CoL49 (2) an odd, religious instant [PC 14, 115, 118]

[Robin Landseadel]

Chapter 2 is sensitizing us to religious possibilities in Oedipa's  
tale: "I Want to Kiss Your Feet" and the issue of Mucho's belief in  
Sick Dick and the Volkswagens, "San Narciso,"  "there were to both  
outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an  
intent to communicate," "a revelation also trembled just past the  
threshold of her understanding",

	. . . cueing the next record with movements stylized as the
	handling of chrism, censer, chalice might be for a holy man, yet
	really tuned in to the voice, voices, the music, its message,
	surrounded by it, digging it, as were all the faithful it went out to;
	did Mucho stand outside Studio A looking in, knowing that even
	if he could hear it he couldn't believe in it?
	CoL49: 14

By using religious language and allusions, OBA is sensitizing us to  
the miraculous. Note that by the end of the book, Mucho does really  
believe:

	"The songs, it's not just that they say something, they are
	something, in the pure sound. Something new. And my dreams
	have changed."
	CoL49: 118

The section concerning Mucho's Acid experience presents the  
possibilities of using LSD to be positive—at times miraculously so:

	. . . Mucho came downstairs carrying his copy, a serenity about
	him she'd never seen. He used to hunch his shoulders and
	have a rapid eyeblink rate, and both now were gone, "Wait," he
	smiled, and dwindled down the hall.
	CoL49, 115