The Guru
This dream opened in the style of a documentary film of a city (New York?) which dwelled on the background of some of the older buildings. It featured one relatively short building with a pyramidal top. There were areal and ground views of several areas. From this background I entered the reality of the scene.
I found myself walking through a narrow alley between two buildings, and entered a courtyard surrounded by three story brick or brownstone buildings. The courtyard had only the one opening that I came through, other than entrances to the buildings. As I stood at the corner of the courtyard I could see a stage at the far end and a longer, very narrow stage along the right side; the side opposite me. This narrow stage had painted theatrical backgrounds behind it. The thing that most caught my attention was the imaginative neon signs along the top of the building behind the backgrounds. They flashed and moved, advertising a rock concert or some such thing.
Immediately after my entrance the courtyard started to fill through the same alley I had come through. Soon the performing group came out on the main stage and started doing their introduction for the cheerful crowd.
At this point I noticed people moving behind the background on the narrow side stage. These persons lined up behind the background and pushed it over, revealing themselves. They appeared to be members of some fanatical religious sect and were dressed in white Indian style clothing with white turbans. They disrupted the show, shouted at the crowd and tried chasing the musicians and crowd out of the courtyard.
This made me very angry, and I determined to let the leader of the sect know how I felt. I followed one of the sect members into the building behind the long narrow stage. I saw other people dressed in the uniform of the sect, including a man leading a girl who I presumed was entertainment for the leader in presumed violation of the presumed ascetic principles of the order. These two were dressed in light blue with darker blue hems rather than the usual white.
I barged through the halls loudly demanding to see the leader. Soon I was escorted by a thin bearded flunky into a room of this person's suite. The floors of the room were covered with rich oriental carpets and there were tapestries, lamps, and sparse but obviously high quality Near Eastern style furnishings. The flunky showed his obsequiousness by curling up like a puppy on an ornate chair upon entrance of the chief assistant, a tall bearded man (Indian?) in white who escorted me into the presence of the leader himself.
The leader was distracted and did not immediately attend to me, but found it necessary to teleport himself from the room on some urgent errand. It now occurred to me that, although the man might be a charlatan as I had presumed, he did have some very real powers, and I might be in great danger. the chief assistant also left the room and I was momentarily alone.
Realizing the danger of the situation, I decided that if he could teleport, so could I, and I had better learn how fast. I concentrated on a familiar modernish house in California and succeeded in teleporting myself there and back twice. Now I had some confidence that at least I could beat a hasty retreat if things got tight.
The leader reappeared and settled down on a low platform amongst cushions, but sat alertly upright. He appeared to be about 35, had a short dark beard and moustache, and wore white clothing of a fuller cut than that of his followers. His moderately rounded face was topped with a wide turban that had a decorative brush in front. He remained cheerful and amusedly attentive as I proceeded to lambaste him for his corruption, hypocrisy, interference in the activities of others, and for the bad habits of his followers.
Food was brought by the assistant. The first brought consisted of a metal tray lined with a pie crust shaped bread with scalloped edges. There were small glasses of a white liquid in the center. I broke off a small scallop from the edge and ate it, but thought better of eating or drinking anything more for fear of being drugged.
More food was served on silver plates on a low table in front of the platform. I remained standing through this, and when I thought myself unobserved I practiced teleporting between two marks on the floor, less than 3 inches in all. The leader realized my ability to learn his tricks and showed amused interest, teasing me on, while I retained my intense animosity towards him.
Lapse: I was seated on the floor across the table from the leader. We were each holding a hand of cards and the rest of the deck was on the table. He turned to his assistant saying, "Look how sneaky he's getting, he's switching cards, but he's not very careful yet - he jus switched one out of my hand". Turning to me he admonished me to make sure the card I wanted was still in the pack before using it.
Although the leader had shown no feeling toward me except an amused interest, I was still intensely wary at this point, but my animosity seemed to have receded somewhat.
End.