As much as I want my parents to just let go of the whole Johnny situation, I know it’s never going to happen. Perhaps for my mother, it is a kind of obsession or addiction that she will take with her to the grave. And for my father, even if he wants to let go and give up, his love for her won’t allow him to free himself.

And so, on the 11-hr. flight home, I kept brainstorming how else to potentially solve this lifelong problem. The real question is: how do you make a selfish and entitled person care about his parents? How and why is it that this stranger, this religious Master has successfully captured his attention and his loyalty? I dunno: it’s some weird dynamic of charisma, power, and perhaps Johnny’s desire to belong to something bigger. Ultimately, what is it that we want J to become? It seems so ridiculous to me to say we just want him to be an adult. I mean, this is life: not everyone out there is mature. Just look at all those Trump crazies and other political/religious fanatics.

Many months ago, my friend K sent me an article. I think it was featured in Esquire or something, and it was about the multi-level marketing (MLM aka pyramid scheme) businesses, like AdvoCare, Amway, Mary Kay, Herbalife, NuSkin, etc. I mean, I have used some of those products and enjoyed them. I don’t know for sure that they all qualify as MLM models, but the point of the article was basically about how the organization mentally pressured its sales people to recruit salespeople to go beneath them (and they get a cut of those agents’ sales). Part of the indoctrination was that the product was amazing (which is possible), but more important than that, there was intense messaging about contributing to the organization while growing your wealth and growing the salesforce. When the journalist examined the figures though, very very few people actually earned a real living off their work. Meanwhile, the company preyed on its own people, pressuring them to pay for more and more trainings and marketing packages to help them achieve “success.” The pressure is so strong that people turn to their families to show “support” by buying expensive products they don’t necessarily need. Reading the article reminded me precisely of my brother’s situation. All my cousins say he is always pressuring them to join, even if some of them are already part of their own organized form of religion. Anyway, the article really highlights the deceptive, mental manipulation that really happens from the very top down. Now I’m thinking to email Johnny the article just to see what happens.

Then again, John and I were talking about all the problems my parents have had with my brother over his lifetime. He was an excellent student but he was suspended in high school for cussing out a teacher. In film school, he entered a crazy thug stint landing him in jail in LA for a few days. Maybe my parents’ paranoia is founded: maybe if he were absolutely abandoned and left to his own devices, he would become a gangster or thug. I suppose with him, anything could really happen.

In that sense then, is this religious fanaticism and insane loyalty to the Master so bad? He’ll just forever be a trust fund baby with no sincere appreciation or concern for his parents.

This Master sounds pretty damn sketchy to me. I heard through the grapevine that he himself left his wife for one of his disciples. I mean, we’ve all heard scary shit about cults like Children of God and David Koresh’s Waco cult where all kinds of egregious things are done to innocent, malleable children… I don’t even want to know how old the Master’s new wife is. I feel sick even thinking about it.

So now I don’t really know what to do. On one hand, my brother used to be a champion debater in school. Would reading a thorough and well-written article like this make him see things in a different way? Would it make him question the cult he’s in? On the other hand, if his religion is keeping him out of the bars and off the streets and giving him something to do with people of shared interests, is there any harm other than the monetary consequences and constant harassment towards family to join?

All of this makes me think of my father’s younger brother for whom the family paid decades and decades of debt due to his failed business ventures and chronic overspending. My uncle is now a monk. He tries to convert his family every chance he gets, but everyone just ignores his requests. The last two or three times I went back, I didn’t seen him. He lives at a compound way up in the mountains. But it’s a simple place, not ridic ornate or swanky or anything. At least now he isn’t running around anymore with the sketchy thug crowd, gambling and getting the family into debt. Perhaps my brother is following this similar path and that’s just the best we can get.