Devoid Of Warmth

Freddie Quell is a traumatized World War II veteran, struggling to adjust to post-war society and prone to violent and erratic behavior. But nevertheless, he gets a job as a farmer in California. While working on a farm he used to make his own beers and other drinks which his colleagues used to like a lot but in the new year's eve, an elderly colleague collapses after drinking a batch of Freddie's homemade moonshine. Freddie flees after he is accused of poisoning him.

Some days after the horrible incident, Freddie finds himself in San Francisco

, and stows away on the yacht of a follower of Lancaster Dodd, the leader of a nascent philosophical movement known as "The Cause".Without caring much about where he is or what the hell he is doing in his drunken state, he walks to a bunker and grabs a pillow falling asleep. The next morning when he is discovered, Dodd describes Freddie as "aberrated" and claims he has met him in the past but cannot remember where. On drinking some of Freddie's beer he gives him a job as a bartender and invites Freddie to stay and attend the marriage of his daughter, Elizabeth, as long as he will make more moonshine, which Dodd has developed a taste for.

One day Dodd invites Freddie to his room begins an exercise with Freddie called "Processing", in which he asks Freddie a flurry of disturbing psychological questions. During the exercise, Freddie reveals details of his past, including his father's death, his mother's incarceration in a mental asylum, and his incestuous sexual encounters with his aunt. He also has a flashback to a past relationship with Doris, a young woman from his hometown whom Freddie promised he would one day return to.

Freddie travels with Dodd's family as they spread the teachings of "The Cause" along the East Coast.

At a dinner party in New where the family was invited so that Dodd could have his " exercise " on the guests so that they could recollect their past lives. A man questions Dodd's methods and statements and accuses the movement of being a cult. On hearing this disgraceful remark on his practices Dodd loses his temper, calling the man "pig fuck", and asks him to leave. Freddie also being hurt by the man's rude comments, pursues him to his apartment and assaults him that night.

Other members of "The Cause" begin to worry about Freddie's behavior. Freddie criticizes Dodd's son Val for disregarding his father's teachings, but Val tells Freddie that Dodd is making things up as he goes along. The next morning Dodd is arrested for practicing medicine without proper qualifications after one of his former hostesses has a change of heart; Freddie in love with Dodds practices attacks the police officers and is also arrested. In jail, Freddie erupts in an angry tirade, questioning everything that Dodd has taught him and accusing him of being a fake. Dodd calls Freddie lazy and worthless and claims nobody likes him except for Dodd. They reconcile upon their release, but members of "The Cause" have become more suspicious and fearful of Freddie, believing him to be deranged or an undercover agent or simply beyond their help. Dodd insists that Freddie's behavior can be corrected with more rigorous and repetitive conditioning, which Freddie finds difficult to internalize.

Freddie accompanies Dodd to Phoenix, Arizona, to celebrate the release of Dodd's latest book. When Dodd's publisher criticizes the quality of the book and its teachings, Freddie assaults him. Helen Sullivan, a previously acquiescent acolyte, on asking questiond wether all these practices can actually make people live up to their mights and know more about themselves or not causes Dodd to lose his temper . Dodd takes Freddie to a salt flat with his motorcycle, telling him to pick a point in the distance and drive towards it as fast as he can; Freddie drives off and disappears.

Freddie returns home to Lynn, Massachusetts, to rekindle his relationship with Doris, but learns from Doris' mother that she has married and started a family since he last saw her. He tells her mother he is glad she is happy. While sleeping in a movie theater, Freddie believes he receives a phone call from Dodd, who is now residing in England and begging Freddie to visit. Upon arriving, Freddie finds "The Cause" to have grown ever larger and Dodd seemingly bent to the will of his wife. Not expecting Freddie to stay with him, Dodd requests that if Freddie can find a way to live without a master, any master, to "let the rest of us know" because he'll be the first person in history to do so. Still seeking closure, Freddie refers to the Dodd from his dream, who had claimed to finally remember where they'd met. Dodd then recounts that, in a past life, they had worked in Paris to send balloons across a blockade created by Prussian forces.

Dodd gives him an ultimatum: stay with "The Cause" and devote himself to it for the rest of his life, or leave and never return. As Freddie offers that they may meet again in the next life, Dodd claims that if they do, it will be as sworn enemies. Dodd begins singing "Slow Boat to China" as Freddie begins to cry. Freddie leaves and picks up a woman at a local pub, then repeats questions from his first Processing session with Dodd as he is having sex with her.

On a beach, Freddie curls up next to a crude sand sculpture of a woman he and his wartime comrades had sculpted during the war. The final act of Freddie shows that the love and affection which he wants by having a family is still distant from him and the fact that he cuddles with a sand statues of a woman shows that Freddie is not thirsty for women in the form of lust but he only wants the warmth which only a family can give to him.