Inside The Minds Of These Cult Leaders

Shoko Asahara

Image Source: BBC

Asahara founded the Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) cult and persuaded a group of people to release poisonous nerve gases into crowded subway trains in Tokyo. The Kasumigaseki station was picked due to its closeness to government buildings. He claimed he could read minds and levitate. He was executed in 2018.

Jim Jones

Image Source: The Guardian

Probably one of the most well-known cult leaders, Jim Jones founded the Peoples Temple Church. He managed to mix with political leaders by offering his cult members to volunteer for them. Jones brought 1000 of his members to Guyana promising them a utopian community. He forced his members to drink poison and killed himself later that night.

Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret

Image Source: Bitter Winter

This duo created the Order of the Solar Temple, which had members across continents in Australia, France, Canada and more. Jouret preached about the end of the world coming and managed to persuade over 54 people to commit suicide and then more at different times.

Marshall Applewhite

Image Source: ABC News

Marshall Applewhite founded the Heaven's Gate cult who subscribed to the philosophy of sci-fi and UFO's. They made money by operating a web design service and used this money to move in to a mansion together. It was here they all ended their own lives. Many of them had been castrated in order to 'reduce unwanted distractions'.

Bonnie Lu Nettles

Image Source: ABC News

Bonnie became the partner of Marshall Applewhite, abandoning her husband and four children in order to join him in creating the Heaven's Gate cult. She believed alongside Applewhite that they were aliens and that they would become immortal ascending to heaven via alien spaceship?

David Koresh

Image Source: Rolling Stone

Koresh joined the Branch Davidians in 1981 after dropping out of high school and quickly became the sect's leader. He constantly claimed the world was ending and used peoples beliefs against them having children with a load of members and engaging with underage members. A fire broke out after a standoff with government officials and most members died.

Timothy McVeigh

Image Source: Reddit

Now, Timothy McVeigh wasn't a cult leader, but he committed horrific crimes just as the rest of the list have. He actually went to Waco during the Branch Davidians siege and was devastated by the way the government handled the situation. This was part of his anger when it came to him bombing the Federal Building in Oklahoma.

Charles Manson

Image Source: NBC News

Manson was the leader of the most notorious cult in recent history known as the Manson Family. He preached the coming of an apocalyptic race and a race war between white and black people. They killed white people and tried to place the blame on black people, committing gruesome crimes and then leaving victims wallets in African-American areas.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Image Source: Daily Mail

At the age of 21 Bhagwan claimed he was spiritually enlightened and apparently experienced a mystical experience. He developed Rajneeshpuram grew in Oregon of all places, and he tried to have sex with all members by any means necessary. Rajneesh was deported after trying to take over the local government.

David Berg

Image Source: All That's Interesting

Berg founded the Children of God, later becoming Family International that still lives to this day. He was an extremely creepy man who taught followers of this cult from an extremely young age how to have sex. He even married a 3 year old girl after claiming she was born for that purpose. Disgusting.

Valentina De Andrade

Image Source: G1

Andrade was the founder of the Superior Universal Alignment cult and developed the obscure and convoluted belief that any babies born after the year 1981 were evil. For this reason her and her cult captured and killed a load of children, and she managed to escape prosecution thanks to friends she had in higher places; she escaped to Argentina whist her associates were convicted.

Sun Myung Moon

[caption id="attachment_189548" align="alignnone" width="800"] Image Source: NPR

Sun's followers became synonymous with the term 'The Moonies' and at the time were one of the largest cults ever. He married hundreds maybe thousands of his loyal followers and claimed to be the messiah after Jesus anointed him to finish his work. He had international influence, as he had friendships with leaders like Gorbachev, Nixon and the Bushes.[/caption]

Michel Rostand

Image Source: CNN

Although Rostand claimed he had developed an 'Anti-Cult' in Buddhafield it appears it was anything but this. Rostand was always roaming around in a Speedo and claimed to be a guru, calling himself reyji (god-king). He gave members new identities and forced them to worship him. There have been claims of abuse to his followers also!

Anne Hamilton-Byrne

Image Source: The New Daily

Hamilton-Byrne developed and founded the 'The Family' religion in Australia during the 60's and all of its members were nurses and doctors that worked at a psychiatric facility. These members used LSD to recruit patients that believed she was a reincarnation of Jesus. They illegally obtained kids to give them LSD too!

Warren Jeffs

Image Source: TODAY

Warren Jeffs, despite currently serving a life sentence, is the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ. A denomination of the Latter Day Saints movement. They seperated after refusing to abandon polygamy; Jeffs appeared on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list following him arranging the marriage of underage girls.

Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteree

Image Source: BBC

These two founded the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments (bit of a mouthful) and followed the commandments so strictly they didn't even speak. They claimed the world was ending and their members gave over their belongings. When the world didn't end (shock) the members were fuming and the duo had them all killed in a fire. It's believed they're still alive in hiding.

Ervil LeBaron

Image Source: The Body International

Ervil LeBaron was also a member of the Latter-Day saints movement; his father had moved a group of members who disagreed with the removal of polygamy to Mexico. Upon gaining control of the Church of The First Born of the Lamb of God, he married 14 times to underage girls, ordered the death of his siblings and even his daughter who wished to leave the cult.

Adolfo Constanzo

Image Source: Oxygen

Adolfo wasn't just a cult leader but a drug trafficking cult leader! He developed an interest in voodoo and magic and managed to impress criminals and officials with such magic. He gained a hold over followers, forcing them to abduct people to sacrifice in order to protect him from the police.

Keith Raniere

Image Source: NBC News

Raniere manage to change the cult game, founding NXIVM which became popular with celebrities including Allison Mack. Essentially female members were used to attract woman to the group, all of which would be slaves to eachother, who in turn were slaves to Raniere. He branded his slaves, and still runs the group from his prison cell.

Father Yod

Image Source: Reddit

Obviously not his real name, Yod incorporated the beliefs of Yogi Bhajan into his own an created the Source Family. He married 14 times, and had 3 children; they lived communally in the Hollywood Hills and they promoted a healthy living lifestyle. Finally not a murderous cult!

Amy Carlson

Image Source: The Times

Also known as Mother God to her followers, Carlson was the Leader of the Love Has Won group. She claimed to be able to cure cancer and even communicate with angels. And perhaps the most bizzare claim that she was the reincarnation of both Jesus and, wait for it, Marilyn Monroe. It was all just a ploy for money however.

Daniel Perez

Image Source: CBS News

Perez claimed to be an angel, born over 1,000 years ago and became the leader of a group of young girls. He managed to persuade his followers he had to engage in relations with young girls to keep himself alive. He managed to gain millions of dollars off life insurance policies from his followers that died.

Pyotr Kuznetsov

Image Source: RT

Kuznetsov founded the Russian Doomsday cult after breaking away from the Orthodox church. He forced 30 of his followers to remain in a cave to wait for the end of the world in 2008, this obviously never came and 28 people left alive 6 months later. 2 had died. No one knows where he is to this day.

Tony Alamo

Image Source: NBC News

Tony and one of his wives, Susan Alamo, formed the Alamo Christian Foundation in 1969; they used young children on the streets of Hollywood to try and recruit people. He was eventually convicted of a number of crimes including the transporting of minor across state lines.

Wayne Bent

Image Source: Reddit

Wayne Bent founded the Lord Our Righteousness Church in 1941. He claimed that he experienced an interaction with God where he was informed he was 'The Messiah'. He also claimed he was told to sleep with seven virgins, including the young girls living in his religious commune.

Matthew F. Hale

Image Source: NBC News

Matthew Hale was the founder of the white separatist group the World Church of the Creator; calling himself the highest priest. He was an extremely racist man who was convicted on numerous occasions for race crimes. Himself and his believers thought that a race war was necessary to attain a 'white world'.

Alice Lenshina

Image Source: Twitter

Lenshina founded and became the leader of the Lumpa Church a religious group that rejected any form of government. They refused to pay any taxes and tried to seperate villages from their members and others. Lumpa Church members ended up at war with UNIP members which caused the deaths of over 1000 people.

Fred Phelps

Image Source: NBC News

Phelps founded the Westboro Baptist Church in 1955 and himself and his followers forced their homophobic views on the public. They used to appear at gay people and those that 'tolerated' gay people's funerals claiming they deserved their death. He even praised Saddam Hussein for his regime. Sheesh.

Yahweh Ben Yahweh

Image Source: The Daily Beast

Yahweh was a Black Separatist and founded a religious movement named after himself, the Nation of Yahweh. He believed that Jesus is black and that white people were devils that ruled over black people. He was eventually convicted of conspiracy to murder and entered the witness protection programme following his release.

Jim Bakker

Image Source: Newsweek

Jim Bakker is an American televangelist who founded the PTL or Praise the Lord organisation. He was eventually imprisoned after revelations surrounding accounting fraud came about. He actually returned to TV and currently hosts The Jim Bakker Show to this day.