You're fed up with your family, your upbringing, your school, your social class. You don't fit in and are reminded of it. The rules and social norms that other people seem to follow so blindly seem to you phony, trite, suffocating. You develop an attitude, a bit of psychological armor, and step off the treadmill.

You drop out, you start hanging around with a new circle of friends, people — beautiful people, as Tom Wolfe once pegged them — who get it, who are asking questions, trying to find new, more honest ways of living. You're all questions, but there's this one guy — a real hottie, actually — who seems to have all the answers. Money is a problem, but he has a house — a farm even! — and you're welcome to stay; everyone there is like one big family anyway.

But wait —wasn't family what you were trying to escape from? What's up with all the rules? Isn't this dude who runs the place — the leader, though no one uses that word — kind of creepy? Ah, no, that's your issues talking, you're the one with the problem, you need to learn trust, so you have to stay here until you do, and here, drink this magic potion for our cleansing ritual, don't ask what's in it. Now you're afraid, but fear, the leader tells you, "is the most amazing emotion; ... It creates complete awareness." So deal with it and roll over, baby.