Money was the leading Los Angeles eccentric from 1841 until his death in 1880. That Mrs. McPhersons first appearance should have been in San Diego is, in itself, highly significant. Gein has been the inspiration behind countless movies, including Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He also committed necrophilia and cannibalism. He went on to found a socialist utopia in Jonestown, Guyana in the '70s, where, on November 18, 1977, he became responsible for the mass suicide and mass murder of over 900 remaining members of his cult. Mrs. Stevenson was also responsible for the production of the Pilgrimage Play in 1920long since institutionalized by the boosters as one of the major tourist attractions of Los Angeles. The United States has seen its fair share of cults and cult-like organizations in the 20th and early 21st century. Both humans and nonhumans have prostrated to H.H. The Manson Family was a commune and cult created by Charles Manson in California in the 1960s. Little did they know this would culminate in self-immolation and poisoning. Accessed March 1, 2023. The former headquarters of Full Circle, a a guru-free, sacred space in Venice, Los Angeles, that was led by the actor Andrew Keegan of 10 Things I Hate About You fame. Jack the Ripper, the name given to this unidentified killer, was active in the Whitechapel district in London in 1888. 2. In a lesser measure, the cultic aberrations of Southern California are an accidental by-product of its geographical location. Still later an opera house was acquired in San Diego, where the Point Loma yogis, appearing in Grecian costumes, lectured the natives on the subtle dialectics of theosophy. However, the most famous murder might be the murder of actress Sharon Tate and her three guests. This most certainly is the case with Charles Milles Manson - the most famous, evil cult leader in America. These include Richard Nixon, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Kevin McCarthy, Dianne Feinstein and others. Updated: Jan 19, 2021 (1959-1993) Who. California is known for its unusually large number of cults and dodgy religious movements. We didnt want to be associated with one of those cultish groups. Indeed, one mechanism for the sex cult to enforce participation was psychological pressure. Adjutants have been praying, night and day, for thirteen years in the Temple. Jones' teachings were similar to liberation theology and socialist beliefs. We need to preserve Gods children. Mankind United reached its apogee with a few thousand members in 1939. The Jonestown massacre is known as one of the largest mass deaths in . Exhibits inside the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California. The group started as what appeared to be a progressive organization that advocated for civil rights. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult killed themselves in San Diego, California, with the goal of catching up to a UFO following the comet Hale-Bopp. Indeed, only his followers would be able to truly understand. The idea was to let people think that non-organic food was bad for them while influencing a local election. Charles Manson's . 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. Michael Aquino, the founder of satanic cult the Temple of Set, has 'remanifested from his physical body' at the age of 73. 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.. The bookstore at the Aetherius Society, an organization founded in the 50s by a man who claimed he was able to channel messages from an interplanetary parliament in outer space. Flooded with requests from all over the world, the local newspapers and wire services filed 95,000 words of copy in a single day. But, after some trouble with the Indian government, the group lived in Oregon for quite some time. 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. The hordes of newcomers who arrived after 1880 were a God-fearing, highly respectable, conservative lot. Cults differ from traditional religions as they tend to be closed off . 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. Baker was soon leading meditation sessions in his restaurant and developing his own teachings. Below: the gate at the Aetherius Society. One of the first known hate groups, this cult was (and still is) focused on the advancement of the white race as a whole. 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/. That is to say, the attack was in anticipation of Armageddon, which was believed to be a nuclear attack by the United States on Japan. He was the leader of The Manson Family cult in the late 1960s. It was located in the middle of the jungle of Guyana, and inhabitants were expected to work long days without a lot of pay. Old ties have been loosened, old allegiances weakened. This time, Charles Manson joined himself because the murders from the previous day werent frightening enough. Wikimedia. While only five murders are confirmed to be his, the killer claimed to have killed 37. What is a cult? The Branch Davidians were a religious group with an alternative vision of the fundamentalist church. A professional medium, his wife had edited a spiritualist magazine. Others slowly faded away, pushed out by Californias rising cost of living, or made obsolete by the fact that many of the things that made them appealing were absorbed into the mainstream: Fortune 500 CEOs now regularly attend Burning Man and crystals and Himalayan salt lamps can be purchased at Target. Leaders From California. The crimes inspired "Helter Skelter," a best-selling book released in 1974, and an Emmy-nominated TV miniseries by . Jones wanted to create an egalitarian utopian community. Some were relatively harmless, such as the notion that there was no hell and all humans would eventually be saved by Jesus Christ. Rev. Only through Christians joining the Mankind United vision could this be averted. One ex-member described it as fear God and feel your chakra. Ministers give classes on energy healing, meditation, and trance hypnotherapy. From Ed Gein, who is the inspiration behind horror classics like Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Jack the Ripper, whose identity to this day still eludes police, the world has been marred by a nasty past. By Major Dan February 28, 2016 Updated: February 14, . But a cult goes to a whole other level when people are willing to commit mass suicide for their beliefs. This frightening tale of mass suicide was carried out by members of the People's Temple, a cult born in the 1950s with the supposed objective of practicing Apostolic Socialism. 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 . Only one day later, the Family committed another series of murders. Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection, An Introduction to the Long History of Los Angeles Cults, The abandoned movie ranch where Manson launched Helter Skelter, This Is the Most Stereotypically Los Angeles Thing That Has Ever Happened, How to Start Your Own Los Angeles Cult in 14 Easy Steps, The Earliest and Weirdest LA Cult Stories: 1700s to 1940s, The Respectable LA Houses of 1970s Hippie Cult The Source, How Cultists, Quacks, and Naturemenschen Made Los Angeles Obsessed With Healthy Living. Arthur Bell claimed to have possession of a ray machine so powerful that its beams, once released, would knock out the eye sockets of people thousands of miles distant (a notion based upon an article which Dr. R. M. Langer, of the California Institute of Technology had contributed to Colliers in 1940). Below: the sanctuary. Former members have claimed that Bostwick stole his ideas from the Dianetics of Scientology after a falling-out with L. Ron Hubbard. Only Ryan and four others were killed in the attack, with nine others fleeing the scene. Dorje Chang Buddha III and have listened to His Holinesss discourses on the dharma. 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. Well before this time, the cult already committed three murders that are now known as the Sakamoto family murder. She arrived in Los Angeles with two minor children, an old battered automobile., and $100 in cash. 6 of the most infamous cults in history. About 150 Angelenos were among those who left California in 1978 for Guyana . Originating in Los Angeles, the cult spread across the nation, with centers in Chicago, New York, West Palm Beach, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Fort Worth, and Dallas; it enrolled 350,000 converts and deposited in the hands of its creators the tidy sum of $3,000,000. Not only that, he conducted widespread child abuse and even rehearsed a mass suicide with the whole group. Below: statues of Buddha at Morningland monastery. Cults are terrifying. But like all metaphysical and religious movements, New Thought traveled westward. Scientology Founder: L. Ron Hubbard Founded: 1952 in the United States Scientology is a highly litigious, allegedly dangerous, wealthy, and widespread cult. (One man had been tortured to death. However, the murders only came to light with the investigation surrounding the subway attacks. The abuses long. California Cult's Quadruple Murder Was A 'True Nightmare On Elm Street' Trailer park cult leader Gerald Cruz led his followers in a brutal rampage that killed four in Salida. He made a great deal of failed prophecies, including that Comet Kohoutek would cause havoc on Earth in 1974. Krotona. Still another building, the Aryan Temple, had an amethyst Egyptian gateway. Berg died in 1994, and his cult is now known as Family International. In 1969, Baker opened The Source, a health food restaurant, just as he was falling under the influence of Sikh kundalini master Yogi Bhajan. The group departed for Lake Tahoe and was never heard from again. Their name was derived from the word symbiosis, which referred to a union of classes and races in this case. Shoko continued preaching his worldviews and grew his cult significantly. In China, the Buddha is a wanted man. By 1929 she had a following of 12,000 devoted members in Los Angeles and 30,000 in the outlying communities. They also teach that a group alternately called the Manifest Sons of God, Man-Child Company, or the Overcomers will leave the church, attain sinless perfection and divine powers through commitment to Christ, and eventually smite Satan and death. (The sources are documented in an interesting volume: Psychic Dictatorship in America by Gerald B. Bryan, published in Los Angeles in 1940. 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. Another David with the last name Berg was the founder of a movement called the Children of God. The leader of "Manson Family" created an entire cult in the late60s and early 70 in California. Email him at [emailprotected]. Stealing from older philosophies like Theosophy, Bell claimed that a hidden order of sponsors worked against the conspiracy of the worldwide slave state. Due to their charisma and ability to convince others, cult leaders have become some of the more famous, or infamous, characters in history. Most cities absorb the disparate elements that gravitate to them, but Los Angeles remains a city of migrants,a mixture, not a compound. One story states that the youngest members of the cult learned to have sex, which was deemed Gods way of expressing his love. Many have criticized both organizations as cults. [. Outside of a preference for San Francisco, it seems like leaders of a cult might also be identified by screening everyone named David. This was the beginning of an apocalyptic battle with the government, or so the cult believed. Shoko. I have also heard the lectures of Dr. Horton Held, who believes that California is an unusually healthy place in which to live, since so many flowers find it possible to grow in this vicinity. This could be disrupted by foreign energy coming from other people, family history, or the earthbound spirits of dead relatives. Because of his emphasis on spiritual experience and moving away from any god, Rajneesh would deem himself a guru and practice meditation. . . The family became an insular cult that was based on homeschooling, corporal punishment, and sexual abuse. The temple members consisted of many female members, underage girls, or children of young age in general. Cult members have injected their own children with cyanide, engaged in gunfights against police, and released sarin gas on the public all in the wide-eyed servitude of a single man. The unknown serial killer operated in Northern California from 1968 to the early 1970s. For Cults Week, Megan Koester visited eight once-infamous locations to see what. 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 number of food and body cults in Southern California has never been reckoned. Dr. Lee R. Steiner, in her study of quacks and fakirs, has pointed out that, when difficulty besets the quack, he usually flees to Los Angeles, not so much because it is a haven, but because it is the largest metropolitan center west of Chicago. The Manson Family: Followers George Brich/AP Manson's followers were mostly young women. 10 The Children of God David Berg formed one of history's most infamous cults, The Children of God, in the 1960s. He didnt have to go to classes at all and was allowed to just take the exams. AFTER Mrs. Tingleys appearance in Southern California, the region acquired a reputation as an occult land and theosophists began to converge upon it from the four corners of the earth. 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. The founder of a cult might also be identified by screening everyone named David Chang Buddha III have... 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