Jesus Freaks, Gurus, and Dissent

...Such apostasy may well force their elders to take a closer look at that faith, or, more accurately, the contemporary expression of it...

...Despite the efforts of Pat Boone, Roy Rogers, and Hal Lindsey, the amalgamation of the disaffiliated young with the churches has not been easy going...

...Although the Founding Fathers were only moderate deists, America is a Christian country, or at any rate a Judeo-Christian one...

...Gone today, however, are the sackcloth-and-ashes demonstrations and prophetic protests, and in their place we find mild street vendors hawking the latest "Moses David" tract...

...The mass-production techniques and slick public relations of the neo-oriental "mystical" movements do not prevent them from delivering what they effectively promise, however, at least temporarily: hope for deliverance out of the doomed world, but not necessarily without partaking generously of the fruits of that world on the way...

...In looking over the history of church-state relations in human experience, it becomes clear, I believe, that organized religion tends to reach an eventual concordat with whatever political regime is in power, with the inevitable result that religious impiety and political dissent become convertible items...

...That youthful disciples may be economically astute and conservatively clad will not erase forever from the thoughts of their elders the notion that these young enthusiasts are repudiating the "faith of our fathers...

...The revolutionary potential of such a direction lay not so much in that the ordinary Jesus freak was acting out his parents' religious fantasies, but in the fact that symbolically or otherwise through the Jesus movement the flower-children of the Haight-Ashbury era, with their distrust of the Establishment, might be channeled back into the mainstream of American Christianity...

...Nonetheless, without the spiritual, person-to-person intimacy typical of Zen and Yoga training, the "spiritual master's" well-known reluctance to seek publicity, the personal and often corporate poverty of the member^ and even the saffron robes and Hindi names of the Hare Krishna devotees, the authenticity of the mystical aspect of such religious groups can be called into question...

...what is surprising is that he is a follower of Islam...

...At best, such a condition is egocentric...

...both are regarded politically as of inferior status and consequently tolerable as long as unobtrusive...

...Reform and revolution, being essentially conservative events, have a way of taking even the most staunchly liberal by surprise...

...Perhaps Abbie Hoffman will become a Jesuit...

...It is likely that the Divine Light Mission will still be around when the devil again retires into his comfortable obscurity...

...he is acting out what Hoffman and the Yippies pantomimed in 1967...

...The Maharaj Ji's lilas (jokes) are not only infantile but one-directional...

...In the case of Rennie Davis and Abbie Hoffman, the suspicion of naivete is less apt...

...Another characteristic shared by most of these evangelistic groups, which cannot be attributed to mysticism, is a vehement anti-Communism and a reciprocal indulgence toward, and in, capitalism—a feature which understandably piques the radical left and illustrates the socio-political whereabouts of such contemporary cult-ishness...

...It well may be that the present dalliance with oriental cult and exotic forms of Christian involvement will eventually equip the tens of thousands of American youths thus implicated with perspectives from which they can view a future a little brighter and a little cleaner than today's situation, politically and religiously...

...Recently, the Children of God adopted as a pro-tem messiah the President of Libya, Muammar el-Qaddafi...

...Hence, barely a month after the religious event of the century (which occurred, for those who missed it, in Houston's Astrodome on November 8, 1973) the adolescent messiah known as Sat Maharaj Ji was unceremoniously replaced in the papers and on the electronic media by producers, directors, actors, ministers, and psychiatrists, plus an occasional film critic, evaluating the effect of The Exorcist...

...A millionaire, the Reverend Moon—like Billy Graham and Oral Roberts—combines conservative political views with conservative religious attitudes, including the evangelical apocalypticism dear not only to the DLM but shared by disenchanted fundamentalists such as "wisdom" whether Eastern or Western, however successful a business venture...

...Hence, the sight of American boys and girls with names such as Lodge and Crockett wearing saffron-colored robes and chanting the Children of God (who are not millionaires...

...The religious person will tend to be either a priest or a prophet, then, depending on whether he takes advantage of his position vis-a-vis the political sphere to support it or criticize it...

...but for Davis to become a devotee of the Maharaj Ji seems to imply that there is more to this Eastern religious business than meets the wiretap...

...The annual lighting of the national Christmas tree, the National Cathedral, the use of the Bible at inaugurals and (ironically) legal trials, and the "common faith" of the governed and their governors are typical manifestations...

...Revivals represent an important component of American folklore* The Jesus movement, despite its initial crescendo, has become almost pianissimo since the Dallas rally of June 1972...

...The common denominator of most of these movements is constituted by money, political and psychological skill, and the personal charisma—real or manufactured—of a central figure...

...Genuine mysticism is revolutionary, given the close connection between religion and politics, because it involves at least an implicit repudiation of institutionalism and established norms...

...As for a reformation of the world, there appears to be little mention of social justice or, indeed, of any social problems calling for attention in the preachments of either the Maharaj Ji or Sim Myung Moon...

...From the impeccably tailored, conservative suits to the enormously efficient public relations programs, a trait common to the far less religious transcendental meditation societies of the Maharishi, the "oriental" evangelicals are apparently accomplishing in concrete manifestation what Rudyard Kipling pronounced impossible: a meeting of the East and West...

...Enlightenment, on the other hand—the availability of which is clearly identified—is the source not only of political rectitude but of material prosperity...

...Long before Watergate, Agnew's decline and fall, the ITT and wheat scandals, a young Dutch theologian, Rob van der Hart, remarked apropos of "possession": "We well know the phenomenon of the 'silent majorFather Richard J. Woods teaches philosophy at Loyola University in Chicago...

...And though this would apparently contravene the explicit position of the DLM, the most salient contribution to the Gotterdammerung once happily envisioned by the Yippies and still predicted by the Maharaj Ji would be the demonstration that the DLM not only understands—as only a successful church can —the resourcefulness of power and money, but, in fact, has both...

...they take themselves as seriously as their followers do...

...Even if we assume that only a relatively small fraction of American youth have joined oriental, mystical, prophetic, and occult religious sects, the question still arises: "Who are they...

...Nonetheless, the possession scare is not unrelated to the enthusiasm for Eastern mysticism, and neither is it far removed from the bewildering political arena, as the presence and remarks of Rennie Davis and General Alexander Haig remind us...

...It is unlikely that the Divine Light Mission is a Communist front...

...any departure from the norm is implicitly a criticism of the normative...

...time alone will tell...

...It is, however, unnecessary and probably inaccurate to equate slickness of promotion with insincerity on the part of the newly rich messiahs and preachers...

...The politically sensitive, faced with such diabolical onslaughts, may either counterattack with guns, slogans, and rituals, or they may flee into the desert— the real wastelands or the inner solitude of placid meditation on eternal truths...

...The Divine Light Mission and the Unification Church, not to mention dozens of similar sects, may be only pseudo-mystical at bottom—if social and religious reform are intrinsic consequences—but perhaps even the facade of mysticism is sufficient to constitute a deviation from the expected conformity to the standards of our demented society...

...And, as if their worst fears had been fully justified, the politically sensitized youth succumbed to various eschatological and apocalyptic cults or the psychological suicide of psychedelia and hard drugs ("opium is the religion of the people"), the spiritual suicide of occultism, and, ultimately, the political suicide of just "dropping out" —into the old slough of despair and the new energy crisis, in which the most pressing matter at hand is getting a tankful of gas...

...When Abbie Hoffman and his merry band attempted to exorcise the Pentagon back in the revolutionary spring of 1967, they were unwittingly rehearsing what is by now a familiar leit-motif...

...Davis, too, can recognize power, and for the Divine Light Mission to succeed in its proselytization of America would undermine the military-industrial (or politico-petroleum) complex far more effectively than any number of exorcisms...

...But so tempting is this detour from social responsibility in religions of the pseudo-mystical variety, that the general attitude toward mysticism shared by socially-conscious critics is that however impressive such efforts are, they are nonetheless irrelevant in terms of the broader agenda of needed social reconstruction...

...The connection between mysticism, dissent, and reform has been explored by various scholars and historians...

...Perhaps not...

...He is the author of "The Occult Revolution" and "What a Modern Catholic Believes About the Devil...

...Oriental cults in general seem to represent an outlet for occidental religious restlessness and thus have a rather ambiguous significance in American religious experience...

...But what is most characteristic about the behavior and techniques of the Maharaj Ji and the Reverend Moon and their followers is the thoroughly American approach—if not outright Madison Avenue come-on— they have espoused...

...The peculiar interaction between religion and politics, especially in America (where the terms are in some cases interchangeable), provides the situation for interest in and even resort to mysticism as a form of protest against church and state...

...They should, rather, be credited with a keen insight—hbwever intuitive—into the interplay between religion and politics not only in America but in the long tradition of Western Europe...

...Nonconformity, even though it be concealed beneath layers of acquiescence, will ultimately occasion resistance...

...There is reason to hope that even the current faddishness of oriental mystical withdrawal—presently being eclipsed by the more flamboyant but far less profound dramatics of possession and exorcism—has a revolutionary potential in the form of social criticism and dissent in the accepted American tradition...

...The commercialization of imported mass religious cults from India or Japan does not constitute mantras is understandably jarring to their parents and ministers...

...That an overweight and ulcerated fifteen-year-old "perfect spiritual master" can amass a fortune reciting mystical platitudes might please the American worship of success, or, at worst, stir the resentment of the orthodox, but the conversion of Rennie Davis to something so evidently non-American implies that something is wrong, either with Davis or with the Divine Light Mission...

...hies' that subject themselves unconditionally to whoever happens to be in authority, provided, of course, that this person in authority ensures that the people are kept comfortable within the narrow boundaries of their more immediate interests...

...Why some of yesterday's young radicals are today's religious mystics Jesus Freaks, Gurus, and Dissent RICHARD J. WOODS Fashion and fad are as much at home in religion and politics as in clothing and hair styles, at least so far as the mass media accurately index current experience...

...Another example of the appeal of the Orient, but a far less exotic one, is the Christian rehabilitation movement inaugurated by a Korean, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon...

...Davis's induction, moreover, is less a conversion than the logical outcome of a quasi-comic, religio-political dialectic dictated by the character of American religious history and the bewildering political mess of the late Sixties...

...But it will be a spiritual event, we are told, not a transformation of the social and political structures of this world...

...Charles Colson can get religion, and as long as it is safely American, no one objects...

...Key-73, the institutionalization of the Jesus movement, similarly began with a bang but ended with a sigh...

...That the resort to mysticism can be an unconscious criticism and unintentional protest (as it is with perhaps most of those Americans playing disciple to various gurus) raises some fascinating issues with regard to the psychological dynamics of religious experience...

...Many others have dropped unobtrusively back into suburban life, but shorn of illusions and hope...

...For both Mahatma Gandhi and Thomas Merton, for example, authentic spiritual enlightenment and growth are ultimately productive of social conscience in a most radical (revolutionary) manner...

...Sociologists are beginning to report on these movements, and so far one fact stands out clearly: those who participated were ordinary—not brilliant or dull, neither wealthy nor indigent, and surprisingly enough, not highly original or daring...

...People are poor, in short, because they want to be or need to be...

...They were dissatisfied, often bewildered middle-class teenagers who had grown up somehow expecting more from life than they were being offered—not just financial or political security (which they never really lacked) but a feeling of personal worth and security, of significance...

...Called to preach the gospel of New Hope for Christianity, Moon founded the "Unification Church," which claims a world membership of more than two million, including 10,000 Americans...

...Many of the irreconcilable Jesus people have fled into the "wilderness," where they hope to survive in communal farms until the Second Coming...

...However, America has been effectively theocratic since Plymouth Rock, even though the "religion" of America is vague and often concealed...

...The cosy collusion between the Inquisition and various Spanish, German, and other European monarchs was not a fundamental departure but a continuation of a long standing tradition, going back in Christian history to Constan-tine...

...In brief, the promise of popular "mystical" movements is ambiguous, and our response toward them— whether we are right or left of center—is therefore appropriately ambivalent...

...at worst, it is schizophrenic...

...Even in this respect (the "opiate of the people" syndrome), religion retains (as does art) a tremendous potential as social criticism, for it constitutes a place to stand apart from the beliefs, values, and practices that are taken for granted in the secular world...

...It is with us today, despite all our pretensions to the contrary...

...The rest have, quite possibly, begun to travel back to the bosoms of the families they never quite left...

...Still, there is revolutionary potential in even the most egocentric of the neo-oriental mass movements such as the Divine Light Mission and Nichiren Shoshu...

...Political overtones were present in the Jesus movement from the beginning...

...It just does not fit...

...That a young charismatic political chieftain should have been chosen is not surprising...

...And: "Why did they...

...the Children of God possibly to the contrary, the drift was unmistakably toward the right...

...The consequence of adhering to a religion which employs mystical terminology and even promotes certain types of mystical experiences but precludes the likelihood of social dissent by an implicit indenture to the status quo while explicitly condemning the world to destruction, is that the members who so adhere heighten their subjective consciousness but diminish their objective awareness of the world outside...

...And that is a sign of hope that there are still alternatives open for the future, whether the current options are genuine or not...

...For the pious, of course, the millenium is still expected . . . someday...

...The conversion of many militant radicals of the Lyndon Johnson era to mystical religious movements indicates, I believe, the pervasive feeling of hopelessness that engulfed the naive reformers and rebels who had expected the Second Coming or at least the Age of Aquarius to follow fast on the resignation of President Johnson as a second-term candidate...

...There are numerous political references, but of an ideological stripe not unlike that of the John Birch Society and W. Clement Stone...

...Similarly, the adulation of religious leaders is alien to the cult of rugged individualism and the Puritan ethic in general, although such idolatry seems to have been a recurrent temptation in the case of charismatic figures such as Aimee Semple McPher-son, Rudolph Valentino, Babe Ruth, and the Beatles...

...Such "religion" is not only not mystical, it is essentially anti-mystical, if the lesser known teachings of both East and West are indicative of the actual nature of things...

...America, they were telling us, is politically, socially, and economically in the proximate or actual grip of demonic powers which we can neither fully comprehend nor entirely control...

...The apathy and indifference of Hindu philosophy, for instance, which regards this world as an illusion, make it less potent as a revolutionary force than Zen Buddhism, which is explicitly materialistic and positive regarding the world of everyday experience...

...We are less aware of it in America simply because religion is officially unestablished...

...Whether the implicit criticism of mystical movements is actually realized depends on other factors, such as the character of the movement itself...

...Perhaps, however, Rennie Davis—the quiet subversive of the Democratic National Convention and the Chicago Seven trial—has found himself not a bandwagon to obscurity, but a Trojan horse...

...As a revolutionary, at least as a scout, Rennie Davis is probably far ahead of us all...

...It will be instructive to see what happens next...

...That dissent and reform are much needed in both the religious and political spheres can hardly be denied today by anyone at least semi-literate and possessed of some spark of honesty...

...However, gurus, as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi taught us, are a hardy lot...

...Instead came the accession of Richard Milhous Nixon and the politics of subversion, Watergate, ITT, and Agnew...

...As I understand them, the Children of God, to the contrary, currently advocate a kind of Christian socialism...

...Mysticism, insofar as it is anti-institutional, must be ranked with prophecy as a mode of potential dissent and reform, even if the immediate effect of its espousal is withdrawal from the socially electric sphere of experience...

...In this view, poverty is neither a consequence of inequitable social conditions nor a corrigible situation, but rather a punishment for sin (e.g., laziness, negative thinking, or bad karma) and possibly an inevitable fact of life, like death...

...Davis's conversion to the Divine Light Mission is not a departure from his revolutionary zeal of yore, but a transformation of it...

...The Children of God, a national fraternity of Jesus communes where drinking, smoking, drugs, and sex were outlawed in favor of six-hour Bible study periods, was perhaps the most dedicated band of Jesus freaks as well as one of the oldest, antedating the Weathermen and SDS feuds...

...Religion, however, like art, can also become an avenue of escape from involvement in social affairs...

...The emergence of the "Jesus freaks" from the ranks of the street people of the late Sixties was more distinctively American than the appearance of the "Hare Krishna" devotees a few years later...

...The passivity and prolonged quietude of meditative religions such as Hindu and Buddhist sects seemingly run counter to the American ethos of pragmatic activism...

...But someone, whose intent is not destruction but reconstruction, will...