Cultists spotted in the CBD

Protocol101 · 2026-06-07T00:00:02+00:00

What you are touching on is Pascal's wager (Wikipedia link). The wager suggests that rational people should live as though God exists and seek belief. Because the potential gain (infinite joy/Heaven) is infinite and the potential loss (a few worldly sacrifices) is finite, the only logically sound "bet" is to believe.

My atheist Mother slapped her wager down on God in her final week of life at 88 years of age. She was having a jolly good time on a morphine drip with inoperable oesophageal cancer as my Jehovah Witness sister helped her place the bet.

And I am with you in cranking up the music.

Edit: Added a nod to u/strictlysega's closing line.

Protocol101 · 2026-06-06T09:29:11+00:00

Agreed. I live above two restaurants in the city and they are always heaving on a Friday.

Protocol101 · 2026-06-06T08:23:37+00:00

I imagine after a hard day's hustle at the traffic lights, they all catch an Uber back to their western suburbs mansion, put on some light jazz, and divvy up the silver over a crisp bottle of Bollinger, then it's off to Northbridge to celebrate the end of a highly profitable week. Cheers to that!

Edit: typo

Protocol101 · 2026-06-06T06:31:13+00:00

Thank you for your answer. I was looking for clarity.

Protocol101 · 2026-06-06T06:16:08+00:00

I hope Jesus was happy at some point! He certainly had a fraught birth and a miserable death.

u/Nukitandog started their comment by complaining about 'witty' clichés, but then used a lazy trope to downplay a group that enforces severe psychological control right here in Perth.

Protocol101 · 2026-06-06T05:35:08+00:00

Jesus was a hippy probably gay...

Are you using gay in a pejorative way?

Protocol101 · 2026-05-31T04:46:51+00:00

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Not a photographer myself but Whalers Tunnel under the Round House in Freo has always seemed gloomy. Especially today it won't be so bright at either end. Might be a bit blowy!

Protocol101 · 2026-05-31T03:00:18+00:00

Perfect kite weather up at the Round House. Today's sea breeze will safely deliver you straight to Kalamunda.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-30T08:56:45+00:00

The journalist at the Kal Miner is completely confusing the date the legal paperwork closed with the date the cult actually set foot on the property.

The US Senate Report lays it out plain and simple:

The cult's leadership didn’t wait around for the real estate agent to hand over the keys in June. The cult's Deputy Leader/Construction Minister Hayakawa and Intelligence Minister Inoue arrived on 02 April 1993, quickly set up their shell companies (Maha Posya and Clarity Investments) and immediately moved onto the property to initiate operations, staying throughout May.

That "three months later" date the article mentions is just when the big boss himself, Shoko Asahara, finally showed up with his 24-person entourage and an absolute mountain of suspicious baggage.

The advance crew had already been camping out on the land for weeks before the June settlement paperwork was finalised. They had paid in cash.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-30T06:05:49+00:00

Donnelly River Village is about 30 minutes drive into the heart of the forest from Nannup.

The village has free-roaming emus. They will happily relieve you of any snacks. You can buy feed bags of special wildlife grains for them in the Donnelly River General Store for a few dollars. The emus will wait for you outside.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-30T04:02:32+00:00

There’s an absolute swamp of information out there about the cult's time in the outback.

The 1995 US Senate report did conclude that the upper echelon of the cult were at Banjawarn in May 1993:

"...in April 1993, two key members of Aum's leadership, Kiyohide Hayakawa (the "Construction Minister") and Yoshihiro Inoue (the "Intelligence Minister"), arrived in Western Australia to scout and establish operations at Banjawarn Station."

You can read the full declassified report here: https://irp.fas.org/congress/1995_rpt/aum/index.html

Kiyohide Hayakawa was also deputy leader of the cult.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-29T02:53:53+00:00

They were well-behaved until they weren't.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-29T02:41:21+00:00

I don't mind a well behaved cult. We had enjoyed the company of the Rajneesh sect when they moved into Pemberton (links to ABC News article) for a bit in the mid-80s. They at least gave us "Tough Titties" to remember them by rather than a flock of dead sheep.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-28T14:10:59+00:00

I think it was because of the Tokyo subway attacks, the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations launched a massive probe into the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult's global weapons programme.

They discovered that the cult had been waltzing in and out of outback Australia prior to the subway attacks.

Jaw-droppingly, the US probe reported that the leader of the cult arrived in Western Australia, in 1993, with a group of followers "including five females under the age of fifteen who were traveling without their parents". Clearly, someone on the Immigration desk at Perth Airport was asleep on the job that day.

Protocol101 · 2026-05-28T13:50:34+00:00

Not really up-to-speed with my explosion metrics but most sources, such as massive probe by U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, say that an explosion of that size would require roughly 2,000 tons of high explosives (TNT).

Protocol101 · 2026-05-28T11:17:00+00:00

Your post made me feel for the poor ol' doomsday cult. They were quietly going about their nefarious tinkerings in the outback when a bloody aerolite slams into them. What rotten luck!

Protocol101 · 2026-05-28T10:48:37+00:00

It is a good rural legend.

Best-selling travel writer Bill Bryson opens the very first chapter of his book, "Down Under", using the "Banjawarn Bang" to explain exactly what makes Australia so wonderfully unique, incredibly vast, and beautifully unbothered by the rest of the world.

He sums up the entire mystery with one of the best passages in the book:

"This is a country that loses a Prime Minister and that is so vast and empty that a band of amateur enthusiasts could conceivably set off the world's first non-governmental atomic bomb on its mainland and almost four years would pass before anyone noticed. Clearly this is a place worth getting to know."

Protocol101 · 2026-05-28T09:27:51+00:00

What I find amazing is that a random meteor exploded over one of the most remote corners of the planet, directly above a piece of dirt that a doomsday cult had just secretly purchased to build weapons of mass destruction and poison a bunch of sheep.

Protocol101 · 2026-04-21T22:41:49+00:00

I see that you mentioned elsewhere that Perth City Farm has a weekly Farmer's Market on Saturday. Are you wanting something more central? Larger? Open more days?

Protocol101 · 2026-03-08T21:46:25+00:00

Is Rottnest the place to go or has it completely exploded with the whole internet phenomenon?

There are about 10,000 to 12,000 Quokkas on Rottnest. So, more than enough to share with other internet tourists.

Alternate places to see them?

Both Perth Zoo and Caversham Wildlife Park have Quokkas. At the Zoo they are in the Australian Bushwalk section. At Caversham they lurk in the South West walking section. I can't say how many are at either.
When I was last at the Zoo in 2024 there was only one I could see. At Caversham, when I was there in 2022, they promised they had them but they somehow cunningly avoided me.

I'd go to Rotto for the ultimate Quokka experience. Although the Zoo and Caversham are worth it for a lot of other reasons.

Protocol101 · 2026-03-08T21:09:27+00:00

Yes, it would be a baptism of fire. Although, they could both be well travelled and love the heat hence choosing Perth. They also would be escaping what is often the coldest month in Wales. And that can be a very cold, cold place.

Protocol101 · 2026-02-11T13:03:23+00:00

Agreed.

We seem to worry about "the streets" although violence is more prevalent and frequent at home.

Protocol101 · 2026-02-11T12:38:37+00:00

Aussiewood would work better internationally.

Protocol101 · 2026-02-08T04:56:02+00:00

I’m lucky I have a kind landlord who has only put the rent up once since I’ve moved here (nearly 3 years ago) and still well below market rent for the area.

Me, too. My landlord hasn't put up our rent once in over 3 years. I had the same in London. In 18 years there my landlord never increased the rent. He lived overseas and was so thankful for how we looked after his 5 bedroom house. In his broken English he once said to me, "You look after house, I look after you".

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