Summum!

Yesterday, at the very good Shakespeare on the Common production of Hamlet, Andrel mentioned having read recently about a sect in Salt Lake City that was suing to get their seven additions to the Ten Commandments displayed on city property next to an existing display of the biblical ten-or-so.

A little Googling on my Hiptop produced first the name of the sect (Summum), then a page detailing how Summum's Seven Aphorisms were originally revealed on the tablets that Moses destroyed in his snit about the whole Golden Calf business.

Now, let me just say that I never really got into psychoceramics (the study of cracked pots) as a hobby. There's something that tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth about sustained study of kook literature. So many kook writers are bitterly angry at the world for rejecting their revelations, and kook afficionados tend to take a sadistic delight in baiting these often miserable people. Occasionally, though, a work of writing is so transcendently demented that I can't help but love it.

On the walk back to the T, I regaled my companions with choice passages about the esoteric lineage of the Seven Aphorisms, and later got to the page detailing the Aphorisms themselves. As with much mystical writing, eventually the excegesis gets bogged down in repetition and self-reference. Let me give you a few quotes, though, to convey the flavor:

This living MIND performs gastrulation, which is a turning of itself inside out, manifesting its esoteric NATURE outwardly. Therefore, all the phenomenal worlds and universes are simply a mental creation of SUMMUM (MIND), subject to the laws of created things, and the universes, as a whole and in their parts or units, have their existence in the Mind of SUMMUM.

This aphorism, "As above, so below; as below, so above," gives one the means of solving many a mysterious paradox and hidden secrets of nature. There are levels beyond your knowing, but when you apply the Principle of Correspondence to them you are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to you.

All the Principles of Summum have an interrelationship with Vibration. Vibration draws its NATURE from the copulation of CREATION. An understanding of the Principle, with the appropriate application, empowers the student to control their own mental vibrations as well as those of others. The masters also apply this Principle to the conquering of natural phenomena in various ways. "Those who understand the Principle of Vibration have taken hold of the scepter of power."

An extensive profile of the group's founder, Corky(!) Ra, in SLC's free weekly mentions that Ra claims 150,000 adherents for Summum, but no independent numbers were available. Wikipedia's Summum article speculates that the order's revenues probably come from the $67,000 mummification service they offer to anyone, inside or outside the church, in need of the bodily preservation of a deceased loved one or pet.

If all of this seems a little too complicated, have no fear. Summum's official Mummification for Kids website explains it all in much more accessable terms:

Hi everyone! My name is Mummy Bear and this is my homepage.

Do you like Mummification? I sure do. I think it's cool. Especially the new Modern Mummification that my friends at Summum do.

I'm going to go on an journey to unlock the secrets of Modern Mummification. Would you like to be my friend and come with me? Yes? Then let's go exploring by clicking the links on the left. We'll go on an adventure, and together we'll learn new things and have some fun!!

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