(Photo by Tym Altman)

It was a rainy, mock-winter-early-autumn afternoon in Chicago as I sulked along the slick streets, slimy leaves of orange and brown clinging to my boots. Usually optimistic if not upbeat, stress and fatigue were consuming, and I had not cracked a smile all day. Suddenly, as I avoided an oncoming vehicle and its resulting puddle splash, the delicate process of memory resurgence blessed my weary soul, and I was treated to a flashback:

In a warm haze of smiles and summer I see a circle of people on my television screen, wearing clown noses and pointing at each other as they laugh maniacally, bubbling with mirth. I realize it is some kind of club for laughing, just as–

The flashback collapsed, and I was back in the misery of November, pondering this mirage of a memory and hoping such a club really existed.

Turns out, there is indeed a club for laughing, and the meeting I glimpsed on TV last summer was just one of hundreds worldwide. But by the time I finally spoke with Chicago Laughter Club founder Sandy Dorrian, I was sure that her club was nothing but a hokey scam looking to capitalize on the desperate demand for humor and stress-relief.

I was sure that her club was nothing but a hokey scam looking to capitalize on the desperate demand for humor and stress-relief.

* * *

It all began innocently enough. A quick online search after my rainy-day revelation located the website of the World Laughter Tour, organized by Ohio psychologist Steve Wilson, cleverly self-titled Cheerman of the Bored. An animated cartoon globe, clearly laughing hysterically, grinned aside the motto of Laughter Clubs International: “Think Globally, Laugh Locally.” A mission statement at the bottom of the page read, “Together we can lead the world to health, happiness, and peace through laughter.” Now this is what I had in mind! Get to laugh and achieve world peace? It seemed too good to be true! Of course my inner cynic suspected the futility of such a lofty goal, but it is always exciting to see people making an effort. I found contact information for a Chicago club and emailed the leader, Sandy Dorrian. In keeping with my crummy day, I learned I had missed a meeting held that very night, but, unwilling to wait another month to experience the “spirit of laughter” the organization promotes, I asked Dorrian to lead a private 45-minute laughter session at my sorority house the following weekend. This option, advertised at $125 for corporate clients, would only cost a nonprofit organization like us $75 and seemed well worth the money. When Dorrian said she could not make it but referred me to other Certified Laughter Leaders in the area, I should have known she was merely pawning me off in an underhanded attempt to make a quick dollar without having to work for it. At the time, I was just glad we could have a meeting.

Clint Phillips was, in short, a disappointment. In the week before his visit I had done a little research on the World Laughter Tour, but I still did not know what to expect from a meeting. I knew that laughter was supposed to lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and encourage unity. I had read about Dr. Madan Kataria, the man who founded Laughter Clubs International and started the first club in Bombay, India. I knew that Dr. Kataria considered laughter a form of ancient yoga not reliant on humor, and that psychologist Steve Wilson was so inspired by the Indian clubs that he launched the World Laughter Tour to spread the word. I also knew that to preserve the integrity of his clubs, Wilson presented weekend workshops across the continent to train bona fide Certified Laughter Leaders deemed qualified to lead meetings. I had seen the training brochure, which, for $339 (tax deductible), promised an impressive span of laughter theory, therapy, practice and leadership.

Spouting this information for a few days was enough to attract about 20 sorority sisters to our living room at 6 p.m. on a Friday, just after a hearty dinner of chicken wings with mac and cheese, and right before people headed out for the evening. Clint was tall with large muscles and a smooth, shiny head, sort of like Mr. Clean, except trimmer, and with wind pants. Well, and without the huge earring and bushy white eyebrows. So basically Clint looked like a personal trainer, which happened to be the case. Friendly but soft-spoken, he did not have a lot of command over the girls, who seemed quite capable of provoking their own giggles without his guidance. We watched a couple of short video clips, one a “warm-up” consisting entirely of individuals laughing solo at a camera, the second a snippet of a laughter club meeting in India held on the beach at dawn. Clint skimmed over the history of the clubs, dismissing the yoga element as an over-hyped gimmick used to garner interest. “My take on it is: it raises your mood, it makes you feel better, so do it anyway,” he said with a shrug. He explained how “the cause of happiness and the effect of happiness go together,” and warned that in the beginning, we might not feel like laughing. He told us to “fake it till you make it,” reminding us that we did not need humor to laugh. “You don’t laugh because you just heard a joke,” he said, “you’re laughing because you’re forcing yourself to laugh.” My friends looked confused.

Clint, while polite and accommodating, was far from this description, and at one point told us he had seen elderly women who were better at laughing than us. Something was not right.

But, confused or no, we headed to a common area cleared of furniture and prepared for forced fun. It was easy to follow Clint’s lead. The whole “workout” consisted of laughing in different contexts. First, the Missed-High-Five-Laugh: walk around the room pretending to give people high fives and snickering. Then, the Ice-Cube-Down-Your-Back-Laugh, where we screeched and quivered to imaginary chills. There was also the Pretend-You-Are-Driving-A-Bumper-Car-Laugh, the Act-Like-You-Are-Walking-On-Hot-Sand-Laugh, the Honk-Your-Horn-in-Traffic-Laugh, and, my favorite, the Point-Your-Finger-In-Extreme-Anger-But-Laugh-Instead-of-Curse-Laugh. So we laughed. Hardly anyone was comfortable at first, and not everyone became that way, mainly because Clint ended the meeting before we all loosened up. Just as the laughter began to sound genuine, he was out the door. It was a nice time, but more of a sample session than a $75 session. Dorrian’s website said the meeting would last 45 minutes; we started late and Clint was gone by 6:37 p.m., including a post-meeting chat I had with him where he likened the gradual relaxation process during a session to having a couple of drinks. The World Laughter Tour described an ideal Certified Laughter Leader as “stimulating, dedicated, passionate and compassionate, persuasive, compelling, energetic, vibrant, full-of-life, animated, whole-hearted, accepting and optimistic.” Clint, while polite and accommodating, was far from this description, and at one point told us he had seen elderly women who were better at laughing than us. Something was not right.

* * *

Sandy Dorrian emailed me a couple of days later. She said Clint told her the laughter meeting “went well” and included an address where I should send the check. I took this as her approval of our joke of a meeting and decided to hold off mailing the money until I could talk to her. Smelling the stench of corruption and deceit, I began to dig deeper.

But, being a student and not a private investigator, my unearthing of laughter club scandal was delayed by a pending English paper that resulted in a horrendous all-nighter. Naturally, it was during the last hour of frantic editing that Steve Wilson, founder of the World Laughter Tour, decided to return my phone call. It was 9:42 a.m. Monday morning, and my paper was due at 11 a.m. It was crunch time, not talk time, and I was in a foul mood when I heard his hearty hello. He sounded exactly like his picture on the website: robust and jolly, with an almost-audible eye-twinkling. I tried to re-schedule, suggesting in an edgy tone that perhaps this was not the best time, but he jovially insisted that indeed it was the best time. My growing skepticism manifested itself through a strained dialogue. I knew I was being given the party line; I could feel it. Every response sounded rehearsed, and his confidence was annoying. He chuckled at every question I asked and overused condescending precursors like “of course” and “naturally” while maintaining a light-hearted tone and positive attitude. He patiently provided a history of his work: An “aging hippy” who prescribed radical methods in his private psychotherapy practice, Wilson discovered scientific information on laughter in 1984 that changed his life. “It just resonated so deeply inside of me that this was a message I was meant to deliver,” he said. He politely defended his profit margins, saying that people are used to paying a fee and quoting Mother Theresa’s statement of “no money no mission.” After all, he said, “if you take this on as your work, why shouldn’t you get paid?” This seemed fair, but I was still thinking of our $75 when I asked how each club was funded. He was quick to remind me that the World Laughter Tour does not organize clubs; it only trains laughter leaders, who are completely independent and have no financial connection to the World Laughter Tour. In fact, the tour has recently formed the Laughter Arts and Sciences Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization. Realizing I would have to take my financial suspicions elsewhere, I asked Wilson to explain the physiological benefits of laughter, as Clint had neglected to do so. He gave me a book title and referred me to his website for related articles. But when I checked the site later, 23 of the 36 “News Articles” were written by Wilson himself, dealt mostly with case studies, and were titled things like “Taking Humor Seriously” and “Try it, You’ll Like it! Humor, Coping and Healing.” A link to “Field Reports” would presumably have scientific information, but it did not work. Despite his medical background, science did not seem to be Wilson’s focus within the laughter clubs as much as world peace. Wilson has taken the liberty of altering the original Indian clubs to include a spiritual component, which he defined as “practices that increase the influences of certain values in your life.” The system is this: Mondays are for compliments, Tuesdays are for flexibility. Wednesdays are for gratitude. Thursdays are for acts of kindness and Fridays are for forgiveness. Finally, weekends are for….chocolate! (Chocolate = relaxation and restoration.) Wilson said these practices “harmonize mind, body, and spirit” and that by following the “six simple steps” of self-care strategies, “each person will think less about war.” Riiiight. But if I thought this was a stretch, I was really in for a treat as Wilson elaborated on how laughter brings world peace:

Wilson: What do you get when you squeeze an orange?

Me: (pause) Um, orange juice?

Wilson: Precisely. And why is that?

Me: (pause) Um, because it’s an orange?

Wilson: Exactly! You don’t get orange juice when you squeeze a watermelon. The only thing that can come out of people is what’s in them. What you see in the world around you is what’s coming out of people.

Through this logic, he explained that if people become more positive through self-care strategies and laughter, little by little the world will become a better place. I think I know what he meant, but was left thinking about squeezing people for juice. (Would this juice be tasty? Marketable perhaps?)

Though his theorizing came off as somewhat zany to me, he was at least able to explain why there were no jokes at the meetings. “You’ve been brainwashed to think that you have to have a joke,” he informed me. In fact, humor is personal and subjective, “a psychological phenomena defined by beliefs,” whereas “laughter is a physical act that is universal with specific physiological effects that can be measured.” Laughter in the clubs, he said in a slow, soothing voice, “is induced by the decision to laugh for the enjoyment of laughing.” So that is what Clint meant when he told us we were laughing because we were forcing ourselves to laugh. Same message, poorly put.

The people involved in these clubs are just people who want to make a difference in their communities, global or otherwise, and what better way to do it than through laughter?

My hostility had all but dissipated as Wilson told me why he is still working with the tour at the age of 72. “You’re not here for a long time, you’re here for a good time,” he said. “If 51 percent of your days are happy, you’re ahead of the game. And I don’t think you can be happy in life if you’re not laughing.” As I thanked him for his time, he wanted to know why I had requested the interview. I started to explain my rainy-day flashback experience, but he interrupted, apparently satisfied that my own interest had provoked me. “I don’t know what you call it, cosmic, whatever,” he said, informing me that my interest was due to the “spirit of laughter.” “All of the people who come to be laughter leaders are drawn to it, sometimes unexpectedly, they’re just called to it,” he said. Personally, I think the “spirit of laughter” was more present for me when I got the grade back for that English paper I did not finish editing.

* * *

At any rate, I now had mixed impressions of the whole laughter industry. Our laughter meeting was sheisty, but Clint had been really nice; maybe the guy was just tired, or maybe he was uncomfortable amidst a throng of women (as unlikely as that seemed). Still, $75 for half an hour? Then there was the Steve Wilson paradox. Despite his cheesy demeanor, his steadfast self-assurance was convincing; this man really believes that laughter is the key to world peace, and has dedicated his entrepreneurial and emotional life to passing along that message. He clearly was not in if for the money, but then, how could he certify a laugh leader who was? Because this obviously all came down to Sandy Dorrian and her sham of a laughter club. It was not Steve Wilson’s fault we were being charged $75, and for that matter, it was not Clint’s either. He was just a pawn in this sick game of money. But I would get to the bottom of this–my sorority was, after all, on a budget.

So I called Sandy Dorian, prepared for my attack as I dialed the telecommunication office where she is a training manager. I would play ignorant, get her version of answers I already had, then spring with an accusation.

The woman who greeted me was neither deadpan like Clint nor boisterous like Steve Wilson. She was more than willing to share her story. Like me, she first learned about laughter clubs from a television feature, and like me, she decided to search online for a Chicago chapter. Except in 2001 there was not one, so she took it upon herself to get trained and start a club. Originally consisting of six relatives and neighbors in a local park, a year-and-a-half later the club sometimes attracts over 30 members. She explained that a typical meeting consists of a 20-minute warm-up and at least 40 minutes of laugh exercises, interspersed with historical and physiological facts. She said the club was more than just a hobby to her, “it’s something that has truly taken on a life of its own.” She described it as an “avocation.” She said she was excited to find an organization that aligned with her own positive beliefs about the world. “I’ve always internally had the philosophy the laughter club espouses,” she said.

By now I had an inkling that my financial suspicions were unfounded, but there was no turning back. How much does she charge members? Nothing. (I am taking my shoe off.) Why does she charge outside organizations? To pay the rental costs of club spaces and to hire speakers for meetings. (I am taking my sock off.) How does she determine her rates? Well, she didn’t want to say it was arbitrary, but she pretty much just looked around at what other therapeutic organizations were doing and thought about the time and effort that goes into leading a session. (Foot, entering mouth.) It was becoming rapidly apparent that this woman was neither evil nor money-grubbing, and part of me wanted to just drop the whole $75 issue. But I had a budget to consider, and so I fumblingly mentioned that I wanted to talk to her about how much we should pay, because we did not warm up for 20 minutes like she said she did in her meetings, and that our whole session was in fact about 20 minutes.

Immediately her pleasant tone dropped into one of dismay and atonement. She was extremely sorry to hear that. Twenty minutes was certainly not enough time; she had not gotten to speak with Clint in detail and did not realize he had not led a full session. I had not expected such a prompt concession. I faltered, because, after all, Clint was really nice, just kind of disappointing. Which is what I told her, adding that we appreciated his time and effort and that we would pay something, just preferably not $75. She said she would not charge us at all. She sighed apologetically, explaining that the organization is very laidback and that they communicate mainly through email, but that if we ever wanted to have a real session to please call her and she personally would come out and do it for us. And I believe that she did not say that because she was loathe to lose $75. She seemed genuinely upset that our expectations had not been met. I told her we were interested, because we are. After all, the people involved in these clubs are just people who want to make a difference in their communities, global or otherwise, and what better way to do it than through laughter?

My doubts assuaged, I asked if there was anything else about her club she thought I should know. Her voice became exuberant. “Did you know we were on television last summer?” Feeling sheepish, I told her I vaguely remembered.

This story originally appeared on Supraterranean in November 2008.