Renee Linnell. The Burn Zone. Berkeley CA: She Writes Press, 2018. Print.
The Burn Zone is a memoir, a well-paced account of one woman’s involvement in a New Age cult. Immediately we are stricken by the author’s enchantment with a charismatic speaker she calls Lakshmi. (Though she has an Indian name, we are told Lakshmi is American and Jewish.) To Ms. Linnell, Lakshmi has power and light, and for seven years Linnell gives up everything to follow her. Lakshmi becomes her guru, Teacher with a capital T.
In the first half of the book, the chapters alternate between the beginnings of her involvement in the College of Mysticism (its name changed a few times) and her family life and background.
Compared to most Americans, she was a child of privilege. Her family lived on a houseboat in Florida but traveled a lot. She tells us that she has visited fifty countries. She casually mentions surfing in Costa Rica with her brother, or, less casually, swimming with sharks in the Bahamas. She was debuted, though not willingly.
She wanted to please people but had a rebellious streak as well. Those two inclinations together made her and her money a target for Lakshmi and Lakshmi’s bodyguard/disciple/consort, Vishnu.
While the group was ostensibly Buddhist, they claimed to get “energy” (a very common word in this book) from other religions, too. Her training included visits to India, Nepal, and Bhutan to study under Hindus and other Buddhists. They visited Egypt to tap into the energy of the pyramids and Australia to experience Aboriginal energy, too.
Lakshmi and Vishnu’s treatment of Renee can best be described as passive-aggressive. She loved them and wanted to please them. At times they were kind to her and encouraged her. Other times, though, they rudely criticized her and accused her of many terrible things. There is a lot of strong language. She took it all in and pretty much blamed herself for any difficulties she had with them.
As she got deeper into the relationship with her gurus, she was truly exploited. She worked for them without pay. She would rationalize that some famous Hindu guru had cleaned latrines with his hair. She never had to do that. She cut ties with virtually all her friends, eventually even her other friends in the cult.
With her Teachers’ permission, she started a few businesses, learned computer programming, and started work on an MBA. In the realm of business she was quite capable.
She confesses that before the days with College of Mysticism, she was sexually promiscuous. That did not change a whole lot—one gets the impression that this version of Buddhism was not especially moral. We read in recent news more revelations of sexual misconduct among some Catholic priests. Let’s just say that some Buddhist monks are just as exploitative.
At some point the reader begins to ask, when is she going to come to her senses? (See Luke 15:17) Eventually she does, sort of. Lakshmi and Vishnu expel her from the group, and she begins reconciling herself with friends and family she had left behind.
At the end it clear that Renee is free from the cult, though still influenced by some of their beliefs. The last chapter could be taken from Walden. I felt like I was reading a modern, more amoral Thoreau. She would never write like Thoreau that “out whole life is startlingly moral.” But she still speaks of meditation and finding the “Wise Voice within” [her capitals] not unlike Thoreau or a serious Buddhist. At one point earlier Lakshmi does talk about “energy” from the navel. Meditation, indeed!
We do root for Renee’s eventual freedom from the mind control of the cult. She has accomplished much since getting out, and we are happy for her. Like Thoreau, she “loves the wild not less than the good.” Is it possible to reconcile those two things? If so, how? She is still searching.