The waitress brought our food while he was telling me about the observatory, and we pretty much stopped talking to eat. When we were done, we skipped dessert. He sipped his tea and I worked on a refill of my coffee.
"Fred," I said, "I'd like to ask a personal question. Or maybe several of them. Tell me to stuff them if you feel like it."
He grinned. "Shoot."
"How much do you make a year now?"
"Huh! It's hard to say for this year. A hundred and twenty thou last year."
A hundred and twenty thou. About two and a half times the national average for families. "I haven't talked to many New Gnus," I told him, "and most that I have talked to, worked for the church as staff members. I got the impression, though, that they weren't too bright. But the guy at Gnostic Withdrawal Assistance . . . ?"
"Gerald. Gerald Williams."
"Gerald not only seemed smart; he had something. Had it together, you could say. That's the impression I got. And a wealthy guy I talked to yesterday, who's a totally dedicated New Gnu, or seems to be, made somewhat the same impression. And today, you. Why the difference?"
Fred grunted. "First," he said, "there are simply differences between people, for whatever reasons. In the church as well as out. Also, strange as it may seem to you, Ray's counseling procedures do help people. They don't do everything he claims for them, by half, but they help. A lot. And a lot of staff members never get any of them. I did, and Gerald did, because we managed to get ourselves trained as counselors, and counselors are allowed time to counsel each other.
"Most members not on staff have had quite a lot of counseling. That's where probably ninety-nine percent of the money comes from. They tend to be in good shape, mentally and emotionally—except in matters concerning the church. Concerning the church, they tend very strongly to be obedient, even robotic."
Robotic. I remembered the staff member I'd talked to in the Neophyte Building. She didn't think; she recited.
"And then there's the matter of in or out," Hamilton went on. "For most of the time I was in, ten years, I was a good little robot. I believed what I was told to believe, and rejected what I was told to reject. In the midst of a whole lot of evidence to the contrary. Sometimes—quite often, actually—I noticed the contrast between what I saw and the way things were said to be or supposed to be. And I always found an excuse for them. Then, for a while, I was a sort of secret questioner. Finally the effects accumulated, and I got myself kicked out.
"Within days after leaving, I began to see a lot of things more clearly. More freely. It was like I'd been colorblind, and was starting to see color. People who've been in the church, who've gotten counseling and then left, tend to do better personally than before they'd gotten in. Sometimes a lot better."
"Do many of them leave?"
"Martti, most of them leave. A big majority of them. The biggest product of the Church of the New Gnosis is ex-members."
That was something I hadn't been aware of. Somehow it made me feel better about the church; it was less a trap than I'd thought. My coffee was cold, and I signaled the waitress for a refill. When I had it, I asked, "How much money do people usually spend on counseling?"
"In my case, nothing. I discovered New Gnosticism as a college senior, a finance major, and quit before I graduated, to join staff. I didn't have any money. But there are lots of people, wealthy people, who've spent more than a quarter million." I sat stunned. A quarter million! It seemed impossible, even considering prices of up to a thousand dollars an hour I'd read about for counseling. "How . . . Why does anyone spend that much money on a cult?"
He smiled a small smile. "There are enough unusual truths, or what feel like truths, in the books and introductory lectures, to get you curious. Maybe even hopeful; even excited. Me, I got excited. And particularly if you're dissatisfied with your life, or the world, you may decide you want to look into it further. Then, if you get some counseling— The results of getting counseling, particularly the more basic levels, can seem miraculous: old fears and worries gone, old grim moods, old regrets, old grudges, old psychosomatic conditions. Gone! Crap you thought you were stuck with for life! So you think, Jesus! This stuff works miracles! And you keep expecting more. Ray was always promising more and more up the road."
Fred had started quivering, trembling, as he talked about it. It was pretty strange, because his voice, his eyes, seemed perfectly calm.
"While at the same time," he went on, "he fed us a line that this was all part of a crusade, that the human race was doomed unless we got everyone in the world into the church. And that, of course, was going to take lots of money and lots of dedication. The church was an embattled army fighting to save humanity. And like any army, ours had to be obedient. Unquestioning. Also, it could be destroyed from inside, by subtle deviations in teaching and procedures. So absolute orthodoxy was vital, and continuous vigilance—an uncompromising ruthlessness with anything done differently than Ray said."
With that he stopped, sat dead in the water for a minute, then took a sip of tea. "Sound like anything else you ever heard of?" he asked.
To some degree or another, it seemed to me, most cults were like that; some mainstream religions were too. "It must be a relief to be out of it," I said.
His smile was rueful. "It is and it isn't. Being out has left a hole. For me, dealing stocks is a way to get money. Beyond that, it's neither satisfying nor important. I'm looking for something that is. And that's not easy, when you've been burned like I was."
We didn't say anything more for a couple of minutes. I started wishing I'd ordered dessert. Finally I asked, "Do you have any thoughts about what may have happened to Ray Christman?"
He shook his head. His eyes focused again, and he came out of whatever he'd been in. "No. No I don't. Every possibility I can think of seems unlikely. He may have simply taken off with a bunch of the loot, to live somewhere as an anonymous rich American. That's probably the best bet."
That stunned me. It seemed so damned logical! And obvious! And I hadn't thought of it before. "Tell you what," he said, and he sounded all business now. "I'll give you the name of a woman, an ex-churchie like me, who may be the best-informed person there is on the church. Outside its upper executive levels. She has sources everywhere, sucks in contacts and information like a black hole. The difference being, she'll let it back out when she feels like it.
"Even churchies talk to her. She's probably the only outie I know who has information sources inside. And she's never been expelled—kicked out. It's supposed to be automatic to expel anyone as evil who openly quits the church, but she's never been expelled."
He gave me the phone number and address of a woman called Molly Cadigan, a business consultant who worked out of her home. "She's informal," he said, "and may not make a great first impression, but she's smart. I've seen her in action. The first time I met her, she gave me some free advice, and it worked like a bomb. I cashed in. Since then I buy her advice, and it's always good. She's not in it to get rich, either. She doesn't go looking for business. She's content to make a comfortable living, and lives the way she pleases, does what she likes.