..on Cults, Positives of
This nation needs cults.
Not the psychotic death cults that call themselves Christianity. Not the lentil-farming for The Great Leader cults that were so popular in the '70s and '80s.
I'm talking old school mystery cults. With hats and initiations and orgies.
Especially orgies.
What kind of empire collapses without orgies? I'm sure even the British shared an occasional peck on the cheek in the post-War period. Americans can do things bigger, faster and shinier than any people that have ever existed before. I don't want some historian of the future looking back at this period and seeing the cheap and tawdry decadence we have now. Girls Gone Wild and monster-truck rallies? We can and must do better than that.
We also need to think about the future. Cults have a proven track record of surviving during dark times and can transmit information and cultural mores across centuries. They can also be incredible agents for change when the time is right. The Royal Academy and Freemasons were instrumental in forming the critical mass of freethinkers needed to throw off the yoke of the Church and create the modern age. One day the present insanity will fade and on that day I want our cult-following descendants to unleash a centuries-old grudge on the descendants of the idiots who are torquing me up today.
Plus there is an enormous amount of money in cults. Right now there is a vast untapped market of angry agnostics who are looking for direction. They are too smart to fall for any of the existing offers, but they might bite on this one. We start off with an ironic sell. "We know it's bs, but wearing hats and chanting in Latin is fun. Plus we have orgies and drugs." Once they are hooked we start initiating them in the higher levels. We make up something about a secret brotherhood of Enlightened Masters (the usual suspects, Francis Bacon, Ben Franklin, David Hasselhoff) who have struggled for centuries against ignorance and stupidity. Plus we sell merchandise.
Finally if my fellow Americans are so scared of the future that they have to make up enemies (I mean gay-bashing? How lame is that?) let's give them a dramatic one. I'm thinking of something straight out of the '30s pulps with a name like The Invisible Empire. Once the cult is up and running it will move on to taking over the airwaves and broadcasting demands for surrender. Plus a lot of scientist kidnapping. It's to be expected of any dangerous conspiracy and I wouldn't want to disappoint the audience. In actuality we'll set them up in secret labs with good funding and no research restrictions so we can sell patents to the Europeans. But nobody has to know that.
The plan is to have fun (attracting more recruits), make money and terrify the rubes. They are going to be terrified anyway and by acting as a lightning rod the cult can take the heat off of whatever other minority would be targeted. In the end we either take over the planet or people figure out the whole thing is a joke and realize most of what they were taught was BS. Then maybe we can get back on track as a society.
Not the psychotic death cults that call themselves Christianity. Not the lentil-farming for The Great Leader cults that were so popular in the '70s and '80s.
I'm talking old school mystery cults. With hats and initiations and orgies.
Especially orgies.
What kind of empire collapses without orgies? I'm sure even the British shared an occasional peck on the cheek in the post-War period. Americans can do things bigger, faster and shinier than any people that have ever existed before. I don't want some historian of the future looking back at this period and seeing the cheap and tawdry decadence we have now. Girls Gone Wild and monster-truck rallies? We can and must do better than that.
We also need to think about the future. Cults have a proven track record of surviving during dark times and can transmit information and cultural mores across centuries. They can also be incredible agents for change when the time is right. The Royal Academy and Freemasons were instrumental in forming the critical mass of freethinkers needed to throw off the yoke of the Church and create the modern age. One day the present insanity will fade and on that day I want our cult-following descendants to unleash a centuries-old grudge on the descendants of the idiots who are torquing me up today.
Plus there is an enormous amount of money in cults. Right now there is a vast untapped market of angry agnostics who are looking for direction. They are too smart to fall for any of the existing offers, but they might bite on this one. We start off with an ironic sell. "We know it's bs, but wearing hats and chanting in Latin is fun. Plus we have orgies and drugs." Once they are hooked we start initiating them in the higher levels. We make up something about a secret brotherhood of Enlightened Masters (the usual suspects, Francis Bacon, Ben Franklin, David Hasselhoff) who have struggled for centuries against ignorance and stupidity. Plus we sell merchandise.
Finally if my fellow Americans are so scared of the future that they have to make up enemies (I mean gay-bashing? How lame is that?) let's give them a dramatic one. I'm thinking of something straight out of the '30s pulps with a name like The Invisible Empire. Once the cult is up and running it will move on to taking over the airwaves and broadcasting demands for surrender. Plus a lot of scientist kidnapping. It's to be expected of any dangerous conspiracy and I wouldn't want to disappoint the audience. In actuality we'll set them up in secret labs with good funding and no research restrictions so we can sell patents to the Europeans. But nobody has to know that.
The plan is to have fun (attracting more recruits), make money and terrify the rubes. They are going to be terrified anyway and by acting as a lightning rod the cult can take the heat off of whatever other minority would be targeted. In the end we either take over the planet or people figure out the whole thing is a joke and realize most of what they were taught was BS. Then maybe we can get back on track as a society.
posted by ElGrande at 9/28/2005 09:48:00 PM
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