The most chilling cults you've never heard of… and why YOU could be the next unwitting member

What makes a person join a cult?

It’s easy to imagine that those lured into following deluded narcissists who demand unquestioning devotion to their wild beliefs - aliens, incest, the end of the world, even mass suicide - are somehow weak or stupid.

But, says JW Ocker in his new book Cult Following, joining a cult is actually one of the most human things a person can do.

‘Cult members are often unfairly derided as naïve, brainwashed followers when, in fact, the research shows this couldn’t be further from the truth,’ he writes.

‘Religious scholar Lorne L Dawson’s book The Sociology of New Religious Movements shows that the average cult follower is middle to upper class, highly educated, intelligent, ambitious, curious, and idealistic.’

He adds: ‘Cults can offer a legitimate sense of community and all the benefits that come with it - friendship, dedication to a cause, stability, shelter. At least at first...’

Thanks to documentaries like Wild Wild Country, we now have vivid images of groups like the Rajneeshpuram cult, which carried out the first known bioterrorism attack in US history.

And the chilling photographs in the aftermath of the Heaven's Gate suicide pact horrified anyone who saw them, after 39 people were persuaded to take a mix of barbiturates, vodka and applesauce in a bid for interstellar immortality. They believed their spirits would join a spaceship that was hiding in the Hale-Bopp Comet. 

We're also all-too familiar with the Branch Davidians, whose 51-day stand-off with law enforcement in Waco ended with more than 80 dead in 1993, and, even more recently, NXIVM, whose followers included Smallville actress Allison Mack and whose leader is now serving a life sentence for human trafficking, sex offenses and fraud.

But what about the many other cults that never made it on to Netflix or into our collective imagination?

Ant Hill Kids

‘On an isolated mountainside in eastern Canada, a small group of people in matching tunics - mostly women - build a commune. The only one not pitching in is the group’s leader, Roch Thériault.’

This busy activity, writes Ocker, inspired Thériault to name his group the Ant Hill Kids. ‘But what sounds like the name of a children’s television show hides a level of brutality that is beyond shocking.'

Thériault had managed to persuade his small band of followers that the world would end in February 1979, and that their only chance of survival would be to travel with him to a remote part of Quebec.

The first red flag should have come around then, when he happened to rename himself Moses.

Of course, the supposed date of destruction came and went. But this self-styled Messiah managed to talk his way out of it.

And, Ocker writes: ‘Once his followers were in his thrall - exhausted from work, undernourished, and far from family and friends - he started beating, torturing, and sexually abusing them, maiming them via bizarre “medical operations,” and subjecting them to outrageous indignities, all in the supposed service of their spiritual purification.’

These atrocities included nailing a child to a tree and allowing the other children to throw stones at them, removing eight of his wife’s teeth with pliers, commanding men to break their own legs with sledgehammers, and cutting off people’s toes for punishment. And much, much worse.

Incredibly, his following grew - not because his message was so convincing, but because he insisted on getting every woman in the camp pregnant.

The horrific abuse eventually came to the attention of the authorities, and Thériault was sentenced to life in prison - but even that was not enough to dissuade his followers.

Some were so dedicated, writes Ocker, that they rented apartments close to the prison, and even joined him for conjugal visits. 

'At least one child was born to him during his life sentence.'

His reign of terror and coercion finally ended in February 2011, when a fellow inmate took great pleasure in stabbing him in the neck with a shiv. 

Raëlism

A supposed encounter with a short, green alien atop a volcano in central France in 1973 was Claude Vorilhon’s ‘Moses moment.’

This alien - named Yahweh - reframed the Bible as a sci-fi epic, with humans as alien clones, the flood caused by a nuclear bomb (Noah was saved by a spaceship), and Jonah being swallowed by an alien submarine.

Vorilhon was renamed Raël and spread this new gospel far and wide - and was apparently rewarded for all his hard work with a trip to the alien motherland, where he had sex with robots, learned about sensual meditation, the ‘Cosmic Orgasm’, and telepathy.

Raël set up his new religion in Montreal - with an HQ called UFOland - teaching standard stuff like not smoking, doing drugs, or consuming caffeine. Followers were instructed to tithe ten percent of everything they earned to the church, and to have sex with whoever they wanted.

Raëlism hit the headlines most recently when Kanye West used its symbol - a swastika inside the star of David - to accompany his antisemitic rants on Twitter.

But, as Ocker writes: ‘Today, more than 50 years after that fateful meeting on a French volcano, Raëlism is still one of the more successful UFO cults.

‘There have been no mass fatalities. Its leader is not in jail. And, according to the Religion and Media Centre, it has grown to more 65,000 members, with about 50,000 of those in Canada and the rest spread across more than 80 countries.’

Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven

‘May Otis Blackburn baked a woman to death, helped hide a dead teenager under the floorboards of a house, and likely murdered her son-in-law,’ writes Ocker. ‘But, in the end, she went to jail because she missed a writing deadline.

'That’s probably a good thing,' he adds, 'because the book she failed to finish would have triggered the end of the world.’

Single mom May and her daughter Ruth claimed to have been visited by the Archangel Gabriel in 1920s Hollywood, and had received a series of revelations about the Bible.

The angels had also, apparently, disclosed to them the location of a hoard of priceless gold and jewels.

All was to be revealed in their upcoming blockbuster, The Great Sixth Seal, the publication of which, they believed, would bring about the apocalypse.

On Christ’s return, they said, he ‘would choose 11 queens to reign over the world… two of whom would be Blackburn and Ruth.

‘Each of the Great Eleven would have a palace in Hollywood from which to reign and would be paired with kings.’

That - along with the temptation of all that treasure - was enough to attract a committed following, as well as a substantial amount of funding, and together they packed up and moved to Simi Valley, California.

‘By day, the cult followers made money working at a tomato-packing company and gave their paychecks to Blackburn and Ruth. At night, they would conduct séances, sit in magic circles, wear long purple robes, sacrifice mules (which they called the “Jaws of Death”), and then finish it all up by dancing naked,' writes Ocker.

This blissful existence was brought to an abrupt halt when the faithful started dying. First, Ruth’s husband disappeared, thought to have been poisoned. Another victim, also believed poisoned, was buried beneath her parents’ home (alongside seven mummified dogs who would apparently keep the girl company in death).

And a third - a partially paralyzed woman - was baked in a brick oven for two days in an attempt to treat her ailment. Unsurprisingly, she too died.

In the end, Blackburn was disgraced but unrepentant. Her followers drifted away - disillusioned by the fact that the promised Sixth Seal never made an appearance. They sued her for grand theft and - largely thanks to these lurid tales - she was convicted in 1930.

However, she was exonerated on appeal, and she lived another 21 unremarkable years.

No one ever did find out where those jewels were buried.

People’s Temple

Before Jim Jones orchestrated the largest American civilian death event prior to 9/11, he actually did a lot of good, writes Ocker.

The Peoples Temple was active in Indianapolis’ poorest communities, giving food to those who had none, providing homes for the elderly, jobs for the unemployed, and scholarships for those who couldn’t afford school.

All of these things helped his congregation grow. That - and his claim he could cure cancer.

At its height, the church had a membership nearing 3,000 and Jones was wielding increasing power in politics.

But, as stories of sexual abuse and Jones' ‘healing’ scams increasingly drew negative press attention, it became clear that they had to leave the USA.

Their destination: 4,000 acres of jungle in the former British colony of Guyana, known to the 1,000 faithful who made the trip as Jonestown.

Conditions were far from paradise - and Jones’ followers were subjected to twisted physical and mental torture in their new 'utopia'.

‘They toiled in the commune for long hours during the day,’ writes Ocker, ‘and spent their nights listening to Jones’s anti-capitalist and anti-US sermons for hours.

‘Jones started what he called White Nights, practice drills in which he would rouse residents from their sleep to gather in the main pavilion and tell them they were under attack from government forces. He set up people in the surrounding jungle to shoot rubber bullets at them to complete the effect.

‘During at least one of these White Nights, he had his followers drink a red punch that he claimed was laced with poison. He waited until the most dramatic moment to reveal that the drinks weren’t poisoned after all, and then congratulated his followers on passing this test of loyalty.’

His final act - as he realized the authorities were closing in and his days as a messiah were up - was merciless.

‘He called everybody to the main pavilion and incited them to drink cups of Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. He called it “revolutionary suicide,” but it’s better described as murder,’ writes Ocker.

‘A third of the residents of Jonestown were children. Many members were injected with syringes full of cyanide.

‘The finale to the horrific story was the bullet Jim Jones fired into his own head.

‘Audio of the entire massacre, including Jones’s scattered, confusing, insane exhortations, was recorded. It’s easy to find online, but hard to get over once heard.’

The number of dead reached 918.

In 2011, survivor Teri Buford O’Shea summed up what had drawn so many to follow a murderous megalomaniac.

‘What was good about Jonestown was not Jim Jones,’ Teri said. ‘It was the people he attracted. They came from every walk of life, from the very well-educated to the totally uneducated. Some had lots of money, some were living off of Social Security, and some didn’t even have that.

‘It could have been you. It was me.’

Cult Following: The Extreme Sects That Capture Our Imaginations — and Take Over Our Lives by JW Ocker is published by Quirk Books