As I was looking at the watch Michael started talking to me about his group and their mission, how they feel that drugs are an affliction of the soul and how his group is preparing for the end times and a variety of other things about his outreach programs which I was nodding along to but not paying a great deal of attention to. I didn’t mind any of this until hearing him mention that “I should stay” and have a chat to him about these various interests of his which left me immediately itching to leave. [..]

Visit The Religious Cult Leader’s Seamaster to read the full article.

 

I want to ask you guys, would further stories like this be better with drawn illustration as this one had, or does it detract / distract and would they be better without? Trev and I had a mind each way on this and we would be keen to get your feedback

 

Nope, that’s actually where this somewhat mediocre Seamaster came from, an ad in a local newspaper that led there. I’ve never bought any of my personal collection from dealers with the exception of the Speedy Tuesdays and Apollo 8 LE, they’ve all been either eBay or watches I had to hunt down locally or overseas some way or another. The most rare and unusual watches often come with some unusual stories but even the boring watches like this one can have some odd origins. I get the impression the bloke I bought it off was junk dealing / picking in part to financially support his operation.

 

So while I was writing this up I was curious as to how many we have here in Australia, because this isn’t the first cult I’ve come across, its about number 6-7 or so. According to the SMH we have 3000 cults as of 2011, which sounds like a pretty impressive effort. At that rate there has to be a couple in just about every suburb in Australia in the major capital cities.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/economic-climate-a-breeding-ground-for-cults-20111101-1mu6i.html

 

So I have no ability to draw whatsoever, and we looked at some paid illustrators but the good ones are way out of our price range and the affordable ones aren’t good. I asked my girlfriend @marielle if she would give it a go, drawing on my iPad as we needed digital first illustrations.

She had previously done a lot of charcoal / pencil sketches on paper that were really good but these were her first three drawings with Apple Pencil on iPad which is a pretty steep learning curve, I was pretty happy to get them in exchange for some poorly cooked dinners and lunches I made for her.

 

Yea I hadn’t even considered the hippie communes, down around Nimbin / Byron Bay there are so many of those, lots of witchcraft / magic true believers too, voodoo doctors and all sorts. Lots of reefer too. Probably with all the Hollywood celebrity types moving there its just going to get progressively weirder over time. Its not cheap either, the ladies selling you eye of newt and Reiki smudging sticks are driving AMG G63s and Lamborghini Urus’s so its some properly bourgeois witchcraft going on.