fixed the derailleur, replaced spokes, and bolted steel bars over the aluminum which attached the trailer to the bicycle. When he was done, he refused to take my money. "What are you doing now?" I asked. "Cleaning the frame." "Thanks," I said, "but you don't have to do that." "Whenever you do a job, son, do it right." Later that day, invisible currents from California, along with the weight of the baggage, continued to affect my progress west. As I rode through the woods of the Upper Peninsula, I reflected on Noah's remark that I had escaped from an abusive relationship. My story, I concluded, was not so unusual after all. Invigorated, I coasted down a long hill and squeezed the brakes intermittently. 15. The Enchanted Taco Late one night, Atmananda met three hundred disciples in a parking lot in the desert ninety miles east of San Diego. He led us for hours over soft, cooling sand to a spot in a dry river bed. He had us form a circle around him. As we scanned for scorpions before sitting down, the desert floor lit up like a circular, gyrating constellation, until one by one the flashlights went out and it grew difficult again to see. "If you enter a higher level of consciousness," Atmananda began from the center of the circle, "you will see the Warriors on the cliffs across the gorge. They are subtle beings from another plane of existence. They look a lot like American Indians." Hundreds of braves, tall and unflinching, were conjured in my imagination. "What do you *see*?" Atmananda asked the group. I made no response. I did not doubt the images cast on the back of my eyes by my brain. Nor did I doubt Atmananda. In the months after the week-and-a-half-long Stelazine experiment, the doubts and the conflict had vanished. I was reluctant to speak because my vision had been so subtle, so fleeting. Meanwhile, others in the circle--engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, students, and business professionals-- also remained as silent as the rocks and hills around us.