This is Jo. She is a writer who will go to the ends of the earth for a good story. But literally tho.
In 2013 she sailed to Antarctica in a yacht with a television production crew re-enacting Sir Ernest Shackleton’s escape from the icy paradise. She has also been everywhere from deserts (and not showered for 18days straight) to tropical islands for stories and met some cray-zay religeous nutbags around the world.. recently too, while she was doing research for her book ‘Which cult should I join?‘.
Firstly, what was the Antarctica trip like?
There was seasickness, storms, sleep deprivation, conflict and tears but also a lot of laughs, penguins, whales and FCKING BIG WAVES in the Drake Passage. Shackleton was a major bad ass for dealing with all that without Goretex, seasickness medication or an iPod.
OK so cults – why do you think people join them?
For what we all want – love, happiness, belonging and understanding. Many cult leaders enlist very persuasive recruiting techniques, making it easy to join, but hard if not impossible to leave, example: The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (also known as Jonestown). Thanks to YouTube, anyone can listen to audio of deranged cult leader Jim Jones berating young escapees about the dangers of running away into the jungle (namely anacondas!), while others who attempted to escape were shot.
Which cult was the craziest?
The grand (LSD-induced) leaps in thinking, that led Charles Manson’s ‘Family’ cult to commit horrific crimes continues to puzzle me. Here’s a guy with a laundry list of convictions who manages to infiltrate the California music scene and hang with the likes of Neil Young and the Beach Boys (they even recorded one of his songs). But when he doesn’t get a recording deal, things go pear-shaped and he instructs his mostly-female followers to go on a murder spree, inspired by the Beatles songs Helter Skelter (Manson thought the lyrics of this song were inciting a race war). Many people are killed, including heavily pregnant actor Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s partner.
Did any have any effed-up rituals?
Mexico’s ‘Matamoros Cult’ was responsible for some deeply heinous rituals involving animal and human sacrifice. These people essentially followed a drug cartel leader who made sacrifices and cast spells to keep his drug shipments safe. Why just be an ordinary drug king pin when you can be a cult leader too?
Are there any nice cults?
The Prince Philip Movement is quite wonderful. Located in Vanuatu, this tribe worship Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh as god. One on hand, draping yourself in the Union Jack and parading around with a framed photo of Prince Philip is harmless. On the other, it’s a gross example of how insidious colonialism is.
Tell us about Scientology –
It’s origin story is incredible. Instead of going into it here I’ll leave you with a few hints. 1. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction and fantasy writer 2. It’s alleged that Charles Manson rejected Scientology for being too out there 3. When you sign up to Scientology you sign up for a billion years.
