As of 2015 there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world - some are thousands of years
old and there are new ones being created all the time. Here’s seven extremely bizarre
religions that sound completely made up, but they’re not.
Let’s begin with the biggest religion in our list. In 2001, thanks to each country
completing a census of their populations, this religion was found to be the second biggest
in New Zealand and the fourth biggest in England and Wales. Any guess as to what it might be?
Strange the answer is; it’s Jedi Yes, around 1.5% of Kiwi’s put Jedi or Jediism
as their official religion. 58.9% put Christian and then the next two spots were “No Religion”
and “Object to answering”, so that puts Jediism as the number two religion in New
Zealand; unless “object to answering” is a religion, there’s probably no point
in asking them if it is though. In England and Wales 0.8% of the country claimed
their religion was Jediism, with the only larger faiths being Christianity, Islam, and
Hinduism. So, how did this all come about? A long long time ago, in a country not very
far away, the galactic council, I mean the national governments of many commonwealth
countries, let everyone know they would be having a census. Many people on the internet
decided they didn’t want to tell the government about their religion and so one of the first
online viral phenomena began, with people spreading the idea of saying they were Jedi
on the census.
When you look at their beliefs, it’s actually all pleasantly positive. They obviously believe
in the force, and the inherent worth of all life within it, and much of the rest is just
about not discriminating, being logical and, I’m guessing here, never ever talking about
The Phantom Menace in public. Their doctrines have actually allowed them
to be a fully recognised international ministry and a publicly registered charity. So if you’ve
got some spare galactic credits lying around, you know where to send them.
There are some people who you can imagine being mistaken for gods; Ryan Gosling with
his annoyingly handsome face, chess champion Bobby Fischer with his godlike intelligence
and quick thinking, or maybe Hugh Jackman if you saw him chopping wood high up a mountain.
But none of these people have an actual religious following. The unlikely man who does however,
is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband to Queen Elizabeth the second. And his followers
are not some extreme British nationalists, they are, in fact, inhabitants of a small
island called Tanna, part of the Republic of Vanuatu.
Vanuatu is a chain of islands in the South Pacific, just under 2000 km east of Northern
Australia. Tanna is one of the 82 odd islands and is populated mainly by Melanesians, a
pacific island people of similar origin to the Australian Aboriginals. An old myth exists
on the island about a spirit ancestor who had run off across the seas to find himself
a powerful wife. So when Prince Philip visited the island in 1974, arm in arm with her Royal
Majesty, one of the most powerful women in the world, they decided that he fitted the
bill and declared him to be their god. I imagine he endured a similar fate as C-3PO did under
the hospitality of the Ewoks, during his visit to Endor.
Prince Philip, being the affable man that he is, sent them a signed photograph. In return
they sent him a club for killing pigs. I can neither confirm nor deny if this had any connection
to the increase in bacon consumption at Buckingham Palace that year.
Prophet Jack, the Prince Philip Movement’s soothsaying religious leader, has claimed
that a devastating cyclone, which came to the island in early 2015, was a holy sign
that the great Prince himself will be returning to the island in 2016. We’ll just have to
wait and see. So for our next religion we have to travel
all the way to… actually we don’t need to travel at all, we’re staying on the island
of Tanna. Vanautu has a number of Cargo Cults. These
are Melanesian movements that originated from the native people coming into contact with
the colonising societies who visited the Islands. On Tanna, about 50% of the population are
part of the Cargo Cult called John Frum, which allegedly started with the visons of some
elders in the late 1930s and became cemented when the American troops came during WWII.
The name is said to come from when a soldier told the natives that he was “John from
America” The people saw all the wonderful cargo that these troops brought, such as lorries,
radios and the world’s most iconic brand; Coca Cola. When the soldiers left, the people
knew that John Frum would return some day and share his wonderful bounty with them all.
In a way, they were right, since the island now boasts an airport and some infrastructure
for education, as well as a variety of western brands. The people are very grateful and they
share evenly amongst their community. February 15th is known as “John Frum Day”, the
date which they believe John Frum will return to the island. They celebrate John Frum Day,
with a military-like parade, marching through the island, carrying the stars and stripes
and scrawling “USA” on their chests in red paint. Throw in some fireworks and beer
pong and it’s basically the 4th of July. Our next religion is followed by a large number
of atheists. I know what you’re thinking; how can you have a religion for people who
don’t believe in religion? Well the Pastafarians have a pretty good reason.
Pastafarianism came about in 2005 when Bobby Henderson discussed The Flying Spaghetti Monster
in an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education. This God is a sort of floating
blob of wobbly noodles and meatballs. If this all sounds very silly, it’s supposed to
be. He came up with the idea in order to fight against the decision to allow Creationism
to be taught in schools, thanks to the campaigning of Christian groups.
For those of you not familiar with the argument; Atheists agree with the large consensus of
scientists who believe that the universe is around 14 billion years old, with Earth being
formed about four and a half billion years ago, and that life has grown and diversified
through evolution; with the smallest amoebas eventually leading to us, the pinnacle of
human evolution. Creationists believe that God created the world around 10,000 years
ago and that each creature was made as it is now. It’s called Intelligent Design and
it argues against evolution. Pastafarian’s beef (and whatever other meats
their noodly deity contains,) with creationism being taught in schools, is that it violates
the secular nature of the laws of the USA. There is supposed to be a complete separation
of church and state, and this includes schools. Creationism is a religious idea, specific
to a few religions, not to all of them, therefore it shouldn’t be part of state education.
To prove this, Bobby Henderson argued that he believed a supernatural Italian dinner
was the world creator and that whenever a scientist tried to carbon date an object,
to see how old it was, this god was there “changing the results with his noodly appendage”.
He said his beliefs were just as valid as Creationists, therefore should be included
in the curriculum as well. The idea took hold and spread around the internet
and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has many followers, allegedly leading back
to pirates, who were the original Pastafarians. I’m sure you’ll all be very worried to
know that they think the decline in the number of pirates is a direct cause of global warming.
Only the release of another 18 Jack Sparrow films will start to reverse this trend.
So, from extra pasta sauce to extra-terrestrials; let’s have a look of one of the many UFO
religions that sprung up in the second half of the 20th century.
Universe People, also called Cosmic People of Light Powers, is a group that believe a
fleet of spaceships float around the earth where they subtly intervene in the lives of
the good, assisting them on their way. And some day the Ashtar Galactic Command, who
lead the ships, will pick up the believers and send them off to another wonderful dimension.
Most of the followers are based in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia, thanks to the religion’s
founder Ivo A. Benda, whose name sounds like the punchline to a politically incorrect joke.
In 1997 he published the delightfully titled Interviews With Instructions From My Friends
From the Universe and he used this as a platform to begin touring with a series of public lectures.
He eventually made his way onto national TV in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In the late 2000s, Benda began to realise that the alien world, much like Earth, contained
both helpful and harmful people. The Saurians, or Lizard people, were out to get us, and
Benda was going to do his best to stop them. It was all very reminiscent of the classic
Czech novel War with the Newts by Karel Capek, where the salamanders end up turning on mankind.
In 2007, Benda’s plan caused a security alert at the Slovak ministry of defence when
his suspicious protection packages arrived, containing instructional CDs and promotional
material. But if a man can’t protect his country from large alien lizards with a recorded
lecture and some fliers, then how else is he supposed to do it?
He still fights the good fight and you can see what he’s up to on his website; universe-people.com.
Just to warn you, you might want to put on sunglasses before you enter; it’s more colourful
than a teenage unicorn’s sock collection.
Now I’m not saying lizard people are real, but if they are, I’m pretty sure our next
religious leader is one of them.
Happy Science was founded in 1986 by the rather reptilian-looking Ryuho Okawa. He had read
an inspiring series of books by Takahashi Shinji, no I’m not talking about the baseball
player, but the other famous Takahashi Shinji who is leader of the God Light Association.
The books had a big impact on Mr Okawa and made him see that he was actually the living
embodiment of, among others, Christ, Buddah and Allah. It was a tough decision but he
realised that since he was an omnipotent super god, he was probably over-qualified for his
job at a large Japanese trading company, good job though it was.
So he resigned and began spreading the good word that he was in fact the great super-deity;
“El Cantare”. The fact that this means “the singer” in Spanish, is just a cosmic
coincidence. To be a Happy Scientist, you need to focus
on the fourfold paths of Love, Wisdom, Self-Reflection and Progress, no actual scientific knowledge
is required, so don’t worry if you’ve forgotten all your chemistry. You might need
to forget some of your history though, as El Cantare has told us that certain parts
of Japanese history, such as the odd massacre of two, definitely didn’t happen.
The politics don’t end there since the political wing, called The Happiness Realisation Party,
was set up in 2009 and received a rather surprising 1 million votes across Japan’s 300 constituencies.
They didn’t end up with any seats though. The main focus of their campaign was to double
the Japanese population and to develop a nuclear deterrent to threaten China and North Korea.
They really don’t like China and North Korea. I’m not sure that nuclear weapons are exactly
what I would call Happy Science but hey, I’m not the flamenco god of the universe so what
do I know, right? Our final religion has a much darker history
than the others. It’s all fun and games when it’s British princes, lizard men and
El Cantare, but when your cult leads to murder and mass suicide, that’s a whole different
story.
The Order of the Solar Temple was set up in 1984 by Joseph di Mambro and Luc Jouret and
was a continuation of other groups Di Mambro had been in and founded in the previous decade
or so. They started out in Switzerland and moved to a headquarters in Quebec, Canada,
in the late eighties. The religion was based on a mix of sources,
the main one being the famous Knights Templar. Their idea was to reassert the correct balance
of power in the world and to lay the way for the second coming of Christ, the Solar King.
They also took inspiration from notorious British occultist, Aleister Crowley.
The Order’s dark side was revealed to the world on October 1994, with deaths on both
sides of the Atlantic. A couple and a young baby where killed in Quebec, with rumours
that Di Mambro had accused the child of being the Antichrist. A few days later, in Switzerland,
both Di Mambro and Jouret were found dead along with 46 other cult-members. Not only
that but the bodies were discovered, arranged in a disturbing sun-shaped pattern on the
floor. The true story will never be uncovered but many of the group had been drugged, some
were shot, some suffocated with bags over their heads and both buildings were on fire.
Unfortunately, it didn’t end with the death of the founders, and there were further mass
killings in 95 and 97. It transpired that mass murders and group ritual suicides were
all part and parcel of being a member of the Order of the Solar Temple.
No thanks, I'm going to join the Jedi instead.