“I cannot lie to you, because a lie doesn’t exist,’ the emissary’s voice said, intruding into my thoughts. “I can tell you only about what exists. In my world, only intent exists; a lie has no intent behind it; therefore, it has no existence.”
“Then there is an evil side to man,” I said jubilantly.” “You always deny it. You always say that evil doesn’t exist, that only power exists.”
I am truly given to the power that rules my fate.
“Once the apprentice has been hooked, the instruction begins,” he continues. “The first act of a teacher is to introduce the idea that the world we think we see is only a view, a description of the world. Every effort of a teacher is geared to prove this point to his apprentice. But accepting it seems to be one of the hardest things one can do; we are complacently caught in our particular view of the world, which compels us to feel and act as if we know everything about the world. A teacher, form the very first act he performs, aims at stopping that view. Sorcerers call it stopping the internal dialogue and they are convinced that it is the single most important technique that an apprentice can learn…”
“Ritual can trap our attention better than anything I can think of,” he said, “but it also demands a very high price. That high price is morbidity; and morbidity could have the heaviest liens and mortgages on our awareness.”