The Curious Case VII

D

Let’s look at this curious case historically. Let’s look at three factors that helped form Corky’s life and teachings.

There is, naturally, the influence of a New Age spirituality. Its self-help prescriptions (“You too can have the wealth of the wealthy, the fame of the famous”), crystals (“What looked like a very large crystal came out of the floor and I looked into it and I saw all the things that were going to happen”), dependence on quantum theory (“Quantum physicists are now faced with the conclusion that ‘reality’ is a product of consciousness.” From SUMMUM), esotericism (“Sealed, Except to the Open Mind”), and practice of indiscriminately drawing on many of the world’s religions (“Recorded history is replete with masters, Adam, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed having been taught by the angelic beings”)—all these found fertile ground in Corky’s brain.

There’s also his education: construction, business, and (perhaps) philosophy, not to mention his stint as a non-pragmatic salesman. These just might have perfectly meshed with the demands of those perfect extraterrestrials.

Consider also the religion of his post-adolescence. From his mission work for the LDS, Corky would have learned how to bring in the sheaves—and learned well, if his attainment of a high place in the missionary hierarchy tells us anything. Of course, he found the abstemious Mormon life unsuited to his own juices, though he seems to have used his missionary training to his own end. Like Joseph Smith, he had dates with angels. Like Smith, too, he translated—if that’s the word—a holy book from a preexisting text. Like the Mormons, he called his sanctuary a temple, which, not by chance, he and his fellow enthusiasts built in the shadow of the Salt Lake Temple. And like them, he gave the head of his “church” the title of President.