God’s Lunatics: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man’s Eternal Search for the Divine by Michael Largo, HarperCollins Publishers, New York; ISBN 978-0-06-173284-3, ©2010, $16.99, p. 536 plus appendix.
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California –By-and-large, encyclopedias are boring to read. As the old saw goes, their plot is too thin and there are too many characters. While there are many characters in God’s Lunatics, the plot is out of the ordinary. Author Michael Largo, sometimes with tongue-in-cheek and at other times with serious prose, links together the biographies of religious leaders and the actions and tenets of cults and sects whose principles and way of life seem absurd by today’s standards.
Largo could have chosen to arrange the contents of his book by time, place, or belief to name a few. He elected to order the contents alphabetically. Under the letter A, for example, are the Adamists, or Church of the Nudists. Adamists were second century North Africans who thought that deliverance resulted from living the way Adam and Eve did—in the nude. Possessing a mate “was the primary cause for centuries of grief,” and so casual sex was the order of the day. The Adamaists must have something going for them, because the religion lasted until the middle of the ninetieth century. Anyone for a revival? In contrast, the Skoptsy, an eighteenth century Russian sect, traces its convictions to the second century Christian scholar Origen. Skoptsy, founded by Kondratii Selivanov, is known as the castration sect. (It appears that the Christian Church downplays the fact that Origen was a eunuch.) For Selivanov, the downfall of humanity is the result of lust and sex.
God’s Lunatics visits every continent and sheds light on both obscure and better-known religions such as Freemasonry, Gnosticism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jivaro, Masai, Seventh-day Adventists, and the Urantia Brotherhood. Largo also pays homage to individuals canonized by the Church for their zealous acts on behalf of God. These include St. Lidwina, the patron saint of ice skaters; St. Fiacre, the patron saint of hemorrhoid sufferers; and St. Nicholas (yes, you know who I mean), the patron saint of prostitutes.
Largo tells us that Native Americans generally practice the religion endemic to their tribe. However, in 1918 a movement began to unite the pantheistic ideas of the Indians with Christian dogma. This new religion, The Native American Church, urged the use of peyote, which contains a psychoactive drug. Today, the movement has no organized rituals, and has neither a centralized clergy nor a place to call its headquarters. The church has about a quarter million members of which the Navajo Nation is the largest. If you’ve never read Daniel 4, then you don’t know what became of King Nebuchadnezzar, the very king who destroyed the First Temple. He came down with the mental disease known as Boanthropy—he thought he was cow, and acted as such.
God Lunatics reveals facts and stories about Joseph Smith and the Mormon Church, the Dalai Lama, and an assortment of swamis. Largo does not spare Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. He sees Jihad as “murder in the name of Allah,” and alchemy in transubstantiation and Kabbalah. He combines legends with outrageous behavior, such as haruspicy, the reading of divine messages in animal guts and the Thuggee Cult, the muggers for God.
God’s Lunatics is entertaining and elucidating. Largo is the priest of the possessed. If nothing else, though, Largo helps us understand that it is easy to dismiss the way of life of others as absurd, while at the same time being blind to the lunacy of one’s own belief system. The wide variety of contradictory behaviors and articles of faith exhibited by humanity in their quest for salvation can only be explained by admitting that “Belief Is Truth”.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached through his website, www.fredreissbooks.com.