Tag Archives: cult

The Legend of the Purple People

Location: Lafayette, CA

Context: The informant ( initials ET) and I talking about hometown legends and the concept of growing up in small, suburban towns. That’s when she brought up a well-known ‘cult’ or group called the Purple People in Lafayette.

Text:

ET: There’s a cult in my town. Well, I don’t know if their cult or if they’re still around, but they’re called the Purple People.

Me: How do you know about them

ET: Well, I think it’s mostly my parent’s generations that talk about them— my parents not as much because they’re not from Lafayette— but my friends parents definitely.

Me: Have people ever seen them or like what do you know about them?

ET: Well there’s supposed to be a purple house they live in but I’m not sure where it is or if it still exists, but I know there’s a specific field in town people go to try to see them.

Me: Okay so was this a dare type of thing or what?

ET: Yeah exactly, people would be dared to go run up to the ‘Purple People’ house and try to maybe interact with them.

Me: Why was running to see them a dare, or what made it kind of higher stakes?

ET: Ok so I think they were said to be sex cult and participated in group sex frequently, or at least that’s what my friends parents would say! But I’m not sure if that’s made up or not.

Me: Oh wow, so there was definitely a stigma then? Or what was the rhetoric around them?

ET: Yeah they kind of kept to themselves and people just thought they were weird I think. But like the other thing is that as a kid, I feel like half the people believed in them and the other half didn’t. It was like a big debate.

Analysis:

This narrative is a classic example of a suburban legend, where a small truth regarding a likely communal living group was transformed by local gossip into a neighborhood myth and word of mouth legend. The ‘taboo’ subject of sex and communal living likely fostered the spread of gossip and was ignited by anxieties of the people at the time. However, later on for the subject’s generation, the Purple People functioned as a rite of passage where kids could get dared to go ‘find the house’ or have an encounter with the Purple People.

Creepy College Cult

Age: 25

Text:

Interviewer: “What is your ghost story?” 


MP: “Um, so I was walking around the basement of, um, one of the buildings at my college and, um, just, like, waiting in between classes, and I saw there’s all these club posters, and then there was this poster about joining Lord Vantis’s cult, and I didn’t know who that was or what that was, but all you had to do is text the number, and I said, yeah, this will be fun. So then I joined the number, I texted the number, and the number texted back, and they started telling me about this like cult leader they had and how he was great and how he had written all these texts. And then they sent me a link to those texts. 
And this like kept going for like a week or two and they kept texting me about this guy and I was just like, well, this is so much, this is so silly. This is so much fun. But then I hadn’t heard from them for a few days. 
And I was starting to get nervous, and so I texted and I was like, is everything okay? And they were like, actually, Lord Vantis has just died. And I was like, oh no, because, well, that’s the head of this cult. 
Um, and then the next day, the pandemic started, and the school closed forever, and, well, for, like, 2 years. And so then, I was really scared because I thought that the death of Lord Vantis had caused the global pandemic. And yeah, I haven’t heard from him since, and I hope not to hear from him again, because I’m worried about what it may bring back to the world.”

Interviewer: “What do you think about or take away from the story?”

MP: “Oh, um, well, I think that maybe… It tells me that, like, the things that I encounter on my day-to-day life, I should maybe be more cautious with. 
And also, maybe don’t text random numbers you find on a poster in a random building.”

Interviewer: “Do you believe in Lord Vantis’s ghostly behaviors?”

MP: “Um, I definitely, I don’t think he’s responsible for the pandemic. 
I mean, like, I know it was, like, an actual, like, like medical thing, but like it could have been like it, it could have been exacerbated and made worse because Lord Vantis died. We’ll never know if he had lived if it would have been that bad. I’ve never seen him, and I don’t think I’d like to see him. 
So that’s good.

Context:

This story occurred at Georgetown University in the winter of 2019, directly before the Covid-19 pandemic rapidly began to spread. The informant was a Freshman at the time of her experience.

Analysis:

This experience is likely purely coincidental, as believed by myself and the informant. However, there is a sense of mystery and uneasiness, as Lord Vantis acts as this unknown, supernatural-like figure. Ghostly encounters also can often be encounters of coincidence (someone happens to hear a creak in an old house, etc). The identities of the person sending MP the messages and Lord Vantis themself remain unknown, appealing to the ghostly aspect.