I needed a new social circle, as both the Mormon Church and, later, the Bravepeople—whom I had invested my whole life in—had been, somewhat involuntarily, hence not entirely, taken from me.
In the spring of 2016, the Burning Man community of Stockholm opened its doors to their new venue at Slottsbacken 8, “The Castle.” It was a super chill, progressive inner sanctum for politically driven wannabe artists at a flexible business hotel for social entrepreneurs (intelligent, beautiful, rich, constantly partying, entitled brats) who could convince you of anything.
Even though I constantly felt like crap, couldn’t sleep at all, and didn’t have the courage to show my face to anyone—sensing that I had suddenly lost all my worth and any right to ‘just be’ anywhere—I somehow attracted the “boundlessly cool” founders of the place, “Jesper und Jesper,” as well as the sexiest girls hanging around them.
I was consequently invited to an experimental self‑development group called the “100 Day Warrior Training,” loosely based on caveman food, Wim Hof cold exposure, Buddhist meditation, and Tibetan Tummo breathing exercises.
As we often talked about creating a new religion, I referenced my crazy religious upbringing and a quote by Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, who said, “A religion that doesn’t require the sacrifice of everything has no power to produce the faith necessary unto salvation.” A proper religion’s first and foremost requirement.
This made everyone laugh—especially the first Jesper, who commented, “Yeah, your religion isn’t worth shit if it doesn’t thoroughly make you want to die.”
So I confessed everything. I told the whole story and bared my soul to these bald guys who were like me and also looked like me—Brooks, Jesper, and a couple of other dudes—about my ambiguous upbringing, my mission, the die‑hard motorcycle accident in Thailand, the Bravepeople Movement, the ‘royalist psychopath’ Cecilia, and now this. Such laughter, such ecstatic joy.
Brooks, the calm and peaceful military‑trained Buddhist monk, remarked: ”Well, this puts us all in your shadow; you have a better backstory than us. Not everybody gets that succubus test—you must be pretty special.”
Time for steak tartare.
