"The Guru is attempting to destroy me," Atmananda announced to his disciples at subsequent Centre meetings. "You need to understand that while the Guru has lost his spiritual powers, he has not lost his mystical powers. Until you break all mental, emotional, and psychic attachments to him, and until you develop a powerful inner connection with me, you will be completely vulnerable to his next round of inner attacks. Many of you think that this is some kind of game. Just don't come running to me when you find that all your power is gone."
Memories about Atmananda that had been suppressed for months continued to freely flow. "Do you see how my skin glows?" he had recently asked me.
"That means you are healthy," I had replied.
"True, but if you look closely you will see that the light from my body is emanating from a higher plane."
There were memories of eating breakfast with Atmananda and my other housemates. At one point during the meal, Atmananda gazed out the window and spoke as though in a trance. "The powers," he said repeatedly, "are coming back to me. I can now fill an entire room with golden light. I am not who you think I am." About fifteen minutes later, he stopped talking and went to his room.
"Is there something wrong with Atmananda?" Anne asked me as we washed the breakfast dishes.
"Something is definitely not right," I replied. We glanced at each other, but found it difficult to share our ideas and doubts in much depth. We both felt indebted to Atmananda. He had managed to convince us, separately, that had we not met him, we would now be dead. He used this tactic on many disciples. He had also been giving Anne and me special attention lately, and we therefore felt particularly guilty that we had doubts about him. Then there was the climate of distrust that he had been fostering within the Centre. He occasionally warned me, for instance, that Anne was in a low state of consciousness and that I should avoid her whenever possible; he would then tell her the same about me, and so on. Furthermore, Atmananda had worked to make communication among disciples intimidating and taboo.
"If any of you break the Seven Seals of Silence," he had repeatedly warned inner circle devotees, without explaining what the Seals were, "I would not want to be in your shoes. You have to understand that there would be absolutely nothing I could do to help you. It would be awful—I don't even want to think about it."
Other surfacing memories of Atmananda revolted me. I recalled his often-stated maxim that only through revenge could one of life's greatest joys be attained. In WOOF! (Issue #3; January, 1981), he wrote: "Thousands died today in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted without warning... It was seen that the people of Pompeii had all been enemies of the Gwid in a recent incarnation and that the explosion... was the Gwid's special way of showing the populace that he is not a person to be trifled with... "
I recalled with disgust Atmananda's claim that he used to toss his dog fifteen to twenty feet into the air.