The Answer To Everything Part 13

Woollings, meanwhile, lay among the dead, unconscious in the snow-his boots blown off his feet, his clothes singed and shredded-until McCullough found him. Today, he is deaf in his left ear, his legs are paralyzed (doctors say this will likely be temporary), he experiences weakness and tingling in both arms and hands and he has burns to 40 percent of his body, severe headaches, dizziness, arrhythmia and significant problems with short-term memory. His recovery, if successful, will be lengthy and arduous. Still, Woollings insists he has no regrets and in fact would happily do it all over again. He continues to revere and respect Becker, whom he credits with helping him achieve a new level of awareness on February 1, 2013. He believes that G.o.d spared his life so he could continue to work for the Inst.i.tute. "I can't wait until it [the Inst.i.tute] is up and running again, until I'm strong enough to help Eldrich [Becker] spread the truth to more Seekers." He smiles, but his eyes fill with tears. "I just wish I could see him," Woollings says. "I just wish he could visit."

It may be a long while before the Inst.i.tute is up and running again. And it may be never. In addition to ayahuasca (and its separate botanical components), when the police raided 81 Elderbrook, they found more than a kilo of marijuana in the back of the freezer. They also seized a number of jars and containers that were allegedly used to cultivate psychoactive psilocybin mushrooms. Eldrich Becker and Amy McCullough were arrested and charged with possession of an illegal substance for the purpose of trafficking, production of an illegal substance and administering a noxious substance. The crown also brought charges of criminal negligence causing death against Becker and McCullough. John Aarons, who moved out of 81 Elderbrook in early January but continued to collect a salary as the Inst.i.tute's chief executive officer, has been named, along with McCullough and Becker, in a cla.s.s-action wrongful-death civil suit launched by relatives of the nine Seekers who died on the night of February 1. The house at 81 Elderbrook, which was left (provisionally) to Eldrich Becker and John Aarons by Chen Xi Quan in his will, is also part of a separate legal battle. Quan's estranged husband, Mat Faisal, who has been alternately travelling and living with friends in the US for the past several years, returned to Toronto to challenge Quan's will and pursue marital rights to the estate. As a result, all of the activities and a.s.sets of the Inst.i.tute have now been frozen. As a condition of bail, McCullough and Becker cannot communicate or be in contact with each other or with any former member of the Inst.i.tute. Woollings, it seems, will not get his wish to be visited in hospital by Becker.

When I point out that his next face-to-face meeting with his spiritual guide may have to take place at the Toronto South Detention Centre, Woollings gives me a knowing look. "There was another son of G.o.d arrested and put on trial," he says, smiling. "And we haven't stopped loving him."

5 Comments T.O. Magazine SCULLY M (posted 4 days ago) Am I to understand that this guy is seriously comparing his cult leader to the Lord? Looks like his brain got scrambled AND fried in that storm.

2-small 2-fail (posted 4 days ago) Hilarious. Even the cults T.O. Magazine writes about have to be on the Bridle Path.

marsha c (posted 3 days ago) What a terribly sad story, and what a shocking waste of lives. I read recently that only 21 percent of us attend a weekly religious service (down from 30 percent in 1985). It's clear that the waning of religion in our daily lives has led to a spiritual void, one that allows charlatans such as Eldrich Becker to thrive.

annon (posted 3 days ago) I don't care if it's summer, fall, winter or spring. You hear thunder, you get out from under the tree. Sad they died, but c'mon! How stupid!

MOINA Q (posted 2 days ago) My husband and I are members of the Answer Inst.i.tute, I was quoted in the above article, and I can a.s.sure you that the writer, Griffin Hill, has either completely misunderstood or else wilfully misrepresented what our organization is all about. The Answer Inst.i.tute is not a cult. n.o.body took our money or fed us hallucinogens. It was entirely up to us whether or not we paid for seminars, or whether or not we chose to ingest various sacramental substances. Many of us, in fact, chose not to. We were never isolated from family or friends or deprived of food or sleep. n.o.body ever told us how to think or behave. We were always free to come and go as we pleased. Only a total outsider, one who perhaps set out to write a shocking, salacious story, would regard us as a cult or represent our practice of therapeutic healing touch as fondling or "orgies." Countless people, me and my husband included, have learned a lot and profited emotionally, physically and spiritually from the warm, inclusive community of the Answer Inst.i.tute. As Griffin Hill himself points out, Phil was in remission from cancer. His healing sessions at the Inst.i.tute worked! I can tell you that John Aarons and Amy McCullough are both kind and caring individuals. And I've never met a more loving or truer soul than Eldrich Becker. Griffin Hill, in short, does not know what he's talking about. He has warped the facts in order to provide a t.i.tillating tale to readers. We are extremely disappointed in T.O. Magazine and will be cancelling our long-standing, thirty-one-year subscription forthwith.

Griffin

After the article appeared, Drew Woollings stopped taking my calls. I expected that. What I didn't expect was that it would be a problem, that I would still need him.

An editor at a small but well-regarded publis.h.i.+ng house read my T.O. Mag piece and floated the notion of doing a full-length book on the Answer Inst.i.tute. I loved the idea. Journalist/author. Author/journalist.

The snag was that I'd need a lot more material. More details, multiple sources and perspectives. And I had lost my insider. My key to the kingdom. Even offers to share whatever advance I may receive, or any future profits, failed to bring Drew around. He wouldn't respond to my emails or calls. And I knew better than to try to go through Mama Bear, who sent one rather succinct text a day after the article came out: SHAME ON YOU!!!!! I also noted the snippy missive Moina Quinn and Perry La Farge had posted on T.O. Mag's website, so they wouldn't be letting me in any time soon.

Could I get more out of Eldrich Becker? Yes. Definitely. He was clam happy to be interviewed for the article and continued to answer emails and calls after it came out-but his responses were growing more and more erratic. He'd answer normally for one or two emails, but then get daffy as h.e.l.l for the next. For example, I'd send a request for a certain Seeker's contact info, and he'd send back an entirely-beside-the-point proverb. I'd thank him, ask again for the same info, and he'd send a link to a song on YouTube. The more specific the question, the more obscure his response. Was he a total nut job or just yanking my chain? My last correspondence was a sensitively wrought, multi-faceted email question, which he answered with a photograph of a polar bear on an ice floe. Annoying. When I asked if the polar bear was meant to be him, he sent a link to an Emerson quote: Standing on the bare ground,-my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite s.p.a.ce,-all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of G.o.d. Terrific. Bully for you. But obviously no help with my book proposal-the editor told me she'd want an outline of how I planned to "flesh out" the story.

I didn't have a plan. There was no flesh. Only the dry bone of Drew Woollings's experience. Most of the Inst.i.tute insiders were dead. And the survivors weren't blabbing. Xavier Raine Maddox was unreachable. Even his publicist had stopped returning my calls and emails. Amy McCullough and John Aarons, the sources I really needed to tap, continued to decline contact-Amy, politely (thanking me via text for the wine or flowers or chocolates, and apologizing for not being able to help); John, not so graciously (the whiskey and craft beers would disappear without so much as a "Thanks, Bub" or a "No comment"). Radio silence from John-boy, and also from many loyal Seekers who were either steamed by my article or warned by compadres not to share.

It was frustrating. And discouraging. I really wanted to make this thing happen, but no matter how many times I twisted it in my brain, I couldn't figure out a way to tell the complete story.

I just didn't know enough about how the Inst.i.tute came to be.

Oddly, it was only after I had completely given up on making the book a reality that it came to me, mid-lather during my morning shower. A eureka moment when I wasn't even trying.

I instantly knew how to do it. I knew exactly how to make them all talk.

PART IV.

Amy.

How could this have happened? That's what everyone wants to know.

And how I feel about it. Like that matters.

I don't really know how it happened. And obviously I feel awful. Especially for those who lost loved ones, and who will never truly understand what went on at the Inst.i.tute. I wish I could change things. But I can't. I can't go back in time and unmeet John Aarons. As soon as my toes touched that quicksand there was no escape, just a slow sucking in. Even though my lawyers think I'll be fine-since I told people to go inside, and since the drugs were used sacramentally-it's still upsetting to have all these lawsuits hanging over your head. They say it could take a year or more before they're resolved. So I just have to live with this undercurrent of tension. It's not easy. It's affecting my health. I have this red stuff all over my hands. Eczema, the doctor thinks. From stress.

How could this have happened? I don't know. I wish people would stop asking.

And I wish they would stop asking how I, Amy McCullough, could have possibly been mixed up in it. That's what my parents and my sister and Barb van Vleck and her s.h.i.+ny new fiance and all my old Facebook friends can't seem to comprehend. How could someone as normal as me have been involved with something as bizarre as the Inst.i.tute? I mean, it's not as if my folks ever thought I'd be a golden girl like Allison, I've always been the screw-up by comparison, but I don't think they ever expected their younger daughter to be facing a raft of wrongful-death lawsuits and criminal drug charges. It's humiliating. Now I'm not just the dropout, I'm the "crazy s.e.x-cult freak." Right. All I can tell you is that things are being distorted by the media, who seem to want to paint me as some kind of calculating cult-meister, while John and Eldrich come off as all soulful and genuine. I have to say, I was shocked to learn about John's parents in a magazine article. Whenever he talked about them it was as if they were alive and well and going about their business across town. It hurts that he confided in Eldrich and not me. I guess he never trusted me. But I can see why he had trust issues.

Another thing the media has done is make things at the Inst.i.tute sound weirder than they were. I mean, I know we ended up in a strange place, but it was a long time getting to that point. And humans don't really notice things that come on incrementally. Think of Milgram's electric-shock experiment. People would never breeze in and administer a full fatal shock. But if they started at fifteen volts and then slowly moved their way up, well ...

It's like aging. All the time there are tiny changes happening to your face and body, but you don't really notice them. You're not surprised every day when you look in the mirror. It's just another morning. Now imagine if your twenty-year-old self woke up and saw your sixty-year-old self in the reflection. You would freak out. Grab at your flesh. Refuse to believe. That's what the Inst.i.tute was like. It got just the tiniest bit stranger every day, so while we did end up in a very odd place, it happened so gradually that no one really noticed.

Of course, the final night was the strangest of all. Our first ayahuasca ceremony. Anne-Marie's son, Richard, helped Peter Scheibling set up a maloca at the end of the yard. It wasn't exactly authentic; it was basically an event tent with a pitched canvas roof and open sides. Peter put sheets of plywood under the tent and laid Peruvian rugs and pillows on top. It looked really nice, actually, tucked under the giant oak, all colourful and cozy. Things could have easily gone smoothly. It could have been just another typically strange night at the Inst.i.tute ...

How could this have happened? How does any accident happen? Something unexpected occurs. Someone makes a bad decision. It's hard to think about with so many "what-ifs" swirling. What if we'd held the ceremony the day before or the day after? What if we'd held it in the bas.e.m.e.nt or the pool house? You can drive yourself nuts with what-ifs.

I know I'm lucky to be here. And I find it interesting that I am. I mean, if I drank a full cup of ayahuasca, I likely would have stayed outside with everyone else. But something stopped me from taking more than a couple of swallows, and it wasn't the disgusting taste. No. It was an overpowering feeling that I should just have two big gulps. And it came to me as soon as I took the cup in my hands. I know it sounds loony, but it was as if the medicine had a message for me and I couldn't hear it until it was between my palms. Peter, our shaman, urged me to drink more, said I wouldn't feel anything if I didn't finish it, but I refused and eventually he moved on to Phil, who was to the right of me in the maloca. Because he had been ill, Phil took only a sip. Scheibling told him that even if he didn't go deep into the ayahuasca realm, it would still be beneficial to have the power of the sacred plant in his system. I figured the same held true for me. And I did feel something. I started to feel very warm and relaxed as I watched fat snowflakes drift down around the sides of the tent. The flakes left colourful trails, and I began to see bright squiggly lines when I closed my eyes.

I became hyperaware of the audio around me. Peter was playing Peruvian songs on a ghetto blaster. I liked the singer's voice, but the rhythm of the maracas was annoying. I'm not usually sensitive to that kind of thing, but it was scratching at my nerves in an oddly prominent way. Then I started to hear people retching, and that was vile. But after a while, something different came breaking through. Heather. I heard her crying, and all the other sounds faded into the background. It's hard to describe because it was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had. I felt like Heather's sadness was leaving her body and entering mine through sound waves. Her sobs were tiny flying things, moving toward me. The grief creatures entered my ears, squeezed down my throat and settled into my chest, making it really hard to breathe and giving me a kind of sonic sea-sickness as I took them all in.

At a certain point I didn't hear Heather anymore, and I got the feeling that her sadness was moving out of my chest and sinking down into my stomach. I was horrendously nauseated, but at least I could breathe. I began to see images-a lot of swirling, three-dimensional geometries. Strange organisms began to appear: half-plant, half-animal beings that I understood to be guides from the spirit world. I felt deeply connected to these creatures and to the universe as a whole. I had a sense that ayahuasca's purpose was to teach humans about connectivity-it seemed like a fundamental substance, and I felt overwhelming affection for it. Then my mind started racing and I started seeing things from my past. I saw my family in all these different situations and started to understand things about our relations.h.i.+ps in new ways. It was bizarre. I don't know how long I was immersed in this movie of my life. The last memory was with my mom and my sister. It was this day when Allison got to pick out a new coat because she got all As on her grade-six report card. I'd remembered it as her parading up and down the store in her leather jacket, flaunting and taunting because I didn't get anything. But when I was reliving it on ayahuasca, it seemed as if she was just really happy to be getting the coat, and she wasn't paying attention to me at all. And what I had interpreted as malice on the part of my mom (i.e., you don't get anything 'cause you're a dumb-a.s.s) was actually her trying to motivate me. It was like I could now see it for what it really was.

I was kind of marvelling at this experience and coming out of the visions when I heard the first rumble. It was loud and angry, and it scared me. It also confused me. Could there be thunder in winter? Was this a real, ordinary thing or a once-in-a-lifetime message from the spirit world? I heard Tyson shouting then, something about the glamour of Satan, about rejecting the glamour of Satan, and he began chanting yes, yes, yes, yes, over and over again. The second blast snapped me back to reality.

My trip was over.

I suddenly realized how windy it had become. The whole maloca was shaking violently. I said, "I think we should go in." I stood up just as the tarpaulin ceiling peeled halfway off the roof structure and started flapping crazily. There was more thunder. Closer now. I said it at least once more-that we all needed to go inside-but n.o.body was listening. Everybody was still deeply tripping. Could I have forced them all indoors? I doubt it, but who knows? All I know is that I suddenly got this intense stomach cramp, like my intestines were being twisted and my bowels were about to let loose.

As I hurried back to the house, I pa.s.sed Catelyn heading toward the maloca, dragging Staci behind her. She told me they were going to check on Heather. I said I didn't think they should be out there-there were huge gusts of wind and it was snowing hard. I offered to take Staci back with me, but I must have looked dangerously stoned or sweaty or wild-eyed because Staci didn't want to take my hand and Catelyn didn't try to persuade her. Unfortunately, I had no time to argue. I rushed past them toward the house and just barely made it out of my snow pants and onto the toilet-they don't call it la purga for nothing. As I sat there, basically peeing out of my b.u.t.t (sorry for the grossness), I had the strange thought that back in the maloca I had literally absorbed Heather's sorrow into my body, and now I was getting rid of it for both of us. When I was done, I felt very clean and calm and, I admit, virtuous. I drank some water, curled up on the family-room couch and fell into a deep sleep for what felt like about an hour but was probably longer. I have a vague recollection of being partially roused by a loud noise, the loud noise, I guess, but it didn't wake me. There may have been a b.u.mp in my sleep, but there was no consciousness. I swear.

When I did finally wake, everything was quiet. I checked the bedrooms. n.o.body. Not even Catelyn and Staci, which was weird, since it was the middle of the night. A four-year-old should have been in bed. I had a bad feeling. I knew Catelyn was p.i.s.sed about having to look after Staci and skip the first ceremony-Scheibling told her that ayahuasca is good for addicts, and she was desperate to try it. Maybe her braving the storm to "check on Heather" was just an excuse to join in. Maybe she was out there right now, tripping or being sick all over the place with Staci watching. Not cool.

I put my damp snow things back on and headed out across the backyard. It was still windy, but no thunder. As I got past the pool, I saw something strange, what I thought at first was the blown-off roof of the maloca, hanging from some high branches, but as I moved closer to the edge of the woods, my eyes started to make sense of what I was actually looking at. It was the oak-that ma.s.sive magnificent old tree, gaping wide open.

The thing had literally split in half.

Then I saw the shapes of bodies, covered in snow, like those people buried in situ in Pompeii.

And then I ran.

John

I was awake when she called. Lucky for her, because I'd left my phone on vibrate on the coffee table. If some a.s.sclown hadn't pulled the fire alarm at 1:47 a.m., I would have been asleep and unreachable in her old room instead of eating cereal out of the box and watching a rubbishy Greer Garson flick on Turner Cla.s.sic Movies.

She was instantly hysterical. Not what I expected, although maybe the phone spinning madly on its axis as if possessed should have been a clue. When I saw Amy on the display, I a.s.sumed it was a case of drunk dialling, and in the brief moments that it took to actually bring the thing to my ear I had already fantasized her plaintive, vodka-soaked plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, one that would culminate in me allowing her to come over and make it up to me with a tender though maximum-effort b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. Wrong.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Oh thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d you're there!" She was hyperventilating. It sounded like she was running.

"What's the matter?"

"Can you come over? Take a cab! I'll pay."

"Why, what's going on?"

"I don't know ..." She started to sob. "Please! I'm freaking out. I need your help!"

"Just tell me what's happening!"

"I can't. I don't know! Can you just please come?"

"Fine! Jesus Christ." I hung up, called a taxi and got dressed. Both elevators were busted so I had to schlep down twelve flights of stairs. Then, because of the wretched weather and fresh dump of snow, the cab alternately crawled and fishtailed its way over there, almost not making it up the hill on Yonge, and nearly killing us about twenty times. I was way more enraged than alarmed. I remember thinking: This better be f.u.c.king serious.

Unfortunately, it was.

Eldrich

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:- We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.

Amy

If I had even the slightest inkling that anyone might still be alive, I would have called an ambulance right away. Obviously. But I didn't get that close. All I saw were inert bodies, their forms smoothed by a layer of snow, like they had been dipped in wax. How could I have known that Drew was lying in the woods, still breathing? I couldn't! It was dark and I was alone and pretty much out of my mind with panic.

I called John. I did. I called the man who instigated the whole nightmare. I called the man who called me a "lying s.l.u.t" and dumped me because I went swimming with Xavier Raine Maddox. I called the man who said he would make it his business to ensure I never saw a cent of Phil's estate, the man who-I recently discovered-succeeded in getting Phil to change his will so that the Inst.i.tute was disinherited and he and Eldrich were instead named individually as beneficiaries. I called the man who, when he learned of my recent condo purchase, publicly insinuated that I'd siphoned Inst.i.tute funds-which is bulls.h.i.+t; I paid for this place with my salary and bonus. Yes, I called John. And guess what? He came. Right away. In the middle of the night. He came when I needed him. No questions asked. So I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful that, buried under all of John's anger, bitterness and mistrust, there was a flicker of something more powerful than hate.

John

I was shocked when I saw her. Emaciated and bony. Dark circles under frantic eyes. She looked ill. Anorexic. She threw herself into my arms. I was momentarily pleased, chalking it up to my absence and her guilt-ravaged heart. Wrong again.

She led me to the bodies.

Even before I got close enough to see much-Amy didn't want to approach-I knew there was only one thing to do.

"We have to call 9-1-1."

"I know," she said. "But do you think-I mean, shouldn't we ...? Do you think we should get rid of the ayahuasca stuff first?"

She said "we" but meant me. I guess that's why I'd been summoned.

"And say what? 'Um, yeah ... all these people were just sitting around under a tree, in the middle of a storm' ... doing what? Swapping recipes?"

"I don't know. We could say it was a sweetgra.s.s ceremony or a sweat lodge or something?"

"Yeah, well, I'm not messing with that scene. And since you're afraid to even go over there, I'm guessing you're not planning to either."

Amy sighed. "Maybe it's not such a good idea."

"But, actually, it might not be a bad idea to get rid of the drugs in the house."

"You think they'll search the house?"