BEING a handy-dandy guide to the acquisition of vast temporal & spiritual power, with all the perks that come with such authority; AND some suggestions of strategies & tactics that may be useful in establishing any religious, political, economic, artistic or sportive paradigm; WITH the hope that those successful in such endeavours will be greatly generous with the author of this guide, and reward him stupendously, and not deal with him harshly to prevent him from aiding thy competitors. PLEASE don't murder me. And be sure to see this quick reference, eh?

CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Why Should I Bother With Belief Systems?
3. What Beliefs Should Be In My System?
   Selecting, Targeting, Correlating, Randomizing, Deities
4. What Else Do I Need Besides Beliefs?
   1. Sacred Literature:
      Myths, Other Tales, Complexity
   2. Social Structures
   3. Cross-Fertilization:
      Political/Legal, Economic/Financial, Artistic/Emotive, Athletic/Sportive
5. What Aspects Of Mortality Should My Relgion Control?
   Needs: Sex, Nutrition, Air, Other
6. How Do I Assemble My Religion?
   Appropriation, Amoebae, Enthusiasm, Connexions
7. What Is The Operative Basis Of My Religion?
   Spin-Off, Synthesis, Novelty, Social, Meta-Social, Technological, Stealth
8. Where And How Does My Religion Manifest?
   Gatherings, Media, Existence
9. Conclusion
10. Other Resources

Note: Links to the contents above may not work - page after clicking, page down to the desired section. Sorry about that.

A: INTRODUCTION

The rapid increase in the number of religious belief systems worldwide during the 20th century shows that the religion biz is one of the true growth industries of the new millennium. YOU can be a of this exciting, dynamic and profitable sector - and all the resources you need are in your hands already!

What is a belief system? It's a school of thought encompassing religious, political, economic, artistic and/or sportive endeavors. For an overview of belief systems vs. knowledge systems, see KNOWLEDGE VS. BELIEF - Is That A System, Or What?!? (for which this author has been awarded the KnowBel Prize in Skepticism)

For the purposes of starting your own belief system, your own religion, the most important principle is that belief systems are modular and interchangeable. You can and should take as many modules, segments, myths, rules, beliefs, as you can from pre-existing systems; arrange them in new ways; add in your own inventions; and Voila! Instant Religion!

The same materials and techniques can be used to construct your own Political, Economic, Artistic and/or Sportive system(s). These systems are all merely different aspects of the same basic institution, the Human Game. As a budding Game Master, all are yours to create, to control, to manipulate, to utilize to gain for yourself untold power and wealth, sensual and spiritual satisfactions, and possibly even a place in the history books. Go get'em!

B: WHY SHOULD I BOTHER WITH BELIEF SYSTEMS?

You must never forget that the primary purpose of any belief system, any Human Game, is ENTERTAINMENT, that is, to structure and occupy your adherents' time. Always provide your adherents with something to do, and a place and time in which to do it, and motivation for doing it then and there.

The dimensions of observable reality are SPACE and TIME - your Game should provide structures to FILL spaces and times. The space-time of observable reality is filled with MATTER and ENERGY - your Game should extract as much matter and energy (organized in ways you find beneficial) as possible from your adherents.

And human consciousness is composed of a complex mixture of REALITY and FANTASY. Your goal is to control your adherents. Your Game should spin a mixture of reality and fantasy in your myths & rules & narratives & histories & songs & epigrams & exhortations & anecdotes, a rich mixture that will work on many levels of this complex realm of occupied consciousness.

Yes, many levels - ranging from the simple, that children, morons and creationists can apprehend; to the moderately complex, that the average human can deal with; to the very abstruse and abstract, that theologians & logicians & conspiratorialists & self-styled intellectuals can chew on endlessly.

You want to start and run a Game because you see the rewards of being a Game Master, and you will settle for no less. Games are the primary means of attaining the rewards you so richly deserve. Today the Game, tomorrow the World!

C: WHAT BELIEFS SHOULD BE IN MY SYSTEM?
 Selecting, Targeting, Correlating, Randomizing, Deities

You're assembling a belief system; the beliefs and logics comprising your Human Game are what will give it its individual flavor, whether you've invented those beliefs from nothing, or stolen them boldly from other systems, or some mix thereof. The right set of beliefs can make your religion a success, by whatever criteria you wish to judge it by.

SELECTING - The sorts of beliefs you may want to incorporate into your religion can be selected in a number of ways. Either by your esthetic sense, of what looks good to you; or on principles that are dictated to you by one or more deities; or by materialistic evaluations, of which modules provide the best returns in terms of power, money, property. If your selection is dictated by esthetics or deities, you're on your own - I can't help you much here.

TARGETING - To select on such a basis, for material and/or moral gain, you'll want to consider your target audience, and what myth systems they already accept - then model yours on pre-existing successful institutions. You should also note what techniques existing organization, whether they be termed religions, sects, cults, whatever, may employ to gain and keep members - such techniques may variously be known as 'marketing' or 'mindcontrol' and fall outside the purview of this paper. (You should review the literature on cults, advertising, human programming and deprogramming.)

CORRELATING - It's also important to note that specific types of beliefs are strongly correlated with certain specific social structures, as is shown in BIRTH OF THE GODS. So whether you want to create a belief system that will imprint a social structure on the believers, and society as a whole; or whether you want to design your belief system so that it closely matches the social structure of your target audience; you can't ignore the social / paranormal links and you SHOULD read BIRTH OF THE GODS. Familiarize yourself with the relations between social- and belief-structures.

RANDOMIZING - You can also select your beliefs on a totally random basis; I will be adding ROLL-YER-OWN RELIGION and ROLL-YER-OWN BIBLE pages to this site soon, to provide for random selection of holy texts and belief modules.

DEITIES - The selection of deities to be included in your religion is very important and can be vastly complex; stay tuned for a paper on that subject, tentatively titled SELECTING DEITIES: A Guide To The Gods Of Your Choice. Information on discerning the attributes of gods may be found in GOOD GODZ! How To Discover Everything About Deities. Briefly, the forms your deities take may be: animal, vegetable, mineral, or incomprehensible; aquatic, subterranean, terrestrial, atmospheric, or cosmic; eternal, temporal, ephemeral, or other. Your deities may or may not be: hominid, visible, mind-blasting, erotic, playful, barfulous, vengeful, helpful, cheezy, aloof. Be sure to consider all the preceding factors when choosing god(s), and remember the old dictum: pick your rut carefully, you may be in it for a long long time.

RESOURCES