in charity works in the same way the Knights of Columbus or the Masons do.
Although most Trekkies probably don’t even own a full uniform, like Ms. Adams wore at the Whitewater trial, she is not unique. The Trekkies video featured Dr. Denis Bourguignon and the whole staff at his Orlando dental office, who dressed as Star Trek crewmembers, and conducted the business of cleaning and fixing teeth in an environment totally dominated by the Star Trek theme. The walls were covered with Star Trek posters, starship models hung from the ceiling, and memorabilia filled the shelves on the walls. New prospective employees did not have a choice regarding whether or not to become a part of the theme—willingness to wear the Enterprise uniform was a prerequisite to employment.
The video noted that there were even serious classes at the time that one could take in order to learn to speak the fictional language of the enemies of the Enterprise, the Klingons.
Other Alternate Realities
Most Americans do not realize that this Trekkie subculture exists, even though it is inhabited by many thousands of their countrymen. And the world of the Trekkies is not the only such subculture in America that is a virtual society, within the larger society, to which most Americans are oblivious. There are likely thousands of such subcultures built on shared interests.
Families who have one or more children who are competitive dancers (tap, ballet, jazz, and more) make up another such subculture. Parents and siblings of these children are often required to build their whole schedule outside of work and school around the needs of the latest scheduled competition of the dancers in the family. The family’s finances may even be in jeopardy from the incredible expense involved in outfitting their children with costumes for their competitions, paying for travel expenses and accommodations necessary to compete on the national level, investing in years of private dance lessons, and much more. They are so immersed in the competitive dance subculture that all of their friends and acquaintances may be limited to people they meet at the practices and competitions. The world of competitive dance is their reality, their culture, their own society.
The same can be said for any number of competitive subcultures, from figure skating to gymnastics to modeling, both for adults and children. The average American never thinks about those groups of people whose primary concerns revolve around upcoming beauty pageants or Olympic tryouts. They may even assume that most people spend their time outside of work, school, and sleep the same way they and their neighbors do: watching TV, reading the latest best-seller on the NY Times booklist, hosting back-yard barbecues, going to sporting events and concerts, working on a common hobby like coin collecting or scrap-booking, and so on.
Occasionally, there are TV documentaries that give a glimpse into American subcultures such as youth beauty and talent pageants. And this may raise the consciousness of many Americans about that particular subculture. They can comprehend how some families might be driven, by aspirations for their children, to become part of such a subculture for a few years. But there is another set of American subcultures that seldom get any time in the national media. If the average American ever got a glimpse inside these cultures, they might find some of the stories as amusing and amazing as the story of the Trekkies. A closer inspection might even leave them puzzled and troubled at times.
American Spiritual Subcultures
Most of those directly involved in the Trekkie subculture realize that the whole subculture is based on fiction. They are serious about their participation, but serious because they are having fun. The occasional emotionally or mentally disturbed individual might become obsessed with the Trek world to the point where they couldn’t distinguish fiction from reality. Even so, such people are in an extreme minority.
But there is a set of subcultures, ranging in size from a few dozen people to hundreds of thousands, in which the individuals are just as devoted and intense as are Trekkies or beauty pageant moms. Yet they do not believe that their subculture is based on either fiction or short-term, temporary individual or family aspirations. The people in these subcultures are just as immersed in their unique interests as any Trekkie is in the trivia of Star Trek. Many of them spend most of their time outside work, school, and sleep involved in the activities of their subculture, to the exclusion of many of the standard interests and hobbies of most Americans. These are the spiritual subcultures within a number of modern American religious movements.
This reference is not to people in general who embrace a particular religious belief system, or belong to any of the thousands of denominational or independent church congregations in America. Whether one is a Baptist, a Catholic, a Methodist, or an independent Pentecostal, it is not unusual at all to be an active part of one’s community of faith. Nor is it unusual for one’s closest friends to be those who share similar religious beliefs. And diligent attendance at weekly worship services, Bible studies, and church social activities is a normal part of the lives of many Americans. Regular personal, individual Bible study and prayer are also a normal part of the lives of many. Thus the knowledge that their neighbors might attend a different church denomination or have a different circle of regular church friends than themselves is not puzzling or troubling to most people.
What many, if not most, Americans are not aware of are the growing number of spiritual subcultures based almost entirely on the personality and powers of persuasion of one man or one very limited group of men. Inside some of these subcultures, leaders exert an unusual level of influence over the daily lives of their supporters, to the point of almost micromanaging their lives. This can include legislating everything from what clothes to wear to what positions followers may use during sexual intimacy with their spouses.
The next chapter will explore ways in which such subcultures are created by aspiring gurus in the Brave New World of 21st Century American religious movements.
Chapter 3
A Shocking Future Arrives
If you were a man in his 30s living in a small town in 1962, and were drawn to pornography, it wouldn’t have been all that easy to feed your addiction. There would likely have been no place locally where you could find movies or live action. You would have had to travel as discreetly as possible, making excuses to friends and family, to some nearby city. And once there, you would have had to go to some really sleazy neighborhood to find a triple-X rated movie theater, a neighborhood that you would normally have been afraid to travel in after dark. If you lived near enough to a larger city, you might even have had an opportunity to go to a real burlesque house, where women performed live. But finances and time (and believable excuses) would likely have limited your opportunities to make this trek.
Another possibility would have been to answer a cryptic ad in the back of a “men’s magazine” that promised celluloid pleasures—likely, cheap 8 millimeter black and white films of amateur ladies in various states of undress, doing mundane things like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They would come in a brown paper wrapper with no return address, and you’d hope that your wife or kids (or parents, if you still lived at home) wouldn’t get to the package before you.
Maybe, if you had just the right sophisticated friend from a bigger city, you might persuade him to order an actual “dirty French movie” for you. But then you’d have to figure out how to explain to your wife why you needed to rent a 16mm projector for a poker night with the guys.
Imagine such a man time-travelling to the 21st century. If he didn’t think it was blasphemous to say so, he’d likely think he was in Paradise! The video rental shop on the corner in almost any small town will offer him a large collection of full-color videos of full-length movies, full of less-than-scantily-clad young women, doing much more than making lunch. He can play such videos on the same DVD player on which his
