Will Patrick McCollum Save Us All?

His Excellency the Reverend Patrick McCollum, a peace activist from California_—who, in keeping with an Indigenous South American prophecy, will unite all of the individuals of the Amazon as a way to save the area (and thereby the world) from destruction—_was close to the Battery Park Metropolis ferry touchdown the opposite day when he bought a name with unhappy information. “Jane died,” he reported, a bit of teary, after he hung up. “Jane Goodall, one in every of my closest mates.” McCollum and Goodall occur to star in a documentary that comes out this week by the director Gabe Polsky, “The Man Who Saves the World?,” which particulars McCollum’s efforts to satisfy the prophecy. Within the movie, Polsky appears not sure whether or not to view McCollum as a saint or a wack job. (An investigator Polsky employed discovered that almost all of McCollum’s claims are “true or have a foundation of reality,” however that some “can’t be totally corroborated.”) Then he interviews Goodall, who calls McCollum “in all probability probably the most extraordinary particular person I’ve met.”

“I had a particular and a unique relationship along with her,” McCollum stated. They had been supposed to satisfy up in just a few days for what Goodall, who was ninety-one, was calling farewell drinks. “The work we do sounds superb, nevertheless it’s very onerous,” he went on. “It’s good to have somebody who understands that. She’s the one I referred to as, and I’m the one she referred to as. It’s simply that I’ll by no means be capable of name her once more.” He stated that she’d willed him a few of her ashes.

Just a few hours earlier, McCollum, who’s seventy-five and wore a kurta and an Indiana Jones-style hat, had visited the Nationwide Museum of the American Indian. At a steel detector, a guard gestured to his many necklaces and pendants. “Are you able to take away that stuff, or is it sacred?” the guard requested.

“Deeply sacred,” McCollum stated.

He did a list. “I made this myself,” he stated, lifting up a medallion. (“I used to be as soon as a jewellery designer—I did stuff for the Queen of England,” he defined.) “In India, there was the most important gathering of people in historical past, and I used to be given the consideration of blessing the Ganges for 100 million individuals. Needed to clear their karma. The gurus determined this pendant is what I ought to do it with.” He fingered one other necklace. “This was given to me within the Amazon by the Jaguar Individuals. They imagine within the prophecy. This—the primary warfare I ever stopped was in Africa, and this necklace designates me as a chief and a king of a small area. This one, lengthy story. I met a maharaja.”

He unfold his arms to get wanded. “You’re good,” the guard stated.

McCollum’s peace work is tough to outline. He provides out enterprise playing cards that say, “Creating peace on a common scale by selling a meta-narrative, which establishes that everybody and all the things is sacred and important.” With the world being what it’s, it’s a busy time within the universal-scale-peace enterprise, however when is it not? “I’ve bought a variety of stuff happening,” McCollum stated. “I’ve bought my Amazon issues. I’m one of many co-leaders organizing what’s referred to as the State of the World Discussion board.” It was began by Goodall, Desmond Tutu, and different eminences. “I’m form of taking Gorbachev’s place,” he stated. He’s additionally working with an A.I. group that he says analyzed his mind: “To create a baseline for A.I. that might solely do issues I’d do. You realize, in order that they wouldn’t kill individuals and such.” To this point, he hasn’t fund-raised. “I finance ninety per cent of all the things I do with my Social Safety,” he stated.

The place does he discover the vitality? “My life facilities round my Mocha Frappuccino,” he stated.

McCollum had by no means been to the museum. “All of my journeys to New York have been to the U.N.,” he stated. “Besides after I needed to meet Modi at Madison Sq. Backyard.” He breezed by the reveals, then struck up a dialog with a safety guard.

“This part is principally South America,” the guard stated. “I used to be born myself in Guyana. My dad was a parachute teacher for the G.D.F., the Guyana Defence Pressure. The parachute-jumping was within the Amazon. I used to be truly lucky to satisfy the Waiwais.”

“I do know them,” McCollum stated.

“I spent two years with them,” the guard stated. “They taught me tips on how to make fishing rods, gentle fires, clear soiled water.” He went on, “We’re drifting farther from nursing planet Earth. In Guyana, we spent each Saturday within the again yard, with a fork, shovel, seeds. Once I got here to America, I spotted everyone seems to be planting with gloves. You possibly can’t use a glove. You’ve bought to really feel the dust.”

“So, I’m the one who’s operating the most important venture in historical past to save lots of the Amazon,” McCollum stated. “All the things you’re speaking about, I totally perceive.”

He gave the guard a card. “This occurs on a regular basis,” he stated later. “That man, in some unspecified time in the future, will textual content me or e-mail me, and I’ll join him with different individuals. Belief me.” He seemed energized. He weighed that vitality with the dying of his pal, and stated, “An excellent day and a foul day.” ♦