Philo Drummond

The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion that satirizes better-known belief systems.

It teaches a complex philosophy that focuses on J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, purportedly a salesman from the 1950s, who is revered as a prophet by the Church.

SubGenius leaders have developed detailed narratives about Dobbs and his relationship to various gods and conspiracies.

Their central deity, Jehovah 1, is accompanied by other gods drawn from ancient myth and popular fiction.

SubGenius literature describes a grand conspiracy that seeks to brainwash the world and oppress Dobbs's followers.

In its narratives, the Church presents a blend of cultural references in an elaborate remix of the sources.

Its primary deity, generally known as Jehovah 1, is an extraterrestrial who contacted Dobbs in the 1950s.

Various accounts state that the encounter occurred while Dobbs was building a television or watching late-night television.

Jehovah 1 gave him supernatural knowledge of the past and future, in addition to incredible power.

Dobbs then posed deep questions to the alien, receiving mysterious answers.

Some of their discussion centered on a powerful conspiracy, to which the Church attributes command of the world.

Jehovah 1 and his spouse Eris, regarded by the Church as "relatively evil", are classified as "rebel gods".

SubGenius leaders note that Jehovah 1 is wrathful, a quality expressed by his "stark fist of removal".

The Church teaches that they are part of the Elder Gods, who are committed to human pain, but that Jehovah 1 is "relatively good" in comparison.

Yog-Sothoth, a character from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, is the Elder Gods' leader.

Church leaders maintain that a man named J. R. "Bob" Dobbs founded the group in 1953.

SubGenius members constructed an elaborate account of Dobbs's life, which commentators describe as fictional.

Ivan Stang, who co-founded the Church in the 1970s, serves as its leader and publicist.

He has imitated actions of other religious leaders, using the tactic of culture jamming in an attempt to parody better-known faiths.

Church leaders instruct their followers to avoid mainstream commercialism and the belief in absolute truths.

The group holds that the quality of "Slack" is of utmost importance, but it is never clearly defined.

The number of followers is unknown, although the Church's message has been welcomed by college students and artists in the United States.

The group is often compared to Discordianism.

Journalists often consider the Church an elaborate joke, but some academics have defended it as a real system of deeply held beliefs.

The Church of the SubGenius was founded by Ivan Stang (born Douglas St. Clair Smith) and Philo Drummond (born Steve Wilcox) as the SubGenius Foundation.

Dr. X (born Monte Dhooge) was also present at the group's inception.

The members assert that he telepathically contacted Drummond in 1972, before meeting him in person the next year, and that Drummond persuaded Stang to join shortly afterward.

Stang has called himself Dobbs's "sacred scribe" and a "professional maven of weirdness".

The organization's first recorded activity was the publication of a photocopied document, Sub Genius Pamphlet #1, disseminated in Dallas, Texas in 1979.

The document announced the impending end of the world and the possible deaths of its readers.

It criticized Christian conceptions of God and New Age perceptions of spirituality.

The popularization of the Internet in the mid-1990s brought a new surge of interest in the church, resulting in dozens of home-made, elaborately decorated web sites and two Usenet newsgroups, alt.slack and alt.binaries.slack. A third newsgroup, alt.binaries.multimedia.slack, was created later, in 2005.

Ivan Stang currently maintains the official SubGenius home page.

The church's weekly radio program, the Hour of Slack, is a staple of many college radio stations.

It draws from live broadcasts by Stang, his wife Princess Wei R. Doe and voice comic "Lonesome Cowboy Dave" (comedian/musician Dave DeLuca), as well as from other SubGenius radio shows.

The Church of the SubGenius's ostensible beliefs defy categorization or a simple narrative, as bizarre and convoluted.

The group has an intricate mythology involving gods, aliens, and mutants, which satire of other religions.

In her 2010 study of the Church of the SubGenius, religious scholar Carole Cusack of the University of Sydney states that Lovecraft's work is a "model for the Church of the SubGenius's approach to scripture", in that aspects of his fiction were treated as real by some within paganism, just as the Church appropriates aspects of popular culture in its spirituality.

SubGenius leaders teach that J.R. "Bob" Dobbs's nature is ineffable and consequently stylize his nickname "Bob" with quotation marks even when used alone.

They call him a "World Avatar" and hold that he has died and been reborn many times.