Gershon Meltzer becomes Moondwabi

Gershon Meltzer, the charismatic cult leader known as Moondwabi, was once a second-rate club musician and alcoholic. He was notorious for running bar tabs while playing - often drinking more than the club was paying him. "You didn't argue with Gershon at the end of an evening - not if he was still holding his guitar", says Tyler, owner of Tylers Pub. "He'd threaten to smash your head with it, but usually he just smashed it against the wall outside until he passed out."

One freezing winter night Gershon was stumbling home (or wherever it was he went) when he found himself stopping to urinate in City Park. To protect his penis from the freezing winds, or so he claims, he chose to relieve himself in the now famous "Urine Cave", a small cave where local kids shoot up, toss litter and urinate (earning it the nickname).

Depending on who you ask, Gershon was found unconscious the next morning, lying face down in a puddle of his own urine, almost dead from alcohol poisoning - or, as Gershon relates, he was found in a deep state of ecstasy and his soul was slowly returning to his body after its trip to the Planet Zygone.

Further questioning revealed that a prophet named Marvin appeared to Gershon in "the steam that was created when the warm urine of life mixed with the frozen snow of foreverness". The prophet informed Gershon that he was no mere club musician, but rather the reincarnation of the an eternal spirit who guides all of human destiny and is the wellspring of all human souls.

While Gershon's story cannot be disproven (after all, no one was present during the revelation except him) there are two controversial issues that stand as a sore point in any discussion about Moondwabian theology.

First, Gershon (at this point calling himself Moondwabi) claims to have spent the next 40 days meditating in the urine cave and conversing with the other incarnations of his past lives. In a stark contradiction to his words, hospital records show that he was under round-the-clock surveillance in the detox ward of "Mount Sinai" and that he suffered sever convulsions and hallucinations. The Moondwabi response is foolproof: His body was hospitalized but his soul remained in the cave.

Second, the Cult of Moondwabi has been engaged in a long bureaucratic battle with city hall over possession of the urine cave. Moondwabi claims that this cave is the very site where the Prophet Marvin appeared to the first Moondwabi incarnation over 7000 years ago. It is the intention of the Cult to eventually build their temple over this spot. City hall shoots back that the cave was carved out by a landscaping committee 45 years ago when the park was being laid out.

Faced with glaring evidence against his cult's history, Moondwabi says that the claims made by city hall are "absurd" and barring any further debate said he "would not discuss these matters with the ignorant."

Government and skeptics aren't the only groups Moondwabi has had conflicts with. There's the now legendary turf war that broke out between the Cult of Moondwabi, the Hare Krishnas and the Raelians over a prime missionizing location in the heart of the York University campus. During an interfaith festival at the university, violence almost broke out when a group of Moonies accused Moondwabi of being a cheap rip off of their own group. What's in a name? Lots apparently. The Cult of Moondwabi are one of the most aggressive missionizing cults in the country. To quote Moondwabi and his despair at the whole missionary situation, "There are still billions of non-believers in the world and new ones are being born at a rate faster than we can convert them. We'll never catch up."

The controversy surrounding Moondwabi grows more intense by the day, especially since the formation of M.A.M. (Mother's Against Moondwabi) - an organization created in reaction to the recruitment of their college age children into this "hideous brainwashing cult" as they call it. They can be seen picketing outside the Moondwabi headquarters daily, often throwing curses and the odd rotten egg. When asked if he has any message for M.A.M. he responded, "It's always sad to see mothers go astray".

With two best selling CDs and a Bible in the works, it looks like M.A.M. and city hall both have an uphill battle. Torontonians everywhere are forced to contend with this new intrusion. Many scoff, but none can ignore it. Is there no stopping the fastest growing religion in our downtown core?