The Church of Bible Understanding (formerly known as the Forever Family)
is a destructive cult started in 1971 by former atheist and vacuum repairman Stewart Traill in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The cult targeted teens as young as 13 by drawing on their weaknesses. Throughout the 1970s, the cult expanded to many other parts of the United States. Members of the cult live in a commune and donate 90% of their income to the cult. Traill amassed a fortune and owns four planes and a half million dollar mansion. According to former members, Traill controls every aspect of members’ lives through harsh criticism, shame, and public humiliation.
The Manson Family
was a cult started by Charles Manson. Manson was born to Kathleen Maddox, an unwed sixteen year old girl, in 1934. After a number of robberies, he was put in jail for the first time. Manson began teaching his followers that social uprisings were coming – using the assassination of Martin Luther King as evidence. He also told them that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by The Beatles. The White Album songs, he declared, told it all, although in code; in fact, he maintained, the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.
Aum Shinrikyo
is a Japanese religious group founded by Shoko Asahara. 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 attracted such a considerable number of young graduates from Japan’s elite universities that it was dubbed a “religion for the elite”.
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. This emphasis meant they even discouraged talking: out of fear of breaking the commandment about giving false witness. They saw themselves as like Noah’s Ark, a ship of righteousness in a sea of depravity. The group tended to be secretive and as mentioned above, was literally silent. Therefore it was relatively unknown to the outside world until 2000, although in 1998 the school they ran was sanctioned by the government due to unsanitary conditions and violation of child labor statutes.
Raëlism or Raelian Church
is a UFO religion founded by a purported contactee named Claude Vorilhon. Members of the Raëlian Church consist of people who have been baptized by Raëlian clergy in quarterly ceremonies, and among the converts are members of Raëlian-founded free love groups such as the Order of Angels and Raël’s Girls.
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 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. He believed that the Anti-Christ was born into the order to prevent Di Mambro from succeeding in his spiritual aim.
Heaven’s Gate
is a destructive, doomsday cult centered in California. 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. Applewhite said that bodies were only “the temporary containers of the soul…The final act of metamorphosis or separation from the human kingdom is the ‘disconnect’ or separation from the human physical container or body in order to be released from the human environment.” Members called themselves brother and sister; they looked upon themselves as monks and nuns; they lived communally in a large, rented San Diego County (CA) home which they called their monastery. Most members had little contact with their families of origin or with their neighbors. Many followed successful professional careers before entering the group. Some abandoned their children before joining. They were free to leave at any time.
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.
The Unification Church (Mooneyism)
is a new religious movement started by Sun Myung Moon in Korea in the 1940s. In the United States in the 1970s, the media reported on the high-pressure recruitment methods of Unificationists and said that the church separated vulnerable college students from their families through the use of brainwashing or mind control. Moon dismissed these criticisms, stating in 1976 that he had received many thank-you letters from parents whose children became closer to them after joining the movement.
The Alamo Christian Foundation
Tony Alamo was a popular entertainer, record producer and health club owner in California the 1960’s. In 1969, they started the Alamo Christian Foundation, an organization that quickly gained notoriety for it’s intense evangelistic methods and “in your face” approach to sin in the Hollywood culture at large. Even many of those with outside employment were asked to turn over their paychecks and assets to further the work of the ministry. He was accused in 1988 of beating an 11 year old child in the community, via ordering the parent of the child over the telephone to do so. Stories were starting to leak out from ex-members alleging that Alamo wielded such control in his communities that he literally would split up families and rearrange marriages at will. He is tends to emphasize the strictness of God's moral commands, as well as God's judgment upon sin.
Children of God
(a.k.a. The Family, Family of Love) Founder: David Berg. The Family is a high-demand faith group that requires great personal sacrifice on the part of its members. They emphasize Jesus' teachings against loyalties to one's family-of-origin. They stress Jesus' preaching in favor of poverty and a simple life. Berg received a "revelation" from God in 1969 that a disastrous earthquake was about to hit California, and cause part of the state to slide into the ocean. He led the group out of Huntington Beach to wander throughout the American southwest for 8 months. During that time, they changed their name to the Children of God. The earthquake never materialized as Berg prophesied. He received "revelations" from God identifying himself as the "End Time Prophet" who would play a major role in the Second Coming, the long anticipated return to earth of Jesus Christ. New members were encouraged to sever all contact with their families of origin, to donate almost their entire possessions to the group, and become full time evangelists. Their parents were justifiably concerned about the status, future and safety of their adult children.
The Christadelphian Church
was begun by Dr. John Thomas who was born in London England and was raised in a Congregational Church. He had some Christianity in his background. Members are not to be part of politics, nor engage in any form of public service. Members are not permitted to take communion in any other church. Doing so means excommunication. They believe that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant word of God. But it becomes their interpretation that guides their members for it is not a sound interpretation. Like all the cults they are exclusive. They believe that there has been an apostasy and that Christianity is a false religious system.
The Christian Identity
movement is a movement of many extremely conservative Christian churches and religious organizations, extreme right wing political groups and survival groups. A very conservative interpretation of the Christian Bible. This has led to a hatred of homosexuality and of homosexuals and a rejection of followers of other religions.
Christian Science
was founded by a woman named Mary Baker Eddy. God is infinite...and there is no other power or source. God is the only intelligence in the universe, including man. True healings are the result of true belief. Additionally, Christian Scientists prefer not to use doctors, medicine, or immunizations. Proper prayer and training are employed to battle the "non-reality" of illness. Mary Baker Eddy is highly regarded as a revelator of God's word. She claimed it was the final revelation of God to mankind and asserted that her work was inspired of God. Of course, like all cults, it claimed to be the restoration of the original New Testament Church.
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