planetdan

Monday, January 03, 2005 :::

The Return of Arthur Blessitt: A Space Odyssey

While researching my last post, I randomly came across a link to my own Naturally Stoned on Jesus site. I guess it's a small world-wide-web after all. Anyway, my fascination with Arthur Blessitt began when I found his Life's Greatest Trip book at a church bazaar a few years back, and then continued with the discovery that he holds the world record in globetrotting with a cross on his back. Say what you want, the dude's got commitment.

Now, thanks to Mr. Pants, I learn that he has a new venture: Cross in Space.

That's right, he's launching a cross into orbit. His website even has this fancy animated graphic, to better illustrate his complicated plan:

Nevermind that the actual cross they are shooting into space is two inches wide and probably couldn't be seen by Hubble. Anyway, you gotta admire the guy's focused (albeit curiously pointless) ambition.

::: posted by dan at 2:23 PM :: [ link ] :: (10) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

10 previous comments:

Hilarious! My favorite part is that he is also sending up his awesome stickers, which, as he puts it, "are a florescent red color. When pealed off the roll of paper they will stick on as the backside has sticky glue."

Yes. They are stickers indeed!

By

oskarblu, at 4:16 PM

Oh, Arthur Blessitt. He's one hip Jesus lovin' dude.

By

hot babe, at 5:42 PM

On the eve of the presidential election, PBS aired an episode of Frontline that chronicled the lives of each candidate... a timeline sort of thing: In 1972, Kerry was doing this & Bush was doing that...

Anyhow, on that program they mentioned that while he was campaigning for governor, Bush gave a much different account of his "come-to-Jesus" experience than his current official story. Today, he says that it was a life-changing meeting with Billy Graham that converted him, but in the past, he had said that it was a chance meeting with a traveling evangelist in the restaurant of a Texas travel motel that saved his eternally damned soul. Yep, that evangelist was Arthur Blessitt.

Explains a lot...

BTW, I never miss a day with your blog.

By

Nathan, at 6:48 PM

I've often thought about launching things into space to commemorate how much they mean to me. Perhaps I'll launch a giant ball of yarn into spact to show people my love for knitting - or maybe I'll try to open an AC Moore on the moon.

By

Biglug, at 8:05 PM

Arthur Blessitt kicks ass-it was nice of him to pray for Buddha's laryngitis.

He's got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in his heart...
and a cross on his back...

By

lynne, at 10:58 PM

It would be cool to go to every country, even if you had to carry something.

I wonder how it was funded? Did he stay in hostels, or hotels? How did he get to all of the countries? I guess he would have had to fly. If someone was willing top pay me (or even just cover travel/food/lodging) to take a cross to every country in the world, I'd do it.

I wanna go to every country.

By

Anonymous, at 1:27 PM

Blessit was a pretty well-known figure in the Jesus People movement of the early 70s. This book was just one of their many attempts to bring street cred and hippy sensibilities to religion. The entire Old and New Testaments were even translated into "hippy-ese" at one point; I think it was called The Street People's Bible. Wish I still had my copy.

Say what you will about Jesus Freaks, I'll take them over right-wing fundamentalists any day.

By

MrBaliHai, at 11:05 AM

Has anyone else stopped to wonder about Christians and their love of crucifixes? You'd think a cross orbiting the earth would be the equivalent of an unwelcome mat.

By

Anonymous, at 6:24 PM

I was looking at the info on Blessit on the web. Seems he started back in the day in California. Also, had some real interesting stories of some of his encounters while carrying the cross. He also says that he saw Jesus Christ walking on water and then going into a cloud. He's converted Hell's Angels etc. Hard to know what to make of him really. He went out into a strange country where all kinds of crap goes on, including people who get badges for killing for their "club." America, real scary place. The DNA must have gotten strange, didnt seems so weird in Europe.

By

Stevo, at 6:01 PM

Thats a way out thing to do, send a two inch cross into space and see it as totally meaningful. Also, Blessit was like the total hipster in his day as far as his presentation, just with a message that was the polar opposite. Instead of hang loose, if it feels good do it, he was saying don't do it, be faithful, be chaste, etc. The new hippie on the other hand jumps headfirst into the "scene" and soon has some horrible sexually transmitted disease and a bad trip that Satan wouldnt want to have. I tend to think religion took some common sense things about life and put the fear factor in place so people wouldnt do them, cause its a fact if you screw around like there's no problem, take any type of drug etc, you will be one hurting pup with a severe rash and some serious mental problems. That's just a fact, if you dont believe it jump right in and find out for yourself.

By

Anonymous, at 8:07 PM

< Back to Blog