Read on to find out about some of the most notorious, infamous cults in history. I was a mistake of nature," he once said. He was able to lure in many followers, especially women, into his cult. Cult leaders' charisma also helps them set up a power imbalance between them and their followers. Meanwhile, members are expected to work over 40 hours per week for the group and tithe up to 80 percent of their income. Then DeFreeze and his followers formed the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), which focused on ending racism, monogamy, the prison system, and capitalist institutions. Pretty much every famous organization, guru, and spiritual trend of that era had ties to the Golden state from the Maharishi to the Peoples Temple, the Moonies to the New Age. In 2012, some cult locations were raided by the DEA on suspicions that cult members were selling marijuana and using the proceeds to help the church, which the Fellowship of Friends strongly denied. Famous practitioners from Tom Cruise to John Travolta to Beck to Laura Prepon appear to be staying loyal, but scores of followers are leaving the church, and for good reason. But he is also distrusted because his teachings differ from those of other enlightened beings. This could be disrupted by foreign energy coming from other people, family history, or the earthbound spirits of dead relatives. What made the cult's beliefs deviate from mainstream religion was its fine blend of promiscuous sex and worship of Jesus Christ. By 1978, the population of "Jonestown" had grown to nearly 1,000 people. 3 Silvia Meraz Moreno Murdered Her 10-Year-Old Grandson As A Ritualistic Sacrifice Santa Muerte, a female deity from Mexican folklore, is the cult leader in this particular tale. Ti passed away a decade before . Whatever the nature of the influence, it was unquestionably persuasive: Dr. Mohn contributed $300,000 to the colony. One of the first known hate groups, this cult was (and still is) focused on the advancement of the white race as a whole. Some were relatively harmless, such as the notion that there was no hell and all humans would eventually be saved by Jesus Christ. These include Richard Nixon, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Kevin McCarthy, Dianne Feinstein and others. In a single office building in the heart of Los Angeles, Thomas Sugrue found the following listed as tenants: Spiritual Mystic Astrologer: Spiritual Psychic Science Church, number 450, Service Daily, Message Circles, Trumpets Thursday; Circle of Truth Church; Spiritual Psychic Science Church; First Church of Divine Love and Wisdom; Reverend Eva Coram, Giving Her Wonderful Cosmic Readings, Divine Healing Daily; Spiritual Science Church of the Master, Special Rose Light Circle, Nothing Impossible.. However in 1915 and 1946 respectively, the . On November 14, 1978, the group planned to leave through the airstrip. Because of his emphasis on spiritual experience and moving away from any god, Rajneesh would deem himself a guru and practice meditation. With the aid of these supermen, The Sponsors propose to eradicate war and poverty from the earth. Ah, Salem. Saint Germain, appearing out of the void, tapped him on the shoulder and offered him a cup filled with pure electronic essence.After drinking the essence and eating a tiny wafer ot concentrated energy, Ballard felt himself surrounded by a White Flame which formed a circle about fifty feet in diameter.. Only through Christians joining the Mankind United vision could this be averted. Some of the groups violently disbanded or their members died under horrific circumstances. What is a cult? He led his group to wander the American Southwest for eight months, and they renamed themselves the Children of God. This magazine has been fully digitized as a part of The Atlantic's archive. Their name was derived from the word symbiosis, which referred to a union of classes and races in this case. The Bohemian Club's all-male membership includes . To link to this article in the text of an online publication, please use this URL: https://historycooperative.org/six-of-the-most-famous-cult-leaders/. Bell claimed that he could be in multiple places at once and had access to ray guns that could knock out peoples eyeballs from miles away. Berg became known as Moses David, Mo, King David, Father David, Chairman Mo, David Fontaine, Dad, and Grandpa. The station head Tom Wallace said: Basically, what Green was saying was that any particular problem was controlled by a demon. But they're even worse for women. Old ties have been loosened, old allegiances weakened. He attracted the young with appealing teachings, such as the idea that marijuana-enhanced sex was the true route to enlightenment. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were both members. According to her death certificate obtained by the tabloid, she died at a hospital in . After settling down in a safe house in Concord, their culture was characterized by political indoctrination, military drills, and free sex. And how does someone know if the faith they are following is harmful? Meanwhile, cult members worked long hours in cult-owned hotels, ranches, and shops for minimal pay. Good Old Salem. It states: We have pledged our lives to this great cause. In both movements there is a marked emphasis upon energy and power, symbolized by the ray machine in Mankind United and by the mystic purple light of the I AM cult. There was a worldwide warrant for his arrest until it was overturned by Interpol. And then the Ballards began to sell things: a monthly magazine called The Voice of the 1 AM; various books, such as The Magic Presence, the I AM Discourses, the I AM Adorations, Affirmations, and Decrees; and the Ascended Master Discourses. Members of the Manson Family. 4) Jim "Father Yod" Baker: The Source Family. We are starting off with the Japanese cult leader Shoko Ashara, who is responsible for the worst terrorist accident in Japan. IN 1875 a group of men, whose names must be forever unknown, succeeded in establishing contact with a superhuman race of little men with metallic heads who dwell in the center of the earth. . Although sex is taboo in the I AM creed it tends to divert divine energy it would be difficult to imagine a ritual in which sexual symbolism figured as prominently as it does in Master Saint Germains revelation. So its not a small group, with both male and female followers. Yikes. Bergs theology and style were largely derived from apocalyptic Adventist preaching tradition, influenced by his grandfathers involvement in the separatist Disciples of Christ church. Indeed, Joness tragic goal was to eventually commit a mass murder-suicide. That is to say, the Manson Family preached the coming of an apocalyptic race war that would devastate the United States, opening the way for the Family to be in a position of power. Rabbi Capers C. Funnye - rabbi of Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, Ill. Rev. produces the seed of perfection of ones self.. LAPD SWAT teams killed DeFreeze and five of his followers at a safe house in Compton. During these years, New Thought studio-lecture rooms sprang up throughout the city and the Metaphysicians May Day Festival became an annual civic event. Rajneesh studied in Jabalpur and was an excellent student. A specially chartered airplane flew over the beach and dropped flowers on the waters. RELATED . His victims were usually female prostitutes, whose throats were cut before he mutilated their abdomens. Once this revelation was made, writes the biographer of Annie Besant, theosophists all over the world turned their eyes toward California as the Atlantis of the western sea. Burton replied, Thou sayest it, which is what Jesus told Pontius Pilate when asked if he was King of the Jews. After entering the residence, Tate and her guests were tied together by their necks and stabbed. Steve discovers the property has a connection with two cults, including one of the most famous cult leaders in American history. LA has been home to a number of awful cult-related events over the decades, but time constantly marches on. In the early twenties, as Nancy Barr Mavity has pointed out (in an excellent biography of Mrs. McPherson), Los Angeles was the happy hunting ground for the physically disabled and the mentally unexacting . We do not fear death. If David Tormsen had to choose, he would definitely go with the Source Family. The Diamond, in Chicago. Yet, it was not just abuse or sex trafficking that made the cult so notorious. Religious cult leader David Koresh and his heavily armed followers repulsed an assault by the ATF resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and six cult members and spawned a 51 day siege, ending in a fiery death for 76 cult members during the . Sentient beings, non-sentient things, birds, aquatic animals, land animals, flowers, grass, trees, tiles, and stones have all expressed respect for His Holinesss dharma discourses either verbally or through physical actions. Many cults involve drug use, but even the ones that don't, according to Deprogrammed use a type of psychological intoxication, born from a charismatic leader and a cult's developing hive mind . They followed the urban propaganda theory of French Marxist writer Regis Debray and believed that selective violence would attract media attention and popular support. Right Icon This ranking is based on an algorithm that combines various factors, including the votes of our users and search trends on the internet. Foretelling futures, healing people, nothing was too ludicrous for Jones. Joness intentions and his interpretation of a religious organization were questionable from the very beginning. One of the reasons that the cult is so notorious is because of its sexual practices. Source: Getty Images. For Cults Week, Megan Koester visited eight once-infamous locations to see what. Charles Manson (November 12, 1934-November 19, 2017) was a mass murderer who founded a desert cult known as "The Family" in the 1960s and manipulated its members into brutally killing people on his behalf, including the pregnant actress Sharon Tate and other Hollywood residents. Members of the group believe the ancient world holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The Origin of Hotdogs, The History of Boracay Island in The Philippines. 26 of his victims were buried in the crawl space of his Cook County, Illinois home. They became known for their fastidious cleanliness, economic self-sufficiency, solid work ethic, and seeming disinterested in proselytization. The women used the cash to build the Santa Susana Knolls community in Simi Valley, which included a dozen cabins and a temple that was sealed off in anticipation of Christs return. I once attempted to examine these items, but abandoned the effort after a try at the first volume, indexed: Scientific Air Possibilities with the Human, by Zabelle Abdalian, Doctor of Airbodiedness.. Bernstein treats former cult members, like those who were in NXIVM and Scientology. The Isis Oasis sanctuary in Geyserville, California, is home to a group thats been around since the 70s and worships the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. His lawyer had successfully argued that the Chinese government was only motivated by political concerns. However, their religious history has made it difficult to promote these wines and has led to tax disputes with county officials. One of t hese early colonists was Albert Powell Warrington, a retired lawyer from Norfolk, Virginia, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1911. He married several of his daughters and nieces in home ceremonies, forcing each girl to read wedding vows with her hand on the Bible in the bedroom. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Her story was told in the 2003 film Monster, where Charlize Theron portrayed Wuornos. Hugging was discouraged as a cause of energy transfer, and sexual relations were strictly monitored. And to Ojai she brought Krishnamurti, the new messiah., Throughout the twenties, the annual encampments in Ojai were widely reported in the Southern Californian press, as thousands of people, mostly elderly neurotic women, trouped to Ojai to worship the messiah. The unknown serial killer operated in Northern California from 1968 to the early 1970s. Although she managed to maintain a fairly constant following until her death from an overdose of sleeping powder in 1944, she never recovered from the vicious campaign that had been directed against her in 1926. The Fourth Way states that most human beings are spiritually asleep and can only regain true consciousness through a process of self-remembering and refraining from expressing negative emotions. The museum is run by members of the Rosicrucian order, a spiritual movement that dates back to 1600s Germany and thrived in the US in the early 20th century. As indicated before, cults claim to have the pathway to truth. [Italics mine.] The state of Texas has as well. Buxom middle-aged usherettes, clad in flowing evening gowns, with handsome corsages of orchids and gardenias, bustled around at the morning services in a tabernacle that literally steamed with perfume. When Mrs. Ballard was later convicted of mail fraud in the Federal court in Los Angeles, an audit of the books revealed that over $3,000,000 had been collected in sales, contributions, and love offerings.. A sanctuary in downtown Los Angeles for students of the I Am movement, a religious organization that has been around since the 1930s. He died with an image of the Holy Virgin above his head, an articulated skeleton at his feet, and a well-worn copy of some Greek classic within reach of his hand., Bishop Money was a typical Southern California eccentric: he was born elsewhere; he came to the region in middle life: his aberrations were multiform; and he founded a cult. Former members claim that Jones obliged any member to bring their whole family if they join the cult, hence the number of young children. Well, it revolved around the claim that members did not join the group voluntarily but were lured in by deception, probably being held against their will by threats and manipulations. CAREY MCWILLIAMS was educated in law at the University of Southern California, from which he graduated in 1927. In March 1997, 39 members of Heaven's Gate, a cult started in the early '70s, put on matching dark clothes, swallowed barbiturates, and placed plastic bags around their heads. Photographs of Ballard, our beloved messenger,sold for $2.50; phonograph records, which recorded the music of the spheres and lectures of Ballard, sold for $3; a Chart of the Magic Presence brought $12; a steel engraving of the Cosmic Being, Orion, better known as the Old Man of the Hills, retailed for $2; the Special I AM Decree binder was listed at $1.25; I AM rings at $12; a special electrical device, equipped with colored lights, called Flame in Action, sold, in varying sizes, for $50 and $200; and, finally, a New Age Cold Cream preparation was available for the faithful. His observation and experience during these years came to a foeus in these books: Factories in the Field, The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? Heaven's Gate is one of the more well-known cults thanks to its eccentric leaders, known as Ti and Do (yes, like in "Do-Re-Mi"), as well as its unique philosophy that combined religion and new-age UFO "science.". The People's Temple. Earlier, he had founded an offshoot of the Teen Challenge youth ministry called Light Club, which sought to entice flower children to sermons with rock music and free peanut butter sandwiches. According to a spokesperson from the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC: From 1984 onward, Yi and his accomplices committed fraud by means of deception, causing losses of CNY 60.8 million ($7.32 million).. Fifty years after a golden age for the spiritual groups, many have disbanded. Soon, other former cult members came forward with complaints. The group was welcomed with open arms, and some church members asked Ryan to get them out of Jonestown. 10. Due to their charisma and ability to convince others, cult leaders have become some of the more famous, or infamous, characters in history. When visitors approached the colony, a bugler hidden behind the Egyptian gales sounded the note of their arrival. In the mid-70s, Jones moved the cult to Guyana. Southern California, wrote Michael Williams, is a vertiginous confusion of modern idolatry and sorcery and superstition, which is finding philosophical justification as a new paganism, made up of Theosophists, Rosicrucians, Christian Mysticism, Hermeticism, and New Thought. Most of the movements described here represent cultic phenomena that is, they are not sects which have split off from some established faith; they are new cults. His devotees dressed in white robes and followed a spiritual regimen of breathing techniques, cold showers, gender role shifts, yoga, home birth, chanting of the tetragrammaton, ego suppression rituals, and tantric sex. Throughout a network of affiliated organizations the Universal Service Corporation, the International Institute of Universal Research, and the International Legion of Vigilantes the leaders of Mankind United received $97,500 in 1930 from the sale of Arthur Bells revelation. As long as the tide of migration was made up of such people, there was no opportunity for the visionary or the faith-healer or the mystic. He was depicted in evangelical tracts as an anthropomorphic cartoon lion, with photos of him doctored to include lion features. A core membership of around 100 people survived and settled in Palomarin Ranch near Bolinas in Marin County. In Oregon, the cult grew in the number of members significantly. He called his cult "The Family.". After the sponsors revealed their presence, they were going to create a utopia based on universal employment with a short workweek, an economy of financial credit, and an artificial language. Former members of the cult claim that their leader enforced sexual participation, which would also result in sexual abuse. Supposedly, they were in contact with the angels Gabriel and Michael, who told the women to shut themselves off from the world for three years and write a book called The Great Sixth Seal explaining the worlds mysteries. Cult movements have moved westward in America, and Los Angeles is the last stop. Another weird psychic cult in the area is the Spiritual Rights Foundation, founded by William Baldwin (aka Reverend Bill). The Temple has an auditorium with 5000 seats; a $75,000 broadcasting station; the classrooms of a university which once graduated 500 young evangelists a year; and, as Morrow Mayo pointed out, a brass band bigger and louder than Sousas, an organ worthy of any movie cathedral, a female choir bigger and more beautiful than the Metropolitan chorus, and a costume wardrobe comparable to Ziegfelds., Mrs. McPherson founded a magazine, The Bridal Call, and established 240 lighthouses, or local churches, affiliated with Angelus Temple. Bitter enmity existed between Annie Besant and Katherine Tingley: Mrs. Besant referred to Mrs. Tingley as a professional psychic and medium and a clever opportunist., ALONG with theosophy, other strange faiths have migrated to Southern California. Leaders From California. In San Diego she unquestionably heard of Katherine Tingley, from whom she probably got the idea of founding a new religious movement on the coast and from whom she certainly got many of her ideas about uniforms, pageantry, and showmanship. Despite banning homosexuality in the community until 1994, Burton sexually preyed on young male members of his flock. Email him at [emailprotected]. Jones himself died of a self-inflicted gunshot. But perhaps the best example of the pervasiveness of cults in pop culture came last week with the premiere of American Horror Story: Cult in which we can expect to see versions of cult. The Cult. Her cause of death hasn't been revealed but TMZ reported the former Manson Family member passed away age 73. Sitting under a tree in Jabalpur, he experienced a mystical experience that would change his life. However, two cult leaders should still be mentioned before concluding. Below: the sanctuary. The abuses long. Charles Manson is best known for giving the orders that led to the brutal murder of Sharon Tate and her friends in 1969. The ranch became valuable and was bought by the federal government in 1962. Soon the Ballards were able to secure radio time. Thought Experiment. Hearsts father eventually withdrew his $50,000 reward for her return as it became increasingly clear that she identified with the group and wasnt coming home. Former members have claimed that Bostwick stole his ideas from the Dianetics of Scientology after a falling-out with L. Ron Hubbard. But like all metaphysical and religious movements, New Thought traveled westward. Heaven's Gate. Of nearly a hundred books catalogued in the Los Angeles Public Library under the heading New Thought, over half have been published in Southern California. After living in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, his family eventually left the cult and moved to Southern California. The following year, Baker returned to San Francisco and died after leading some of his congregation to a cliffside and leaping off with a hang glider he didnt know how to use. In 1977, Jones relocated the People's Temple from San Francisco, California, to Jonestown, Guyana. Joness followers set up an agricultural commune in 1977 and named it after their leader: Jonestown. These two imported movements theosophy and New Thought constitute the stuff from which most of the later creeds and cults have been evolved. Influenced by the works of 18th-century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg and con artist psychic Marc Reymont, Baldwin formed his cult on the basis of fundamentalist Christianity and New Age thinking. Elizabeth Nix Updated: Feb 19, 2020 Original: Dec 10, 2013 Bettmann Archive/Getty Images 1. Also, he had a very liberating view on sexuality and multiple wives, which would become problematic about his cult. (One man had been tortured to death. 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