Imagine for the moment that you invented a religion and made yourself a God. The first thing a newly arrived God needs is worshipers, so you would have to get to the business of marketing yourself to the locals, printing out business cards, setting up workshops, you know, general meet and great type affairs where you could impress prospective worshipers with your Godly credentials. If you are really charismatic, you could just start touring inner city neighborhoods, talking to homeless youths, already starved for attention, and soon you’ve got yourself disciples to help spread the “word.” The grand finale of any event would have to be a small, but awe inspiring miracle, nothing big; a burning bush here, a puff of smoke there, a deep connection to a few lost souls, just enough to stir the crowd into a frenzy of adulation over your spiritual prowess. (It is always good to invoke the image of some religious icon in the crack and stains on the ceiling, don’t worry if you see it, everyone else will, too.)
It would only take a few of these miraculous events before word spread and your street cred would be established, your status as a God affirmed by the masses. In no time at all, the wounded, infirm, mentally ill, poor and other sad members of society would be thronging to your feet for healing, acceptance, blessing, or just hope, and all you would ask in return would be their eternal adulation, and maybe five or ten percent of whatever income they had. Soon, you could build a church, and set your disciples up as priests to manage your tithes, and minister to your flock of misery when you are out on the road.
Mundane commodities like money and adulation could quickly become tedious fodder for a God of your skill, and if you’re not careful, you might feel your attention drifting from the agonies of humanity to contemplating your great and wondrous cosmic navel, or a hang nail. Humanity, feeling bereft of your blessing would soon be offering up frantic appeals via food and animal sacrifices, and maybe even their first born children to get your attention turned back on them. Being a beneficent God of love, you would eagerly agree to take their first born–daughters, anyone of age nine or over, and turn them into your own harem, then to make sure there are no objections, skirmishes or competition for the women, you would order one male child be sacrificed on the first day of each month. Your worshipers comply, eager to curtail any chance your attentions might do further wandering.
Sounds like a fairy tale, but it really isn’t. Leaders of religions through time and cults from the Moonies to the Branch Dravidians have set themselves up as Charismatic leaders and human representations of the Gods, to rule over a willing human audience. While we might think religious Cults are harmless, they have proved anything but. The word charisma is derived from the Greek word (kharisma), which means “gift” or “divine favor. The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.”
In the Medieval Catholic Church, who often pretended to wield the power of a God, while building the church coffers, wealthy people were permitted to buy indulgences, which allowed them to be absolved from penance for sins, for which poor people might have to face martyrdom, essentially rescuing them from death and hell. People like David Koresh, of the Branch Dravidians and Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, use their knowledge of scripture, and their force of personality to lead their people from a simple beginning to a complex series of escalating madness that ultimately leads to death by fire fight with the FBI, or death by cyanide laced Kool-aid. Then there are people like Jeffrey Lundgren, who ruled over a small Mormon based cult in Kirtland, Ohio, whom he coerced into killing an entire family, including two small girls, in order to cleanse the group of supposed sin.
Recently we read about the One Mind Ministries, where Queen Antoinette ruled over a small group of devotees in Baltimore Maryland. In 2006 little Javon Thompson was a 21 months old baby living with his mother, Ria Ramkissoon and the other members of the cult when it seems they decided Javon was filled with Demons because he could not, or would not say “Amen” after meals. For punishment, Javon was denied food and water until he starved to death, where upon his body was placed in a suitcase, and transported with the group as they traveled from Baltimore to Philadelphia and on to Brookline, NY. When asked why she let her son die of starvation, Javon’s mother said she was told by the group’s leader that Javon would be resurrected.
There are endless tales of humans with a gift of speech or insight into the human psyche who set themselves up as Messiahs and manipulate damaged humans who can be led into perverse cult lifestyles. Just once, I wish someone would imagine themselves God and decide to base their religion on science and reason, instead of superstition, fear, and charismatic control. Then perhaps the children who get dragged into these superstitious religions by their mindless parents could at least survive long enough to escape.
