The Cult Files opens a fascinating window onto some of these extraordinary cults and alternative new religions. In balanced, factual accounts of events and personalities that often seem to defy reality, Mikul examines the cult's history, rituals and charismatic leaders, and the extremes to which their devoted followers will go in fulfilling their beliefs -regardless of the cost to themselves or to others. From the peaceable, industrious Oneida community, and the neighbourly Chen Tao calmly awaiting God's arrival in a flying saucer, to the madness and murder surrounding the Manson Family and Roch Th riault's Ant Hill Kids, these compelling stories are full of larger-than-life characters and elaborate mythologies, where incredible depravity co-exists with the highest of human aspirations.

The Cult Files: True stories from the extreme edges of religious beliefs

History

Mikul, Chris

World

ReadHowYouWant

"I am going because I would have no peace if I stayed." So said Donald Crowhurst as he set sail on what should have been a single-handed, non-stop, round-the-world boat voyage. In the middle of the Sargasso Sea, however, his boat falling to pieces, he had a brain-frying idea
When Chris Mikul first heard this curious tale, it inspired him to begin collating information and writing about other strange lives, eccentrics, and "beacons of shining if erratic brilliance in a world of sensible conformity". Bizarrism is the result.

Bizarrism: Strange Lives, Cults, Celebrated Lunacy

Biographies & Memoirs

Critical Vision

Info to follow The contrarian is the individual who probably springs most often to mind when people hear the word 'eccentric'. Contrarians are the people who do not give a fig for social conventions and determinedly go their own way, whether it's in their clothing, habits, beliefs, hobbies or living arrangements. Their spiritual father is Diogenes, and they have absolutely no doubt that they are the sensible ones and it is the rest of the world that is out of step. Contrarians, especially in England, are often associated with the aristocracy (who after all, do often have the time and money to be able to live exactly as they please), yet they may come from all walks of life, and indeed, some of the most notable have literally lived on the streets, becoming in the process well-known and often well-loved individuals. It is the contrarians that John Stuart Mill was thinking of when he wrote in On Liberty, 'That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.' Mill under

The Eccentropedia: The Most Unusual People Who Have Ever Lived

Headpress

Bizarrism is a collection of strange-but-true tales, featuring a grand parade of eccentrics, visionaries, crackpots, cult leaders, artists, theorists and outsiders of every stripe. First published in 1999, this new, fully revised and expanded edition revisits a host of unique individuals, including:Â Â· William Chidley, who believed that, when it comes to sex, weâ€™ve all been making a terrible mistakeÂ· Arthur Cravan, who combined poetry with boxingÂ· Slim Gaillard, jazz singer and dispenser of â€˜voutâ€™Â· William Lindsay Gresham, author of the classic noir novel Nightmare AlleyÂ· Rosaleen Norton, Australiaâ€™s most notorious witchÂ· Harry Crosby, poet, sun worshipper and the best looking corpse of 1929Â· Reginal Levgiac, author of the mysterious pamphlet Drugs Virus Germs.Â

Bizarrism Vol 1.: The Revised and Expanded Edition Volume One

Reference

Bizarrism II collects further tales of high strangeness around the world. The cast includes an eccentric baroness, a murderous comic book artist, an obsessed ichthyologist, a celebrity stigmatic, a cannibalistic writer, a senile surgeon and a woman who tried to make atheism into a religion. Along the way, a light is shone on various religious cults, mysterious deaths are pondered, conspiracy theories probed and the fate of Napoleonâ€™s penis tracked. Itâ€™s a lively, meticulously researched collection of tales that will amuse, appal and intrigue, and leave you marvelling at the infinite strangeness of human beings.

Bizarrism Vol. 2

Dictators may be among the worst people in history, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't laugh at them. In My Favourite Dictators, Chris Mikul tells the stories of eleven of the twentieth century's most colourful and reviled human beings, including Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Muammar Gaddafi, Idiamin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il. In each case, he examines the political backgrounds to their rise to power and eventual downfall, but the focus here is on the personalities, peculiarities and private lives of these very strange men. You'll be amazed and appalled by their effortless cruelties, voracious sexual appetites, absurd personality cults, ostentatious uniforms, promotion of dreadful art and pretensions to being great writers not to mention their terrible taste in interior decoration.

My Favourite Dictators: The Strange Lives of Tyrants

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

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