We must not only read and understand: we must do until we absorb into the substance of ourselves. There is in that the difference between the athlete and the person who has read the rules of the game, the art critic and the painter who has struggled with pigments. We must not only see that it is so: we must make it so. This is not knowledge: it is development.
"Ben, I've been trying to reach you for hours!" Frank Wilson said in exasperation. "What have you been doing? I haven't heard a thing from you or Joan. Have you guys forgotten that we're trying to expose this demon Gorgon?"
"No," Ben replied, "I've just been busy--with lots of things--just back from a conference."
"What can be more important than fighting Gorgon--he's still got Angela in his clutches and it looks like he's pretty well taking over the country." Frank was furious.
"Well, I still haven't figured out how to expose him. And Joan isn't doing any better, actually . . ."
"Listen," Frank bellowed, "you two may not feel this as the priority I do. If you're too busy to fight this monster, I don't know what the hell you're doing!" He hung up before Ben could reply.
The phone was ringing off the cradle as Ben entered his apartment.
For several weeks Ben puzzled over his latest meeting with Cartwright. He wasn't sure he had heard Cartwright correctly, but it had seemed almost insane at the time, something about being in a novel.
The entire experience of Cartwright's speech at the conference seemed enigmatic to Ben. At times, as he reflected on the experience, it appeared that Cartwright had made a fool of himself. Then when Ben thought of it from another perspective, it seemed that Cartwright had provided information in precisely the correct manner for the occasion.
Well, whatever the truth is, Ben mused to himself, I want to continue studying his material. In fact, I'd like the opportunity to study with him directly. Not just read haphazardly, but see if I could become a student of his. He paused. Maybe I'm assuming too much, to suppose that I could be a serious student. He pondered further. But it surely won't do any harm to ask!
He decided to write to Cartwright and inquire if he might become a student within his program, or whatever it was. That evening as he sent an e-mail message indicating that he wanted to study with him and added that he also wanted to pursue his activism if that was possible.
After he'd sent the email, Ben remembered that Cartwright had earlier written that if his attention was focused on fighting Gorgon that he wouldn't be able to study effectively. Ben wondered if he was still too obsessed with his struggle against Gorgon to do justice to study with Cartwright. Well, I'll leave that up to him, Ben thought.
After several weeks, as Ben was again wondering if he'd ever hear from Cartwright, he received a telephone call from Tailor. So I'm back to dealing with his associates, Ben thought as he spoke to the man. Oh well, at least it's a reply.
"Perhaps you might want to attend the next Sunday 10 AM meeting of a religious leader in New York City," Tailor said.
"Okay," Ben replied. "What's the address?"
"The address is Hope Mission, 471 East Platt, on the lower East side. Your attending this meeting would provide you with a very beneficial opportunity for learning. In particular, you will want to see if you can distinguish if this religious leader is genuine or not." Talilor paused to see if this was registering.
"If you're going to attend, you'll need to notify Clarence Bailey, a member of the congregation. This is the number."
Ben wrote down the telephone number Tailor gave him.
"After attending the meeting," Tailor continued, "you could send your evaluation to the e-mail address which you already have."
"Yes, thanks for the call. I look forward to attending this meeting." After hanging up the phone, Ben puzzled over the strange call from Tailor.
That same day, Ben called the number Tailor had given him. It turned out to be a public pay phone and the person who answered said she'd have to go get Clarence.
"Yes," Clarence Bailey said, when he finally came to the phone, "whatta you want?"
"I'm phoning to let you know that I will be attending the Sunday morning meeting."
"What's your name?" the man barked.
"Ben Emerson."
"Where do you work?"
"In the Washington, D.C. area, for the Agency for Strategic Analysis."
"Okay," the man snapped, "we'll be expecting you."
At 6 AM on Sunday Ben was preparing to travel by train to NYC. Tailor hadn't mentioned what kind of religious group this was, so to be safe Ben wore a three-piece suit. It might be a formal occasion, he reflected.
He had decided to go by train because he disliked driving in New York City. However, as he boarded the train he could only find a seat next to a foul-smelling man, clearly inebriated who kept sprawling on Ben in his drunken sleep. Ben pushed the derelict over toward the window, but it did little good.
From the train station, Ben took a taxi to the address Tailor had given him. The taxi route brought them to an area that looked like a blighted war zone with windows boarded-up, small groups standing around trash cans with fires ablaze. When the taxi stopped at the address, Ben could scarcely believe his eyes. The Hope Mission was nothing more than a decaying used furniture store in a crime-ridden area. The storefont church boasted a dilapidated sign with irregular lettering
A sudden wave of fear passed through Ben's mind. A white, Caucasian, over-dressed man in an area where only drug addicts, drug pushers, hookers, and the homeless seemed to reside. Ben hesistated before paying the taxi driver and getting out of the cab. But the cabby was clearly nervous about the area himself, so Ben exited and walked toward the door of the blasted storefront "church." Through the window he could see that there was a kind of podium at the front of a small room, with chairs arranged in rows.
As Ben entered the small meeting room, he could see there were only about a dozen people seated irregularly throughout the hall. There was no one at the front of the room and the other people in the room turned to stare at Ben as he took a seat on the back row. The others, mostly black people, but several older white people as well, were dressed like street people: patched, worn clothes which had probably gone through Goodwill several times. They seemed to be waiting for their leader to appear.
A low murmur arose as someone entered the meeting hall. As Ben turned to see who it was he was astonished to see a bag lady pushing her supermarket cart through the door.
My God, Ben thought to himself, this gets worse and worse.
It was evident from the response of the people in the room that this derelict was their leader, as astounding as this was to Ben.
She was a black woman dressed in rags, looking like a homeless vagrant. But the effect she had on the other people in the room stupefied Ben. As the woman left her cart at the back of the meeting room and proceeded toward the podium, the "congregation" got down on their knees and began to do obeisance to the derelict woman.
From their behavior it was clear that they were not only her followers but they actually worshipped her. Unfortunately, the squalid woman seemed to eat this up. She beamed a smile at them and after several minutes of their genuflecting veneration, motioned them to return to their seats.
The "religious leader," as Tailor's message had described her, strode to the podium and began to preach in a bombastic voice. Her text was from the New Testament story of Jesus casting out the money-changers from the temple in Jerusalem. "Today," she began, "we're going to talk about the World Capitalist War-Mongers and their intellectualist lackeys." She stared at Ben.
Ben was surprised at her vocabulary--and the strident tone of her rant. She bent down and picked up a huge
poster that had been lying face down in back of her and placed it on an easel. To Ben's utter amazement, it was a blown-up copy of the Ruler image that he had used in his Freire Interenet Web article.
"We have in our midst today," the harridan continued, now pointing her finger directly at Ben, "a card-carrying lackey of the Imperialists. This toady works in a military-industrial corporation which gives aid and comfort to the fascist warmongers." She pounded her fist on the podium, creating a deafening roar . "This renegade is an expert on brainwashing people and helps the Nazi U.S. military manipulate soldiers in war and peace."
The rabble-rousing woman continued in a louder, more offensive voice. "This insurrectionary is a bleeding-heart liberal, a dilettante activist who does nothing more than talk about the evils in the world." She turned to gaze at her worshippers. "Some of us who live among the common people have genuine concern for the horrors that are taking place in the world: unemployment, homelessness, the poor getting poorer, educated ignorance, depravity of every ilk. I live and minister in the slums so I can be close to the people who need help."
Ben had never been so uncomfortable in his life. The enormity struck him, he was completely out of place in his three-piece suit. And the bag lady was making him the focus of her tirade. He wondered if he should run from the "church" or perhaps just get up and serenely leave the appalling creature to her own jeremiad.
Before he could gather his wits, the harangue continued. "You in your Mr. Establishment suit and your two hundred dollar shoes," she clamored," you're the kind of ignorant know-it-all who feels totally confident that he can tell a genuine teacher from a fake, when you wouldn't recognize a real teacher if she were staring you in the face."
That was too much for Ben; he jumped up from his seat and strode out of the room. Strangely, there was no outburst as he left. He quickly walked several blocks through the war zone and finally found a taxi which took him back to the train station.
On the train returning home, Ben began to reflect. How in the hell did she get a copy of the image I created for the Web page? I guess she took a copy from the Internet. He began to calm down a bit. And this is the "religious leader" from whom I was supposed to learn so much, according to the estimable Mr. W. Tailor, Esquire.
Ben was seething with anger at Tailor and Cartwright for putting him into such a humiliating circumstance. There was no question in Ben's mind that the loathsome creature was a fake "guru" who was leading her worshippers into the lowest depths of degradation. Ben even contemplated suing the bitch for her slanderous vilification, but realized that it would require too much energy and might result in bad publicity for him.
Upon returning home, Ben waited for several days before he began to think about writing down his thoughts concerning his "learning experience" at the Hope Mission. As he reflected on the experience, he found himself questioning Cartwright's whole enterprise. Is this what he does to people who want to study with him? If so, he can count me out, Ben mused. Was that the kind of exercise in humiliation that Cartwright orchestrates, so he can reap the harvest of groveling cult followers? Ben realized how extremely angry he was at Cartwright and wondered if he wanted to send him his evaluation of the New York City fiasco or not.
It occurred to Ben that Cartwright may have been showing him the seemy side of the religious underworld--perhaps as a contrast to Cartwright's own teaching system. But he felt the Hope Mission was too extreme as a way to experience the corruption of the religious cult world.
The phone suddenly rang and Ben was still seething when he answered it. "Whoa," Joan said to his explosive "hello." "Sounds like you're having a bad day."
"Oh, sorry Joan. No, I'm just thinking about my New York City trip."
"The mysterious trip, which you didn't want to talk about when you returned. What is it, Ben? Maybe you should get it out."
"I'm still trying to figure it out for myself," Ben admitted. Maybe it would be good to speak to Joan about it, he reflected. "Yeah, it might help to talk to you about it. You up to hearing about a really weird experience?"
"Sure, if it has you in such a tizzy as this. Maybe I can help you get some perspective on it."
As Ben and Joan later sat in his living room, he explained in detail about his trip, the warzone storefront "church," the bag lady "preacher," her worshipping cult followers, her slanderous attack on him, and his leaving in disgust.
Ben thought he was angry, but it was nothing to Joan's rage against Cartwright for putting Ben in such a mortifying situation. She had continually questioned Ben's association with Cartwright and now her indignation erupted.
"I've always thought that man was a scoundrel. Who the hell does he think he is? Living like some Oriental potentate in that Healdsburg hideaway, writing his unreadable, ponderous monographs on his precious Web site, uttering his ridiculous absurdities at the National Defense University conference you told me about. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that all his cult followers suddenly committed suicide out there in California. You're well rid of that charlatan, now that you've seen that he's a phony guru!"
It was wonderful that when Joan got angry like this she also got horny. They spent the night together at Ben's, making love into the wee hours of the morning.
Joan and Ben had had very little time together in recent months because Joan was working feverishly in President Randolph's reelection campaign. Senator Binkley had somehow won the Democratic primaries and had become the Democratic presidential candiate.
Joan, Ben, and Frank had decided that it would be a good idea if Joan could interview Frank on her talk show. Frank could display some of the material Keller had managed to get with the van Eck machine. When Joan proposed the program to her producer, he hit the ceiling. His reaction was so over the top that Joan was sure that pressure had been put on him by some outside force.
Unable to present the material on Joan's show, they considered putting it on their Web site, but upon reviewing Gorgon's earlier threat of a law suit, they decided against it. All three of them felt frustrated at having material that would explode in Gorgon's face, but being unable to present it to the nation's voters.
Ben had been busy and hadn't had a chance to call Joan for a couple of days, so he was glad to hear from her. "You won't believe what happened to me!" Joan exclaimed.
"What?" Ben asked eagerly. "I got sacked. They gave me some bullshit story about my ratings being down, which simply isn't true." She paused and Ben could sense how terribly upset she really was.
"Can't you sue or something?" Ben asked.
"No," Joan said, "I talked to my attorney. Their 'at will' contract allows them to pull this kind of treachery."
Ben was at a loss for words to comfort Joan. "Well, let's get together. I can't tell you how sorry I am . . ."
"You're sorry!," Joan screeched, "if I hadn't gotten involved with this Gorgon mess I wouldn't have gotten fired." After a moment, she said quietly, "I've got to get somewhere by myself and sort this out. I'll be in touch later, Ben." She hung up.
From reports in the papers, Ben saw that Joan was continuing to work for Randolph's reelection, but his campaign seemed to be going down hill rapidly. Ben wished he could do something to help Joan in her efforts for Randolph, but there was really nothing he could contribute but his moral support, and he didn't think she wanted to talk to him right now.
Ben realized that part of Joan's fury at Cartwright for Ben's degrading experience with the bag lady was her frustration at the failing campaign to reelect Randolph. The country seemed to be mesmerized by Binkley's TV campaign ads which, it was evident, had been created by Gorgon's Parallax Corporation.
Ben hesitated to call Joan on election night when it was clear that Binkley had easily defeated Randolph. He decided to wait until she called him. He also knew that Joan would go ballistic over his decision to send Cartwright the evaluation of his Hope Mission experience. She will be royally pissed, Ben ruminated. But I still feel, with all my doubts and anger, that there is something in what Cartwright is doing.
Later that evening, as Ben was TV channel hopping, he happened on the election night wrap-up which featured Joan as one of the analysts. She and the male anchor were trying to make sense of Binkley's landslide victory over Randolph.
"So, Joan," the anchor said, "who'd have thought that Senator Binkley would win by such an immense margin?"
"Yes, Martin," Joan replied, "some of us were even expecting Randolph to be re-elected." She smiled.
"The word is that Randolph lost earlier when he failed to hire Lyman Gorgon as his campaign manager," Martin continued. He turned to Joan. "Actually, you witnessed Randolph pass over Gorgon as his front man, didn't you?"
Joan was flustered. "Well, yes, I did. But I can tell you, Martin, I think Randolph made the right choice--even though he ultimately lost the election."
"Oh," Martin replied, surprised. "Why wouldn't Randolph have hired Gorgon if he knew he'd win the election for him?"
"It's more complex than that, Martin," Joan replied, looking at him seriously. She knew she couldn't say much on the air. "There may have been ethical considerations in Randolph's decision not to traffic with Gorgon."
The show went to commercial and Martin turned to Joan to ask her what in the hell she was talking about. To avoid the questions Joan got up to stretch her legs.
In his evaluation of the Hope Mission experience, Ben concentrated on his appraisal of the "religious leader," not his anger at Cartwright for placing him in such a degrading situation. He explained how it was evident from her appearance--bag lady in rags, encouraging her followers to do obeisance to her, her repugnant personal attack on Ben--that she was a charlatan preying on the outcasts of society. He agreed that it had indeed taught him that there are such horrible creatures victimizing the ignorant and downtrodden. He concluded by indicating that he was absolutely certain that she was a fraud and a fake.
Ben ended his evaluation with these words: "The religious leader whose meeting I attended was definitely a phony guru."
