Somehow I came across this excerpt from a lecture Robert Anton Wilson gave called Religion for the Hell of It and had no choice but to share it.

The John Dillinger Died For You Society, run by a pseudonymous “Dr. Horace Naismith” (allegedly a Playboy editor by day and a maniac only by night), accepts as its savior John Dillinger, the gunman who robbed 23 banks and three police stations before he was shot dead by FBI agents in 1934. JDDFYS members place memorial wreaths and floral bouquets at the Biograph Theater, where Dillinger was gunned down, every year on the anniversary of his death, June 22. Their major spiritual teaching comes from Mr. Dillinger, whom they call St. John the Martyr, and consists of the words, “Lie down on the floor and keep calm,” (St. John said this often to nervous and agitated bank officials before looting their tills). Every member ordained by Dr. Naismith gets a membership card making him or her an Assistant Treasurer, entitled to collect tithes from any new disciple naive enough to remain a disciple and not become an Assistant Treasurer, too, by writing to Dr. Naismith for a card.

There’s more information on Dr. Naismith and the John Dillinger Died For You Society here, including a scan of their membership card, and a John Dillinger credit card which should prove useful in these trying economic times.

I was about to gripe about how much trouble it would be to fit the barrel of Dillinger’s preferred sidearm, a Colt 1911, through the hole in the credit card, by the way, but then I remembered this.

Anyway, much to my daughter’s continuing dismay, I don’t have a whole hell of a lot of interest in religion. I mean, I try now and then, but most of it leaves me cold, so I’m hardly what one might consider a theologian.

But if there’s a better spiritual teaching than, “Lie down on the floor and keep calm,” I’ve never heard it.