Stranger in a Strange Land

were invariably reported to have been the happiest people on Earth. We can never be sure why they were happy, but we can be utterly certain that any unhappiness they did suffer was not caused by sexual jealousy. They borrowed and lent spouses, both ways, both for convenience and purely for fun-and it did not make them unhappy.
                "One is tempted to ask: Who's looney? Mike and the Eskimos? Or the rest of us? We can't judge by the fact that you and I have no stomach for such group sports-our canalized tastes are irrelevant. But take a look at this glum world around you-then tell me this: Did Mike's disciples seem happier, or unhappier, than other people?"
                "I talked to only about a third of them, Jubal ... but-yes, they're happy. So happy they seem slap-happy to me. I don't trust it. There's some catch in it."
                "Mmm ... maybe you yourself were the catch in it."
                "How?"
                "I was thinking that it was regrettable that your tastes have grown canalized so young. There it was, raining soup-and you were caught without a spoon. Even three days of what you were offered-urged on you!-would have been something to treasure when you reach my age. And you, you young idiot, let jealousy chase you away! Believe me, at your age I would have gone Eskimo in a big way, thankful that I had been given a free pass instead of having to attend church and study Martian to qualify. I'm so vicariously vexed that my only consolation is the sour one that I know you will live to regret it. Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective . . . and the saddest perspective of all is to see far, far behind you, the temptations you've passed up. I have such regrets myself but all of them are as nothing to the whopper of a regret I am happily certain you will suffer."
                "Oh, for Pete's sake, quit rubbing it in!"
                "Heavens, man!-or are you a mouse? I'm not rubbing it in, I am trying to goad you into the obvious. Why are you sitting here moaning to an old man?-.-when you should be heading for the Nest like a homing pigeon? Before the cops raid the joint! Hell, if I were even twenty years younger, I'd join Mike's church myself."
                "Let up on me, Jubal. What do you really think of Mike's church?"
                "You told me it wasn't a church-just a discipline."
                "Well ... yes and no, It is supposed to be based on the 'Truth' with a capital "T" as Mike got it from the Martian 'Old Ones.'"
                "The 'Old Ones,' eli? To me, they're still hogwash."
                "Mike certainly believes in them."
                "Ben, I once knew a manufacturer who believed that he ~0nsulted the ghost of Alexander Hamilton on all his business decisions. All that proves is that he believed it. However-Damn it, why must I always be the Devil's advocate?"
                "What's biting you now?"
                "Ben, the foulest sinner of all is the hypocrite who makes a racket of religion. But we must give the Devil his due. Mike does believe in those 'Old Ones' and he is not pulling a racket. He's teaching the truth as he sees it even though he has seen fit to borrow from other religions to illustrate his meaning. That 'All Mother' rite -- little as I like it, he seems merely to have been illustrating the versatility of the Female Principle, regardless of name and form. Fair enough. As for his 'Old Ones,' of course I don't know that they don't exist-I simply find hard to swallow the idea that any planet is ruled by a hierarchy of ghosts. As for his Thou-art-God creed, to me it is neither more nor less credible than any other. Come Judgment Day, if they hold it, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along.
                "All the names are still in the hat, Ben. Self-aware man is so built that he cannot believe in his own extinction . . and this automatically leads to endless invention of religions. While this involuntary conviction of immortality by no means proves immortality to be a fact, the questions generated by this conviction are overwhelmingly important . . . whether we can answer them or not, or prove what answers we suspect. The nature of life, how the ego hooks into the physical body, the problem of the ego itself and why each ego seems to be the centeT of