from Sam Jordison, author of the recent The Joy Of Sects – An A-Z of Cults, Cranks and Religious Eccentrics. The list starts out with Mark Twain’s neglected Roughing It, with its portrait of the early Mormon Church. (Anyone interested in the topic has either already read, or is obliged to, Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, which is not on Jordison’s list.) A couple of these caught my eye and have to go on my to-read list:
In the course of his research for this novel Huysman became genuinely entangled with black magic groups. One of the few virtuous characters in La-Bas, a tireless master exorcist called Dr Johannes, was based on a priest, the Abbe Boullan. It only later emerged that this priest, who convinced the writer he was an all round good-egg, was also fond of performing rites involving orgies, incest and bestiality. The novel itself is remarkable: a trawl through the Satanic underworld of fin de siecle Paris complete with evil old cults, dark garrets, unspeakable rites and mad perversions. The prolonged and graphic descriptions of child murder make American Psycho look like Peter Rabbit. A must read – but not after you’ve just eaten.
5. Spying In Guruland by William Shaw
In the early 90s William Shaw took it upon himself to join half a dozen of the stranger British new religious movements, including the delightfully named Chrisemma, the cult of two people called Chris and Emma. I’m pretty jealous of the guts William Shaw demonstrated in getting so deeply involved with so many crazy cult groups and his descriptions of the rigours of life within the Hare Krishna organisation are unforgettable. I don’t envy him all those insanely early mornings, however.
(Parenthetically, I don’t think The Da Vinci Code really belongs on the Top 10 anything list! Jordison includes it, even though he says, “I hate this book almost as much as I love it. It’s literary crack cocaine – reading it does you no good at all, but you just can’t stop.”.) (Guardian.UK via walker)
