We are all aware that some cults court Armageddon. Most who succumb end up in mass suicide, such as the Order of the Solar Temple or Heaven’s Gate. But others are less easy to define, such as Koresh’s Branch Davidian off-shoot at Waco.
Perhaps Waco can best be understood by studying what I’d call the Messiah Factor. The Hebrews foretold of a Messiah who would change the world and bring them Paradise. As the Roman’s took over the area such views often became Apocalyptic.
Jesus is thought of as the Messiah, and we can see in his actions that he antagonized the authorities to the point that they feared what he was doing. The end result was over-reaction, as He intended, and his Crucifixion. Was it a kind of suicide by proxy?
The Messiah factor is not a process unique to Jesus. If you read between the lines of known history, we can see elements of it in Socrates, and his enforced taking of hemlock. The process can also be identified in Native American mysticism.
Throughout the 19th century a series of mystics appeared speaking of an apocalypse to remove the white man and return the dead to a paradise on Earth. The movement formulated into the Ghost Dance. Banned by the white man, the dance continued to be practiced and the end result was the over-reaction, and massacre, of Wounded Knee.
When hopes of an Apocalypse arise to cleanse the Earth, a deeply held wish can often meet an immovable object. It has happened throughout religious history. Koresh, for instance, provoked the reaction he received by openly bearing, and training in, arms. As with Jesus, we must ask if it was suicide by proxy.
© Anthony North, April 2007
A LITTLE EXTRA
Celebrities – Don’t we just love them. They parade in the media, eager for attention, eager for adoration, eager to refute their pointlessness. Celebrities. To paraphrase Wilde: the unspeakable in full pursuit of the trivial.
(c) Anthony North, Apr 07 – find more little extras on pages of North’s Review
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