The Answer To Everything Part 12

It was Christmas Eve. And far too many creatures were stirring at Elderbrook. You'd think that Seekers would have left to be with family that night. Wrong. It seems we were family.

There was abundant cooking, feasting, drinking and merry-making (Heather was baking up a storm in the kitchen) but nothing official. No meetings scheduled. And only a coterie of core faithful allowed on-site. Except for one. A special guest. Dr. Peter Scheibling-a strapping young ethn.o.botanist from Albuquerque. Raine had recruited him in his efforts to begin holding regular ayahuasca ceremonies at Phil's place. Peter wanted to check out the joint, get the lay of the land and see if it was worth the risk bringing the drugs (he called it "medicine") into Canada and administering them. Scheibling had visited Peru and Brazil many times and had studied extensively with various shamans. He claimed to know what he was doing, how to concoct and serve the brew, what kind of diet to follow in preparation, what drug interactions to look out for. He told us he used to belong to a church in Santa Cruz that used ayahuasca in its services. According to him, there were ayahuasca ceremonies being held regularly all over North America. You just had to know where to find them. He said he'd heard about a Toronto doctor who was quietly experimenting with ayahuasca as a cure for drug addiction, and that he would try to track her down to see if he could tap into her supply. He seemed friendly, bright and knowledgeable, but for a scientist, awfully airy-fairy. He had long blond hair that rippled down to his waist, a studded eyebrow and two strangely pierced ears-the stretched-out kind with gaping holes in the lobes that you could poke your finger through. And although he arrived in normal clothing, he immediately went to the guest room and changed into a kind of Moroccan dress for men (it looked like pyjamas) with a pair of Uggs and an earflap hat. Somehow, he carried it off, still looked masculine. He smelled strongly of cinnamon oil.

People were drawn to him. Maybe because Raine presented him as if he were some ill.u.s.trious dignitary who had deigned to grace us with a visit. Phil thought he was hunky (Oh my G.o.d, it's Fabio!) and got all giggly around him. Eldrich and Steve were clearly enamoured, listening raptly to his Amazonian adventure anecdotes, hanging on his every word as if he himself were a shaman. Young Coco, who seemed to know him fairly well, was inordinately playful and flirty, plucking his hat from his head and trying it on, offering to braid his hair, fingering his leather bracelet (all of this driving Eldrich quietly mad, which was fun to observe).

After dinner, Peter held court before the fireplace in the formal living room. I stuck around for a while, but when Peter, Eldrich and Steve went off to do "research" (i.e., mushrooms) and Phil went to bed, I headed back to my bubble. I was one of the chosen few invited to partic.i.p.ate, but I wasn't in the mood. Amy was at her parents' place for the evening, so I had a chance to get some work done before she got home. And I was on an interesting part. The audio. I had completed the major casting and most of the detail finishes on MAMA. Now I just had to add the door on the womb and the giant eyeb.a.l.l.s, which my friend Jocelyn was making out of gla.s.s (remaking, actually; I wasn't happy with the first pair). It was a ton of fun mixing and fiddling with the sounds I'd recorded and downloaded. Catelyn had graciously provided the sweet murmurings of MAMA. She wasn't a big girl, but she had a lovely low voice. Very mellifluous. I just needed to blend the right amount of reverbed heartbeat and womb whoosh, and then figure out optimal repet.i.tion interludes. So that's what I was playing with until about 11:30 or so, when I decided to brave the cold and go nab some of the treats Heather and Staci had been baking all evening.

The house was strangely peaceful, the kitchen empty and lovely-illuminated only by stove light, the throaty whir of the dishwasher churning, the aroma of lemon loaf and b.u.t.ter tarts cooling on the counter. It was cozy and Christmasy, and it made me feel oddly happy. But where was everyone?

I poked my head into the den and saw Tyson and Wayne playing a silent, brooding game of chess in front of the fire. In the bas.e.m.e.nt theatre, a handful of Seekers were watching It's a Wonderful Life-Alexa, Mindy, Anne-Marie and her son, Moina and Perry, holding hands, weeping. No sign of the mushroom trio, though. They must have holed up in one of the bedrooms. I opted not to seek them out, grabbed some baked goods and, feeling strangely elated, headed back to my bubble. As I was sprinting across the lawn I heard something-something besides the icy gra.s.s crunching under my sneakers. A familiar sound. A familiar Amy sound.

It was coming from the pool.

As I moved toward it, the sound grew more intense and then disappeared.

The pool lights were off, and all I could see was a thick ma.s.s of steam rising from the balmy water. It looked sinister, like a great boiling witches' brew in some h.e.l.lish cauldron. It was only when I was right at the pool's edge that I spotted them. She was clinging to him in the shallow end. Her arms around his neck, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips. They weren't moving.

I wish I had said something snappy, but a tsunami of epinephrine was slos.h.i.+ng over my brain, short-circuiting the synapses. "What the f.u.c.k!"

"Oh!" said Amy, releasing, pus.h.i.+ng away.

Since then, so many rejoinders, but at the time ... nada.

"Johnny!" said Raine, with a big stupid smile on his face. "Come on in, the water's fine!" He stood and opened his personally-trained arms wide, gesturing for me to join them.

I winged a b.u.t.ter tart at his head. It hit hard and exploded off his left temple.

"Hey!" screamed Amy.

I fired another one that thudded against his chest.

"Not cool!" shouted Raine. But I didn't respond, I was out of there.

Soon after, they showed up at the bubble, all earnest and mature and soft-spoken, determined to talk me down, trying to tell me that they were just practising the Inst.i.tute's touch therapy, and that what had happened between them in the pool was nothing more than an innocent and G.o.dly interaction, and how could I be so possessive and ridiculous and angry?

I was pretty composed by then (after smoking a j and swallowing a ma.s.sive quant.i.ty of whiskey); the river wasn't calm, but it had frozen over. I listened quietly with a mild-mannered smile on my face. I sipped the prosecco they had brought along. I nodded and nodded in apparent understanding.

"Look, man," said Raine, slapping my knee. "I know you and Amy are together! Everyone knows that. And I have a lady friend back in New York!"

Nod. Sip.

"Amy and I were just connecting in the Lord's love. Nothing smarmy about that. That's a beautiful thing to do, right? That's why I invited you to join us!"

Sip. Nod.

"You should have," said Amy.

"Seriously man, would I have invited you to join us if we were tryin' to hide somethin'? I mean, think about it."

I considered. I nodded. "OK," I said.

They were pretty convincing, actually. Maybe Raine wasn't such a s.h.i.+tty actor after all. I may have even believed them if I hadn't heard that sound. That familiar Amy sound.

It was the sound she makes when you fill her with c.u.m.

"So we're good?" said Raine, squeezing my knee and rising.

"Yeah, we're good."

"All right," he said. "I'll see you guys in the morning. Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas," said Amy with a little wave.

But we didn't see him in the morning. I'm happy to report that I never saw the large-headed, thick-thighed dips.h.i.+t again. Because he left Elderbrook that very night. He left soon after returning to the house and discovering that young Coco was not sleeping peacefully in the guest room like she was supposed to be. No. According to Amy, Raine found darling Coco in Eldrich and Steve's room, starkers with her mouth full of Peter Scheibling's b.a.l.l.s and her legs spread wide as Eldrich attempted to cram his colossal s.c.h.l.o.n.g into her teeny tween t.w.a.t (while Steve-o knelt behind him, tonguing his master's glory hole and jerking himself off).

It seems the mushroom trio had gone cuckoo for Coco puffs.

My absolute fave part was that degenerate-Eldrich and his pervy crew reportedly gave Raine the same spiritual-connection spiel that he and Amy had laid on me in the bubble.

When I heard that, I remember thinking: Maybe there is a G.o.d. And maybe Eldrich is right about his magnificent sense of humour.

Eldrich

Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.

Emotions flare. Emotions obscure.

Raine's last visit with us was at Christmas. John moved back to Hawton Boulevard in January. But neither of them ever denounced the Inst.i.tute. Not once. Not ever.

Whoever suggests such a thing is a liar.

Amy

So ... Eldrich, soaring on psilocybin and suffering a horrendous lapse of judgment, tried (and thankfully failed) to have unprotected intercourse with Raine's fourteen-year-old daughter. Unfortunately, Mushroom Steve and Peter Scheibling were in on it too. A group thing. Not at all unusual for the Inst.i.tute at that point, except for the underage-minor portion of the equation. Was the girl s.e.xually compromised? Yes, of course. Three adult males took her to bed-though not against her will at least. Coco admitted that she'd sought out the men and initiated the escapade. But who knows how far she meant it to go. Did she leave the Inst.i.tute as a virgin? Yes, a.s.suming she arrived as one. There was nudity and oral, but no actual penetration.

Thank heaven for small mercies and huge c.o.c.ks.

Raine, who stumbled upon them in flagrante delicto, was, I thought, incredibly reasonable about the whole thing. Of course, he took his kid and split right away-we didn't even have a chance to say goodbye-and he immediately severed official ties to the Inst.i.tute (he texted from the airport, asking me to remove his endors.e.m.e.nt and photo from the website, which I had Wayne do right after breakfast), but he didn't press charges and he never spoke out about what had happened. Even after everything went horribly wrong, when reporters were all over Raine, digging for dirt, clamouring to know why he had dissociated himself from the Inst.i.tute (no more tweets/visits), he remained astonis.h.i.+ngly tight-lipped and restrained, stating that while he felt that the Inst.i.tute had done a lot of fine work, and that Eldrich had a good heart and a lot of positive views on how to live a life rich in G.o.d, he couldn't get behind all of the Inst.i.tute's philosophies and so had decided to pursue his own spiritual path.

Amazing.

You know, John loves to slag Raine, but not only did the man not rat us out (and capitalize on an opportunity for endless publicity), he was also incredibly supportive and gracious when we needed him to be. I mean, we're already in legal h.e.l.l; the last thing we need is a statutory rape indictment on top of everything else. I think we should be very grateful for Raine's loyalty and wisdom. Unlike your typical person, he was able to see past his own emotional response. He was able to detach from a.s.sumptions and try to really understand what had happened. He knew that one slip-up of judgment didn't define Eldrich or the Inst.i.tute. Give the man some respect.

Anyway ... as everyone already knows, things went sideways after Christmas. John dumped me and pretty much took off as soon as his sculpture was finished. He would stop by to pick up his paycheque and cozy up to Phil. That was about it. He didn't do any work. Raine was out of the picture, of course. And I really missed his energy and the excitement he generated on his visits. Peter Scheibling had settled in and, together with Steve, was planning the big ayahuasca ceremony. The first thing he did was go through the kitchen and get rid of anything that tasted remotely good. He put us on the most bland and punis.h.i.+ng diet for weeks. No sugar, salt, oils, pork, fat, spices, bananas or apples. No alcohol. Nothing processed, smoked or pickled. Nothing fermented or canned. And worst of all, no caffeine! I spent the first two days in bed with the world's worst migraine and boils sprouting on my neck. Seriously, I had pus-oozing withdrawal pimples. It was hideous. And that was followed by three weeks of mashed lentils and herbal tea. I lost nine pounds. He also banned s.e.x and masturbation, which made the men all testosteroney and hostile. Plus the weather was unrelentingly awful. Freezing cold and tons of snow. I felt trapped and depleted. It was the first truly joyless period of the Inst.i.tute. Everything had gone dark, and things seemed to be getting worse and worse all the time.

I should have guessed something bad was coming.

As for the night of the ceremony ... I'm not supposed to talk about it.

And I don't want to talk about it.

Griffin.

Holy Oliver Sacks, Batman! Drew Woollings has awakened! He focused his peepers. He spoke semi-coherently. He attempted a feeble squeeze of the damp mitt of Mama Bear, who managed, in her excitement, to unwedge herself from a hospital armchair (I usually had to hoist her out, and was thinking of installing a winch).

Guess what did it? A sleeping pill. Yes, that's right, a drug designed to induce somnolence. A little tab of zolpidem, otherwise known as Ambien-a pharmaceutical so mysterious and daffy not only does it sometimes cause sleep-walking, sleep-driving, sleep-bingeing and sleep-f.u.c.king, it can also rouse patients who have been in a persistent vegetative state for years. This was discovered by accident and relatively recently, so there haven't been a lot of clinical trials, but anecdotally it works in about 10 percent of patients. And it worked on our boy Drew! I was there when it first happened. A nurse administered the drug. Half an hour later, Drew's cheeks flushed with colour and he began making mumbly-grumbly sounds. The doctor was summoned. Soon after, Drew turned his head, looked at Doreen, who was already hyperventilating, and said, "Mommy?" She fountained into tears and lunged at her boy. A flurry of I love yous and I love you toos and kissy-kissy and Am I in hospital? and Are you in pain? and then all of it interrupted by the neurologist and his questions, so my only interaction was a sheepish wave when Doreen exclaimed, "Your best friend is here!" Drew was understandably confused. Mama chalked it up to the coma and I was off the hook. An hour later, Drew slipped back into unconsciousness, but the doctor a.s.sured Doreen that he would come around each time he took the drug, and that the neural pathways, thus stimulated, may well begin to heal.

Doreen would likely get her son back.

And I would likely get my story.

I took her to the Ikea cafeteria to celebrate.

PART III..

T.O. MAGAZINE-July/August.

Questioning the Answer Inst.i.tute.

They came from across Canada and the US, seeking spiritual guidance and fulfillment. What they found was a New Age sect that took their money, fed them hallucinogens and, for a core group of devotees, cost them their lives.

AN EXCLUSIVE INSIDER'S TALE OF s.e.x, DRUGS AND AN ACT OF G.o.d IN ONE OF TORONTO'S TONIEST NEIGHBOURHOODS by Griffin Hill.

IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A CHURCH.

In fact, 81 Elderbrook Avenue is a private residence in Toronto's exclusive Bridle Path neighbourhood. The home was purchased in 2010 by Chen Xi Quan-also known as "Phil"-a Singaporean expat from one of that country's most powerful and affluent families. Between November 2011 and February 2013, Quan allowed his home to serve as headquarters for the Answer Inst.i.tute-a New Age, quasi-religious organization that promised "enlightenment, healing and truth" to its followers. Today, the luxurious house sits empty, cordoned off by police tape, pending a criminal investigation into the deaths of nine Inst.i.tute members-including Quan-and a legal battle contesting owners.h.i.+p of the property.

Davinder and Bebe Dhaliwal have lived across the street from 81 Elderbrook for more than two decades. Like most houses in the neighbourhood, theirs is set well back from the street and s.h.i.+elded by trees and shrubbery. The Dhaliwals, both retired, are private people who have never kept tabs on their neighbours. Still, about a year ago, they started to notice a lot of cars parked up and down Elderbrook every weekend. "We a.s.sumed they were young people having parties," Davinder told me. "Sometimes we'd hear music or drumming, but it never went late and we were never disturbed, so we didn't pay much attention." It wasn't until the Dhaliwals were awakened by police and ambulance sirens in the early-morning hours of February 2 that they realized something more sinister might be going on across the street. And when they learned there had been ritualistic drug ceremonies and orgies taking place so close to their home, they were shocked. "We had no idea," Bebe says. "If we knew what was going on over there, we would have moved."

The figure at the centre of the Answer Inst.i.tute, its spiritual leader, is Eldrich Becker, a self-described "metaphysician." He is tall and lanky, with shoulder-length brown hair, intense green eyes and a wide smile. He sports a three-day growth of facial hair, a loosefitting white s.h.i.+rt, linen pants and worn-out Birkenstock sandals. There is something vaguely Christ-like about his appearance-the kind of modernized depiction you might find on a religious souvenir in a dollar store. His slow, soft way of speaking adds to the Jesus effect. He looks considerably younger than his thirty-four years. I meet with Becker at his modest, one-bedroom rental apartment in a high-rise at Yonge and St. Clair. He greets me at the door with an unexpected hug, and an offer of tea and toast.

Becker, an only child, grew up in Toronto's west end, near Lansdowne and Bloor. His father, Mark, was a master plumber who left his wife and infant son, returning to his native Detroit ten months after Becker was born. His mother, Lynette, a devout Anglican who played the pipe organ at her local church, raised her son on her own. Eldrich was a bright boy, an early reader who always had his nose in a book, but he didn't do well in school. He was easily distracted and had trouble focusing. The older he got, the less meaningful the standard curriculum felt to him. When he was fourteen, Becker dropped out of junior high, left home and began busking on the streets of the Annex for change. "I felt happy to be free of the brick building and out into the real school," he recalls. "It didn't bother me that I was homeless or eating out of Dumpsters half the time. Just the opposite. I felt ecstatic. I was playing music, reading a lot, learning a lot, meeting great people, sharing ideas ... I'm lucky because I found the right way to live early on. And I've been living that way ever since." Becker smiles radiantly. His apartment is alive and green with dozens of house-plants. There are musical instruments of all kinds scattered about, and numerous books shelved in old Sealtest milk crates. There are volumes of poetry and philosophy-Keats, Kierkegaard, Plato, Thomas More. Another crate holds the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Bhagavad Gita; The Essential Talmud, and Augustine's Confessions. There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves by James Kavanaugh lies open on the arm of Becker's fraying wicker peac.o.c.k chair. He seems more like a genuine bohemian than the president of a corporation that held seminars, solicited donations and sold T-s.h.i.+rts, souvenir photos and DVDs to the tune of close to two million dollars in its first fiscal year. He explains that his role in the Inst.i.tute was to "explore truer ways of being and share G.o.d's love with Seekers" (the official name given by the Inst.i.tute to its followers). Administration, finances and all business matters, he says, were handled entirely by the other princ.i.p.al players at the head of the Inst.i.tute: John Aarons and Amy McCullough-a young couple who lived across the hall from Becker. (Aarons and McCullough are no longer romantically involved. Both declined to be interviewed by T.O. Magazine.) Aarons, a twenty-nine-year-old art school dropout, befriended Becker and quickly became interested in his philosophical and spiritual views. He introduced Becker to McCullough, who was studying psychology at York University.

Becker tells me that, for several months, he acted as a kind of mentor to Aarons, who was undergoing a spiritual awakening. "He was a man divided," says Becker. "Hungry for G.o.d, but angry, confused ... deeply wounded by what happened to his mom and dad." Aarons's parents, David and Voskie, died in 2003 while vacationing in Cabo San Lucas. The couple went swimming at Neblina Beach-a spot known for its dangerous riptides-and were pulled out to sea by a powerful current. At the time, reporters speculated the pair may well have been aware of the widely acknowledged risks of entering the water at Neblina Beach. Just a few weeks prior to leaving for Mexico, the couple learned they were among the dozens of victims whose life savings had been squandered by Paul Hagopian, a former mutual fund salesman at IGC Financial, and long-time family friend. (Hagopian, who had gambling and cocaine addictions, eventually pleaded guilty to thirty-three counts of fraud and served six years in prison.) Becker tells me John Aarons was haunted by his parents' death but was able to find solace through Becker and his teachings. "He was in the dark, and I helped guide him toward the light," says Becker. "I guess he wanted to share that experience with others."

Aarons set up a website and started postering the city to tell people about Becker's ideas. "I wasn't sure I was equipped to help a lot of people find truth," Becker admits. "But I thought John's impulse was generous and beautiful." Aarons's "generous and beautiful" impulse eventually netted the struggling artist and his girlfriend handsome salaries and powerful owners.h.i.+p positions in the burgeoning Inst.i.tute (McCullough soon quit school to work there full time). Becker, who is listed as president of the Answer Inst.i.tute, Inc., maintains it was McCullough who set up the corporation in the first place, and that she and Aarons ran the day-to-day operations. He tells me he is not and never was a "guru," and has no time for money, power or material gain. Instead, his only interests are "music and truth."

Eldrich pours me a fresh cup of blueberry tea and offers organic honey. He asks me about my life, leaning forward, staring deeply into my eyes, as if my response is of great importance to him. It's not difficult to see how one could become captivated by this man.

DREW WOOLLINGS WAS ONE OF THE MANY SEEKERS who became enthralled with Eldrich Becker. It was in the summer of 2012 that he first gained awareness of the Answer Inst.i.tute. At the time, the twenty-seven-year-old Woollings was working as a temp, recruiting blood donors for Canadian Blood Services, and living in a rundown rooming house at Jarvis and Gerrard. He felt depressed and lonely. Purposeless. He was craving connection and guidance. That's when he noticed the posters the Answer Inst.i.tute had pasted to the h.o.a.rdings and lampposts along Jarvis Street. The posters included inspirational messages that seemed to speak to him, messages that beckoned with promises of spiritual illumination, healing and community. He decided to get in touch.

Today, Woollings lies in a hospital bed, with second- and third-degree burns covering 40 percent of his body. He spent more than a month in a coma and is now struggling to overcome the physiological, cognitive and emotional effects of the injuries he sustained at 81 Elderbrook on February 1, 2013. He is lucky to be alive. Nine of his fellow Seekers died that night.

Woollings, who was eventually employed by the Inst.i.tute and became one of about a dozen insiders, recalls his first contact with Becker and the organization. "I went to the website they advertised on the posters. There was this kind of poem there about finding the true you and finding the true answers to your problems. And there was a place where you could comment and share stuff about your life. So I did." Woollings wrote about his frustrations with work and home, about feeling aimless and isolated. Within twenty-four hours, Becker wrote back, offering words of consolation, understanding and encouragement. Woollings felt Becker truly grasped his plight. A correspondence ensued. Before long, he was invited to attend a gathering-ostensibly the Inst.i.tute's first-at Becker's apartment. "They had it out on the roof patio. It was more of a meet-and-greet than an actual meeting," Woollings recalls. "We just kind of said h.e.l.lo and chatted. I guess there were about thirty people there ... John and Amy ... Phil, Tyson, Wayne, Anne-Marie, Marina, Catelyn ... Mindy and Alexa ..." His voice trails off; all the people he mentioned-with the exception of organizers John Aarons and Amy McCullough-are now deceased. Woollings tells me he experienced an instant connection and rapport with Becker. "There was this incredible warmth coming off him. You could see the light in his eyes. And you could see he was a humble person who had really communed with G.o.d. He told me that G.o.d was going to liberate me and set me on the path to joyfulness. And he was right."

Woollings began attending weekly gatherings in Becker's apartment, which at the time consisted mainly of Becker discussing random spiritual concepts with Seekers. There was no charge for these meetings, but donations were solicited. Woollings estimates that somewhere between forty and a hundred followers attended each meeting, and that each individual donated at least twenty dollars, and often a great deal more. He says that it was a badge of honour among followers to donate every spare penny to the cause. In addition to cash, many Seekers brought Becker gifts of food, clothing, books and household goods.

One of the Inst.i.tute's original members, and its largest financial backer, was Phil (Quan). It is difficult to determine precisely how much money Quan contributed to the Inst.i.tute, but the organization's website shows that he donated at least seventy-five thousand dollars to its building fund, which was set up to raise money to purchase a permanent headquarters. When Quan was diagnosed with stomach cancer and grew too weak to attend meetings at the Yonge and St. Clair apartment, Becker moved the gatherings to Quan's home at 81 Elderbrook to accommodate his benefactor. Becker had followers partic.i.p.ate in a series of "group healing and prayer sessions" for Quan, and it is Woollings's belief that these sessions were successful. Even though the rapidly declining Quan ultimately required a total gastrectomy, which he opted to have at the world renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (a procedure that was successful-Quan was in remission from cancer when he died), Woollings a.s.sures me that it was the Inst.i.tute's healing sessions that gave him the strength to travel to New York City to do so.

It was in New York that the fortunes of the Inst.i.tute changed dramatically. That's where Becker, while visiting Quan in hospital, met the man who would become the Inst.i.tute's first and most famous celebrity member-Xavier Raine Maddox. For seven seasons, Maddox played a detective on ABC's popular police procedural Chicago Blues, but he is perhaps best known as the star of the cult sci-fi series Deep Sky. He has legions of avid fans. A recent check on Twitter reveals Maddox has in excess of 1.6 million followers. When Maddox started tweeting to his fans about Becker and the Inst.i.tute, urging them to follow Becker (who was also tweeting), things changed at 81 Elderbrook. "Suddenly there were a lot of people interested," says Woollings. "A lot more people were coming to the meetings, and a lot were just showing up all the time." The Inst.i.tute started holding multiple weekend "seminars" and charging hefty admission fees. And that's when Aarons and McCullough took Woollings aside and offered him an administrative a.s.sistant position at the rapidly growing Inst.i.tute. He would receive room and board at 81 Elderbrook, and a modest salary (twelve thousand dollars per year), and he would be allowed to attend all meetings and seminars for free. Woollings was thrilled to be able to say goodbye to his temp job at the call centre and join the inner circle at the Inst.i.tute. He wanted to be as close to Becker as possible, and accepted the position immediately. Woollings's duties included making regular shopping trips for groceries and supplies, picking up mail at Becker's and at Aarons and McCullough's apartments (all of them were living at Elderbrook at that point), and helping McCullough prepare, package and send out Inst.i.tute merchandise sold through the organization's website.

Other Seekers had been similarly hired on to a.s.sist with fundraising, crowd control, cleaning and food preparation. Woollings tells me that in addition to Quan, Becker, Aarons and McCullough, at least seven Seekers were living full time at 81 Elderbrook, and many transient Seekers would often spend a night or two at the home. There were people sleeping in guest rooms, the bas.e.m.e.nt, the pool house, even the covered tennis court in the backyard. But the best guest bedroom was always kept empty and ready in case Maddox decided to show up-typically about once a month. Woollings tells me that when Maddox visited-usually alone, but sometimes with his teenage daughter or a colleague in tow-he was treated like royalty. There would be extravagant dinners with champagne and expensive whiskey flowing, private one-on-one sessions with Becker (often involving drugs-typically, psilocybin, cannabis or peyote), and specially arranged "therapeutic touch" sessions with one or more female Seekers, chosen by Maddox. (Maddox, who officially broke off ties with the Inst.i.tute in January of this year, declined to be interviewed by T.O. Magazine. He did, however, issue the following statement: "While I have not been involved with the Answer Inst.i.tute for some time now, I am, of course, deeply saddened to hear of the tragic events that occurred there. I send my condolences to the friends and family of those who were injured or lost their lives. I truly believe that Eldrich Becker and Amy McCullough had their members' best interests at heart, and I wish them the best possible outcome to this unfortunate accident.") Interestingly, Maddox's statement doesn't mention John Aarons, one of the three princ.i.p.als in the Inst.i.tute. I asked Woollings if he had an opinion on why that may be. He told me there was no love lost between Aarons and Maddox (who Aarons often referred to as the "dwarf star"-Maddox is five foot six). Days after Maddox broke off ties with the Inst.i.tute, John Aarons did the same. Woollings believes both the Maddox and Aarons defections may have had to do with a love triangle involving McCullough. He says that on the night Maddox left the Inst.i.tute for the last time, he witnessed an emotional exchange between the two men after Aarons found Maddox and McCullough engaging in a "touch" session in the outdoor swimming pool. (Woollings had been asleep in the pool house but was awakened by the altercation that ensued-one that Woollings says ended with Aarons storming away in tears.) The following morning, Maddox was gone. Woollings's fellow Seeker Wayne-who was responsible for updating the Inst.i.tute's website-reportedly told him that McCullough had him remove Maddox's endors.e.m.e.nt from the splash page that very morning. (Maddox had donated twenty-five thousand dollars to the Inst.i.tute's building fund, and had been featured on the website, encouraging others to contribute.) All traces of Maddox were erased from the website by noon that day. He never returned to the Inst.i.tute.

"THERAPEUTIC TOUCH" SESSIONS-Inst.i.tute-speak for s.e.x between Seekers-were a prescribed and integral part of life at 81 Elderbrook. Unlike many cults and religions, the Inst.i.tute didn't really have a codified doctrine; there were no particular laws-dietary or otherwise-no rules on behaviour, no Creation story. A review of Becker's tweets and his teachings on DVD reveal a hodgepodge of cryptic New Age, Buddhist and Christian beliefs. But Becker did have strong ideas about touch and affection. He told his followers that touch was physically and emotionally healing, and that s.e.xual ecstasy would bring humans closer to the divine. Often Becker's seminars consisted of entirely wordless, two-hour sessions in which he simply fondled a succession of Seekers while everyone else looked on. Group s.e.x and orgies were commonplace and encouraged, sometimes involving as many as twenty-seven Seekers-Becker had a mystical predilection for the number nine and advised followers to have touch sessions with that number of partic.i.p.ants, or with factors or multiples of nine. Becker told followers they would experience physical healing and higher religious states by partic.i.p.ating in these rites. Woollings contends that the touch sessions cured him of chronic neck and back pain. He tells me that many Seekers believed themselves to be healed of persistent ailments as a direct result of engaging in these Inst.i.tute-sanctioned orgies.

Drugs were also an important part of life at the Inst.i.tute. In particular, psilocybin, which was heralded by Becker as a powerful entheogen-"our gateway to G.o.d" is what he called it. He regularly fed magic mushrooms to Seekers as a kind of holy sacrament during Inst.i.tute ceremonies and rituals. But it was another drug that eventually captured Becker's attention, the one that was used on the night nine Seekers died: ayahuasca-"vine of the soul." Ayahuasca is a psychoactive botanical tea made with Banisteriopsis caapi, a vine found in the jungles of South and Central America. The vine is commonly mixed with Psychotria viridis (also known as chacruna) or Diplopterys cabrerana-tropical botanicals that contain psychoactive tryptamines, including N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a compound that becomes active when mixed with Banisteriopsis caapi. For centuries, the powerfully hallucinogenic ayahuasca brew has been used in the Amazon region for medicinal and religious purposes. Woollings told me that Xavier Raine Maddox had travelled to Peru to take ayahuasca. When Becker learned of Maddox's transformative experiences with the drug, he became intent on bringing ayahuasca to the Inst.i.tute. Maddox introduced Becker to Dr. Peter Scheibling-an American botanist who had spent years studying with various shamans in the Amazon region. Scheibling had been a member of a small New Age congregation in Santa Cruz, The Seeing Church (now defunct), that used ayahuasca during its Sunday services. He knew where to source ingredients and how to prepare and serve the tea.

Scheibling was invited to the Inst.i.tute at Christmas to meet with Becker and make arrangements for a ceremony at 81 Elderbrook. When Scheibling saw that Quan's property backed onto the ravine of Wilket Creek, he was pleased. It was the perfect spot to hold the ritual. He suggested the date of the new moon in June (the 8th) for the first ayahuasca ceremony-when it would be warm enough to spend three or four hours outdoors. But Becker was adamant about not waiting until spring. He felt it was important for the digits of the day, month and year to add up to nine. That left only four, rather imminent, options if they were to proceed within the next twelve months: January 2 (2013/01/02), January 11 (2013/01/11), January 20 (2013/01/20) or February 1 (2013/02/01). Becker settled on the first day of February, a Friday. When I met with him at his apartment, Becker told me that he hadn't chosen that date, G.o.d had.

As it turned out, February 1 was an unusually temperate day in Toronto. At three degrees Celsius, it was a full six degrees warmer than normal for that time of year. In addition to Scheibling, Becker and McCullough, the following Inst.i.tute insiders had been selected to attend the first ayahuasca ceremony: Chen Xi Quan; Drew Woollings; Mindy Markovitz; Alexa Hjorngaard; Heather Mitch.e.l.l; Wayne Samotowka, Tyson Griggs; Catelyn Campbell; Marina Dwyer, Anne-Marie Zielinski and her son, Richard Zielinski; Steven Reimer; Perry La Farge and Moina Quinn. La Farge and Quinn, who met at the notorious Rochdale College in 1971 and made an NFB doc.u.mentary about their time there, had planned on partic.i.p.ating but ultimately opted out. I spoke with Quinn, who told me that La Farge (who is sixty-three) suffers from atrial fibrillation. He experienced a prolonged attack of AFib in the very early hours of February 1 and wasn't sure if he should risk taking ayahuasca (a stimulant) that evening. When Quinn woke up later that morning with a runny nose and a sore throat, it settled the matter. The couple would stay put. "This [the ceremony] was something Eldrich [Becker] wanted to do on a regular basis," Quinn said. "We figured there would be many opportunities to try it [ayahuasca] in the future. We didn't think it would be a big deal if we stayed home that night." Quinn pauses, then adds, "Little did we know ..."

DREW WOOLLINGS'S MEMORY OF FEBRUARY 1 is disjointed and tinged with fresh grief. He lost loved ones that night, including the two women he likes to call his "brides": Mindy Markovitz and Alexa Hjorngaard. Markovitz and Hjorngaard lived with Woollings in the pool house and were his regular partners in touch sessions. Woollings speaks slowly and haltingly from his hospital bed as he tries to sort out the details of what happened on the night of the ceremony. "We went out just before dark ... I guess around 5:30 or so. It was snowing a bit, but nothing major. I remember everyone was really hungry because all we had had was soup that day. But Peter [Scheibling] said we'd be very glad, and everyone was kind of laughing about that." Ayahuasca is known to be a strong purgative. Those who ingest the brew will often experience violent bouts of vomiting or diarrhea. Scheibling had put partic.i.p.ants on a strict diet to prepare for the event. He also erected a ceremonial tent under a large, mature oak tree at the edge of the ravine in Quan's backyard. "First, he [Scheibling] blessed the tent with this special flower water that he sprinkled around, and then he cleansed it with tobacco smoke. Then we all took our spots and he blessed each of us with the water and the smoke. Oh, and he had music on ... I can't remember what he called it, some chanting music with a foreign name [icaros are the traditional songs sung by shamans during ayahuasca rituals]. And then he gave us the cups to drink." Woollings closes his eyes and takes a few breaths before continuing. "I remember the first thing was just feeling really sick to my stomach, and then throwing up-we had these buckets to throw up in. And then I started to see, like, these weird kaleidoscopes of colour." Woollings tells me that's when he lost track of time. For at least the next couple of hours, he was entirely focused on the images appearing in his mind, and almost completely unaware of his fellow Seekers and what was going on around him. "I could hear things, I guess ... laughing ... people being sick ... but my eyes were closed and I was just really concentrating on the stuff I could see and what it was trying to teach me. It was like ..." He pauses, trying to find the correct words. "I don't know ... It wasn't like mushrooms, where you're interacting with people, or where real things just look kind of weird or exaggerated. This was, like, way more powerful. I literally saw and became part of a whole new realm. One that's always there, below the surface, but I didn't know was there ..."

Woollings can't say for sure how long he was in this state. He tells me that when the drug's effect started to wane, he opened his eyes and had a startling realization. "We were in the middle of this crazy storm and I didn't even know it. The wind was nuts, and the snow was thick and wet and swirling ... it was like a whiteout." Woollings saw a peculiar sight then, coming through the snow. It was Becker, outside the tent, completely covered in mud. "He was shouting at us," said Woollings. "Something about all of us having to plant ourselves in the earth ..." Woollings pauses. "He said that the earth wanted to share its power, and G.o.d wanted us to become part of it, to absorb it. He told us to follow him." Woollings and some others left the tent, trailing Becker into the heavily treed area just behind it. "I saw Mindy, Alexa, Tyson, Richard ... I can't remember if Wayne came. Anyway, he [Becker] said he'd felt the earth's power and that we needed to feel it too. He told us to bury ourselves in the earth-so we could connect to the consciousness of all plants and living things, so we could receive the earth's energy. He told us to dig deep."

Woollings and the others started clawing in the wet, muddy soil, trying to emulate the trench that Becker had already made for himself. Woollings estimates that he dug in the ground for about ten minutes before lying down and covering his own body-including most of his face-with mud, dead leaves and snow. "I was really cold at first. And Tyson kept yelling, 'The Lord G.o.d formed the man from the soil of the ground.' But then he stopped and I forced myself to lie very still, and after a while I totally understood what he [Becker] was saying. I know what he wanted to give us ... what he did give us. It was a gift. I felt it. The vitality of the earth and all living things were flowing through me. I was connected to all of it ... and I could feel myself getting stronger. I never felt stronger in my whole life." Woollings smiles. "That power kept me here. It made me strong enough to survive."

THERE IS A RARE AND LITTLE-KNOWN WEATHER EVENT that occurs perhaps once or twice each year in Canada (on average, according to meteorologist Randy Maxwell). It requires specific elements coming together to make it happen, elements that are common in summer but extremely unusual in winter, even in the Great Lakes region, where it's most likely to occur. Thundersnow. Essentially, it's a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain-an electrical blizzard. It's the kind of weather system that can wreak havoc with its tropical-storm-force winds, ice pellets, heavy dumps of rapidly falling snow and unexpected electrical strikes. The mix of components required for thundersnow are extremely uncommon, so uncommon in fact that Maxwell estimates that fewer than 0.01 percent of snowstorms are concurrent with thunder. But on February 1, 2013, all the unlikely conditions necessary for this rare weather phenomenon came together in Toronto. It began with a low-pressure system that swept in from the Prairies, picking up speed and power on its way. When this trough of air arrived in Toronto, it surged skyward at thirty-five to forty-five kilometres per hour. The updraft met the city's unseasonably warm atmosphere (three degrees Celsius) and caused a powerful lift of warm, moist air. The combination of warm air hitting cooler temperatures higher up resulted in the freak weather system that slammed Toronto with heavy snowfall and gusts of up to ninety-kilometre-per-hour winds that felled trees and hydro lines and left twenty-seven thousand residences without power. But it was the storm's lightning that caused the most serious harm-three separate house fires in the city's north end, and the death of nine individuals who, under the circ.u.mstances, had gathered in one of the worst places possible: around the base of a giant oak tree.

BEWARE OF AN OAK, it draws the stroke. Like many old proverbs, this happens to be true. Oaks are more likely to attract lightning than other trees because of their high water content and deep central root, which make them more conductive and better grounded. Of course, n.o.body at the Inst.i.tute was expecting thunder and lightning in the middle of winter. Certainly, n.o.body was expecting three hundred kilovolts of electricity to literally explode the tree under which they had set up their ceremonial tent. "There was this boom," said Woollings. "The loudest sound I ever heard ... then pain-like my whole body was on fire-and everything went white." What Woollings heard was the nearby oak being been split from crown to root as the water content in the tree boiled. Those who had remained in the tent, directly under the tree's branches, were killed instantly. Those who had followed Becker into the woods to dig in the soil received the somewhat less lethal current that pa.s.sed down through the tree and radiated outward along the wet ground-still volatile enough to cause severe burns or cardiopulmonary arrest. In fact, Woollings-who dug the farthest from the source-was the only survivor of those who remained near the ceremonial site (Becker left the scene; McCullough and Mitch.e.l.l sought shelter at various points during the storm). When I interviewed Eldrich Becker in his apartment, he told me that G.o.d had summoned him away from the area. "It wasn't a verbal command," he explained. "It was a pull ... like there was a magnet in my belly and I was being drawn by force along a specific path through the woods." While Becker's disciples followed his directive to bury themselves in the earth, he meandered off through the ravine, eventually making his way to the Sunnybrook Stables in Wilket Creek Park, where he was discovered early the following morning, asleep in the stall of a chestnut gelding named Billy.