By Peter Beren
Published in Cambridge Phoenix, November 27, 1969
© Peter Beren, reprinted with permission

Many things are whispered in Boston about the Holy one; herbalist, magician, either one of the great stand-up comics of our time or the Black Maharishi. You approach the House of Karmu with mixed feelings. Walking down the ramshackle length of Green Street in Cambridge, you find yourself exceptionally attune to every unexpected noise. A cat screeches and scurries across the street; somewhere leaves rustle and a door slams. As you walk up the creaking stairs, a voice booms out–“Have no fear!”–and you are shuffled into the combination living room-kitchen where the Holy One holds his nightly court.

Professors, poets, hippie communes and off-duty cops are just a sample cross-section of the visitors to the House of Karmu. Young and old, black and white, doctoral degree holders and high school drop-outs–all merge together with the gentle lubrication of the Holy One and his twelve herb medicines. Some people bring their children, others their dogs and cats. The room is filled with mobiles, paintings, and other gifts from former visitors, along with the toys the Holy One keeps on hand for his “youngest guests.”  Above all it is a social gathering. Operating under the guise of consulting Cambridge’s finest guru, and with a little help from his medicine, visitors lose their inhibitions and embrace total strangers without worrying abut upright social conventions.

There herb medicine (chiefly the Red, occasionally the stronger Black) is passed freely to all who come. You accept a glass and a pleasing glow courses through you as you take it down wondering about the ingredients.

“We use raisins, snakeroot, peanuts, coconuts, pineapple, ginseng, bitter aloes, the root of kasuvoo weed, essence of prune, garlic and good earth, everlasting light (sic, life), and other herbs. I’m getting old. I can’t remember them all. I have to get reborn again so I can get it all down. This batch might be five years old. When we make it we never let it go, we add to it, it jells. It gives you what they call a D.P.E., Definition Plus Element.” You’ll never get tired. You’ll feel like nine movie starts, eighteen blondes will caress your toenails. You’ll have Zuk! and Wuk! You will be a God-given son. I rest my case.”

I sip my glass of the Red., listening to the thousand-word-a-minute] rap Karmu is delivering in the best carny style. The whole melange of visitors sits there, attention riveted on the Holy One; he tells them they are his sons and daughters. He passes me a cup of straight Black Medicine, the group’s attention shifts: “Look at it steam!  Right on.” After I take it down, the feeling of brotherhood with the people around me, who have had their initiation, overrides filibustering objections from my stomach. New visitors are embraced by the entire assembly, but first they are greeted by the Holy One….

“Hello, lad–this is one of my chief sons, Jerry. He’s what they call a partial Holy Man. Ooozas! Shaboo! Ah, you brought the little fella, see that two-year old kid? He ate rat poisoning here one night. The rats used to curl up their toenails and die. This kid drank some Black Medicine and jumped up eleven feet in the air. He hasn’t been sick a day since. He’s going to grow up to be genetic and noble. What they cal a T. C.–Topflight Cat. How can we lose with the system we use?”

The Holy One turns his “magic” on each person individually, doing what he calls “invading the subconscious with a plus element.” The process is a lesson in existential psychology. The socially adept and inept learn together about their inestimable value to the universe. A shy, unsightly wallflower blooms at hearing the she is a “S.C.–Scorekolakin Chickadee.  I was surprised to find out about a previous existence I had had as Peter the Mad Monk Rasputtin. An ordinary-looking Tufts student, sitting to my left, turned out to be a former Viking who had helped a former incarnation of Karmu discover America.

As Karmu addresses each individual, the whole group, high on medicine, watches and nods in agreement. Each subject is self-conscious, a few blush, all are inwardly p;leased. Stoked on his own medicine, Karmu’s rap gets progressively faster and funnier. The nonsense syllables of his won private language are mixed with contemporary and anachronistic slang as well as biblical injunctions. Coupled with the medicine are the massages. He shakes you loose to the roots of your teeth, making terrifying shouts and slaps punctuated only by the group’s laughter. Still tingling from the massage, I noticed that any remaining inhibitions had fled and a feeling of closeness was growing as each person took his turn.

“What about you chief. You’re a little on what they call “the reluctant side.” You’re on your way to becoming Sir Lancelot and King Arthur and you’re already the Duke of Wellington. You’ve got warmth personality, zuk and wuk, beauty of soul and body, a V.D.C. –Very Descent Citizen. Look at that beautiful smile, look at the sparks shooting from the eyes! Look at the way the ears drop down! Let the Holy One massage you. You’ll never be the same again. For five days you will be organically high, your spirit will soar. From this day forth you will be a son of the Gods and walk with twelve flaming swords of truth. You shall fly with wings of light and do your thing. The Holy One has spoken. And you lass, you look like sixteen movie stars. I’m going to have my father buy seven more like you, on for every day of the week. You are arriving, look at that glow, your spirit is released, you will be high fungi and high sprung.”

Following the round of massages and the ongoing administration of medicine, I became aware of some new vibrations. There was a subtle emphasis on the body as the temple of divinity. As I watched Karmu, I reflected on executive spread spread, ulcers, and high blood pressure. Karmu has retained the fascination and exuberance of childhood, even though he claims to be 99 years old. The group itself seemed to be coming together; couples held each other, the kids ran around and played games. Karmu kept up a running commentary. “loot at the glow@ Oh you don’t know what a good woman you’ve got. Look at that, they’re an old married couple, they weren’t doing that when they came in! This one here’s sneaking’ kisses right and left–how can we lose with the system we use?”

I noticed a pattern emerging from the reactions of new arrivals. The crowd numbered about twenty, chiefly visitors who were experiencing their first evening at the House of Karmu. All of them felt compelled to question him about his powers and the miracles he claims dot have performed in the past. The veterans listened politely to the questioning but were much more interested in the present. They were attuned to the miracles unfolding as social inhibitions and individual hang-ups were being cast aside.

I thought of the high-powered holy men on Sunday broadcasts–“Put your right hand on the radio and send me five dollars”–and I thought about Billy Graham in the White House and Mahesh Yogi in his Rolls Royce. Karmu will not accept money and only asks that people unlock their doors and kick out the jambes. People expect their uplighting to scone in some sort of fancy packaging, and Karmu gives it to them that way, but it is somehow a caricature; you are blasted not with fire and brimstone but with humor.

“Since I was five years old, every important man who ever died comes to my room between three and five o’clock in the morning. Only last night we had Caesar and Moses and Einsen how all trying to get an appointment. They tell me things like how to make the medicines. And it works! A 65 year old man had twins, a 75 year old man put a rear end on his car in the snow, a blind rabbi could see again. There was a 34-year-old woman down to 50 pounds, no teeth, no hair–a human skeleton. Medical science couldn’t touch her. I called on Menleg, Ohyeg and all the Gods of the underworld and over world. Lightning struck the building, all the dogs and cats leaped out the windows. I prayed for her, beat her on the head, blood ran fro her nose and ears and she stood up and walked. I rest my case.

I had a bout with a Dr. Buzzard some fifteen years ago.  He was what they call a warlock. He had a good business putting hexes on people. Anybody you’d want don in, he’d do it. He had snakes heads and batwings on the wall and was standing over a huge, steaming pot. He was the Devil’s spawn. I said, “Hey cat. What’s happening? I’m Karmu, the Holy One, Giver of Truth.” He said, “I’m making something to get rid of you, you son of a bitch.” I uncorked some medicine and he knocked the bottle out of my hand. He turned into a pile of dust a year later.”

Karmu has created something out of nothing. The House he hosts serves many functions. Some people come for the fellowship, others for the entertainment; some come because they believe, to varying degrees, in his powers. Everyone, including Karmu comes away with something. As the Holy One likes to say: “This is really beautiful. The Gods have chosen well their thing to do.”