She asked me, “What is the first book that you read that really made a difference?”

I answered that there had been many many books, and Shirley MacLaine’s books certainly piqued my interest in metaphysical-spiritual-new age-things. But the first book that really showed me how to be in this world and not of this world was Illusions, by Richard Bach.

'What if somebody came along who could teach me how my world works and how to control it? ... What if a Siddhartha came to our time, with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them? And what if I could meet him in person, if he was flying a biplane, for instance, and landed in the same meadow with me?'

I’ve owned many copies of Illusions. I read it several times in the late 1980s. Perhaps it’s time to read it again.