famous cult leaders in california
One of the first couples to settle at Point Loma, Dr. and Mrs. George F. Mohn, lived for some years in the Homestead before Mrs. Mohn first suspected that the Purple Mother was exerting a powerful influence on her husband. Niscience was founded in the 1950s and mixes aspects of Christianity with eastern religions. He lost, but that didnt mean that the story of one of the most famous religious cults stopped there. Representative Leo Ryan, together with reporters and concerned relatives of members of the Peoples Temple, traveled to Guyana to investigate the situation. In addition to his satanist activities, Aquino was a military . He was also a writer, and his books described his claims about being the second coming of Jesus Christ and that he could travel through time. Only Ryan and four others were killed in the attack, with nine others fleeing the scene. 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Following the fair, the New Thought leaders began to arrive in Los Angeles: Annie Rix Militz, who established the University of Christ; Fenwicke Holmes, who founded the Southern California. A keyword in the affirmations, chants, and adorations is blasted by the dynamic energy of Saint Germains purple light and the, atomic accelerator. A talented appropriator, Ballard had lifted ideas at random from a dozen sources in putting this strange creed together. As the leader of the cult, he can be traced back to ample cases of child pornography, child abuse, and much more. Top 10 Black Spiritual Leaders. While working as a prostitute between 1989 and 1990, Aileen Wuornos murdered seven men in Florida by shooting them at point-blank range. she came to know the theosophist William Quan Judge, over whom she soon acquired an extraordinary influence. While traveling some years before the war in China and Japan, and certain countries in Europe, Bell had discovered 100,000,000 gardeners who wished to spend the rest of their lives gardening In America for Mankind United. One of the most famous cult leaders of all time, Charles Manson was the leader of a group of young people in California during the late 1960s. In the end, one of the most famous cult leaders, Manson, was sentenced for two direct murders and seven murders by proxy. Escaped convict Donald DeFreeze (aka General Field Marshall Cinque Mtume) led this political cult of Berkeley radicals that was inspired by communist and South American revolutionary theory. He was able to lure in many followers, especially women, into his cult. We are starting off with the Japanese cult leader Shoko Ashara, who is responsible for the worst terrorist accident in Japan. They also had a local radio program, where they exhorted Christians to join an army of God to fight the demons responsible for the worlds ills, which included karate, homosexuality, psychoanalysis, and fairy tales. The Branch Davidians were a religious group with an alternative vision of the fundamentalist church. In late March of 1995, members began releasing a poisonous nerve gas called sarin on five crowded subway trains. Sired by Buck Rogers and Superman, they are nevertheless profoundly symptomatic of the unrest, the suppressed fury, and the preoccupation with violence and power of certain classes in our society. Watch on. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. Podcast Listen Life Examined How '60s and '70s America gave rise to cult leaders Hosted by Jonathan Bastian Aug. 21, 2021 Health & Wellness In our previous episode, author Akash Kapur talked about his experience growing up in the utopian Indian community of Auroville. To cite this article in an academic-style article or paper, use: Maup van de Kerkhof, "Six of the Most (In)Famous Cult Leaders", History Cooperative, December 26, 2022, https://historycooperative.org/six-of-the-most-famous-cult-leaders/. They had good reasons since the Rajneeshees even attempted to take over the government of the nearby town of Antelope. Thirteen people were killed in the attack, with around 5.000 victims being harmed by the gas. Below: statues of Buddha at Morningland monastery. This magazine has been fully digitized as a part of The Atlantic's archive. Airplanes showered thousands of blossoms upon the coach that brought Sister back to Los Angeles. Claiming to be omnipotent, Hell told a California legislative committee that, if he wished, he could go into a trance and be whisked off to the far corners of the earth. Ti passed away a decade before . 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. Splendor and release, power and wealth, are to come, in both cases, through the intervention of a messiah who possesses the magic formula. .] . In Los Angeles, I have attended the services of the Agabeg Occult Church, where the woman pastor who presided had violet hair (to match her name) and green-painted eyelids (to emphasize their mystical insight); of the Great White Brotherhood, whose yellow-robed followers celebrate the full moon of May with a special ritual; of the Ancient Mystical Order of Melchizedek; of the Temple of the Jewelled Cross; of Sanford Church, food scientist, psychologist, and health lecturer; of the Bahai World Faith Center; of the Crusade of the New Civilization; of the Self-Realization Fellowship of America, which proposes to construct a Golden Lotus Yoga Dream Hermitage near Encinitas at a cost of $400,000. But, after some trouble with the Indian government, the group lived in Oregon for quite some time. His . He called himself Je Vam Marc Sus Pire and named one of his sons Jeva, a portmanteau of Jesus and vampire. The cult broke up when two nieces returned with relatives to retrieve their children. We have all chosen to die for this cause.. Wikimedia. He would boast that 100 boys would not be enough [for my sexual appetite].. However, this didnt result in the death of the cult, which is still alive to this day. It was the fabulous ability with which she carried off the kidnaping hoax that infuriated the respectable middle-class residents of Los Angeles. 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. 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. Scientology Founder: L. Ron Hubbard Founded: 1952 in the United States Scientology is a highly litigious, allegedly dangerous, wealthy, and widespread cult. Not only were 39 bodies found in a suburban California home, bodies of cult members buried under blankets and wearing Nike sneakers; a creepy video of a wide-eyed man explaining their Heaven's. The Branch Davidian compound was raided by a small group of federal agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. As indicated, it is hard to cover the most famous leaders in just one article. The documentary increased consciousness about his story, which makes Rajneesh and his followers one of the most well-known cults in recent history. Wesson was calm during the confrontation, although some of his daughters verbally defended him. 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? Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III - pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York and president . The People's Temple. Sarah Edmondson, an actor and ex-acolyte who also figures prominently in the doc, received extensive recruitment training and tapped into her Hollywood circles to find new members when she was. Not only that, he conducted widespread child abuse and even rehearsed a mass suicide with the whole group. Jones himself died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Active between 1972 and 1978, Gacy sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered 33 teenage boys and young men. Although Jim Jones's name later became synonymous with a cultic mass-murder suicide that left 909 people dead, he was known in the 1950s as a civil rights leader. Marcus Delon Wesson (born August 22, 1946) is an American criminal convicted of nine counts of first-degree murder and 14 sex crimes, including the rape and molestation of his underage daughters. California is known for its unusually large number of cults and dodgy religious movements. Known to local residents as Professor Money, Doctor Money,and Bishop Money, he had been born, so he contended, with four teeth and the likeness of a rainbow in the eye.. First appearing on the West Coast in San Francisco, it did not reach Los Angeles until after the Worlds Fair in 1915. One acolyte said, I know this sounds insane, but I saw lightning bolts coming out of his ears.. In 1969, Baker opened The Source, a health food restaurant, just as he was falling under the influence of Sikh kundalini master Yogi Bhajan. 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.. Bernard - pastor of 28,000-member Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York. The cult believed that a race war known as "Helter Skelter" was coming, and they needed to be prepared. Among the pioneers of the movement was the Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills. Bernstein treats former cult members, like those who were in NXIVM and Scientology. Yet, it was not just abuse or sex trafficking that made the cult so notorious. Using the principle of the ray machine, power plants would be created capable of exterminating a million people at a single blast. The cult that he founded was called The Reformed New Testament Church of the Faith of Jesus Christ and was pretty largely made up of native Californians. He once prepared a map of the world entitled William Moneys Discovery of the Ocean. On this map San Francisco a community that he detested was shown poised on a portion of the earth that he predicted would soon collapse, precipitating the city into the fiery regions. Some were relatively harmless, such as the notion that there was no hell and all humans would eventually be saved by Jesus Christ. produces the seed of perfection of ones self.. 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 . Meanwhile, members are expected to work over 40 hours per week for the group and tithe up to 80 percent of their income. On May 18, 1926, Sister Aimee disappeared. She was no longer Sister McPherson in Los Angeles, but merely Aimee. In many respects, her career parallels that of Katherine Tingley: both were highly gifted women with a great talent for showmanship; both had lived in poverty and obscurity until middle age; both founded cults; and both were ruined by scandal. When she was forty, she moved to New York, where, through her interest in spiritualism. Daughter Willa, a priestess called the Tree of Life, died of a tooth infection in 1925. Six middle-class men found the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee. Shoko continued preaching his worldviews and grew his cult significantly. Founded by Arthur Bell during the Great Depression, Mankind United believed that the world was controlled and manipulated by a conspiracy of hidden rulers and money changers. The organization, which focuses on yoga and meditation, has several properties around the state. Mrs. Mohn thereupon sued Mrs. Tingley for alienation of affections, and a jury returned a verdict in her favor for $75,000. , Tennessee group lived in Oregon for quite some time the respectable residents. Members began releasing a poisonous nerve gas called sarin on five crowded subway trains boys. Whole group of 1995, members are expected to work over 40 hours per for! 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