Seekers

In California, one becomes accustomed to the fact that a certain number of people one meets (say, one in ten) is on a quest of some kind. They are searching for something--many things--and they go through books and gurus and retreats and crystals, only to remain, usually, in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. It's modern ennui, but draped in purple batik wall hangings and scented with incense. It's essentially the American Dream of total fulfillment, with a spiritual rather than a material end.

So these are the people who would pay $9,695 to attend a "spiritual warrior" retreat in Sedona led by some guy who apparently made 9.4 million dollars in 2008 by selling snake oil. Snake oil being, in this case, videos, books, CDs about getting everything you ever wanted, but doing so by manipulating the universe to your own ends (that is, a variation on The Secret*). Three of the participants in this particular sweat lodge actually died, which reminded me of two things: one, Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority, and two, the lengths to which Americans will go to get everything, the denial of the satisfaction of low expectations (as the happiest people in the world, the Danes who are interviewed often say that they benefit from having low expectations--they just want a normal, comfortable life). There is something so childish, it seems to me, about this idea: that we can have everything we want, all the time; that the universe exists to fulfill our wishes.

It makes me sad to think of these people literally killing themselves to try to get somewhere else, to be someone else, to find answers when there are none.

*For the best review I've ever read on Amazon, scroll down to the first review for The Secret, by one Ari Broullette. Sir, I salute you.