(Extracts of a letter from Patrizia Norelli to the former prime minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, written from North America on 29.6.1981.)

…I wish also to mention that I have encountered a colossal collective formation of the coming great destruction during this trip. Before people used to ask me IF there would be one; now they ask WHEN. It is an accepted fact. But I have seen something in all this that strikes me deeply: there is the idea, particularly predominant in so-called spiritual groups, that a destruction is necessary and that after that, by some as yet unknown mechanism, the new world will arise. That is, destruction will clear the way to allow for this birth. However, this is a very wrong thinking, because the two have nothing to do with each other. The new already is born and is growing; it does not need any destruction. Destruction is simply the choice of the old Earth, the old consciousness which understands that it is tied up in knots it does not know how to undo. It sees no way out, no solution to these ties that are becoming each day more and more tight to the point of strangulation. So, in despair it chooses destruction. This is simply the choice of the old consciousness. It is not a necessity, particularly not a necessity for the new way. Destruction will change nothing for the new Earth; the two things are not related. Moreover, I am seeing other possibilities for the solution to all this.

   I have also taken the ‘pulse’ of the two continents: Europe and America. The former is like a terminally ill patient; it lives in the tragedy of its doomed condition, burdened with its formidable yet dying past, with no re-vitalising force. Its heavy weight is its doom. The Americans, on the other hand, still have the force of infancy and adolescence and are unburdened by mighty pasts. They have the re-vitalising strength that can make new what their ignorance may destroy. To believe that this continent is doomed may be an illusion. The problem lies elsewhere, in a control of its tremendous yet untamed power. India, I still believe, must open the way…but the key word of the Americas is positivism.