The Cult

(August 29, 1954 -- ~2000)

The Cult is a "rotational" apa –- a rota of publishing members takes turns publishing the Official Organ, which may have an individual title but is always subtitled The Fantasy Rotator. The schedule is one issue every three weeks (so the individual publishing member only has to publish one FR every 39 weeks).

The Cult is letter-based. Members write to the publishing member, who compiles and publishes the entire FR rather than merely collating individual apazines as is common in most other apae.

Fantasy Rotatators are sent out first-class to the members and active Waiting Listers (or WLers for short) – and as many or as few of the inactive WLers as the individual editor wished. The more-frequent-than-monthly schedule was considered high-speed fanac in the days before the internet and the local weekly apas. Members and active WLers are obliged to respond to at least every other issue.

The apa was started August 29, 1954 by Peter Vorzimer. It was so named because it has has 13 publishing members. It also has an "active" waiting list of five members and an "inactive" waiting list of an indeterminate number. An overseeing officer is called the Official Arbiter.

In the 1960s, the invective and venom flowed with such intensity that it would make a full-scale internet flame war look like a weenie roast, and for that reason the members began, not entirely tongue in cheek but self-deprecatingly, calling themselves the "13 Nastiest Bastards in Fandom." In 1967, Scotty Tapscott published a 35-page history called A Basketful of Bastards.

The Cult faded out around the year 2000.

The member exhibiting the most fuggheadedness within the apa receives the Peter J. Vorzimer Award.

Members in order of joining (through the end of the 13th Cycle): 1. Peter J. Vorzimer 2. V. Paul Nowell 3. Denis Moreen 4. John Hitchcock 5. Ted White 6. Stuart Nock 7. Don Wegars 8. Sam Johnson 9. Raleigh Multog 10. Larry Stark 11. Bhob Stewart 13. Russell Watkins ... 14. John Magus 15. Larry Anderson 16. Dave Rike ... 17 Mike May 18. Fred Malz 19. Randy Brown 20. Jan Sadler 21. Benny Sodek 22. Jack Harness 23. Dave English 24. Ken Beale 25. P. Howard Lyons 26. George Jennings 27. Terry Carr 28. Walter Coslet ... 29. Norman G. Wansborough 30. Pete Graham 31. Ron Bennett 32. Carl Brandon 33. Ray Schaffer 34. Mike Rossman 35. John Champion 36. William c. Rickhardt 37. Jean Young 38. Philip Castora 39. Dick Eney 40. Ron Parker 41. Greg Benford ... 42. Kent Moomaw 43. rich brown 44. Martin Fleischman ... 45. Bill Myers 46. Karen Anderson (Calmatema) 47. John Thiel 48. Larry McCombs 49. Jim Caughran 50. Lars Bourne ... 51. Alex Bratman 52. Dick Geis 53. Gregg Trendeine 54. Alan J. Lewis 55. Bill Sarill 56. Bruce Pelz 57. Dick Ryan 58. John Koning ... 59. Bangs Tapscott 60. Les Gerber 61. Boyd Raeburn 62. Ten Johnstone 63. Robert Lichtman ... 64. Norm Metcalf 65. Andy Main 66. Walter Breen ... 67. Fred Patten 68. Ed Baker 69. Bill Donaho 70. Owen M. Hannifen ... 71. Bruce Henstell 72. Don Fitch 73. Tom Seidman 74. Gordon Eklund ... 75. Dian Girard Pelz 77. Mike McQuown 78. John Boardman 79. Prentiss Choate ... 80. Fred Lerner 81. Arnie Katz 82. Len Bailes 83. Dave Van Arnam

Waitlisters (people who had applied for membership but either dropped out before a slot opened or were still waiting as of the end of the 13th Cycle): Tom Piper, Gary Labowitz, Bill Courval, Thom Perry, George Young, Bob Burleson, John Trenholme, Larry McCombs, Otto Pfeifer, Bob Pavlat, Tom Condit, Andy Reiss, B. Joseph Fekete, Jr., Pat Lupoff, Dick Lupoff, Jon Winter, Rick Marcuse, Ed Clark,Eugenia Clark, Dean Dickensheet, Shirley Dickensheet, Pete Reinhart, Les Nirenberg, Calvin W. Demmon, Craig Cochran, Paul Stanbery, Milo Mason, Bill Martin, Lee Thorin, Ed Meskys, Gary Deindorfer, Tom Armistead, Kevin Langdon, Jon V, Shaw, James Lanctot, Darrell D. Best, Bill Osten, Enid Jacobs Osten, Dick Schultz, Earl E. Evers, Bill Blackbeard, F. M. Busby, Dave Hulan, Alva Rogers, Jack Chalker, Wrai Ballard, Richard Mann, Hank Stine, Jerry Arthur, Gretchen Schwenn, George R. Heap, James Wright, Ron Wilson, Barry D. Gold, Lee Jacobs, Cecile Williamson, and Rick Sneary. Note that some of these people subsequently became members.

Contributors and Apazines:

• Dick Eney -- Avanc
• Dan Goodman --
• George Heap -- Shagrat, Dol Cirith Ungol
• Milt Stevens -- Magazine of Obloquoy and Low Derision
• Bob Stewart -- Aviary, others.
• Unknown -- Angmar

Official Arbiter:

• 1979 -- Chuck Crayne and Dian Crayne

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

Sort of a combination APA and chainletter, founded by Peter Vorzimer in late 1955. Thirteen members take part through publication of the Official Organ, The Fantasy Rotator, by each member in succession... frequency of publication, every three weeks, making 39 weeks for a "cycle" at the end of which a new Official Arbiter is elected. Copies go to all members and the top five ("active") waitinglisters; all must comment on at least every other FR to the following editor; failure means expulsion. Failure to publish in turn or at least give notice of delay (which cannot exceed 3 weeks) also means expulsion. The active waiting list serves either to prepare the prospective member for the Cult before he gets in or weed out deadwood before it gets tangled in the machinery. Early Cultists were strictly 7th Fandom types, handpicked by Vorzimer, and Little Peter's poorly written constitution combined with their inexperience to produce many official snarls and wrangles. Over 30 Amendments had to be passed; the last one turned out to have the effect of making amendments null and void (this turned out to be a misinterpretation), and the Cultists threw the whole thing out in disgust. Charles Wells wrote up a revised constitution that was accepted and worked for several years with few amendments (e.g. one setting up an Official Arbiter, anarchy having proved impractical) tho in early 1959 another Constitutional hassle began. The average Fantasy Rotator runs from 8 to 70 pages, averaging 20-30; it features members' letters plus, on occasion, editorials, features, and material of all kinds, mostly by Cult members. Each is given an individual title (tho some members repeat their own earlier titles) to which "Fantasy Rotator __" is a subtitle. A respectable amount of quality material has seen print first in the Cult, later appearing in fanzines of larger circulation.

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