The Mint Tea Dream
 
Bill: Master Yamamoto, can you tell me the interpretation of my dream last night?
M.Y.: (in a thick but pleasant Japanese accent) Tell me the dream?
Bill: I dreamed the wife of a publisher gave me an $11 lesson in how to practice one of Franz Bardon’s sensory concentrations. She had mint tea in a tea pot that looked suspiciously like a bamboo steamer. We twirled around she and I on a tiny merry-go-round outside.
   Alternately, we smelled the tea from the pot and the air which was thick with the smell of leaves, grass, flowers, and trees. Then I gave her a piece of Godiva chocolate wrapped in gold foil. When I woke from this dream, my room was filled with the scent of mint tea.
M.Y.: Franz Bardon does not teach the five sensory concentrations for human beings. The exercises are for the next race that replaces us called Perseians. If he were teaching human beings he would have said in chapter two of Initiation into Hermetics: “Learn to concentrate on each of the five senses for five minutes without thoughts interrupting.
   But since you are human beings, you must make the exercises fun, exciting, inspiring, and completely enjoyable exactly as occurred in your dream.
   Furthermore, you must do the exercise both when you are awake and when you are asleep, otherwise you will not learn how to dream your dreams into being. And last, you must teach the same exercise to someone else, otherwise all your efforts will be utterly worthless and your accomplishments of no value.”
Bill: But how can you make such incredibly god awful exercises inspiring without being bored to death in the process?
M.Y. Simple. For each sense you must discover one undeniable pleasure, two experiences with bliss, and ten ecstasies.
Bill: How Oh master?
M.Y.: There is no greater pleasure than the thrill of discovering a new wonder. Find something wonderful for yourself in each sensory perception. Bliss is the welling up of happiness from within that saturates your body. In BDSM, it is called “zoning— ” mental functions are suspended but awareness remains alert and immersed in a mind boggling satisfaction riding on pure sensory perception. Nothing exists for you but the moment as it is unfolding.
Bill: And ecstasy?
M.Y.: Ecstasy is feeling that the boundaries between self and the world dissolve—you are a part of something greater than yourself. In your dream, you attained one of the ten ecstasies of the sense of smell—you yourself were the mint smell that filled your room. The separation between identity and perception was annihilated.
  And when you gave the woman the Godiva chocolate you both created the desire for her to taste the chocolate and you offered her satisfaction by merely handing her the candy. Well done! Score one for exercise one.
Bill: Thank you Oh master. But are you not yourself one of the Pereians?
M.Y.: Is it not perfectly obvious? Only a fool could be so stupid to even ask. In mastering chapter three of Initiation into Hermetics, any human being is instantly transformed into a member of the advanced race—for a genuine magician calls many realms his home and thus he is a member of many different races.
Bill: How so?
M.Y.: In chapter three already, the gnomes come up to you and say, “He is one of our own for he has made silence his home.”
   The mermaids will invite you to their parties for you pass their test for gaining their trust—you can feel what they feel that love is the only thing that is real.
   The sylphs will say, “He tastes what we taste—that the universe is on the verge of exploding because of the joy it contains.”
  And the salamanders will treat you with respect by offering a gift. They will say, “Here, consider this cinder cone your new home. Clearly, the power within you is a will of fire like a king who sits on a mighty throne.”