I DENTIFICACIÓN DE BRECHAS Y PROPUESTAS DE MEJORAS

'Many years ago,' he began slowly, 'an engaged couple lived together without being married for four years. Throughout this period the girl remained a virgin. She would not allow her fiance to consummate their relationship. In the fourth year he got tuberculosis and the doctor isolated him in a tent outside of Nicosia. The girl promised him that they would get married as soon as he got well. His great torment was that during the four years of their relationship she would not allow him to have intercourse with her. He died with this unfulfilled craving. This overwhelming yearning for her kept him floating in the etheric world from where he began harassing her. The girl was going mad. Each night before she would go to bed he would semi- hypnotize her and induce her to keep the window of her room open. He would then enter inside a bat and would come to her. "Hie bat would wedge on her neck and draw blood and etheric.'

'Why blood and etheric?' I asked.

'An individual in such a state needs etheric matter in order to sustain himself there. The girl was losing a lot of blood and became extremely weak. Her parents brought her to me in despair. "Daskale," they implored me, "our daughter is dying and the doctors cannot help us. Look at her and see how weak she is." I noticed that although it was high summer she had her neck covered. When I inquired about it she mentioned that it was due to some pimples that appeared there. I asked her to let me look at them. She opened her collar and I saw clearly the teeth of the bat in twos, right at the spots of her arteries. It was the first time that I had encountered such a case and, inexperienced as I was, I sought help from Father Dominico who lived on the other side. He explained to me that the dead man, by using the bat, lived more intensely in the etheric world. Father Dominico instructed me on how to treat such a case. "Stay in their home for awhile," he said. "The girl will wake up at night to open the window. Have a brasier with burningcoals in it in the next room. When the bat arrives grab a broom, enter into her bedroom and then shut the window. Be careful because the bat will attack you. Hit it with the broom to make it dizzy. Then wrap it in a towel. You should then go to the next room and throw the bat inside the brasier. Shut the bat inside and let it burn." ' Daskalos leaned back in his chair and continued.

'Well, this is exactly what happened. When I closed the window the bat attacked me. At that moment the girl woke up and assaulted me. Her father, who was present, grabbed his daughter and held her tight. She was groaning and screaming hysterically while the bat was dying. Then she calmed down and became serene. "What are you doing to me?" she asked. "Were you trying to burn me?" I advised her parents to bring a priest in order to bless the house.'

'What happened to the fiance?' I inquired.

'We helped him disentangle himself from the etheric worlds so that he could go higher. Do you understand now what it means when someone gets trapped in the etheric world?'

I had hardly finished writing Daskalos' last comments when he began to narrate another similar case.

'Thirty years ago I was on a journey to the Peloponnese in southern Greece. I spent a few days in a town where there was a girl suffering from a serious psychological problem. I was asked whether I could help. She was about twenty-five years old and single. A shepherd, twenty-five years older than the girl, fell in love with her and asked her parents for their daughter's hand. They refused. The shepherd, Loizos was his name, died in an auto accident. Five years passed after his death and nothing happened. But one day this girl claimed that while she was looking after her two goats she saw Loizos calling her. Frightened she began running to her house. He followed her. "You are dead. What do you want from me?" While saying this she started feeling very sleepy and sat under an olive tree. He hypnotized her. The girl confided to me that under that olive tree she experienced for the first time sexual pleasure. When examined she was found a virgin. Three days after this incident the dead man visited her at home. He came at night through the walls. She got used to him making love to her. When she was examined once more, she was no longer a virgin. The doctor, however, insisted that she was not deflowered by a penis but by her fingers. I. noticed that on her neck there were two reddish spots. I asked about them. "He kisses me there but his kisses are strange. They are like sucking and I like them," she replied.

'I spent the night with them. He did not appear. Nor did he on the second night. But late in the afternoon of the third day I