The religion of Shakespeare...

March 6th – “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”...well, not always...

What is it with cults? I mean, they’re built on the most flimsy of whimsy and fairy interface and yet, somehow, they attract sufficient notice for the fools in our populace to gravitate to them. The obvious ones, the Nation of Yahweh the Creativity Movement, Scientology and Nuwaubinism’s of this world are well documented and seem to all be as barmy as each other, but even these have their status wrapped in the flag that was the Davidians, led by Mr. Koresh. I guess, unless it impinges on statutory norms, the forming of these collectives is just one groups’ method of coping with modern life. Trouble is these coping strategies attract attention through media hype and of a sudden the booger-man of religious intolerance is cited as the prime mover when, after all the headline hysteria has been scanned, society demands that ‘something must be done!’ Certainly worked in Waco…poor sods. 

Stories of child abuse, of enforced structures of silence for both dissenters and the movement’s leaders and a 'circling of the wagons mentality' being their answer to any bad stories being aired (sounding religiously familiar yet?) were cited as the excuse for the police to move in, force the hand of the members…and the result was the death of 70-odd people, many of them kids… Maybe we can look forward to the forces of law and order surrounding the Vatican? No, probably not.

The stories used by the various leaders as the reasons for setting up these cults are many and varied. Of the belief that the leader having sex with a 70+ year old woman was going to result in the birth of a new Christ – of aliens invading and exploding volcanoes – or of ‘just another black supremacy movement’ or ‘just another white supremacy movement’, all used as past validation for the gathering of the flock…but for me the one that takes the biscuit has to be the reasoning behind Charles Manson’s setting up of The Manson Family – it reads like a 70’s American soap series akin to The Munsters or The Waltons...but with far less laughs.

Now, as I've mentioned before (January 4th ad nauseum) I’m not a Beatles fan but I feel even they deserved better than to have Mr. Manson base the tenet of his religion on the words of the Beatles track from ‘The White Album’; namely ‘Helter Skelter’. Have you read the lyrics? I paraphrase the Gospel According to Manson and, as an aside, you’d have to be seriously unhinged to develop those lyrics into this realisation: 

Armageddon by dark forces and the rise of the black population in America as they battled the whites.

That was his/their reading of these lyrics.

Thing is, as with all such religious movements there has to be a way in for the enlightened ones (notice how there’s always enlightened ones involved in these scenarios), a way for the chosen people (notice how there’s always a chosen people involved in these scenarios) to take control and save the earth. Enter Mr. Manson (notice how there’s always a leader involved in these scenarios). Mr. Manson and his chosen few would allow this to happen, watch the slaughter from the safety of a hilltop (notice how there’s always a view from a hilltop involved in these scenarios) and then slope off down to claim the throne and rule the world from then on…WTF! 

What followed is a well documented and very local set of events; the appalling murders and brutality (put SO much right that was wrong in the world, didn't it?). 

But as with all such resolutions to the troubles of mankind, these dreadful happenings are always in danger of becoming an urban myth, tend to lose their gloss of horror when they are resurrected in the language of ‘cool’ that often permeates the rock industry. So when a band with the name Kasabian hit the scene it dredges up that past but gives it a veneer of hipness; when Marilyn chooses to compliment that Christian name with the surname Manson it only serves to lay a soft foundation for the original, gives a frisson of dangerousness to the performer (more records sold) and by an association with him/her those that follow become disciples, believe this to be the way forward; and when film-makers choose to make yet another documentary (“Because it’s in the public interest” – What, really? All four documentaries…so far? Right, sure…not about the money or the ‘thrill’ then? OK, good…) when film-makers choose to make yet another documentary about those dreadful events and bands choose to recreate and perform the music recorded by Charles Manson (so much for art improving the mind and cleansing the soul) the real tragedies of those few months back in 1969 and the perpetrators’ brutality towards their victims gains a little bit more immortality and we, the follower, the buyer, by supporting it with our time and cash…well, we sort of lose a bit of our soul…IMHO…

You know I said I was going to lighten up yesterday? It was a lie.

3/10 – Must try harder.