The word doomsday is ominous enough but
it also has several synonyms which are just as sinister; like
“Judgement Day” or “end time” or “end times” or even “end
of days”. The word doomsday most certainly hails from the period
directly following the conquest of England after the Battle of
Hastings in 1066 AD. William I, a.k.a. William the Conqueror, wanted
a census held throughout his newly pacified dominion. The census
taking was ostensibly to register the property holdings and livestock
of the residents of England and Wales in order to levy sufficient
taxes. The benchmark was to be established by assessing the revenues
based on material wealth due the last Anglo-Saxon king Edward the
Confessor Military conquests are never friendly to a state's coffers
and the subjugation of England and Wales was no exception to this
rule. The census was finally completed as of 1086. This book, dubbed
the “Domesday Book” in the vernacular, was an absolute
codification and the last definitive word as it pertained to the law
and material wealth and holdings. Although the survey was initially
conducted as a purely secular means of filling the empty Royal
treasury it eventually took on a life of its own among the general
populace. The Domesday Book gained the perception of a written
testament to the impending end of days among the subjugated peoples
of England and Wales. The logic inferred by the people was that those
whose names appeared in the Domesday Book were earmarked for imminent
departure from this earth. The book took on a sacred and apocalyptic
theme among some people. Of course, there were other end of days
cults and religious movements throughout history. Most notably the
movements centering around the first Millennium AD. Millenarianism
(taken from millennium) is applied theologically to the concept of
the second coming of Christ which will, according to Christian
believers, usher in a Golden Age of rapture and dissolution of
terrestrial evils. The modern social sciences of Anthropology and
Sociology have in a broader sense termed these movements as
Millenarian when they apply to religious, social and political
movements. The definition we will employ is a simple working
definition but one that will be able to set parameters in order to
further enjoy my favorite Doomsday Cults. Millenarian movements are
for believers a struggle between of good and evil which will
culminate in the good triumphing and establishing a sovereignty of
righteousness. After the triumph all historical misdoings will be
rectified, and injustice and oppression curtailed. There will be
retribution for those who have profited from the injustices and
oppressions. The righteous and true believers are pivotal in this
drama as the vanquishers of evil or the benefactors of the millennial
reign.
What set apart my favorite 20th
century Doomsday cults are three ingredients which they both acknowledged but not necessarily embraced. The first characteristic
they both shared was the existence of a single charismatic omnipotent
leader. A second attribute they acknowledged but were not uniform in
embracing was sex and reproduction. It might seem odd that by espousing
celibacy you de facto restrict your ideological movement from
sustaining itself. Nonetheless, one abstained from procreation.
Lastly, the 20th century was a boon for scientific
discovery and it's incorporation into the mundane aspects of everyday
life. Again one of the movements manipulated and spuriously altered
science to conform to their specific world views. While the other
movement rejected out of hand any scientific underpinnings. As you
read the two vintage examples of Doomsday cults it's perhaps
interesting to bear in mind the parallels in the social, economic and
political climates of those movements and today's social, economic
and political incubator for potential Doomsday cults.
The Koreshan Unity was
established in New York during the 1870's by Cyrus Teed. Teed was an
Electrical Physician and a “would be” alchemist by education and
trade. An electrical physician was a branch of medicine which could
most aptly be labeled a homeopathic physician. The electrical
physician concocted tinctures and remedies based on herbs and
botanicals which surely ld Teed to dabble in alchemy. Teed
eventually changed his name to “Koresh” which is the Hebrew name
for Cyrus. He changed his name after formulating his scientific and
religious doctrines into what he deemed Koreshanity. Teed claimed
divine providence as a Messiah after his 1869 epiphanies. A key
component of Koreshantiy was the hubristic scientific theory of the
Hollow Earth. The Hollow Earth theory contends that the Earth
encompasses a sphere. The sphere contains on the outside surface all
the stars, planets and heavens. Around 1894 Teed gathered his flock
and traveled to Estero Florida to construct his version of a Utopian
society. The compound was to be self sufficient and remain
laboriously vigilant waiting for the end of days. Teed was embroiled
in constant disputes with the residents of Fort Myers which
ultimately sealed his fate and that of the movement. In 1908, as
records show, Tweed was accosted at gunpoint by some Fort Myers men
and received injuries from which he never recovered. He died a few
days later and from that moment forward the Koreshan movement went
into steady decline. Naturally, the Utopia established by Teed faced
an inevitable decline which was foreshadowed by the strict celibacy
ideals autocratically formulated by Teed. The remnants of the
Doomsday cult, Koreshan Unity, can be visited in Estero Florida which
is now a state historical park.
Lou de Palingboer (the Eel
Monger) was born Louwrens
Voorthuijzen around the turn of the 20th
century in a small village in a Northern province of the Netherlands.
His father was, according to posthumous documents, a deeply pious man
who undoubtedly fostered a similar religiosity in Louwrens. The first
divorce in a series of failed marriages caused Louwrens to equate a
malevolent supernatural as the impetus for the failures; namely, the
devil's influence on the women. He soon made his way to Amsterdam and
set up an eel vendor's stand at the Dappermarkt. He is remembered to
be an ironic funny yet extremely zealous orator at the market and at
the nearby cafes. At some point Louwrens gained a foothold of
notoriety due to his unwavering believe that he not only was he the
Messiah Jesus Christ, but additionally that he was instrumental in
writing the Bible. In the ensuing years Lou de Palingboer, as he was
notoriously called, began amassing a moderate following of believers
and devotees. He preached a mixture of Doomsday and redemption which
naturally, only he could resolve. Lou left Amsterdam in 1957 for the
town of Muiden where a rich patron had purchased a large estate for
the cult. The “witte huis” (white house), as it was deemed, was
simultaneously a spiritual center for the devotees as well as a
boarding house. Lou would suffer not insolence and was above all else
the benevolent messiah.This temperament led many followers to defect
from the cult due to conflicts with Lou's increasing erratic
teachings about the end of the world and the cult leaders devious
behavior. There doesn't seem to be any substantial scientific
rhetoric used by Lou to bolster his messianic claims. For those
living at the compound life was spartan. There were no technological
frills nor excessive contact with general society outside the witte
huis compound. It was insular and mysterious and revolved around the
veneration of Lou as the Messiah; especially among the women in the
cult. The Dutch press began referring to Lou's megalomania as a
religious figure as a cult due, no doubt, to the salacious rumors of
loose sexual morals at the compound. Lou was accused in the popular
media as being a sexual Svengali to the women in his following. To
make the scandal even more tantalizing, Lou was married and divorced
several times during these religious love tryst and apparently his
wives had full knowledge and even engaged in the alleged affairs. In
order to avoid the prying eyes of the press Lou relocated his
movement to Belgium. Soon after the move to Belgium Lou died and the
cult of Lou the Eel Monger died right along with him.
Putting
Doomsday cults into a historical frame work is the most prudent way,
not only understand their acclaim, but also to allow us to identify
the social, economic and political aspects of today's emerging
Doomsday cults. Cyrus Teed was a first hand witness to the economic
panic of 1893 in New York. The collapse of the railroad industry
spawned a backlash of economic turmoil which ended in the collapse of
many banking firms. The panic of 1893 was the first serious
depression in the United States. In 1898 the United States under the
military command of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in Cuba
began its salt water colonies expansion. The period of expansion is
known to history as the Spanish America War. America in only a few
years captured Cuba and Puerto Rico as well as the far flung island
nations of Guam and the Philippines. America was now a global
colonial power and with that power came vast responsibilities which
America had not yet been groomed to manage. Lou
de Palingboer was confronted with a different set of circumstance
which appear on a deeper level to be similar to turn of the century
America. Europe in the 1950's was slowly emerging from the
devastation that World War 2 had ravished upon it. The Marshall Plan
was in low gear and the hope of prosperity which European saw first
hand from the Americans stationed there only magnified the disparity
of the post war period. The Netherlands was not unlike other areas of
Europe where abject poverty was the norm. It's not hard to imagine
the listless feeling that things may not get better soon coupled with
the anxiety that for the past 40 years every 20 years meant a
continental war with all its crippling ramifications.
Today's
maelstrom of economic malady and social unrest in the United States
is the perfect storm for burgeoning Doomsday cults. If the CERN
organization eventually pulls off the scientific coup of unraveling
the God particle then we can throw religious ambiguity into the
volatile mix. With these ingredients peculating we can rest assured
that sooner rather than later we will witness the reemergence of more
Doomsday cults.
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