Worshiping Feces-Throwing Monkeys (and How Religions Really Work)

The largest, most powerful, and successful religion could well end up worshiping a chimpanzee slinging his own feces into the ocean.

Bear with me for a moment (actually, a long moment, as this is a 3,000 worder). I’d like to introduce to you a thought experiment that should clarify what religions are, how they work, and why some win and others have been relegated to a strange-sounding name passed over in books with the phrase “and little else is known.” The starting point for this will be a religion centered around a poo-poo throwing chimp.

The premise might sound obscene and unbelievable, but Christians worship an emaciated schizo whose entire shtick was uttering cliches and vague prophecies that rarely rise above post-bong rip soliloquies. More importantly, this Son of God was mocked, tortured, and executed like a common criminal.

Other religions have their gods masturbating and ejaculating into the ocean (I’m looking at you, Latvians!) to give birth to the world, so a bit of potty humor is on-brand.

So let’s get to it: hypothetical chimp-worshipers. The religion started out as a small cult in the American Northwest. Its founder was Charles, an intelligent but run-of-the-mill aeronautics engineer who had a penchant for the esoteric since childhood. That mild interest would become all-consuming after a powerful vision whilst hiking up Mount Olympia.

The vision revealed Bam Bam, the primordial chimpanzee, floating about in the great undifferentiated ether of space. Wishing for it to take form and proliferate into the diversity that we see today, he squatted down, crapped in his own hands, and tossed it into the firmament. From the intermingling of feces, ether, and the teeming microbes, trillions and trillions of stars, species, and planets congealed into what we know today.

Subsequent visions visited our Prophet and fleshed out his mythic universe, but the first story was the meat of it. Bam Bam tasked Charles with spreading his truth throughout the universe—particularly in an attempt to subvert human-centric narratives of creation that placed man as apart from the natural world.

Unlike most schizos, whose religious grandeur typically leads them to preaching to pigeons in downtown Seattle, Charles had acute political instincts and ambition.
The first few years, Charles was largely ignored save for a few loyal followers who visited his condo for discussions and initiations into the religion he called Coprolitic Primism, or CP for short. Frustrated by the lack of growth, he turned his sights on the digital world. Bombastic videos and hidden secrets of the universe to devotees gamed the algorithm and launched him to stardom. From a dozen or so disciples huddled into his living room, Charles started renting out halls to accommodate the hundreds who would come to hear him speak and the thousands more who tuned in to hear his latest screeds live on Facebook.

Social media funneled tens-of-thousand into the organization he had crafted years earlier. Charles was a psychopath, but, like many-a-CEO, talented, smart, and ruthless. He understood that his devotees weren’t just joining to pursue truth but to feel like they belonged to something and to answer their yearning for a meaning that modernity had robbed them of.

To satiate their hunger, he built local chapters with an emphasis on strong friendships and spiritual counseling. Chapter heads pushed members to aggressively proselytize, do charitable works in the community, and generously donate to the central CP network.

A few more cerebral members began expanding on the core philosophy of CP—the indivisible nature between man and nature. They also sought validation through traditions vaguely similar to their own, like the subversion of the high and low in tantra or the Nordic myth of shaping the world from a giant’s corpse. Charles engaged in these academic discussions and debates, but he quickly realized that almost none of his followers cared about 300-page philosophical treatises stuffed with anthropological, scientific, and historical references. The debates with scientists about whether the universe is truly spiritual or material had only a couple thousand views.

His followers had their sights set on more lowly needs. His videos with the poop dance and hot girls reporting how much CP had transformed their lives: millions. Devotees bought books on 10 Simple Steps to Prime Your Relationship—Primordial Love & Bonding and Primism for Prosperity: Summoning Your Inner Bam Bam to Superpower Your Career and Get Rich Today. These sold in the millions and earned him a loyal base that surpassed the likes of Tony Robbins and Eckhart Tolle. The books brought with them many more new and, most importantly, due-paying members.

After decades in power and having endured the growing pains that all organizations pass through, Charles set his sights higher: theocracy. Through conversion and an emphasis on political power, CP devotees quickly infiltrated the ranks of many Western governments, shaping policy and funneling government funds through NGOs to fatten the coffers of the CP movement and push their own agenda.

With the backing of intelligence agencies and international governing bodies, Charles struck. Estonia became hot-bed of CP belief, alongside other small-sized Eastern European countries that he and his advisors identified as ripe for conversion and potential conquest. When Estonia’s ruling regime started to lose legitimacy after years of inept rule, the CPs saw their chance.

Charles engineered a coup. Masked in the language of democracy and populism, the CP devotees called for snap elections. They were anything but democratic. Violence, blackmail, and any other tactic necessary were used to silent dissent and squash rivals. CP won across the board, gaining a super-majority.

From day one, the CP began undoing democratic institutions and norms because they had a mandate from the people. Disobedience was readily put down, and the weak remnants of Christianity who saw themselves under threat were gelded by laws that muzzled them and drained their financial reserves. Within a decade, Charles was elected as president for life, given sweeping executive powers, and the constitution tossed in the waste basket.

Estonia became the headquarters for CP power, through which its massive endowments were then funneled and redistributed to reinforce its political positions throughout the globe. Other countries did not take kindly to CP meddling and infiltration, and a new Cold War developed. On one side, the post-liberal companies of Estonia and her Liberal-skeptical allies, like Russia, America, & the UK, against the continental powers, led by France & Germany.

The intrigue did not hamper its efforts to maintain its strong spiritual and social activities. Many members would secretly admit that the reason they joined was not because of the persuasiveness of their teaching. The teachings were fine, but their reasons for devotion were more mundane: large parking lots, child care during religious services, community events, spiritual activities that really helped them get through crises, and excellent snacks on Sunday. Yes, even God can be found in man’s stomach.

The CP’s missionary efforts accelerated alongside building new centers, paying administrators, and supporting hundreds-of-thousands of priests, scholars, organizers, activists, and political agents. The religion was upwardly mobile and viral in a way that only the 21st century could allow.

Reaching his late 80s and sensing his end nearing, Charles pushed for one final, bold move that would cement his religion’s place in the West: allying himself with atheists and agnostics. His team of scholars and priests worked overtime to create an inner set of teachings that secularized the myths and framed the religious life, attire, symbols, rituals, and contemplative practices in rational humanist terms. He was, as he so humbly claimed, “continuing the work of Plato in The Republic and The Laws by establishing a religious culture that offered both the religious and the secular something they could both join in.”

The CP religious culture and practices could be viewed through either a secular or religious lens, and neither would invalidate the other. It was not exactly original—the Greeks and Romans had learned this millennia ago, but it had never been pursued in modernity. The low IQ masses, the mystically attuned, and the skeptics could worship, study, and meet side-by-side with minimal conflict.

There were conflicts and tensions. Staunch atheists rejected any ritual or contemplative practices framed in religious terms. These practices, they argued, muddied the waters and engaged in a disingenuous moving-the-goal-posts from its priests and devotees. But these nay-sayers were quickly pushed to the fringe, outmaneuvered by the more politically powerful and deep-pocketed CP. The CP skeptics wrestled with the faithful on ideological terms while the practices and structure went largely unchallenged.

A century after Charles’ death, CP would become the prevailing religion of the West, rivaling even the Catholic Church at its height in reach and power. Unlike the Church, however, the role of the Prophet of Bam Bam (the de facto head of CP) would be passed down by selection of the reigning Prophet, as was the case with the Roman Emperors. Typically, it would fall to someone within Charles’ own line, but other rival lines eventually rose to vie for the throne. And so it would go for thousand more years of political and ideological hegemony.

Like all created things, CP eventually fragments, unravels, and goes the way of the white rhinoceros. Other religions, more energetic, more astute, more affluent, more powerful would supplant it, just as it did to Christianity and Buddhism, leaving it to be but a phenomena studied in books on ancient history.

Not the most glorious end, but passage ennobled by the majesty of its heights.
Thus, ends the tale of Charles and his feces-throwing chimp religion.

You can fault this hypothetical for eliding dramas, corruptions, and dramas, but, hey, this is a blog post not a 500-page Tolstoy book. Forgive me.

What you likely noticed: a complete absence of the philosophical and theologial content of the CP. While these do have a role to play, I believe that, like with most humans, these are accretions that explain its rightness post facto. In other words, if CP is powerful, then whatever the prevailing ideologies are will rally around to justify and adapt it to its political moment.

A brief study of the Catholic Church reveals that this is how religions really work. The ideology of a Guatamalan Crib-Catholic living in Los Angeles is incomprehensible to a Frankish bishop in the 7th century.

Ideology follows power, and if you wish to understand how religions rise and fall, the worst way to do it is by looking at its metaphysics and myths. Look at its bank accounts, its properties, its organizational structure, the political sway it has. Here, you’ll better understand the naked truth than comparing Thomas Aquinas to St. Paul.

When I was on my grand spiritual quest, I read voraciously about every religion and philosophy I could get my hands on. The group that impressed me the most was the Sufis. I thought to myself, “If these Sufis are so great, then the Quran must be fire!”

Boy was I wrong.

The Quran is basically hundreds of pages of an elderly Arab taxi driver waving his cane at a teenager and lecturing him on how he should cut his toenails and what kind of girl he should marry—except the taxi driver’s a hardcore schizo and believes his opinions come from Allah himself and you damn well better listen up or he’ll have your head.

Of all the religious texts I’ve read, the Quran is the stupidest without compare. Schopenhauer assessment of it as a “wretched book” without “one single idea of value” hits the mark. Yet to this day, Muslims will proclaim that it is the greatest scripture ever drafted, brimming with lyrical beauty and profound wisdom. They are wrong. It’s a wretched text that I would never encourage anyone to read save to convince themselves of its foolishness.

Islams rise to dominance, however, shows how loosely connected religious teaching and myth is to its success in proliferating. Islam won because Mohammed was a far better general than a prophet. The explosion of the Arabs out of their native lands was the vehicle for the religion’s perfusion throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Later scholars, traditions, and saints filled in many of the gaps and elevated a bad scripture into a robust and profound religious teaching and culture. On its own merits, however, the Quran is underwhelming.

A religion’s success is largely a political, economic, and social phenomena. It has little bearing on the metaphysical correctness of its tenets. Accuracy, as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and every other successful religion has shown, is secondary to its ability to gain and maintain power. That’s it.

Mormons are a miserable bunch (despite all the propaganda arguing the opposite). They have among the highest depression rates in the States, and their community is riddled with drama and abuse. Yet they have grown exponentially since the 60s, and their numbers are only going up.

Why? Is it because the well-known fraud and charlatan Joseph Smith really expounded on the profound teachings of the universe and everyone, upon first hearing them, is compelled to join his ranks?

No.

The reason for Mormon’s success is their aggressive recruitment, aggressive dissuasion of members from leaving (often by threatening to disown them, sue them, or psychologically torture them), and their highly-efficient, well-funded organization. Mormonism is not spreading because it is the “truest” religion. It’s spreading because it has figured out how to gain and maintain power.

Power is among the best measures of truth. Power demonstrates an understanding of how humans and organizations work, and how to best arrange both to extend an ideology. So in that sense, Islam, Mormonism, and CP are the truest religions, but not necessarily when it comes to metaphysical claims. And anyways, those are typically proffered by the views of the time (see: Pope Francis’ latest “you don’t need to be a Christian to go to heaven, just be a decent human being, bro”).

Happiness and “higher truth,” much to the dismay of wish-casting liberals, is ancillary to dominance. Happiness is an element—unhappy people will often look elsewhere or, if there are no other options, rebel, but most humans are capable of enduring a lifetime of misery if it means they never have to poke their head out and risk getting smacked. If you make that smack hard and hurt long enough—tempered by some carrots for good behavior, religions can keep mutiny to a minimum.

Mormonism and Islam are not the only religions that function like this. The Dhammakaya and Nichiren sects of Buddhism function similarly and are highly successful. Within a few decades, the former has gone from an obscure teaching by a no-name, Thai monk into a nation-wide frenzy. Whether the sect will continue to expand after increased scrutiny from the government remains to be seen, but if they play their cards right, Thailand might end-up a Dhammakaya nation rather than a Theravadan one.

Actual myth, philosophy, and teachings are not all that important. Yes, it must strike some chord in the heart of devotees, but with the meaning-making machine of man and our ability to rationalize so creatively to justify foregone conclusions, that is the easiest part. A feces-throwing chimp god is very feasible and, in fact, might be more appealing due to how it disrupts prevailing narratives. It is difficult, in other words, to found a bad religion. The hard part comes in expanding it. Then, a religion’s founder and devotees must properly understand power and create institutions and practices built on that.

Most modern pagans are hopelessly naive in this regard, largely because very few have actual experience in large religious organizations. The Asatru Folk Asssembly is one of the largest pagan organizations, and they have only 730 members. 730! Most organizations are lucky to have more than a few dozen active members. Some 30-40% are solitary practitioners.

Another reason for the widespread ignorance: pagans typically don’t view their religion as a means of gaining political power. It’s a fun little thing they do with their friends in the woods on the weekend. It’s not a force to overthrow the government and establish a theocratic dictatorship. They will align themselves with existing political parties and movements that are near-enough to their own ethos to be tolerable.

This is a mistake. Being laissez faire about religion is unsustainable. The “just do whatever you want in the privacy of your own home” types end-up on the losing side in every battle because the winners will never let them do that. The winners want to win because they think they are right and must impose that onto others. This is one of the many reasons why anarchism and libertarianism will never work. They will always be outmaneuvered by small, determined, fanatical groups, and most pagans are a religious libertarians. “Live and let live.”

Arabian conquerors typically did not force their subjects to convert to Islam. In fact, for large stretches of its history, Islam functioned in much the same way as the Roman religion did. It demanded regular payments, supreme respect, and adherence to their basic laws, but otherwise people were free to do as they pleased.

The incentives of Islam, however, pushed subjugated peoples towards conversion. Gaining political power or work within the regime was often out-of-the-question for non-believers. During times of economic distress, the heavier taxes paid by non-Muslims meant that many were willing to outwardly abandon their old faiths for the foreign one. Since Muslims cannot marry outside of their religion and special rules were imposed on them, this short-sighted gain ended up cementing their bloodline’s faith for centuries. A brilliant move on the part of the Muslims, truth be told.

If pagans have commitments, values, beliefs, and practices that have any real meaning for them, solitary practice is foolish in the long-term because your values will never be reflected in the wider cultures. And the state will coerce you through innumerable means to adopt their positions. There is no middle ground. Only struggle and tension.

We must aim, then, for political, economic, and social power. For this, we must stop seeing the religion game as one of online debates and writing even better philosophical books to convince the Abrahamists the error of their ways or sprucing up offering rituals to Brigid.

No religion has ever risen to prominence by dint of their intellectual rigor. They have only done so due to their political astuteness and ability to effectively manage people and money.

Idealists might whinge about “selling out,” recognizing that institutions bring with them corruption, coercion, and a host of other problems that water-down the vitality of the pagan vision. They are right, but it is necessary to shield pagans from the predations of worse ideologies.

Life only offers trade-offs. Institutionalism and expansionism is better than being “free spirits” vanquished and subjugated by the more powerful.

All the little blogs, the poasting of based memes, the podcast circuit, the books on REAL ANIMISM—great, wonderful. These are necessary and good, but their creators should not fool themselves into thinking that they are meaningfully moving the needle on paganism.

Paganism will become prominent, powerful, and autonomous once it gains real power. CP didn’t win out because of its accurate creation myth or its superior philosophy. It won because it played the politic game and outmaneuvered its opponents—including seeing creed as a political tool rather than as a metaphysical claim. Same with Islam. Paganism will win once it becomes well-organized, once it infiltrates the highest strata of society, once we have nations of our own who can muster troops and rain hell down from the heavens.

Until then, we are little monkeys flinging our shit into the internet and cheering on as our numbers moderately go up. We remain vulnerable and dependent on the rotting mores of liberalism to protect us.

If you can’t yet tell, those structures and customs are on their way out, and we will have to stand on our own two feet and defend ourselves lest we end up like the Yazidis, the Coptic Christians, or the American Catholics—prey to the powerful.
We must become the predators, and this means we must expand, build, make money, draft armies, stock arms, seize states, and become the Lords of America, the Lords of the UK, the Lords of Germany and Russia, and the Lords of the untold stars.

The world can be ours—and we must take it lest we be taken.