Category:
Cult Figures and Artifacts

The Billiken

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Woman imagines a deity, it become part of the native cultures of Alaska and Japan. That's pretty weird.

Wikipedia entry here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 23, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Religion, Superstition, Foreign Customs, 1900s

Ariffin Mohamad and His Sky Kingdom



Let us now mourn the death of Arrifin Mohamad, founder of the Sky Kingdom cult, which seems to have been inspired by Disneyland.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 26, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Eccentrics, Religion, Asia

The Electric Pencil



Sounds pretty much like prime fodder for WU-vies.

"Around the year 1910, a patient at State Lunatic Asylum No. 3 in Nevada, Missouri, who referred to himself as The Electric Pencil, executed 280 drawings in ink, pencil, crayon and colored pencil. These beautiful drawings of animals, people and buildings were executed on both sides of 140 ledger pages, each bearing the name of the hospital in official type across the top, thus dramatizing the interface of the institutional and the creative. The Electric Pencil's drawings were sewn into a handmade album of fabric and leather, which shortly afterwards was lost--for a century."

Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 29, 2016 - Comments (5)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Eccentrics, Books, Twentieth Century, Mental Health and Insanity

The Martian Writing of Hélène Smith

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A self-styled medium, Ms Smith was not content to talk to distant or dead Earth people only, but also had a hotline to Mars. Here is her portrait of a typical Martian, and their language.

Wikipedia entry here.

Long article here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 18, 2014 - Comments (9)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Delusions, Fantasies and Other Tricks of the Imagination, Frauds, Cons and Scams, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Superstition, Nineteenth Century

Breaking Bad Toys

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Toy'sR Us is going to carry Breaking Bad action figures and accessories which include bags of pretend crystal meth. I think the pretend crystal meth should be pop rocks!

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 20, 2014 - Comments (12)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Drugs, Products, Retailing, Can’t Possibly Be True

Group Baptism by Firehose



Conducted under the auspices of the famous and fabulous United House of Prayer for All People, whose founder was "Sweet Daddy Grace," as depicted below.

I heartily endorse any institution whose leaders inherit the title of "Sweet Daddy."

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Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 30, 2013 - Comments (2)
Category: Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Cult Figures and Artifacts, Eccentrics, Religion, 1910s

Zippy & Me

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Yesterday, Saturday April 6, I was privileged to interview Bill Griffith, longtime weirdo and creator of Zippy the Pinhead (along with so many other great comics) at the MOCCA Fest in NYC. Here's Bill at the Fantagraphics table at MOCCA, showing off the newest Zippy collection, now available thru the link at the sidebar here.

And here we are onstage. (Photo by Phil Merkel.)


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Posted By: Paul - Sun Apr 07, 2013 - Comments (8)
Category: Conventions, Cult Figures and Artifacts, Comics, Surrealism, Books

Twinkling Stars



A strange tale behind this song:

Nine Circles never entered a recording studio and performed only once, at a Dutch radio station in 1982. Unbeknownst to them the engineer recorded the session and over the years it was bootlegged over and over becoming a Flexipop cult track. [The singer] never found out about this until I rang her up [in 2011].


Read the whole story here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 28, 2013 - Comments (5)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Music, 1980s

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Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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