How John Fromm is going to conquer the world

On the Messiah of the Tana Islands, on the birth of new religions and on the human radio of Nembes, the high priest of John Frome

This is the true story of the people of one island in the Pacific Ocean, who discovered Messiah. This is the true story of the youngest religion in the world, which already today has hundreds and thousands of believers, and a party that may come to power on the islands. This is the story of religions - how easily they start, and how hard it is for them to die out. The story is completely real - and is told from the imaginary point of view of one of the islanders.

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If it weren't for World War II, we wouldn't have discovered Messiah.

It all started when the whites arrived on our island. They were more pink than white, but not black like us anyway. They came at first by sea, in the bellies of great black whales, and told us they were our friends. Then they would do strange rituals and make signs in the air with long sticks with colored cloths attached to them, and magic sticks that emitted yellow or red light. And at the end of every such ceremony, a huge bird would come down from the sky and bring the most delicious food, and more whites to eat it.

So that's how we thought at first, that the Americans are angels and the Japanese are the devils. But pretty quickly we realized that it wasn't quite like that. When a coconut fell on the head of one of the Americans, it still hurt, and all the other Americans laughed out loud. When one of them fell, he would break his leg or arm just like us blacks. Then we realized what was happening here. The Americans were human beings just like us. The only difference was that their gods gave them gifts, and we didn't.

Before the whites came, we believed in all kinds of gods. We thought that if we prayed to the spirits of our elders, they would bring us good hunting, good women and a lot of peace. But the whites came and made a lot of noise with their black sticks and brought us a lot of good canned food and took the good women. It was clear - their gods were much stronger than ours. Our gods never brought us so much food, or could fly people in the sky. So we changed hands.

It wasn't that hard. At first they laughed at us, the Americans. They saw us praying for their birds, that they would bring more of the good food, and for the whales that they would continue to come and bring beautiful clothes and steel knives and other good things. But one American did not laugh at us, because he was the king of America, and he knew that we were good and that we deserved everything we wanted. His name was John Frome, and he was - and still is - the Messiah.
I don't remember what he looked like, because I was just a little boy at the time. In fact, no one living today has seen him face to face, except for Nimbus, the high priest of John Frome. From him we know that John Frome was tall, with white hair, and he promised us that one day the Americans would leave the island with their gods, and then we would live much better. On that day, really great things will happen - "The old will become young again and every sick person will disappear; The white people will be expelled from the island and will not return forever; And cargo will arrive in large quantities so that everyone will have everything they need."

Sometime in the XNUMXs, the Americans packed their belongings and bases and left the island. At first we rejoiced, because John Fromm's prophecy began to be fulfilled. But then it was difficult for us, because there was no longer delicious food from boxes, and Coca-Cola from glass bottles and steel knives and guns. We prayed a lot, but nothing helped until someone had a dream from John Frome, who explained to him that we need to pray just like the whites pray to their gods, or the cargo will not reach us.

So we did exactly as the whites did. We knew that in order for a big bird (a plane, the Americans called it) to arrive, you needed a runway on the ground, and a tower next to it with people wearing strange things on their ears and talking into them. We did just that. We cut down a lot of trees in the center of the island so that the bird would have a place to land, and we drew a large landing strip on the ground. We built a bamboo tower next to the track, and called it the "monitoring tower", just like the whites would have done. Inside the tower we put people wearing headphones just like the whites, but made of wood, and told them to pray really, really hard to John Fromm. And just to be sure, we also built airplanes-like from bamboo and put them on the runway, so that they would pull John Fromm's airplane. It works with ducks, so why not with planes?

But John Frome did not come, and we were sad and hungry and our wives were not good to us.

After we were sad for a long time, one son arrived on the island in the belly of a small whale, sometime in the fifties. He called himself David Attenborough, and he said he was ant-roo-foo-log, but we thought he was just weird. He told us that he came to hear about the "cult of John Fromm", and to write a book about it. So we told him everything about John Fromm, because it is important that the whites also know the truth about John Fromm. We even took him to be our high priest, Nambas. Nembes says he knew John Frome back when he was here, and continued to talk to him on the radio even after he left. I don't know exactly what a radio is yet, but the Nembes radio looks pretty simple. It's just an old woman with an electric cable around her waist. He speaks to her as if she were John Frome, and she passes out and answers him in a strange language that no one understood. Lucky that Nembs knows the language well enough and knows that John Fromm is talking to him through the radio. And David Attenborough wrote everything in his book, and said that many more ant-ro-fo-logs will come to us.

So you can say that things actually worked out well in the end, all thanks to John Fromm. The odd whites keep coming - just a few each year - because we believe in John Fromm. Sometimes they ask us really strange questions: How can we believe in Christ who has not returned for decades, even though he promised? Or how do we know that our religion is real and not just nonsense?

What can we already say? We ask them about their God, and then laugh a lot. Christians have been waiting for two thousand years for their Jesus to return, and he still hasn't come. The Jews wait even longer for him and he does not come, and for thousands of years all the other nations have been laughing at them and killing them. That doesn't sound like such a good messiah, certainly not like our John Fromm.

So if the Christians and the Jews can wait that long, so can we. The main thing is not to doubt, as Nimbs says. Doubts are heretical thoughts, and John Fromm hates heretical thoughts. Sometimes, when I'm tired of everything, I think some heretical thoughts, but very, very quietly, so that John Fromm doesn't hear on the radio either.

Sometimes I get to talk myself with some of the whites who come to question us. One of them told me that this Jesus of theirs lived two thousand years ago, but that Christianity was a small religion - about the same as ours - until one of the emperors of 'Rome' (which is like the America of old) decided to convert to Christianity, and then all the Romans converted to Christianity as well. It took four hundred years for Rome to become Christian, but it finally happened, and today Christianity is one of the largest religions in the world. Sometimes I think to myself what will happen in a few hundred years, after we finally leave this island and start spreading around the world and spreading the religion of John Fromm. We'll have to make some changes to convince everyone, but Nembes said he's sure we'll be fine. Christians have also changed a lot of things since Jesus lived. You just have to tell everyone that John Fromm will bring us good things from somewhere far enough and it will be fine (one of the whites told me that space is the farthest there is, so maybe from there). Besides, Nembes said we just had to have enough children, and everything would work itself out. Okay, so no gays from now on.

We even have a party, and we are starting to spread our religion throughout the islands. I also had a really good idea recently, which I hope is not heresy. We'll have John Fromm dictate a book over the Nembes radio, and then we can figure out what John Fromm wants us to do by the time he gets back. It worked for everyone else, so why not us?

And no matter what, the most important thing: we will tell them that they must not doubt. No way. never. And if things seem like John Fromm is wrong or his book is wrong, then it's only because he's trying to test us. And really, we can't be wrong. Fact - we started so small, and today in 2007, we already have John Fromm's party in the government of our islands. Do you really believe that this could have happened without John Frome sending us help from the sky, or from space?

So, dear boys - forget about Jesus, Messiah ben David and Muhammad. Your grandchildren will still believe in John Fromm.

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End of story:
The 'cargo cults', as they are called, were once common in almost every island the white man reached. The founders of the cults believed in the power of brick ceremonies to call cargo to arrive from the sea and the air - good food, beautiful clothes and steel instruments. Some of the sects tried to rob the unworthy whites of the burden, by imitating the rituals. They organized marches with sticks instead of guns, and with the sacred words USA and SOS tattooed on the chests of the marchers. They built makeshift runways, with bamboo control towers and operators with wooden headsets and small colorful flags - all to pull the cargo to them. But he never came.

The last baggage sect that exists today is the religion of John Frome, which has already become a kind of state religion on the island of Tana, and has its own party that participates in the government of the United Islands of Vanuatu. Unlike the other sects, this religion manages to keep its believers and even attract some of the inhabitants of the other islands. It is likely that when John Fromm's Bible is published, it will be a national bestseller, and in the distant future perhaps also a world bestseller.

Similar to Jesus, Abraham and Moses, to this day the traces of the legendary John Frome have not been discovered and it is not clear whether he is true or a legend. Among the anthropologists who study the religion, some attribute the origin of its name to the disruption of John From America, and give up in advance the possibility of its origin in reality. In any case, even if there was such a person, it is difficult to know how much his words have been distorted during the years that have passed since his visit to the island.  

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To read more aboutThe cargo cultsandJohn Frome, The Messiah of the Tana Islands. See also an article in the magazine The Smithsonian
A chapter dedicated to the subject can also be found in Richard Dawkins' book there is a God?