Ben enlists his friend and old flame, Jill Boardman, a nurse at the hospital, to help him spy on Mike's treatment at the hospital. When Ben lets on to the authorities that he has a notion of their plans, they kidnap him. Jill sneaks Mike out of the hospital. When police officers try to kidnap them as well, Mike makes the officers disappear from existence—one of many psychic powers Mike has learned on Mars.
Jill takes Mike to the only man she believes can help them, Jubal Harshaw, a famous doctor, lawyer, writer, and general cultural phenomenon. Jubal lives in a large house with three beautiful secretaries Anne, Miriam, and Dorcas and two male assistants Duke and Larry.
Jubal agrees to help protect Jill and Mike from the authorities. Mike learns about Earth culture at Jubal's estate, reading everything in Jubal's library and becoming fascinated with Earth religions. The police eventually discover Mike's whereabouts and come to arrest Jubal and his coterie, but at the last moment, Jubal is able to get through to Douglas personally and convince him to call off the police.
Jubal also gets Douglas to rescue Ben from police captivity. Through legalistic maneuvering and rhetorical brinksmanship, Jubal is able to defuse Mike's political importance, arguing that Mike cannot be the legal owner of Mars since the Martian race inhabited it long before Mike was born. Jubal makes Douglas an ally by convincing him to become overseer of Mike's vast personal fortune. Following up on Mike's fascination with religion, he and Jubal and Jill go to visit the headquarters of a religious group called the Fosterites.
The Fosterites have aggressively built a massive following, in part by enlisting entertainers, such as football players and strippers, to deliver their message, and incorporating vices like gambling into their organization. Also in , Charles Prior Hall sought a patent on a modern mattress filled not with solid stuffing but with water. Heinlein later acknowledged his personal hospital stints had driven him to design a more comfortable sickbed, but he never pursued the project beyond illustration in his fiction.
In , Hall finally won legal rights to a variation on his waterbed design. Hoping to free Heinlein of the anchor that was any association with—or worse yet, blame for—the atrocities committed by the Manson Family, novelist and journalist J.
Neil Schulman contacted the incarcerated Manson in and asked him outright about his relationship with the novel. According to Schulman, Manson claimed to have never even read Stranger in a Strange Land , which would wholly negate the connection between the novel and his crimes. With nowhere else to go, Jill takes him to see Jubal Hershaw, a famed doctor and lawyer.
During this trip they are attacked by government agents and it is revealed that Mike has the power to make people disappear from existence. When he arrives at Jubal's home, the group slowly realize the full extent of his powers. He can levitate, read minds, and strengthen his muscles using his thoughts alone. The people at Jubal's home all partake in a water-sharing ceremony, an important ritual on Mars that bonds people together. Jubal manages to free Ben from the government and goes to speak with the leader of the United Federation at a conference.
Here Mike agrees to give the leader full control of his funds as long as he will provide for him. The leader agrees and Mike is relieved of the burden of his fortune. Free to pursue knowledge, he and Jill go out into the world to learn.
Mike and Jill take all manner of jobs, from Carny to exotic dancer. Mike finally understands humanity when he realizes that we laugh to keep from despair. Inspired, Mike starts a school for people to learn the martian ways. The small group of followers Mike gathers grow in strength and learn to levitate things as well as control their bodies.
Mike is pleased that he can teach so many the way of his birth planet, but in attempting to gain more followers is labeled a religious extremist and the group falls under attack. When the group is attacked, Mike is contacted by the Old Ones from Mars and they admit he was their spy to determine when to destroy the Earth. They then sever contact with him. Mike can easily destroy any forces mounted against him, but he doesn't want to fight them.
He confesses to Jubal that he is nothing but a spy to the martians and that they plan to destroy the Earth in five thousand years.
Jubal tells him that by then, the humans will be powerful enough to defend themselves. He and Mike continue to discuss the martian way, and Mike realizes that the only way to spread his message is to go out and face the rioting public.
Okay, so plot-wise it does wrap everything up pretty nicely. The story of Stranger focuses on Mike's life, so it naturally ends with Mike's death. But the inclusion of that last chapter in the afterlife suggests that the story will continue for eons to come. It's even hinted that Mike was the reincarnation of the Archangel Michael, making this story just one chapter in a much larger work. Whether or not you read the ending as a true ending or as a new beginning is up to you as the reader.
You get to create your own ideas about what's next and what is to come.
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