thing which is loose rolls to California.”nIn the last few years, however, it seemsnthat most of the great untethered massnhas run out of steam amid the cactusngroves of nearby Arizona, known in thesenparts as the poor man’s California and innany event just as open to whatever is bothnbizarre and lucrative.nThe land abounds in evidence. ExhibitnA is Arcosanti, an experimentalncommunity a hundred miles north ofnPhoenix. A garish bit of constructionnperched on a high plateau, it resemblesnnothing so much as an anthill, one thatnmixes the architectural sensibilities ofnAntonio Gaudi and Albert Speer. PaolonSoleri, the Italian designer and “visionary”nwho has made Arcosanti his lifework,nhas articulated over the years a weirdnsort of future worid view that seems to gonsomething like this: in the coming years,nhumankind will have despoiled thenplanet (a likely enough possibility) tonthe extent that we’ll all be forced tonlive in hermetically sealed towers, our allotmentna cubicle apiece, so small that itnwould make the good denizens of SannQuentin riot in a second.nArmed with this unappealing vision ofnfuture shock, Soleri has been pluggingnaway at his ziggurat for three decades now,naided by laborers who pay for the privilegenof basking in his light. In that time,nhis complex has risen to a height of threenstories, a mere 3 percent of its intendednfinal mass. At this rate, his lifeboat—nwhence the buried “ark” in his project’snname—will be completed at about thentime the cockroaches inherit the planet,ntoo late to do anyone any good.nThen came the New Age, that weirdnpost-1960’s concatenation of feel-goodnpop psychology, denatured Eastern religions,nand general fuzziness. The wholen48/CHRONICLESn•LIBERAL ARTS-nBIOSCAMnnation, I know, has been made to endurenits have-a-nice-day excesses, but here innArizona the New Age has become a realnplague. Exhibit B: the formerly pleasantntown of Sedona, in the red-rock countrynnorth of Phoenix beloved of Zane Grey,nseems unaccountably to have become theninternational headquarters for levitators,nmeditators, and speculators. The latternsoak the former by means of vastly inflatednreal estate values and avenues fullnof incense and crystal shops—incensenand crystals being essential accoutrementsnfor anyone who would channel an ancientnEgyptian medium through his or her delicatenpsyche (or, in the case of a humanitiesnprofessor at a nearby state university,nwho would channel such a spiritnthrough a geranium). These are the folksnwho brought us the so-called HarmonicnConvergence (in my circle it was knownnas the Moronic Convergence) a few yearsnback. The planets of our solar systemnwould fall into alignment, they claimed,non a certain bright autumn afternoon, andnuniversal peace would reign over Earth.nFor whatever reason, it didn’t happen.nSedona is not the only Arizona townnto suffer the creepy nontheologies of thenNew Agers; the poor Navajos and Hopisnnow have to ward off bus loads of gawkingnbecrystalled visitors in search of thennative American essence. Even Phoenix,nthat vast cow town to the south, the homenof Barry Goldwater and the great laughingstocknEvan Mecham, now overflowsnwith Birkenstock-clad post-Blavatskyans.nIt all fits, I suppose, with our state’s backwardnessnin so many ways.nAnd now to Exhibit C, the clincher.nThirty miles north of my hometown ofnTucson, in the appropriately named hamletnof Oracle, the state’s latest monumentnto kookiness is rising: Biosphere II, a stacknThe Biosphere II project near Tucson, Arizona, touted as anself-sufficient, closed scientific experiment, has been criticizednas a “fraud and deception.” As the Associated Press reportednlast January, the “mini-planet” sealed off last September wasn”stocked with food ahead of time” and since then “project sponsorsnhave pumped in fresh air from outside.” More serious allegationsnaccuse crew member Jane Poynter of smuggling a duffelnbag of supplies into the Biosphere upon her return fromnminor surgery performed outside the structure, and that thencomputer software used to monitor the experiment was “designednto permit tampering with data.” ‘nnnof glass-and-steel pyramids (of course) thensize of three football fields. Within it liesna series of carefully constmcted miniaturenecosystems that mimic the natural processesnof swamps, savannas, coral reefs,njungles, and deserts, inhabited by butterflies,nbumblebees, and dwarf pigs.nBut this is no petting zoo. Instead,nBiosphere II is a prototype for a Martiannspace station, the decades-old dream ofnthe cultists who run the place and whonhave long imagined a terrestrial futureneven bleaker than Paolo Soleri’s. NewnMexico communards in the 1960’s (theynappear in Dennis Hopper’s film EasynRider) since reorganized under the rubricn”Institute of Biotechnics,” the Biosphereansnare, as one said, now “pokingnamong the ruins of dying civilization”nin order to seed the distant planetsnwith their kind—handsome Caucasiansnwho don’t mind a steady diet of lentilsnand chanting, one supposes, given thenmakeup of the eight young men andnwomen who have been locked inside thenglass pyramid, where they are to remainnuntil September of 1993 as a test ofnwhether the microcosm is indeed self-sustaining.nThe truer test, I suspect, isnwhether eight adults can be pennednup like deep-space sheep for two yearsnwithout murdering one another.nThe Biosphereans may be the cuttingnedge of the loopy New Age—at leastnthey seem to think so — but they arenreal-worid shrewd. Having extracted $100nmillion from fellow cultist EdwardnBass, a scion of America’s fourth richestnfamily, they have spent a great deal ofncapital and time cultivating such medianas the New York Times and NationalnGeographic to secure an image as reputablenspace scientists. Millions of taxpayerndollars now go into their coffers fornunspecified research, while tens of thousandsnof tourists monthly descend onnBiosphere II for a peek at the future, at anmere $30-$75 a pop.nThe ghost of Nostradamus, the patronnsaint of pseudoscience, must be grinningnfrom ear to ear. (Somebody please ,nwarn the Martians.) You won’t see it innArizona Highways, but this former refugenof cowboys and prospectors has been overrunnby would-be Indians and latter-daynspace cadets, who by all rights shouldnbe confined one state to the west. Anyonenfor a round of “Aum on the Range”nbefore Exhibit D comes along?nGregory McNamee is a freelance writernand editor in Tucson, Arizona.n