In this leisured society books are considered a necessity, and local publishing thrives out of all proportion with the population. This town boasts two weekly newspapers (one called The Protocols of the Elders of Port Watson!), an arts monthly, a plethora of pamphlets and a sma]l but steady stream of actual books (including some in the Sonsorolan dialect) published by companies with fanciful names--Cthulhu Press, New Rocking Horse Books, Fourth Eye Books, End of the World News & Stationary--and of course a Pirate Press.
Post-New Age spirituality thrives in the Enclave. Collectives and communes are often organized around some Path or life-therapy. A partial listing of such organizations includes: Wicca and other forms of neopaganism (including a rather spurious revival of ancient Sonsorolan polytheism based on Casteneda, Lovecraft and Margaret Mead!); various forms of Taoism (traditional/magical, philosophical/alchemical, and anarcho/chaotic); Chinese Zen; Church of the SubGenius; Temple of Eris; the Illuminati; "Mystical Anarchism"; tantra-yoga; Chinese and Javanese martial arts, especially tai chi and silat; various Ceremonial Magick circles and orders, including a "New Golden Dawn" and a "Reformed O.T.O."; Church of Satan; the Sabbatai Sevi School of Magical Judaism; the Si Fan ("a conspiracy devoted to world-wide subversion and poetic terror"); the Gnostic Catholic Church; the Temple of Materialist Atheism; Church of Priapus; and so on. One of the most popular spiritual paths in Sonsorol, including Port Watson, is the so-called "Moro Way," a brand of pure esotericism rooted in Javanese kebatinan, sufism, shamanism, Hindu mythology and heterodox Islam. The "Mosque" in the Bazaar serves as a center for groups such as Sumarah, the School of Invulnerability, the "Moorish Orthodox Church", the Moro Academy of Meditation, etc. (See Sonsorol City for more details.) Meetings, seances, classes, etc. are advertised on the "Great Wall."