I will try my best not to go on a rant about how wonderful a thing The Church of the Subgenius is, but if you've never heard of it….
It's best defined as a “Parody Religion” or a “Fake Cult”. On the other hand, it is a real legal Church that has thousands of members, has books and a radio program/podcast, holds gatherings (called “de-vivals) and even performs mairrages, etc…
It was started by Ivan Stang from Texas.
I won't go into the mythology/ ideology in depth, and if I even summarize it you would see how much absurdism and humor comes into play, for it is quite a ridiculous faith. In some ways it mocks religion, in other ways it really is one.
I am posting this here because one of the central aspects of the belief-system relates to money. And corruption. There is a prophet (J.R. “Bob” Dobbs) who worships money and is known as “The Greatest Salesman Who Ever Lived”. But there is also a force known as “The Conspiracy” which steals a sacred power called “Slack”. Thar is all I will say for now, other than pointing out that the Conspiracy, in Subgenius terms, is PRECISELY the capitalist machine of greed and corruption that every post in this sub points the finger at as we rightly should!
And although J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and money go hand in hand, his deal with the x-iststs, (aliens who will destroy the earth on X-Day) is his real treasure and skill at business, what makes him truly rich. He is the greatest salesman that ever lived because he made the deal that when the X-ists destroy earth due to The Conspiracy, although the “normies” perish, the Subgeni, (basically the weirdos, decendents of yetis, ourselves) will be evacuated first on the pleasure-saucers and avoid anihilation.
Of course this is all symbolic, absurdist commentary on society.
But it is also the most scathing, ruthlessly sharp analysis of economics and cultural brainwashing. And social commentary with great insight into modern economic and psychic slavery, and alternately, economic and psychic freedom.
There are worlds and worlds of content, enough to last a lifetime! But the classic introduction to this cult is the following classic old Indoctrion video, called..
“ARISE!”: