cults

Who were Heaven's Gate? Applewhite’s family could understand how the man they knew - a friendly, happy, caring Christian and devoted husband and father of two - could walk away from everything to found a cult. But that's what Marshall Applewhite did. And not just any cult. Heaven’s Gate was strange even among the bizarre New Age beliefs that were popularized in the 1970s — a time when a generation of free spirits were leaving the conventional behind to find themselves. For one, Heaven’s Gate was the first cult to go hi-tech. It had a website before most traditional businesses did, and its beliefs were meticulously spacey, involving aliens, UFOs, and talk of ascension to the “next level.” Visitors to the website were not quite sure if what

Associated Press has reported that ranch hands in Salem, Oregon have been advised by law enforcement to travel in pairs and carry arms after a rash of dead bulls with sex organs and tongues removed have been reported throughout eastern Oregon. According to law enforcement, the bulls showed no indication they were shot, attacked by predators, or poisoned. There were no tracks around the carcasses and the bulls had been entirely drained of blood. The owner of one ranch said it appeared as if “someone using a knife or scalpel did it”. Explanations for the bizarre mutilations vary widely. Some ranch management hands think someone is killing the bulls to cause financial harm to the ranchers. Dave Bohnert, director of Oregon State University’s Eastern Oregon Agricultural

The road to redemption is never an easy path but for a shadowy cult in a small Russian village, the way was particularly difficult. To achieve salvation, they had to die. But not only did they have to perish, they had to depart life in a most horrific way. For these unfortunate believers, in order to reach paradise, they had to be buried alive. Liman, Russia – 1896 The tiny village of Liman is located twenty-eight miles from Tiraspol in the province of Kherson in what is now modern-day Ukraine. It was a small village of about thirty people, most of who belonged to a cult known as Raskol Niki (or Raskoinki). Raskol Niki was a vague subsect of a religious division known as the Old Believers

Last month, after a horrifying execution, police in Chile arrested four members of a bizarre cult last month for allegedly burning a three-day-old baby alive on a ritual bonfire. The cult members celebrated the murder, believing that the end of the world was near and that the infant baby was the “ Antichrist” and in a position to trigger the destruction of the world. The baby was killed with the approval of her 25-year-old mother, a member of the cult. According to the Police Investigative Unit (PIU – Chile's equivalent to the FBI), the baby was taken to the top of a hill for the execution: “The baby was naked. They strapped tape around her mouth to keep her from screaming. Then they placed her on a board.