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the eternal; Ben Kingsley walking through dusty streets, trailed by children, tanned and Gandhi-ed, demonstrating how class boundaries become porous though self-denial and a highly theatrical version of starvation. In the Western popular imaginary, it seems that the rigid caste system of India is erased in this swirl of evocative, romantic imagery. In the popular imaginary of the United States, where Horatio Alger ’s Ragged Dick spits on a shoe, polishes, and sees re®ections of inevitable future successes, the sovereign individual is key. The antagonism of class that I see through the edges of these aesthetic imbrications of Indian imagery—the Sanskrit transliterations, the wisdomatic guru, the snake charmer, the hues of red—is elided in favor of an individual ascension into classless spheres of reality: “Whether you are looking for simple stress relief or the key to Full Human Consciousness ,” the pamphlet continues, like Coca-Cola, “the Ishayas’ Ascension is it.” The theme of effortlessly produced empowerment is common in the group’s literature. For example, an undated newsletter reads: “Any discussion of the Ishayas’ historical tradition should begin with a reminder that the Ishayas’ teachings are centered around personal experience and empowerment only, and require no belief whatsoever. All religious traditions teach some form of inward contemplation and prayer, and the Ishayas’ Ascension—being a very powerful tool to achieve this inward movement—can exist within and even without any system of belief.” There is no expenditure of labor. There is no discernible class. Effortless enlightenment, along with that much-needed stress relief, is guaranteed. Reading these materials, I kept thinking about the tension between the individualist, consumerist language of the pamphlet’s linguistic economy and the exotic images that its graphic design cued in my own imagination. It all seemed much too American. I had to learn more. After phoning the society’s “center” and getting directions, Erika and I drove toward a destination in north Minneapolis. I was initially uncomfortable after I hung up the phone because I learned that the “center” was actually someone’s home. That it was an intimate as opposed to a public space seemed odd. I thought about the phenomenon of “love-bombing,” presumably a technique of indoctrination and brainwashing that cult groups use to collect members. This invitation to learn more about the Society for Ascension within an intimate space, I ¤gured, was deliberate. It was dark outside when we arrived, and the house in which the meeting took place was dif¤cult to ¤nd because there were no streetlights . We approached a house that seemed occupied and looked inside 28 / interlude a screened porch, where we noticed a large pile of shoes outside the front door. There was no street number, but I thought “this must be it” because of the stereotypes I had about Eastern religious practice , which involved the removal of shoes. We were going to have to remove our shoes. I didn’t like the idea because my feet get cold easily, and I was wearing thin nylon socks. Worse, Erika whispered that in the event something horrifying happened, we would not be able to run away. We entered the porch and knocked on the front door. Immediately the door opened and we were greeted by a white (as opposed to Indian ) woman who we later would learn was celebrating her thirtyninth birthday (a large arrangement of thirty-nine roses was prominently displayed on a coffee table in the living room). She smiled and was eating something. Her mouth still occupied, she said that we were welcome and in the right place. She told us her name and asked us to remove our shoes. As we did Erika and I introduced ourselves. The woman was wearing a white sweater and white cotton pants and had a number of brown, wooden-bead necklaces conspicuously hung around her neck. She continued to block the doorway but not in a threatening manner, stressing that we could not enter the home until our shoes were removed. The seeming routineness of our visit was comforting. As we entered the home, I noted a white man with long, brown hair in his mid- to late twenties putting food into Tupperware in a kitchenette just beyond the foyer. To our left was a staircase to the upper part of the house, and to our right was a living- and dining-room area crowded with couches. The room was very comforting: the carpet was white and the walls were painted with...

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