Michael Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
Michael wondered if he should tell his friends, especially Danny, about his meeting with Anahida. It’s not that it felt wrong, it just felt secret, or rather sacred. Sacred in the sense of being set apart, sacred in the sense of being connected to a special order, or to use Anahida’s reference- a spiritual order. Michael, of course, did not understand the spiritual, but he was beginning to think of the condition/uncondition distinctions, which had been circling inside him for some time now— this was his only point of reference to the ideas Anahida had discussed. He wasn’t sure about God but he was beginning to be pretty sure about Truth.
He had still not discussed his concept of uncondition, with anyone. Not even Anahida, though he wished had told her now, he wished he had said, yes I understand, of course I understand, I have turned the eyes of my soul in a way that has made me understand. You are talking about the thing separated from the bondage of lower orders, separated from the likes of habit, pattern, culture, history and society. You are talking about the thing which is above everyday human affairs. It was too late now, the meeting had been over two days ago, but as you can see now Michael was still thinking of it, as a SACRED EVENT and so it was nobody’s business to know.
Michael had agreed to go to the workshop with Anahida the following Sunday. He googled “The Alchemy Society” and found a website that gave only this information: For the Seekers and Seers, and an email address for the curious and the concerned. None of this excited him, it actually kind of annoyed him. He couldn’t believe that Anahida had convinced him to join a cult, sure it was only one meeting, but he knew that if she wanted she could make him join it. This was her power. Michael did feel relieved, however, that so quickly, he had transferred his need to be subtly controlled to another woman. This made him feel immediately lighter, no longer burdened by agency, like a child who remembers the existence of his parents’ bedroom when he is awakened by the nightmare of a monster; and as the child grows older, the monster grows with him and becomes the brutal hunch of having been forsaken. The forsaken who is only saved by the submission of his agency, or his will, to another power. Yes, the sweet moment of relief of submitting one’s will. He couldn’t believe his luck! Everyone was worried about him but he no longer had to be worried about him. He had cast his worries, this was the feeling, the good feeling, the sacred feeling, and its association to the beautiful Anahida only made it that much sweeter.
In the days leading up to the meeting, Michael occupied his anxious mind with work. He was in the studio a lot, working with a new artist named Kick Kennedy, a non-binary up-and-coming pop star. Michael genuinely liked Kick and their sound, and it was the first time in a long time he was excited about his work. Things seemed to be working out. He was in touch with Lisa through her sister, who had now taken on the role of Lisa’s assistant and would invoice Michael baby-related expenses and send him important dates of doctor’s appointments. Lisa, surprisingly, was open to Michael being present at doctor’s appointments and Michael would go along with the thought, I’m going to take care of my baby. To Michael’s surprise, Lisa was not nasty to him and approached the entire thing in a pleasant enough business-like manner, which worked for Michael and did not add to his guilt complex. The night before The Alchemy Society meeting, Michael found himself wishing he felt more guilty about leaving Lisa and that entire ordeal, his guilt now seemed far away and subdued.
The Alchemy Society meeting was in an old playhouse theater in East Hollywood. It all felt like an acting class, with Name in the middle of the stage and the members with minds dangerously eager and hungry for molding. There was a whiteboard behind Name, and the lights were dimmed, so one could hardly even see what was written on the whiteboard.
“I am not the sage on the stage, am I?” Name laughed.
Name was a handsome man in his 50s, well preserved, was the first thought Michael had. He immediately felt jealous, he was sure Name and Anahida found each other attractive. How could they not? What kind of person would see themselves so important as to stand on a stage talking to a bunch of people? Of course this was a cult, Michael thought, and this guy was a narcissist and egomaniac and a fraud. He suddenly felt sick and tried to find the exit.
“What we do here is to try to reach a different place,” Name continued.
Michael thought that Name was probably a failed actor trying to recapture some of his failed dreams into motivational speaking which provided the same kind of adoration and attention when done well. Even going as far as to hold meetings in a theater, pathetic Michael thought, just pathetic.
He kept wondering if anything had ever happened between Name and Anahida and what a stupid fucking name, Name. Are you fucking serious? Michael’s nervousness sometimes led to severe judgment and paranoia, he had to remind himself. Maybe Anahida wasn’t even interested in Michael and she just wanted bodies for her lover’s cult and he fell for it because Michael, himself, was pathetic who was blowing his life apart and attending cult meetings.
“I think I’m gonna go,” Michael said suddenly.
“No! What? Are you serious? No please, don’t freak out, you just hate being in new situations, don’t quit just yet,” Anahida said with a wink and a sweet smile and so yes of course she was right. “Don’t run, I know you want to run because that’s your instinct, fight or flight. It’s just a flight response if you just wait, the feeling will pass. Do you trust me?” she asked, calmly.
He did trust her, more than he trusted himself, that’s for sure.
He began to do the “floating” technique again. Do not sink into the feeling of jealousy or contempt. Do not sink into the feeling of resentment, that’s important. He began to calm down.
Then, as if right on cue, Name began speaking.
“Instead of saying if something is good or bad, it’s better to say, instead, if something is helpful or harmful.”
Name paused, like a good speaker does to let his words introduce themselves to the listeners. Then he continued: “We are trying to get away from this feeling that there’s a duality, this or that, yes or no, black and white, good and bad. We have to believe, in our hearts, that they are both and simultaneously neither.”
Anahida, as if sensing Michael’s discomfort, leaned over and whispered, “It won’t be helpful unless you approach this with an open mind, please, for me.”
“For me,” she had said, this was the slight manipulation techniques Michael welcomed. Of course, for you, goddess, anything.
“Even visible and invisible things should be seen in a constant state of play, of course we are concerned here more with the invisible, yes?” Name continued, confidently, like a professor, a philosopher, Foucault? Deleuze? Lacan? But way more attractive and way less accountable in his reason and approach and a phony… but maybe they’re all phonies.
Name looked around and spotted a chair at stage left, he brought it to the middle and sat down. “I’m a fan of Rilke, the poet. Anyone else?”
Some hands went up. Michael had heard of the poet but had never read anything.
“I love his poetry of course, but I’m particularly fond of his letters, wherein he goes further into concepts he introduces in his poems, like the elegies. What magnificent pieces of work!” Name mused.
Some younger women in the audience smiled and nodded, Michael wondered if they even knew what he was talking about. How smart are these people? He wondered. How cultured?
“That being who attests to the recognition of a higher level of reality in the invisible, terrifying, therefore, to us because we, its lovers and transformers, still cling to the visible,” Name visibly quoted the poet. “This is from Letters to a Young Poet, I don’t know if any of you have read that.”
He paused again. He held the attention of the group impressively.
“We call ourselves ‘The Alchemy Society,’ we talk about this a lot, why alchemy?”
Somehands went up.
“Claire, yes” he pointed at a woman, perhaps late 50s, in gray hair and clothes.
Gray lady, Michael thought.
“Transmutation,” she said.
“Ah yes, we love that word,” Name smiled.
The class laughed. Was it a class? It felt like a class, Michael was reminded of being back in college, maybe that’s where the resentment was coming from. He had often felt so much resentment for his professors and his classmates in college, he couldn’t quite remember why.
“We love the word, and the alchemists definitely loved the word, they were obsessed with it, yes? Why?”
“Base metals into gold,” someone shouted, Michael couldn’t see who.
“Well, yes. And is this an allegory? We wonder…” Name responded, instantly.
Oh this guy was definitely an actor, he also had employed some kind of trans-atlantic accent that he was obviously faking. He was playing a character, a chauvinist, a FAKE. Who did he think he was? Carey Grant?
Michael reminded himself to calm down.
“We are tasked with taking what we have been given, an experience, perhaps a painful one, and changing it into some kind of fuel that takes us to the realm of the invisible. This is not a task for the weak, as I’m sure you all know. And this is alchemy!” Name said and stood up again and continued, “This is why Jung, who we talk a lot about, was so interested in Alchemy in his psychological findings. It’s why Freud hated him!”
The group laughed.
“Freud thought he had figured out the subconscious, Jung said oh no you would be lucky if the subconscious allows you to even TALK TO IT! Anyway, I’d like to welcome some new members,” he looked at a list of names on a notepad. Like a professor.
“Michael,” Name said.
Michael glanced uneasily at Anahida, “You told him my name?”
“Of course I did,” she said reassuring him, “It’s okay.”
“I know it’s okay,” Michael said defensively.
“Michael,” Name repeated Michael’s name, staring at him, knowing who Michael was, where he was sitting in the class.
“Yeah hi,” Michael said, raising his hand only slightly.
“Welcome. Would you like to say anything? Share a bit about yourself?”
“No, not really,” Michael said. He hated Name so much. “My friend brought me I’m just observing.”
“Well observe away,” Name smiled, “We all are observing aren’t we?”
What the fuck is this guy talking about?
Michael felt uneasy again, he tried to study the faces of the crowd. One face stood out to him, a young man with a nerdy disposition, polo shirt, glasses, whose presence immediately amplified a certain level of intelligence. Some people just have more intelligent faces, he thought. Michael felt drawn to this man the same way Winston, the protagonist of Orwell’s 1984, is drawn to the character of “O’Brien.” He’s smart, Michael thought, he probably knows Name is a fake. He decided maybe he could get to know this nerd whose face held some sort of superior intelligence.
He started to really take in the people in the room. Who were these people? They were well-dressed, they didn’t look like complete nobodies, plus Anahida was here. Did this have anything to do with Scientology?
Name spoke again, “So like I said we are The Alchemy Society, but we also go by another name. Which is…?”
“A workshop!” Anahida shouted.
“Exactly! Thank you Ana.”
He calls her Ana? How close are they?
Name continued, “And why are we calling it a workshop? Because we are not only concerned with ideas and theories, but also APPLICATION of those theories, that’s the only way we can judge its value, am I right? Especially in the hustle and bustle of our lives. And so a good part of what we do here is about applying these concepts in our lives and watching our realities shift.”
Some of the members of the group began to clap.
“So for those of you who don’t know, a portion of our workshop is dedicated to members sharing how they have applied these concepts in their everyday lives. So let’s get started. Who has anything to share?”
Michael felt Anahida’s hand go up.
“Ana! Perfect. Come on up!”
Anahida glanced at Michael with a nervousness he understood to be performative, and he was reminded of a certain performative meekness she had displayed when they were together. Michael did not acknowledge her nervousness and did not offer a sympathetic touch of the hand or anything of that sort. As she went up to the stage, Michael thought about his distaste for performance, the ways he was able to see right through the dishonesty of people’s everyday gestures. Often, he thought it was because he was not good at social graces, but deep down it was also a sensitivity to all kinds of deceptions people were capable of. He truly wanted honesty even if it was ugly and painful.
Anahida sat in the chair in the middle of the stage and glanced at Name who gave her a nod of approval. “I don’t want to feel guilty about my wealth or my parents’ wealth I guess,” Anahida said almost defiantly.
Michael immediately felt a sense of what one might call shock but it was a particular kind of shock— it was the feeling when something predictable happens and you’re shocked that something predictable has happened. As he continued to listen to Anahida a memory began slowly materializing inside him, he wished for it to disappear.
“I also don’t want to feel guilty about not wanting to hang out with losers,” she continued.
The unidentified memory was growing.
“I don’t want to feel bad about being this way. Most people are this way and they pretend to care about the wretched. Being around a loser is like being around a sick person, it’s contagious and even when it’s not contagious it’s a drag,” Anahida said, almost breathless.
The memory…something about Anahida…something about Michael… their relationship, he wanted to avoid identifying it for a little while longer. The shock of predictability again overwhelmed him.
“So I just don’t care to feel any guilt anymore and I cut out people who are bringing me down and I feel much better,” she said while looking at Name. “The only thing I’m trying figure out is how to apply this to my husband who I have increasing contempt for, he’s a pushover, he’s weak and I know it’s horrible of me to say this but it’s like what if he’s the sickness I can’t get away from? Is that bad? Am I evil?”
“Of course not,” Michael thought he heard Name say but he wasn’t sure if it was Name or another male voice.
The memory pushed on his chest, no longer wanting to be ignored.
Fuck.
After Anahida, the Gray Lady went up. Michael didn’t pay much attention to what the Gray Lady, who was named Claire, said. Something about being a manager in a building and snitching on people and getting them evicted and how this brought her joy blah blah blah.
“What’s going on?” Michael thought he said in his head but apparently said out loud because Anahida responded with “What do you mean?” She had apparently come back to her seat.
After the Gray Lady finished speaking, Michael heard Name ask: “How do we stop feeling bad? Then answered his own question, “we just stop feeling bad.”
The memory, the knowing, the remembering, all pushed through any kind of attempt to conceal, to ward off, to rebuke. It was too late to turn away from the burden of understanding. Michael had a strange feeling that whatever was happening in his current reality was important. The feeling invoked a sense of BEING AWAKE, this scared him, of course, the responsibility, the agency, the being awake, the burden of understanding, etc.
I knew it. Was all Michael thought for the rest of the meeting.