Rhythm of Life...

[SteelPoint]

You know: Sweet Charity... a million pigeons waiting to be hooked on new religions.

The suckers are out there.

So a charismatic gent moves into a new neighbourhood and starts making converts among the local married ladies.

He can show them the One True Way.

It isn't that he wants them to show the colour of their money.

All they have to do is...

..?

 

[Hypoxia]

Joseph Smith did this a couple centuries ago, after he was convicted as a con man. Called his UFO cult "latter-day saints". Got lots of women and money till the mainstream killed him. I recall a Los Angeles guru of the 1930's with a similar story but it was a jealous husband that croaked him. Moral: keep that charisma under control.

 

[SteelPoint]

Are you seriously saying your knowledge is such that you actually think the term 'UFO' was current in the early nineteenth century?

Sure, there have been plenty of cults around, especially since the second WW and particularly in dumbed-down countries where the rich want a docile population to serve them and not ask questions.

What I'm focussing on is the opportunity this gives to a guy with a beard and a deep voice - maybe he also has enough cunning to wave a book around and roll his eyes heavenwards - to make an interesting, 'organised' scene among the ladies... and their daughters...

 

[Lost_Yonder]

Once read a story in an Indian newspaper about a Hindu guru who had quite a following of the rich and well to do women of Bombay (now Mumbai). Apparently he had a ritual for making young brides more fertile for their husbands that involved pouring milk from a particular kind of cow over their "yoni" and then he would lick it up. Strangely, most of his following were older women beyond their child-bearing years...

 

[SteelPoint]

Once read a story in an Indian newspaper about a Hindu guru who had quite a following of the rich and well to do women of Bombay (now Mumbai). Apparently he had a ritual for making young brides more fertile for their husbands that involved pouring milk from a particular kind of cow over their "yoni" and then he would lick it up. Strangely, most of his following were older women beyond their child-bearing years...

Religion is the oldest con racket around... and con artists from scientology to your friendly, local, lock-the-vestry-door pastor are still out there getting their particular kick from it...

 

[Magineer]

Yes, I can absolutely imagine the set-up. "Services" first held in a room in a house and then later in a purpose-built chapel as the money starts to come in. Husbands and brothers gradually discouraged via various tactics. Wives and daughters invited one by one for special "prayer" meetings and initiation into unusual "rites".

You could tie this in with other interesting possibilities: a baby boom in the locality, weekend retreats being held, female relations from other parts of the country being invited.

I guess the thing would have to be kept reasonably low-key so as not to attract undue attention. I like scenarios like this which can start rooted in reality but then gradually assume exaggerated or surreal aspects.

 

[Hypoxia]

Are you seriously saying your knowledge is such that you actually think the term 'UFO' was current in the early nineteenth century?

No, UFO was not a 19th century term, but we can certainly now judge LDS as a UFO cult. Judeo-Xian-Muslim theologies are UFO cults, with alien, non-terrestrial beings mucking with earthlings. Oddities that earlier generations saw as signs of angels, demons, deities etc are now interpreted as technical stuff -- spacecraft, ETs, etc.

Back to topic: For charismatic scoundrels entrancing people and seducing young women, see the histories of the Manson Family, and Tony Alamo.

 

[SteelPoint]

No, UFO was not a 19th century term, but we can certainly now judge LDS as a UFO cult. Judeo-Xian-Muslim theologies are UFO cults, with alien, non-terrestrial beings mucking with earthlings. Oddities that earlier generations saw as signs of angels, demons, deities etc are now interpreted as technical stuff -- spacecraft, ETs, etc.

Back to topic: For charismatic scoundrels entrancing people and seducing young women, see the histories of the Manson Family, and Tony Alamo.

There have always been cults. Christianity in its entirety can be called a 'cult'. The more modern ones in the West have generally been what you might call secretive but, necessarily, 'organised' to the extent that they needed to attract the pigeons to their nonsense.

What I'm talking about is something much smaller scale and more local... what might be thought of as a neighbourhood secret society - such that wives can dissimulate to husbands.

 

[Magineer]

There have always been cults. Christianity in its entirety can be called a 'cult'. The more modern ones in the West have generally been what you might call secretive but, necessarily, 'organised' to the extent that they needed to attract the pigeons to their nonsense.

What I'm talking about is something much smaller scale and more local... what might be thought of as a neighbourhood secret society - such that wives can dissimulate to husbands.

So the "guru" develops a nice little harem of willing, local females all under his spell. I get the picture. Room for any number of different plots. I propose one where a daughter gets "uppity" with thoughts full of rebellion and involvement with her own boyfriends at school BUT is disciplined into serving the guru by her own mother and other acolytes. BDSM possibilities?