Bokononism is a fictional religion created by author Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle. The religion, which posits the ultimate futility of life and the need for religion to provide comfort in a universe without meaning, freely admits that it offers “harmless untruths,” with its writer proclaiming, “All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”
Central to Bokononist belief is the idea that truth is too painful to bear, so it promotes useful lies that help people endure life’s suffering. Its founder was a world traveler from a wealthy Tobago family named Lionel Boyd Johnson, who was stranded on the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo in 1922 along with Earl McCabe, a recent acquaintance. The two men decide to take over the impoverished island, and determine that the best way to do so is for McCabe to seize control of political and economic structures while Johnson offers a counterpoint as a religious leader.
Johnson convinced McCabe that he needed to outlaw his new faith and turn Johnson into a persecuted figure and dissident, giving hope to the people while simultaneously justifying McCabe’s dictatorial rule. The mispronunciation of Johnson’s surname by the San Lorenzans gave him his new name, “Bokonon.” (Though many readers pronounce the name as though rhyming with “Amazon,” Vonnegut himself pronounced it as similar to “Buchanan.”)
Bokononism calls on followers to believe in lies while knowing they are lies, and in its creation story, when the first human asks God for the meaning of existence, God replies, “I leave it to you to think of one for all this.” Excerpts from the “Books of Bokonon” appear throughout Cat’s Cradle, with one oft-quoted verse reading:
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?”
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Like Jediism, some readers have adopted the tenets of Bokononism as a real-world religion, conceding that its elements come from a work of fiction but considering it to be a work of myth that is applicable to their lives. Ordination as a Bokononist minister is available online.
Key Sources:
Allen, W. R. (1991). Understanding Kurt Vonnegut. University of South Carolina.
Saeed, Y. (2021, December 30). Bokononism as a representation, yet antithesis of the major world’s religions in Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle.” Medium.
Wallingford, E. (2010). The Books of Bokonon. University of Northern Iowa.
Wiley, E. (2008). Bokononism as a Functional, albeit Satirical, Religion. DePauw University.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 