BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org
PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Indybay-18717914
SEQUENCE:18814602
CREATED:20120720T193100Z
DESCRIPTION:\n\nFilm evenings begin with potluck refreshments & social hour at  6:30 
 pm,\nfollowed by the film at  7:30 pm, followed by a discussion after the 
 film.\n\nThree Short Films on ECCENTRIC SPIRITUALITY  \nby Vice 
 Films\n\n\nFilm I:  Cult Leader Thinks He’s Jesus\n\nDeep in Siberia’s 
 Taiga forest is Vissarion, a cult leader who looks like Jesus and claims to 
 be the voice of God.  He’s known as “the Teacher” to his 4,000 
 followers, who initially seem surprisingly normal.  Over time, however, 
 their unflinching belief in UFOs and the Earth’s imminent demise made 
 this group start to look more and more like a strange cult 
 indeed.\n\n\nFilm II:  Holy Thugs in Venezuela\n\nVenezuela’s criminal 
 culture permeates religious worship.  In the dangerous city of Caracas, 
 people are worshiping dead criminals.  Do these flawed figureheads offer 
 genuine comfort to troubled communities or is this unusual spiritualism 
 encouraging more violence?  Saint Ismael Sanchez is the top saint of the 
 Holy Thugs, a religious cult that combines Catholicism and Spiritualism.  
 “He helped the poor a lot, people say he used to steal but it was only 
 for his neighborhood.”   For many around Venezuela, these fallible saints 
 are a realistic answer to the crime and violence that plague their 
 communities.  However, 14,000 people were killed in Venezuela last year.  
 Is this a troubling trend which is sanctioning the growing crime 
 rate?\n\n\nFilm III:  Suicide Forest in Japan\n\nThe Aokigahara Forest is 
 the most popular site for suicides in Japan.  After the novel Kuroi Jukai 
 was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people 
 started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year.  
 The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak 
 into the forest and rob the corpses.  The authorities sweep for bodies only 
 on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too 
 dense to patrol more frequently.\n\nWheelchair accessible around the corner 
 at  411  28th  Street\n\n$5 donations are accepted\n\n \n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/20/18717914.php
SUMMARY:Three Short Films on Eccentric Spirituality
LOCATION:Humanist Hall\n390  27th  Street\nuptown Oakland, between Telegraph and 
 Broadway\nhttp://www.HumanistHall.org
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/20/18717914.php
DTSTART:20120809T023000Z
DTEND:20120809T043000Z
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR