What a bunch of Cults!

Cults in Russia

After decades of state enforced atheism, religion was finally tolerated again in the Soviet Union. With the fall of Communism all sorts of groups rushed in to fill the resulting ideological vacuum. In 1990 there were 16 traditional religions and 1 non-traditional religion registered. In 1999 there were 58 registered groups.

Like Russia’s transition to capitalism its transition to religion was also badly managed. Whereas proselytizing is of great concern in the West, the Russian transition to religion was initially a free for all. Scientologists were able to ‘audit’ children of the Chernobyl disaster, a religion known as the Church of the Unification of the Reverend Moon (moonies) secured wide access to public schools to gain followers, etc.

Russian’s today are particularly vulnerable to cults. After roughly 70 years of enforced Party dogma people find it difficult to discern between legitimate religious figures and dangerous hucksters. Even before the collapse of Communism, actually, Russian’s were still unusually susceptible to cults and fringe movements.

In the late 1980’s up to 200 million people tuned in for Anatoly Kashpirovsky’s weekly televised séances. This was a man who used to urge viewers to leave a glass of water beside their TV set to absorb his powers for later consumption. Pravda featured a half-page article praising him.
It is highly unusual that the official newspaper of the Communist party would lend support to a character like this. It would be unfathomable for a similar half-page piece praising to appear in the Irish Times, the New York Times or the major papers of most other countries.

Eventually the Communist Party became concerned about his influence on people and removed him from the television. However, he still remained popular enough to be elected to the Duma in 1995. Strange though it is that this man had such a big audience it is even stranger that it was felt that this made him especially qualified to be a member of the legislature.

Strangeness, though, really captures everything about religion in Russia. In Russia there is a Cult worshipping the Disney Cartoon character Gadget Hackwrench.




One testimonial of the Disney cartoon mouse says that ‘she is strict, cute, optimistic and her level of technical knowledge is unachievable for a mortal being’. Then there’s this stunning quote lifted from English Russia: -

I’ve watched the cartoon when i was some about 5 or 6 years old, but even now i can’t remember something from it except the tune, and I’m not interested in it now. But Gadget crashed me into pieces. Her beauty, intelligence, kindness, mixed with fix-it-girl image is so tempting. Her pics from the cartoon are wonderful, but there is so much fan art where she looks just the ideal female. I look on her and think: what would i like to be changed in her? and understand- nothing. She’s perfect. In our dirty world She’s the only angel. I downloaded lots of her pictures within some days and keep looking and looking on her, just can’t take my eyes off. I absolutely understand the men who started the cult, because Gadget gives all us the hope that there’s the endless beauty in our world. The ideal girl. Which we’ll never meet in reality.
I love you, Gadget.

The reference to ‘our dirty world’ and a reality in which we’ll never meet the ideal girl seems to confirm the suspicion I had earlier. Suffering seems to drive this search for meaning and in Russia there is suffering aplenty.

Russia is a Country that’s entire history has been summed up as the embodiment of the trope ‘somehow, things got worse.’ Perhaps this offers an explanation for Russian susceptibility to Cults. Bearing in mind its history of senseless death, war and man-made famine it is maybe inevitable that people will search for meaning everywhere.

Another movement serves to illustrate just how outlandish these movements can get in this environment of sheer need. The White Brotherhood started with Marina Tsvigun’s vision, during an abortion that she was both the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary and Christ. Yuri Krivonogov, claims to be the reincarnation of John the Baptist and John the Apostle. Religions do not operate in the realm of logic. However, is it so wrong to expect someone to be the reincarnation of just one individual? No, apparently not. Even a child playing cowboys and the Indians realises that a selection must be made between them. In another group Vladimir Putin gets to be the reincarnation of St. Paul and King Solomon. It doesn’t seem too problematic though in Russia to just lump in an extra reincarnation.

It was never about the religion

The Marina Tsvigun case raises another interesting point about Cults more generally. It’s never about the religion. While some Cult leaders may believe their doctrine their belief tends to be very flexible. It’s whatever is politically expedient when you get down to it.

It is funny that Marina’s denouncing of her husband as the ‘antichrist’ closely coincided with her release from prison and her filing for divorce. It is also conspicuous that she changed her adopted name from Maria Christos to Great Mother El Moria when she was trying to renew the White Brotherhood’s registration as a public organization. Before going to prison Maria was able to use her need and drug addled followers to unquestioningly dispense her literature and later had a go at seizing Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev.


The Branch Davidians were a Cult notorious for child abuse and their Waco compound based siege that ended extremely badly. David Koresh was the central figure in that Cult. His ascent to power in the group shows that Cults can be as self-serving and violent as anything in the Wire, Deadwood or The Sopranos.

The Branch Davidians were lead by Lois Roden an elderly woman who may have had a sexual relationship with Koresh. In 1983, Roden allowed Koresh to begin teaching his own message. Lois Roden’s son George Roden, however, intended to be the next leader of the group and felt threatened by Koresh.

George Roden’s support had withered by 1987 and in an effort to regain it he challenged Koresh to a raising people from the dead competition. Roden exhumed a corpse so that he could practice on it. Koresh went to the police but without proof could do nothing. Koresh returned to the Mount Carmel compound in camouflage with seven armed followers. Deputy Sheriffs arrived later to Find Koresh and six of those armed followers firing their rifles at Roden. Roden, also armed, was pinned down behind a tree at the compound and had already received a minor gunshot wound. Koresh was charged with attempted with murder but a mistrial was declared.

The plot thickens. In 1989 Roden murdered Wayman Dale Adair with an axe blow to the head after he stated that he believed he [Adair] was the true messiah. He was imprisoned. He owed thousands taxes in unpaid taxes so Mount Carmel was put up for sale and Koresh purchased the property. As if all of that wasn’t venal enough Koresh and his follower’s discovered a methamphetamine lab left at Mount Carmel by Roden.

For anyone who thinks Cults are just about embezzling follower’s money this should remind people that Cults are spread across the whole criminality spectrum. In this whirlwind of violence, politics and sex one could ask does the religion do anything other than supply impressionable followers.

(Sources -Wikiepdia, Joseph Braggart article on religion, etc)