Comments on: We’re only human after all.

By: WSS

WSS — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 22:35:06 +0000

There is a website with two pictures of the Paris Temple: http://www.arras.com.br/igrposit/foto2.html —and a page with pictures of one of the Brazilian temples: http://www.arras.com.br/igrposit/foto.html

By: Steady Eddie

Steady Eddie — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:18:43 +0000

dsquared—The CaoDaists also claim William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and Marie Curie as saints. They have male and female popes. And the whole religion was invented by a Vietnamese civil servant. Very Vietnamese, that—member of the mandarinate figuring out a way to amalgamate diverse cultural influences into a single, distinctively Vietnamese form. One of my two disappointments with the movie The Quiet American (which was on the whole quite good) was that they filmed the scene before the one at the gun tower as at a guerilla general’s camp instead of as Greene wrote it, at the Cao Dai temple at Tay Ninh, which is an amazing Disney technicolor hallucination meets Eastern mysticism place.

By: JRoth

JRoth — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:07:23 +0000

In response to Jorge, there’s a lovely song by the Pittsburgh rock band The Clarks called Born Too Late. The first line is, “Vincent will you teach me how to paint?” Other secular saints mentioned include Shakespeare, Jimi Hendrix, and Martin Luther King. I’m fascinated by this whole concept, and will be sending this post to my Parisian friends – at least they can see this weird-interesting place.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:41:50 +0000

I believe that Jeremy Bentham also had some peculiarities, at least if the stories about his mummified body being brought to meetings are true. http://cfs.unipv.it/Gallpics/oggetti/mummyfs.htm

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 11:25:20 +0000

The Cao Dai religion in Viet Nam has Victor Hugo, Lenin and (apocryphally) Charlie Chaplin as saints …

By: Jorge

Jorge — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 03:28:10 +0000

Now that’s a religion I could almost join. I could see myself offering up a prayer to shakespeare for inspiration, “Oh Great Bard, guide my fingers across this keyboard!” Ok, I suck at evocations but you get the point.

By: Antoni Jaume

Antoni Jaume — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 21:42:04 +0000

C’est drôle, “Pagan Street”. Est-ce une coïncidence? DSW

By: Jean Pierre

Jean Pierre — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 20:01:09 +0000

Very intersting posting, Maria! If I were in Paris now, I would rush to the place. So astute were some of your observations, and so vivid the descritption that I am sure I would immediatly recognize the place. I really mean it! It happened to me once, in Mexico. After having read D.H.Lawrence’s The plumed serpent (Quetzalcoatl)…