OMG - it was super pre-internet subculture, kinda atheism but intentionally impossible to decipher - which was partially the point/fun. One reason I became an artist wass because of their "bible" which had a ton of cool disparate illustrations mixed with clip art from the 1940's and 50's. I'm sure you would recognize J.R. (Bob) Dobbs if you saw him. I haven't been to Burning Man since the 90's but I'm guessing you'd still find SubGenius followers aplenty there.
Do not buy from Amazon but just look.
lol! The Q thing is a gag going way back to the Church of Subgenius, which was a brilliant troll on the hardcore Christian nutter movement of the 70s and 80s.
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Just look in the preview part of the book on Amazon and you'll get the idea quick.. https://www.amazon.com/Book-SubGenius-Sacred-Teachings-Dobbs/dp/0671638106
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One of the old lunatic conspiracies based off golden age Sci-fi was the Q-Ray mind control beam. https://books.google.com/books?id=KPZTCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&dq=Q+ray+mind+control&source=bl&ots=pbSYHGD0tM&sig=ACfU3U36MmyINdGUUI4mcAA5JzkabjQgGQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj36rT62KH5AhXgHjQIHRtHAzgQ6AF6BAgYEAM#v=onepage&q=Q%20ray%20mind%20control&f=false It was recycled from time to time, sometimes seriously, other times no so seriously. Remember, they didn't have a lot of real effective psych drugs back before the 80s. Once the mental institutions closed, you had a lot of free roaming nutters with time on their hands. Sometimes they letters to the editor, and were given probably more free reign than was wise.
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People in the fringe and punk cultures riffed off this, and eventually the online culture embraced the lunacy.. Plus things like Loompanics, you could get a whole catalog full of books written by fringe bullshit artists. https://archive.org/details/Loompanics_Catalog_2003/page/n5/mode/2up It was fucking awesome if you were a little too smart for your own good, and had time to kill.
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https://archive.org/search.php?query=loompanics
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It was mostly moonbattery, but there were some cool gems in there as well.
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And from there you got the usenet, and a whole new generation of people into "Anarchy Filez" and assorted lunacy. http://www.textfiles.com/anarchy/MISCHIEF/
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Among the more insano things out there, was the gag of "start your own religion". Of which you could flip through a cult encyclopedia for a full on "how to" when it comes to setting these things up. https://www.cultwatch.com/cults.html
http://www.modemac.com/can/Marina/
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https://culteducation.com/links.html
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_Awareness_Network
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And there were plenty of take offs on the various UFO chasers, dimension jumping spiritualist astral projection sorts, and if you need help with your crazy, there's always the Swedenborgians, who are cool enough people, decent enough, but they're just fucking out there. https://www.offthelefteye.com
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The Swedenborgs are about as harmless of a christian cult as it gets, chasing angels, spiritual experiences, trying to be nurturing, positive, and accepting that people end up places in the afterlife with people who are like them. Is this hell? Probably for people who don't fit in with that kind, but more of an infinite layer cake where people might ascend to different levels of understanding over the eons.
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Now Q, is more of a conspiracy cult. People used to do role playing games built on universes like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS_Illuminati So for that old crowd, they could do a sort of hybrid cult/RPG/troll session. Keep the gag going as long as possible, see what lunies you can draw out of the woodwork.. And it go a LITTLE OUT OF CONTROL. lol!
The Book of the SubGenius : The Sacred Teachings of J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671638106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CHVaAbP77QQ47
I guess the SubGenius thumbnail is something like this:
>The Church's founder is J. R. "Bob" Dobbs. He started out as a drilling equipment salesman but soon gained a reputation for being able to sell anything to anyone. He became the world's greatest salesman and is known within the Church as the Saint of Sales.
>In 1953, "Bob" was working on a TV set of his own design when he was visited by JHVH-1, a wrathful alien from some corporate sin galaxy. JHVH-1 told "Bob" that the world had been overrun by an evil conspiracy known as the Conspiracy, who are trying to steal our Slack^* by inventing things like Money and Jobs and tricking us into thinking that we have to work hard to achieve happiness.
>After discussing the idea with his childhood friend L. Ron Hubbard, "Bob" founded the Church of the SubGenius in late 1953 to combat the Conspiracy and get us back the Slack they stole away. Hubbard stole the idea and founded the Church of Scientology shortly after.
>At some point, "Bob" came into contact with the X-ists - the alien beings living on Planet X - and struck an incredible bargain. In exchange for providing all dues-paying SubGeniusii with their own Pleasure Saucer and Alien Sex Goddesses (and/or Gods if that's your thing), the X-ists will receive Earth and its remaining inhabitants to do with as they please. The X-ists will arrive on X-Day, at 7:00 AM on July 5th 1998.
>Anybody can join the Church of the SubGenius by sending USD $35 to "Bob". The Church guarantees "ETERNAL SALVATION OR TRIPLE YOUR MONEY BACK"!
>^* Slack is loosely described as whatever you don't have enough of. Everybody is born with Original Slack, but the Conspiracy has been stealing it without our knowledge.
>More information:
>* Pamphlet 1: The World Ends Tomorrow AND YOU MAY DIE! * TV commercial * ARISE! The SubGenius Video (feature-length documentary)
Is it true? Probably not. But just like the Good Book says, "Decide for yourself how you're going to get screwed. SOME WAYS ARE FUN".