{"id":40,"date":"2007-10-25T00:12:54","date_gmt":"2007-10-25T00:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/2007\/10\/25\/cults-as-art\/"},"modified":"2007-10-25T00:12:54","modified_gmt":"2007-10-25T00:12:54","slug":"cults-as-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/2007\/10\/cults-as-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Cults As Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

The previous two posts inevitably bring to mind of a certain other individual<\/a> whose work<\/a> I’ve admired. But can he be legitimately classified as an Artist?<\/p>\n

In my terms, absolutely. But then I think everything people do is recognisable as art. (And that all institutions are recognisable as cults..)<\/p>\n

What about this guy<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The Church of Scientology<\/a> was not intended to be art in any conventional sense. Its purpose was to make money and slaves for Mr Hubbard<\/a>, shoring up his rampant god complex.<\/p>\n

“Writing stories for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a creative man wants to make a million dollars, the way to do it is to start your own religion.” Etc.<\/p>\n

But however venal<\/a> its objectives, it’s also a bizarre<\/a>, byzantine<\/a> and beautiful creative accomplishment – and LRH<\/a> is recognisable as a Reality Artist of jawdropping genius. (A greedy, sadistic, megalomaniacal cunt, sure – but that’s neither here nor there. He got his. And genius in ugly forms is still genius.)<\/p>\n

These speculations stem largely from my experiences with this<\/a> singular beastie – the most extreme example I know of a mind control cult<\/a> which was, covertly but very explicitly, created and maintained as a legitimate Art Project.<\/p>\n

Distinctions, eh.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The previous two posts inevitably bring to mind of a certain other individual whose work I’ve admired. But can he be legitimately classified as an Artist? In my terms, absolutely. But then I think everything people do is recognisable as art. (And that all institutions are recognisable as cults..) What about this guy? The Church … Continue reading Cults As Art<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-heroes","category-live","category-reality-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.trystingfields.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}