AH Challenge: Alejandro Jodorowsky, religious prophet

MrP

Banned
Alejandro Jodorowsky is well-known in the AH community, being responsible for one of the most fascinating what-ifs in the history of cinema, namely his aborted film adaptation of Dune.

Turns out he is quite the Protean figure:

Alejandro Jodorowsky (...) is a Chilean-French film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, author, poet, producer, composer, musician, comics writer, and spiritual guru. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation".

(...) He has also written books and regularly lectures on his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism" and which borrows from his interests in alchemy, the tarot, Zen Buddhism and shamanism.
As anyone who has seen the engrossing documentary Jodorowsky's Dune can attest, he comes across as something of a cult leader, between his shameless showboating, his magnetic personality and his raw charisma. So, with a POD any time after WW2, your challenge is to make him the prophet of an actual religion, with at least as many followers as OTL's Church of Scientology by the turn of the 21st century.

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I'm interested in him, but have only seen The Holy Mountain(which I thought was okay, a little heavy-handed with the satire at times). I don't know if I was aware until now that he was involved with Dune.

I seem to recall reading that he later had some sort of professional connection with Marilyn Manson somehow, which struck me as a little cheesy. No offense to any Manson fans, but Jodorowsky must have completely missed out on the whole 70s shock-rock thing if he thought MM was doing anything cutting-edge.

As for having as many members as the Church Of Scientology in the 21st Century, I think that might be a pretty low bar, no? My understanding is that the COS is not growing at all, and is expected to die out within a few decades.
 

MrP

Banned
As for having as many members as the Church Of Scientology in the 21st Century, I think that might be a pretty low bar, no? My understanding is that the COS is not growing at all, and is expected to die out within a few decades.
All the better if that alternate cult/religion is bigger than that.
 
My ex-wife was/is? into all that sort of para-psychology, shamanism, etc.
For PP to become main-stream, you need more of the general population to loose confidence in main-stream media, main-stream politics, main-stream religion.
As they continue searching for meaning, truth, spirituality, etc. they latch onto any pseudo prophet who will lead them towards "truth."
If the media continues its current trend to dry up and get shallower and shallower .......
 
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