Cults within cults within cults

If one does any study of cults that become established religions, one notices a certain pattern. There is the core figure, the one who comes up with the idea, and then there often next comes the organizer or organizers, that person or persons who build the structure around that figure and their ideas to create something that lasts and grows.

This came to mind as I watched another happy Sherlockian jumping on board the new society called "Doyle's Rotary Coffin" this morning. Paul Thomas Miller came up with the society and gave it the most positive credo in Sherlockiana (or Holmesiana, given that he's on that side of the pond): "All Holmes is good Holmes." Although some might disagree with that optimistic and hopeful approach to our hobby, that simple motto is the sound base upon which much could be built.

At this moment, Doyle's Rotary Coffin is still just a sprouting seed of a society. If you do a Google search of the name, you the main results are still "Doyle Coffin Architecture" and "Doyle Rotary Engine" ahead of the prophet's name with "Paul Thomas Miller on Twitter: 'You know what will make him really . . ." (Which is a tweet about a Trump balloon for some reason, so, as with all such mystic origins of a future cult, is open to interpretation.)

All that Doyle's Rotary Coffin needs now is its zealous adherent to build the first compound or gather a band of the disenfranchised whose spouses he or she can sleep with as a part of some later-applied cult rules. (That always seems to happen. One suspects that it's a real motivator among such cult-builders.) I'm not bringing this up as an incentive to get folks to apply for the job, mind you. "Just sayin'!" as the sayin' goes.

All this, of course, is just my own very optimistic outlook on the future of what Paul Thomas Miller has created with Doyle's Rotary Coffin. The society's originator and prophet seems to be meditating upon the growing movement's future at present, and I'm eager to see where it heads. Will it be cult status?

Well, we won't make that call until someone starts asking to sleep with spouses, but maybe a little cult-like enthusiasm here at the start wouldn't be a bad thing.