We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
The body beautiful figures highly in this part of California. When the locals are not munching their 'organic' fruit and vegetables bought from vast supermarkets specialising in the bloody stuff, incessantly playing with their smart phones or writing line after line of computer code, they are biking, hiking, trekking, climbing, skiing, running and otherwise torturing themselves as a way of fending off age and the only end of age, that last exit in a fire chariot of pain. Given that we are in the heart of the Silicon Valley and Stanford University is just up the road, not to mention the close proximity of Google, Apple and Oracle - actual places rather than ontologically less-than-points in cyberspace - one would suppose that the minds round here are pretty robust too. There must be more sheer intellectual horsepower in Los Altos and its environs than practically anywhere else in the world and it might be imagined it would be a centre of down-to-earth rationality. But there are certain anomalies coupled with a feeling of desperate yearning and rootlessness. This is, after all, a world whose economy is built on what is essentially modified sand.
The people I have met and the conversations I have held since arriving here gave me my first indications that the Bay Area is not quite as I expected. First, there was a charming and apparently sane computer engineer who revealed that he had recently visited England to investigate crop circles and South America to get to grips with ancient tribal wisdom: then there are my morning chats with a fellow smoker, something of a rarity in these dreadfully health conscious parts. He is a delightful and seemingly level-headed material scientist but tells me he has just found God (I hadn't realised he was missing) and that his life has been changed through the Church of the Living River or Vivacious Puddle or something along those lines. Then there are the Meetup groups. Aside from the expected clubs who gather to 'network' and enthuse annoyingly about IT related topics, Internet marketing or startup strategies, there are a host of others devoted to shamanism, the divine female, out-of-body experiences, the occult, mysticism and the like.
Some of the shops are pretty strange too. While the streets are not exactly lined with them, palmists and tarot readers are to be found at practically every corner. In the heart of Los Altos and nearby Mountain View there are stores where one can attempt to give meaning to one's life by buying dream catchers, prayer beads, statues of Hindu gods or books of eternal wisdom by somewhat obscure but, according to the blurb, massively enlightened gurus. The one thing missing is a spiritual cocktail shaker. The Mountain View store boasts a shrine complete with a miniature waterfall and features a box for posting notes so that the staff can pray for you. There is no charge for this service.
It sometimes seems that I have travelled some five thousand miles from my old home in Wessex only to find that I have arrived in Glastonbury, the epicentre of New Age spirituality in SW England. This impression is undermined by the chatter in coffee shops. In Dorset these are frequented by ladies of a certain age talking about their knees; here they are haunted by geeks discussing aggregated indexes. It is all extremely curious.
The Church of Self-Actualization
On the way to Palo Alto along El Camino Real, one encounters The Church of Self-Actualization. It seems to be a bizarre amalgam of Hinduism & Christianity - much of the iconography & rites being derived from the more picturesque bits of Roman Catholicism; However, it is almost as though the body of one has been crudely eviscerated and the innards of the other shoved inside. For example the Stations of the Cross are replaced by universal religious symbols - the Cross, the Star of David, sacred words in Arabic (well, one assumes this, but they might as well be trademarks for motorcycle companies). In place of Holy Communion, the congregation stand in line to have pretty tea-lights waved over them as they kneel by the altar rail. The somewhat chipper 'hymn' in the background adds to the general incongruity:
Aum Christ Aum
Aum Christ Aum
Just as in a normal church, a collection is held. The other congregants fill the plate with high denomination notes and large cheques - it is surprising that they don't seem to have a credit card reader - and I surreptitiously chuck in a couple of coins as it strikes me that in the realm of Maya, or the unreal, there is surely little difference between 50 Cents and 5,000 Dollars. I receive a somewhat disapproving look from my neighbour.
The service is run by a carefully constructed charming couple clad in robes of an overwhelmingly tasteful matching egg-shell blue. She stands in front of a cross composed of saccharine sweet sentimentalised depictions of Christ and various gurus while delivering homely anecdotes involving camper vans, peanut butter sandwiches and her husband's lousy driving. The congregation laughs affectionately and is rewarded with a sheepish grin and a flash of the husband's improbably white teeth. The peanut butter incident then segues into a sermon on the importance of not passing on misery to one's fellows. There is some common sense in what is said, but this is undercut by the context. Oddly juxtaposed readings follow from the New Testament and the Bhagavad Gita.
The service over, I buttonhole the pastor and ask about his church's blend of syncretism. After death will we merge into one universal whole or will we find ourselves standing before our maker? Less than disposed to discuss such matters, he cites his wife's peanut butter story and refers me to the church's philosopher in residence who glibly fobs me off with a Buddhist anecdote about not enquiring into the nature of the arrow but simply addressing one's mind to the urgent task of extracting it. This seems somewhat unsatisfactory, but perhaps I am being too demanding.
We socialise with the congregants over organic brownies and mugs of herbal tea. None of them seem especially barmy; indeed, they all appear well educated and most are programmers. When we ask what on earth they are doing there, the response is invariably that it is a good place to meet people and the other parishioners are 'awesome'.
1 comment:
I've found that most "churches" are based on social rather than religious reasons. MP Presbyterian was a simple church at one time, and after a couple of decades, the congregation grew so much that they have services all day (most churches have 1-2 services, MP had 4 and each were FILLED to capacity). It's one of the richest churches in the BA, and most go to it to congregate all right - but also to do business with each other. I guess I'm a bit cynical when it comes to a religion... it's a bit too conformist... but then, I'm a black sheep, right?
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