What is the importance of Hergeschleimer's Oriental Gardens?

Hergeschleimer's Oriental Gardens serves as both a transit point to further strangeness for the novel's plot and a leverage factor in the growth of the boys, who begin to change from passive reactors to the pressures exerted by other people to positive actors in life responsible for themselves and what they do. When they enter the Gardens, put their mental powers to use, and shift themselves into WakaWaka, the boys find themselves in a place where they are the agents of their own caretaking—out of reach of parents, school, and police.