"The Hindus and the Druids had some inkling of this, you see, but the Interstellar Council has decided it's time to put religion on a scientific basis. So they've sent the Master back to Zamarath—that's what you folks call the earth—with the true doctrine. You see, up to now the human soma, with all its limitations, has been the most etheric envelope that a purusha could inform. But with our science, we are ready for the next rung, when we can mold our envelopes as easily as you can model clay. Do you follow me?"
"I'm afraid not," I said. "To be frank, it sounds to me like gibberish."
"That's because I've given you some of the advanced doctrine without the elementary introduction. After all, a textbook on nuclear physics would sound like gibberish, too, it you didn't know any physics. I could arrange for you to take our elementary course—"
"I'm afraid I have my hands more than full. I'm supposed to lecture the Bankers' Association on the fallacy of the Keynesian theories, and I have to read up for it. But tell me: how does your cult—"
"Please, Mr. Newbury! We don't like the word 'cult.' It's a religio-scientific association and qualifies as a church for purposes of taxation. You were saying?"
"I mean to ask how your—ah—religio-scientific association gets along with the other—with the cults, such as that of the Reverend Sung."
Carpenter bounced in his chair with excitement. "He's terrible! Most of the cults, as you call them, are deluded but harmless. A few even have glimpses of the truth. But the Sungites are an evil, dangerous gang, conspiring against the human world.
"You see, there are a lot of abnormal purushas drifting around, which have been so distorted by the stresses of the last ten billion years that they won't fit into any envelope. So they watch for chances to inform a human soma when its own purusha isn't watching and run off with it."
"Like stealing somebody's car?" Privately, I thought that anybody so hated by the Hagnosophists could not be all bad.
"Exactly. You see, these homeless purushas are what they used to call 'demons' or 'devils.' Sung claims he can control them, but actually they control him and all his suckers. They hope sooner or later to take over Zamarath this way. The Master is going to expose this plot the next time he is translated to Zikkarf. Meanwhile, we have to watch the Sungites and try to stop their evil plans."
"Zikkarf," I repeated. "How do you spell it?"
Carpenter spelled the word. I said: "I thought that rang a bell the first time I heard it. Now I know. There was a pulp writer back in the thirties, who wrote about life on an imaginary planet of that name. He spelled it differently."
"He must have had an inkling of the truth," said Carpenter.
"What does your Master propose to do with all those poor lost souls?"
Carpenter told me of the cult's program for capturing these errant spooks and, by some sort of ghostly psychoanalysis, beating them back into normal shape. At least, that was how I understood it, albeit his explanation was couched in such cultic gobbledygook that it was hard to be sure. I said:
"Do you ever have services—I mean, general meetings, open to the public?"
"Oh, yes. We're not a secret organization in any way." Carpenter's eyes glowed with zeal. "Matter of fact, we're having one near here in a couple of weeks. The Master himself will be here. Would you like to come?"
"Yes," I said. If I was going to do anything about the racket that was siphoning off the funds of my gullible old depositors, I ought to see what the enemy looked like.
The meeting, in an auditorium a few miles from my home, was a fine piece of dramaturgy. There were candles and incense. I was made uneasy by the sight of the Master's henchmen—burly fellows in white uniforms, with their pants tucked into shiny black boots. Some assisted in seating people, while others stood at attention with grim, don't-start-anything expressions. Several at the entrances collected "free-will offerings" in baskets.
There were songs and announcements and the reading of some creed or manifesto. Then, with a flourish of trumpets, the Master appeared, white-robed, with spotlights on him.
Ludwig Bergius was a tall, spare, blond, blue-eyed man, who wore his hair down to his shoulders. The hair was so brassy that I suspected either dye or a wig. He startlingly resembled those self-portraits that Albrecht Dürer painted as pictures of Jesus Christ, which have been followed by Western religious art ever since. Bergius had a splendid voice, deep and resonant, which could easily have filled the auditorium without the public-address system.
Bergius spoke for an hour, making vast if nebulous promises and denouncing countless enemies. He especially berated the Reverent Sung's cult by name as a Mafia of demons in human guise. His voice had a hypnotic quality, which lulled one into a kind of passive daze. One ended with the impression that one had had a wonderful revelation but without remembering much of what the Master had actually said. Some of his assertions seemed to contradict what others had told me of his doctrines; but I understood that he brought out a new doctrine every month or two, keeping his suckers too confused to think.
When Bergius had finished, his white-clad storm-troopers bustled into the aisles with long-handled collection baskets to take up another offering. There were more songs, announcements, and the other routines of religious services, and the show was over. On the way out, the storm troopers were active at the exits, collecting more offerings. They were politely aggressive about it. I paid up, not being prepared to fight a whole gang of husky thugs half my age.
One of our depositors is the Temple Beth-El. The next time Rabbi Harris was in, I spoke of the Hagnophilists. With a sigh, he said:
"Yes, we've lost several members of our congregation to these ganifs. Naturally, we're stronger for religious freedom than anybody, but still—Mr. Newbury, you gave a talk last year on financial rackets, didn't you?"
"Yes, at the YMCA."
"Well, why don't you give one, with accent on these cults, at the YMHA? Turn about's fair play."
"Okay," I said.
That was how I came to give my celebrated expose at the YMHA. I presented grim examples of elderly suckers who had blown their all on Hagnophilia, been reduced to nervous wrecks by their 'treatments,' and then had been cast into outer darkness. I ended:
"... of course, any of you is free to take up any of these forms of the higher nonsense—Homosophy, Hagnophilia, Cosmonetics, and the rest—that you like. It's still a free country. Personally, I'd rather pick up a rattlesnake with my bare hand and trust it not to bite me. Thank you."
I had to go out of town for a few days on business. When I got back, I found a new piece of furniture in the living room. It was a small terrarium, with pebbles, moss, and a little pool. Coiled up at one end lay a garter snake.
"Denise!" I said. "What's this?"
"A boy came around with the serpent," she explained. "He said you had advertised for snakes, at a dollar a snake. Why did you do that, mon cher?"
"Huh? I never did. Somebody's made a mistake. What then?" I reached into the terrarium and ran a finger along the scales of the snake, who wriggled away in alarm. It had not yet gotten used to captivity. "I do like them, though."
"Priscille has always wanted a pet, ever since our old dog died. So she got this glass case from one of her friends and fixed it up."
"What do you feed it?"
"Priscille buys little goldfishes and puts them in the pond. When Damballah gets hungry, he grabs them and swallows them."
"Hm. How much do these fish cost?"
"Forty cents each, at the pet shop."