Warren Jeffs has released another proclamation to his flock and this one is... well...
Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in prison, has ordered most of his followers to stop having sex except for 15 men -- and the women they men choose --- designated to father all future children for the sect.
So, let's see... The remaining membership is estimated to be around 10,000, a lot of the young males were excommunicated to reduce competition, so it's probably a little female-heavy, anyway. My back of the envelope calculation says, a handful of men will all have harems about as large as Solomon's. Sounds, um, tiring.
Here's cult expert Rick Ross's take:
"A lot of these revelations are a grab for attention," said Rick Ross, an expert on cults and the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints. "He is trying almost through the revelations to maintain the illusion that he is god's elect, he is the prophet. He's saying: 'Don't forget me.'"
. . .
Ross said the public can expect to hear a lot more of Jeffs' "incoherent" revelations as he spends the rest of his life in prison.
"It's wishful thinking of a deeply disturbed mind," he said. "Jeffs can not really exercise the kind of control he once did. These are the rantings of a man who has really lost it."
All true, but I wouldn't discount the political calculus. It's all about loyalty. It's not clear whether he's already picked his fifteen but, one way or another, they will most assuredly be his most stalwart supporters. They will be the most likely to enforce his every, deranged emanation. Because a) they're chosen for their existing loyalty, and b) they're being paid in, well... You get the idea.
On the downside, I think the general membership will continue to attrit.
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