Of the many incredible people who died since last Samhain, a few that stand out include Marjoe Gortner (who?), Dolly Parton, and Tim Curry.  As with so many other deaths, we are reminded that we make the world that future generations will live in, and that it is now up to us to carry on the work of the beloved dead as best we can.

This is one of the most sacred times of the year for me – a time when I feel my Ancestors even more closely than usual, as well as a time to remember those who have died this past year.

Many of us (especially people younger than me) haven’t heard of Marjoe.  His story is powerful, as is the very fact that many today don’t know it.

Marjoe was born to an evangelical family, and his father was a 3rd generation evangelical preacher.  Marjoe’s name reflects this – his parents named him after Mary and Joseph!  He was very talented at a very young age.  At just 4 years old, his parents put him to work as an evangelical preacher and told the story of how god had appeared to them and told them to do so.  To keep him preaching, they abused him by partial drownings, because they didn’t want to leave any visible bruises from beating him.  By Marjoe’s mid-teens, the family had made an insane amount of money ripping people off through Marjoe’s preaching.  Marjoe had estimated their wealth at the time as being “around 3 million dollars”.  That’s a huge sum.  Plus remember inflation – 3 million in 1960 is a mind blowing *34 million dollars* today!

But Marjoe had become too old (~15) to have the charm of a child preacher.  Faced with that, Marjoe’s dad took the money and abandoned the family.

Marjoe’s mom tried to use the same abuse on her other kids to make another child preacher to scam another fortune for herself, but they didn’t have Marjoe’s talent.  Marjoe left and became a homeless drifter until his mid-20s, sometimes making some money through preaching (even though he had lost all Christian belief).  At some point, he realized that other people needed to hear how preachers rip people off.  He contacted movie makers, and arranged to make a documentary about the methods he has used as a preacher to fool people (faith healings, selling holy magical items that would “cure” anything, a red cross miraculously appearing on his forehead on stage, and so on, many used today as well).  He led revivals, showing the camera crew how all these worked.  He worked with the crew to make a documentary to expose these scams, and it was a success, winning awards and acclaim (titled simply “Marjoe”, it came out in 1972).

Oh, you never heard of it?  A lot of us haven’t.  The movie was suppressed due to Christian privilege, and rarely saw the light of day in much of the United States.  I haven’t even seen it myself, and only learned that Marjoe even existed just a few years ago. I plan to be sure to see it soon.  In case anyone is unsure why Christianity can dictate so much of American law and culture, while movies like Marjoe disappear quickly, we only have to look at the massive media machine that is Christianity in the United States.  In addition to preachers preaching to dozens of millions of people every single Sunday, we also have radio stations, TV stations, podcasts, tiktok channels, youtube, political speeches, and so much more saturating our lives with Christian preaching.  Faced with that, it’s no surprise that so many of us didn’t even know that the preacher tricks were already laid bare in a documentary, back in 1972.

I’m glad that with this blog and other similar endeavors, we are working to make a better future for everyone.  Thank you, Marjoe, for your incredible life and vitally important contribution to a better world.

Tim Curry had many roles, but one of his best known roles was as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  What a cultural icon!  Coming out at a time when there was a lot less freedom than now, that movie was a bold step towards liberation – as well as being a lot of fun!

Dolly Parton was a constant champion of oppressed minorities like women and LGBT people, and did so from within the conservative framework of country music.  Her kindness and charm managed to overcome even those strong hatreds within her own musical genre.  Her impact is hard to overstate.  When person who was a huge music star across decades dies, and the overwhelming reflections about her focus instead on her breaking of barriers to minorities, her help for children, her steadfast support for groups hated within her own music genre – all more so than her incredible string of massive music hits – then you know that her impact went far beyond her music.

These are some of the wonderful people who died since last Samhain.  As with so many other deaths, we are reminded that we make the world that future generations will live in, and that it is now up to us to carry on the work of the beloved dead as best we can.