This weekend we observed the 40th anniversary of the mass murder/suicide tragedy at Jonestown in Guyana. The utopian cult lead by the the charismatic Jim Jones had its heyday as the People’s Temple, a Christian church in San Francisco known for its outreach to homeless neighbors. In the end it became a madhouse deep in the South American jungle as Jones became increasingly unhinged, and the would-be paradise disintegrated into a living hell. 909 men, women and children died at Jonestown and this weekend I found a great article that focuses on how pop culture shapes what we talk about when we talk about cults…

Originally, the word “cult” simply meant “to worship”. Deriving from the same root as “culture” and “cultivation”, it described rituals and offerings intended to cultivate the favour of gods, saints and other holy figures. The term later took on negative connotations, and by the mid-20th century was mostly associated with charlatans and violent or otherwise bizarre fringe groups.

Today, a cult might loosely be defined as any group exhibiting a combination of qualities including (but not limited to): a charismatic leader, mind-altering practices, sexual and economic control and exploitation of members, us-versus-them attitudes towards outsiders, and an ends-justify-the-means philosophy.

By this definition, it’s difficult to argue that Peoples Temple wasn’t a cult. After all, they had a leader who was notoriously charismatic and who exerted a disproportionate level of control over his congregation. Members were often overworked and overtired, their finances and sex lives regulated by leadership. Relationships with outsiders were generally discouraged, and Jones was known to sexually abuse both male and female followers. Meanwhile, an ends-justify-the-means line of thinking was employed to justify everything from faked healings to the ultimate massacre of more than 900 individuals.

Read more at the link above. Here’s a Real Stories documentary about the tragedy, Jonestown: Paradise Lost…

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The comet Hale-Bopp was visible to the naked eye in the second half of 1996 but it disappeared into sunlight before re-emerging to the visible eye for the entirety of 1997, becoming the brightest object in the sky in the spring of that year. I remember going out night after night to spot the comet on its travels. It was a marvelous novelty to have this bright burning thing above my head every night, but others were even more moved: the Heaven’s Gate cult’s 39 members took their own lives on March 26, 1997 in a bid to have their souls ascend to an alien spacecraft they believed was hidden in the comet’s tail.

The Heaven’s Gate cult wasn’t really different from any other group that seeks to control people, but the cult’s relatively recent tragedy and the plethora of video the group recorded make their story one of the most interesting contemporary cases of its kind. Here’s a British television documentary that tells the tale of the cult’s cracked cosmology, the people who believed it, and their desperate last days…

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Religion is a lot of things, but most obviously we can distinguish one sect, order, school or institution from another through their trappings: robes, candles, books, paintings, statues, gestures, poses and music. Music is central to faiths all over the world – songs are emissaries of religious stories, time capsules of historical events and they teach lessons about morals and dogma. No matter how weird or way out your cult may be, chances are it’s got music.

Here’s a great short video on the music that’s been inspired by Scientology. Some of it is surprisingly funky. All of it is bizarre…

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Continuing our string of spooky October posts, today we celebrate the birthday of filmmaker Ed Wood who was born on October 10, 1924. Wood died of a heart attack at the age of 54, but first he made a series of science fiction and monster films that weren’t so much scary as they were scary-bad.

Wood also challenged social taboos like transgenderism way back in 1953 with his first film Glen or Glenda which was based on the life Christine Jorgensen and Wood’s own predilections for transvestism — if Wood’s monster movies failed to spook his sympathetic treatment of LGBT issues at the dawn of the Eisenhower Era was a true shocker.

Wood’s camp aesthetics have garnered him a cult following, but here at Insomnia we love Wood because he was a true Hollywood dreamer who imagined himself to be an immortal filmmaker before actually becoming one.

Here’s a BBC Channel 4 documentary about Wood, his odd life and his terribly memorable films…

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