“Western visual representations of Dervishes from the 14th century to early 20th” – Thierry ZARCONE

Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies, 6 (March 2013), pp. 43–58 [PDF] In this paper, I would like to investigate the way the Europeans have drawn and painted, and then photographed the “dervish,” that is, the most common word to designate the Muslim mystic or Sufi in the Ottoman Empire. In Europe, the figure of…

Prophet or manipulator? Waco’s Apocalypse and the untold story of David Koresh’s last days | Documentary (2023) ▶️

David Koresh, the leader of a doomsday cult known as the Branch Davidians, is barricaded in a religious center in Waco, Texas, on April 18, 1993, after a shootout with law enforcement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eDJ9zDe5tM This program takes a look at the dark and somewhat debated end of the life of Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh,…

How the Haredim, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox, make their own rules | France 24 English ▶️

September 15, 2017. In Israel, the Haredim community (or "Those in awe of God") lives separately from the rest of Israeli society. Dressed all in black, these ultra-Orthodox practise a strict form of Judaism, cut off from modern society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGp4f2GnKTI In cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, they have their own neighbourhoods, shops and schools…

The bizarre case of Duffey Strode: loathsome preacher boy of the 1980s (Omen of the Millenium) ▶️

There is no form of intolerance, of proselytism or ideological intransigence which fails to reveal the bestial substratum of enthusiasm. Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. [...] Scaffolds, dungeons, jails flourish only in the shadow of a…

“Gnostic Antinomian Rabbi Meets Despotic Anti-Liberal Katechon” – Ethan TAUBES ▶️

“I have no spiritual investment in the world as it is.”  Jacob Taubes (1923 – 1987) My talk will explore—and attempt to further illuminate—why my father, Jacob Taubes, was both fascinated and perplexed by how, as he put it in his 1948 letter to Armin Mohler, “the two most important and intelligent men—the philosopher Heidegger and the constitutional jurist…