Meanwhile, others in the circle—engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, students, and business professionals—also remained as silent as the rocks and hills around us.
"If you are at all serious about the study of mysticism," chided Atmananda, "you must learn to talk openly about what you *see*. If you don't, your mind will play tricks on you and you will doubt your experiences later on."
More silence. The next ten seconds passed very slowly.
"Atmananda," I suddenly announced. "I *saw* the Warriors."
Others in the circle soon *saw* them too.
Atmananda held desert trips once or twice a month and, by mid-1983, followers *saw* him walking above the ground on a "cushion of light," flying to distant mountains, sending columns of light into the sky, and causing constellations to gyrate and disappear.
On one starlit night, Atmananda raised his hands above his head. As he slowly lowered them, he made a low, whistling sound like the wind.
"What did you *see*?" he asked afterward.
"I didn't *see* anything," one new follower bemoaned.
"Advanced psychic vision is necessary to perceive what I am doing or, more accurately, not doing," Atmananda said patiently.