The 5 Worst Cults Of All Time | Answers With Joe

This video is backed by curiosity, brothers and sisters, the world is a dangerous place full of demons and dark forces that want to control you, you know it, you feel it and that is what brought you here, but I have bad news for you, brothers and sisters. i can't save you i'm not strong enough to save you the dark forces that rule this world have grown too big for too long they have won france there is no counterattack there is only escape luckily the good lord has sent us a messenger messenger with a gps road map from god if you can, I can name him amen messenger who will take you out of this dark place to paradise a paradise full of unlimited love and infinite delights and the name of that messenger is the immaculate the divine the indomitable zoe zoe is the light she is the darkness she is the beginning and the end she is the only true messenger that will take us out of this hellish existence place all your trust in her because she is the only path to true happiness and salvation family they lie to you there is no family zoe is your family your sources really your media all liars liars who want to keep you complacent until they can drain your blood don't listen to them there is only one source of truth in this world and that is zoey can I get an amen? god has three letters so he has three letters you can't question that money you don't need money in paradise friends get rid of the demonic paper clean it up and make it pure by depositing it in zoe's account via direct deposit bank transfer venmo paypal and we accept checks hallelujah now close your eyes close your eyes and give silent thanks to the true messenger of god the only zoe close your eyes now closer pleasant in the 1950s anthropologists visited the island of tana and vanuatu and found something they did not expect: a tribe of natives on the deep in the jungle with a really strange religion.

They worshiped an American guy named John Frum, who was John and why did he have religious devotees praying to him in Turns out one of the most remote places in the world, John Frum, was an American soldier who was stationed in Tana during World War II and while there he accidentally started a cult, so in World War II the United States had a strategy of going from island to island, clearing a path so they could attack Japan directly and this meant going to many very remote islands where they lived. natives who had very little or no contact with the outside world and Then, suddenly, out of nowhere these pale people appear with these metal monsters and flying machines and lots and lots and lots of shipments full of weapons, tools and food that they had never seen before. they had never seen before in their lives and in quantities they could never have imagined. people were living subsistence lives and suddenly there was literally food falling from the sky, well what would you think?

Of course, they thought they were gods or at least manifestations of their current gods, so the war ended, the troops went home and the natives were just left there, buddy, so they prayed and performed rituals and sacrifices trying to appease these gods to come back and bring with them that precious cargo and these became known as cargo

cults

, dozens of them emerged on these islands around the Pacific after World War II and most of them disappeared after a while. You know, they realized they weren't coming back, but the John Frum movement still continues to this day, of course, now it's more of a cultural quirk of the island than an actual religion, but for decades people actually prayed to John Frum in the temples that bore his name, they waved American flags over their villages once a year, held parades in his honor, and dressed as American soldiers, all of them believing that one day John Frum would do it. come back and bless them with riches beyond their wildest dreams, while the real John Frum lived out the rest of his days here in the United States with no idea that on the other side of the world there were people worshiping him as a god, assuming John. de was a real person, there are some people who think that john frum is actually short for john of america as a soldier from america, but regardless of whether jon de was a real person or not, they made him a real person, a central figure around which they could base their religion and this could be one of the reasons why this charge cult continued when others did not.

There are many different types of

cults

. Cargo cults. They are mostly harmless. They're just an interesting side. Note on the subject, but cults in general can be really harmful and totally ruin people's lives. Most sects are related to religion in some way. In fact, there is a saying that sect plus

time

equals religion because all religions began as a sect. In some ways, in fact, many people prefer not to use the word cult at all and prefer to use the term new religious movement, but not all sects are religious in nature. Sects can be formed around any ideology, products, companies, entrepreneurs, methods of self-improvement, health. basically any cause or movement that can be taken up by a charismatic leader and then people find an unhealthy devotion to you, you are entering cult territory, according to Ron n Roth from his book The Appeal of Cults, some of the main categories and sects include Eastern mystical aberrant Christian psychospiritual or self-improvement eclectic or synchrotist psychic occult or astral established cults and extremist political and social movements Now there is a good chance that at some point in your life you have fallen into a group that fits one of These categories are somewhat minor, which really makes it a cult, although 99 of the

time

it is a charismatic leader, someone who is very persuasive, usually a narcissist with authoritarian tendencies, an obsession with power, sex or money or all three, I mean, think about the kind of narcissism you would have to really think that you are Jesus and that people should worship you, but as people begin to line up behind this charismatic leader, some common traits begin to emerge. arise, the group shows an overly zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and respects his belief system, ideology and practices such as truth as law questioning doubt and descending or discouraging or even punishing mind-altering practices such as meditation, singing, speaking in Languages, complaint sessions or debilitating work routines are overused and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader.

Leadership sometimes dictates in great detail how members should think, act, and feel. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which can cause conflict with society at large. The leader is not responsible to any authority. Leadership induces feelings of shame or guilt to achieve this. To influence and control members, this is often done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. Submission to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group. This is not an exhaustive list, there are other similarities and not all cults fit into each of these points, but the basic gist is that cults try to control how their members think by controlling the access they have to information.

It's classic brainwashing and not all cults are necessarily dangerous. I know that for many people it can be a very positive experience as long as the ideology is not too extreme, but in general they are dangerous, at the very least, they can take away your freedom of thought and can bleed you both dry. financially and socially, but some are definitely worse than others, some are more controlling than others, some have more nefarious goals than others, there are many different ways to define

worst

when it comes to cults, but for this list I'm going to use a very simple metric and it's human lives, how many people actually lost their lives because this cult fell willingly or not so willingly and it probably doesn't need to be said explicitly, but this gets pretty creepy so yeah, you've been warned number five: the Heaven's Gate cult, anyone who was present in 1997 probably has the images burned into their minds, room after room filled with bunk beds containing people, tracksuits and matching Nike shoes covered by a purple shroud in March of that year, the Earth was visited. by Comet Hail Bob, which is one of the brightest and most spectacular comets we have seen in the last 50 years.

Seriously, I remember seeing it. It is easily the most impressive comet I have ever seen. The world was staring in awe at this thing in the sky, but none more so than the Heaven's Gate Cult. On March 26, the 39 members of the group went out to dinner at a local San Diego restaurant and they all ordered the same thing, turkey. blueberry cheesecake and iced tea, then they returned to their rancho santa fe compound recorded goodbye messages on a video camera, put on their tracksuits and then consumed a mixture of barbiturates and vodka with applesauce, then went to their bunks and fell asleep. to sleep the two remaining members then methodically went from room to room with a plastic bag placing it over each person's head until they suffocated and then took their own lies by taking a lethal dose of the barbiturates they believed that by doing so they would ascend in a UFO who was hiding behind the hillbop comet, seriously, how do almost 40 people come to that conclusion and believe it so strongly that they are willing to end their lives for it?

Well it didn't happen overnight in fact it took 25 years the leader was a man named marshall applewhite marshall grew up in texas and studied music then became a music professor and choir director at the university of alabama . After the divorce in 1968, he had some sort of nervous breakdown and finally ended up in the hospital in 1972, where he met a nurse named Bonnie Lou Nettles, the two hit it off right away and it's like one of those things like you know... Sometimes you meet a stranger and everything just falls into place and you hit it off right away and you finally decide you know you're obviously a couple of advanced super beings or prophesied in the book of revelation, it was one of those things that started traveling around the country spreading their word and developing an intricate belief system in which they believed that they were what they called quote unquote level above humans, basically heaven and human form and it was their job, it was their duty to convert as many people as possible to that they would be like them until the world was recycled apocalypse style.

They believed that the human body was just a vessel and that to ascend to that higher form they had to avoid all human interests and all human desires and they believed that the aliens were their pure spiritual form and that one day a spaceship would come and the aliens would come. would lead to that higher plane and they believe that there were some humans of the next level that came before them. Since Jesus was one of them, they changed their names to bow and look clearly because they considered themselves shepherds, but then they changed their names to tea and dough, so for the next decade they traveled the country and recruited people for their group, eventually arriving about 200 people before they started eliminating all but the most loyal and obedient members, members were kept under a strict code of uniformity, smoking alcohol and sex were prohibited and all members wore the same baggy clothes and the same haircuts they wanted to be essentially genderless.

In fact, some of the castrated males were also kept on a very strict and regimented work schedule to keep them constantly busy. In 1985, Nettles died of cancer and Marshall Applewhite took control of the group's soul and they eventually settled in San Diego in In the '90s, they established a really successful web design company. Seriously, it was a company called Hire Source and they actually had a great reputation in the area for being on the cutting edge of web design at the time they were working. He said they were very professional, a little weird but professional, and if you want to see some of their work you can because the original Heavensgate website is still up in all its 90s design glory, there were a couple of members who They decided not to do it. leveled up so they could continue running this website over time, so in 1995 when the hellbop comment was discovered, Marshall Applewhite or Doe as they called him at the time decided that was the sign they had been waiting and set his departure.

Strategy in Action The fact that these people took their own lives is, of course, tragic and sad, but as far as death cults go, they were pretty harmless. I know it's kind of strange, but for the most part, all the people who were former members of the group. He had nothing but positive things to say about his time there, you know, they didn't abuse the members, they didn't exploit the members.kids or anything like that and they didn't stop people from leaving, apparently if someone wanted to leave they could. People were there because they wanted to be there, so yes, it's sad for us, but in their closing statements or exit interviews, as they called them, they seem very happy, in fact, excited to go on this journey.

I'm not trying to give a positive opinion. give this a spin or something, but most of the other people on this list didn't come out so happy number four the order of the solar temple on september 30, 1994 emmanuel dubois was stabbed to death in his home in montreal the killers then they burned the house down killing his parents along with him emmanuel was three months old his murder was carried out by members of the order of the solar temple under the direction of their leader luke gerais believed that the child was the antichrist five days later the swiss firefighters They responded to a call about a fireWhen they got there, they found 23 charred bodies lying in a circle, one of them Luke Gerais himself That same day, ski chalet fires in Switzerland revealed 25 more bodies and 15 more were found in fires in Canada in 1995. 16 more burned bodies were found in the French Alps and five more were found a couple of years later in 1997.

The order of the solar temple was in disarray. It was founded in the early 1980s, although it formed over a period of many years. Most people attribute it to 1984. and believed that they were some kind of reincarnation of the ninth templar with some new age mysticism in their leaders with the aforementioned luke gerais and joseph de monbro. They both had their own following, so they just combined them to form something. of a super group, they were the damned colts Yankees. Geray said they were descended from members of a revival of the Knights Templar in France after the 1805 revolution and, like the Knights Templar, they relied heavily on secret rituals and symbolism that no one else outside the group did.

You were allowed to attend their ceremonies or learn about their beliefs and new members were only allowed in if they were sponsored by the elders of the groups and then only allowed in after performing elaborate rituals and duties. They had secret relics, handshakes and keywords, and it was very hierarchical with three levels of membership, you could level up by being promoted by people who are in that upper echelon or you could just buy your way in, like many people did, of In fact, they cultivated many successful entrepreneurs in the group that way. It was done on purpose, of course, these guys craved power and in fact had many connections to far-right groups in Europe and of course all that money was funneled to leaders who lived an extravagant lifestyle at From this as the exposure grew, so did the scrutiny over their financial structure and the behavior of the leaders in the group, as you know, insisting that all the women have sex with them and along with the scrutiny came paranoia. and delusions of grandeur.

Luke Gerais believed that he was the third reincarnation of Jesus and José de Monbro believed that his children were demigods. His teachings became increasingly apocalyptic. The survival mentality seemed to take over his group. In fact, they established many organic farms that they could use to survive the coming apocalypse, but this. Somehow they were further transformed into the belief that life itself is an illusion and that they would need to shed their Earth bodies in order to be reborn on a planet orbiting the star Sirius. All of this increasingly crazy rhetoric led to factions within a group with some of the group deciding to split up and go follow a guy named Robert Follerdoo and this set the stage for De Monbro and Giurai to play out their end game, taking his followers with them and purifying their souls with fire.

It is not known how many went voluntarily and how many were. killed in the 1994 cleanup. some bodies were found with gunshot wounds they had but it is not known if they were shot or it was just part of some grizzly ritual, believe it or not, the order of the solar temple still exists. today in some form, although the details are, unsurprisingly, very secret number three, the Branch Davidians, oh wow, the Davidian brains are probably the most controversial on this list because, depending on who you ask , are a crazed extremist child abusing the end times cult he killed. five members of the police and then burned in a fire or a simple, slightly strange religious sect that was murdered in cold blood by federal agents;

In fact, there are some people who argue that they really shouldn't even be called a cult, but they fit a lot of the descriptions I laid out above, so for the purpose of this video, I'm going to stick with it. The Mark Davidians are what some might call a new religious movement, but in reality they have been around for a long time. It split from the Seventh-day Adventists in the 1930s. The divisions were formed by a Bulgarian immigrant named Victor Hoteff who believed that Jesus was not the Messiah, prophesied in the book of Isaiah that that Messiah was yet to come and, therefore, of course, when this Messiah arrived. would bring about the apocalypse and of course this was going to happen any minute now so hotef and the davidians bought a piece of land outside of waco texas and named it mount carmel where they plan to script this impending apocalypse and establish a davidian kingdom .

Hotep's death in 1955 divided the group somewhat: some followed his widow Florence and others followed a pastor named Benjamin Rhoden Florence and his followers left Mount Carmel and the remaining members began calling themselves Branch Davidians In 1981 Benjamin Rhoden had died and leadership of the group passed to his wife Lois and son George Rhoden, who continued to preach the gospel that this Messiah would soon come and bring the apocalypse with him and then Vernon Howell arrived. Howell came from an unstable family and had a troubled past. But he had just become a born-again Christian, jumping from the Southern Baptist Church to the Seventh-day Adventists and eventually ending up on Mount Carmel. his rise to leadership of the group is as crazy as any of the events that would follow.

He quickly gained followers with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible and his apparent gift for prophecy, but what may have sealed the deal with his leadership was the fact that he had an affair with Lois Rhoden. He believed that God told him that they were going to have a child together and that child would be the chosen one. George Rhoden, for obvious reasons, did not particularly care for this mother, so he filed a lawsuit alleging that Howell had brainwashed and raped her mother. Things got heated to the point that Vernon Howell left. waco in 1984 and took his followers with him which was most of the group at the time they went to Palestine, Texas and then George Rhoden changed the name to Mount Carnival Rodenville but this long distance issue continued with George calling his feud with Vernon a holy jihad, but finally in 1987, George decided to end this feud and challenge Vernon to a competition and whoever won this competition would win the right to lead this group and the competition he had in mind was Of course, who could resurrect the most dead people like you.

George prepared to pray over the body of a dead church member named Anna Hughes and Vernon decided not to participate and instead called the police and reported George for corpse abuse. All of this came to a head in November 1987, when Vernon returned to Mount Carmel with seven of his followers dressed in camouflage and heavily armed and a shootout ensued. They would later claim that they were just there to take some photographs, but regardless a gunfight broke out and George Rhoden fled the scene with multiple gunshot wounds. He would survive, but he lost control. The Vernon group's trial for attempted murder ended in a mistrial and he and his followers returned to Mount Carmel, where he assumed sole leadership and changed his name to David Koresh in honor of King David and King Cyrus of the Bible for the next few years. six years.

David Koresh continued to grow. the church and preaching the gospel that he was the true messiah that had been prophesied so many years ago and that the apocalypse was soon near, he claimed that the messiah's children were sacred and therefore it was his duty to sow the world with his children to usher in this new Davidic kingdom, then he is convinced that some might say that he ordered many of the women in the group to become his wives and have children with him, some of whom were minors. Eventually, David and his many children would have 13 children. wives, but it wasn't the polygamy and underage sex that caught the attention of the authorities, it was the arsenal of weapons they had begun to accumulate to prepare for this coming apocalypse, of course, when the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and Firearms.

Poking around in this only validated their belief that dark forces were descending upon them on February 28, 1993. ATF agents arrived at Mount Carmel to execute a search warrant. What happened next has been discussed and debated ever since, but it resulted in a mass shooting that killed five of the officers, six from the Branch Davidians, and wounded 16 others, including David Koresh, and began a standoff that would last 51 days. The media descended on the area and the country was inundated with 24-hour news about the confrontation that David Caress took advantage of. From this by releasing videos from inside the complex proclaiming his innocence and highlighting his injuries from the original shooting as the standoff continued, the FBI grew in strength and eventually became what Malcolm Gladwell described as the largest military force ever assembled. against a civilian suspect in American history.

The FBI attempted negotiations as well as strong-arm tactics to get them to leave, including playing loud noises and music 24 hours a day to induce sleep deprivation, according to a surviving member of Clive Doyle, this consisted of citing death of rabbits, excited music by Nancy Sinatra. singing These boots are made for walking Tibetan monks singing Christmas carols phones ringing and cheerfully Doyle said I got to where I only slept an hour or two every 24 hours Finally, on April 19, the FBI raided the complex with armored tanks and rips. What happened next has been debated since, but one way or another a fire broke out that quickly engulfed the complex killing 76 of the 85 people within the narrative immediately following this event, which painted the Branch Davidian as a paranoid death cult that established They set themselves on fire to save their souls, but as the years went by the narrative changed a bit and became more about government overreach.

I don't think it's an invalid argument, but that narrative immediately took hold among right-wing militia groups who used it as a rallying cry. against tyranny in 1995, on the second anniversary, timothy mcveigh killed 168 people when he blew up the federal building in oklahoma city in an act of revenge, there are still branch davidians today, some of whom still hope david koresh returns from the grave, Ask a Mortician's Caitlyn Dodie went to Mount Carmel recently and made a really cool video about it. There's a lot more detail there if you want to see it, but suffice it to say that this is a very complex moment in American history and its legacy.

By the way, if you're wondering what happened to George Rhoden, he was actually arrested in 1997 in Odessa, Texas, for murdering his roommate with an axe. He claimed that David Koresh had sent this man to kill him from beyond the grave at his trial. was found not guilty by reason of insanity number two the movement for the restoration of the ten commandments of god you know one thing that strikes me about the three stories that I just told you is that they all took place in the decade before the millennium and I don't think it's a coincidence, even if it wasn't, you know, explicitly stated as a catalyst for it, there was a lot of anxiety about the millennium at the time and in fact even non-religious people feared a technological apocalypse with the Bug of the year 2000, but the event that ended the movement for the restoration of the ten commandments of God was one hundred percent related to the turn of the millennium.

The movement formed in the late 80s in Uganda, a sort of splinter sect from the Catholic church that believed that we need to return to the Ten Commandments, that people should live completely by the Ten Commandments, hence the group's name. They believe this so strongly that they discouraged speaking to avoid the possibility of breaking the eighth commandment by bearing false witness. In fact, many of the group members communicated through sign language and they also say it with me. They believe that the apocalypse is coming soon. that's kind of a common thread with these groups they believe they were meant to be like akind of Noah's ark, you know, a place of refuge for good people, while the world is cleansed of evil, now to understand how this group emerged, you have to understand the context of the world that emerged in Uganda from the 70s to The 90s, it was a disaster, a series of dictators. and warlords ruled the country, leading to endless civil wars, the AIDS pandemic hit that area hard, severely decimating the populations, the economy was in ruins and with all other institutions crumbling around it, Many turned to the Catholic Church simultaneously, there were a series of sightings of the Virgin Mary.

In Uganda and throughout Africa in general there was good reason why these sightings of the Virgin Mary were known as Marian apparitions in the Catholic church and for believers they were powerful symbols of divine power that usually reflected something sacred in the place where they were seen. . or something sacred in the people who witnessed it. The Marian apparitions confirmed by the church are a big problem. Generally temples are built there and, you know, they become canonical in the Catholic church. They receive names like Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Fátima. These places attract thousands of visitors a year and help convert local populations.

In fact, that was kind of a strategy that the church used to grow into new areas, so in Uganda and other African nations affected at the time, having a confirmed sighting would be a big deal. It would bring a lot of resources there that they desperately needed, of course the church didn't confirm all the cases, it actually confirmed very few cases, but still someone claiming to have seen the virgin mary, if persuasive enough, could get a large number of followers. in a local area, so it was at this time and place that credonium or wendy grew up seeing the virgin mary was some sort of family business for cordonia, her father paolo had claimed to have seen the virgin mary and her dead daughter for years 60 When she grew up and claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, her father convinced her that she turned the tables and word spread and she quickly became known as some kind of spiritual mystic to the population and claimed to be the resurrection of Mary Magdalene, which she had. sense because in a certain way she ventured into prostitution.

In 1989 she met Joseph Kibwateri. and together, the two of them put together their apocalyptic vision of the world and put it into a pamphlet that they titled A Timely Message from Heaven, The End of the Present Time, and then they used that pamphlet to grow her church in Africa. Kim Terry grew up in a wealthy religious family. with close ties to the church and had leadership ambitions, he ran for office a couple of times but never won, so he took the family money and built a school in his name, so he was a well-known member and respected. of the community, so when he and Credonia joined forces, she had the spiritual currency and he had the social currency, so she went out and converted the followers and he ran things from the bottom, in fact, he was called the figurehead and she was called programmer, it's quite an appropriate name for a cult leader and together they gained a large following throughout southern Uganda and not much is known about the group during this time because like I said, Uganda It was kind of a mess, there's not much documentation about it, in fact you keep seeing the same images over and over again in this segment because that's literally all there is, there's just nothing else.

At their peak, they had up to 5,000 members and, like any good cult. They had hierarchies and inner circles and actively promoted the incorporation of former Catholic priests and people related to the church so that they had some legitimacy and, like many sects, they came under scrutiny for forced labor and kidnappings, what we do know is that, like When As the millennium approached, they thought this would usher in the apocalypse they had been preaching about, so they made the prediction that the world would end on December 31, 1999, then it didn't happen as it often does when sex in Late times is wrong, they just moved the date up a bit, just kind of a kick that Armageddon may be delayed this time, they predicted it on March 17, 2000 and seemed determined to make this stick.

On March 15, they were seen buying up to 70 boxes of coke. cola and three bulls that they sacrificed and then served at a giant banquet on the night of the 17th. 338 people gathered at their new church to celebrate the end of the world by dancing, feasting and praying into the afternoon as the evening came to a close. they entered a separate building, an older diner, to wait for the end of the world, the windows and doors were boarded up and immediately after entering there, within minutes, the local people heard explosions and the building caught fire, all 338 people died. in the fire, but incredibly the nightmare was just beginning over the following week more bodies were found across southern Uganda including six that were found at the site of the church buried under the small train a mass grave at bahunga contained 153 bodies a Sugarcane field near Rugazi held 155 bodies in a mass grave and the homes of two members of the church's inner circle were found to have 81 and 103 bodies respectively.

The medical examiners determined that these people were mostly poisoned and strangled and that these deaths occurred a few weeks before March 17, so many people died, so an exact number can be determined, but they believe that the total number exceeds the 800 people. The Ugandan government investigation determined that it was not a mass suicide. They have classified it as a mass murder. It is believed that when the world did not end. on December 31st some divisions may have formed in the church and this caused the leaders to plan this plot to save face from one of those like I can't have you no one can and the cherry on top of all this is that the Los Bodies of Joseph Kidwateri and Credonia Merwende have never been identified.

It is assumed that they died in the fire, but there is no conclusive evidence of this. This is now admitted to be true for many of the fire victims, but there have been reports from several people who have seen them in places like Kampala, the capital of Uganda, this may not mean anything, but there are many people who think that They escaped the fire that night and are alive today, before reaching number one on this list. I want to mention a few honorable mentions like the true Russian Orthodox church that locked itself in a cave for several years the ancient cult of Enrico that poisoned a Tokyo train station it was the sarin gas that killed 12 people the human sacrifice cult of Madamoro who murdered over a dozen people along the Mexican border and of course the Manson family who murdered seven people in an attempt to start a race war.

All of these cults were terrifying in their own right, but fortunately they didn't rack up the numbers like some of the others on this list, although they may have. I wanted to, but when it comes to cults that are worse in terms of human death, there's really only one name that stands out above the rest: number one, the village temple agricultural project, also known as jonestown, the village temple, and Their leader, Jim Jones, had become known as gold. cult standard after almost a thousand of them committed suicide by drinking cyanide punch in 1978. Honestly, I didn't want this to be number one on this list, I wanted something a little more unexpected for this, but it turns out, no, I just don't know. can beat Jonestown and part of the tragedy of Jonestown is that it actually had the potential to be something really good in the world, but instead it becomes this nightmare that we're still recovering from 40 years later Jim Jones grew up a boy poor. in Indiana with an alcoholic father and perhaps because of this dysfunction he seemed to turn inward and become obsessed with religion and death, his friends would later tell stories of him holding funerals for dead animals he found when he became an adult, he joined the pentecostal church and cut he dedicated himself to the revival circuit driving from city to city putting on shows to convert the masses here he honed his skills in gaining followers he was very focused on social justice in his work having grown up poor he felt connected to underprivileged communities and filled his in banks with blacks and minorities, he adopted children of multiple races and became very involved in the civil rights movement at the time, this was difficult to do in Indiana, it was the 60s and they were still quite segregated at the time, so He finally got his followers. and moved them to ukiah, california, one of the reasons they chose you, kyo, was because he had read somewhere that it was one of the safest places to be in case of a nuclear holocaust, something he thought would happen soon.

Here he established a farm where the entire congregation lived and worked, it was a sort of prototype for what was to come later and this is where he began to lean towards the ideas of communism, of course this was not something he could just say and say he had. to rest. In terms of religion, the people involved in the group had to give him his money. He convinced the older members of the group to sell their homes and then give money to the church and then the church would put them in senior centers and take care of them for the rest of their lives and by all accounts this worked quite well.

Well, the older people in the group seemed to have been well taken care of, this also meant that the church members were constantly working, which is a common trait. in cults, you know, don't give them time to think about what happens in the summers, the congregation would get on buses and travel around the country putting on shows and events wherever they went, they took advantage of their experience doing the revival circuit and it worked. The congregation grew to thousands. He preached against sex, calling it selfish and contrary to the ways of God. Although he himself did not abstain from sexual relations, he slept with many members of the congregation, including men; in 1974 he moved the group to San Francisco and became politically active. he basically hired members of his church to go to rallies and do letter-writing campaigns for progressive causes.

He came and became kind of the go-to guy in San Francisco politics. Politicians proposed meeting him with figures such as Walter Mondale and Rosalind Carter. he helped get the mayor of San Francisco elected and in return he was made head of the housing committee and it seems like that's when things started to go downhill now that he was sort of part of the government and he was under more intense scrutiny and it was not so. help that made his church members join every meeting and cheer him frantically every time he said something, it really made people start to wonder what was going on with this guy and his strange followers, the added scrutiny made him more Paranoid, this was over the years.

After the murders of mlk and robert f kennedy, he became convinced that progressives like him were being attacked, so he created his own secret service within the group that was not only there for his protection, but was also there to eliminate to the dissidents of the group. the sermons became darker and more apocalyptic, anyone who stepped out of line was publicly shamed at church services, he even encouraged violence against dissidents, he basically beat them up as part of the service and began taking drugs, which only increased his paranoia, convinced that they were not safe. More bought land and Guyana in 1975 and began building Jonestown, a jungle paradise where they would establish a communist utopia away from all the dark forces of the American government that would try to destroy what they built in late July 1977.

It was learned that some former Members of a cult were speaking out against him and had been talking to a reporter from a magazine called New West. It was intended to be a damning exposé filled with stories of fake faith healings, violence and sexual abuse. Within hours, Jim Jones was on a plane to Guyana, moved the congregation to Jonestown seemingly overnight and in this new place, isolated from everything they knew, his hold on them only grew stronger. , they had no communication with the outside world, they were forced to work 18 hours a day and it turned the members of the church against each other. others had a duty to turn in other members if they spoke of wanting to leave.

He had speakers installed throughout the compound where he played recorded sermons and messages 24 hours a day, stating that the outside world was falling apart and that their only salvation was Jonestown no matter where they were the complex voice of Jim Jones was in their ears. They literally couldn't escape it. Over time the messages became darker and more apocalyptic, more convinced that dark forces were taking over.Jonestown and then in November 1978 they got a visit from Leo Ryan Leo Ryan was a congressman from California and had a reputation for being a hands-on politician, like at one point he was researching prison reform, so he spent a week at the Folsom Prison.

Imagine a politician today doing that. He had been pressured by relatives of Jonestown residents saying they couldn't get access to him, didn't know if they were okay, and were also being held there, so he decided to go take a look for himself in November. On the 17th of 1978 he flew to Guyana with some of his staff and a handful of reporters and they were impressed with what they found when they got there. What these people were able to build in the middle of the jungle was actually a nice self-sufficient commune, lots of food, good accommodation, a medical clinic, daycare school for the children, and everyone was happy.

The congregation welcomed them with open arms, and they held a reception with music, food, and dance and couldn't stop telling them how happy they were to be there whatever the comments, there are some people here who think this is the best thing they've ever had in their entire life, but later in the night some cracks started to appear during During the celebrations that night, a couple of people slipped notes. to the camera crew asking for help to escape from jonestown the next morning leo ryan confronted jim jones why aren't you worried that this man for some reason one of the people in your group people play friends lie lie what can I do?

What to do with the liars As Ryan and his group prepared to leave, more and more people came out of nowhere begging to come back to them and all hell broke loose. Jonestown residents joined the Congressional delegation and left Jonestown for the nearby airport, but as they were boarding a plane, another truck pulled up and several gunmen jumped out and opened fire on them. All five people died on the runway, including Congressman Ryan, who was at the complex. Jones called an emergency meeting in the pavilion where he broke the news of the congressman's death when he saw that no At this point, he ordered his subordinates to mix some cyanide with punch and began distributing it throughout the congregation and from here it is where the term kool-aid drink came from, you know, someone has really embraced an idea to an extreme level.

They say they drink the kool-aid, which is unfortunate for the kool-aid company because they are actually drinking flavoring. They gave it to the children first to give the parents less reason to continue living. Families were told to sleep together. on the grass outside the pavilion and within hours it was all over, 909 men, women and children lay dead. Jones was found lying in the pulpit with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head under a banner that read "Those Who Don't Learn From." the past is doomed to repeat itself 36 people who were in jonestown survived the massacre some of them hid some of them fled into the woods one person slept through the whole thing many of the jonestown survivors don't like to call it mass suicide apparently people with guns surrounded the pavilion pointing them inwards and forced people to drink at gunpoint and even those who drank voluntarily had been psychologically stripped of their agency in the previous years for the survivors, this was a mass murder, so it is It's easy to call the people of Jonestown crazy or sheep, but we are all social animals and we are all vulnerable to succumbing.

Added to the social pressures is the chaos of what was happening, people with weapons and years of psychological brainwashing, who knows if you or I would have made the same decision. Now I want to acknowledge that there is an argument to be made here. that there were much worse and deadlier cults in the ancient world such as the Aztecs who killed hundreds of thousands of people and religious rituals. I'll let you debate that in the comments, but why am I talking about cults right now? The easy answer. It's just that it worked this way, but the more interesting answer is that we currently live in a climate that is very conducive to cults.

You know, I pointed out before that four of these five cults took place in the '90s, before the millennium. Well, the other one, the fifth one, took place in the late '60s and early '70s, when there was a lot of social unrest. There were many cults that emerged during that period, including the Manson family, but think about what was going on during that time. period when the civil rights movement was in full swing, vietnam was tearing the country apart, robert f kennedy, martin luther king was just assassinated and this was the generation that grew up with jfk's assassination just 10 years before, i want I mean, this was there on 9/11 and it's like it was happening again, you know, I never really appreciated how much the world changed during that period in my parents' generation, you know, social and political institutions just fall apart and the people look for something to give them meaning cults thrive in times like that because cults target people in times of transition or loss, you know, when you lost a job, when you ended a relationship or when you just moved, this is when we are most desperate and aimless, in fact, I was curious to know if this trend went back further, so I went and looked to see if there was any cult about the depression bug that might have arisen and it turns out there was a cult scare in the media between 1935 and 45.

So here we are. the words of almost every commercial you've seen in the last six months living through difficult times, more abrupt changes, more civil unrest, more economic hardship, and, on top of that, a defining event for a generation that has completely upended social norms , a more fertile ground for sects. It couldn't be designed but I'm sure you have nothing to worry about you're smart there's no way you're going to fall into a cult oh and by the way you know who else thinks that everyone who has ever been in one Cults basically operate as schemes pyramidal.

You know, people are encouraged to go out and recruit new members, and in doing so, they raise their own status within the organization. It is very similar to a multi level marketing business and, in fact, a lot of mlm. The schemes are very cultured and like mlm schemes, most people recruit their families, friends and co-workers. In fact, two-thirds of people who join cults do so through friends and family, a friend or family member who may be trying to move up. the group or they may honestly just want to help you, I mean this group gives them purpose and clarity and you may be in a bad state and they just want to offer you that too.

There's this amazing documentary I watched. while I was researching this video it was called jonestown, the life and death of the town temple and I think the opening words of this movie say that no one better join a cult, no one join something that they think is going to do them damage, you join a religious organization, you join a political movement and you join people you really like, this is what draws you to camaraderie, friendship, shared purpose, it happens very casually over time and then eventually they start employing ingratiation techniques, they give you a gift or they do you a favor and that kind of institutes a sense of reciprocity within you that makes you want to do something in return for them and the next thing you know, they you're doing things for them and then the psychological phenomenon kicks in that once you do something for someone once you've invested some time, some energy, some money into something, you tend to trust it a little bit more.

In fact, this is something that scammers often do: they ask someone to do them a small favor and that small favor is instituted. just a little trust in them and then once you are on target, control your thinking by eliminating any dissent out of fear, guilt or shame, let them know that speaking up will incur a social penalty and then they will isolate you as much as possible. and restricting access to information from the outside world, often this means closing off relationships with family and friends and, by the way, in many of these groups you are given more information about the group's core beliefs the higher you go in the organization, so whenever you hear some really crazy beliefs that some of these cults have, most people don't know that when they first join, only once they're past a certain point are they willing to accept it, you only know once You have accepted the previous line in the sand, will they draw another?

And then the cognitive dissonance keeps you stuck there because the deeper you go, the harder it is for you to accept that you've been fooled and even when some reason or logic may have slipped through the cracks at this point, you may be so deeply entrenched in this group that you're so isolated from the outside world that you are convinced that you can't go on without these people, so you just ignore the crazy people and Carry On, all of this operates on psychological phenomena to which we are all susceptible. There was a famous experiment in 1951 known as the Ash conformity experiment.

It was created by psychologist Solomon Ash and basically had people answer a series of very simple and obvious questions each. The card had a target line on one side and three multi-link lines on the other side and they were asked to choose which line closest matched the length of the one on the left and this is incredibly simple, the answer is obvious, but these people were put. to a room with five other people who were all in the test and when each card was revealed, they went down the line and each person in the room gave their answer one at a time three three three but from time to time the actors in the group would give the wrong answer two two the question is when everyone else gives a different answer than what you are seeing very clearly with your own eyes, will you speak against the group or will you agree with two people on average agreed? group 37 percent of the time and 75 percent of subjects agreed with a group at least once later, when asked why they agreed with the group, even though they knew the answer was incorrect , responses tended to fall into one of two camps, one because they wanted to fit into the group also known as normative influence and two because they believe the group is better informed than them or informational influence.

We're all susceptible to groupthink and social pressures, which means we're all more vulnerable than this guy. more psychological trickery than we realize and the scary thing is that during this particular difficult time we are living through, after all we are brainwashing ourselves, who needs a charismatic leader when an algorithm can tell you what to think and the company that created the algorithm can make billions of dollars from it. Polarization is increasing around the world at an alarming rate and it is happening at a time when we get most of our information from social media and search engines that are not designed to show us an accurate picture of the world, they are designed only for us to interact with them in some way, usually by showing us things we already want to see.

You know an article that perfectly proves the point you were trying to make earlier that day. or a video that amplifies a fear you already have, it is not the same as a cult, but it generates the same bubbles of information that lead us to believe in different realities and are integrated into that as an us versus them mentality and a shared meaning of the victimhood that you know creates this need for revenge, this is leading to scary places, so just as we have to be careful of cults that try to brainwash us, we have to be careful of our ability to brainwash ourselves, you know. , poke holes in your information bubble. know, take a look at some outside perspectives that are different than yours, you don't have to believe them, just be aware that they are there and do an audit from time to time of where you are in your thinking, you know how different are.

Are you thinking now that maybe a year ago? Is there something you believe now that you know that at some point early in your life you could never have imagined believing? Have you drunk the flavor help on any topic? I think cults teach us a lot about how. we think and what our vulnerabilities are and the horrible things that we would never have thought we were capable of doing, so this was a long video, this was one of those topics that I thought would be a really simple video and then the more I got into him, more It got bigger and bigger and I thought about breaking it up into several videos but I thought it would probably work better all in one package so here we are I'm in Tim Dodd territory now that this happened again recently on another topic that I decided to include a full series and will release it exclusively later this year on nebula nebula is a streaming servicewhich I'm a part of along with many of your other favorite youtube nerds and it's a place where we can do things outside of the YouTube ecosystem, it allows us to try new formats and not be beholden to the algorithm, so you can find all our videos there ad-free alongside Nebula originals like Tom Scott's Money series or the actual engineering logistics of the D-Day series.

And on top of that, Nebula has partnered with Curiosity Stream, so when you subscribe to Curiosity Stream You get Nebula for free, so you could watch this video about Nebula and it might spark your curiosity about how cults eventually become mainstream religions. Then you can visit the curiosity broadcast and watch the series The Mortal Journey of the Apostles. This is a four part series following the apostles philip simon and matthew and the journeys they undertook to spread christianity when at the time he was just another messianic. cult, but what they did after their leader was crucified would eventually lead Christianity to spread throughout the world and this series shows how it happened.

This is, of course, just one of the thousands of docuseries you can find on the trivia channel of some of the best documentaries. Filmmakers from Around the World was created by the guys behind Discovery Channel, so it continues a great tradition, but yes, when you sign up for Curiosity Stream right now, you get Nebula for free and they're offering you 26 off their annual subscription. to a total of 14.79 for two streaming services over one year. I don't know how to best sell this. That's just ridiculous, so yeah, that sounds good to you. I invite you to check out Curiositystream at Curiositystream.com.

Joe Scott's link is below in the description, I really think you'll like his external stream. I watch it quite a bit myself, so thanks to Curiosity Stream for supporting this video and a big shout out to the Patreon supporters, the answer archives on Patreon who are making an incredible community. helping me, I actually got a lot of help from last week's video from one of the Patreon supporters, so I appreciate you guys, uh, we have some new members, let me murder the names real quick, we have rachel zablewski, uh, john Dutcher. brian betts andre hogman waffley nim luis luis congoola kaloongla sure jim proctor and kjs thank you all so much if you want to join them get early access to videos, exclusive live streams and just join an amazing community you can go to patreon.com

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