Another way of knowing! Voodoo Sex Cult!

[onager]

This sort of ties in with that Religion thread that went off into decomposing brains.

I was about to turn off the TV and do something useful - honest!

Then the latest episode of the series Nothing Personal came on the ID channel (Investigation Discovery).

Don't want to spoil it for those who might watch...but it dealt with an educated, wealthy entrepreneur described by everyone who knew him as a "seeker." Seeking those "other ways of knowing," naturally.

He eventually decided Santeria was the real deal. But it needed a little more kick, I guess, so he mixed it with his own home-brewed version of Tantric sex.

This guy convinced himself that his personal Santeria god could save him from...well, a very stupid act. You have to see what he tried to believe it.

Oh, speaking of stupid acts...Mr. Entrepreneur ran into one force mightier than all the gods of his various religions. He "forgot" to pay his taxes for about 10 years and the IRS came a-calling with a $2.8 million bill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Personal_%28TV_Series%29

[ZombieHorde]

1. Am I the only person here who would have checked out a Voodoo Sex Cult

as a bachelor? The Voodoo may be bullshit, but the sex is real.

I used to sleep with a woman who was into Voodoo. She was really fun at first, but our different versions of reality eventually got in the way.

[onager]

3. No, not the only one...

And I live in Los Angeles. We have a Voodoo Sex Cult in just about every neighborhood, or so I've heard. (cf Allen West "hearing" about 80 Communist Democrats).

I guess the closest I ever came was some of the "party houses" in Hollywood. No voodoo involved, just a way to meet new and interesting friends.

[SamG]

2. So the guy not only had "another..

way of knowing", but also "another way of avoiding taxes".

I'm sure the same type of thinking applies to both, WISHFUL thinking.

[onager]

4. Yep, but otherwise rational. Which is the weird thing.

The guy was Mark Foster of Quanta (!!!) Press. He was an early computer whiz. Mostly made his millions by burning free govt. documents onto CD and selling them, in the early days.

The show that I mentioned had a still photo from the early 1990s, showing Foster sitting with Al Gore. Back when Gore was traveling around the country not-inventing the Internet, but drumming up support for it.

It boggles the mind that Foster just didn't pay any taxes at all on his earnings. I can't imagine he really believed he would get away with that...in whatever personal mental universe he was inhabiting.