It takes a hard heart indeed not to be intrigued by the intricacies of a Vanuatuan cargo cult, especially one as puzzling as the Prince Philip Movement. The small sect believes that Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, a native of Greece known primarily for his verbal gaffes, is actually a Vanuatuan spirit in disguise, and that [...]
Entries Tagged as 'cults'
Up on Trickle Creek
January 27th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Having spent some time in Alberta’s northern climes, we’ve taken an unusually keen interest in the arrest of Wiebo Ludwig, a religious patriarch with a Luddite streak a mile wide. Having served time for vandalizing oil-industry equipment in the past, Ludwig recently presented himself as man capable of coaxing a fellow pipeline bomber into giving [...]
Tags:Alberta·alcohol·Canada·cults·energy·religion·Wiebo Ludwig·wine
The Jonestown Diet
January 8th, 2010 · 3 Comments
During one of our recent discussions about food taboos, a sage commenter noted that one of the theories regarding such prohibitions is that they aid social cohesion—if we can all agree to, say, eschew beef or Funyuns, we instantly have something that defines us in opposition to “The Other.” Given the inherent creepiness of that [...]
Tags:cults·food·Guyana·Jonestown·politics·psychology·sushi·Unification Church
The Soviet Road Not Taken
January 4th, 2010 · 1 Comment
For anyone with even a passing interest in cult psychology, San Diego State University’s Jonestown Archive is well worth a thorough gander. Our favorite section, of course, is a compendium of primary sources that date back to Jim Jones’s earliest days in Indiana. Among the choice morsels contained therein is a petition that all members [...]
Tags:cults·Guyana·Jim Jones·Jonestown·Peoples Temple·psychology·religion·Soviet Union
Bulletproof: The Boxers
November 24th, 2009 · 6 Comments
It is to the turn-of-the-century media’s great discredit that they referred to China’s quasi-Luddite rebels as “Boxers.” Had the minions of William Randolph Hearts been more adept at understanding Chinese, they would have realized that the rebels’ secret society translated more literally as “Fists of Righteous Harmony,” a far more poetic moniker for an organization [...]
Tags:Boxer Rebellion·China·cults·poetry·psychology·The Bulletproof Project
Zezo’s World
August 7th, 2009 · 7 Comments
Once in a while, we receive a comment that merits bumping to the front page. Such is the case with an anecdote just appended to this April post, in which we wondered about the fate of Charles Manson’s children—particularly Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz, the product of his carnal union with Susan Atkins. A reader chimed in [...]
Tags:Charles Manson·crime·cults·Susan Atkins·Zezozose Zadfrack
Married Priests Now
July 22nd, 2009 · 2 Comments
Given the rapid growth of Catholicism in Africa, it’s certain that the continent’s clergymen are set to play an increasingly large role at the Vatican. (Cardinal Francis Arinze, for example, has already been mentioned as a possible future pope.) But while the majority of Africa’s priests and bishops hew closely to Chruch orthodoxy, there are [...]
Tags:Catholicism·cults·Emmanuel Milingo·Married Priests Now·religion·Unification Church
The King of Guyana, via The Cleve
July 14th, 2009 · 4 Comments
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the murder of Father Bernard Darke, a Jesuit priest who worked as a photographer for a Catholic newspaper in Guyana. Darke was beaten to death while snapping pictures of an anti-government protest. His assailants were all members of one of the most curious quasi-religious groups to ever grace the [...]
Tags:cults·Guyana·House of Israel·Rabbi Edward Washington·religion
Whatever Happened to Zezozose Zadfrack?
April 22nd, 2009 · 8 Comments
The recent leak of this Charles Manson mugshot got Microkhan thinking about his youthful obsession with Helter Skelter, still a classic of the true-crime genre. The way that Vincent Bugliosi slowly reveals the paranoia at the Family’s core, as well as the crazy Beatles link, taught us a lot about narrative pacing—not to mention the [...]
Tags:1960s·Charles Manson·crime·cults·history
