[CWS Calendar 2013] Day 4 - Cults

[tzuzuku]

Task: Invent at least seven strange cults/religions/sects.
Make a list (with ascending strangeness).

This took a lot longer than I had originally thought. And I'm not sure about the "ascending strangeness"- thing, since I believe that that lies in the eye of the reader. So, I just listed them in the order they occured to me. I am a "faithful Follower of the Unsorted List" after all. ;-)

1. The Cabal of the hateful Idol - a group of rabid fans that worship the idol that is the most hateful at that moment in pop culture. Consequently, their idol of worship changes frequently, as different actors / musicians /  sportlers behave in abymsal ways or appear in negative contexts in the media. The point of the Cabal is not to worship a specific actor / musician / sportler. Instead they worship the principal he/she personifies in the moment of his/her lowest point: The principal of the mighties having fallen.
2. The Followers of the bloated Eye - believe in an all-seeing entity floating above the Earth and looking down upon us. In their belief this entity is reprensented by a gigantic eyeball. Hence, they value eye inflammations as being "near to God". Some members of the cult go as far as to use vacuum gadgets to artificially "bloat up" their eyes (most commonly the left one, as they consider it the "eye of God").
3. The Servants of Shubitha - worship a powerful intelligent being that is said to live underneath a mountain in southern France. In reality the "mountain" is more of a big hill, covered sparcely in trees and a lot of gooseberry plants. The hill is riddled with holes (up to 5 cm in diameter) that seem to go down into the ground for at least 500 meters. The servants believe that a cave exists down there, in which Shubitha sleeps - the thousand of little holes serving as vents to allow for air to reach him. They regularly leave ritual sacrifices near the bigger holes, as food for the emprisoned one.
4. The faithful Believers of the orange Tongue - a cult that recruits its members from all parts of society. The cult members vary in ethnicity, gender and age - although none of them is older than 14 years. They are most notorious for spending the summer months trying to turn their tongues orange by continously sucking on orange flavoured lollipops.
5. The Lovers of blinding stars - a cult allegedly originating in the 1960s Hippie movement, whose disciples bring their souls into perfect harmony by partaking in sex orgies under the open night sky.
6. The Disciples of the burning Toad - a cult that meets regularly on the nights of a full moon, burns large bonfires and throws living toads into the flames. They claim that the fumes being released by the burning toads enable them to reach a higher plane of consciousness. There is no reason to believe that this is in some way differnet to other cults burning herbs to achieve the same goal.
7. Masters of the Blood - a vampiric cult whose followers generally vary in age between 16 and 20.  They believe that drinking someone elses blood will give them power over that person, but also that bathing in it will enhance their beauty and irresistability. Not surprising, most of the cults members are females - and non of them are actual vampires. The Masters of the Blood are said to be responsible for some of the most gruesome string of serial killings recently, and the FBI would like you to pass on any information about them that you have.
8. Students of the blue Hands - worship an female revenant, who haunts the banks of the river Thames. It is said that she once froze to death during the spectacularly cold winter of 1851. Today, she is seen walking the banks of the river and lying her ice cold blue hands on the homeless sleeping nearby. Everyone she touches will be found frozen to death the next morning.  Despite their creepy appearance, the "Students of the blue Hands" are not so much a cult as they are a club of active neighbourly help. They recruit themselves from families and single persons living near the rivers banks, and stand guard in the night - scaring away any homeless person who might want to try and sleep there simply by appearing weird and creepy.
9. The Followers of the electric God - believe that there is an intelligence living within the information network that spans the world. The cult recruits its members from the "digital natives" - people who spend a large part of their lives online, may it be outright hackers or simple teenagers whose whole life depends on Facebook and other social media services. They work at linking people more and more together, believing that humanity itself will one day become one with the intelligence of the net, creating one whole person (each individual human acting as a single brain cell) and eventually turning the planet itself into a sentient being.
10. The Cult of the blessed Oyster - exists in a small fishermen's village in western Brittany. There on the shore of the Atlantic, the fishermen have always caught their impressive quality (and very much sought after) oysters by adhering to a specific (and gruesome) ritual. Every year at sumemr solstice a young woman is sacrificed and given over to the god of the ocean, so that he may continue to priotect the oysters and allow them to grow to the impressive sizes they are. As the girl bleed out on the shore, her blood turns to water pink and the villagers stand around her, singing the ritual songs passed down through generations.