Posted in Consciousness & Alternate Perception, but NOT The Big Something, everyday forteana, gratitude, high weirdness, initiation, late night, pointing at The Big Something, psychology, spirituality, sub cult-sure on June 16, 2008 | 13 Comments »
First time I saw a gray, “for real,” I was in the middle of a deep meditation, at a moment in my life when I also found myself to be, willingly, though perhaps less than consciously, a gypsy’s mark.
The second (and third and fourth…) time I saw a gray happened like this.
Riding to the Japanese [...]
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I’ve sat on writing about this guy (LaRouche, that is) for a very long time. Maybe I’ll do so in the New Year.
In the meantime, Washington Monthly has published a very well-written, account of the slow death of Lyndon LaRouche’s “movement” and how it ties to the suicide of a long-time member, who was [...]
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Posted in sub cult-sure on October 28, 2007 | 3 Comments »
That was the top search that brought folks to this site yesterday, for some reason. Maybe it’s because of the ol’ Fellowship of Friends thing (my encounters recounted here and here, plus some cult musings here and here). Pretty good question. My knee-jerk answer is, well, yes. Of course, cults feel [...]
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We’ve gone from tazering seemingly conspiracy-oriented college students while the “audience” of fellow students and administrators do nothing, to having audiences cheer at a live taping of Real Time when Bill Maher helps remove “9-11 Truthers” from his studio.
Amazing how quickly the (short-) attention economy of Spectacle moves.
What’s telling are two remarks Maher made during [...]
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If you’re even superficially aware of William S. Burroughs, you know of his heroine addicted years and the inside view of the shady side of our Spectacular Culture (the deep political, occult and conspiratorial) which that, coupled with his privileged pedigree and the bizarre accidental shooting of his wife Joan, allowed him. You will [...]
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Michael Muhammad Knight is a progressive Muslim, author of the novel The Taqwacores and a recent book on the history of Father Allah (Clarence 13X Smith) and the Nation of Gods and Earths, The Five Percenters. Via e-mail, we discussed his conversion to Islam at a young age and his time studying Islam in [...]
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I’ve been taking an unofficial vacation from posting, but figured I’d break some of the site silence to continue my 10 Ways Experiment. To briefly refresh anyone’s memory out there or to initiate them into this little exercise, I’ll summarize it. Basically, I take things in my every day environment–events, overheard snippets of [...]
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There’s a discussion of my extended response essay “What It Feels Like for a Cult Leader over at the Daism forum. While reading their responses, I found a great link left by “mdpc” to an essay by Dr. Arthur Deikman called “Personal Freedom”.
To state it plainly, the essay hits hard.
I just wanted to quote this [...]
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Here’s a pretty great insight (so says me) by costumeoff in the comments to the recent piece entitled “Once More with the Fellowship of Friends“:
The true enlightenment is not necessarily the state of illumination but how that knowledge and moment then informs your choices and actions thereafter. You could say that people who get hooked [...]
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Ted Heistman asks two pretty good conversation starters in the comments to the last Fellowship of Friends essay.
He asks:
Ever entertained the idea of becoming a cult leader? Or at least imagining what it would be like one?
Those are two great questions, not just for me but for all of us. Because it may require [...]
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