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Authors: Max Ehrlich
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the house.
The bookstore was decorated with wicker screens, Hindu paintings, cabalistic symbols, and signs of the zodiac. It sold such exotic items as handmade Tibetan incense, Black Mesa High Altitude Indian Incense, red ginseng, handmade bamboo flutes and Tibetan prayer flags, natal charts and
malas
—sandalwood prayer beads, cedar and lavender meditation pillows and pads.
What surprised Peter was the fact that the customers were not all longhair. There was a liberal sprinkling of ordinary-looking people: men in business suits, housewives and matrons, well-groomed young girls who looked like stenographers or private secretaries to establishment bosses.
He went up to one of the clerks at the main counter. She was young and fresh looking and wore Benjamin Franklin glasses. She could have been a clerk at Brentano’s.
“What can I do for you?”
He felt embarrassed. “I’m interested in something on reincarnation.”
She smiled at him. “So is everybody else. Reincarnation’s very big these days. We just can’t get enough literature on it.”
She told him to go to the rear of the shop and then turn right, where he would find three shelves on reincarnation. As he did so, he passed one of the lecture rooms. The door was partly open, and he could see that a lecture was going on. The speaker was wearing black robes and a priest’s collar. He wore a pointed goatee, his eyes were penciled so that they looked slanted, and he was totally bald. His audience listened in awe as he declaimed:
“I am a disciple of the Black Pope. The absolute head of the Church of Satan. We believe in the powers of the devil.
“You know why people have all these hang-ups today? Because they’re denying themselves the pleasures of life they deserve. They’re guilt-ridden, man, repressed. But in the Church of Satan, there is no guilt. The only sin is
not
to sin. To sin is to act natural.Virtue is bullshit. Love is a loser. The Black Pope issues encyclicals. He says man should enjoy himself now instead of waiting for his reward in heaven. The Black Church is a religion based on self-indulgence. Go on out. Eat, drink, be merry. Screw all the rules. Men, screw any girl you want, your mother, anybody. Girls, screw any man you want, including your father. Open up. Give your soul to Satan.
Live!
And don’t let anyone con you with this bullshit about Love. There has never been a great love movement in history that hasn’t wound up killing countless numbers of people to prove how much they loved them. Every hypocrite who ever walked the earth has had pockets
bulging
with love.”
The audience laughed. The speaker grinned at them. Then he saw that the door through which Peter was watching was open, and he ordered it shut.
Peter selected two books and came back to the front of the shop.
The same girl waited on him. As she checked out the books she said, “Would you be interested in a reading of your past lives?”
He stared at her. “I don’t understand …”
“You seem into the subject. I just thought you might like to see a good clairvoyant. Sometimes, if you have hangups, they can really help you clear them up.”
“I don’t know any clairvoyants,” he said.
“I do. It’s part of my job here. I know who the charlatans are. Whenever I hear that a new medium has set up practice, I go and have a reading. You see, I happen to know all about the past lives I’ve lived. And, of course, I know what’s happened in this one. I check these people out, and if they don’t read me right, then I never recommend them to the people who come into the shop. You might say I’m a kind of occult policeman. A lot of disturbed people pay out their hard-earned money to have their lives charted for them. You know, to show them what decisions they should make. We have clients come in here who are pretty close to flipping their lids. If they don’t get truthful readings, there’s no telling what theymight do. Now, if you want a good clairvoyant,
The bookstore was decorated with wicker screens, Hindu paintings, cabalistic symbols, and signs of the zodiac. It sold such exotic items as handmade Tibetan incense, Black Mesa High Altitude Indian Incense, red ginseng, handmade bamboo flutes and Tibetan prayer flags, natal charts and
malas
—sandalwood prayer beads, cedar and lavender meditation pillows and pads.
What surprised Peter was the fact that the customers were not all longhair. There was a liberal sprinkling of ordinary-looking people: men in business suits, housewives and matrons, well-groomed young girls who looked like stenographers or private secretaries to establishment bosses.
He went up to one of the clerks at the main counter. She was young and fresh looking and wore Benjamin Franklin glasses. She could have been a clerk at Brentano’s.
“What can I do for you?”
He felt embarrassed. “I’m interested in something on reincarnation.”
She smiled at him. “So is everybody else. Reincarnation’s very big these days. We just can’t get enough literature on it.”
She told him to go to the rear of the shop and then turn right, where he would find three shelves on reincarnation. As he did so, he passed one of the lecture rooms. The door was partly open, and he could see that a lecture was going on. The speaker was wearing black robes and a priest’s collar. He wore a pointed goatee, his eyes were penciled so that they looked slanted, and he was totally bald. His audience listened in awe as he declaimed:
“I am a disciple of the Black Pope. The absolute head of the Church of Satan. We believe in the powers of the devil.
“You know why people have all these hang-ups today? Because they’re denying themselves the pleasures of life they deserve. They’re guilt-ridden, man, repressed. But in the Church of Satan, there is no guilt. The only sin is
not
to sin. To sin is to act natural.Virtue is bullshit. Love is a loser. The Black Pope issues encyclicals. He says man should enjoy himself now instead of waiting for his reward in heaven. The Black Church is a religion based on self-indulgence. Go on out. Eat, drink, be merry. Screw all the rules. Men, screw any girl you want, your mother, anybody. Girls, screw any man you want, including your father. Open up. Give your soul to Satan.
Live!
And don’t let anyone con you with this bullshit about Love. There has never been a great love movement in history that hasn’t wound up killing countless numbers of people to prove how much they loved them. Every hypocrite who ever walked the earth has had pockets
bulging
with love.”
The audience laughed. The speaker grinned at them. Then he saw that the door through which Peter was watching was open, and he ordered it shut.
Peter selected two books and came back to the front of the shop.
The same girl waited on him. As she checked out the books she said, “Would you be interested in a reading of your past lives?”
He stared at her. “I don’t understand …”
“You seem into the subject. I just thought you might like to see a good clairvoyant. Sometimes, if you have hangups, they can really help you clear them up.”
“I don’t know any clairvoyants,” he said.
“I do. It’s part of my job here. I know who the charlatans are. Whenever I hear that a new medium has set up practice, I go and have a reading. You see, I happen to know all about the past lives I’ve lived. And, of course, I know what’s happened in this one. I check these people out, and if they don’t read me right, then I never recommend them to the people who come into the shop. You might say I’m a kind of occult policeman. A lot of disturbed people pay out their hard-earned money to have their lives charted for them. You know, to show them what decisions they should make. We have clients come in here who are pretty close to flipping their lids. If they don’t get truthful readings, there’s no telling what theymight do. Now, if you want a good clairvoyant,
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