Stories
the narratives it tells itself
United States v. Kuch.
Judith Kuch, an ordained Boo Hoo, was indicted in Washington on marijuana and LSD charges and pleaded free exercise. On 3 July 1968 Judge Gerhard Gesell found no belief in a supreme being, no religious discipline and no ritual, and read the church's motto and its two official hymns — Puff, the Magic Dragon and Row, Row, Row Your Boat — into the record as evidence of satire. The claim failed. Every later court asked whether a joke religion is a religion has started from this opinion.
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The Scriptures
the texts that carry the stories — and everything elseThe Boo Hoo Bible: The Neo-American Church Catechism and Handbook (1971)
Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism (1975)
The Neo-American Ten Commandments