Thread by @zcobb

The morphing of QAnon into a religion has me flashing back to my earliest days as a researcher. It was 1967, the Summer of Love, The Beatles were hanging out with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and I began my study of non-Christian belief systems. (See (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatl…) 1/10

Although I was raised by a church-going family, I am not, and never was, a Christian. Theologically-speaking my parents' church was very liberal and believed in adult baptism based on informed choice. My interest in other faiths was not discouraged. 2/10

In fact, when a former minister of that church visited my folks in 1968 and heard of my interest in different belief systems, he suggested I read "Mysticism Sacred and Profane" by R. C. Zaehner (1957). He and Zaehner were students together at Oxford! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ch… 3/10

BTW, also suggested by the former minister of my parents' church: Zaehner's Hinduism and Huxley's Doors of Perception (I was already reading Blake😃). But it gets better, early in 1970 the church got a new minister, straight from a 2 year stint at a church in San Francisco! 4/10

So that's how, in the Spring of 1970, I came into possession of a stack of "alternative" pamphlets, 'zines, and flyers, straight from Haight Ashbury. And it's why I decided to go to Leeds University to study comparative religion under Trevor Ling (amazon.co.uk/Books-Trevor-L…) 5/10

Time and again my study of human beliefs has benefited from good luck (in addition to a mass of white male privilege). I was able to work various jobs in the year before I enrolled at Leeds (October of 1971) They included 4 months volunteering in a Rudolf Steiner community. 6/10

Steiner founded Anthroposophy, an esoteric spiritual movement with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy plus some Goethean science and Rosicrucianism. He also created Waldorf education. That 7/10
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_St…

I completed my BA at Leeds with Prof. King, "an internationally renowned scholar on spirituality, interfaith dialogue, women and religion." Then I was off to a postgrad teaching post in Canada, helping a scholar of Judaism teach a class on Genesis. spiritualityandpractice.com/explorations/t… 8/10

Sadly, the 1973 oil crisis crushed academic funding for years. By 1977 I'd pivoted into consumer credit and was learning IT. By 1980, I had become a petroleum accountant using IT to audit oil and gas firms who tried to cheat on state taxes. But wait.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_… 9/10

In my next thread I will explain how researching the diversity of human beliefs—including bizarre fringe stuff—helped me build a career in #Infosec and #DataPrivacy. (c.f. Google credit cards + Number of the Beast, e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of… - note illustration by Blake) 10/10

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