Tag Archives: Scientology

Diary Blog, 26 February 2021, including some thoughts about crazy cults

The madness of belief

I was listening last night to BBC World Service; a piece about “Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh], one of the “gurus” of the 1960s and 1970s, and favoured by the hippy element (and some pop stars).

There was a whole mass of odd “gurus”, supposed religious teachers etc around at that time. Most were broadly of Hindu orientation, though some were Buddhist, or even “Christian”, e.g. the “Reverend” Jim Jones [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones]. Some invented their own religions, as did L. Ron Hubbard (who invented Scientology in the 1950s), and the “Reverend” Moon of South Korea, whose “Moonies” became a pest across the Western world. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard

As a matter of fact, I was wandering around London, I think in 1978, aged 21, when two people, a young man and a young Asian woman, accosted me in Edgware Road. I was living in Little Venice at the time. I quickly guessed that they were Moonies but, curious, allowed myself to be invited to their HQ, which turned out to be a fairly large house in, I think, either Paddington or Notting Hill. The latter, as far as I can remember.

I was given a drink (instant coffee, I think) and a biscuit, and was then invited to an odd lecture (audience: about a dozen people, all young) by a possibly Korean, or Chinese, woman, not unattractive and aged about 30-ish.

I was slightly worried (the Moonies having been the subject of tabloid Press outrage) that I might be somehow prevented from leaving, but once the lecture was over (it concerned some weird ideas about how the Earth was created, the lecturer using a blackboard and chalk circles), I simply expessed a polite but firm intention to leave, thanked them, and walked out, never to see (as far as I know) another Moonie for the rest of my life.

As far as Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh is concerned, the only one of his disciples or former disciples I met was a woman whom my then girlfriend invited to the home we (sometimes) shared. That would have been mid-1980s.

The woman, divorced, had completed a Master’s degree at the University of Essex in the 1970s, where my 1980s girlfriend, a Cambridge graduate, had been taking a higher degree at the same time. The other woman had married a Jew, and brought her two rather unpleasant, rude and badly-behaved young sons (aged about 4 or 5) with her. She was, I had been told, a senior official in the —even then, rather notorious— Haringey Council in North West London.

She started talking about how she had at one time been involved with the Rajneesh cult (she referred to the Indian as “the Bagwash”, perhaps in an attempt not to seem brainwashed). She said that she could still see some value in what the cult taught. I could only listen, not knowing anything to speak of about that cult. I certainly had no idea that it was at least partly a “sex cult”! The afternoon did not end very amicably.

The “guru” himself is now dead, having had a heart attack at age 58 in 1990.

Bhagwan beweging gekwetst door reclame-affiche van het NRC met de tekst profeet , Bestanddeelnr 933-0734-cropped.jpg
[“Rajneesh Shri Bhagwan” in 1984]

Listening to the BBC broadcast [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-44300915], what struck me most was the sheer decadence not (only) of the “guru” but more so of the white Western people who bowed down to what Churchill might have called (his description of Gandhi) “a half-naked native fakir“.

Of course, to be fair, Rajneesh was only an Indian con-man, not a supposed political “saint” whose activism led to the Partition of formerly British India, with the loss of life possibly topping 2 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India. [cf. Mandela…]

To my mind (no doubt “prejudiced”, “racist” etc…), it is almost beyond belief that young European (white) women from the UK, Germany, USA etc would want to have sexual relations with the Rajneesh creature. Does “group hypnotism” or “Stockholm Syndrome” explain some of that?

Likewise, the idiots not only accepted that Rajneesh was screwing many of the women, but accepted his extravagance on himself, as they slaved to bring in money to the cult, and/or gave their own money for the use of the “guru”.

Rajneesh had just under 100 Rolls-Royce cars, for example. The photos below show him expounding his “truths” to the “chelas”; also, his white serfs lining up to worship him as he drove past, covering them in dust. Madness. Rassenschande.

Bhagwan 1976
Hugh Milne
by Samvado Kossatz on the ranch in Oregon, 1982 - in the early 2000s, Samvado allowed use of the photo conditional on him getting the photo credit.

Did they stand there clapping, too? Or was mere silent worship enough?

I imagine that most of the followers were probably not hugely intelligent. Certainly, the Scottish bodyguard reminiscing on the BBC did not give a very intelligent impression. Still, interesting from the psychological point of view. The followers were (superficially) seeking enlightenment, sought it from Rajneesh, and seem not to have been too fazed by his sexual antics, or by his ownership of about 94 Rolls-Royces. Very odd, to me. I suppose that I am rather an ancient Roman, in my way…

Rajneesh was not the only guru-figure who liked Rolls-Royce cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Rawat#Lifestyle

Eventually, the Rajneesh cult ended in tears, with murder plots, criminal charges etc. The cultists even tried to kill 750 Oregon inhabitants by poisoning. Shades of Jonestown [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown]. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Anand_Sheela.

To any Western person of rational mind, that cult was crazy, as are or were “Jonestown”, Scientology, Moonies etc. There are literally thousands of other examples, from “Maharaj Ji” to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the believers in “Joanna Southcott’s box”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Southcott; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Rawat; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses

Indeed, the Westernized Indians also look with disfavour upon the cults, such as those mentioned, the “Hare Krishna’s” etc, which mostly appeal to Western people. Books have been written, by satirical Indians, about it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_Cola

Having said that, of course some of the major religions of today were once regarded by many of the people of the time of their inception as equally crazy. Christianity was looked upon as both mad and seditious by Rome, until Constantine adopted it. The same could be said of Islam, mutatis mutandis.

The only guides are reason, conscience, and instinct.

Looking at it in the wider historical context, cults and fantastic beliefs have always existed, but seem to flourish more during times of collapse of existing order and established belief.

Afternoon music

Hanson, Symphony no.2, “Romantic” (in three movements):

Tweets seen today

Interesting psychological experiment. Not surprising though. A virus which kills one in a thousand people has been presented as a “Black Death”, and has led to human “rabbits” wearing facemasks as ordered (and even when walking alone in the open air!), keeping away from each other, making their children into poor pathetic muzzled and isolated units even in school, and so on.

Not a bad film, but arguably far too sympathetic to the fugitive couple. Few were arrested solely for their opposition to the Vietnam War. Fugitives of that sort usually were wanted on charges of murder, manslaughter, robbing banks, setting off bombs etc.

There was a similar case in real life, seen on TV by me when I was staying on the Gulf Coast of Florida in 1999. A woman in (I think) Ohio, or somewhere that way, was arrested. A housewife/homemaker, married to a dentist who knew nothing of her past (if I am remembering correctly) or her real name. Arrested on Federal warrant originally dated sometime around 1970.

I think that this was a similar case: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jan/20/duncancampbell.theobserver; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground#Legacy

More tweets

https://twitter.com/superwife888/status/1365186332583219202?s=20

https://twitter.com/echtDutch/status/1365190127950196737?s=20

https://twitter.com/ShereeJasmine1/status/1365045078255886337?s=20

https://twitter.com/VinVSouthRising/status/1365003620316512256?s=20

https://twitter.com/VinVSouthRising/status/1365031825702273031?s=20

https://twitter.com/acm67neath/status/1365215827415465984?s=20

Wake up, people…”they” will not be content until our whole civilization, culture, race and religion(s) are destroyed, and “they” rule over whatever raceless, cultureless humanoid mass is still living.

https://twitter.com/TheWokin1/status/1365185531441778693?s=20

https://twitter.com/SmolSpanishGirl/status/1365095930937106434?s=20

https://twitter.com/Foyle1945/status/1363434292261576711?s=20

https://twitter.com/AgainWoken/status/1363527746945765376?s=20

The schools in the UK (both fee-paying and State schools) are becoming, indeed have become, unfit for purpose. Some people think that it is somehow unlawful to homeschool. Not so: https://www.gov.uk/home-education.

More peaceful afternoon music

That Rautavaara piece is peaceful in part, but also unsettling, like much of life…

More peaceful…

Late tweets seen

Tweeter “Jason/@j8ybb” is all too typical. Ignorant, thinks that an insult is an argument, and seems to think (or has been brainwashed into thinking) that White Northern Europeans are somehow worse than, and certainly not more advanced than, the “blacks and browns”. He also seems to despise what appears to be his own ancestry and people.

I just read a few more of the tweets from “Jason”. Sad, more than anything.

Late music

Where Are The Limits Of Religious Freedom?

One of the pillars of a future “Threefold Social Order” society will be religious freedom. Such freedom is also said to be a pillar of our existing “Western” model of society.

“We” supposedly all agree with that ideal, meaning of course “we” white Northern Europeans. Of course, once one gets away from Northern Europe and its wider offshoots in North America, Australasia etc, that consensus ends. In the Middle East, much of Africa, South Asia etc, freedom of religion either does not exist, or exists only as a fragile plant.

In Europe, we see that the migration-invasion, and the societal takeover via a high birth rate of, in particular, Muslims, is threatening our fond belief that we have and always will have religious freedom. The pendulum is swinging. Whereas in the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic Christians repressed other religious communities and launched crusades to conquer Muslim lands (a simplification, of course, but let’s leave that aside), today the Muslims are invading Europe, not as armies (as happened several times in the past) but as migrant-invaders (immigrants, “refugees”, “asylum-seekers”, and as babies born in Europe…). If this continues unabated, we can expect to see more attempts to shut down religious freedom for non-Muslims, as shown in this cartoon:

CX9ZsZOWEAAky2e

This process can be seen in the UK. There have in fact been Muslims in the UK for a long time, at least in small numbers. An Islamic centre and cemetery was established on the edge of Woking, Surrey, in the 19thC (it can be seen just before trains enter Woking Station, on the Southern or lefthand side as the train travels from London). However, the political or societal strength has grown in more recent years, along with the numbers.

In the 1970s, the Muslim element rarely displayed itself politically. I myself recall that posters on the Underground in 1976 or 1977, advertizing the Libyan-funded film “Mohammed, Messenger of God” were often defaced, always with the same words: “Islam forbids representations”. That vandalism, along with “community” representation to the UK authorities and the film distributors, resulted in the film being renamed “The Message”.

Now, 40 or so years later, times have moved on. Despite the Muslim population of the UK only being between 5% and 6% (officially), there has been a gradual infiltration (I do not say that it has been particularly organized) into mainstream political parties, in areas where Muslim numbers are significant: parts of the North of England, the Midlands, smaller areas within London and elsewhere. The influence of Sharia law and courts has grown; the Church of England has shown itself craven (as indeed it is when confronted by the aggressive Jewish-Zionist element). In some cases, Christians wishing to display their faith, e.g. by wearing crosses etc, have been given the choice of not doing so or being dismissed.

I repeat, officially the Muslim population of the UK stands at little more than 5% (about 5.1%) so far, but a high birth rate may propel that to 10% in the short term and later to…who knows? What will then be its influence and power?

As to the Jews, in numbers they are small, somewhere between 250,000 to 280,000, though there are also very large numbers of part-Jews, many of whom have little or no day to day connection with Jewish religious practices. Their influence and power comes not from crude numbers, but from concentration in and control of key strategic areas: finance, law, politics, mainstream media and, now, large Internet organizations.

Christians and Muslims accept persons of any race into their communities, at least in principle. Both Christians and Muslims have traditionally accepted it as an article of faith that persons of other religions should be “converted”, whereas Jews do not seek converts (though some modern branches do accept small numbers, e.g. after marriage to Jews). Judaism, therefore, has never launched “crusades” or the like. The Jews do not aim to make the world Jewish, only to be the major influencing, controlling and profiting element in or over the world.

The modern Christian world of the post-Enlightenment has, in principle, accepted that people can be Christian, Muslim or Jew (or whatever else) freely. That is easy enough when it comes to beliefs, ideas, even public worship in particular buildings, though (as mentioned above) it took Europe a long time even to accept those aspects. Much of the world does not go that far.

Where things become more difficult is when the religious practice of a community contravenes the law or morality of the society as a whole. Halal slaughter, kosher slaughter, which revolt the sensibilities of thinking non-Muslims and non-Jews. Male and female genital mutilation by Muslims and Jews. The cries (now electrically amplified) of the muezzin from the minaret of the mosque. These are cases where, in my view, the demands of the society to prevent cruelty, the wish of Europeans not to hear constant mosque noise in their neighbourhood must prevail over the practices of both the Jews and the Muslims.

To take an extreme case: there were societies in the past, Aztecs, Incas, even Europeans of ancient Europe, who engaged in ritual sacrifice of humans. Would we accept such practices today just because “it is part of their religion”? I think not.

There have been problems in the recent past in relation to other religions: the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with their unwillingness to save the lives of their children via blood transfusion; the mental and sometimes physical cruelty to children of some small “Christian” sects such as the Plymouth Brethren; the contrived scam that is Scientology (the British government of the 1960s fought a long battle to suppress Scientology, because of its perceived cultic and controlling behaviour). There could be other examples given.

It might be said that even mainstream Christian religions have done very evil things, e.g. the sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, though those involved acts not sanctioned or encouraged by the religion as such.

In the end, society, meaning the political element, must draw the line between the zone where religion holds sway and the zone where group or community religious practice must give way before the general secular law which should protect people and animals.