400 Men Castrated by Cult?

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Surprisingly, this has nothing to do with feminism:

A man has been accused of encouraging hundreds of followers to be castrated in a promise for them to become closer to God.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, an Indian pop-star and telepreacher with a reported wealth of more than $50 million, is being investigated after he allegedly manipulated around 400 men to get their testicles removed — according to India Today.
One of his former followers who underwent castration seven years ago — named Hans Raj Chauhan — is one of the few to break the silence to speak out against him and the group.
“[The victims] were told that only those who get castrated will be able to meet God,” said Chauhan’s lawyer, Navkiran Singh, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Amanda Marcotte could not be reached for comment.

 

64 comments

  4. I actually take stories like this very seriously, because they point to a conflict between Darwinism and humanism. The larger that our population gets, the more that people will be disposable, but especially men. We’ve always been sacrificial, but that was because we were necessary, and now we’re not.

    It isn’t just India, with it’s 1.2+ billion. We are all unnecessary in a world of over seven billion, so it will be increasingly easy to convince men in particular to give up not only their fertility (which a vasectomy would do), but also their masculinity. We can only expect to hear more stories like this.

  5. Remember the Heaven’s Gate cult who killed themselves to join up with the Hale-Bopp comet? Those guys were castrated.

  7. Why exactly does our society look down on someone who would have himself castrated to get closer to God, but someone who has himself castrated because he’s under the delusion that he’s a woman… well, that guy’s “brave”?

  8. We are all unnecessary in a world of over seven billion

    Eh… 7 billion is just a number.

    If you didn’t tell them, would the average person even know the global population is 7 billion? You could tell them it was 2 billion, or 20 billion. Unless they could look it up, they’d be none the wiser, because there’s no way for the vast majority to ever experience what the Earth’s population is, or for that number to be directly relevant to them.

    Which is a long winded way of me saying everything is local.

    so it will be increasingly easy to convince men in particular to give up not only their fertility (which a vasectomy would do), but also their masculinity. We can only expect to hear more stories like this.

    I doubt it. Most men are attached to their balls. India really is a crazy country, and ritual castration has a long history there. They do tons of other crazy shit too, like drinking cow piss and treating monkeys as sacred messengers of Hanuman. When I saw this blog headline, my first thought was “India”.

  9. Unless they could look it up, they’d be none the wiser, because there’s no way for the vast majority to ever experience what the Earth’s population is, or for that number to be directly relevant to them.

    Which is a long winded way of me saying everything is local.

    That is true — I had to look it up to discover that it’s been years since it went up from 6 billion — but that merely deflects the problem from population to urbanization, from quantity to concentration.

    India really is a crazy country, and ritual castration has a long history there.

    I did not know that, but it doesn’t affect my point about voluntary infertility (such as vasectomies or celibacy) and effeminization. Those can happen anywhere, such as the s?shoku danshi in Japan.

  10. Thomas Sowell once explained that the entire population of the world could live in Texas with room to spare. The idea that the world is “overpopulated” is absurd. All those Soylent Green dystopian scenarios of mass starvation have been proven wrong and why? Because human intelligence is the most useful of all “natural resources.” People who claim that the world is overpopulated never offer to help solve the problem by committing suicide, do they? Of course not: They consider themselves to be part of the solution. It’s the rest of us they consider to be problems.

  11. “Amanda Marcotte could not be reached for comment”

    Don’t worry about her, she doesn’t believe in God, so her testicles are safe.

  14. Not just India. The widespread Skoptsy cult in Russia featured ritual self-castration up until the 1917 Revolution.

  16. “…treating monkeys as sacred messengers of Hanuman.”

    Like Congress’s relationship with Obama? Or more like Obama’s relationship with Valerie Jarrett?

    No, SCOTUS’s relationship to POTUS. That’s the one.

  18. No. I saw the news. I saw recordings of them talking into the camera about how they were asexual, and although it has been many years, I trust my memory that much.

  20. Being a woman, I can’t really imagine, but self-castration sounds like it would sting a bit.

  23. That is such a good question that I’m going back and forth on it. He’s more known for his androgyny and the accusations of mal-sexuality. Plus, he purportedly has progeny.

    I’m actually inclined to believe that he was asexual, but that puts me in the “not a pedophile” camp, so don’t tell anyone. I could be ostracized.

  27. Just imagine cutting your ovaries out, then subtract the disemboweling and keep the existential horror of removing your sexual identity.

  29. It’s difficult to ascertain, but your theory is reasonable. It was my impression that he never had an actual childhood so he spent a large part of his adult life literally trying to be a kid, and there wasn’t anyone he would listen to that would tell him that that’s just creepy.

  31. I remember reading that. As I recall, his math showed that the entire population of Earth at the time could live in the state of Texas with a population density no higher than your average American suburb.

  32. Well, since three of the TOM mathematician brigade have the same intuition, I would place odds on it.

  34. I thought your focus was on the DIY aspect; get the time-life home surgery book and a buck knife and you’re good to go.

  36. Exactly. I think that he never grew up, because I think that he was asexual and his wealth sheltered him from the normal consequences of abnormal behavior.

    I believe that there is such a thing as a “normal asexual,” because most have to navigate adult social rules, just without the usual urges — but Michael Jackson didn’t.

  40. If you want to delete one of your duplicate posts, edit it to a period, then hover over the post and go to the down-triangle on the right. If you just delete it, then it just changes your name to Guest.

  42. Yeah, but if I imagine it as “existential horror” then maybe they were traumatized. I actually never thought of partial hysterectomy as being that bad until now. Just a medical procedure, right? But when I make the analogy, I’m horrified.

  44. Wow, I just checked, and you’re right. They’re white! And “Blanket” has a speech impediment!

    ETA: I’m really surprised that this wasn’t enough of a controversy to reach my attention before now.

  48. We all know that Marcotte had an evil grin on her face when she read this story.

    Maybe even lol’d.

    Possibly an O.

  50. At least they’re still alive, unlike the members of Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate Cult.

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