er having renamed his organization "Church of Atlantis"
(C.O.A.), Atmananda decided to distribute WOOF! The Voice of Southern
California to tens of thousands of San Diegans.

WOOF! provided work for Atmananda's devotees and helped bind the
fledgling group. We illustrated, laid out, distributed, and laughed
over each edition. We laughed, for instance, at Atmananda's fabricated
advertisement about an imaginary bank (Issue #3; January, 1981):
"Interloka Bank is pleased to announce the opening of a new branch in
Mark's room. We will be giving away the first 500 customers as
valuable gifts... We at Interloka are dedicated to serving you totally,
and are proud to take you for all we can, whenever we can. We are the
only authorized distributors of the GOLDEN GWIDcard... Interloka
Bank--We Own You... " Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the desire to
believe in our friend and mentor, or the need for comic relief that
blinded us to the grim foreshadowing of Atmananda's humor.

I laughed the hardest at Atmananda's ads and columns in which he
satirized televangelists, Indian gurus, the Moonies, and New Age
healers (see Appendix A). I felt justified in laughing at other
spiritual groups, partly because they seemed to merit it and partly
because Atmananda said that they needed to be laughed at. He wrote in
an editorial (Issue #6; March, 1981): "WOOF!, the all-natural and
organic paper that millions use to line their bird cages, makes fun of
it all. We act as a consumer's representative for you in the field of
New Age consciousness. We feel that if what people have to offer is
genuine then they won't mind us poking a little fun at them. And if
they do mind--then maybe the products or services they offer deserve
careful scrutiny, and we should re-evaluate the truthfulness of their
claims... "

In my naive, sleepless stupor, I accepted Atmananda's mission of poking
fun at others, and did my best to train and coordinate the WOOF!
distribution teams.

Perhaps it was to dispel doubts about his own authenticity that
Atmananda proceeded to poke fun at himself. Appearing beside his
photograph was the following ad (Issue #6; March, 1981): "His High
Holiness SWAMI UGULA UGLE From The Himalayan Institute For The Strange
will be appearing in Del Mar on March 37th at 2 a.m. for the high
himalayan karrmuppet hat dancing & tea ceremony. $$ Bring Lots Of
Money $$ His high Holiness Swami Ugula Ugle is a direct lineal
descendant of Lla