stripped down and were now entering the pond. Most were still peeling off their clothing and diapers. Others remained fully dressed, motionless, mortified. The sight of naked backsides with wide, yellowish brown smears caused Marilyn to turn away.
She climbed atop the marooned boulder and began scrubbing every inch of skin with soap. She caught little Mick ogling her, and stuck her tongue out at him when he wouldn’t turn away. Ugh !
The hold-out recruits relented, stripping down like the rest, cleansing themselves in the water. Then the regular cult members, including The Wizard, stripped naked and joined them.
Another victory for Earthbound , Marilyn thought. By stripping the new recruits of their clothes, through clever manipulation, the cult had also stripped them of their normal sense of decorum, which did not, of course, abide frolicking naked with strangers. In a matter of days, none of the rules of normal society would seem unbreakable.
A stocky man with a black carpet of chest hair climbed some wooden steps nailed to the trunk of an oak tree, unlashed a rope swing from a low branch, and swung out over the pond, dropping with a huge splash. At the same time nude piggyback fights erupted.
Marilyn stood waist-deep in the water, wondering what would happen next. A giant sex orgy?
Very little seemed out of the question suddenly. For the first time, she felt truly frightened to be in the clutches of this cult. She shrieked as a pair of powerful hands gripped her by the waist and lifted her. Higher and higher she rose until her bottom landed on a man’s shoulders, her cleft pressed hard against the nape of the man’s neck. Marilyn’s face flushed red hot when she recognized the top of John’s head. He rushed them into the heart of the piggyback battle . . .
“Breakfast!” Bob Marsh boomed from under the oak trees, drawing bodies out of the water at once. Cotton blankets of various primary colors lay beneath the tree shade in neat rows. Bob distributed white terrycloth bath towels.
After drying off and wrapping up in the towels, the group sat on the blankets eating a simple breakfast of tomato juice, poppyseed muffins, and grapes. Marilyn discovered little Mick leering at her again, and she pined for a set of clean clothes from among those neatly folded in cardboard boxes and piled only yards away from where she sat. Beside the tower of boxes, she noticed yet another set of eyes leering at her. They belonged to a forty-ish dark-haired man with a sickly white pot belly.
“That’s him,” John whispered into her ear, meaning this pot-bellied man was Tom Mahorn, the one who John thought might be Daryl Finck’s accomplice in the San Francisco deaths.
After breakfast, Marilyn reluctantly gave up her towel to go stark naked again, like the others. They all stood holding hands in a circle in the meadow, glistening from suntan lotion, participating in an exercise The Wizard called Positive Thought Bombing. Their aim was to change the world for the better by shouting out positive thoughts, targeting one city at a time.
“Amsterdam!” The Wizard shouted. Everyone else chanted in unison and at the tops of their lungs.
“Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love!”
“Louder, people,” The Wizard said. “Louder!”
But Marilyn shouted as softly as she could without attracting negative attention. She glanced across the circle at John, hoping he’d remembered to do the same. For this was no Pollyannaish exercise in New Age spiritualism. The new recruits, already stripped of their clothing, were now being stripped of their critical thought and judgement.
Loud and repeated chanting, technically known as overbreathing , caused large volumes of air to pass through the lungs, dropping carbon dioxide in the bloodstream to abnormally low levels. Sustained overbreathing led to a condition called respiratory alkalosis . Some of its early symptoms would go
She climbed atop the marooned boulder and began scrubbing every inch of skin with soap. She caught little Mick ogling her, and stuck her tongue out at him when he wouldn’t turn away. Ugh !
The hold-out recruits relented, stripping down like the rest, cleansing themselves in the water. Then the regular cult members, including The Wizard, stripped naked and joined them.
Another victory for Earthbound , Marilyn thought. By stripping the new recruits of their clothes, through clever manipulation, the cult had also stripped them of their normal sense of decorum, which did not, of course, abide frolicking naked with strangers. In a matter of days, none of the rules of normal society would seem unbreakable.
A stocky man with a black carpet of chest hair climbed some wooden steps nailed to the trunk of an oak tree, unlashed a rope swing from a low branch, and swung out over the pond, dropping with a huge splash. At the same time nude piggyback fights erupted.
Marilyn stood waist-deep in the water, wondering what would happen next. A giant sex orgy?
Very little seemed out of the question suddenly. For the first time, she felt truly frightened to be in the clutches of this cult. She shrieked as a pair of powerful hands gripped her by the waist and lifted her. Higher and higher she rose until her bottom landed on a man’s shoulders, her cleft pressed hard against the nape of the man’s neck. Marilyn’s face flushed red hot when she recognized the top of John’s head. He rushed them into the heart of the piggyback battle . . .
“Breakfast!” Bob Marsh boomed from under the oak trees, drawing bodies out of the water at once. Cotton blankets of various primary colors lay beneath the tree shade in neat rows. Bob distributed white terrycloth bath towels.
After drying off and wrapping up in the towels, the group sat on the blankets eating a simple breakfast of tomato juice, poppyseed muffins, and grapes. Marilyn discovered little Mick leering at her again, and she pined for a set of clean clothes from among those neatly folded in cardboard boxes and piled only yards away from where she sat. Beside the tower of boxes, she noticed yet another set of eyes leering at her. They belonged to a forty-ish dark-haired man with a sickly white pot belly.
“That’s him,” John whispered into her ear, meaning this pot-bellied man was Tom Mahorn, the one who John thought might be Daryl Finck’s accomplice in the San Francisco deaths.
After breakfast, Marilyn reluctantly gave up her towel to go stark naked again, like the others. They all stood holding hands in a circle in the meadow, glistening from suntan lotion, participating in an exercise The Wizard called Positive Thought Bombing. Their aim was to change the world for the better by shouting out positive thoughts, targeting one city at a time.
“Amsterdam!” The Wizard shouted. Everyone else chanted in unison and at the tops of their lungs.
“Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love! Love!”
“Louder, people,” The Wizard said. “Louder!”
But Marilyn shouted as softly as she could without attracting negative attention. She glanced across the circle at John, hoping he’d remembered to do the same. For this was no Pollyannaish exercise in New Age spiritualism. The new recruits, already stripped of their clothing, were now being stripped of their critical thought and judgement.
Loud and repeated chanting, technically known as overbreathing , caused large volumes of air to pass through the lungs, dropping carbon dioxide in the bloodstream to abnormally low levels. Sustained overbreathing led to a condition called respiratory alkalosis . Some of its early symptoms would go
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