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    Armageddon Road: A Study of Cults, Gurus, Alternative Religions & Society
    Armageddon Road: A Study of Cults, Gurus, Alternative Religions & Society
    Armageddon Road: A Study of Cults, Gurus, Alternative Religions & Society
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    Armageddon Road: A Study of Cults, Gurus, Alternative Religions & Society

    By Anthony North

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    About this ebook

    Jim Jones, David Koresh & more. Knights Templar to Scientology. Surveying all things cultish and alternative, Anthony North shows how cults disclose how society really works.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnthony North
    Release dateApr 15, 2021
    ISBN9781005917258
    Armageddon Road: A Study of Cults, Gurus, Alternative Religions & Society
    Author

    Anthony North

    Thinker & Storyteller****7,453 Words to Save the UK and I,Writer are now FREE. Scroll down to find them.*****1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). ‘Twas the best of times ... (Oh well).I was actually born in the year of Einstein's death, close to Scrooge's Counting House. It doesn't mean anything but it sounds good. As for my education, I left school at 15 and have had no formal education since. Hence, I'm self-taught.****From a family of newsagents, at 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realized my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I’ve suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.Indeed, as I realized that no expert could tell me what was wrong with me, I began my quest to find out why. Little did I realize it would last decades and take me through the entire history of knowledge, leaving me with the certainty that our knowledge systems are inadequate.****My non-fiction is based on P-ology, a thought process I devised to work with patterns of knowledge, and designed to be a bedfellow to specialization. A form of Rational Holism, it seeks out areas the specialist may have missed. I work from encyclopaedias and introductory volumes in order to gain a grasp of many subjects and am not an expert in anything, but those patterns keep forming. Hence, I do not deal in truth, but ideas, and cover everything from politics to the paranormal.When reading my work I ask only: do I make sense? Of course, an expert would say: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree. And an expert has so little knowledge of everything.I also write novels and Flash Fiction in all genres.

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      Book preview

      Armageddon Road - Anthony North

      Armageddon Road:

      A Study of Cults, Gurus, Alternative Religions & Society

      By Anthony North

      Copyright: Anthony North 2021

      Cover image copyright: Yvonne North, 2021

      Smashwords Edition

      No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission

      Other books by Anthony North

      Beginning in 2019 I’m publishing 14 volumes of my fiction, inc 7 novels in most genres, & 21 works of non-fiction covering cults, politics, conspiracies, religion, disasters, science, philosophy, warfare, crime, psychology, new age, green issues & all areas of the unexplained, inc ufology, lost worlds and the paranormal. Hopefully appearing at the rate of one a month, check out the latest launch at my bookstore at http://anthonynorth.com or buy direct from Smashwords for all devices at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth

      In addition to the above, you may like my ‘I’ Series – 8 volumes of flash fiction (horror, sci fi, romance, adventure, crime), 4 volumes of poetry & 5 volumes of short essays from politics to the unexplained. Available from same links as above. Also check out my bookstore for news of my books out in paperback.

      CONTENTS

      Chapter One - A Cultish World

      Chapter Two - A Short History of Alternative Religion

      Chapter Three - Religion & Society

      Chapter Four - Danger Man

      Chapter Five - The Seed of Destruction

      Chapter Six - The End is Nigh

      Chapter Seven - Prophets of Doom

      Chapter Eight - A Sick Society

      Chapter Nine - The Disciple

      Chapter Ten - The Guru

      Chapter Eleven - A Hysterical Frame of Mind

      Chapter Twelve - Confidence or Neurosis

      Chapter Thirteen - The Social Vampire

      Chapter Fourteen - Of Many Minds

      Chapter Fifteen - Ultimate Cults

      Content By Subject

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      Connect With Anthony

      Chapter One - A CULTISH WORLD

      On 19 April 1993 tanks trundled across the wooden complex of Mount Carmel near Waco, Texas. Filling the main building with gas, they brought to an end a fifty one day siege of the Branch Davidians, a Seventh Day Adventist sect, causing a massive blaze which saw nearly eighty cultists die, including their leader, David Koresh. What had begun as a legitimate, if heavy handed, attempt to search the compound for arms, the resulting fire fight had eventually set the scene for their own particular apocalypse.

      Koresh himself was an enigmatic figure. Born Vernon Howell to a teenage single mother, he grew up a loner who withdrew into the Bible (stories circulated of periods of abuse during this time). By the age of twelve he had memorized the entire New Testament. Dropping out of school in 1977, he dreamt of being a great rock musician, but lack of talent proved a hindrance. Eventually he joined the Seventh Day Adventists, but was expelled for his extreme views two years later.

      Koresh headed off to Waco, where an apocalyptic splinter group, the Branch Davidians, had been based since the 1930s. He worked there as a handyman, before a spiritual experience led him to take over the sect. To achieve this, one story is he challenged one of the leaders to a spiritual duel, convincing him to dig up a corpse so that Koresh could resurrect it. As the man went off to the graveyard, Koresh phoned the police and the man was arrested. Koresh - the Sinful Messiah, as he became known - took over, instituted an oppressive regime and allegedly began a series of sexual abuses. With such a character, it had to end in disaster.

      This book is about cults such as the Branch Davidians, and their gurus, such as David Koresh. We will explore how they work, and how they can so easily create their own brand of Armageddon. But in doing so, we shall hopefully learn something about ourselves, for it is my belief that a cult is simply an extreme form of normal human behaviour. Hence, in understanding cults, we can understand a great deal about our own psychology and the societies we create.

      It is often argued that the human race is compelled by two overriding instincts - the sexual instinct and the urge towards survival. However, this essentially modern, secular analysis is wrong, for there is a further instinct higher than both. Subsumed by modern living, it lies dormant until such time that a life crisis brings it to the fore. And when it comes, this most powerful instinct - the religious; our sense of the Divine - overpowers the others to the extent that celibacy and martyrdom can become second nature.

      Of course, an urge towards divinity does not prove the existence of the divine. Rather, it can be seen as an expression of lacking within the mind of the individual. If life becomes unfulfilling, we seek something - anything - to fill the psychological void. Whether through the existence of an actual God-force, or centuries of enculturation, for millions from the past and present the void has been filled with subservience to a supernatural belief.

      Four hundred years ago, science and reason toppled the automatic acceptance of God in the western world. The process of change was slow but relentless, and resulting in the materialistic world we live in today. Thought to be the ultimate expression of humanity, the scientific revolution has provided admirably for our material cravings, but one thing is becoming abundantly clear. It has failed to destroy our religious cravings. To more and more people, there is something lacking. And the people are increasingly seeking out their sense of the divine. However, rather than going back to the traditional churches, such people realize that these institutions are essentially stagnant.

      Where Christianity is chosen by these new seekers of the divine, the Charismatic movement is found to be most attractive. Indeed, today there are over 400 million Charismatics worldwide, representing some 25% of the Christian Church, and rising fast. But for many others, Christianity is shunned, preferring the myriad of New Age movements, many based on eastern philosophies. There are thousands of such spiritual movements throughout the world to cater for this upsurge in the religious instinct, many of them categorized as cults.

      Not all cults are as extreme as Koresh's perversion of the Branch Davidians. Based on a mixture of Christianity and 1960s hippydom, The Family (International), previously known as the Children of God, was formed on the Californian beaches in 1968 by David Berg. Attracting converts such as Fleetwood Mac's Jeremy Spencer, by Berg's death in 1994, the cult had thousands of members in communes in many countries. Given immediacy by its belief in Armageddon, many commentators saw the movement as a simple excuse for group sex. This was mainly due to the early practice of sending out 'God's Whores' to go flirty fishing, or 'Ffing', around clubs to pick up new members.

      Sex often seems the impulse for cultish activity. Charismatic guru Franz Edmund ‘Joshua’ Creffield attracted many women to his mission in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1903. His form of worship included them ripping off their clothes, which led to many husbands running him out of town. Setting up again in Newport, Oregon, more opposition followed, so he put a curse on San Francisco. The coincidental earthquake which flattened the city increased his appeal, AND his sexual appetite. Creffield was eventually shot dead by a man who discovered he had 'deflowered' his two sisters. Such was the degree of veneration for this guru that one of the sisters then shot her brother in revenge and several of his followers committed suicide.

      Britain had its own sex scandal in the early 1990s when the Rev Chris Brain began his Nine O'Clock Service, a mixture of Christianity and disco, at St Thomas's Church, Sheffield. Attracting hundreds of young women, he eventually moved to a conference centre. However, he had an inner circle of 'Lycra Lovelies' who seemed to pander to his needs. In August 1995, some of them spoke out about Brain's sexual molestations. Although he never had intercourse with them, he was disgraced and the Nine O'Clock Service, including his 'Home Base Team', was disbanded.

      An American sex, and fraud, scandal involved television evangelist Rev Jim Bakker, whose network, Praise the Lord, reached 13 million homes. Married to his co-host, Tammy Faye, in late 1980 Bakker met 21 year old Pentecostal, Jessica Hahn, and had sex with her. Her silence cost $265,000, but the story eventually broke, disgracing Bakker. Further revelations led to him being tried for fraud. Although Tammy Faye stood by her man, he was forced to resign in 1988 and was jailed for diverting funds to

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