Cults
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Dive into the fascinating and complex world of cults with our free 96-question trivia quiz with answers. Test your knowledge about historical cult movements, their leaders, beliefs, and impact on society. Whether you're a history buff or simply curious about this intriguing topic, this quiz will challenge your understanding of one of humanity's most controversial phenomena.
30 of 96 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sharon Tate was married to which film director?
Roman Polanski
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.
Q 02Jim Jones's Peoples Temple built its remote jungle commune, Jonestown, in which South American country?
Guyana
Guyana offered an English-speaking country with a socialist government, which Jones sold to his followers as the place to build their own utopia.
Q 03Charles Manson fixated on 'Helter Skelter', a song from which Beatles LP?
The White Album
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.
Q 04Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was born Vernon Wayne what?
Howell
Howell joined the Branch Davidians in 1981, won control after a 1987 gunfight with rival George Roden, and legally became David Koresh in 1990.
Q 05David Berg took his young followers on the road after prophesying that his home state would suffer what?
A major earthquake
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'.
Q 06What did Heaven's Gate members believe was their ultimate destiny?
To shed their bodies and board an alien craft
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'.
Q 07Before the FBI took over, which federal agency's failed raid began the 1993 Waco siege?
ATF
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.
Q 08The Manson Family's Tate–LaBianca murders came days before which 1969 festival opened?
Woodstock
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.
Q 09Who led Scientology after L. Ron Hubbard died?
David Miscavige
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.
Q 10The Order of the Solar Temple's 1990s murder-suicides took place across which countries?
Switzerland, Canada, France
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.
Q 11Before moving his followers to South America, Jim Jones headquartered his church in which U.S. city?
San Francisco
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.
Q 12Heaven's Gate's two founders claimed to be the 'two witnesses' of which Bible book?
Revelation
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'.
Q 13The Branch Davidians were a splinter group of which larger religious denomination?
Seventh-day Adventists
Q 21How many people died in the Jonestown massacre in 1978?
Over 900
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.
Q 22In which U.S. state was the Children of God founded in 1968?
California
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.
Q 23What was the name of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas?
Mount Carmel Center
Mount Carmel Center was bulldozed after the 1993 fire; six years on, supporters broke ground there on a small church for the surviving Davidians.
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.
Q 14Which Manson Family victim was a celebrity hairstylist?
Jay Sebring
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.
Q 15The first Church of Scientology was incorporated in December 1953 in Camden, in which U.S. state?
New Jersey
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.
Q 16What common term describes the psychological manipulation cults use on members?
Brainwashing
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.
Q 17Guitarist Jeremy Spencer walked out on which band mid-tour in 1971 to join the Children of God?
Fleetwood Mac
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.
Q 18The mass suicide of Heaven's Gate members in 1997 was associated with the appearance of which comet?
Comet Hale-Bopp
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.
Q 19Charles Manson once lived at which Beach Boy's home?
Dennis Wilson
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.
Q 20Before founding his church, L. Ron Hubbard was best known for working in what profession?
Science Fiction Writer
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.
Q 24What did the Children of God call its practice of using sex to win converts?
Flirty Fishing
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.
Q 25The Tate murders took place at 10050 Cielo Drive, in which Los Angeles canyon?
Benedict
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.
Q 26Which Oscar-winning actor spent his early childhood in the Children of God, where his parents were missionaries?
Joaquin Phoenix
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.
Q 27In 2000 Aum Shinrikyo renamed itself 'Aleph', after the first letter of which alphabet?
Hebrew
Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; the renamed group later split in 2007, spawning the offshoot Hikari no Wa.
Q 28Heaven's Gate members earned money through a web-design business called what?
Higher Source
Higher Source built websites for paying clients, which covered the group's bills; a former member received its farewell videotapes and raised the alarm.
Q 29Which cult leader was known to his followers as 'Do', while his partner Bonnie Nettles was 'Ti'?
Marshall Applewhite
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.
Q 30A famous saying names the wrong brand: which fruit drink was actually laced with cyanide at Jonestown?
Flavor Aid
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'.