An unpublished novel I wrote before The American Book was called “God’s Wife,” about a sex worker who joins a revolutionary/religious cult in Vermont.  Hope to revisit it one of the these days.  Shows that I’ve been interested in religion for a while – the novel was written in the late nineties.  And part of the reason I’ve written about Hollywood and celebrity is because movie stars have become (one of) today’s Gods.  Just a different kind of worship.

One of the concepts in The American Book of the Dead is that if it was known with absolute certainty that death was not the end, but a stage, then it would totally change the fabric of society.  War would lose its meaning, as killing people wouldn’t necessarily be seen as a punishment.  People would seek out ways to die.  Maybe millions of people would.  It would be apocalyptic – so perhaps it’s a very good thing we don’t know about any afterlife system (if there is one) because it means maybe we work a bit harder to stay alive and create new things while we’re here, instead of ducking out.  It’s probably obvious that I lean towards the afterlife being a possibility, because in a world of infinite possible multiverses, it would seem that maybe we have more than one go-around.

What’s disturbing is that the Heaven’s Gate worldview really isn’t that different from much New Age or Eastern thought.  Putting aside the notion that they’re going to travel on a Star Trek craft hiding behind Halle Boppe, the concept of “containers” and moving on to a next stage of consciousness is a common one.  In short, maybe they’re not wrong.  Their certainty is no doubt dangerous (for obvious reasons), but what separates them from other death cults is that it’s not violent ala Jim Jones, Manson, or Aum Shinrikyo, they’re at peace with what they’re doing. I do remember video of someone crying, but that one’s been left off of Youtube, conspicuously.

The concept of dropping out of a society that requires a lot of pointless action is not an entirely shocking one.  I’m not condoning it, I just don’t find it particularly surprising.  Back when, I thought they were the pinnacle of dementia.  Now I’m more of the mind: everything’s demented.

At one point I was immersed in info about cults.  The Heaven’s Gate cult story happened as I was finishing up the cult novel. I remember the videos from the members and how strikingly normal everyone seemed.  Crazy, but average.  These exit interviews are disturbing but fascinating.

I don’t exactly recommend checking out all the videos, but they’re a pretty startling document.  Why them and not other people?  One would have to look at all their histories to see if they suffered from a similar type of abuse or neglect.  Is this just a case of brainwashing? That seems a bit easy – especially given the fact that people were with the cult for decades.  There seems to be free will at work here, and they generally seem reasonable, not “crazy.”  But then you have to remember, they were listening to this guy with the rounded eyes who considered himself the reincarnation of Christ:

An extra layer of creepiness. These videos were uploaded by 1RiverofAngels. From Wikipedia:

One of the members did not commit suicide; Rio DiAngelo was a member who agreed with Applewhite weeks before the suicides to leave the group so he could ensure future dissemination of Heaven’s Gate videos and literature.

Now Youtube exists, and perhaps I am helping to “ensure future dissemination” by posting these here. I feel like I’m dredging up some stuff that should stay buried – pretty haunting.  I’m not 100% certain it’s the same person, but it would stand to reason. He posted this article in the LA Weekly in 2007:

So, Why did Heaven’s Gate do what they did at the end? When a person decides to create a Soul within the body, the body is then used as a chrysalis, a type of incubator for the Soul. That becomes the body’s purpose. The human body is designed for this.  A person can partially develop a Soul and when the body dies that Soul is placed in special keeping for the next reincarnation when a Representative is present on Earth. Once the Soul is developed enough and is in the presence of the Level Above Representative, has passed the final lessons ready to graduate it means: You will not be reincarnating on Earth again!

Ten years later and he’s still talking like this – without the groupmind of a cult or the leader guiding him on.  Really scary and sad.

But this is interesting.  Terry Jones is a cult leader:

When Jones left Cologne 26 years later it was as a disgraced preacher who was accused of running a sect-like community with an iron fist, forcing members to give him a percentage of their earnings, making them work for little or no money and causing the breakup of families and friendships. He also faked a title as “Doctor of Theology”, for which he was fined.

As tension mounted ahead of Jones’s plan to burn Qur’ans at his Florida church, it emerged that he had been dismissed by the board of the Christian Community of Cologne in 2008 after years of strife…

“He has clearly not been able to cope with the immense loss of his power and significance,” said Schäfer.

People have been calling him a fame-seeking narcissist, and I haven’t seen it, I’ve just seen another idiot preacher, many of whom seem to be built from the same cloth.  But like a cult leader, he’s addicted to power.  So he’s loving all this attention and probably sees it as God’s will. This part is the most telling:

Jones had hoped to replicate the community across Europe. “His goal had been to awaken the whole of Europe,” said Schäfer.

So to him Islam is evil because it’s also trying to spread its message across the world.  So he’s the American equivalent of Osama bin Laden – one dominionist against another.  In a weird way, though, it’s a testament to him that he’s burning books instead of people.  Part of his impulse may be to start a religious war, but he’s not doing it with car bombs.  Though Christianists bomb abortion clinics, this kind of violence is mostly the method of Muslim fanatics.  And one wonders why that is, given the fact that Terry Jones is clearly deranged, power-seeking, and willing to inspire violence.

My answer is that Christian fanatics are more primed for a war of ideology, of “spreading the faith.” Violence is not as part of American culture, in the same way that soccer is not a part of the American culture.  That could be a statement suggesting that violence is part of Islamic culture  – no, it’s just more a part of the countries where Islam is based.  You don’t see people with AK 47’s riding around in the U.S.

But overall, their intentions are the same.  Christian fundamentalists want the Rapture – a global war in which only they will be saved.  Muslim fanatics are taking it to the streets a bit earlier.  But the impulse is similar, in that both ideologies are based on violent ends.  This should be the story about the Koran burning – not only the affront to Muslims, but what this signifies about fundamentalist Christianity’s ultimate desire to set things on fire. But the media would probably never touch that issue.

Update: An hour after I write this, I read this – Self-Described ‘Christian Counterpart To Osama Bin Laden’ Arrested In Plot To Bomb Abortion Clinic:

A study released today by former leaders of the 9/11 Commission finds that “terrorism is increasingly taking on an American cast.” Warning of “a much more diverse threat,” the report urges the U.S. government to prepare for “the radicalization and recruitment of Americans to terrorist ranks.” While the report rightly warns of threats from radical Muslim extremists, law enforcement officials should also be concerned about right-wing zealots, as a 2009 Homeland Security report warned.

For instance, this past Tuesday, the FBI arrested 26-year old Christian radical Justin Carl Moose in Concord, NC for “providing information to create explosives” to “blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic.” Through his conversations with an FBI informant and his Facebook page, Moose expressed virulent “anger at abortion doctors, President Barack Obama’s health care plan, and plans to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city.” He goes on to describe himself as “the Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden” who “has learned a lot from the muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics”

Stories like this are going to become more frequent as the right becomes more radicalized. Of course, if you’re going to take this from a truther slant, “leaders from the 9-11 Commission” would just be setting up another false flag. I’m not aggressively paranoid that everything in the media is coordinated psy-ops, but isn’t it strange that this report should be released today in the midst of the Terry Jones controversy?  The radicalization of this guy is no surprise, but the timing is impeccable.  True paranoids would say the guy’s under the influence of mind control.  You don’t need technology to do that.  Religion does it just fine.

Update 2: The Dove World Outreach Center’s Academy Rulebook is a pretty amazing document. Page 4:

RA Wilson calls some conspiracy theorists “adrenaline addicts.” Think that describes AJ. He wants there to be a conspiracy more than he wants there to be a solution. His stupid bullhorn is all about calling attention to himself, thereby making some reasonable questions about govt. seem like the product of the wacko fringe. Funny how the people who talk most about “liberty” are proto-fascists.

That led me to books by the person who runs the site, Laura Knight Jadczyk:

Signs of the Times, or SOTT.net, was launched on March 26, 2002 by Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

A historian and author of repute in her own right, Laura Knight-Jadczyk is the wife of renowned theoretical physicist, Arkadiusz Jadczyk, one of the world’s few living experts in hyperdimensional physics.

Since its early days when it was just a one-woman operation, SOTT.net has evolved into one of the leading news sites for those tired of the “news” that is “reported” by the mainstream media.

The original idea behind SOTT was to track what was going on socially and politically in terms of global energies in much the same way that a physicist attempts to track and measure more subtle energies – the theory being that society is like a macro-quantum system that follows certain laws of the Universe, and can be predicted in the same way that the quantum world can be statistically analyzed and predicted.

About her book, The Wave, she says,

I began writing the Wave Series and other articles as a way of collecting excerpts together in general subjects. As I did this, a truly extraordinary thing began to happen. The Cassiopaean Experiment had resulted in transmissions from myself in the future, and I realized that by doing the suggested research, by digging for the answers based on the clues given me, I was becoming myself in the future – a cosmic self. I began to see what I had been trying to convey to myself from this superconscious state. The years of experimental work had created a new circuit wherein it was possible to simply ask a question in my mind about the subject at hand, and the answer would flow through my fingers onto the keyboard. I was often as amazed at what came out as anyone.

As I’ve mentioned, this is the premise behind The American Book of the Dead – that I was channeling myself in the future. As I’ve also mentioned, I don’t actually believe I’ve done this because I think my writing of the novel was too self-conscious and self-reflective in the here and now. Interesting to think it’s possible – and who knows, maybe I did.

I’m hoping that the forums of Cassiopaea are not overrun with deranged teabaggers, as is the case with places like Godlike Productions and Above Top Secret.  I did a bit of digging and some accuse the group of being a cult.  Not surprising, given that Laura Knight Jadczyk claims to channel beings from Cassiopaea with sessions such as:

Q: (L) Are there alien bases on the Moon?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who do the bases belong to?
A: Grays.
Q: (L) Was there ever at any time such a thing as mermaids?
A: No.
Q: (L) What is the origin of this legend?
A: Sailors delirium.
Q: (L) Are there alien bases on Mars?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Whose?
A: Grays and Lizards.

More:

Q: (L) What procedure or technology do the Grays use to pass
through solid matter?
A: Transdimensional atomic rearrangement.
Q: (L) How do aliens transport themselves or others on beams of
light?
A: By electron focusing and previous answer.

Q: (V) Do I have an implant in my right ear?
A: Yes.
Q: (V) It has been going off a lot lately.
A: Caused by your interactions with these powerful channels.
Q: (V) What do you mean by powerful channels?
A: Laura and F***.
Q: (V) Are they Lizard implants?
A: Yes. Monitoring heavily lately.
Q: (V) When did I get the implants?
A: Age 3.

etc.

Is this group a cult? I don’t know. But I think “cult” is wielded in the same way as “conspiracy theory” – to automatically discredit an idea. Is this a singularly weird spiritual framework? No doubt. But a cult involves brainwashing, abuse of believers, and generally being holed up in the same place. Selling books is not quite the same thing.  If every strange spiritual practice is labeled a cult – even if it is led by someone with a propensity for high strangeness – this could tamp down people’s attempts at spiritual exploration.

No doubt someone who follows that road is “out there” but the question isn’t whether or not a channeler is actually channeling something real, the question is if the result is interesting. Same thing with UFOs – so much rides on “proof” but the important question is, What’s this all mean if it’s true. That there’s no hard proof doesn’t mean that issue’s been resolved.  A channeler may just be inventing fiction – but fiction isn’t a lie just because it’s made up.  Even if the channeler believes too strongly that they’re tapped into the real thing (as most channelers seem to) that doesn’t disregard everything they put to paper.  Fact is, we don’t know exactly where it’s coming from any more than we know where artistic inspiration comes from and what makes some artists tapped into something beyond themselves and some artists not.

And I’m no Icke-ite by any means – and Laura Knight Jadczyk subscribes to those sorts of ideas. But I do see a fundamental weirdness in how the world is devolving. As a friend wrote to me recently:

The whole situation is indeed so weird and crazy that even the most “absurd” explanations can seem plausible.

Profit? Doesn’t make sense, as you point out.

“Progress”? Nope.

Power? Over a despoiled ash heap?

Vampiric shape-shifting reptiles from outer space? … well… maybe…

Very interesting expose of Scientology from people who went inside with hidden cameras. I haven’t seen the testing procedures outlined like this before. That said, I kind of hate this style of journalism. It’s so slanted that it loses credibility. I could imagine being on the other side of it with a subject I’m interested in, like alien abduction, and see it (and have) subjected to the same cynical treatment. And I’m a person who despises Scientology – something that espouses the “science of the mind” will no doubt have robotic followers. While it’s good that there’s an expose of Scientology so people know what it’s about, I’m sure you could find someone who didn’t lose their life savings and/or have been helped by it.  Weirdly, the documentary comes from a slightly pro-Christian standpoint, which could be the subject of the same type of documentary.

This video here is incredibly strange – worth a watch maybe more than the above one. I haven’t seen Scientology ever described as an apocalyptic sect – they want to “clear” people’s minds to fend off the apocalypse. Amazing that this is real life, seems very much like fiction, which in turn has been inspired by the imaginings of a science fiction author.  Sometimes I do think that we’re all part of some crazed novel.  Here’s proof:

Their war against psychiatry is truly dangerous…to a degree. Because it’s true that anti-depressants are over-prescribed and could turn into a new Soma. But that’s not all of psychiatry, and their gleeful vitriol towards psychiatry is demented.

Bonus: my fellow Backword author writes about her trip to a Scientology center. Someone once told me he was asked to sit in a room for an hour with wallpaper of hundreds of owls staring back at him. Then the auditing started.

If you need a refresher, here’s what Scientologists believe about Xenu.