“Hi Spencer, it’s Bruce. Meet me tomorrow night at 6:45. Corner of Canal and Broadway. Have a great day.” That was the voice mail I got the next morning. On the edge of Chinatown, on that hot night, the humid air was heavy with the smell of baking garbage. The old Mudd Club was nearby, a joint where the doorman’s decision to admit was a referendum on your hipness. I batted about .333 there (and the same at Studio 54). “I hope this isn’t going to be weird,” I said to Bruce, oblivious to the irony that this couldn’t be any weirder. He told me I would have to take off my shoes at the door. I was wearing fluorescent rainbow tube socks and wondered aloud that I would look “nuts.” He smirked. I had no precedent for something like this except for playing secret agent man when I was seven. Yet here I was being led—virtually blindfolded—by a virtual stranger to an undisclosed location in a smelly part of town to an “experiment” with a secret, possibly sketchy, group.
We stopped in front of a wholesale fabric store on the ground floor of a two-story loft building on Broadway and Franklin—one of those places that sells ornamental scarves and pink plaid chiffon by the yard—its moon gates down for the night. An ancient school related to Shakespeare above a schmatte store? We got into a moldy antique elevator. It had a creaky metal gate that closed behind us and was operated by a crank. A crank. It took about two minutes to make it to the second floor. We emerged into a rectangular loft with a wood floor, bare white walls, and high ceilings. Milling about were about five dozen people about my age, half of them women.
There were about sixty or so white stackable metal chairs—the kind that tend to squeak loudly when someone shifts their weight–– arranged on top of sturdy unpainted wooden bleachers. At the front of the room sat two empty black director chairs, each with a small cherrywood side table upon which were placed vases of cut flowers. The room smelled of fresh paint, clean and anonymous, and coffee brewing in the urns sat on a counter in the back. The tan curtains were drawn. The place seemed generic, not at all weird. I was glad there was nobody in black robes chanting, but by the same token, I was almost disappointed. It didn’t look like an underground movement or a secret society that could trace its lineage to the designers of Chartres as alleged by Bruce. Just a lot of white people. Professional. Comfortable. Nice looking. But there was nothing particularly notable about any of them. They looked, I realized, a lot like me.
After a few minutes, a woman who looked to be in her late thirties, with long dark hair and a warm smile, entered the room and approached us. Bruce introduced me to Hazel Ford, who was the owner of a successful Manhattan brokerage firm. Her voice was firm and friendly, and she had a nervous tic of blowing her hair off her face. Her lips were chapped. She wore a fragrance that immediately reminded me of the head shop I used to go to when I was fourteen to buy posters and incense. She also reminded me of my hippie older cousins.
“I’m so happy for you that you are here, Spencer. I hope this is a rich and wonderful experience for you and I think it will be,” she beamed as she shook my hand. Her warmth and candor, her vibe, was like Heather’s.
“Thank you, Hazel,” I said, “I hope it is.”
And then something notable happened—unexpected but welcome. Hazel moved her face closer to me and lowered her voice, as if to confide something, “You know, Spencer, many of us have found our soul mates here. I hope that for you too.”
A man with a large frame and big smile approached us; Hazel switched gears, “Spencer, please meet Simon. He’ll be holding an orientation for the new students who are starting their experiment tonight.” I was ushered into a small room with a dozen other newbies. I bid farewell to Bruce. (I didn’t hear from Bruce again by phone, although we continued to see each other at the North River.)
Simon asked us to sit on the floor in a circle and introduce ourselves. Simon was well over six feet, with what seemed like a slight hunchback; he favored corduroys and cardigans with patches (even in July) and was a successful, brilliant painter by profession. His voice was deep and soothing, like a pilot on a transatlantic flight, confident and reassuring. “Welcome to your experiment, I’m so happy for you to be here. I hope you find this meaningful and special.” Before we went into class, Simon ran through some guidelines and rules intended, he assured us, to enhance our experiment and to help us practice the principles of the Work. These same rules, we were told, have applied to all esoteric schools throughout the ages. They were for our benefit—to help us evolve.
He continued, in his composed manner, “The first and most important rule is invisibility. Esoteric schools are hidden and invisible by their nature. For the knowledge to be protected, it must remain invisible. You should not discuss the ideas or knowledge outside of class with anyone. You should not even talk about the existence of School with anyone. It would be a ‘leak’—it drains your energy, an idea you will learn about later in your month’s experiment. Invisibility is for your own benefit. And it is also essential for the protection of School and for everyone who attends. A leak can destroy School, can make it disappear, and once it’s gone it is gone. So, if anyone asks where you are going on class nights you can tell them that it’s private and say no more.” This was all fine by me: I didn’t want to have to explain anything to anyone about this experiment. I preferred to have a secret.
“There is a rule against fraternizing with other students outside of class,” Simon said. “No phone numbers are to be exchanged. There is an hour of silence to maintain immediately after class ends––use it to reflect on class and let the knowledge sink in. Also, when you leave here after class, you are to go your separate ways––do not share cabs or take the train together. It goes without saying that you cannot meet with each other outside of class. If you coincidentally bump into each other on the street or subway or anywhere, just look the other way and carry on. Say hello in your heart. It’s very important for you and for School to maintain invisibility. This is how you will create ‘Essence Friendships.’ ‘Essence’ is the deepest part of a being and friendships connected by Essence are like no others—they are profound, interconnected, and the dearest relations one can have. They are distinguished from ‘life’ friendships. Essence friendships are based entirely on helping others achieve their ‘Aims’ of consciousness, whereas ‘life’ friendships tend to be superficial and based upon enabling each other’s weaknesses.” I couldn’t square this with what Hazel had just confided with me about soul mates or the special bond Heather and Bruce seemed to have.
Classes started at seven, and Simon told us we had to arrive ten minutes early. He said we needed to “leave our days at the door.” Each class would begin with twenty minutes of “body work”––light movement exercises designed to help “loosen your body.” On alternate nights we would learn and practice the tai chi movements. Classes were to last until midnight, although sometimes they could run later.
He added there was to be no drug use, as it was “detrimental to evolution.” This wasn’t applicable to me because I no longer smoked pot or did drugs.
The rules sounded random, but the explanations were reasonable. When some of us questioned Simon, he suggested we not take the rules on faith but verify whether they helped us and “our inner development.” Fair enough. He also emphasized that membership in School was voluntary and that we weren’t obligated to stay. (It didn’t occur to me that it was anything but voluntary until he made this peculiar remark.)
Orientation was over and we went into the main room where class had already begun. At the head of the room were the teachers, Fred and Priscilla. They were in their late thirties to early forties.
Fred Mindel had thick white hair and wore gold-rimmed glasses. He had a large frame and a booming, nasal voice that made him sound like an opera singer with a cold. His appearance reminded me of Tom Snyder, the talk show host from the 1970s and 1980s. A former civil rights attorney in California, he changed professions and became a chiropractor and kinesiologist. He had a nervous tic that caused him to blink and stammer. To add to the odd spectacle was the sight of Hazel scuttling about the room, tripping over herself to refill their coffee mugs, restock their plates of finger foods, and clear away abandoned crumpled napkins. I couldn’t follow the discussion, and no effort was made to integrate the newcomers into the conversation (indeed nobody acknowledged us when we entered the room). We were basically lost as they discussed Peter Ouspensky’s The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution, a series of lectures fundamental to George Gurdjieff’s system.
After about an hour, I’d had enough of Fred and my uncomfortable squeaky chair. I couldn’t follow the inscrutable discussion and there was nothing remotely interesting about this. I couldn’t understand what in the world Heather and Bruce thought was so sublime and magical about these teachers. But just as I stood to leave, Fred fell silent, stopping the class. “Oh, Spencer, you have to leave early?” Embarrassed that he’d noticed me and knew my name, I replied, “Yes, I have somewhere to go.” He asked my “impressions” of the class. I politely lied that it was “deep.” He nodded and then asked, “So you like the Stones?” He was reacting to the fact that I was carrying my bass guitar gig bag because I had a rehearsal later that night. I told him I did. He appeared to have no further questions. I turned and left, not inclined to return.