The Answer to Everything (21 page)

Aarons set up a website and started postering the city to tell people about Becker’s ideas. “I wasn’t sure I was equipped to help a lot of people find truth,” Becker admits. “But I thought John’s impulse was generous and beautiful.” Aarons’s “generous and beautiful” impulse eventually netted the struggling artist and his girlfriend handsome salaries and powerful ownership positions in the burgeoning Institute (McCullough soon quit school to work there full time). Becker, who is listed as president of the Answer Institute, Inc., maintains it was McCullough who set up the corporation in the first place, and that she and Aarons ran the day-to-day operations. He tells me he is not and never was a “guru,” and has no time for money, power or material gain. Instead, his only interests are “music and truth.”

Eldrich pours me a fresh cup of blueberry tea and offers organic honey. He asks me about my life, leaning forward, staring deeply into my eyes, as if my response is of great importance to him. It’s not difficult to see how one could become captivated by this man.

DREW WOOLLINGS WAS ONE OF THE MANY SEEKERS who became enthralled with Eldrich Becker. It was in the summer of 2012 that he first gained awareness of the Answer Institute. At the time, the twenty-seven-year-old Woollings was working as a temp, recruiting blood donors for Canadian Blood Services, and living in a rundown rooming house at Jarvis and Gerrard. He felt depressed and lonely. Purposeless. He was craving connection and guidance. That’s when he noticed the posters the Answer Institute had pasted to the hoardings and lampposts along Jarvis Street. The posters included inspirational messages that seemed to speak to him, messages
that beckoned with promises of spiritual illumination, healing and community. He decided to get in touch.

Today, Woollings lies in a hospital bed, with second- and third-degree burns covering 40 percent of his body. He spent more than a month in a coma and is now struggling to overcome the physiological, cognitive and emotional effects of the injuries he sustained at 81 Elderbrook on February 1, 2013. He is lucky to be alive. Nine of his fellow Seekers died that night.

Woollings, who was eventually employed by the Institute and became one of about a dozen insiders, recalls his first contact with Becker and the organization. “I went to the website they advertised on the posters. There was this kind of poem there about finding the true you and finding the true answers to your problems. And there was a place where you could comment and share stuff about your life. So I did.” Woollings wrote about his frustrations with work and home, about feeling aimless and isolated. Within twenty-four hours, Becker wrote back, offering words of consolation, understanding and encouragement. Woollings felt Becker truly grasped his plight. A correspondence ensued. Before long, he was invited to attend a gathering—ostensibly the Institute’s first—at Becker’s apartment. “They had it out on the roof patio. It was more of a meet-and-greet than an actual meeting,” Woollings recalls. “We just kind of said hello and chatted. I guess there were about thirty people there … John and Amy … Phil, Tyson, Wayne, Anne-Marie, Marina, Catelyn … Mindy and Alexa …” His voice trails off; all the people he mentioned—with the exception of organizers John Aarons and Amy McCullough—are now deceased. Woollings tells me he experienced an instant connection and rapport with Becker. “There was this incredible warmth coming off him. You
could see the light in his eyes. And you could see he was a humble person who had really communed with God. He told me that God was going to liberate me and set me on the path to joyfulness. And he was right.”

Woollings began attending weekly gatherings in Becker’s apartment, which at the time consisted mainly of Becker discussing random spiritual concepts with Seekers. There was no charge for these meetings, but donations were solicited. Woollings estimates that somewhere between forty and a hundred followers attended each meeting, and that each individual donated at least twenty dollars, and often a great deal more. He says that it was a badge of honour among followers to donate every spare penny to the cause. In addition to cash, many Seekers brought Becker gifts of food, clothing, books and household goods.

One of the Institute’s original members, and its largest financial backer, was Phil (Quan). It is difficult to determine precisely how much money Quan contributed to the Institute, but the organization’s website shows that he donated at least seventy-five thousand dollars to its building fund, which was set up to raise money to purchase a permanent headquarters. When Quan was diagnosed with stomach cancer and grew too weak to attend meetings at the Yonge and St. Clair apartment, Becker moved the gatherings to Quan’s home at 81 Elderbrook to accommodate his benefactor. Becker had followers participate in a series of “group healing and prayer sessions” for Quan, and it is Woollings’s belief that these sessions were successful. Even though the rapidly declining Quan ultimately required a total gastrectomy, which he opted to have at the world renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (a procedure that was successful—Quan was in remission from cancer
when he died), Woollings assures me that it was the Institute’s healing sessions that gave him the strength to travel to New York City to do so.

It was in New York that the fortunes of the Institute changed dramatically. That’s where Becker, while visiting Quan in hospital, met the man who would become the Institute’s first and most famous celebrity member—Xavier Raine Maddox. For seven seasons, Maddox played a detective on ABC’s popular police procedural
Chicago Blues
, but he is perhaps best known as the star of the cult sci-fi series
Deep Sky
. He has legions of avid fans. A recent check on Twitter reveals Maddox has in excess of 1.6 million followers. When Maddox started tweeting to his fans about Becker and the Institute, urging them to follow Becker (who was also tweeting), things changed at 81 Elderbrook. “Suddenly there were a lot of people interested,” says Woollings. “A lot more people were coming to the meetings, and a lot were just showing up all the time.” The Institute started holding multiple weekend “seminars” and charging hefty admission fees. And that’s when Aarons and McCullough took Woollings aside and offered him an administrative assistant position at the rapidly growing Institute. He would receive room and board at 81 Elderbrook, and a modest salary (twelve thousand dollars per year), and he would be allowed to attend all meetings and seminars for free. Woollings was thrilled to be able to say goodbye to his temp job at the call centre and join the inner circle at the Institute. He wanted to be as close to Becker as possible, and accepted the position immediately. Woollings’s duties included making regular shopping trips for groceries and supplies, picking up mail at Becker’s and at Aarons and McCullough’s apartments (all of them were living at Elderbrook at that point), and
helping McCullough prepare, package and send out Institute merchandise sold through the organization’s website.

Other Seekers had been similarly hired on to assist with fundraising, crowd control, cleaning and food preparation. Woollings tells me that in addition to Quan, Becker, Aarons and McCullough, at least seven Seekers were living full time at 81 Elderbrook, and many transient Seekers would often spend a night or two at the home. There were people sleeping in guest rooms, the basement, the pool house, even the covered tennis court in the backyard. But the best guest bedroom was always kept empty and ready in case Maddox decided to show up—typically about once a month. Woollings tells me that when Maddox visited—usually alone, but sometimes with his teenage daughter or a colleague in tow—he was treated like royalty. There would be extravagant dinners with champagne and expensive whiskey flowing, private one-on-one sessions with Becker (often involving drugs—typically, psilocybin, cannabis or peyote), and specially arranged “therapeutic touch” sessions with one or more female Seekers, chosen by Maddox. (Maddox, who officially broke off ties with the Institute in January of this year, declined to be interviewed by
T.O. Magazine
. He did, however, issue the following statement: “While I have not been involved with the Answer Institute for some time now, I am, of course, deeply saddened to hear of the tragic events that occurred there. I send my condolences to the friends and family of those who were injured or lost their lives. I truly believe that Eldrich Becker and Amy McCullough had their members’ best interests at heart, and I wish them the best possible outcome to this unfortunate accident.”)

Interestingly, Maddox’s statement doesn’t mention John Aarons, one of the three principals in the Institute. I asked Woollings
if he had an opinion on why that may be. He told me there was no love lost between Aarons and Maddox (who Aarons often referred to as the “dwarf star”—Maddox is five foot six). Days after Maddox broke off ties with the Institute, John Aarons did the same. Woollings believes both the Maddox and Aarons defections may have had to do with a love triangle involving McCullough. He says that on the night Maddox left the Institute for the last time, he witnessed an emotional exchange between the two men after Aarons found Maddox and McCullough engaging in a “touch” session in the outdoor swimming pool. (Woollings had been asleep in the pool house but was awakened by the altercation that ensued—one that Woollings says ended with Aarons storming away in tears.) The following morning, Maddox was gone. Woollings’s fellow Seeker Wayne—who was responsible for updating the Institute’s website—reportedly told him that McCullough had him remove Maddox’s endorsement from the splash page that very morning. (Maddox had donated twenty-five thousand dollars to the Institute’s building fund, and had been featured on the website, encouraging others to contribute.) All traces of Maddox were erased from the website by noon that day. He never returned to the Institute.

“THERAPEUTIC TOUCH” SESSIONS—Institute-speak for sex between Seekers—were a prescribed and integral part of life at 81 Elderbrook. Unlike many cults and religions, the Institute didn’t really have a codified doctrine; there were no particular laws—dietary or otherwise—no rules on behaviour, no Creation story. A review of Becker’s tweets and his teachings on DVD reveal a hodgepodge of cryptic New Age, Buddhist and Christian beliefs. But Becker did have strong ideas about touch and affection. He told
his followers that touch was physically and emotionally healing, and that sexual ecstasy would bring humans closer to the divine. Often Becker’s seminars consisted of entirely wordless, two-hour sessions in which he simply fondled a succession of Seekers while everyone else looked on. Group sex and orgies were commonplace and encouraged, sometimes involving as many as twenty-seven Seekers—Becker had a mystical predilection for the number nine and advised followers to have touch sessions with that number of participants, or with factors or multiples of nine. Becker told followers they would experience physical healing and higher religious states by participating in these rites. Woollings contends that the touch sessions cured him of chronic neck and back pain. He tells me that many Seekers believed themselves to be healed of persistent ailments as a direct result of engaging in these Institute-sanctioned orgies.

Drugs were also an important part of life at the Institute. In particular, psilocybin, which was heralded by Becker as a powerful entheogen—“our gateway to God” is what he called it. He regularly fed magic mushrooms to Seekers as a kind of holy sacrament during Institute ceremonies and rituals. But it was another drug that eventually captured Becker’s attention, the one that was used on the night nine Seekers died: ayahuasca—”vine of the soul.” Ayahuasca is a psychoactive botanical tea made with
Banisteriopsis caapi
, a vine found in the jungles of South and Central America. The vine is commonly mixed with
Psychotria viridis
(also known as chacruna) or
Diplopterys cabrerana
—tropical botanicals that contain psychoactive tryptamines, including N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a compound that becomes active when mixed with
Banisteriopsis caapi
. For centuries, the powerfully hallucinogenic ayahuasca brew has
been used in the Amazon region for medicinal and religious purposes. Woollings told me that Xavier Raine Maddox had travelled to Peru to take ayahuasca. When Becker learned of Maddox’s transformative experiences with the drug, he became intent on bringing ayahuasca to the Institute. Maddox introduced Becker to Dr. Peter Scheibling—an American botanist who had spent years studying with various shamans in the Amazon region. Scheibling had been a member of a small New Age congregation in Santa Cruz, The Seeing Church (now defunct), that used ayahuasca during its Sunday services. He knew where to source ingredients and how to prepare and serve the tea.

Scheibling was invited to the Institute at Christmas to meet with Becker and make arrangements for a ceremony at 81 Elderbrook. When Scheibling saw that Quan’s property backed onto the ravine of Wilket Creek, he was pleased. It was the perfect spot to hold the ritual. He suggested the date of the new moon in June (the 8th) for the first ayahuasca ceremony—when it would be warm enough to spend three or four hours outdoors. But Becker was adamant about not waiting until spring. He felt it was important for the digits of the day, month and year to add up to nine. That left only four, rather imminent, options if they were to proceed within the next twelve months: January 2 (2013/01/02), January 11 (2013/01/11), January 20 (2013/01/20) or February 1 (2013/02/01). Becker settled on the first day of February, a Friday. When I met with him at his apartment, Becker told me that he hadn’t chosen that date, God had.

As it turned out, February 1 was an unusually temperate day in Toronto. At three degrees Celsius, it was a full six degrees warmer than normal for that time of year. In addition to Scheibling,
Becker and McCullough, the following Institute insiders had been selected to attend the first ayahuasca ceremony: Chen Xi Quan; Drew Woollings; Mindy Markovitz; Alexa Hjorngaard; Heather Mitchell; Wayne Samotowka, Tyson Griggs; Catelyn Campbell; Marina Dwyer, Anne-Marie Zielinski and her son, Richard Zielinski; Steven Reimer; Perry La Farge and Moina Quinn. La Farge and Quinn, who met at the notorious Rochdale College in 1971 and made an NFB documentary about their time there, had planned on participating but ultimately opted out. I spoke with Quinn, who told me that La Farge (who is sixty-three) suffers from atrial fibrillation. He experienced a prolonged attack of AFib in the very early hours of February 1 and wasn’t sure if he should risk taking ayahuasca (a stimulant) that evening. When Quinn woke up later that morning with a runny nose and a sore throat, it settled the matter. The couple would stay put. “This [the ceremony] was something Eldrich [Becker] wanted to do on a regular basis,” Quinn said. “We figured there would be many opportunities to try it [ayahuasca] in the future. We didn’t think it would be a big deal if we stayed home that night.” Quinn pauses, then adds, “Little did we know …”