{"id":157,"date":"2021-11-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queersatanic.com\/?p=157"},"modified":"2021-11-27T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T08:01:00","slug":"the-devil-went-down-to-the-south-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qs.gehenna.ynh.fr\/?p=157","title":{"rendered":"The Devil Went Down to the South Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New book confirms The Satanic Temple\u2019s co-founder Cevin Soling was among the \u201ccrackpots\u201d trying to be a cargo cult messiah on a small Pacific island <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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In Vanuatu, there are people who say a messiah will one day arrive from a distant land, bringing the islands the prosperity they were denied by their former colonial rulers, Britain and France. In anthropological parlance, such beliefs are often labelled cargo cults<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200aa term fraught with condescension, framing these spiritual movements as religions constructed around the material wealth, the \u201ccargo\u201d, of the western world. Over the past 50 years, though, a steady stream of westerners have acted out such prophecies in the hope of gathering believers. As Ketty Napwatt, a Ni-Vanuatu activist and former politician, told me in 2014: \u201cWe have these crackpots showing up all the time.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fantasy of being revered by people on the far side of the world is an old one. Early European explorers such as Captain Cook were supposedly received as divine beings by the local people whose lives they would upend. The dream endured from Robinson Crusoe to colonial fiction such as Kipling\u2019s white rajahs in the Kafiristan of The Man Who Would be King<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200aa deeply rooted idea of the west\u2019s divine right to rule.

We happened across our modern-day prophets by accident. Tonks and I had gone to Vanuatu in 2014 <\/strong>because we\u2019d read about villages there where the locals believe God is an American soldier.<\/p>\n“The western men who think they are South Pacific kings<\/a>” by Christopher Lord for The Guardian<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the mid-2000s, future co-owner and founder of The Satanic Temple Cevin Soling (a.k.a. \u201cMalcolm Jarry\u201d) visited the South Pacific Island of Tanna to try to convince them he was returned messianic cargo cult figure John Frum as part of a project for Soling\u2019s company Spectacle Films. This is already known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cJohn Frum, He Will Come<\/a>\u201d poster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
“John Frum, He Will Come” [IMDB trailer<\/a>] [Facebook trailer<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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