Heaven Can Wait
Read Mercer Schuchardt
April 1, 1997
When the Heaven's Gate cult recently committed the kind of hygienic suicide that makes Dr. Kevorkian proud, the press went on a two-fold feeding frenzy of suspicion and blame. Their first approach was to hyperbolize Internet users as a unique demographic that is strangely susceptible to the kind of mind control that Marshall Applewhite practiced on his followers. The second take was focused on the abnormality of Gnosticism, though few media pundits bothered to explain exactly what they meant by the word. Nowhere did anyone give a passing sentence to the notion that the two are linked.
But you read it here first. In fact, almost two years ago re:generation quarterly made the connection between the disembodiment of Internet communications and the bodily-denying beliefs of Gnosticism. In the Summer '95 issue (1.3), Read Schuchardt's article "Internet ProGnosis" contained this prophetic paragraph: Disembodied communication is as old as the telegraph, which changed a lot more than Bill Gates can ever hope to do. Philosophically speaking, it is as old as Gnosticism. Both Gnostics and Net users see theirs as a secret knowledge known only to a select few. And both Gnostics and Net users disavow the body at their own peril."
So we have asked Read to step up to the plate again with rq's official ten-step guide on how to avoid bad religion. —eds.
1. Never believe in a religion that views your body as Tupperware. Shy away from any group that describes your physical body in the same sentence as the words "disposable" or "container."
2. Never donate money to an organization that asks for specific denominations of currency. Groups that ask for five-dollar bills and rolls of quarters should be viewed as skeptically as a request for unmarked ...
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