96 Fun Facts About Cults

Sharon Tate was married to which film director?

Roman Polanski was Sharon Tate's husband; the director was in London when Manson Family members killed her and four others at the couple's rented Los Angeles home.

Jim Jones's Peoples Temple built its remote jungle commune, Jonestown, in which South American country?

Guyana offered an English-speaking country with a socialist government, which Jones sold to his followers as the place to build their own utopia.

Charles Manson fixated on 'Helter Skelter', a song from which Beatles LP?

The White Album, the Beatles' 1968 double LP officially titled The Beatles, carries 'Helter Skelter'; Manson played it to his followers as a coded prophecy.

Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was born Vernon Wayne what?

Howell joined the Branch Davidians in 1981, won control after a 1987 gunfight with rival George Roden, and legally became David Koresh in 1990.

David Berg took his young followers on the road after prophesying that his home state would suffer what?

A major earthquake was what Berg foresaw, and the group took to the road in campers, where a newspaper reporter dubbed the wanderers 'Moses and the Children of God'.

What did Heaven's Gate members believe was their ultimate destiny?

Members believed their destiny was to shed their bodies and board an alien craft, treating the human body as a mere 'container' to be left behind for the 'Next Level'.

Before the FBI took over, which federal agency's failed raid began the 1993 Waco siege?

ATF agents came to search for illegal weapons on February 28, 1993; four of them and six Davidians died in the gun battle, and a long standoff began.

The Manson Family's Tate–LaBianca murders came days before which 1969 festival opened?

Woodstock opened on August 15, 1969, six days after the killings at Sharon Tate's home; the case broke months later, when Susan Atkins talked to fellow inmates while held on another charge.

Who led Scientology after L. Ron Hubbard died?

David Miscavige, a young Sea Org officer and Hubbard protégé, announced the founder's death to Scientologists in January 1986 and took over the church.

The Order of the Solar Temple's 1990s murder-suicides took place across which countries?

Switzerland, Canada, France: the order was most active in French-speaking Europe and Quebec, and 74 people died there in murder-suicides between 1994 and 1997.

Before moving his followers to South America, Jim Jones headquartered his church in which U.S. city?

San Francisco was the Temple's base in the 1970s: its members got out the vote for George Moscone in the 1975 mayoral race, and he made Jones chairman of the city's Housing Authority.

Heaven's Gate's two founders claimed to be the 'two witnesses' of which Bible book?

Revelation 11's two witnesses are killed and rise after three and a half days; the pair told followers they would be slain and resurrected too, an event they called 'the Demonstration'.

The Branch Davidians were a splinter group of which larger religious denomination?

Seventh-day Adventists rejected Victor Houteff's calls for reform in the 1930s, so he founded the Davidians; the Branch broke away from them after his death in 1955.

Which Manson Family victim was a celebrity hairstylist?

Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate's former boyfriend and a hairstylist to Hollywood's leading men, was shot when he protested at the intruders' rough treatment of the pregnant actress.

The first Church of Scientology was incorporated in December 1953 in Camden, in which U.S. state?

New Jersey came first: Hubbard incorporated the church in Camden on December 18, 1953, two months before the Los Angeles church that is often called the first.

What common term describes the psychological manipulation cults use on members?

Brainwashing reached English in 1950, when journalist Edward Hunter borrowed the Chinese phrase for 'wash brain' to describe how Mao's China made people cooperate.

Guitarist Jeremy Spencer walked out on which band mid-tour in 1971 to join the Children of God?

Fleetwood Mac lost Spencer in Los Angeles in February 1971: he left his hotel before a show and never came back, and the band found him days later with the group, unwilling to return.

The mass suicide of Heaven's Gate members in 1997 was associated with the appearance of which comet?

Comet Hale-Bopp was the sign the group's leader said they had been waiting for; as it blazed in the March 1997 sky, the 39 died in three groups over about three days.

Charles Manson once lived at which Beach Boy's home?

Dennis Wilson put up Manson and his followers for months after giving two of the women a lift, and the Beach Boys released a reworked Manson song without crediting him.

Before founding his church, L. Ron Hubbard was best known for working in what profession?

Science Fiction Writer: Hubbard turned out pulp adventure and space stories from the 1930s, and his 1982 novel Battlefield Earth later became a John Travolta film.

How many people died in the Jonestown massacre in 1978?

Over 900: 909 people died at the commune on November 18, 1978, a third of them children, and the youngest were given the cyanide-laced punch first.

In which U.S. state was the Children of God founded in 1968?

California's Huntington Beach was the birthplace: in 1968 Berg began teaching the Bible to hippies at a coffeehouse called the Light Club, in the counterculture's own language.

What was the name of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas?

Mount Carmel Center was bulldozed after the 1993 fire; six years on, supporters broke ground there on a small church for the surviving Davidians.

What did the Children of God call its practice of using sex to win converts?

Flirty Fishing, begun in the mid-1970s, had female members offer sex to win converts and support; Berg framed it as showing God's love.

The Tate murders took place at 10050 Cielo Drive, in which Los Angeles canyon?

Benedict Canyon's 10050 Cielo Drive was later rented by Trent Reznor, who recorded there and took the front door with him before the house was demolished in 1994.

Which Oscar-winning actor spent his early childhood in the Children of God, where his parents were missionaries?

Joaquin Phoenix's parents joined the group in the 1970s and travelled South America as its missionaries, then quit within a few years, unhappy with its increasingly troubling rules.

In 2000 Aum Shinrikyo renamed itself 'Aleph', after the first letter of which alphabet?

Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; the renamed group later split in 2007, spawning the offshoot Hikari no Wa.

Heaven's Gate members earned money through a web-design business called what?

Higher Source built websites for paying clients, which covered the group's bills; a former member received its farewell videotapes and raised the alarm.

Which cult leader was known to his followers as 'Do', while his partner Bonnie Nettles was 'Ti'?

Marshall Applewhite and Nettles first called themselves 'Bo' and 'Peep' before settling on 'Do' and 'Ti'; her death from cancer in 1985 left him to lead the group alone.

A famous saying names the wrong brand: which fruit drink was actually laced with cyanide at Jonestown?

Flavor Aid, a grape drink mix, was stirred with cyanide and sedatives in a metal tub, yet the saying that came out of Jonestown is 'drinking the Kool-Aid'.

Rajneesh left the United States in 1985 after pleading guilty to what?

Immigration fraud: under a plea deal in November 1985 he received a suspended sentence and a $400,000 penalty, and agreed to leave the United States.

Which old movie ranch near Los Angeles served as the Manson Family's main base?

Spahn Ranch was a fading Western film set whose owner, George Spahn, 80 and going blind, let the Family live there rent-free in exchange for work.

The Order of the Solar Temple was founded in 1984 in which city?

Geneva was the base of Joseph Di Mambro's earlier Golden Way Foundation, the New Age circle that he and Luc Jouret reshaped into the order in 1984.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult, responsible for the Tokyo subway attack, was founded by whom?

Shoko Asahara started the group in 1984 as a yoga school in Tokyo, turned it into a doomsday cult within a decade, and was convicted of ordering the subway attack.

Which self-help system, launched in a 1950 book subtitled 'The Modern Science of Mental Health', preceded Scientology?

Dianetics made Hubbard's 1950 book a bestseller, but his foundation went bankrupt within two years and he lost the rights, so he recast his ideas as Scientology.

Members of the Order of the Solar Temple prepared for a 'transit' to which star?

The 'transit' was a voyage to Sirius, where they believed Theosophy's ascended masters lived; some members read it more innocently, as simply moving away.

Two years to the day after the Waco fire, which attack was carried out in revenge?

Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh timed his truck bomb for the anniversary, April 19, 1995, and was arrested soon afterwards, pulled over for driving without a licence plate.

What did the Manson Family's leader claim the Beatles' song 'Helter Skelter' was secretly predicting?

Manson claimed 'Helter Skelter' foretold an apocalyptic race war between Black and white Americans, after which his Family would emerge to rule.

Aum Shinrikyo built its main compound and chemical plant at the foot of which Japanese mountain?

Mount Fuji overlooked the cult's headquarters, where police who raided it after the subway attack found tons of chemicals, explosives and even a Russian helicopter.

Jim Jones was born in 1931 in which US state, where he later founded the Peoples Temple?

Indiana: Jones was born in rural Crete and started his church in Indianapolis in the 1950s, at one point selling pet monkeys to raise the money.

Heaven's Gate members died in 1997 wearing 'Away Team' patches, borrowing a term from which science-fiction franchise?

Star Trek supplied much of the group's vocabulary: its leader was a keen reader of science fiction, and the 'Heaven's Gate Away Team' patches cast the dead as a crew on a mission.

Which sneaker brand did the 39 Heaven's Gate members die wearing, with matching dark clothes?

Nike Decades, black and white and brand new, were on all 39 bodies; surviving members later said the group had simply got a good deal on the shoes.

The Children of God, later The Family International, grew out of a ministry with what name?

Teens for Christ was the Berg family's small witnessing team; it swelled in 1968 when they began preaching to hippies at a coffeehouse.

Why was Charles Manson's original 1971 sentence never carried out?

California struck down the death penalty in 1972, when its Supreme Court ruled in People v. Anderson, and every death sentence in the state, Manson's included, became life in prison.

What was Bonnie Nettles's profession when she met her future Heaven's Gate co-founder?

Nurse Bonnie Nettles, a mother of four with a passion for astrology, met him in 1972; her marriage ended the next year and the pair took to the road as 'The Two'.

David Koresh's adopted name honoured which two figures from the Bible?

David Koresh took 'David' from the biblical king and 'Koresh', the Hebrew form of Cyrus, the Persian king who freed the Jews from Babylon.

One of the 39 Heaven's Gate dead was the brother of which actress, who also recruited astronauts for NASA?

Nichelle Nichols said her brother Thomas had spent some 20 years in the group with little family contact, and that the family respected the choices he had made.

NXIVM leader Keith Raniere was arrested in 2018 at a luxury villa in which country?

Mexico, where NXIVM ran centres of its own, was where federal police tracked Raniere to a villa near Puerto Vallarta, then sent him back to the United States to stand trial.

Within NXIVM, what title did followers use for Keith Raniere?

Followers called Raniere 'Vanguard' and co-founder Nancy Salzman 'Prefect'; members bowed to him and wore coloured sashes marking their rank.

NXIVM's home base was near which U.S. state capital?

Albany's suburb of Colonie housed NXIVM's offices; Raniere's earlier venture, Consumers' Buyline, had folded in the 1990s after New York State sued it as a pyramid scheme.

Which Smallville actress became a leading NXIVM recruiter and later a defendant?

Allison Mack, Smallville's Chloe Sullivan, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in 2019 and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2021.

NXIVM backers Clare and Sara Bronfman were heiresses to which fortune?

The Bronfmans controlled the Seagram liquor empire; their father Edgar Bronfman Sr. told Forbes in 2003 that he believed NXIVM was a cult.

What was the name of the NXIVM-linked secret society in which women were branded?

DOS, short for Dominus Obsequious Sororium, made recruits hand over nude photos or other damaging 'collateral'; the brand they received turned out to contain Raniere's initials.

Rajneesh's followers took over which tiny Oregon town and renamed it 'Rajneesh'?

Antelope's residents were outnumbered at the polls by newly registered commune members, who renamed the town Rajneesh in 1984; the old name came back after the commune collapsed.

Rajneeshees sickened 751 people in The Dalles, Oregon, in 1984 by contaminating salad bars with which bacterium?

Salmonella was spread on the salad bars of ten restaurants to keep townspeople from voting in a county election; 45 people were hospitalised, but none died.

Who was the Rajneesh secretary who ran the Rajneeshpuram ashram from 1981 to 1985?

Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary, ran the commune as its de facto chief until fleeing to Europe in September 1985; she later pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Rajneesh's followers bought him 93 cars of which luxury make?

Rolls-Royce: he greeted the faithful from the driver's seat in a daily 'drive-by' ceremony at the commune, and the collection eventually reached 93 cars.

Which 2018 Netflix series told the story of the Rajneesh commune in Oregon?

Wild Wild Country takes its title from Bill Callahan's song 'Drover', heard in the final episode; the six-part series won the Emmy for best documentary series.

Which Leo Ryan aide was shot and left for dead near Jonestown and later entered Congress herself?

Jackie Speier ran for her murdered boss's seat the next year and lost; nearly thirty years on, in 2008, she won the district he had once represented.

What honour was awarded posthumously to Leo Ryan in 1983?

Congress awarded Leo Ryan the Congressional Gold Medal in 1983, five years after he was killed while investigating Jonestown on behalf of constituents.

Jonestown's formal name was the Peoples Temple what Project?

Agricultural was the word, yet the farm never fed its people: Jonestown stood on poor jungle soil and had to import much of its food.

What did Jim Jones call the Jonestown emergency drills where mass suicide was rehearsed?

Jones called the drills 'White Nights'; on at least two occasions a simulated mass suicide was acted out after a 'revolutionary suicide' vote.

According to the official autopsy, how did Jim Jones himself die at Jonestown?

Jones died of a gunshot wound to the head, which the pathologist judged consistent with suicide, though who fired the shot was never settled.

The nickname 'Moonies' was given to members of which church, founded in Seoul in 1954?

Unification Church members were tagged 'Moonies' after founder Sun Myung Moon; the church calls the label derogatory and has pressed news outlets to stop using it.

Sun Myung Moon's 1982 mass wedding of over 2,000 couples was held at which New York venue?

Madison Square Garden hosted the first large Blessing held outside Korea; most of the 2,075 couples had been matched by Moon himself, many to partners of another nationality.

Which newspaper was founded in 1982 by a media group associated with Sun Myung Moon?

The Washington Times launched in May 1982, a year after the Washington Star folded and left the capital with one daily; Moon's News World Communications owned it until 2010.

Sun Myung Moon was convicted in the U.S. in 1982 of what offence?

Moon was convicted of tax evasion and conspiracy in 1982 and served 13 months at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was based in which country?

Uganda's Kanungu district was the movement's base; after the apocalypse its leaders had forecast for the end of 1999 failed to arrive, hundreds of members died in a church fire in March 2000.

The guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose followers built a city in Oregon, took what one-word name late in life?

Osho was the name he adopted in 1989, months before his death, after dropping 'Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh'; his books are published under it.

Which California drug-rehab programme became a cult known for 'attack therapy'?

Synanon's 'Game' had members berate one another in group truth-telling sessions; in the 1970s its founder ordered married couples to split up and take new partners.

In 1978, cult members left a de-rattled rattlesnake in the mailbox of Paul Morantz, a man of what profession?

Lawyer Paul Morantz had just won a court case against the group on behalf of people it had held; its founder later pleaded no contest to conspiring to murder him.

In 2002 the Raëlian company Clonaid claimed the birth of a cloned baby with what name?

Clonaid announced 'Eve' on December 27, 2002; chief executive Brigitte Boisselier never produced evidence, and a Florida lawyer sought a guardian for the child.

Love Has Won leader Amy Carlson was known to followers by what title?

Mother God was Carlson's title as self-declared creator of the universe; in 2021 police found her mummified body in a sleeping bag wrapped in Christmas lights at the group's Colorado home.

South Korea's early COVID-19 outbreak among Shincheonji members centred on which city?

Daegu's Shincheonji congregation was where 'Patient 31', a 61-year-old member, attended services while infected; members then carried the virus around the country.

Who is known as the 'father of deprogramming'?

Ted Patrick began deprogramming in the early 1970s; his methods included abduction and detention for days or weeks, which eventually brought kidnapping charges.

Cult expert Steven Hassan's model of control is known by what four-letter acronym?

BITE stands for control of Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotion; Hassan knew the subject first-hand, his parents having hired deprogrammers to pull him out of a group he joined at 19.

Raëlians, the group behind the cloning firm Clonaid, believe humanity was created by whom?

Extraterrestrials called the Elohim created humankind with advanced technology and were later mistaken for gods, the movement teaches; it sees cloning as a step towards immortality.

What nickname did the media give Adolfo Constanzo's occult drug gang in Matamoros?

The press dubbed the gang the 'Narcosatanists' after the 1989 murder of American student Mark Kilroy led police to their ranch and its ritual killings.

The 39 Heaven's Gate bodies were found in 1997 in a mansion in which San Diego suburb?

Rancho Santa Fe was home to the rented 9,200-square-foot mansion the group called 'The Monastery'; within weeks of the deaths its street was renamed to shed the association.

What did Heaven's Gate members carry in their pockets when they died?

A $5 bill and three quarters, $5.75 in all, was what former members said everyone took on trips out: enough to avoid vagrancy laws and make a phone call.

Father Yod opened the Source Restaurant, a health-food spot, on which famous LA stretch?

Sunset Strip diners at his restaurant included John Lennon and Marlon Brando; its owner, born Jim Baker, died in 1975 after hang gliding off an Oahu cliff with no experience.

The Twelve Tribes communities are known for running which chain of restaurants?

The Yellow Deli began in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the group formed in 1972; the delis and its Common Ground cafés help pay for the communities.

In Anne Hamilton-Byrne's Australian cult The Family, children's hair was dyed what colour?

Blonde dye and matching clothes made the children look alike; all were given the surname Hamilton-Byrne and told that she was their birth mother.

South Korea's Grace Road Church relocated in 2014 to which Pacific nation?

Fiji was the land the church picked to ride out a coming famine after scouting dozens of countries; some 400 members moved there in 2014, and founder Shin Ok-ju was later jailed in South Korea.

Which nerve agent did Aum Shinrikyo release in Matsumoto in 1994 and on the Tokyo subway?

Sarin was released in June 1994 in a bid to kill three judges hearing a case against the cult; nine months later it was set off on rush-hour Tokyo subway trains.

Which actress left Scientology in 2013 and went on to host an Emmy-winning series about the church?

Leah Remini had only just quit when she filed a missing-person report on the church leader's wife, unseen in public for six years; Los Angeles police soon closed the case as unfounded.

How was Aum Shinrikyo's founder executed in 2018?

Hanging is how Japan carries out every execution; the guru and six of his senior followers were put to death on the same day in July 2018.

Manson follower Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme drew a gun on President Ford in 1975 in which city?

Sacramento's Capitol Park was the scene: Fromme, alarmed about the fate of California's redwoods, pointed a Colt .45 at Ford, but there was no round in the chamber.

Which Los Angeles prosecutor co-wrote the 1974 bestseller Helter Skelter about the Manson trial?

Vincent Bugliosi won a murder conviction against Manson even though Manson had not done the killing himself, then told the story in Helter Skelter with Curt Gentry.

How many days did the Waco siege last?

51 days passed between the failed raid of February 28 and the fire of April 19, 1993, with FBI negotiators talking to those inside by telephone.

Which U.S. Attorney General approved the FBI's final assault on the Waco compound?

Janet Reno, newly confirmed as Attorney General, approved the tear-gas assault after being told conditions were deteriorating and children were being abused inside.

Solar Temple co-leader Luc Jouret was known as a practitioner of what kind of medicine?

Homeopathy was Jouret's calling card: a Belgian doctor, he drew wealthy recruits through public lectures on alternative medicine given under the Amenta Club, the order's public face.

How long is the service pledge signed by recruits to Scientology's Sea Org?

A billion years is the term of the contract every Sea Org recruit signs, a pledge the church describes as symbolic; the order staffs Scientology's most senior posts.

In Scientology's Xenu story, captured beings were placed around what before being bombed?

In OT III, Xenu flew the frozen beings to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs; the account appears in confidential Operating Thetan materials.

Japan's Ho No Hana sect was nicknamed for its founder diagnosing people by examining what?

Their feet: founder Hogen Fukunaga charged about $900 a reading, and in 2005 a Japanese court sentenced him to 12 years in prison for fraud.

The word 'cult' derives from the Latin cultus, meaning what?

Cultus means 'worship' or 'care', from the verb colere, to cultivate; 'cult' entered English in the 1600s simply meaning homage paid to a deity.