Stranger than Fiction

Grokking Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land

The basic premise of Robert A. Heinlein’s sci-fi classic Stranger in a Strange Land is as follows: a group of Earth scientists journey to Mars and are stranded there. Some years later a rescue ship arrives, but by now the crew have all died, leaving only a single survivor, a child born out of wedlock, whose parents died in sordid circumstances, and who was raised by the Martians. This “Man from Mars,” Michael Valentine Smith, is returned to Earth and introduced to his own people. The Martians, a people as far from humanity in their ways as a whale is from a house fly, have their own agenda in permitting this: they intend to use their cuckoo child (through a telepathic link with him) to discover more about this strange race humanity. They are contemplating, at their leisure (Martians live a long time), whether to destroy Earth as a runaway aberration or to re-educate it into Martian (Cosmic) ways. To this end (though Heinlein never states this), Valentine becomes an unwitting agent for the transmission of ancient Martian wisdom to humanity.

The above premise is secondary, however, being but the means for Heinlein to set up his tale, and wholly instrumental to his actual intent. Stranger in a Strange Land is Heinlein’s attempt to write a spiritual-philosophic treatise on Western society and, what is infinitely more ambitious, to proscribe a viable solution to it. If Dostoyevsky had written a sci-fi novel, the results might have been something like this. Stranger in a Strange Land defies the odds and succeeds on every level. It is superb science fiction, a wonderful melodrama rich with characters, and above all, a genuinely subversive, wholly radical blueprint for social reform. It uses psychology, philosophy, religion, and esoterica to assemble a fantastic but equally plausible “reevaluation of all values,” a recipe for the redemption of an otherwise irredeemable species. Nietzsche would have been proud.

It’s hard to gauge just how profound an effect Stranger in a Strange Land has had on Western society (it’s still early yet). It came out in 1961, and was swiftly embraced by the emerging counterculture, so becoming a best seller. The word “grok” entered into the youth’s vernacular (however briefly), and doubtless many aspiring humans-who-would-be-Martians begun to greet one another with the knowing catch phrases, “Thou art God,” “Share water, “ “Never thirst,” and so forth. It’s easy to see why. Stranger in a Strange Land is the most fully convincing Utopian vision, in literature or in any medium, that I know of. It encapsulates the more progressive and creative aspects of cultural “revolution,” and celebrates what were soon to become (again, however briefly) the most treasured tenets of the sixties rebellion: mind expansion, individual responsibility, and free love.

It’s also easy to see how that dark shadow of the counterculture, Charles Manson, might have embraced the book and incorporated its “teachings” into his own “Family” agenda. Although Valentine is a Messiah with a message of peace and understanding, he is not averse to a little “murder” when circumstances call for it. His “spiritualism” (actually a wholly pr agmatic discipline, one that only assumes the guise of a Church because humans are so hooked on forms of worship) is a kind of polymorphous perversity that demands the “growing closer,” through sexual intimacy, of all its members. (The closest real world equivalent would be the Children of God cult in the US, made infamous by its most famous member, actor River Phoenix.) It is pagan to the roots, and as such, as far from the orthodox idea of “worship” as Mars is from Earth.

Michael Valentine Smith—as much as his human mentor Jubal Harshaw, though less through experience than ingenuity—perceives all human morals as arbitrary, hence harmful to the spirit, as restrictions on free thought and action. From the Martian perspective, “All that groks is God: there is no other.” As such, there can be no restriction as to whom we choose to love, or have sex with, provided that it result in a “growing closer.” On the other hand, there can be no “moral” objection to murder (or anything else), provided likewise it be necessary for the growing closer of the collective. Any individual souls that are presently manifesting a “wrongness”—ego-maniacal, fear-dominated beings whose actions and thoughts are a negation of “goodness,” and who refuse to grok that they are God—need to be removed, “discorporated.”

“They were discorporated and sent back to the foot of the line,” Mike says casually. “It is impossible to kill a man… [My destroying them is] much like a referee removing a player for ‘unnecessary roughness.’

When Jubal asks Mike is he isn’t afraid of playing God, Mike replies cheerfully,

“I am God. Thou art God. And any jerk I remove is God, too.”

All of this, at a social level, is license for anarchy of the purest kind. And yet, as Valentine assembles his sensual (not social) Utopia, an underlying and overriding morality begins to emerge, a code of conduct that has nothing to do with externally imposed laws, and everything to do with an inner sense of “rightness,” a grokking. By teaching his disciples Martian—i.e., a new means of cognition—Valentine introduces them to an alternate mode of behavior, to new options, and to their untapped superhuman potential. This potential, once tapped, demands a correspondingly superhuman responsibility. Hence “morality,” or rightness, is built into the process of empowerment and dis-inhibition that Valentine’s “Nest” enjoys.

Once Valentine’s disciples begin to think in Martian instead of Earth language, they are increasingly incapable of entertaining, much less acting upon, certain concepts basic to Earth culture, concepts which are the cause of all misery, suffering, ignorance and evil upon this planet. For example, Martians do not grok “God,” as we do; there is no way for Martians to understand the idea of an external God, a ruling principle or creator that can be separated from the creation itself. It takes Valentine, likewise, some time to grok both “lies” (Martians cannot “lie,” as they are all linked up at a telepathic level) and “love,” the latter (presumably) because, for Martians, everything consists of love, of togetherness (and being telepathic, they would have little sense of ego, or of a self to protect or defend).

During his sermons, Valentine resorts to an old joke, the one about the earthworm burrowing through the soil who encounters another earthworm and says, “Oh, you’re beautiful. Will you marry me?” The other worm answers, “Don’t be silly! I’m your other end!” Mike teaches that, “The universe is a thing we whipped up among us and agreed to forget the gag,” and that “when a cat stalks a sparrow both of them are God, carrying out God’s thoughts.”

As Valentines’ Nest, or Church, advances, individually and collectively, in its mastery of Martian thought and thereby of its dormant psychic potential (besides telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation are perks of this discipline), the members begin to transform, not just physically but emotionally and psychologically, into impeccable warriors. They are kind, considerate, loving, gracious, honest, responsible, efficient, fearless, humble, joyous, and wholly ruthless (dedicated) beings, united by a common purpose, that of growing closer, or collective grokking. Naturally and inevitably, not just anyone can grok such a program, much less join it. And so, equally inevitably, Valentine’s Church of All Worlds inspires the rage and hostility of an uncomprehending world, and finds itself at odds with society.

Humanity has no possible recourse, when confronted with such ancient wisdom and seemingly infinite powers as those of Martian intelligence, save to succumb. One way or another, society must be absorbed and assimilated into the superior Martian Weltanschauung, and thereby destroyed in the process. But humanity is not the kind of species to roll over gracefully and accept its obsolescence lying down. The more brightly Valentine and his Nest’s “goodness” shines, and the further its truth extends into the world, the fiercer this world’s resistance becomes, the darker its darkness, and the more stubborn and willful its persistence in “wrongness.” And yet, for all of that, Valentine is human, not Martian.

This is why Jubal Harshaw is so essential to Valentine’s development. Jubal Harshaw is the wise and worldly “hermit” with his very own stronghold, indulged and serviced (not sexually!) by several strong, good-humored, and beautiful females. Jubal stays inside his refuge, writes his stories, and keeps the world at arm’s length, both figuratively and literally. He does not “subscribe” to the consensus, but he knows well enough its workings, and he begrudgingly agrees to respect them. He has grokked the wrongness of the world, and salvaged what little goodness he can from it. This goodness he surrounds himself with. Yet Jubal is also a warrior in retreat; he has taken refuge in world-weariness, in a kind of enlightened cynicism, and in the right to be a cranky, craggy old man. When he finally succumbs to the “inevitable” and joins Mike’s Nest, his Church of Sensual Delights, he is forced to shed his skin (as the hermit), and open up once more to the possibility of living, loving, and sharing, in the fullness.

Jubal is the proof positive to Mike that ancient Martian concepts are compatible with human thought, and human existence, even if only a tiny handful will ever develop their faculties (and personalities) sufficiently to accommodate them. Above all, what Valentine (and through him, the “Old Ones” of Mars) discover of inestimable value among humankind are two things: the joy of male-femaleness, of sensual pleasure for more than merely procreation, of separateness that allows for growing closer (“I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union,” as Crowley’s Book of the Law had it, an acknowledged influence on Valentine). As Mike describes it,

“Male-femaleness is the greatest gift we have—romantic physical love may be unique to this planet. If it is, the universe is a poorer place than it could be.… and I grok dimly that we-who-are-God will save this precious invention and spread it. The joining of bodies with merging of souls in shared ecstasy, giving, receiving, delighting in each other—well, there’s nothing on Mars to touch it, and it’s the source, I grok in fullness, of all that makes this planet so rich and wonderful. . . That’s what sexual union should be. But that’s what I slowly grokked it rarely was. Instead it was indifference and acts mechanical performed and rape and seduction as a game no better than roulette but less honest and prostitution and celibacy by choice and by no choice and fear and guilt and hatred and violence and children brought up to think that sex was ‘bad’ and ‘shameful’ and ‘animal’ and something to be hidden and always distrusted. This lovely, perfect thing, male-femaleness, turned upside down and inside out and made horrible. . . . When I first learned what this ecstasy was, my first thought was that I wanted to share it at once with all my water brothers—directly with those female, indirectly by inviting more sharing with those male. The notion of trying to keep this never-failing fountain to myself would have horrified me, had I thought of it. But I was incapable of thinking of it. And in perfect corollary I had no slightest wish to attempt this miracle with anyone I did not already cherish and trust… I am physically unable to even attempt love with a female who has not shared water with me. And this runs through all the Nest. Psychic impotence—unless spirit blends as flesh blends.”

The second factor Valentine finds unique to humans is the gift of laughter. It takes Mike a long time to learn to laugh, and when he finally does, it is through watching chimps picking on each other at the zoo, and seeing the horrible, endless cycle of cruelty that characterizes the “higher” animals on this planet. Mike groks that laughter is a necessary survival mechanism among humans, and all that keeps us from going insane or succumbing to despair. Since humanity is the only animal that can imagine and thus become aware of its predicament and able to change it, to lament it and wish it were different (and to know despair when it isn’t), it has had to develop laughter as a tonic. As long as we are human, then, we will always need to laugh at ourselves and our predicament. The more human (i.e., the more true to our natures) we become, the more we must laugh.

One major conceptual flaw in the book (there are plenty of structural ones, but I won’t go into them) is that Valentine’s disciples are described as smiling much, but laughing rarely. I presume that Heinlein believes that, since humor is needed to offset despair, the more adjusted the Nest becomes, the less will be its need for laughter. If so, he is palpably in error. No matter how advanced, how reconciled to the world and to themselves the Nest becomes, the world will remain as terrible and absurd a place as ever. Martian-minded humans would only become more aware of it, through their growing lucidity. In which case, the need (and opportunity) for laughter would only increase, along with their awareness. Until eventually, one supposes, even Martians would be able to get the joke.

*

It is our fear that estranges us, and what we most fear is to be strange.

In Stranger in a Strange Land, Jill is the goodness and fullness of the female. She is Mike’s confederate and accomplice from the start, from the moment she gives him water, unaware that by doing so she is becoming his “water brother” and forging a bond that will carry her into unimagined new worlds of wonder, into Infinity. Jill’s some time lover, Ben, is the everyman of the story, the tough, no-nonsense journalist beloved of har d-boiled fiction. Ben very nearly passes up his chance for a place in Paradise out of an all-too-human fear of “strangeness,” out of jealousy, suspicion, and a fear of being inadequate (this latter is a trait also shared by Jubal). But Ben finally groks, with Jubal’s help, that whatever society has turned him into is nothing that he has any attachments to, nor any debt of allegiance for. And so Ben too sheds his skin, finally, and evolves into a whole new kind of serpent.

Michael Valentine Smith evolves from a mere “egg,” an unfathomably innocent, ingenuous naïf, into a worldly and masterful leader of men (and, especially, women). He becomes a self-appointed Messiah who makes the ultimate sacrifice, and gives his life and blood to uphold and propagate his vision, that of collective grokking. Does Mike have to die? It seems an almost obligatory ending for the book, keeping to the traditions of a (postmodern) Messiah tale, but Heinlein manages to make it work. Though Jubal himself (who is Heinlein’s surrogate) at first believes that Mike’s death was just another useless act of martyrdom, he also appears to come around to it in the end. We are never explained why he does, but there are at least two reasons I can think of.

One, Mike dies in order to move to the next level, to graduate to Archangelic status, and so continue his program of cosmic reformation from “on high,” if you will, where perhaps his talents are rather more in proportion with his peers. Two, Mike dies in order to set his Nest free, to help them come of age.

Mike’s death helps the Nest to avoid the pitfalls of personality worship, and discourages in them the folly of bodily identification. Mike has already shown his Nest that they are all exactly like him, that he is only the One until they catch up with him, and can keep him company in Oneness (as God). Whereupon they can together take the game to the next level. For all who grok become God. Valentine is only needed to help the Nest along with their grokking, to accelerate the process. Should he continue to intervene in their lives beyond the need for intervention, his influence would become a hindrance, rather than a catalyst. Mike is nothing if not a catalyst; hence, his death is the final catalytic act. By it, he shows the world both its own and his, Mike’s, true colors. He shows them God, and they in turn show, in themselves, all that cannot ever grok God, and so is compelled to destroy all traces of it, of the grokking. Starting, of course, with Valentine.

Mike’s voluntary death can be seen as an act of salvation and damnation simultaneously. He both challenges the world and invites it to grok the fullness. If it is to save itself, it must make the choice independently of any coercion from without.

“Look at me,” he says. “I am a Son of Man.” For his answer, he receives a brick.

But the grasshopper groks that it is God, and that is enough for Mike. Grok it or not, thou art God!

In Stranger in a Strange Land, the world (collective humanity) damns itself, as it always must. But those who have grokked  the fullness are empowered and set free by this final act of sacrifice by which the world is damned. For now there is no world to take refuge in; and so there remains only one path left open to us: the path of fullness, the path of grokking. The path of God.

Valentine brings to his Nest the concept and option of belonging. Man belongs to the Universe, he teaches, and as such, it is his to grok: God and all that this entails. Yet what could be more strange, in the land of ego, of separation and estrangement of each soul from every other, than the idea of selfless surrender to the All? Truth is strangest. And hardest of all to grok, is the Truth that thou art God.

©Jake Horsley, Aug 2003