Pasadena: Home of Religious Kooks Since 1942

 

1945 article about The Remnant Church of God who made the same stupid prediction for the end of the world that Herbert Armstrong did and which various COG leaders lie about today claiming HWA never set dates.

Not only has Pasadena produced crackpot Rev. Long, but also L Ron Hubbard, Alistar Crowley, Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong along with their legion of deluded false prophet dupes, but also the Flat Earth Society which some Church of God members actually believe in.

L Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley were friends of Jack Parsons (founder of JPL) who had a house on South Orange Grove Blvd called The Parsonage, where they took drugs and practiced satanism and devil worship.

Herbert Armstrong and L Ron Hubbard

In Memoriam: Two Con Men, Herbert W. Armstrong and L. Ron Hubbard

Armstrong and Hubbard

Twenty-five years ago this week, the two greatest con men of the 20^th century both died, within the space of eight days of each other. The creativity and sheer chutzpah of Herbert W. Armstrong and L. Ron Hubbard are worth remembering, and in some ways even treasuring as a species of human achievement, with the same sort of awe one reserves for the destructive power of a tsunami. Though both men were failures in the business world, when they turned to religion they discovered a sucker market of breathtaking scope.

Herbert W. Armstrong, born in 1892, worked at several jobs in the world of commercial advertising, failing at each. In the 1920s, he decided that religion was an easier racket, and fought to take control of a small congregation in Oregon. He failed at that, too, but on his way out the door managed to take the mailing list with him.

In 1935 Armstrong launched Plain Truth magazine, initially in mimeographed form; at about the same time he began regular radio broadcasts. To distinguish himself from the evangelical pack, Armstrong specialized in prophecy. He got lucky when an early prophecy, that Mussolini would conquer Ethiopia, actually came to pass. That a mechanized army would defeat spear-carrying tribesmen may seem to be not going too far out on a limb, but Armstrong hyped it into something special.

More prophecies followed, as Armstrong discovered that his audiences ate them up: Italy would conquer Palestine; then Russia would attack Palestine; then Britain would fall to the Germans; then German armies would appear on American shores. The accuracy rate began to deteriorate, but in wartime America where censorship kept the news bland and upbeat, Armstrong’s juicy predictions built his following.

The end of the German threat in 1945 would have dealt a lesser man a serious blow. Armstrong responded by assuring his readers and listeners – for decades on end – that Hitler was still alive, and ready to strike again any minute now.

There is much more to the article at Secular News Daily

One interesting tidbit I learned recently was that L Ron Hubbard was a distant relative of Elbert Hubbard who HWA idolized as a great thinker.