February 2020 – OmegaBooks

Snippets of Reality within The Prodigal Band Trilogy: “Christian” Cults

I guess this ‘cult’ thing is just too interesting! After posting several snippets about the reality of New Age and Cult practices within the entertainment industry which influenced my The Prodigal Band Trilogy I took a break from that, posting about the reality of eating disorders within the fashion industry influencing a main female character.

Now, back to the ‘cult’ thing, only this time the cult is a ‘Christian’ one! That is, it is a cult that claims to be Christian, but is anything but.

Many atheists (one atheist has a YouTube channel which claims Christianity is a cult but Satanism is not) think all religions (except Satanism?) are cults–I know a few atheists, and that is what some of them think. Same with agnostics–and I used to be an agnostic (I could not quite bring myself to becoming atheist but the thought did cross my mind) so I know what I am talking about. But the funny thing is, Christianity is the only ‘cult’ or religion that atheists tend to attack…not Judaism, not Islam, not Hinduism, not Buddhism…they only attack Christianity. I will let the reader figure out why, but I have my own opinion which at this time is neither here nor there. I believe an atheist can think what they want; it’s between them and God (or the “flying spaghetti monster” or whatever).

Folks, I am being facetious, okay?

But while Christianity is a religion (IMHO) not a cult, there are in fact actual cults that claim to be ‘Christian.’ I am not talking about (what some consider cults) Mormonism or Seventh Day Adventism or Jehova’s Witnesses or any denomination or sub-denominations (by the way, I am strictly non-denominational), but actual cults that claim to be ‘Christian’ and are led by actual cult leaders. These cult leaders are actually looked upon by the followers as actual Messiahs or ‘gods.’ These folks live in cult-like cloistered-type communities. ‘Good behavior’ is awarded handsomely and ‘bad’ ones are punished severely. These bogus Christian cults are in many if not all nations.

The one that inspired the bogus ‘Christian’ cult in my trilogy is based on a movie I saw in the 1990s about a supposedly Christian cult in a rural region of Quebec, Canada. I do not remember the name of this cult but the name of the movie was “Savage Messiah.” This movie was based on an actual event where the cult leader was convicted of murder and other crimes. The cult I bring up in my books is loosely based on the notions set forth in the movie, but in the case of the books one form of punishment is getting hit over the head with a hard-cover Bible. A true Christian group, a true Body of Christ, would never do such a thing!

For the sake of making a simple and quick point, I will only include one snippet instead of the usual three or four. I could get more graphic, but that would be too much of a spoiler if you know what I mean (and if you want to read a much more dastardly snippet about this bogus Christian cult, buy the trilogy!

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Snippets of Reality within The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Eating Disorders of Models and Celebrities

I’m taking a break from religious and cultist and new age group influence and symbology this week in this post to bring up an issue which isn’t overly important in The Prodigal Band Trilogy but an issue I am well familiar with–eating disorders, which according to my research on the fashion industry and histories of fashion models seems to be quite prominent. Several of my female characters, wives or girlfriends of my prodigal band members, were models in the fashion industry as well as celebrities otherwise. One of them had an eating disorder known as bulimia.

Bulimia is highlighted by eating–sometimes huge amounts of food–and then vomiting it up to supposedly maintain their skinny (or otherwise) weight. This is one of the more prominent disorders to maintain low weight; the more serious one is called anorexia nervosa, which is self-starvation. But some folks simply cannot starve themselves. So they eat, and then vomit the food.

For proof that fashion models and celebrities (mostly female) have been ‘forced’ to keep their weight down to a very skinny level, I have some links to articles that will verify this:

Victoire Macon Dauxerre’s fashion model experience

Eating disorder expert Dr. Adrienne Key’s report

Model Zuzanna Buchwalk’s story

Eight Famous Celebrities (some who started out being child fashion models) Who Battled Bulimia

Oh, and I too was bulimic on and off for six years–in order to attract a future husband! That is one reason my most important female character was made to be bulimic. Ger is the name of the character, and she is the woman of Erik, my singer-front man character. She is five-foot-eight with dark brown close-cropped page-boy hairstyle with a widow’s peak, and has sultry blue eyes and an enticing smile. She was born in London to an upper-middle class family, and her father owns a hardware store in Walltown, where the band is from. When her man Erik and the rest of Sound Unltd make it big in 1989, she desires to be a super model. So it went.

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Snippets of Reality within The Prodigal Band Trilogy: The Red Crystal Amulets and Channeling Spirits

In this Snippets of Reality in The Prodigal Band Trilogy, I will discuss where I came up with the Red Crystal Amulets worn by the members of my fictional prodigal band, Sound Unltd. And why one or more members, mostly the drummer Tom, channeled spirits, with the crystal or not, often faking it. It is occultist practice, but various New Age cults or religions had a lot to do with my use of these themes.

As a late teen I dabbled some in tarot cards, Ouija boards, and séances, but (as I had stated before) the night in winter of 1970 when a friend of mine called up ‘demons’ (because they couldn’t be anything else with what happened, which was terrifying!) using a Ouija set up (without the board, we used paper with letters and numbers in a circle, and a glass as a pointer), I decided it was best to not dabble in the occult anymore! Yet, I had to include occultist themes in my books because various rock bands of my day used some occultist themes and practices in their music careers. See my previous post on this.

But in the late 80s before I started getting ‘called’ to write the books within the trilogy, I began to associate with various New Age ideas (I was vegetarian then) what with folks I had met, one of which was supposedly ‘taken’ by ‘aliens’ in a ‘UFO’ (Note: Regardless of what this person said or believed, I never bought into the UFO-extraterrestrial aliens philosophy. Why? I need empirical proof they exist!) and was a member of the so-called Ashtar Command with Ashtar as leader and ‘Jesus Sandanda’ as another ascended master type! (Note: Ashtar sounds a lot like Ishtar, a false god/fallen angel type worshiped by ancient Mesopotamians.) I will not mention the man’s name, but he actually, in my presence, channeled some ‘god’ or other, and before doing so ‘cleansed his chakras.’

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Snippets of Reality within The Prodigal Band Trilogy: New Age Cult Recruitment of Celebrities

On the back cover of the printed edition of The Prodigal Band Trilogy is stated: “Take a fictional ‘road trip’ on a mystical mystery and spiritual tour as a fictional six-member 80s and 90s rock and roll band fashioned after the Beatles…”

The Beatles. That, folks, is why I had to make the notion of new age spirituality such a dominant theme of this trilogy. While all of the Beatles took part in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement of India’s Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for a relatively short period of time, the Maharishi only influenced the Beatles toward looking into new age ideas as they never joined this religion or cult. Others that hung out with the Maharishi included various rockers while in San Francisco–the hippie days–and on this Wikipedia site is a picture of this Maharishi with various well known rockers. And then it is a fact that George Harrison was actually a member of the Hare Krishna cult from the late 60s onward and that he wrote a song dedicated to this Lord Krishna dude, “My Sweet Lord,” for Krishna is referred to as Lord Krishna. This Hare Krishna cult was founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Swami? Now folks, I had no idea that the founder of the cult that most heavily influenced the “good vs. evil” notion of my trilogy had the title of ‘swami’ which is the title of a teacher within Hinduism. When I created my evil ‘Swami Negran’ character I had no idea of this–just one of several ‘coincidences’ that are rife in my books.

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