My Cult Is Having Serious Problems
The decision to start a cult cannot be taken lightly. There are some important facts that you need to come to terms with. At the top of the list is realizing that you will never be as famous as L. Ron Hubbard. Maybe, if you are lucky, you’ll achieve Heaven’s Gate status. But, jeez, if you can get even half of what L. Ron did, you really have yourself a successful cult. I only wish that I could get it together like he did with that Scientology crap.
I am the religious and spiritual leader of the Unified Church of Heavenly Light. But, man, my cult is having some serious problems. For starters, I have like a dozen members. And like half of them won’t even accept me as the messenger of God. They keep calling me “Baldy” and telling me that bald guys don’t get any chicks. I don’t get it. I wear the white flowing robes. I shaved my head. I look exactly like a messenger of God should look. I even invented some weird songs for the hastily assembled services that I conduct. My people won’t even learn the songs. They keep telling me that all my songs sound like “Chopsticks.” The truth is they are right. I was never musically gifted.
I have a couple of guys handing out U.C.H.L. leaflets on the corners but they quit at the slightest sign of contention. How are we supposed to get anyone new in here if every time someone says, “No, thanks,” they turn and run away screaming like someone just dropped ice down their back? I can’t keep an eye on them 24 hours a day. I have ritual sacrifices to administer and you have no idea how much paperwork goes into achieving religious autonomy. I swear I could spend a whole week doing paperwork and I still wouldn’t be finished. When you throw in all the interruptions I have with the new-member initiation, the recruiting, the brainwashing, and the reprogramming, not to mention looking for more wives, I’m never going to catch up.
Also, no one wants to sign over their property to me. I keep asking people to give me all of their assets. Most of them tell me that they’re waiting to see how things turn out. What else do I have to do to convince them? Organize a Kool-Aid drink-a-thon? Incite the ire of the federal authorities? If they don’t give me their money, how am I supposed to get the capital I need to start the compound and the arsenal that we’re going to use for inciting the authorities? It’s a Catch-22. I can’t get the compound to draw the attention of the F.B.I. if I don’t have the money. I can’t get the money unless the F.B.I. comes. I’ve already triple-mortgaged everything I’ve got to buy the land in Utah. And that’s the other thing. No one wants to move. They keep asking me why we have to leave Chicago. Everyone knows that you can’t build a decent cult in Chicago. You have to get some land out West. You have to have room to conduct bizarre rituals and convoluted and deviant sexual practices. Around here, we don’t look all that weird. Practically everyone in Chicago is into freaky sex.
I’m running out of U.C.H.L. literature. You have no idea how expensive it is keep producing these leaflets about how I’m the one true connector to God and how I am in constant communication with him. All of the papers about God coming to earth in the form of a bleating sheep on Arbor Day, 2006, cost money too. The paper used to make them may grow on trees but the money to pay for them doesn’t. Also, I understand it gets cold in Chicago in the winter, but does the thermostat really need to be up to 80 all the time? 72 is more than reasonable. Heat isn’t cheap.
Help me, L. Ron. Give me some answers.
