新澳门开奖结果

10 Little-Known US Cults That Left Lasting Scars

Across the vast and diverse landscape of the United States, amidst the bustling cities, picturesque rural towns, and sprawling suburbs, the country is a melting pot of cultures, beliefs, and ideologies. This has proven to be quite the fertile ground for the emergence of some unconventional groups, cults to be precise.

From the fringes of society to the heart of mainstream communities, cults have taken root, offering solace, a sense of belonging, and sometimes, a twisted path of manipulation and control.

Their stories serve as cautionary tales, reminding us of the power of persuasion, the allure of belonging, and the dangers of unchecked power and blind faith.

While some of these cults have captured the public’s attention due to their sensational crimes or charismatic leaders such as the Manson Family and Heaven鈥檚 Gate, others have remained shrouded in obscurity, their stories whispered in hushed tones and their impact felt in the lives of those who were drawn into their enigmatic worlds.

This article will highlight the most impactful of these lesser-known cults and their stories.

1. Angel鈥檚 Landing

, , via Wikimedia Commons

In the early 2000s, a man named Daniel Perez started a small religious group called Angels Landing on a Kansas compound. Though records of his past were mysterious, he made followers believe he was an angelic fortuneteller or 鈥渟eer鈥� named Lou Castro.

Perez convinced his devotees to give him money and expensive gifts, and even more shockingly, he convinced parents he had to rape their daughters in order to stay alive. Perez also took out expensive life insurance policies on his inner circle.

Every few years someone close to him died in strange accidents. After each death, Perez pocketed insurance payments. In 2003 a member named Patricia Hughes died at the compound. Local Detective Ron Goodwyn noticed the strange finances and luxury cars around Angels Landing didn’t add up.

His investigation into Perez unveiled long-hidden records of sexual assault. When Patricia’s husband died mysteriously in 2006, Goodwyn had enough evidence to accuse Perez of deadly insurance fraud.

In 2010 Perez went to prison for identity theft and using false documents. More victims including Sara McGrath then spoke up about years of rape by him.

In 2015 Perez was sentenced to 80 years in jail for Hughes’ death and 28 felony abuse charges thanks to the survivors and families determined to expose his con art crimes masked by fake clairvoyance.

2. Children of God 

, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Children of God cult began in 1968 when rogue minister David Berg started recruiting young hippies and runaways across California to join his nomadic “Teens for Christ” movement. It grew into a religious cult exploiting members for money and sex.

Around 15,000 people joined Berg’s communes worldwide that forbade school or jobs. Families lived separately with children grouped by age so Berg could control their upbringing.

In the 1970s, Berg invented “flirty fishing,” ordering female followers to recruit men through sex. He also promoted child rape and incest in writings, severely abusing his son Ricky Rodriguez among countless others.

Berg’s estate confirmed he molested daughters when one shared her story. More former members accused Berg of normalizing child rape in COG, including actor siblings Rose McGowan and Joaquin Phoenix who fled.

Survivor Ricky Dupuy revealed his forced abuse before later committing suicide. Mass murder-suicides also occurred by members like high-ranking leader Rick Rodriguez who killed an abuser before himself.

Though operating under new names, heirs still run Berg’s cult today despite leaders facing past arrests. Critics allege it remains merely a re-branded network of dangerous members still active in 70 countries. Netflix documentary Children of God depicts survivor stories from COG’s dark history.

3. Church of the Lamb of God 

After splitting from his brother鈥檚 Mormon offshoot sect in Mexico, Ervil LeBaron launched his own polygamist commune in Chihuahua during the 1960s called the Church of the Lamb of God. He declared himself a prophet who got orders directly from God.

LeBaron seized authoritarian control over hundreds of followers across North America by reviving the abandoned Mormon 鈥渂lood atonement鈥� concept – which calls for killing sinners to wash evil away.

With 13 wives and over 50 children, LeBaron orchestrated over 20 murders of rivals through an obedient death squad. Targets included another polygamist leader in 1972.

Fearful former members fled the cult compound as violence escalated throughout the 1970s. Mexican authorities finally arrested LeBaron in 1979 for an ordered killing and deported him to America where he was imprisoned for life in 1981.

His last will enacted a hit list for named traitors he said God deemed must die. The lynching campaign he ignited from his cell lasted almost another decade. The cult left a legacy of tragic funerals before it fully dissolved.

LeBaron鈥檚 reign appears in the Deadly Cults true crime documentary series exploring how he warped spiritual authority into homicidal tyranny.

4. Peoples Temple 

, , via Wikimedia Commons

In the 1950s, Jim Jones used faked healings to help attract followers to his California church called Peoples Temple. Though initially just another enthusiastic preacher, over decades Jones grew increasingly controlling and paranoid.

By the 1970s, his religious commune had moved to Guyana seeking a utopia safe from Jones’ predicted nuclear war. However, the South American Jonestown settlement grew militarized. As former members spoke publicly against human rights abuses there, Jones limited access to followers now numbering over 900.

So when a Congressman came to investigate in 1978, Temple guards gunned down his party sparking an unthinkable tragedy. Jones commanded a mass murder-suicide ritual where followers drank cyanide-laced Flavor Aid.

Adults willingly poisoned their children before taking it themselves. In total 918 died, a massive civilian tragedy dwarfing all other events pre-9/11. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” remains a saying about the danger of brainwashed allegiance even decades later.

5. Synanon 

, , via Wikimedia Commons

Synanon started as a promising drug rehabilitation program in 1958, but it eventually transformed into a dangerous cult under the leadership of Charles Dederich. Dederich’s hunger for power led him to manipulate and control his followers, subjecting them to humiliating rituals and demanding exorbitant fees.

He even went so far as to create a “hit list” of those who threatened his authority. Synanon’s reign of terror ended in 1991 when it was shut down due to tax fraud, destruction of evidence, and terrorism.

Dederich died six years later, leaving behind a legacy of abuse and manipulation.

6. The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)

, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Emerging from the turbulent social and political landscape of the 1970s, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) emerged as a radical left-wing group that shocked the nation with its audacious acts and enigmatic motives.

Founded in 1973 by Patricia Hearst, the rebellious daughter of newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst, and her husband, William Wolfe, the SLA set itself apart from other radical groups of the era by its unconventional approach and its audacious actions.

Driven by a blend of revolutionary ideals and a desire to challenge the status quo, the SLA’s actions were often as unpredictable as they were shocking. In 1974, the group stunned the world by kidnapping Patty Hearst, an act that captivated the nation’s attention and sent shockwaves through the political and social establishment.

Hearst’s abduction marked a turning point for the SLA, propelling the group into the national spotlight and intensifying their revolutionary fervor. Hearst’s subsequent appearance alongside her captors, wielding a gun and seemingly embracing the SLA’s ideology in a bank robbery, further fueled the public’s fascination and confusion.

The SLA’s reign of terror continued with a series of bank robberies, alluding to their support for oppressed communities and their disdain for the capitalist system.

In a dramatic turn of events, Hearst was apprehended by the FBI in 1975, marking the beginning of the SLA’s downfall. The remaining members of the group, desperate and increasingly isolated, engaged in a series of violent confrontations with law enforcement, culminating in a shootout that left several members dead and others captured.

7. The Carny Cult

, , via Wikimedia Commons

In 1991, a traveling carnival worker named William Ault discovered some fellow carnies had started a small satanic cult called Satan’s Disciples. Though they rejected his joining the exclusive four-person group, Ault tried blackmailing his way in.

This backfired terribly. The angry cult members lured Ault to a remote area and brutally tortured him in a murder ritual. Binding Ault to an altar, they invoked Satan while severing his head and hands with weapons, stealing his money. Attempts to burn the mutilated corpse failed.

The four cultists – Mark Goodwin, Jimmie Penick, and brothers Keith and David Lawrence – finally dumped the body in the open countryside. By coincidence, the murder scene was discovered by the fathers of two cult members.

Police arrested all four for bludgeoning and beheading Ault during a possession ritual leaving carnival jobs to pursue criminal wealth as a satanic mafia. Between the years 1993 to 2001, they were all tried and found guilty, sentenced from 8 to 60 years for murder plus robbery. The shocking case remains little known despite photogenic circus industry links.

8. Sullivanians

The Sullivanians cult began as a strange form of group therapy in New York City during the freewheeling late 1950s. Led by a pseudo-scientist named Saul Newton, the community aimed to replace the repressive nuclear family model with open relationships and partner sharing.

Newton鈥檚 Center lured in nearly 500 lost souls across the Big Apple hungry for meaning, social connection, and sexual liberation. However, objections arose against his radical methods and lack of credentials.

Without ethical oversight, Sullivanian therapists frequently slept with patients and each other鈥檚 spouses while children got shunted away. Followers disavowed outside friends and family to remove external loyalties.

The group then merged with an experimental NYC theater company in the 1970s for more visibility and creative expression aligned to their values. However, organizational bloat led to declining membership in the 鈥�80s.

By 1991, Newton died along with his once subversive group now considered predatory and erased by history. In many ways, the cult proved how intellectually appealing ideas often outlast flawed founders when facts pierce veils of personality worship from an era too uncritical of charismatic demagogues.

9. The Fall River Cult

One of America鈥檚 most brutal yet overlooked cult crimes focused on the 1980 bludgeoning and staged murders of two teenage female sex workers in Fall River, Massachusetts. Local pimp and satanic cult leader Carl Drew directed his prostitute girlfriend Robin Murphy and other followers in the ritualistic sacrifices of young women.

They absurdly believed human offerings might earn magical rewards and power from the Devil. Police discovered the first victim Doreen Levesque beaten to death outside a high school.

A year later, the group claimed another girl Karen Marsden. Her toothless skull turned up on an occult altar. Initially doubtful, officials learned Marsden was an informant fearing she鈥檇 become Drew鈥檚 next target in diabolical rituals.

With corroborating witness testimony, Drew earned a life sentence in 1981 for the hooker house double homicide. Murphy secured a reduced prison term through a plea deal to rat the ring out.

However, justice arrived too late to deter the gruesome occult crimes or offer the exploited victims any peace. Decades later, the story still conjures the paranoia and darkness haunting society鈥檚 fringes where madness festers unchecked.

10. Order of the Solar Temple

Order of The Solar Tmple logo,

Unlike satanic cults, the Order of the Solar Temple traced more toward New Age mysticism obsessed with aliens and apocalypse rather than dark magic when founded in 1984 by Joseph DiMambro.

Blending pseudoscience, Christianity, and the iconography of medieval religious orders like the Knights Templar, the group believed earthly existence was an illusion.

After shedding their mortal shells through suicide, members鈥� spirits could commune with extraterrestrials and inhabit other star systems. Between 1994 to 1997 alarmingly over 70 followers in Canada, the USA, and Europe willingly died by poisoning or gunshots orchestrated by leaders.

Bodies shrouded in ceremonial robes carrying passports for their journey hinted at complex preparation for transit between dimensions, not a spontaneous action.

Today several hundred devotees likely remain keeping the sect鈥檚 vision alive鈥攄ownplaying their past scandalous headlines. Despite legal threats, their website still proclaims awaiting telepathic guidance from ascended masters on the Solar Temple鈥檚 path.

While these ten cults may not have the notoriety of more infamous groups like the Manson Family or the Branch Davidians, their impact on the lives of their members and on American society as a whole was just as profound.

Their stories serve as a stark reminder of the dangers of cult indoctrination and the importance of critical thinking. These cults, operating largely in the shadows, serve as a chilling testament to the power of manipulation and the allure of belonging, leaving indelible scars on the fabric of American history.