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 Manson Family
Charles Milles Manson was born on 1934-NOV-11 or 12; sources differ. He is a person with an unusual ability to dominate others. He assembled a destructive, doomsday cult around himself, which the media later called The Family. At one time, it numbered in excess of 100 individuals at the Spahn Ranch some 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles CA. Manson was referred to both as "God" and "Satan" by his followers. As the family's guru, he claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
Quote: "Your water’s dying. Your life’s in that cup. Your trees are dying. Your wildlife’s locked up in zoos. You’re in the zoo, Man. How do you feel about it?" - Charles Manson
Watch Manson Interview
The first murder by the family was of Gary Hinman, a Los Angeles drug dealer and musician. His body was discovered on 1969-JUL-31. The first series of mass murders, called the "Tate" homicides, occurred at the home of Sharon (Tate) Polanski on 1969-AUG-9.
Watch "Manson Family Murders"
Three victims were shot and/or stabbed multiple times on the grounds of the estate. These were Abigail Folger, Steven Parent and Voiytek Frykowski. Sharon Polanski and Jay Sebring were murdered inside the house. Sharon, 8 months pregnant at the time, died from numerous stab wounds, five of which were by themselves fatal; Jay died of blood loss. Both had their necks loosely attached by a single rope over a rafter. The next homicides, called the "LaBianca murders," occurred two days later in the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. They were found stabbed to death with dozens of wounds. Finally, Donald Shea was murdered. He was a former stuntman and hired hand at the Spahn Ranch.
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 Solar Temple
The Order of the Solar Temple also known as Ordre du Temple Solaire (OTS) in French, and the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition or simply as The Solar Temple was a secret society based upon the new age myth of the continuing existence of the Knights Templar. OTS was started by Joseph Di Mambro
Cult Leader Joseph Di Mambro
and Luc Jouret in 1984 in Geneva as l’Ordre International Chevaleresque de Tradition Solaire (OICTS) and renamed Ordre du Temple Solaire. It is believed that other members were also involved who have remained unknown to the public.
Watch Solar Temple Aftermath
In October 1994 Tony Dutoit’s infant son (Emmanuel Dutoit), aged three months, was killed at the group’s centre in Morin Heights, Quebec. The baby had been stabbed repeatedly with a wooden stake. A few days later, Di Mambro and twelve followers performed a ritual Last Supper. A few days after that, apparent mass suicides and murders were conducted at two villages in Switzerland, and at Morin Heights — 15 inner circle members committed suicide with poison, 30 were killed by bullets or smothering, and 8 others were killed by other causes. Many of the bodies when found were drugged, possibly to prevent the members from objecting. The buildings were then set on fire by timer devices, purportedly as one last symbol of the group’s purification..
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 Branch Davidians
The Branch Davidians are a religious sect who originated from a schism in 1955 from the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, themselves former members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who were disfellowshipped during the 1930s. From its inception in the 1930s, the splinter movement inherited Adventism’s apocalypticism, in that they believed themselves to be living in a time when Christian prophecies of a final divine judgment were coming to pass.
Watch More About David Koresh
They are best known for the 1993 siege of their Center near Waco, Texas, by the ATF and the FBI, which resulted in the deaths of eighty-two of the church’s members, including head figure David Koresh. However, by the time of the siege, Koresh had encouraged his followers to think of themselves as “students of the Seven Seals” rather than as “Branch Davidians,” and other Branch Davidian factions never accepted his leadership.
Watch: Waco Slaughter 1993
Some former members of Koresh’s group alleged that he practiced polygamy with underage brides, physically abused children, and stockpiled illegal weapons, legal authorities investigated these charges. On February 28, 1993, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) conducted a raid on Mount Carmel, a property of the Davidians. The raid resulted in the deaths of six Davidians and four ATF agents after a firefight broke out.
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 Supreme Truth
Aum Shinrikyo, is a Japanese religious group founded by Shoko Asahara. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out a Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways. In 2000 the organization changed its name to “Aleph” also known as 'Supreme Truth', changing its logo as well. In 1995 the group had 9,000 members in Japan, and as many as 40,000 worldwide. As of 2004 Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph membership was estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 people.
Leader: Aum Shinrikyo
The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward in 1984, starting off as a Yoga and meditation class known as Aum-no-kai and steadily grew in the following years. It gained the official status as a religious organization in 1989. It attracted such a considerable number of young graduates from Japan’s elite universities that it was dubbed a “religion for the elite”. Aum’s PR activities included publishing.
Watch: "Supreme Truth Gass Attack"
In Japan, where comics and animated cartoons enjoy unprecedented popularity among all ages, Aum attempted to tie religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes – space missions, extremely powerful weapons, world conspiracies and conquest for ultimate truth.
Most notably on the night of 27th June 1994, the cult carried out the world’s first use of chemical weapons in a terrorist attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto. This Matsumoto incident killed seven and harmed 200 more. However, police investigations focused only on an innocent local resident and failed to implicate the cult. 11 cult members have been sentenced to death. |
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 People's Temple
On 18 November 1978, more than 900 people died in the largest mass murder/suicide in
Watch "Jim Jones & The People's Temple"
American history. Most of the deaths occurred in a jungle encampment in Guyana, South America, where members of a group called Peoples Temple lived in a utopian community and agricultural project known as Jonestown. Most died after drinking a fruit punch laced with cyanide and tranquilizers, although some may have been injected; two residents died of gunshot wounds. Earlier that day a few other residents of the group had assassinated a U.S. congressman along with three members of the media and a departing Jonestown resident. And in Guyana’s capital city of Georgetown, yet another member of the group killed her three children and then herself after receiving word of the deaths in Jonestown. In all, 918 Americans lost their lives that day
Watch: "Jonestown"
Since that time, Jonestown and its leader Jim Jones have entered American discourse as code for the dangers of cults and cult leaders. The expression “drinking the Kool-Aid”—which means both blindly jumping on the bandwagon, and being a team player—is one manifestation of this. The story of Jonestown, and of its parent organization Peoples Temple, however, is more complicated than sound-bites comparing strict parents to Jim Jones, or pundits relating religious violence (such as the suicide air strikes of 11 September 2001) to Jonestown. Instead, Jonestown serves as a lesson in how a combination of media, government, and citizens can create a climate of persecution and fear. It also provides an example of how uncritical acceptance of the status quo and social and geographic isolation can lead to violence and even death.
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 Heaven's Gate
Heaven’s Gate is a destructive, doomsday cult centered in California. 21 women and 18 men voluntarily committed suicide in three groups on three successive days starting on March 23, 1997. Most were in their 40’s; the rest covered an age range of 26 to 72. Two months later, two additional members, Charles Humphrey and Wayne Cooke attempted suicide in a hotel room a few miles from the Rancho Santa Fe mansion; Cooke succeeded. Humphrey tried again in the Arizona desert during Feb 1998 and was successful.
Watch Applegate: The Cult Leader
They followed a syncretistic religion, combining elements of Christianity with unusual beliefs about the nature of UFOs. They interpreted passages from the four gospels and the book Revelation as referring to UFO visitation. In particular, they emphasized a story in Revelation which described two witnesses who are killed, remained dead for 3 1/2 days, were revived and taken up into the clouds. They look upon earth as being in the control of evil forces, and perceived themselves as being among the elite who would attain heaven. They held a profoundly dualistic belief of the soul as being a superior entity which is only housed temporarily in a body.
Watch Heaven's Gate Aftermath
Thirty-eight group members, plus Applewhite, the group’s leader, were found dead in a rented mansion in the upscale San Diego community of Rancho Santa Fe, California, on March 26, 1997. The mass death of the Heaven’s Gate group is said to be one of the most widely-known examples of cult suicide. In preparing to kill themselves, members of the group drank citrus juices to ritually cleanse their bodies of impurities. The suicide was accomplished by ingestion of phenobarbital mixed with vodka, along with plastic bags secured around their heads to induce asphyxiation. They were found lying neatly in their own bunk beds, with their faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth. |
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 Restoration 10
The full name of this cult is the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway group from the Roman Catholic Church that formed in Uganda in the late 1980s. As the name implies the group strongly emphasized the Ten Commandments. This emphasis meant they even discouraged talking: out of fear of breaking the commandment about giving false witness. They also believed that their strict adherence to the Ten Commandments would be advantageous after the apocalypse.
Leader: Joseph Kibweteere
This proved significant as the group had a strong emphasis on the apocalypse, highlighted by their booklet A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Time. New members were required to study it and be trained in it, reading it as many as six times. They also taught that Mother Mary had a special role in the apocalypse, and communicated to the leadership. They saw themselves as like Noah’s Ark, a ship of righteousness in a sea of depravity.
Watch "Doomday Cult: Uganda"
In March of 2000, around 300 followers died in a fire in what is considered a cult suicide. Investigations conducted after the fire discovered mass graves, raising the death toll to over 1,000. This may mean it was larger than the Jonestown murder/suicide in 1978, but some speculate the death toll was around 800. There are also allegations that the event was more of a mass murder by the leadership. |
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