PROLOGUE
I quit my job at Odyssey House in April, 1969. While my experiences reverberated, their significance as a major transforming event was largely unconscious and would remain so for the next nine years.
Then, on November 19, 1978, I read the following headline from The New York Times: NINE HUNDRED SUICIDES NOW ESTIMATED IN A REVISED BODY COUNT FROM GUYANA. The People's temple massacre in Jonestown shocked the sensibilities of the entire world. Mine included.
Avidly, I read press accounts of the tragedy, particularly the in-depth special reports that attempted to answer the complex questions posed by this horrendous event. What were the essential variables that motivated this mass suicide? What was the nature of the leader's personality that was able to attract and to keep such a large group of people under his control, even to the point of their certain death? What kinds of personalities are attracted to these kinds of cults? What makes people stay, even when they doubt the sanity of the leader?
Besides Jonestown, other cult-like groups - including Synanon, the Moonies, and Scientology-were making notorious headlines of their own, as many ex-members alluded to their use of brain washing techniques, supposedly in the service of mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Editorial writers lost no time in drawing parallels between these groups. Chief among them was that each group had a charismatic leader promising salvation to potential followers who, although disillusioned with conventional society, were searching for meaning.
Once over my initial shock at the contents of these reports, my subsequent reaction was uncharacteristically matter-of-fact, nearly devoid of emotion. Completing my reading on the subject, I concluded there was nothing new here for me.
Thus I was surprised when, the next day, I felt an uncontrollable urge to write a poem about the Jonestown phenomenon. Words flowed passionately, as if I was copying them from some unknown source.
Upon finishing the last sentence, I said to myself: Here we go again. Hearing what I had said, I suddenly realized why it had been so easy to write about the "Death of an Illusion" with such authority, as the new stories about these cults had revived a parallel defining experience I had had as an assistant director nine years ago at Odyssey House I knew the experience at Odyssey had been a painful one, but at the time I felt too close to it to be able to appreciate what it really meant. I decided to let it be, but I also had a fantasy that when I had given myself sufficient time and space to adequately digest all that had happened, so as to be able to objectify this major turning point, then one day I would write the story of my Odyssey.
With undertones and overtones of Jonestown resonating and reverberating in the depths of my soul, I knew the time to begin my inner odyssey was now.
To Be Continued
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