he wasn't saying that because of Athena? But she was Athena!

'And you,' she pointed to me. 'Come over here. Kneel down before me.'

Afraid of what Andrea might do and embarrassed to have everyone's eyes on me, I nevertheless did as she asked.

'Bow your head. Let me touch the nape of your neck.'

I felt the pressure of her fingers, but nothing else. We remained like that for nearly a minute, and then she told me to get up and go back to my seat.

'You won't need to take sleeping pills any more. From now on, sleep will return.'

I glanced at Andrea. I thought she might say something, but she looked as amazed as I did.

One of the actresses, possibly the youngest, raised her hand.

'I'd like to say something, but I need to know who I'm speaking to.'

'Hagia Sofia.'

'I'd like to know if '

She glanced round, ashamed, but the director nodded, asking her to continue.

' if my mother is all right.'

'She's by your side. Yesterday, when you left the house, she made you forget your handbag. You went back to find it and discovered that you'd locked yourself out and couldn't get in. You wasted a whole hour looking for a locksmith, when you could have kept the appointment you'd made, met the man who was waiting for you and got the job you wanted. But if everything had happened as you planned that morning, in six months' time you would have died in a car accident. Forgetting your handbag yesterday changed your life.'

The girl began to weep.

'Does anyone else want to ask anything?'

Another hand went up. It was the director.

'Does he love me?'

So it was true. The story about the girl's mother had stirred up a whirlwind of emotions in the room.

'You're asking the wrong question. What you need to know is, are you in a position to give him the love he needs. And whatever happens or doesn't happen will be equally gratifying. Knowing that you are capable of love is enough. If it isn't him, it will be someone else. You've discovered a wellspring, simply allow it to flow and it will fill your world. Don't try to keep a safe distance so as to see what happens. Don't wait to be certain before you take a step. What you give, you will receive, although it might sometimes come from the place you least expect.'

Those words applied to me too. Then Athena or whoever she was turned to Andrea.

'You!'

My blood froze.

'You must be prepared to lose the universe you created.'

'What do you mean by universe?'

'What you think you already have. You've imprisoned your world, but you know that you must liberate it. I know you understand what I mean, even though you don't want to hear it.'

'I understand.'

I was sure they were talking about me. Was this all a set-up by Athena?

'It's finished,' she said. 'Bring the child to me.'

Viorel didn't want to go; he was frightened by his mother's transformation. But Andrea took him gently by the hand and led him to her.

Athena or Hagia Sofia, or Sherine, or whoever she was did just as she had done with me, and pressed the back of the boy's neck with her fingers.

'Don't be frightened by the things you see, my child. Don't try to push them away because they'll go away anyway. Enjoy the company of the angels while you can. You're frightened now, but you're not as frightened as you might be because you know there are lots of people in the room. You stopped laughing and dancing when you saw me embracing your mother and asking to speak through her mouth. But you know I wouldn't be doing this if she hadn't given me her permission. I've always appeared before in the form of light, and I still am that light, but today I decided to speak.'

The little boy put his arms around her.

'You can go now. Leave me alone with him.'

One by one, we left the apartment, leaving the mother with her child. In the taxi home, I tried to talk to Andrea, but she said that we could talk about anything but what had just happened.

I said nothing. My soul filled with sadness. Losing Andrea was very hard. On the other hand, I felt an immense peace. The evening's events had wrought changes in us all, and that meant I wouldn't need to go through the pain of sitting down with a woman I loved very much and telling her that I was in love with someone else.

In this case, I chose silence. I got home, turned on the TV, and Andrea went to have a bath. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, the room was full of light. It was morning, and I'd slept for ten hours. Beside me was a note, in which Andrea said that she hadn't wanted to wake me, that she'd gone straight to the theatre, but had left me some coffee. The note was a romantic one, decorated in lipstick and a small cut-out heart.

She had no intention of 'letting go of her universe'. She was going to fight. And my life would become a nightmare.

That evening, she phoned, and her voice betrayed no particular emotion. She told me that the elderly actor had gone to see his doctor, who had examined him and found that he had an enlarged prostate. The next step was a blood test, where they had detected a significantly raised level of a type of protein called PSA. They took a sample for a biopsy, but the clinical picture indicated that there was a high chance he had a malignant tumour.

'The doctor said he was lucky, because even if their worst fears were proved right, they can still operate and there's a ninety-nine per cent chance of a cure.'

Deidre O'Neill, known as Edda

What do you mean, Hagia Sofia! It was her, Athena, but by touching the deepest part of the river that flows through her soul, she had come into contact with the Mother.

All she did was to see what was happening in another reality. The young actress's mother, now that she's dead, lives in a place outside of time and so was able to change the course of events, whereas we human beings can only know about the present. But that's no small thing: discovering a dormant illness before it gets worse, touching nervous systems and unblocking energies is within the reach of all of us.

Of course, many died at the stake, others were exiled and many ended up hiding or suppressing the spark of the Great Mother in their souls. I never brought Athena into contact with the Power. She decided to do this, because the Mother had already given her various signs: she was a light while she danced, she changed into letters while she was learning calligraphy, she appeared to her in a fire and in a mirror. What my student didn't know was how to live with Her, until, that is, she did something that provoked this whole chain of events.

Athena, who was always telling everyone to be different, was basically just like all other mortals. She had her own rhythm, a kind of cruise control. Was she more curious than most? Possibly. Had she managed to overcome her sense of being a victim? Definitely. Did she feel a need to share what she was learning with others, be they bank employees or actors? In some cases the answer was 'Yes', but in others, I had to encourage her, because we are not meant for solitude, and we only know ourselves when we see ourselves in the eyes of others.

But that was as far as my interference went.

Maybe the Mother wanted to appear that night, and perhaps she whispered something in her ear: 'Go against everything you've learned so far. You, who are a mistress of rhythm, allow the rhythm to pass through your body, but don't obey it.' That was why Athena suggested the exercise. Her unconscious was already prepared to receive the Mother, but Athena herself was still dancing in time to the music and so any external elements were unable to manifest themselves.

The same thing used to happen with me. The best way to meditate and enter into contact with the light was by knitting, something my mother had taught me when I was a child. I knew how to count the stitches, manipulate the needles and create beautiful things through repetition and harmony. One day, my protector asked me to knit in a completely irrational way! I found this really distressing, because I'd learned how to knit with affection, patience and dedication. Nevertheless, he insisted on me knitting really badly.

I knitted like this for two hours, thinking all the time that it was utterly ridiculous, absurd. My head ached, but I had to resist letting the needles guide my hands. Anyone can do things badly, so why was he asking this of me? Because he knew about my obsession with geometry and with perfection.

And suddenly, it happened: I stopped moving the needles and felt a great emptiness, which was filled by a warm, loving, companionable presence. Everything around me was different, and I felt like saying things that I would never normally dare to say. I didn't lose consciousness; I knew I was still me, but, paradoxically, I wasn't the person I was used to being with.

So I can 'see' what happened, even though I wasn't there. Athena's soul following the sound of the music while her body went in a totally contrary direction. After a time, her soul disconnected from her body, a space opened, and the Mother could finally enter.

Or, rather, a spark from the Mother appeared. Ancient, but apparently very young. Wise, but not omnipotent. Special, but not in the least arrogant. Her perceptions changed, and she began to see the same things she used to see when she was a child the parallel universes that people this world. At such moments, we can see not only the physical body, but people's emotions too. They say cats have this same power, and I believe them.

A kind of blanket lies between the physical and the spiritual world, a blanket that changes in colour, intensity and light; it's what mystics call 'aura'. From then on, everything is easy. The aura tells you what's going on. If I had been there, she would have seen a violet colour with a few yellow splodges around my body. That means that I still have a long road ahead of me and that my mission on this Earth has not yet been accomplished.

Mixed up with human auras are transparent forms, which people usually call 'ghosts'. That was the case with the young woman's mother, and only in such case can someone's fate be altered. I'm almost certain that the young actress, even before she asked, knew that her mother was beside her, and the only real surprise to her was the story about the handbag.

Confronted by that rhythmless dance, everyone was really intimidated. Why? Because we're used to doing things 'as they should be done'. No one likes to make the wrong moves, especially when we're aware that we're doing so. Even Athena. It can't have been easy for her to suggest doing something that went against everything she loved.

I'm glad that the Mother won the battle at that point. A man has been saved from cancer, another has accepted his sexuality, and a third has stopped taking sleeping pills. And all because Athena broke the rhythm, slamming on the brakes when the car was travelling at top speed and thus throwing everything into disarray.

To go back to my knitting: I used that method of knitting badly for quite some time, until I managed to provoke the presence without any artificial means, now that I knew it and was used to it. The same thing happened with Athena. Once we know where the Doors of Perception are, it's really easy to open and close them, when we get used to our own 'strange' behaviour.

And it must be said that I knitted much faster and better after that, just as Athena danced with much more soul and rhythm once she had dared to break down those barriers.

Andrea McCain, actress

The story spread like wild fire. On the following Monday, when the theatre was closed, Athena's apartment was packed. We had all brought friends. She did as she had on the previous evening; she made us dance without rhythm, as if she needed that collective energy in order to get in touch with Hagia Sofia. The boy was there again, and I decided to watch him. When he sat down on the sofa, the music stopped and the trance began.

As did the questions. The first three questions were, as you can imagine, about love will he stay with me, does she love me, is he cheating on me. Athena said nothing. The fourth person to receive no answer asked again, more loudly this time:

'So is he cheating on me or not?'

'I am Hagia Sofia, universal wisdom. I came into the world accompanied only by Love. I am the beginning of everything, and before I existed there was chaos. Therefore, if any of you wish to control the forces that prevailed in chaos, do not ask Hagia Sofia. For me, love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant and rank.'

Hagia looked around the group, most of whom were there for the first time, and she began to point out what she saw: the threat of disease, problems at work, frictions between parents and children, sexuality, potentialities that existed but were not being explored. I remember her turning to one woman in her thirties and saying:

'Your father told you how things should be and how a woman should behave. You have always fought against your dreams, and I want has never even shown its face. It was always drowned out by I must or I hope or I need, but you're a wonderful singer. One year's experience could make a huge difference to your work.'

'But I have a husband and a child.'

'Athena has a child too. Your husband will be upset at first, but he'll come to accept it eventually. And you don't need to be Hagia Sofia to know that.'

'Maybe I'm too old.'

'You're refusing to accept who you are, but that is not my problem. I have said what needed to be said.'

Gradually, everyone in that small room unable to sit down because there wasn't enough space, sweating profusely even though the winter was nearly over, feeling ridiculous for having come to such an event was called upon to receive Hagia Sofia's advice.

I was the last.

'Stay behind afterwards if you want to stop being two and to be one instead.'

This time, I didn't have her son on my lap. He watched everything that happened, and it seemed that the conversation they'd had after the first session had been enough for him to lose his fear.

I nodded. Unlike the previous session, when people had simply left when she'd asked to talk to her son alone, this time Hagia Sofia gave a sermon before ending the ritual.

'You are not here to receive definite answers. My mission is to provoke you. In the past, both governors and governed went to oracles who would foretell the future. The future, however, is unreliable because it is guided by decisions made in the here and now. Keep the bicycle moving, because if you stop pedalling, you will fall off.

'For those of you who came to meet Hagia Sofia wanting her merely to confirm what you hoped to be true, please, do not come back. Or else start dancing and make those around you dance too. Fate will be implacable with those who want to live in a universe that is dead and gone. The new world belongs to the Mother, who came with Love to separate the heavens from the waters. Anyone who believes they have failed will always fail. Anyone who has decided that they cannot behave any differently will be destroyed by routine. Anyone who has decided to block all changes will be transformed into dust. Cursed be those who do not dance and who prevent others from dancing!'

Her eyes glanced fire.

'You can go.'

Everyone left, and I could see the look of confusion on most of their faces. They had come in search of comfort and had found only provocation. They had arrived wanting to be told how love can be controlled and had heard that the all-devouring flame will always burn everything. They wanted to be sure that their decisions were the right ones, that their husbands, wives and bosses were pleased with them, but, instead, they were given only words of doubt.

Some people, though, were smiling. They had understood the importance of the dance and from that night on would doubtless allow their bodies and souls to drift even though, as always happens, they would have to pay a price.

Only the boy, Hagia Sofia, Heron and myself were left in the room.

'I asked you to stay here alone.'

Without a word, Heron picked up his coat and left.

Hagia Sofia was looking at me. And, little by little, I watched her change back into Athena. The only way of describing that change is to compare it with the change that takes place in an angry child: we can see the anger in the child's eyes, but once distracted and once the anger has gone, the child is no longer the same child who, only moments before, was crying. The 'being', if it can be called that, seemed to have vanished into the air as soon as its instrument lost concentration.

And now I was standing before an apparently exhausted woman.

'Make me some tea.'

She was giving me an order! And she was no longer universal wisdom, but merely someone my boyfriend was interested in or infatuated with. Where would this relationship take us?

But making a cup of tea wouldn't destroy my self-esteem. I went into the kitchen, boiled some water, added a few camomile leaves and returned to the living room. The child was asleep on her lap.

'You don't like me,' she said.

I made no reply.

'I don't like you either,' she went on. 'You're pretty and elegant, a fine actress, and have a degree of culture and education which I, despite my family's wishes, do not. But you're also insecure, arrogant and suspicious. As Hagia Sofia said, you are two, when you could be one.'

'I didn't know you remembered what you said during the trance, because in that case, you are two people as well: Athena and Hagia Sofia.'

'I may have two names, but I am only one or else all the people in the world. And that is precisely what I want to talk about. Because I am one and everyone, the spark that emerges when I go into a trance gives me very precise instructions. I remain semi-conscious throughout, of course, but I'm saying things that come from some unknown part of myself, as if I were suckling on the breast of the Mother, drinking the milk that flows through all our souls and carries knowledge around the Earth. Last week, which was the first time I entered into contact with this new form, I received what seemed to me to be an absurd message: that I should teach you.'

She paused.

'Obviously, this struck me as quite mad, because I don't like you at all.'

She paused again, for longer this time.

'Today, though, the source repeated the same message, and so I'm giving you that choice.'

'Why do you call it Hagia Sofia?'

'That was my idea. It's the name of a really beautiful mosque I saw in a book. You could, if you like, be my student. That's what brought you here on that first day. This whole new stage in my life, including the discovery of Hagia Sofia inside me, only happened because one day you came through that door and said: I work in the theatre and we're putting on a play about the female face of God. I heard from a journalist friend that you've spent time in the Balkan mountains with some gipsies and would be prepared to tell me about your experiences there.'

'Are you going to teach me everything you know?'

'No, everything I don't know. I'll learn through being in contact with you, as I said the first time we met, and as I say again now. Once I've learned what I need to learn, we'll go our separate ways.'

'Can you teach someone you dislike?'

'I can love and respect someone I dislike. On the two occasions when I went into a trance, I saw your aura, and it was the most highly developed aura I've ever seen. You could make a difference in this world, if you accept my proposal.'

'Will you teach me to see auras?'

'Until it happened to me the first time, I myself didn't know I was capable of doing so. If you're on the right path, you'll learn too.'

I realised then that I, too, was capable of loving someone I disliked. I said 'Yes'.

'Then let us transform that acceptance into a ritual. A ritual throws us into an unknown world, but we know that we cannot treat the things of that world lightly. It isn't enough to say yes, you must put your life at risk, and without giving it much thought either. If you're the woman I think you are, you won't say: I need to think about it. You'll sayÐ'

'I'm ready. Let's move on to the ritual. Where did you learn the ritual, by the way?'

'I'm going to learn it now. I no longer need to remove myself from my normal rhythm in order to enter into contact with the spark from the Mother, because, once that spark is installed inside you, it's easy to find again. I know which door I need to open, even though it's concealed amongst many other entrances and exits. All I need is a little silence.'

Silence again!

We sat there, our eyes wide and staring, as if we were about to begin a fight to the death. Rituals! Before I even rang the bell of Athena's apartment for the first time, I had already taken part in various rituals, only to feel used and diminished afterwards, standing outside a door I could see, but not open. Rituals!

All Athena did was drink a little of the tea I prepared for her.

'The ritual is over. I asked you to do something for me. You did, and I accepted it. Now it is your turn to ask me something.'

I immediately thought of Heron, but it wasn't the right moment to talk about him.

'Take your clothes off.'

She didn't ask me why. She looked at the child, checked that he was asleep, and immediately began to remove her sweater.

'No, really, you don't have to,' I said. 'I don't know why I asked that.'

But she continued to undress, first her blouse, then her jeans, then her bra. I noticed her breasts, which were the most beautiful I'd ever seen. Finally, she removed her knickers. And there she was, offering me her nakedness.

'Bless me,' said Athena.

Bless my 'teacher'? But I'd already taken the first step and couldn't stop now, so I dipped my fingers in the cup and sprinkled a little tea over her body.

'Just as this plant was transformed into tea, just as the water mingled with the plant, I bless you and ask the Great Mother that the spring from which this water came will never cease flowing, and that the earth from which this plant came will always be fertile and generous.'

I was surprised at my own words. They had come neither from inside me nor outside. It was as if I'd always known them and had done this countless times before.

'You have been blessed. You can get dressed now.'

But she didn't move, she merely smiled. What did she want? If Hagia Sofia was capable of seeing auras, she would know that I hadn't the slightest desire to have sex with another woman.

'One moment.'

She picked up the boy, carried him to his room and returned at once.

'You take your clothes off too.'

Who was asking this? Hagia Sofia, who spoke of my potential and for whom I was the perfect disciple? Or Athena, whom I hardly knew, and who seemed capable of anything a woman whom life had taught to go beyond her limits and to satisfy any curiosity?

We had started a kind of confrontation from which there was no retreat. I got undressed with the same nonchalance, the same smile and the same look in my eyes.

She took my hand and we sat down on the sofa.

During the next half hour, both Athena and Hagia Sofia were present; they wanted to know what my next steps would be. As they asked me this question, I saw that everything really was written there before me, and that the doors had only been closed before because I hadn't realised that I was the one person in the world with the authority to open them.

Heron Ryan, journalist

The deputy editor hands me a video and we go into the projection room to watch it.

The video was made on the morning of 26 April 1986 and shows normal life in a normal town. A man is sitting drinking a cup of coffee. A mother is taking her baby for a walk. People in a hurry are going to work. A few people are waiting at a bus stop. A man on a bench in a square is reading a newspaper.

But there's a problem with the video. There are various horizontal lines on the screen, as if the tracking button needed to be adjusted. I get up to do this, but the deputy editor stops me.

'That's just the way it is. Keep watching.'

Images of the small provincial town continue to appear, showing nothing of interest apart from these scenes from ordinary everyday life.

'It's possible that some people may know that there's been an accident two kilometres from there,' says my boss. 'It's possible that they know there have been thirty deaths a large number, but not enough to change the routine of the town's inhabitants.'

Now the film shows school buses parking. They will stay there for many days. The images are getting worse and worse.

'It isn't the tracking, it's radiation. The video was made by the KGB. On the night of the twenty-sixth of April, at twenty-three minutes past one in the morning, the worst ever man-made disaster occurred at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. When a nuclear reactor exploded, the people in the area were exposed to ninety times more radiation than that given out by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The whole region should have been evacuated at once, but no one said anything after all, the government doesn't make mistakes. Only a week later, on page thirty-two of the local newspaper, a five-line article appeared, mentioning the deaths of workers, but giving no further explanation. Meanwhile, Workers' Day was celebrated throughout the Soviet Union, and in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, people paraded down the street unaware of the invisible death in the air.'

And he concludes:

'I want you to go and see what Chernobyl is like now. You've just been promoted to special correspondent. You'll get a twenty per cent increase in your salary and be able to suggest the kind of article you think we should be publishing.'

I should be jumping for joy, but instead I'm gripped by a feeling of intense sadness, which I have to hide. It's impossible to argue with him, to say that there are two women in my life at the moment, that I don't want to leave London, that my life and my mental equilibrium are at stake. I ask when I should leave. As soon as possible, he says, because there are rumours that other countries are significantly increasing their production of nuclear energy.

I manage to negotiate an honourable way out, saying that, first, I need to talk to experts and really get to grips with the subject, and that I'll set off once I've collected the necessary material.

He agrees, shakes my hand and congratulates me. I don't have time to talk to Andrea, because when I get home, she's still at the theatre. I fall asleep at once and again wake up to find a note saying that she's gone to work and that the coffee is on the table.

I go to the office, try to ingratiate myself with the boss who has 'improved my life', and phone various experts on radiation and energy. I discover that, in total, 9 million people worldwide were directly affected by the disaster, including 3 to 4 million children. The initial 30 deaths became, according to the expert John Gofmans, 475,000 cases of fatal cancers and an equal number of non-fatal cancers.

A total of 2,000 towns and villages were simply wiped off the map. According to the Health Ministry in Belarus, the incidence of cancer of the thyroid will increase considerably between 2005 and 2010, as a consequence of continuing high levels of radioactivity. Another specialist explains that as well as the 9 million people directly exposed to radiation, more than 65 million in many countries round the world were indirectly affected by consuming contaminated foodstuffs.

It's a serious matter, which deserves to be treated with respect. At the end of the day, I go back to the deputy editor and suggest that I travel to Chernobyl for the actual anniversary of the accident, and meanwhile do more research, talk to more experts and find out how the British government responded to the tragedy. He agrees.

I phone Athena. After all, she claims to be going out with someone from Scotland Yard and now is the time to ask her a favour, given that Chernobyl is no longer classified as secret and the Soviet Union no longer exists. She promises that she'll talk to her 'boyfriend', but says she can't guarantee she'll get the answers I want.

She also says that she's leaving for Scotland the following day, and will only be back in time for the next group meeting.

'What group?'

The group, she says. So that's become a regular thing, has it? What I want to know is when we can meet to talk and clear up various loose ends.

But she's already hung up. I go home, watch the news, have supper alone and, later, go out again to pick Andrea up from the theatre. I get there in time to see the end of the play and, to my surprise, the person on stage seems totally unlike the person I've been living with for nearly two years; there's something magical about her every gesture; monologues and dialogues are spoken with an unaccustomed intensity. I am seeing a stranger, a woman I would like to have by my side, then I realise that she is by my side and is in no way a stranger to me.

'How did your chat with Athena go?' I ask on the way home.

'Fine. How was work?'

She was the one to change the subject. I tell her about my promotion and about Chernobyl, but she doesn't seem interested. I start to think that I'm losing the love I have without having yet won the love I hope to win. However, as soon as we reach our apartment, she suggests we take a bath together and, before I know it, we're in bed. First, she puts on that percussion music at full volume (she explains that she managed to get hold of a copy) and tells me not to worry about the neighbours people worry too much about them, she says, and never live their own lives.

What happens from then on is something that goes beyond my understanding. Has this woman making positively savage love with me finally discovered her sexuality, and was this taught to her or provoked in her by that other woman? While she was clinging to me with a violence I've never known before, she kept saying:

'Today I'm your man, and you're my woman.'

We carried on like this for almost an hour, and I experienced things I'd never dared experience before. At certain moments, I felt ashamed, wanted to ask her to stop, but she seemed to be in complete control of the situation and so I surrendered, because I had no choice. In fact, I felt really curious.

I was exhausted afterwards, but Andrea seemed re-energised.

'Before you go to sleep, I want you to know something,' she said. 'If you go forward, sex will offer you the chance to make love with gods and goddesses. That's what you experienced today. I want you to go to sleep knowing that I awoke the Mother that was in you.'

I wanted to ask if she'd learned this from Athena, but my courage failed.

'Tell me that you liked being a woman for a night.'

'I did. I don't know if I would always like it, but it was something that simultaneously frightened me and gave me great joy.'

'Tell me that you've always wanted to experience what you've just experienced.'

It's one thing to allow oneself to be carried away by the situation, but quite another to comment coolly on the matter. I said nothing, although I was sure that she knew my answer.

'Well,' Andrea went on, 'all of this was inside me and I had no idea. As was the person behind the mask that fell away while I was on stage today. Did you notice anything different?'

'Of course. You were radiating a special light.'

'Charisma the divine force that manifests itself in men and women. The supernatural power we don't need to show to anyone because everyone can see it, even usually insensitive people. But it only happens when we're naked, when we die to the world and are reborn to ourselves. Last night, I died. Tonight, when I walked on stage and saw that I was doing exactly what I had chosen to do, I was reborn from my ashes. I was always trying to be who I am, but could never manage it. I was always trying to impress other people, have intelligent conversations, please my parents and, at the same time, I used every available means to do the things I would really like to do. I've always forged my path with blood, tears and will power, but last night, I realised that I was going about it the wrong way. My dream doesn't require that of me, I have only to surrender myself to it and, if I find I'm suffering, grit my teeth, because the suffering will pass.'

'Why are you telling me this?'

'Let me finish. In that journey where suffering seemed to be the only rule, I struggled for things for which there was no point struggling. Like love, for example. People either feel it or they don't, and there isn't a force in the world that can make them feel it. We can pretend that we love each other. We can get used to each other. We can live a whole lifetime of friendship and complicity, we can bring up children, have sex every night, reach orgasm, and still feel that there's a terrible emptiness about it all, that something important is missing. In the name of all I've learned about relationships between men and women, I've been trying to fight against things that weren't really worth the struggle. And that includes you.

'Today, while we were making love, while I was giving all I have, and I could see that you, too, were giving of your best, I realised that your best no longer interests me. I will sleep beside you tonight, but tomorrow I'll leave. The theatre is my ritual, and there I can express and develop whatever I want to express and develop.'

I started to regret everything going to Transylvania and meeting a woman who might be destroying my life, arranging that first meeting of the 'group', confessing my love in that restaurant. At that moment, I hated Athena.

'I know what you're thinking,' said Andrea. 'That your friend Athena has brainwashed me, but that isn't true.'

'I'm a man, even though tonight in bed I behaved like a woman. I'm a species in danger of extinction because I don't see many men around. Few people would risk what I have risked.'

'I'm sure you're right, and that's why I admire you, but aren't you going to ask me who I am, what I want and what I desire?'

I asked.

'I want everything. I want savagery and tenderness. I want to upset the neighbours and placate them too. I don't want a woman in my bed, I want men, real men, like you, for example. Whether they love me or are merely using me, it doesn't matter. My love is greater than that. I want to love freely, and I want to allow the people around me to do the same.

'What I talked about to Athena were the simple ways of awakening repressed energy, like making love, for example, or walking down the street saying: I'm here and now. Nothing very special, no secret ritual. The only thing that made our meeting slightly different was that we were both naked. From now on, she and I will meet every Monday, and if I have any comments to make, I will do so after that session. I have no desire to be her friend. Just as, when she feels the need to share something, she goes up to Scotland to talk with that Edda woman, who, it seems, you know as well, although you've never mentioned her.'

'I can't even remember meeting her!'

I sensed that Andrea was gradually calming down. I prepared two cups of coffee and we drank them together. She recovered her smile and asked about my promotion. She said she was worried about those Monday meetings, because she'd learned only that morning that friends of friends were inviting other people, and Athena's apartment was a very small place. I made an enormous effort to pretend that everything that had happened that evening was just a fit of nerves or premenstrual tension or jealousy on her part.

I put my arms around her and she snuggled into my shoulder. And despite my own exhaustion, I waited until she fell asleep. That night, I dreamed of nothing. I had no feelings of foreboding.

And the following morning, when I woke up, I saw that her clothes were gone, the key was on the table, and there was no letter of farewell.

Deidre O'Neill, known as Edda

People read a lot of stories about witches, fairies, paranormals and children possessed by evil spirits. They go to films showing rituals featuring pentagrams, swords and invocations. That's fine; people need to give free rein to their imagination and to go through certain stages. Anyone who gets through those stages without being deceived will eventually get in touch with the Tradition.

The real Tradition is this: the teacher never tells the disciple what he or she should do. They are merely travelling companions, sharing the same uncomfortable feeling of 'estrangement' when confronted by ever-changing perceptions, broadening horizons, closing doors, rivers that sometimes seem to block their path and which, in fact, should never be crossed, but followed.

There is only one difference between teacher and disciple: the former is slightly less afraid than the latter. Then, when they sit down at a table or in front of a fire to talk, the more experienced person might say: 'Why don't you do that?' But he or she never says: 'Go there and you'll arrive where I did', because every path and every destination are unique to the individual.

The true teacher gives the disciple the courage to throw his or her world off balance, even though the disciple is afraid of things already encountered and more afraid still of what might be around the next corner.

I was a young, enthusiastic doctor who, filled by a desire to help my fellow human beings, travelled to the interior of Romania on an exchange programme run by the British government. I set off with my luggage full of medicines and my head full of preconceptions. I had clear ideas about how people should behave, about what we need to be happy, about the dreams we should keep alive inside us, about how human relations should evolve. I arrived in Bucharest during that crazed, bloody dictatorship and went to Transylvania to assist with a mass vaccination programme for the local population.

I didn't realise that I was merely one more piece on a very complicated chessboard, where invisible hands were manipulating my idealism, and that ulterior motives lay behind everything I believed was being done for humanitarian purposes: stabilising the government run by the dictator's son, allowing Britain to sell arms in a market dominated by the Soviets.

All my good intentions collapsed when I saw that there was barely enough vaccine to go round; that there were other diseases sweeping the region; that however often I wrote asking for more resources, they never came. I was told not to concern myself with anything beyond what I'd been asked to do.

I felt powerless and angry. I'd seen poverty from close to and would have been able to do something about it if only someone would give me some money, but they weren't interested in results. Our government just wanted a few articles in the press, so that they could say to their political parties or to their electorate that they'd despatched groups to various places in the world on a humanitarian mission. Their intentions were good apart from selling arms, of course.

I was in despair. What kind of world was this? One night, I set off into the icy forest, cursing God, who was unfair to everything and everyone. I was sitting beneath an oak tree when my protector approached me. He said I could die of cold, and I replied that I was a doctor and knew the body's limits, and that as soon as I felt I was getting near those limits, I would go back to the camp. I asked him what he was doing there.

'I'm speaking to a woman who can hear me, in a world in which all the men have gone deaf.'

I thought he meant me, but the woman he was referring to was the forest itself. When I saw this man wandering about amongst the trees, making gestures and saying things I couldn't understand, a kind of peace settled on my heart. I was not, after all, the only person in the world left talking to myself. When I got up to return to the camp, he came over to me again.

'I know who you are,' he said. 'People in the village say that you're a very decent person, always good-humoured and prepared to help others, but I see something else: rage and frustration.'

He might have been a government spy, but I decided to tell him everything I was feeling, even though I ran the risk of being arrested. We walked together to the field hospital where I was working; I took him to the dormitory, which was empty at the time (my colleagues were all having fun at the annual festival being held in the town), and I asked if he'd like a drink. He produced a bottle from his pocket.

'Palinka,' he said, meaning the traditional drink of Romania, with an incredibly high alcohol content. 'On me.'

We drank together, and I didn't even notice that I was getting steadily drunk. I only realised the state I was in when I tried to go to the toilet, tripped over something and fell flat.

'Don't move,' said the man. 'Look at what is there before your eyes.'

A line of ants.

'They all think they're very wise. They have memory, intelligence, organisational powers, a spirit of sacrifice. They look for food in summer, store it away for the winter, and now they are setting forth again, in this icy spring, to work. If the world were destroyed by an atomic bomb tomorrow, the ants would survive.'

'How do you know all this?'

'I studied biology.'

'Why the hell don't you work to improve the living conditions of your own people? What are you doing in the middle of the forest, talking to the trees?'

'In the first place, I wasn't alone; apart from the trees, you were listening to me too. But to answer your question, I left biology to work as a blacksmith.'

I struggled to my feet. My head was still spinning, but I was thinking clearly enough to understand the poor man's situation. Despite a university education, he had been unable to find work. I told him that the same thing happened in my country too.

'No, that's not what I meant. I left biology because I wanted to work as a blacksmith. Even as a child, I was fascinated by those men hammering steel, making a strange kind of music, sending out sparks all around, plunging the red-hot metal into water and creating clouds of steam. I was unhappy as a biologist, because my dream was to make rigid metal take on soft shapes. Then, one day, a protector appeared.'

'A protector?'

'Let's say that, on seeing those ants doing exactly what they're programmed to do, you were to exclaim: How fantastic! The guards are genetically prepared to sacrifice themselves for the queen, the workers carry leaves ten times their own weight, the engineers make tunnels that can resist storms and floods. They enter into mortal combat with their enemies, they suffer for the community, and they never ask: Why are we doing this? People try to imitate the perfect society of the ants, and, as a biologist, I was playing my part, until someone came along with this question: Are you happy doing what you're doing? Of course I am, I said. I'm being useful to my own people. And that's enough?

'I didn't know whether it was enough or not, but I said that he seemed to me to be both arrogant and egotistical. He replied: Possibly. But all you will achieve is to repeat what has been done since man was man keeping things organised.

'But the world has progressed, I said. He asked if I knew any history. Of course I did. He asked another question: Thousands of years ago, weren't we capable of building enormous structures like the pyramids? Weren't we capable of worshipping gods, weaving, making fire, finding lovers and wives, sending written messages? Of course we were. But although we've succeeded in replacing slaves with wage slaves, all the advances we've made have been in the field of science. Human beings are still asking the same questions as their ancestors. In short, they haven't evolved at all. At that point, I understood that the person asking me these questions was someone sent from heaven, an angel, a protector.'

'Why do you call him a protector?'

'Because he told me that there were two traditions, one that makes us repeat the same thing for centuries at a time, and another that opens the door into the unknown. However, the second tradition is difficult, uncomfortable and dangerous, and if it attracted too many followers, it would end up destroying the society which, following the example of the ants, took so long to build. And so the second tradition went underground and has only managed to survive over so many centuries because its followers created a secret language of signs.'

'Did you ask more questions?'

'Of course I did, because, although I'd denied it, he knew I was dissatisfied with what I was doing. My protector said: I'm afraid of taking steps that are not on the map, but by taking those steps despite my fears, I have a much more interesting life. I asked more about the Tradition, and he said something like: As long as God is merely man, we'll always have enough food to eat and somewhere to live. When the Mother finally regains her freedom, we might have to sleep rough and live on love, or we might be able to balance emotion and work. The man, who, it turned out, was my protector, asked: If you weren't a biologist, what would you be? I said: A blacksmith, but they don't earn enough money. And he replied: Well, when you grow tired of being what you're not, go and have fun and celebrate life, hammering metal into shape. In time, you'll discover that it will give you more than pleasure, it will give you meaning. How do I follow this tradition you spoke of? I asked. As I said, through symbols, he replied. Start doing what you want to do, and everything else will be revealed to you. Believe that God is the Mother and looks after her children and never lets anything bad happen to them. I did that and I survived. I discovered that there were other people who did the same, but who are considered to be mad, irresponsible, superstitious. Since time immemorial, they've sought their inspiration in nature. We build pyramids, but we also develop symbols.

'Having said that, he left, and I never saw him again. I only know, from that moment on, symbols did begin to appear because my eyes had been opened by that conversation. Hard though it was, one evening, I told my family that, although I had everything a man could dream of having, I was unhappy, and that I had, in fact, been born to be a blacksmith. My wife protested, saying: You were born a gipsy and had to face endless humiliations to get where you are, and yet you want to go back? My son, however, was thrilled, because he, too, liked to watch the blacksmiths in our village and hated the laboratories in the big cities.

'I started dividing my time between biological research and working as a blacksmith's apprentice. I was always tired, but I was much happier. One day, I left my job and set up my own blacksmith's business, which went completely wrong from the start. Just when I was starting to believe in life, things got markedly worse. One day, I was working away and I saw that there before me was a symbol.

'The unworked steel arrives in my workshop and I have to transform it into parts for cars, agricultural machinery, kitchen utensils. Do you know how that's done? First, I heat the metal until it's red-hot, then I beat it mercilessly with my heaviest hammer until the metal takes on the form I need. Then I plunge it into a bucket of cold water and the whole workshop is filled with the roar of steam, while the metal sizzles and crackles in response to the sudden change in temperature. I have to keep repeating that process until the object I'm making is perfect: once is not enough.'