The ‘Punchy’ cult (The Fifth Pentecostal Glorification of the Beloved Saviour of the Sinners of East London)

The ‘Punchy’ cult (The Fifth Pentecostal Glorification of the Beloved Saviour of the Sinners of East London) achieved notoriety by predicting the Apocalypse 18 times in one year. Thomas Dobie, the leader of the cult, which was based out of Dagenham, London, preached to his 59 followers that God had revealed to him that the world would end when his son, Dave, brought a jar of mustard to his house, and that this would happen on 15th June 1985.

When Dave forgot the jar of mustard on June 15th, Dobie made the statement,

We know we cannot be wrong. God told me this was the date for the Apocalypse, but it appears not to have happened. What does this mean? That my vision was wrong? That I was misled? Impossible! Clearly our calendars have been altered by demonic forces, and the Apocalypse will happen, according

Unfortunately for Dobie, Dave failed to bring the mustard the next week, forcing Dobie to reset the date of the Apocalypse again, to the 22nd. The mustard being forgotten on that day, Dobie's reinterpretation of the calendar in relation to the Apocalypse once again allowed him to move his prediction to a week later. 

This process continued over 3 months, until September, when Dave finally revealed to his father that he had been deliberately leaving the mustard behind as an act of revenge for the time that Thomas had been devoting to his cult, at the expense of his parental duties. In the fight which ensued, Thomas and several members of the cult were arrested and charged with affray. Both Dobies and 3 of Thomas' followers were sentenced to a total of 19 years in prison, effectively ending the Punchy organisation.

The Punchies headquarters in Dagenham. After the imprisonment of the Dobies and the collapse of the cult, it became an off-license, where 10 ex-members of the cult are still regular customers. Photograph by J@ck!.

©2012 James Mathurin