I do not wish to imply by this anything beyond a human context. It is possible for man to become more whole, for each of us to make our private journey back to the place of emergence, and find there the simplest and most real of truths: that we are all at heart the same, that every body contains every soul and has room for every act without reference to its quality. There is a deep, objective awareness of self and universe that is available to all of us.

We could be part of a triad that includes the visitors. They might be the aggressive force, entering us, enforcing our passivity, seeking to draw from the relationship some new creation.

But the triad can never come into harmony until there is a firm ground of understanding. We need not be blindly welcoming. What is required is objectivity. We must have a care, for if they are real it can be as persuasively argued that they are aggressive as it can be that they are benevolent. They take us in the night They introduce their instruments and thus their reality into our brains. It is, however, too easy to call them evil, just as it is too easy to say that they are saints, kindly guides from the beyond. They are a very real and immensely complex force, the provocative nature of which demands neither hate nor love, but rather respect in a context of intellectual objectivity and emotional strength.

In ancient Taoist thought the fundamental force in the universe was duality, the yin and the yang, positive and negative, thrusting and opening, seeking and waiting, male and female.

This was also thought by the Aztec and many other cultures to be fundamental to everything.

And the duality, when it was in harmony, formed the triad. Throughout this chapter I will draw primarily on the Aztec imagery, as a reminder of the fragility and seriousness of our situation if we are indeed dancing a real dance with real visitors.

The triad cannot become strong unless it is preceded by a strong duality. Without the friction of bodies there can be no child, and the universe cannot proceed. There must first be two forces, equal opposites, one that pushes and one that resists. Do the visitors perceive themselves as the aggressive force, seeking to open us to their presence. If so, everything depends on our slowly growing understanding, for unless we understand we cannot be their equal. Unless the two forces are equal, the triad will not have a chance to balance itself and the relationship will not be creative.

When the opposition between two is in balance, the third force emerges. Perhaps the French call the moment of sexual climax "the little death" because it suggests the passing of the parents and the turning of the generations. Or maybe because it is like the death of self that is involved in entering pure being, climax being a moment when the self is absorbed m ecstasy.