In a rather inexplicable way, cults fascinate people, and me the first, because we can’t help but be curious when it comes to these organizations which are sometimes extremely creepy or completely ridiculous. But today we are rather going to talk about those which are really very strange, these rather wacky sects of which one wonders how they managed to exist and above all how they managed to attract followers into their ranks, because it was necessary to sell rotten lettuce.
1. The Order of the Sun: The Worship of the Coconut
August Engelhardt was a man convinced of many things: that humans should live naked in the jungle near the equator and that they should eat only coconuts because he found them to resemble human heads, and that human heads must believe that it can be eaten.
He started his own cult in 1903 with a few followers but a quarrel quickly arose because some of his followers also ate tropical fruits, which Engelhardt saw as a mistake. To make it short Engelhardt and some of his followers (around 30) lived on an island for nearly 18 years until several members including himself died from various illnesses contracted by their way of life or simply because of their diet.
2. The cult of universal medicine (but especially breast massages)
A bankrupt former Australian tennis coach named Serge Benhayon founded this peculiarly bizarre cult in 1999, where he claimed to be able to massage breasts (and other areas) that could basically cure anything. And to justify his power, good old Serge said he was touched by a particular energy while he was on the toilet and clearly that kind of thing is not invented. However, the Australian government quickly found that Serge was leading a dangerous cult that promised false hopes in terms of healing and medicine, because an “esoteric massage of the ovaries” cannot really cure cancer.
3. Scientology
There’s a whole bunch of creepy stuff that Scientologists believe, like the fact that a dictator prince ruled an intergalactic congregation millions of years ago, that you’re inhabited by spirits from the past when you’re down or that planet Earth is a kind of former death camp for extraterrestrials. But at the same time that’s what happens when a bad science fiction author founds a religion, so don’t be surprised if it looks like a bad science fiction novel.
4. Warriors of Light
Founded in France and active between 2009 and 2015, the sect of warriors of light was a particularly shady move. On the program there were extremely long kung-fu lessons since we waited for the exhaustion of the followers to stop, sexual therapies to reach the different “gates to orgasm” (assume that if it looks like sexual abuse practices is probably sexual abuse practices), conspiracy, embezzlement and psychological torture. Holy program when you read the brochure, yet the cult had some followers.
5. The Church of Euthanasia
Attention it’s as scary as it is stupid: the church of euthanasia (created in 1992) advocated the reduction of humanity to save the planet and generally help Jesus by committing suicide. They also advised sodomy, cannibalism (of people already dead), abortion and above all they asked that we stop all forms of interbreeding and homosexuality. Their rather flowery slogans were “eat a gay fetus to help Jesus”, “eat people, not animals” or even “save the planet, commit suicide”. We are on a fairly high level of horror and bullshit.
6. Heaven’s Gate
This ufological sect (which advocates the existence of UFOs and bases its beliefs on extraterrestrials) created by the couple Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles in the 70s has caused the death of nearly 39 followers. The basic idea of the belief was that Applewhite and Nettles were witnesses spoken of in the Bible called Do and Ti and that they had been chosen by aliens to come and live with them when the Earth exploded. To join them it was necessary to get rid of its earthly envelope and leave the planet (understand by this to commit suicide), which the thirty-nine believers did in a massive collective suicide.
7. The Raelian movement
Difficult to speak about strange sects without approaching that of Raël, which partly inspired me the top of the councils to become guru of a sect. The concept of the sect is based on an encounter between extraterrestrials and Raël himself (Claude Vorilhon of his real name), the mastery of cloning, the financial donations of the followers and also the right of Raël to be able to sleep with the women of his sect according to their beauty. Oh, and also, they say they can transfer people’s consciousness into their clones and thus achieve immortality, which is a really good idea.
8. Kopimism
Created in 2010 in Sweden and recognized as a religious organization ever since, Kopimism (Copy me) is simply based on copying information and sharing it. Its symbol is a Yin and Yang with marked “Ctrl C / Ctrl V” on it, the keyboard shortcut for “copy / paste”. The trick has become quite well known and there are even branches in Australia and New Zealand which have taken over the Egyptian god Thoth (the scribe god) as their official god. To them the internet is sacred and they like to copy stuff like the first two people to marry in the church said in their “we will copy and remix our DNA and create a new human being” speech. I swear it’s all true.
9. The body of Christ
When a religious organization asks you to cut off all contact with your loved ones and sell all your possessions to gain access to “real knowledge”, you can be pretty sure that you are dealing with a cult. This is precisely what this movement, created in 1971, is asking for, placing all its beliefs around the imminent apocalypse. Members are sometimes called “trash eaters” because you can see some of them looking for food in garbage cans, which is not necessarily the dream life you expect when you have given all your dough to the leaders. , but you have to believe that it attracts a few people.
10. Le pasta farism
Well ok it’s not really a sect but it makes me laugh to talk about this movement created at the base as a joke which said that the Earth had been made by a completely stuffed spaghetti monster (which explains the imperfection of the world) . For several years, the movement was picked up and shared on the internet as a joke until it got a little more serious. I doubt that people really believe everything that is said in the religious texts, but some countries have recognized Pastafarianism as a real religion and weddings have been performed in a church in New Zealand. Glory to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.