Mavis has made her escape with various Board Apes and gold jewelry pilfered from her cultists. A flawless escape, save for one hiccup: the Great Yogi Upadya Nirmanka is real and has no need for early wealth, only the mind, body, and soul of a disciple… [Sequel to: https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04738-l354-the-vanishing-mystic -- Deathshead419
Belief is an incredibly weird thing. It's why placebos work on patients. It's all in the presentation. Their glorious leader Suma Loma had shown them the beginning steps. She insisted that she was merely a studant of the great Yogi Upadya Nirmanka.
And then she literally vanished.
Mikya had been the one to break into Suma Loma's isolation house after three days of silence. He found her robes on her meditation mat as if she had simply evaporated during her meditations. There was nothing more there but empty cupboards and a fine layer of dust.
The house became a shrine, of course. The devotees spent an hour in the Summoning ritual every day. Mikya attempted to replicate Suma Loma's miracles. And the compound struggled on in their ascetic way of life.
Once a week, they went on marathon Summoning Rituals, often until all but a few passed out from the effort. All of them believing that the miracle would repeat. And one day, it did.
This time, the Great Yogi entered the hall, laying hands on the fallen and returning them to health. Taking his seat to the right of Mikya. "You have made the mistake of sacrificing your needs for the sake of a miracle," he said. "The mortal body truly has needs, and you must take care to answer them until you ascend. You have called me here to guide you, so I shall guide you."
The mortal needs were, indeed, answered by a simple ascetic life. Spiritual needs were fulfilled by meditation and the careful teaching of Upadya Nirmanka. The miracles could be performed without flapping sleeves or secret doors. It was all, as Nirmanka said, mind over matter.
Material wealth didn't matter when the mind could simply make things happen.
It was when they went out to teach the wisdom to others that they found out the truth... in the form of Mavis, elbow-deep in her latest scam.
[Photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash]
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