10 Craziest and Zaniest Religions

"Since nobody can interfere in the realm of God, we should tolerate and live side by side with those of other faiths... In this connection no one should question the faith of others, for no human can judge the ways of God."
— HIM Emperor Haile Selassie I

As a Rasta, the foundational tenet is always love, unity, and deep reverence for Creation and the human spirit. Faith is one of the most powerful forces known to humanity—capable of building civilizations, preserving culture, and uplifting the soul. Yet, when dogma divorces itself from truth, empathy, and balance, human belief systems can detour into truly surreal and destructive territory. Looking at these fringe movements isn't about mocking genuine spiritual seekers, but about understanding how easily the search for meaning can warp into sci-fi lore, ego idolatry, and outright manipulation.

10. Scientology: Galactic Overpopulation's Explosive Solution

Buckle up for L. Ron Hubbard's 1952 sci-fi brainchild, the Church of Scientology—famous for controversy and a paywalled cosmic whodunit that feels ripped straight out of a Thanos subplot in Avengers: Infinity War. Low-level initiates get the basics, but OT elites learn about Xenu, the Galactic Confederacy's dictator from 75 million years ago. Facing cosmic overpopulation, he pulled a full sci-fi purge: DC-8'd billions of frozen citizens across the galaxy to Teegeeack (Earth), stacked them in volcanoes, detonated H-bombs, and unleashed trapped thetan souls that now attach to humans like spiritual freeloaders. Audits zap them out—for a hefty fee.
Xenu & OT III Overview (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Official OT III cosmology and leaked documents archive)

9. Creativity Movement: White Supremacy's Atheist Fanfic

Not your grandma's pew-sitter: Ben Klassen's 1973 "Church of the Creator" (later Creativity Movement) operates like an authoritarian faction straight out of a grim dystopian saga. An overtly violent, atheistic white separatist squad, it abandons the divine to hail the white race as its own "creator." Post-Klassen's 1993 suicide, law grad Matthew Hale rebooted it as the World Church of the Creator, crowning himself Pontifex Maximus—until catching a 40-year federal prison sentence for plotting a judge's assassination. SPLC's hate-group hall of famer.
Creativity Movement History (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: SPLC hate-group registry and historical founder archives)

8. Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY): Chaos Magic's Psychedelic Think Tank

Genesis P-Orridge and Psychic TV/Coil/Current 93 collaborators launched this 1981 UK occult network, channeling a counter-cultural vibe reminiscent of The Matrix unplugged into the esoteric. Blending cognitive hacking, Crowley mysticism, and Austin Osman Spare's sigils, it functioned as an experimental art-magic syndicate. No conventional deities, just an open-source federation of occult experimenters shaping the underground chaos magic movement before splintering in '91.
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Historical archives of the 1980s UK industrial and occult collective)

7. Nation of Yahweh: Black Hebrew Supremacy's Grim Miami Chapter

Hulon Mitchell Jr. discarded his identity in 1979 Miami to emerge as Yahweh ben Yahweh, claiming to be the living Son of God. Taking fringe theological interpretations to an extreme, this sect built a commercial and religious footprint that quickly turned violent, echoing the tragic arcs of real-world true-crime docuseries. Mitchell was convicted in 1992 on federal racketeering conspiracy charges linked to 14 murders, arson, and extortion, serving 18 years behind bars.
Nation of Yahweh & Legal Trials (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Federal court and historical criminal case records)

6. Church of All Worlds (CAW): Heinlein's Pagan Fan Club Meets Gaia

Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart founded this 1962 neo-pagan group directly inspired by Robert A. Heinlein's classic sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land (complete with the fictional martian concept of "grokking"). Dedicated to the worship of Gaea (Mother Earth) and the broader pantheon, Oberon championed early ecological Gaia frameworks long before mainstream environmentalism caught on, later establishing the Grey School of Wizardry—a real-world, Harry Potter-esque online magical academy.
Church of All Worlds (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Neo-pagan archives and Gaia theory publications)

5. Universe People: Czech UFO Telepaths vs. the Chipocalypse

Ivo A. Benda's Cosmic People of Light Powers materialized in the Czech Republic in 1997, built around alleged telepathic contact with commander Ashtar Sheran's benevolent extraterrestrial fleet. Mashing ufology, Christian iconography, and X-Files-style anti-chipping conspiracies, followers await a cosmic dimensional uplift via starships to escape terrestrial disaster.
Universe People / Cosmic People (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Public outreach documents and Czech new religious movement studies)

4. Church of the SubGenius: Slack or Bust, Conspiracy Edition

The ultimate parody religion: Born out of 1970s underground zine culture, this satirical takedown of cult dogmatism and corporate marketing worships J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, a clip-art 1950s salesman. Peddling the ill-defined state of "Slack" to escape dull Conformity, their prophecy of an alien apocalypse on July 5, 1998 passed uneventfully—turning the failed doomsday into an annual party. Its lasting tech footprint: inspiring the name of the popular Linux distribution, Slackware.
Church of the SubGenius (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Canonical Church of the SubGenius archives and publication history)

3. Prince Philip Movement: Cargo Cult Royalty Worship

On the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, the Yaohnanen tribe identified Britain's late Prince Philip as the returned spirit son of an ancestral mountain deity who ventured across the ocean to marry a powerful queen. Cultivating roots in mid-20th-century cargo cult tradition, the movement solidified following a 1974 royal tour. Prince Philip maintained a polite, long-distance relationship through portrait exchanges until his passing in 2021, which the community observed with formal sacred mourning.
Prince Philip Movement (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Anthropological records and official royal exchange history)

2. The Church of Euthanasia (CoE): Overpopulation's Black-Humor Hit Squad

Founded in 1992 by Chris Korda, the Church of Euthanasia took performance art and radical environmentalism to pitch-black extremes with the provocative slogan: "Save the Planet, Kill Yourself." Structured around one core commandment—do not procreate—its shock-tactic pillars included voluntary suicide, abortion, and non-reproductive acts, operating as a satirical anti-natalist protest against ecological collapse.
Church of Euthanasia (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Historical press coverage and official activist archives)

1. Nuwaubianism: York's Egyptian-Alien-Black Supremacy Mashup

Dwight York spent decades morphing his followers through various identities, culminating in a sprawling mythos that mashed Ancient Aliens, extraterrestrial genetics, Freemasonry, and pseudo-Egyptian mysticism. In 1993, the group constructed Tama-Re, a massive faux-Egyptian compound in Putnam County, Georgia. The movement collapsed following a major federal raid in 2002, which resulted in York receiving a 135-year federal prison sentence for racketeering and child abuse, followed by the complete demolition of the complex.
Nuwaubian Nation & Tama-Re Compound (Wikipedia)
(Supporting: Federal prosecution records and Georgia historical archives)

The Round-up

From galactic purges and sci-fi salvation to satirical deities and royal cargo cults, these fringe movements illustrate how thin the line can become between genuine spiritual yearning, cultural commentary, and dangerous manipulation. The search for truth demands discernment—holding respect for humanity's diversity of thought while remaining grounded against delusion.

Religion’s Impact on a young Jamaican Psyche

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

― Issac Asimov

This week I think it reasonable to open my article with a quote from a Sci-Fi writer as we are living in some really sci-fi times, with bizarre cults and a fracturing society. I want to examine how religion affects the minds of Jamaican youth and how it impacted mine. Here is my story…

 At age 10, I became an atheist. Today as it pertains to God I am agnostic leaning to atheist, as a Rastafari, my faith is hinged on pan africanism, afrofuturism and a spirituality more akin to archaeology and anthropology of everything African... From ancient gods to ancestors. However, how did I become this person, how did a 10 year old in Norwood, Montego Bay become an atheist or an agnostic?

Well I attended many churches. First one I mainly remember well is Holy Trinity out by Westgate, where my beloved Grand Ma was a devout member. I remember my terrifying christening there... a ritual that I resisted since it wasn't my own volition. I remember the Father well, a well mannered enough man but that church bored me to tears and was steeped in Montego Bay's social politics. Or so it seemed to me as a young one. Then when I began attending Mt. Alvernia Prep Catholicism was introduced to me but my domestic set up was anti Catholic to a degree and very wary of homosexuality and catomite altered altar boys, and from my young perspective seeing their church attire and sometimes smoking priests gave even the young me the impression this place was at once too liberal in some regard and yet wound up in chants and ritual, and was just as boring in sound and song as Anglican.

My mother dabbled in the world of Pentecostal church with one Pastor Nigel who was killed in a house robbery at Bogue. She would eventually settle at Hillview Baptist church where many a community youth I were familiar with went and so I felt comfortable there and the service wasn't that boring... and by the time I was in grade 3, I had watched The Robe and Jesus of Nazareth so many times that I one day became so stupefied by Jesus' sacrifice and peaceful way that I to my chagrin then said to my mother that I wanted to be " A fighter for Jesus". An incident my cousin Camara Brown and brother Dax Pessoa never fail to remind me about or gimmicks me about and oh how I cringe hearing the tale repeated. My family was elated, especially my mother. And like a well brainwashed soldier, high on Jesus hopped up an reinforced by Peter Parker Spider-man and his motto of great power brings great responsibility, Star Trek and Data's and Spock's brands of stoicism and utilitarian logic "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few".

Imagine the melee of ideas like these in the mind of a black child that believed his mother sang young gifted and black to him, whose grandma was in the UNIA... Imagine the mind molded in a Christian yet pan African household... I was charged up... a young black superhero... young gifted and black... I was the X-Men, Malcolm X-Men School for gifted... “Mi start get up early go church walk by mi self, go Sunday school, stay for big church, trying to get more moral more good a try understand God’s will... What did he want me to do etc? Granted hormones had become a problem, I went to church religiously and imbibed the message though as an early puberty child, I was lusting after the young girls in tight dresses, plus maybe some of my mother’s friends in all their church dress plumpness and pulchritude.

 

Beyond that I was good and ready to be a saint… I really did consider being a pastor… eeek! Oh I prayed to have wisdom like Solomon after al my mother wanted my middle name to be Nestor god of wisdom and my father wanted it to be the wise nesta Marley, I prayed like Samuel to be chosen, to ask for wisdom and granted health and length of days… “yep be a wise 'gallis' like Solomon and not to be gal clown like Samson.” Oh how silly I was. But I took spiritual matters and science very seriously from the day I was born. These meant everything to me, them and Africa… so they had to collide.

As in the back of my mind was marinating a debate that had happened one Sunday on the verandah, my father and uncles were debating God. My uncle Hugh Thompson a devout atheist was at it against my uncle David Brown a very religious man, they had asked my father to weigh in and I remembered his words well, "If Zeus and such are Greek and Norse and Roman mythology, then our religion might just be Jewish mythology" and forever that moment it dawned on my that I simply assumed Christians were right. But that didn't cause my divorce psychologically from church.

It came one Sunday when my Sunday school teacher were giving a Sunday school lesson on revelations, it was my common entrance year, but what in the sermon caused the great divorce and moment of cognitive dissonance is when she informed be Jews get a second chance on Judgement day but gentile which we all were would be judged and if not found worthy would be tossed in hell fire... how could even God be sort of racist and biased and if he didn't rather me or black people it can't work and I wanted no more part in it and maybe it was Jewish mythology and not my story or mythos. I would years later find out Pessoa is a Jewish last name but little comfort anyway. And so I wrestled with it inside. And when I mentioned it to friends they all looked scared or told me not to think so much. When I told my mother it became a family crisis for all of high school. I was recommended to speak with this person or that parson... only for all my questions to come up unanswered but everyone wanted me to just accept without irrefutable proof or sound logic and science that God is real... I was no longer the good son but now spaced out, a possible high school weed head even though I never knew what a spliff was, I was wayward etc.. I was a victim of fads, they said I was easily swayed.

The tribulations of not walking in religious norm followed me to the UWI, where in my first semester a big argument with Ms. Kitty after she attacked me as the devil worshiper (I wonder if she remembers that!), whilst I was reasoning with someone else on Atheism. She and that debate led a portion of people to dub me as devil boy... ironic that at home in my community I was called Jesus… but I was persecuted over my opinion and belief. So when I say I understand the rigors of being ostracized by Christians and Christianity to be ridiculed and persecuted despite all my logic and scientific methodology, my critical thinking.... I understand how a religion can put enmity in family, the familiar and the familial.

So let us not heap scorn and condemnation in the Pathway congregation... Who controls your mind... is it Mark Zuckerberg, Rachel Maddow, Jewish myth writers who goads yours mind and prompts your ideas who coaxed you and cajoled your brain? Did the influence of external thought and ideas from outside u ever make u take stance and divides from friends and family?

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social Advocate, Community Activist and Philosopher. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

Boyne, atheists and the Bible

Published: Thursday | September 24, 2009

The Editor, Sir:

Ian Boyne's articles on militant atheism makes no case for Christianity's validity, vitality and value to humanity, if not of religion in general.

The recent Sunday articles are in the usual vein of

Boyne's cowardice and intellectual dishonesty.

He does an exposé of atheists, probably for the hype of the topic and the rise of atheists like Bill Maher and much of the literature he discussed, but, as a religious man, Boyne takes no stance and seemingly presented the atheist argument so well that there is no defence he can make. I am of the belief that he is incapable of giving a creditable answer for Christianity and all its faults.

I cannot see how well-thinking black people who have suffered at the hand of slavery backed by the Bible can still cling to it. Christianity is losing on two grounds, the logical invalidity and inconsistency in the Bible and throughout its arguments, as well as the history and authenticity of the Bible and its account of history and the world.

Will never subscribe

I, as a black man, will never subscribe to a religion that claims:

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." Exodus 21:20-21

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ." Ephesians 6:5 NLT

I am, etc.,
YANNICK PESSOA
cyber_yan@yahoo.com
Montego Bay

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090924/letters/letters2.html

Heavy is the Head that wears the Crown

"How you a move so bitter 'gainst the king?"
-popular Montegonian phrase or quote

"The biggest artiste a Jamaica a the con-artiste, and the biggest ship a the Gynal-ship"
-Proverb picked up at Junior X shop (Paradise crescent)

"Some gyal seh dem Virginal, but dem just Very-Gynal..."
- (Johnny Blaze)-My Dancehall/Reggae artiste alter ego

"Jingle jingle jangle bell christmas come an yuh soul gone a hell"
-some poet at Edna Manley Sch. of Arts etc... 2000-2001

"Haunted season, people a fight wid out reason, see weak fence, and a hop true man nah no backative or defence, and den a hype up wid badman pretence..."
-- (Johnny Blaze)-My Dancehall/Reggae artiste alter ego

So here it is we're winding down to the end of 2006 a year I would calling fleeting at best... nothing monumental happened (thus far) time sailed by oh so swiftly... none-the-less it is a year of change... and so as I tread and trod in the muck we call life or existence... the prince of Paradise... bearing his cross, with a monkey on his back and an albatross around his neck...
Heavy is the Head that wears the Crown
















Secret Places

I am most high,
In my own secret places,
Which I go to,
Escape the lives,
I live between the hollow hallowed lies,
And most unholy thighs,
And through these vacant eyes,
I see my god,
Unhuman inhuman desperate and mad,
Dying from a perplexingly infinite life,
Dying to feel
To be amongst man,
To be real,
To understand.

Copyright ©2006 (mmvi) Yannick Nesta Pessoa














My Stairway to heaven...















Meet Pixie Girl of the Rocktops... Paradise Acres circa 2006... hahahaha

Don't mind me too much these are just random pix from my life...

Dying

And now Mr. Dylan, I know what you mean when you say, Mama take this badge offa me, Put my guns into the ground, 'Cause I'm knocking on heaven's door. I've reached my juvenile end, That point at which dreams die, And reality sets in, Where fantasy vanishes, And rigors of routine set in. I've flirted with success, Only to never be best, Condemned to rot, With my first glimpses... Of the vaguely dissatisfying nature of life.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Copyright ©2006(mmvi) Yannick Nesta Pessoa

Young virginal looking (note I said looking) likkle missy from off-a-di rocktop

Sunset out by Lagoons...

End of today's tale