Berg died at the age of 75, but his legacy is still felt. 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. Among those who came to California was Mrs. Besant, who, acting on orders of her Master, purchased 465 acres in t he Oja i Valley as a home for the new sixth sub-race. 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. In reality, Bell was exploiting his followers for cash while hanging out in luxurious residences and spending his nights at popular bars and clubs. In China, the Buddha is a wanted man. This focus on sexual pleasure brought extreme views on free love, including pedophilia. Although she had never been West, Mrs. Tingley had, since childhood, dreamed of building a White City in a Land of Gold beside a Sunset Sea. Raising a considerable sum of money in the East, she established the Point Loma Theosophical Community near San Diego in 1900. He moved in with an older woman in San Jose, had a child with her, and then married her 15-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. 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 list does not include the mass suicide cases of 1906 Bali, AD 73 Masada, 1963 Vietnam, 1803 Igbo slaves, Jauhar, etc, which were committed by people to escape slavery and/or being captured by the enemy in a war. Earlier, they had joined a group called the Bear Tribe that sought to emulate the Native American lifestyle. Others were dodgier, such as the notion that sex and masturbation were gifts from God and that cult members should masturbate while fantasizing about having sex with Jesus. Leaders From California. Charles Manson Charles Manson was an American cult leader whose followers carried out several notorious murders in the late 1960s, resulting in his life imprisonment. Actress Sharon Tate was pregnant and enjoying the company of her friends. The Glendale, California, headquarters of the Ann Ree Colton Foundation of Niscience. As indicated, it is hard to cover the most famous leaders in just one article. What was the lawsuit about? However, by the time the police arrived, Wesson was covered in blood. The Manson Family: Followers George Brich/AP Manson's followers were mostly young women. Manson was an ex-convict who was unemployed and in 1967 started a commune called the Manson-family. 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. His followers were co captivated by his character that completely followed his unconventional lifestyle, took hallucinogenic drugs with . This time, Charles Manson joined himself because the murders from the previous day werent frightening enough. Hugging was discouraged as a cause of energy transfer, and sexual relations were strictly monitored. 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. 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. The Burari Family In 2018, the Chundawat Family of Burari, India . 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. ), One of the sources that Ballard used was a series of articles which William Dudley Pelley had published in 1929, entitled Seven Minutes in Eternity, written while Pelley was a resident of Sierra Madre, near Pasadena. But as the region grew in wealth and fame, it began to attract some strange characters. Marcus Wesson saw himself as the leader of a new religion combining Christianity with vampire lore. With already quite the following, Jim Jones and a thousand members of the Peoples Temple decided to flee the allegations and immigrated to Guyana. The abuses long. Hes always been charismatic, which made him believe that he even had psychic powers. The History of Guns, Greek Mythology: Stories, Characters, Gods, and Culture, Aztec Mythology: Important Stories and Characters, Greek Gods and Goddesses: Family Tree and Fun Facts, Roman Gods and Goddesses: The Names and Stories of 29 Ancient Roman Gods, Shoko Ashara: Cult Leader of Aum Shinrikyo, The Life of Shoko Ashara and Aum Shinrikyo, Tokyo Subway Attacks Carried Out by Cult Members, Charles Manson: Cult Leader of the Manson Family, Jim Jones and the Mass Suicide of Jonestown, The Davids: Branch Davidians and Children of God, David Berg and the Children of God (Family International), iPhone History: A Timeline of Every Model in Order, US History Timeline: The Dates of Americas Journey, Ancient Civilizations Timeline: 16 Oldest Known Cultures From Around The World, Why Are Hot Dogs Called Hot Dogs? As an eccentric, however, he was in advance of his time, an exceptional figure. A specially chartered airplane flew over the beach and dropped flowers on the waters. Leno was eventually killed with a total of 26 knife stabs. 26 of his victims were buried in the crawl space of his Cook County, Illinois home. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. The hordes of newcomers who arrived after 1880 were a God-fearing, highly respectable, conservative lot. 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. Thats a mouth full and a lot to integrate into just one ideology. 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? He attracted followers and established a commune at Chandler Mansion known as the Mother House. 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/. Living in a weird oval structure in San Gabriel, the approaches to which were guarded by two octagonal edifices built of wood and adobe. He attracted some student radicals and escaped from prison in 1973. James Warren Jones was an American religious leader whose name has now become synonymous with the phrase "Don't drink the Kool-Aid.". . The deity of the cult, it seems, is the Ascended Master Saint Germain. On May 18, 1926, Sister Aimee disappeared. Bohemian Grove is the Sonoma County, California campground where the Bohemian Club meets . Still another building, the Aryan Temple, had an amethyst Egyptian gateway. 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. Mason-Dixon Line He opened a sandal shop, followed by two health food restaurants. One of the most notorious killers of all time, the Zodiac Killer is yet another serial criminal who has managed to elude police for decades. 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. (One man had been tortured to death. He was able to lure in many followers, especially women, into his cult. 10 The Children of God David Berg formed one of history's most infamous cults, The Children of God, in the 1960s. It consisted of forty buildings, with a harmonious blending of architectural lines, partly Moorish, partly Egyptian, with something belonging to neither. One of the main structures, called the Homestead, had ninety rooms and a great dome of opalescent green. He would begin to sexually abuse them at age eight, claiming that Jesus was a womanizer and Gods people are becoming extinct. In one 1981 interview, he was asked if he was Jesus Christ. After some time, the Children of God became known as Family International, a name that the god cult continues to use to this day. Remembering the rare, magical times it snowed in LA, For Angelenos, the once-in-a-blue-moon snowstorms were a "beautiful sight. Also, he had a very liberating view on sexuality and multiple wives, which would become problematic about his cult. Over time, they became more politically militant. From Boston it moved to Hartford, then to New York, and finally spread to Chieago, Kansas City, and St. Louis. His victims were his children, fathered by incestuous relationships with his daughters and nieces, as well as his wife's children. His followers believe that he is the third incarnation of the original Buddha. Because the teachings were so extravagant, the dangerous message encapsulated in them might have been overlooked by many cult members and dedicated followers. The radio station eventually stopped the broadcast as the content became more disturbing. A day at the San Francisco fair was given over to New Thought, and George Wharton James, the omnipresent, delivered a lecture on California - the Natural Home of New Thought.. In 1915, alas! One of t hese early colonists was Albert Powell Warrington, a retired lawyer from Norfolk, Virginia, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1911. In the name of Jesus Christ, Jones confiscated passports and millions of dollars from Temple members. 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. On the lovely 500-acre Point Loma tract soon appeared a School of Antiquity, a Theosophical University, a Greek theater, Rja Yoga College, and the Iris Temple of Art, Music, and Drama. no other large city contains so many transplanted villagers who retain the stamp of their indigenous soil.. . Below: the sanctuary. This was the beginning of an apocalyptic battle with the government, or so the cult believed. This most certainly is the case with Charles Milles Manson - the most famous, evil cult leader in America. Yet, it was not just abuse or sex trafficking that made the cult so notorious. By 1920 Hollywood had begun to encroach upon Krotona, and Dr. Warrington decided to lead the faithful to the Ojai Valley, a section of Southern California thoroughly impregnated with occult and psychic influences. Dogs. He fell under the mystical guidance of the Philosophical Research Society as well as the proto-hippie lifestyle. The 3 main personality traits of cult leaders, according to a cult-recovery therapist. .] It is not by chance, therefore, that the I AM cult has Hitlerian overtones, with such auxiliary organizations as the Minute Men of Saint Germain and the Daughters of Light.By the time an I AM audience repeats a chant the fourth time, the members are shouting with all the frenzy of a mob of Nazis yelling, Sieg Heil!. Afterward, in the bedroom, his wife Rosemary died after receiving 41 stabs. One of the most notorious cults sprouted in San Francisco. (The more nefarious side of fringe spiritual belief is also becoming increasingly mainstream, as seen in the rise of QAnon.). He also claimed that a socialist Egyptian leader would become world dictator in 1986, that Armageddon would be fought in the late 1980s, and that Jesus would return in 1993. When she was forty, she moved to New York, where, through her interest in spiritualism. Meet five 20th-century cult leaders whose influence led to deadly consequences around the globe. In 1977, Jones relocated the People's Temple from San Francisco, California, to Jonestown, Guyana. The cult then bought the famous Ridgewood Ranch, home of renowned racehorse Seabiscuit, and remains there to this day. Mar 11, 2018, 8:00 AM. 16. All the guests and Tate herself were murdered by a combination of gunshots and stabbings. Their theology was highly militant, and their monthly publication Battle Cry: Aggressive Christianity was replete with images of warfare against demonic forces. (The sources are documented in an interesting volume: Psychic Dictatorship in America by Gerald B. Bryan, published in Los Angeles in 1940. Although not entirely false about the merit of organic food, the mechanisms of spreading the message are very troublesome. Another weird psychic cult in the area is the Spiritual Rights Foundation, founded by William Baldwin (aka Reverend Bill). Flooded with requests from all over the world, the local newspapers and wire services filed 95,000 words of copy in a single day. Half a century ago, you could barely walk down the street in California without tripping over some kind of fringe spiritual sect or cult-like group. Only one day later, the Family committed another series of murders. His victims were usually female prostitutes, whose throats were cut before he mutilated their abdomens. Certain basic themes appear in the I AM and Alankind United cults. For Cults Week, Megan Koester visited eight once-infamous locations to see what. 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. That Mrs. McPhersons first appearance should have been in San Diego is, in itself, highly significant. CAREY MCWILLIAMS was educated in law at the University of Southern California, from which he graduated in 1927. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. Charles Manson (The Manson Family) Deburke321/YouTube One of history's most notorious criminals, Charles Manson was the cult leader of the Manson Family. Sitting under a tree in Jabalpur, he experienced a mystical experience that would change his life. Her entrance into Los Angeles was a major triumph. He didnt have to go to classes at all and was allowed to just take the exams. One story states that the youngest members of the cult learned to have sex, which was deemed Gods way of expressing his love. . 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