Task 6 - "Desert Temple" by Irina

Desert Temple

The group of campers were waking up. Some were slowly getting out of their sleeping bags, others remained lying, perhaps feeling too tired and hungry to lift themselves up. Carrie was one of the latter. She had just raised herself on her elbows. The stark beauty of the landscape dazzled her. The intricate patterns of the brown hills in the distance were glowing in the morning sun. The air was still fresh from the night’s cold and the heat hadn’t set in yet, the scorching heat of Arizona in the afternoon. She was partly looking forward to it, for the night had been freezing. The whole group, about sixty people, had spent the hours of dark and cold with just sleeping bags to protect them. Actually no, she was one of the few who had resisted the temptation of buying a Peruvian poncho for just $250, when Jean, the chief of Ray’s assistants, was offering them. Carrie took this experience seriously, she had joined the Spiritual Warrior retreat to achieve harmony in life and she was determined to follow all of Ray’s commands. The idea was to test your endurance and clean your body, and if she had to freeze and sweat for that, freeze and sweat she would. “I’m determined to make it through. This will change my life,” she thought. She was annoyed at some of the others who kept complaining about the fasting. “This was not a five-star hotel, you’re here to become better people and you will have to work hard on that,” she wanted to tell them.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the camp, James Arthur Ray, a well-built, 38-year-old man with a big smile and ego had just finished his breakfast in his tent and now he was updating his Twitter page. “Hm, I love google ads, always relevant. Here, I love this BMW, a couple of retreats like that and I’ll be able to buy a dozen of these, not that I need them, but it’s a good feeling, to know I can buy all this stuff…I’m a genius, I love myself. That’s what all the others should do – reach out and grab what you want, like I do. The Law of Attraction. Ok, let’s focus now… Jean tells me my dear sweet followers are a bit grumpy this morning. Maybe it’s been enough fasting, these guys aren’t as trained as those monks in Tibet that I interviewed about the benefits of fasting.”

He called out: “Jean, dear, would you be so kind as to offer the camp the buffet meal we were saving for after the sweat lodge. I’ll order an extra meal for later. I think some refreshment would do them good.”

“But you told them the fasting rule was very strict and important. How shall I explain this?” Jean, a small plump woman in her fifties, was puzzled.

“Just tell them they have worked hard and their Spiritual Leader thanks them with this inspirational buffet meal that he has sanctified in his meditational dreams during the night,” Ray said, opening himself another bottle of cold water.

The day continued much like the previous few days of the retreat. The devoted believers listened to Ray’s revealing philosophy. He taught them the Secret – you can achieve anything, yes, anything with the power of your thought. And all the body-purging exercises would help them learn how to make their wishes materialize. Damian spent the meditation time in strenuous efforts to imagine his promotion at work. Meryl could almost touch the Pear-shaped diamond necklace by Christie’s. And Jeff knew his new restaurant would turn a huge profit so he’ll be able to finally afford that scuba diving vacation in the Great Barrier Reef. Panny pictured herself married, 4 inches taller, with hair twice as long and no pimples at all. And they were all confident and secure, “This retreat is worth each and every cent of the nine thousand dollars I spent on it,” they all thought. This was the final day and there was a feeling of fulfillment among the group.

Ray shared that too. For the past few days he had enjoyed the status of a god, a prophet who knew the answer to all problems – the simple formula – know, feel and receive. This was all based on The Law of Attraction, the scientific evidence that all our thoughts attract events. He had talked to many people, traveled to sacred places all over the world and knew many stories of ordinary people who had believed in themselves and grabbed their opportunities. His followers adored him and obeyed all his commands. “I can’t wait to get the feedbacks from this retreat, I can smell the praise… and with the series of future retreats coming…then I’ll write another book or two, maybe that will get me on Oprah, or Larry King again… I’ve always known I was born to be a prophet… This is the mission of my life, to help others achieve success in life like I did.”

The retreat concluded with the ancient Native American ritual of the sweat lodge. The traditional tent was already built – a low structure covered in plastic sheeting with a hearth in the middle. Scolding, lava-hot stones were brought in by Ray’s assistants and as he poured water and incense over them, he explained the cleansing purpose of the ritual to his followers, all of them packed together in the small tent. They would purify their bodies and souls, the heat would evaporate all dirt from their spirits. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, very close to each other, they listened to the inspired words of their prophet, who kept bringing in more and more meltingly hot stones. They were lulled by the vapors and his voice. Sleepy and nauseous, vomiting and gasping, yelling for water and nudging each other to see if your neighbor is still awake, they all knew this was the beginning of their new, happy life of riches, promotions and new shoes. Nobody thought of trying to go out – this would have been sacrilegious. They could see nothing in the dark excruciating heat, scorching their very souls inside their lungs. From this human boiling pot some of them arouse, finding new heights of the tent, then realizing they have actually left the tent and were again in the chill outside evening desert air. They had achieved everything one could hope for in life, they could now float freely above the desert shrubs and in an instant they were on top of the intricate-patterned brown hills touching the orange purple glow the sunset had left behind.

Around the sweat lodge they had just left, ambulances were gathering. People were crawling out, spitting blood, mucus flowing from their eyes, crying for help, struggling to breathe.

James Arthur Ray was already on his way to his car. A bit dazed from the last round of the ritual, he was thinking about how difficult his mission had become and how he would overcome this minor obstacle on his way. For he was sure that nobody would understand what had actually happened in the sweat lodge, all the joy his followers had shared, all the purity they had acquired, he knew there would be accusations, for police had arrived with the ambulances. So he opened his laptop and before driving off sent a quick email to Joe Tackler, a man with lots of experience in publicity.

Task 6 - "Peyote" by Yan Kiev

The sensation is … sublime, as if the big fatherly hand of God is caressing your brain, his long fine fingers strumming the strings of your soul, drumming the tam-tams of your heart… And then he’s singing, singing of the broad beautiful cosmos, of Space with billions of brilliant stars and purple nebulas and bright pulsars pulsating rhythmically pulsating rotatingly in your head exploding expelling gigantic galactic domes of dust and gas giving birth to universes growing expanding eternally.

I float outside myself and look at my own face, looking back at me, angelic blue eyes smiling. I smile back at it and extend my arm to touch it, at the same time feeling the soft touch on my cheek. The world moves in concentric circles pulsating pulsating pulsating the sweat glistening on my forehead and little beads streaming down my chin dripping drip drip drip to the ground.

After a time I reluctantly get back to my body in the sweat lodge, the air almost unbreathable with the heat of the steam from the stones. Dozens of pleasant human bodies around me, warm little centers of pulse and desire, rhythmically swaying with the beat of the tam-tams, their faces shining like suns in the darkness.

By one of the stone heaps I see a girl, her long hair glittering and her feet bare, like an Indian princess. I go over to her and yell HI over the sound of the drums. Her gaze is steady ahead, cosmically uncomprehending, so I lean over and yell again in her ear:

“The feeling is like God’s hand is caressing your brain”

Her red lips part slightly but I can’t make out any sound so I yell again:
“The hand of God,” I point upwards, “is caressing your brain,” and I stroke her hair, warm and soft and smooth like a cat’s coat. Her face shines incessantly, eyes still looking steady ahead, so I leave her and find my way out through bodies lying and sitting meditating and empowered for the first time, for the first time truly silent, truly humbled by the majesty of the gods and their Universe.

Outside alone, I slide my hand on the canvas of the lodge as I walk around it, every sensation magnified, the sound of the tam-tams still audible pulsating through my chest pulsating through my stomach pulsating through my groin, the sweat cooling off my body in the night.

I lay down on the ground, still warm from the day’s sun and look up, past the walls of the canyon which I know are sandy red in the day but only colourless shadows now, into the giant sky upwards, where brilliant stars sparkle, they’re suns and planets and galaxies, their pulsating rays brought here to me by divine volition and I brought here at divine behest.

You can’t see this light in the city, not so bright and incandescent, not so pure. The only light in the city is neon and dull, nobody shining from within luminously, everybody conditioned into bluntness and mediocrity, into greed and gluttony, consumers and corporations the lot of them, not one ray of starlight or sprout of grass. Only here do you find harmony, here under the vastness of space, here under the quantum divinity, here under the cosmic rays.

“Mister Ray,” somebody’s yelling. “Mister Ray, they can’t breathe!”

It’s that lady, the nurse. I get up from the ground and slowly round the sweat lodge again towards the entrance and there she is, dragging somebody out of the entrance, there are bodies everywhere lying on the ground and the nurse is sweating, running between them, squatting checking their pulses but there’s none, not even the drums are pulsating anymore.

“Mister Ray,” she says to me, “help me please, they’re not breathing.”

I look at her and shrug, ten twelve eighteen bodies are lying, and somebody’s brought their car shining its lights on to the scene, the lights so bright they’re concealing the stars. In the distance I can hear the wail of an ambulance or police car, they’ll probably want to talk to me too soon. Their souls chose not to come back, I want to tell the nurse but she’s gone by the time I can bring that up to my lips so I sit on the ground and look for the Indian princess.

She’s one of the bodies on the ground, her bare feet dug deep into the dust where she’s been dragged out, her hands clutching her throat. But when I walk up to her, I can see her eyes are joyous, her soul saw the glory of the Universe and didn’t want to come back in the corporal, she now understands more than anyone out there in the concrete neon world will ever know.

I lean down and caress her hair, warm still and soft and silky, then I grab her and lift her up. We walk like that, me carrying her body, through the lot of scared brown-motion running people and around the lodge, to where there’s no longer any artificial light, only the brilliant stars and the looming shadows of the canyon walls.

I lay her down on the ground and unclutch her hands from around her throat and lay them down gently, each palm pointing down. I put my ear to her chest but there’s no pulse there. I lay my body next to hers and take her hand in my hand and together we look up, where the stars are.