Comments on: Chasing the algorithm – cults, incels and digital culture

By: Huguenot Jo

Huguenot Jo — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 17:20:34 +0000

In reply to Lyn innes. Corrected it myself...the power of the blog owner!!!

By: Huguenot Jo

Huguenot Jo — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 13:59:25 +0000

In reply to Lyn Innes. You've made me think about men versus women charismatics. In The Handmaid's Tale, the founder of Gilead, Serena Joy, is a charismatic. In the HBO series she is played as a youngish woman, but in the book, she is older.

By: Lyn innes

Lyn innes — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 11:00:18 +0000

In reply to Lyn Innes. That should begin ‘You have a gift of drawing in …..!!

By: Lyn Innes

Lyn Innes — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 10:58:34 +0000

You have the gift of drawing in your readers with thought provoking details, personal as well as more general, and questions. And the photos are splendid. Crowley seems the quintessential guru with his bare chest, robes, and oh so significant gestures. I am intrigued by the connection between charisma, gurus and cults. I suspect your great-grandfather lacked charisma but ruled by the force of his self-ordained indisputable and patriarchal authority. Thus also did certain priests when I was a boarder in a very fundamentalist Catholic boarding school. (‘Dirty, filthy bare arms,’ I remember one nun exclaiming when we changed from our long sleeved blouses to short sleeved sports dresses — with hems nevertheless well below the knees.)
There was a visiting Catholic Priest from America, Father Patrick Payton who did strike me as charismatic. I was completely charmed by him (I guess charm and charisma are cognate words. ) His slogan was .’The family that prays togethers, stays together’, and thousands of families flocked to pray with him in the Sydney sports ground. Whether those families did stay together subsequently I do not know.
The only other charismatic leader I encountered was Cesar Chavez, leader of the Farm Workers’ Union in California— a pacifist and a saint. His followers would risk their lives for him, and he was a powerful orator. One of the best men.

By: Huguenot Jo

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 16:30:50 +0000

In reply to Monique.

Thanks, Monique, glad you enjoyed it. I haven’t seen The Wonder but I’m also a big fan of Florence Pugh, so I will look out for it.

Happy New Year to you, too!

By: Monique

Monique — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 16:06:08 +0000

Yes, a fascinating podcast! My cousin, in her wayward youth, became a sanyasi in Poona and we were all horrified by how gullible she seemed. She gave everything to the guru she followed and worked like his slave. But she outgrew him eventually – thank goodness – and returned much poorer but strengthened by her ability to turn away from what she saw ultimately as a form of exploitation. It has coloured my view of gurus ever since, I’m afraid, and listening to Helen Lewis talking about Russell Brand I am just amazed that we still fall for people like him. It’s sad!

On another note, Jo, have you watched The Wonder with the brilliant Florence Pugh? I thought of you as I watched it and would love to hear your opinion of the film. Personally I found it mesmerising.

Happy 2023!

By: Huguenot Jo

Huguenot Jo — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 22:21:06 +0000

In reply to Hephzi.

Thanks! Yes, all the recognisable names are fascinating.

As for me, I really like kundalini yoga – the postures and the singing. But can I accept that the teacher is a shaman, her gifts passed down to her through generations of ancestors? Not so much.

By: Hephzi

Hephzi — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 21:19:19 +0000

Oh, what a brilliant review of the series and the subject, thank you Jo. I came across the first episode by chance and found it fascinating to hear about Steve Jobs’ last gift – Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Especially as I had recently been given it, highly recommended, by an old friend and am part-way through reading it. Also it was interesting to learn of Jobs’ seeming frustration that he never found his own guru, despite a lot of searching. Helen Lewis said some very interesting things about Yogananda, which I hadn’t picked up from the small amount of his book I have so far read; she gave some useful perspective. I do need to listen to it again, as I only had one ear on the radio at the time, and also to listen to the rest of the series so I’ve subscribed.

I did have a ‘guru’ experience in my early twenties, when I went on a couple of Zen meditation weeks – in the middle of the second of them, the Zen monk leading it suddenly declared that he was the Maitreya (future) Buddha, which is a bit like a minister declaring he was Christ returned again. The first week had been a good, intense experience, but the second was rather bizarre. He did go on to open a centre of his own, and was very fond of powerful motorbikes. A few years later we bumped into him at a Mind, Body and Spirit Festival at Olympia, with hair, a camera round his neck and a girl on his arm. (I hope he doesn’t read your blog.)