#obligatory new religious movement rabbit hole tag

[ainsi-soit-il]

[...] nothing to read here but The Nova Express by William Burroughs; the Nietzche and Dostoevsky that Kesey has; and the Bible; everybody goes through The Nova Express in a couple hours; but the Bible they can linger over... and gradually without anybody hardly saying anything about it, without getting high even, they are in another time dimension [...]

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

[ainsi-soit-il]

"...It's easy to have faith as long as it goes along with what you already know..."

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

[ainsi-soit-il]

Years later, I wondered if modern American society had been replacing a system of mythology and religious dogma with a system of reason as a way to explain ourselves and the world around us. I wondered if there were a genuine need in humans not only to categorize and comprehend, but to acknowledge and to address, in unscientific terms, the mystery of that which creates, binds, animates, and destroys. And I wondered if teachers like Atmananda were increasingly exploiting such a need in millions who, for whatever reasons, had chosen a path apart from conventional religion. Perhaps by nurturing both mystical and rational inclinations, society could explore the realm beyond the surface world of reason while keeping pace with the charismatic predators of the New Age.

Mark E. Laxer, Take Me For A Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive Cult.

[ainsi-soit-il]

I finished reading Take Me For A Ride by Mark E. Laxer recently, and the whole thing is making me think of self-control as a virtue and how Frederick Lenz's idea of "enlightenment" is disturbingly divorced from self-control.

[ainsi-soit-il]

For that matter, there was no theology to it, no philosophy, at least not in the sense of an ism. There was no goal of an improved moral order in the world or an improved social order, nothing about salvation and certainly nothing about immortality or the life hereafter. Hereafter! That was a laugh. If there was ever a group devoted totally to the here and now it was the Pranksters. I remember puzzling over this. There was something so... religious in the air, in the very atmosphere of the Prankster life, and yet one couldn't put one's finger on it.

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

[ainsi-soit-il]

Told my sister that the corpse of Robert Ettinger, the father of cryonics, awaits reanimation alongside his wife and his ex-wife, and she said, “That just sounds like Mormonism with extra steps.”

[ainsi-soit-il]

45 years ago, while their father was taking lives, three of his sons were trying to save lives.

On November 18, 1978, three of Jim Jones’ children—Stephan, Jimmy, and Tim—were in Georgetown, Guyana with their basketball team. When the Temple members in Georgetown received orders from their father telling them to kill themselves, Jimmy attempted to convince their father not to order mass-suicide. When that didn’t work, Stephan stalled to keep the group of Temple members in Georgetown from taking their own lives and called the Peoples Temple in San Francisco every half hour to ensure they stayed alive. All three went to the U. S. embassy in a last attempt to stop Jim Jones.

As many macabre stories as I’ve heard about Jonestown and as often as people jokingly say “don’t drink the Kool-Aid”, I didn’t learn about how many lives Jones’s sons saved—and tried to save—on the exact same day until today.

[ainsi-soit-il]

Watched a YouTube documentary on cryonics and I’ve now fallen down a rabbit hole and am watching a video of a service at a cryonics church.

[ainsi-soit-il]

I absolutely am still working on getting the plank out of my own eye on this one but entirely too many people on the internet are way too comfortable treating cults as entertainment and being accusatory toward cult survivors.

[ainsi-soit-il]

On November 18, 1978, three of Jim Jones’ children—Stephan, Jimmy, and Tim—were in Georgetown, Guyana with their basketball team. When the Temple members in Georgetown received orders from their father telling them to kill themselves, Jimmy attempted to convince their father not to order mass-suicide. When that didn’t work, Stephan stalled to keep the group of Temple members in Georgetown from taking their own lives and called the Peoples Temple in San Francisco every half hour to ensure they stayed alive. All three went to the U. S. embassy in a last attempt to stop Jim Jones.

As many macabre stories as I’ve heard about Jonestown and as often as people jokingly say “don’t drink the Kool-Aid”, I didn’t learn about how many lives Jones’s sons saved—and tried to save—on the exact same day until today.