The Perfect Lamb

The perfect lamb

“I am the shepherd, and you are all my lambs” I boom passionately,
“Here, in the sanctuary of this sacred place, we come before the Great Spirit as weary travellers, and leave here renewed, refreshed, reborn!”
An uproar of applause follows right away.
Somehow, stringing three words together that mean basically the same thing, seems to muster a stronger reaction from the ignorant masses than anything else, as if one word multiplies the other. Respect the power of semantics, for words used correctly and effectively are far more powerful than you realise.

I stand and bask in the applause, absorbing the admiration of the crowd for a few seconds.
These idiots are so convinced I’m a God, that sometimes I thought, I just might be one. Although, I think that’s the point where most cult leaders go wrong, they are taken in by their own lie, absorbed by their own creation.

See, I have this power about me, a sort of magic in my voice, and in everything I do. I can enchant just about anyone, and once you’re under my spell, there is no going back, you belong to me.

Now, you may be thinking that cults are only for the ignorant and the bewildered.
Wrong. The truth is that people with very low self esteem are actually very hard to control, this is because they lack the base confidence required to believe and follow a doctrine. The same goes for people with very high self confidence, who are often so consumed with themselves, that they find it inconceivable that another person may have the answers.

So, the ideal candidates for recruitment are the normal, average and reasonable. The Cult Awareness Network will tell you all about it, or at least they would have, before they were absorbed into the Church of Scientology.

Now, my golden tongue was once nothing more than a useful talent I had to charm girls into bed, or convince them that it was better to stay friends with benefits. But University is long over, and I’d moved on to greater things. My father had always told me to make the most of any talents I had, so instead of getting a job, I decided to use my special talent to make a small fortune.
At first, I convinced my followers to give up their possessions, but as it turned out, it wasn’t very profitable. Often, family members stepped in to prevent them signing over the deeds to the house, and when one person resisted, others followed suit. That’s the problem with conditioning somebody to be a subservient disciple; they start to follow almost anything.
I decided it was time to diversify and expand, so I made a particularly excellent business decision. After much delegation with the Great Spirit, I realised that everyone is born with a predestined level of success that they will achieve throughout life. The Great Spirit flowed through all of us in unequal measure.

Now some people held large amounts of the Great Spirit in their souls, and would go on to be charismatic, successful.
And wealthy.
Others, however, such as my followers, held very little amounts of the Great Spirit in their souls, and would live lives of misery, failure and weakness. Now my followers, let’s face it, they aren’t exactly the cream of the crop, but they could be! I told them that with enough dedication, they could be as great as me. All they had to do was one thing, and here’s the best part; these sheep were now so convinced they were unchangeable losers, that they were willing to do anything to be saved. Even commit murder.

So, I’d send my followers out to find rich and successful victims, bring them back to the commune in secrecy, at which point they would be sacrificed, and with the correct ritual, all of their spirit would flow from their bodies and into my followers.

The ritual was always performed by me, and me alone, and involved a hunting knife, a red hot piece of copper wire, and sometimes a set of pliers, which I would use to torture the victim. I also spoke incantations, which usually involved demanding the victim’s bank account details, which I would then use to jackpot their hard earned cash into an offshore bank account. After my private ritual was complete, I would bring the victim back out in front of the congregation, gagged with black tape. There they would be tied to a wooden wheel, turned upside down, then their throat would be slit with a ceremonial Kris dagger.

Luring, capturing and murdering the victim were jobs of the minions. That way, if anything went wrong, and it often did, there was no way I could be held responsible. After the ceremony, the minions always claimed they felt nice and refreshed, they truly believed the rich man’s initiative and intelligence has dissipated into their souls. It’s a shame that huge inheritance his father left him hadn’t dissipated into their bank accounts.
For weeks afterwards, they’d claim they could do things they couldn’t do before.
I didn’t give a fuck what they could now do, as long as they didn’t learn to think for themselves.

“Today we have been given a blessing! A blessing of good and pure spiritual energy, released from the soul of this man, and flowing into the hearts of all of us!” I cried out, as the blood from the man’s throat seeped down his face.
“Absorb this energy! Absorb this power, and we can become great! We shall be blessed, and our souls will go on to live throughout eternity!”

They loved this shit. As the sermon ended, a few of the more senior fanatics stayed behind to arrange disposal of the body. One of them, a particularly fanatical disciple approached me nervously.
“Holy Father, how shall we dispose of the sacrificial lamb?” He asked, looking up at me submissively, his lazy eye hanging down on the left side of his face, almost entirely eclipsing his vision in that eye.
“There is a landfill near the coast, dispose of him there my child” I replied,
“Remove his teeth with a pair of pliers, and dispose of them separately. Ensure he is not wearing any clothing or jewellery.”
He nods, clasping his hands together nervously, as if in prayer.
I’d often noticed this man making unintelligible noises during sacrifice, closing his eyes and swaying in a trance-like state. It’s all psychosomatic bullshit, I saw it happen in a happy-clappy church when I was young, speaking in tongues and such.
“And remember to sanctify the body with holy earth.” I speak imperatively.

Holy earth. The one useful thing I learned from my Chemistry degree. A concoction I invented myself. When you fill a body with Holy Earth, through the mouth and anus, the body decomposes four times faster. It threw the detectives right off track, and made the body far harder to discover.
“And Holy Father?” He asked
“What is it my child?” I asked,
“How do I know what kind of man makes a worthy sacrifice?” He asked.
I loved this part.
“Well my child, the perfect sacrifice is successful...”
Rich.
“ but not arrogant”
High profile or famous victims would draw too much attention.
“He must be a man of faith”
Easy to lure in.
“and power…”
Entrepreneurs, Captains of Industry, these are the most ambitious and greedy of all.
“These men are rich in the Holy Spirit, and through sacrifice and ritual, we too can become blessed in spirit”.

“Thank you my Holy Father” He said humbly, as he bowed and walked away.
It was time to go home to my Jacuzzi, leave these idiots to clean up. I’d need to speak to my Lithuanian friend tomorrow night about laundering the money. Just two weeks and it would be clean as a whistle.

After meeting with my accountant, I drove home, donned my robes, and proceeded towards the commune for the daily sermon. As I entered, I noticed that a large amount of followers had arrived early.
“Good evening my children” I smiled as I walked to the front of the room, but there was no response. I turned to see only blank faces staring me in the eyes.
Had something gone wrong? Did somebody go to the police? My heart began to race as I considered the possibilities. I walked over to the sacrificial alter, then turned to face the crowd. Their silence hammering my every nerve.
Calm down. You’ve trained yourself for this. Stay calm and alert.
“You’re early tonight” I said, trying to break the ice.
Solid silence.
“May we all rise?” I asked, almost timidly.
At once the entire crowd got to their feet. Finally, My mind was at ease, I had order once more.
“Now my children…” I went on.
“How many amongst you…” suddenly I was cut short by the congregation moving towards me. With stony faces and determined strides, they surrounded me.
“Return to your seats” I ordered. There was no response, the crowd swarmed in on me.
“Return to your seats!”
Gripping my arms tightly, I wriggled and struggled to resist.
“What the hell is going on? Stop this at once! Get off me!” I demanded in my fury. The crowd grabbed my feet and pinned me down on the wooden wheel. Ropes were fastened to every limb without hesitation, until I was tied up tightly.
“For God’s sake, what the hell are you doing you idiots?” I cried out. The crowd remained silent, and returned to their seats as though nothing had happened. One man stayed however. The lazy-eyed man I’d been speaking to the night before.
“Holy Father” He began, as he pressed the black tape over my mouth.
“Last night you told me the perfect sacrifice was a man of success, faith and power. You told me that with enough ritual and sacrifice, we could all become like you. I was so blind then father, but now I see your ingenious plan, and it is my honour to help your plan unfold” He said, removing the Kris from under his robe.
“Success, Faith and Power!” He cried out, the congregation cheered fanatically.
“You are the perfect lamb.”