[Original Novel] Pariah of the Little People, Part 18

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By October, the lightning bird fellows had assimilated every other group. Burnt down or repurposed their temples, driven out or killed those who wouldn’t convert, and it seemed at last that the troubles were over. But then, it began to split. First two, then four, then seven subgroups, each with their own take on how to worship, who to exclude and so on.

These subgroups resumed fighting, if anything more fiercely than before. Purge after bloody purge, rarely was I around to interfere. I’d come upon wrecked villages, their inhabitants bleeding out in the streets, the remains of their temples crumbling into piles of smoldering ash. Homogeneity was proving impossible to attain, my efforts to do so only making things worse.

The other problem was that I couldn’t very well reach the sky settlements, nor the one in the lake. Whatever form of worship they practice, I had no way of influencing it. Frustration mounted until I at last realized the futility of the whole endeavor and washed my hands of it for the time being. Perhaps it’s just another thing they’ll have to work out on their own.

“You are spending much time with Heather lately” Katerinka pointed out. I acknowledged that and asked what of it. “I do not like her. I have known many girls like her before, they play many games, always mean harm. You stay away from her.” I took umbrage at that, asking what business of hers was it who I spent time with.

“More is at stake here than makings of googly eyes and hand holdings with some cuchka derganaya.” She sounded cross but I tuned her out. Yet again, somebody elses plan I was being wedged into. Besides which, the puzzle of reconciling the various tribes still consumed me, and I’ve never been able to put down a puzzle until I’ve solved it.

How? How did Tyler pull it off? I dreaded trespassing on his father’s land, but resolved that if there were any clues to the solution, that’s where I’d find them. When recess ended, to my surprise we were not directed back to class, but rather into the gym. There was to be another assembly on the topic of spiritual warfare.

This time Katerinka was quicker than Heather, sitting down in the open spot next to me. I thought for a moment the two would throw themselves at each other and fight based on the way they traded glares.

Just then I felt a vague sense that I’d gotten myself stuck in the middle of something dangerous, where the hairs on your neck stand up and a little voice in the back of your brain tells you to flee. But of course I couldn’t, as the assembly had already started.

I surprised myself, feeling disappointed that it wasn’t as theatrical as the last. That one had at least been entertaining. The silver lining was that it didn’t look like he meant to burn anything. Instead the lights dimmed, a motorized projection screen lowered behind him, then the projector behind us began casting images onto it.

“You already know from the prior assembly what spiritual warfare means, and how to defend yourself against all manner of mockers and scoffers who will try to trick you into worshiping Satan. The path to Heaven is narrow, the path to Hell all too wide. It is written that Christ is the gate; that none come to the father but through him.

That will be the key to understanding this lecture. For there are also countless false Christs in the world. Men who try to replace Christ in our hearts. To supercede Christianity with new, false religions even though Christ himself said not to believe any who came after him, making such claims. Muhammad was such a man.”

The powerpoint slide changed. “Muhammad was a warlord with great charisma. Such that people who listened to him speak were spellbound, a cult of personality. That is often how false Christs get their start. Just a few followers at first, then dozens, then hundreds. Then thousands, and now millions! Like a plague spreading across the Earth.”

He proceeded to explain, with the assistance of some strange black and white comic strips he’d scanned, how Islam is actually based on worship of a Moon Goddess. Apparently a demon in disguise. Not something I’d ever heard from a Muslim, though granted I haven’t spoken to many. I wonder what sort of things they teach their kids about what Christians believe.

“This brings us to Joseph Smith. Another charismatic con man claiming to be a prophet of God! Claiming the world would end soon, as did the Jehova’s Witnesses early on. Of course when it didn’t, they claimed it was metaphorical all along. This sort of retconning is something you’ll see a lot of in false religions.”

I thought back to the numerous verses in Matthew and John where Christ predicts he will return before those standing there listening had died of old age. Before that generation had passed away, and before his followers had fled through all the towns of Israel. Probably not the best time to bring it up though, so I zipped my lips and kept watching.

“There’s a formula to it. You can always recognize false Christs, because they use the same basic scheme every time. They go around proclaiming that the end of the world is nigh, to stir up fear and curiosity.

Then, they tell you that you can be saved if you devote your life to them, becoming one of their followers. But that you must sell or give away your belongings, as material possessions will only inhibit your spiritual growth. Of course, the real reason is to make you dependent on them for food, clothing and shelter so that when you begin to have doubts, it is difficult to leave.

They often also urge you to leave your job and your home, and to cut off family members who disapprove of the group you’ve joined. Turning you against your own family is one of their most sinister tricks. They do this because family members are the most likely to try to extricate you from such a group once they realize the nature of it.”

The slide depicted a sleazy looking guy in a white robe standing above a bunch of followers gathered around his feet. It occurred to me then that if you were to add a beard and a red sash, it could be any given depiction of Jesus I’d ever seen.

“They promise some fantastical reward, exclusively available to members of their group. In Scientology, you get to live for trillions of years with mastery over matter, energy, space and time. In Mormonism, you become the God of your own planet. Basically, some sort of tempting perk that they cannot prove to you because it happens in "the future" or after you've died.

That’s just the incentive. The carrot, if you like. But there’s also a stick. Outsiders, who they will tell you are ignorant and depraved, will receive some terrible fate for rejecting the chance to join. Also if they join, but leave it later on.

This serves several purposes: First it's a revenge fantasy for coping with people who mock the group or leave on bad terms. Secondly it's an incentive for members not to leave, to make them fearful of their own doubts, and to make sure to recruit as many of their loved ones as possible.

Naturally they don't want their mother, father, siblings or children to suffer the terrible punishment! This is how they get you to recruit your own children into it, generation after generation. If nobody puts a stop to it, there’s no limit to how large it can grow this way.

Next, and perhaps most sinister, they will target people down on their luck. Impoverished, poor self esteem, in prison, in countries outside the US with terrible living condition and so on for recruitment.

This is done because when somebody is hungry, hurt, depressed or desperate, they're not thinking straight and will often believe anybody who feeds them, clothes and shelters them, and gives them something to believe in. That's why it's crucial we get to them first with the gospel, because if we don't, somebody like L. Ron Hubbard will.

It’s tricky to talk anybody out of this sort of thing, because they make a point to sabotage your critical thinking. That doubt is your enemy, that reason will only steer you wrong, and that members of their group have no need of it.

Now, some of you may have Mormon friends. They will say that Mormonism doesn’t do many of these things. Not today they don’t, but they did early on. That’s why it can be difficult to identify cults, they change over time, trying to become established and gain the appearance of legitimacy.

Once their membership is sufficiently large and stable, they can drop practices like requiring new converts to sell their belongings, or to cut off unsupportive family members. Those practices are liabilities. Necessary in the beginning to retain new converts, but ammo for critics too. This is why the older a cult is, the less of those practices remain.

Islam has very few, as it’s 1,400 years old now. Mormonism has more, as it’s roughly 200 years old. Scientology has all of these qualities as it’s younger than either of those, something like 60 years. The older they get, the less obviously cult-like they become, and the more they take on the appearance of a religion.

But don’t be fooled! God sent prophets before Christ, but none after! While traveling the lands with his group of followers, warning sinners that Armageddon is near, he delivered many inspiring speeches which drew crowds of hundreds or thousands. In some of these speeches he foretold that others would come after him, doing the same things he did, saying the same things, but that we’re not to believe those charlatans!

By sticking to the narrow path of belief in Christ as our Lord and Savior, who rose from the dead, we can be saved from the terrible cataclysms awaiting heathens as written in the book of Revelations. It is only by devoting our lives to him and worshiping him as the only son of God that we may enter into the eternal paradise of Heaven, and be spared the terrible fires of Hell.”

I sat there stunned, having finally connected the dots. I scanned the room around me, searching for anybody else who had the same epiphany. Only Katerinka looked to be on the same page, but rather than horrified she appeared wickedly amused by the spectacle of it. The explicit description of the structure of early Christianity as laid out in the Bible...by people who don’t realize that’s what they’re describing.

She gave me a sly wink. Heather, not in on it, misinterpreted the wink and latched onto my left arm. Katerinka scowled back, and latched onto my right arm. I struggled, but neither would let go. Is this my life now? Swimming will be a trick with these two hanging on. No idea how I’ll put on coats either.

I continued to piece it together as he spoke. Jesus had been one of these charismatic speakers who accumulated followers by claiming the world would end soon and that they could only be saved by him. In Luke 14:33, I recalled Christ telling a crowd that nobody who does not give up their belongings could be his disciple.

He’d also once told a rich young prince that wealth would prevent him from getting into Heaven, but that’s in Matthew and refers to a different event. Most of the “sell your belongings” stuff is in Luke, like Luke 12:33 where he says “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

Then there’s the stuff about leaving your job and family. In Luke 14:26 he says "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple."

In Matt. 10:35-37 he says “For I have come to turn a man against his father a daughter against her mother a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law---a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Then in Matthew 19:29, he says “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”

I wondered if I wasn’t seeing false patterns until then, but it matched up perfectly. Jesus started the world’s most successful end of the world cult. It’s true, he once stipulated that no man can know the day or the hour.

Not with precision, in other words. But he’d also said many times that it would happen within the lifetimes of people alive then, listening to him. It was all just reinterpreted as metaphor when the end did not arrive on schedule.

I balked. Might’ve laughed too, if the situation hadn’t suddenly become so profoundly horrifying. If true, it would mean that a cult had swallowed up much of humanity. Just spread and spread, generation after generation born into it, recruiting by evangelism and the sword.

Now there’s holidays based on it. The calendar divides all of history into the periods before and after the death of a cult founder. Movies, books, toys, games, hospitals, planetariums, museums, even this school. All to create the appearance of authority. Of legitimacy, and truth. So that if it surrounds you from birth and it’s all you ever know, there’s no way you’ll ever think to question it.

It didn’t take long after that to figure out Joseph Smith and Muhammad pulled the same stunt. Must’ve realized how Jesus did it and wanted a piece of that everlasting worship pie. The world is littered with statues commissioned by men who wanted to be remembered as visionary heroes. These fellas just figured out a cheaper way to achieve the same thing, and make it last.

They knew exactly what they were up to. Must have. Jesus predicted in the “end times”, mockers and scoffers would come, as there will be a mass falling away from the faith. He knew eventually most people would realize what he’d done and wanted those who remain fooled to interpret that as a sign of the end of the world. That they might be even more convinced of their beliefs.

Likewise he knew others would come after him, understanding how he pulled it off, trying to do the same thing. So he thought to sabotage them ahead of time. “Many will come and say I am he”. That there will be false prophets, but not to believe them. Only his method proved so incredibly infectious, and efficacious, that it worked anyway. Two more times, at least.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 19!}