Chapter 13

As Lord Balah stood up to give his speech to the room full of Illuminati members, he recalled how as a child he had always been so shy, and had dreaded school orals and prepared speeches.  On that day, however, Lord Balah did not feel shy or self-conscious at all.  Instead, Lord Balah explained with great confidence to his wide-eyed audience how he had left England in search of his destiny, met his father Godfrey, and was now beginning to develop sangoma abilities of healing and courage.

So enamored were the rest of the Illuminati with Lord Balah’s sincerity and determination, that they decided as a group to help him along in his quest.  In fact, one of the rules of the Illuminati was that members must always help one another when they can, and so they collectively took it upon themselves to make Lord Balah the most famous and world-renown sangoma on the face of the earth.

With the help of Tom Cruise and the Jolie-Pitts, Lord Balah had soon starred in over 20 movies- playing a sangoma in every one of them.  Indeed, Madonna introduced him as her “Personal Sangoma” on her 78^th world tour, and it wasn’t long before he was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.  In what was a whirlwind 6 months, Lord Balah quickly became undoubtedly the most famous sangoma who had ever lived, but yet he still did not feel like a real sangoma.  All the movie premieres, fashion events and VIP parties, Lord Balah thought to himself, were shallow and vapid.  And although he now had a bustling practice and a growing list of A-list celebrity clients, his sangoma duties consisted of little else than reading tarot cards and performing amateur magic tricks.

Unfortunately for Lord Balah, he seemed to be ahead of his time.  Either that or he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Indeed, the plastic, superficial world of the rich and famous quickly lost its appeal for our hero.  Disillusioned by the vanity and shallowness he saw around him, Lord Balah decided to go back to Johannesburg- where his journey had begun- and to work on becoming a true sangoma.

As with most flavor-of-the-month fads in Hollywood, Lord Balah was soon forgotten about, as the new “next big thing” had arrived.  After saying goodbye to the twins and thanking them for all they had done for him, Lord Balah boarded his plane at Los Angeles’ LAX airport and made his way back to South Africa.  With the money he had made from the movies he had been in, Lord Balah bought a small one-roomed apartment in a quiet complex in the residential area of Northcliff.  The complex- set high on top of the Northcliff mountain- was an ideal area for our hero:  it was serene, and from Lord Balah’s window he had a breathtaking view of the entire Johannesburg area.  Very soon, Lord Balah had settled into a daily routine of waking up early to meditate for 3 hours every morning, going for yoga classes at the nearby Virgin Active in the evenings, and then enjoying a healthy meal of stir-fried organic vegetables before being in bed by 9pm every night.  Indeed, the peace and quiet he was now enjoying seemed to renew Lord Balah, and it wasn’t long before he was ready to once again pursue his destiny.