New doomsday sect in Penza 'calmly awaiting end of world'

[emad]

PENZA, July 29 (RIA Novosti) - Two months after a doomsday sect gave up its underground wait for the apocalypse in central Russia, a new cult has been discovered in the same region, a local official told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

The Penza Region sect has existed since the 1990s, when Russia was submerged by a tidal wave of New Age groups and self-proclaimed messiahs.

"They are not doing anything dangerous - they are calmly waiting for the end of the world," said Aleksandr Yelantontsev, who is responsible for religious issues in the provincial administration.

The group, said to consist of a core of about 15 women aged 45-50, is headed by 52-year-old Alexander Zhukov, who calls himself Raphael. According to a number of occultists, the archangel Raphael is one of the seven angel of the apocalypse. Among Catholics, Raphael is the patron saint of mental illness.

http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20080729/115154013.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. "A man has barricaded himself inside his house; however, he is not armed ...

...and no one is paying any attention"

-- George Carlin

[ixion]

2. "Raphael is the patron saint of mental illness"

sounds pretty approprite. :evilgrin:

Really, though, doomsday cults are in interesting paradox. The problem with a d-day cult is that if the day doesn't come, the cult implodes. The other end of that is that at some point a cult might get lucky and hit the date, at which point we're all screwed.

[Warpy]

3. That last sentence says it all, IMO

The first Apocalypse I can remember living through was when I was a school kid in the south and Sweet Daddy Grace kicked off and the world was then supposed to end. Oops. It didn't.

I've always been deeply suspicious of charismatic men who claim divine knowledge. I wish that suspicion could be taught. A lot of people would have been saved miserable lives and horrible deaths if it had been.

[Occam Bandage]

4. What a refreshingly polite doomsday cult. nt

[knitter4democracy]

5. It's Russia, the land of oddities in religion.

God bless them, but they can believe some pretty crazy stuff. If you think conspiracy theories are abundant here, trying living there for awhile and reading their papers and listening to people talk. I was there in the 90s, and the New Age stuff got a bit, um, odd.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. So, it's a 52 year old male leader, and about 15 women

who have times on their hands while they wait for the end of the world. Tough job, but someone's got to do it ... :evilgrin: