Chapter 1 Summary

Two itinerant fliers meet on a Midwestern field and the one, a retired Messiah, Donald W. Shimoda, teaches the other, the narrator Richard, how to see the world and everything in it as illusion. The teacher is assassinated, and the pupil records Shimoda's story before facing his own destiny as another reluctant messiah.

A Master emerges from Indiana, recalling earlier lives in other lands, where people have come to him for counsel. People throng the auto repair shop in which he works, to the point his bosses ask him to leave. The Master goes into the countryside, where people follow him, calling him Messiah and miracle worker, and their belief becomes fact. He always speaks in parables about how each person controls whether to be healthy or sick, rich or poor, free or slave.

A mill-man objects that the Master does not need...