HIS HOLY CULTNESS, AND ONE MAN IS ACTUALLY AN ISLAND

I was intrigued with the first chapter on Quasar and his fervent beliefs. I have always found it fascinating that people can be so blind to what I see as the glaring contradictions in cult leader behavior, so I thought it interesting to read the thoughts of someone who was a believer. The entire chapter on Okinawa contains a plethora of biblical references, all pointing to “His Serendipity” as the savior and eternal god of light who will rule over the “New Earth” by Christmas, the birthday of the Christian savior (Mitchell 24). He will take control in a blaze of light – the comet. In the meantime, Quasar is trapped and isolated in Okinawa —he is not only literally on an island surrounded by an impossibly deep ocean but metaphorically as well because he is alone and surrounded by the unclean.

HIS SERENDIPITY AS A GOD: His name means good fortune and is capitalized just as Jesus’s name is capitalized in all references (noun and pronoun); he is revered like a god (5). He “prophetically” chooses Quasar’s name, as if His Serendipity is an omniscient prophet soon to return to save his people (5). He will “claim his kingdom,” just as Jesus did (5). The leader’s assistants are “Ministers” and he is their “Lord” (6, 28). He wears sandals, as Jesus did, and purple robes, the color of royalty/majesty (9). Quasar kneels and kisses the “holy ruby ring,” just as Catholics do in honoring bishops; and Quasar kisses the leader’s “mouth of eternal life” (9). He is “divine” and will one day gloriously “enter Jerusalem” as the savior (16). To the “unclean, he is “a devil from hell” (22). He is captured by a mob and jailed, similar to Jesus’s experience at the hands of the Romans (25).

BELIEVERS AND NONBELIEVERS: Quasar sees the non-cult members as beholden to the capitalist god and notes with disgust the girl with the pink Minnie Mouse hat, the trash on the beach, and department stores. He says the hotel clerk may not “believe” him and references people checking in “false” names (3). Clearly there are many believers/nonbelievers in the Bible and references to false idols and false disciples. It’s ironic that Quasar thinks the unclean are false when in fact he is giving false names. Quasar refers to non-cult people as “unclean”, “evil,” and sinners just as the Bible does in referring to people in need of grace (3, 19). To himself, he is one of the “faithful,” a “herald” (5, 6). He refers to the “unclean” government as “the voice of the snake charmer,” which makes him the snake but that’s the lesser of two evils (6). Quasar is one of the “chosen ministers of justice,” as if he were chosen in the way that God chose the Jews; he considers himself a holy man who makes a “sacrifice” and dispenses divine justice (6, 7). Quasar notes that previous cult members were “souls” (Biblical reference) who were “betrayed” (like Jesus) (8). The cult is a “family of the spirit” and members are “disciples” (9, 13). He is told by a dog (?!#*!) to eat eggs, the symbol of rebirth (28).

THEOLOGY:  The cult leader’s has numbered rules are called “Sacred Revelations[s],” one of which is “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out;” it is phrased as if it came from the King James Bible and its repeated references to “an eye for an eye” (Mitchell 7, 10) (Matthew 5:38). The organization is called “The Fellowship” (7).

JESUS-LIKE: All of this deceit bothers Quasar, who, once he utters the false name, records these feelings: “Pinpricking in the palms of my hands. Little thorns” (3). Clearly Quasar is referring to Jesus’s crown of thorns and the stigmata, though Jesus certainly suffered more than just pinpricks. So it seems he is comparing himself to Jesus and has been wronged by this process of having to deal with the unclean and tell lies in order to achieve his end of purifying the world. Quasar also has a “bandaged hand” (3). At the end of the chapter he keeps washing his hands because his palms seem to be permanently “blotchy” (25).

PLACES: The hotel corridors are “empty as catacombs,” which is what Quasar hopes to turn the hotel and world into – a giant catacomb (4). He also wishes to return the earth to its “virginal state,” a reference to the Virgin Mary and purity (5). The name of his cult is called “Sanctuary,” which to him is his place of comfort in this unclean world. He calls the department stores “windowless temples,” which seems as if these modern people worship capitalism as their ark of the covenant, which is stored in a temple (Mitchell 4). He walks among palm trees and there is a market with Mediterranean fruits and spices (8, 27). The post-apocalyptic world will be a “Paradise” (17).

LIGHT: He looks into “the eye of the sun,” which of course is the symbol for light (4). Jesus is often portrayed as having a face that shines like the sun and artists have often painted him with rays of light beaming from him on all sides. Of course the sun is in the heavens and the Bible contains numerous references to Jesus as “the light of the world” (Bible, John 8:12). The cult leader has “lit” Quasar’s life (Mitchell 5). The end of the world will be like “White Nights” (5). For now, Quasar is in the unclean world or “the darkness” (5). Quasar receives gamma waves; gamma is the Greek word for the numeral 3, also the number for the holy trinity (father, son and holy spirit), and it is the type of ray that is emitted from the brightness of an explosion. Once the cult leader is captured, the light is gone both literally and metaphorically: “Clouds began to ink out the stars, one by one” (32).

There are probably many more references. I'm tired now, though, so maybe I will have to comment on my own post tomorrow.