Stranger in a Strange Land

In Terran history, many cults had used the same technique — but not on a major scale in America before Foster's time. Foster was run out of town more than once before he perfected a method that permitted him to expand his capric cult. He borrowed from Freemasonry, Catholicism, the Communist Party, and Madison Avenue just as he borrowed from earlier scriptures in composing his New Revelation. He sugar-coated it all as a return to primitive Christianity. He set up an outer church which anybody could attend. Then there was a middle church, which to outward appearance was «The Church of the New Revelation,» the happy saved, who paid tithes, enjoyed all benefits of the church's ever-widening business tie-ins, and whooped it up in an endless carnival of Happiness, Happiness, Happiness! Their sins were forgiven-and very little was sinful as long as they supported their church, dealt honestly with fellow Fosterites, condemned sinners, and stayed Happy. The New Revelation did not specifically encourage lechery, but it got quite mystical in discussing sexual conduct.

The middle church supplied shock troops. Foster borrowed a trick from early-twentieth-century Wobblies; if a community tried to suppress a Fosterite movement, Fosterites converged on that town until neither jails nor cops could handle them-cops had ribs kicked in and jails were smashed.

If a prosecutor was rash enough to push an indictment, it was impossible to make it stick. Foster (after learning under fire) saw to it that prosecutions were persecution under the letter of the law; no conviction of a Fosterite qua Fosterite was ever upheld by the Supreme Court — nor, later, by the High Court.

Inside the overt church was the Inner Church — a hard core of fully dedicated who made up the priesthood, the lay leaders, all keepers of keys and makers of policy. They were «reborn,» beyond sin, certain of heaven, and sole celebrants of the inner mysteries.

Foster selected these with great care, personally until the operation got too big. He looked for men like himself and for women like his priestess-wives — dynamic, utterly convinced, stubborn, and free (or able to be freed, once guilt and insecurity were purged) of jealousy in its most human meaning — and all of them potential satyrs and nymphs, as the secret church was that Dionysian cult that America had lacked and for which there was enormous potential market.

He was most cautious — if candidates were married, it had to be both spouses. Unmarried candidates had to be sexually attractive and aggressive — and he impressed on his priests that males must equal or exceed in number the females. Nowhere was it recorded that Foster studied earlier, similar cults in America — but he knew or sensed that most such had foundered because possessive concupiscence of their priests led to jealousy. Foster never made this error; not once did he keep a woman to himself, not even those he married.

Nor was he too eager in expanding his core group; the middle church offered plenty to slake the milder needs of the masses. If a revival produced two couples capable of «Heavenly Marriage» Foster was content. If it produced none, he let the seeds grow and sent in a salted priest and priestess to nurture them.

So far as possible, he tested candidate couples himself, with a priestess. Since such a couple was already «saved» insofar as the middle church was concerned, he ran little risk — none with the woman and he always sized up the man before letting his priestess go ahead.

Before she was saved, Patricia Paiwonski was young, married, and «very happy.» She had one child, she looked up to and admired her much older husband. George Paiwonski was a generous, affectionate man with only one weakness — but one which often left him too drunk to show his affection after a long day. Patty counted herself a lucky woman — true, George occasionally got affectionate with a female client … quite affectionate if it was early in the day — and. of course, tattooing required privacy, especially with ladies. Patty was tolerant; she sometimes made a date with a male client, after George got to hitting the bottle more and more.

But there was a lack in her life, one not filled even when a grateful client gave her a snake — shipping out, he said, and couldn't keep it. She liked pets and had no snake phobia; she made a home for it in their show window and George made a beautiful four-color picture to back it: «Don't Tread on Me!» This design turned out to be popular.

She acquired more snakes and they were a comfort. But she was the daughter of an Ulsterman and a girl from Cork; the armed truce between her parents had left her with no religion.

She was already a «seeker» when Foster preached in San Pedro; she had managed to get George to go a few Sundays but he had not seen the light.

Foster brought them the light, they made their confessions together. When Foster returned six months later, the Paiwon skis were so dedicated that he gave them personal attention.