The manifestos of kooks

Is there any particular bent of kook, or just manifesto-writing ones? There was the VA Tech shooter, I think Dylan Roof, others... are you looking for similarities regardless of differences?

There's Breivik (and if you haven't read One of Us, do). I have some vague recollection the Tokyo Sarin people may have had a manifesto but I'm not at all sure. Also are you only looking for pre-crime/arrest stuff or post as well? That's sort of harder to define, but people who yammer a lot and/or write to cops - which brings up another q., like classic manifestos or the Zodiac Killer's letters to cops - might have similar things of interest.

Perks said:

Really just kooks-of-any-stripe who tried to get their skewed and jumbled ideas down on paper. It's catching slippery fish, trying to get the rhythm of crazy right. Of course, some will come off crazier than others. There's a cadence to some of these manifestos that is the important part for me.

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Mein Kampf

Another possible source of kooks are the self-styled scientists who've discovered that Einstein is wrong and they've got it right. There's a pattern to their rants, involving a combination of paranoia and megalomania. It's quite entertaining to read.

Perks said:

Those are good suggestions, thank you.

This is one of those things that's far more general than specific. It's about seeing the effort of getting non-standard thoughts out of their heads and onto the paper (or screen, as the case may be) more than specifically than what they're actually ranting about. That's why all kinds of kooks will be helpful to me.

And then you were helpful to me. Hmmm. Does the reverse equation work, I wonder?

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Now I'm thinking about this - didn't the Heaven's Gate people have a manifesto/rant/explanation of some kind they left stuffed in their Nikes or whatever?

There's also a book I read long ago by a kid who had a longstanding correspondence with John Wayne Gacy. There's also a book by someone who had a longtime stalker, with a lot of the stuff reproduced. Court transcripts from stalking cases might be interesting too -- there's usually a lot of correspondence there and it's disordered in some of the same types of ways. Margaret Ray was in court a lot, and got a lot of publicity.

Perks said:

For what I'm writing, it would be helpful to have onboard the written out rants of notorious and dangerous kooks. I need manifestos, need to have a sense of off-kilter sense of self-importance.

Whose manifestos should I seek out? I've got Ted Kaczynski and that idiot Eliot Roger. Who else?

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Going back a bit, but the SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas could be a good counterpoint to Eliot Roger's misogyny.

Go to any comment thread for an article about the US presidential election. Look for the negative screeds directed at any of the candidates--there's a bizarre sameness to the more whacked-out posters that may be helpful. If you can't stomach reading election stuff, go find threads about removing Confederate flags or statues--or check out the creationists and/or an abortion thread or two. These aren't complete manifestos (most of the time) but you can't get a better education in off-kilter thinking than the combination of A Cause + Righteous Fury.

(Note that I'm not saying that all people commenting on these topics are out of their minds, just that you are likely to find some whackos there.)

Catherine Garwood's book Flat Earth, which is available free on-line, I believe, is a fascinating documentary about the history of flat-earth believers and some of their writings. A few of these folks are still around. They believe things like Isaac Newton perpetrating a fraud called "gravity".

caw

Does Manson count?

Also, that guy who killed the reporter and cameraman on air.

James Holmes too.

cornflake said:

Now I'm thinking about this - didn't the Heaven's Gate people have a manifesto/rant/explanation of some kind they left stuffed in their Nikes or whatever?

There's also a book I read long ago by a kid who had a longstanding correspondence with John Wayne Gacy. There's also a book by someone who had a longtime stalker, with a lot of the stuff reproduced. Court transcripts from stalking cases might be interesting too -- there's usually a lot of correspondence there and it's disordered in some of the same types of ways. Margaret Ray was in court a lot, and got a lot of publicity.

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Heaven's Gate still has an active web site. It's run by a few of the kooks they left behind to give their message to the world after they docked with the spaceship in the sky.

It's actually a really good retro look into late 90s web design.

There is a very small town about 59 miles from here. Smaller than St. John! I am talking about 300 people. There is a rant posted on a mechanic's shop--not in, but on the door. There is also a long, rambling accusatory poster with weird hand drawn symbols. It is a warning to all the town government telling them to stay off the property (I think. It doesn't make a lot of sense.) because they have ruined the owner's business. At least I think it is a business. You should see this place--old cars, trucks, engines, overgrown with weeds, practically derelict. I cannot see how anything could ruin that business.

Annie, my daughter found it one day when she took a shortcut coming home from a training session in a town in the next county. It was so weird that she had to take me there and show me. Not easy because it is in the middle of Freaking Addle-Pated, Rabidly Conservative, Conspiracy- Steeped, Paranoid, Ass-Backwards Western Kansas. The whole time we were reading it, we were looking over our shoulders! I know it is still there because we took a side trip to read it not long ago. I'll try to get a picture of it this weekend. --s6

leifwright said:

Heaven's Gate still has an active web site.

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Yep, and you can buy "Heaven's Gate Away Team" jacket patches from a couple of places.

Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria:

"I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings!"

poetinahat said:

Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria:

"I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings!"

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"I'm the President of the United States, and I don't like broccoli."

-- George H.W. Bush.

caw

shakeysix said:

There is a very small town about 59 miles from here. Smaller than St. John! I am talking about 300 people. There is a rant posted on a mechanic's shop--not in, but on the door. There is also a long, rambling accusatory poster with weird hand drawn symbols. It is a warning to all the town government telling them to stay off the property (I think. It doesn't make a lot of sense.) because they have ruined the owner's business. At least I think it is a business. You should see this place--old cars, trucks, engines, overgrown with weeds, practically derelict. I cannot see how anything could ruin that business.

Annie, my daughter found it one day when she took a shortcut coming home from a training session in a town in the next county. It was so weird that she had to take me there and show me. Not easy because it is in the middle of Freaking Addle-Pated, Rabidly Conservative, Conspiracy- Steeped, Paranoid, Ass-Backwards Western Kansas. The whole time we were reading it, we were looking over our shoulders! I know it is still there because we took a side trip to read it not long ago. I'll try to get a picture of it this weekend. --s6

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My aunt's husband was a crazy-in-a-good-way guy - glassblower, big black beard, one big gold pirate earring, weird and vivid sense of humor. So much fun. Anyway. I remember him talking about Martin Luther nailing his ninety-six feces to the door.

Maybe this was the guy Uncle was talking about...

Creationist web sites are a gold mine for wacky thinkers. Especially the Intelligent Design ones. They think they are being scientific but..... the directions they twist the science in are highly amusing to see. There's a kind of template they follow that has answers to all the questions that they think they might get asked. It's a real lesson in screwy thinking.

There was the Time Cube guy and the whole Journal of Cosmology. You can read more about them on Rationalwiki: Time Cube, J of C.

I have a friend, a grade school teacher, who was applying for a job in a small school in this area. She said something about teaching D' Nealian cursive and was informed by the superintendent that D'Nealian was satanic. She said she could not wait to get out of there! --s6

David Icke comes to mind. He thinks the world is controlled by reptilians.
www.davidicke.com (has a forum also)

Oh lord yes, David Icke!

I don't tell this around very often but we have two very solid UFO sightings in our family history. One took place in the fifties, witnessed by my grandfather's brother, a WW2 vet, a career officer in the army stationed at a base in the northwest. He was a butcher, an officer in charge of buying meat for the base--not the most imaginative person and fairly secretive about the event. I only heard the story once from him and it was hard to fathom that Uncle Cecil was the one talking about car engines dying on a busy highway and a fleet of spaceships "dancing" across the night sky. I could tell that he was troubled by what he could not explain and fearful of losing his pension. Later, much later, his story jibed with other UFO stories from that time. Unfortunately Uncle Cecil was long gone but his story made me think.

Because of his story I do follow UFO sightings and the histories but not deeply. I just cannot get past the kooks and wackos with their reptilians, Nordics and secret bases on the moon. I have a cousin who is really caught up in this UFO culture but I cannot go there. I love him but he is a kook. Sadly, the wackos and kooks have pirated UFO theory with their goofy rants. I wonder if they have blinded us to something that is very real and that might even be a threat to the entire world ...and then I think, no, that's wacko. --s6