Cults by FlaxmanR

Jim Jones’ People’s Temple remains notorious for its mass suicide in 1978, but its members also ambushed and murdered a group of people at Kaituma shortly before the suicide, including Temple defectors, journalists, and what sitting US Congressman, representing California’s 11th district?

In spite of speculation surrounding an unexplained seismic event at Banjawarn Station in Western Australia, this doomsday cult most likely did not set off a nuclear bomb in 1993. They definitely did release sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, however.

Acknowledging and encouraging the early cult following that led it to become a more mainstream success, what television show included the phrase “Keep Circulating the Tapes” near the end of its credits for several seasons?

In the season nine episode “The Joy of Sect,” nearly all of Springfield – naturally including the Simpsons – is sucked in by what cult?

Scientology’s classification as a cult depends largely on who you ask (specifically, whether or not that person is a Scientologist). One man who would certainly tell you otherwise is its current leader, who took over the organization in 1987 following L. Ron Hubbard’s death. Name this man, who was also best man at Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes.

Its closest approach to Earth came on March 22, 1997. Four days later, the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult were found in a Southern California mansion. Give the most commonly used name for this celestial object, which the cultists apparently believed was being followed by a spaceship they could only reach via suicide.

On August 28, 1990, 31-year-old Vernon Wayne Howell officially changed his name to one that referenced two past messianic figures. What was this new name, which Howell used until his death at the Mount Carmel Center less than three years later?

One of the earliest documented examples was Vailala Madness, which appeared in New Guinea in 1919. Natives believed that European colonists were withholding gifts for them (in the form of Western goods) and prayed to the spirits of their ancestors to send them the goods directly by ship or plane. What two-word term is typically used to describe these movements, which were common throughout Melanesia as colonization reached the area in the first half of the 20th century?

A cult devoted to the goddess Kali but also a gang of professional murderers, this group was estimated to have killed millions before it was wiped out by the British Raj. Name the cult, a fictionalized version of which appears in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

A modern-day software magnate’s attempt to spread a neurological virus based on the ancient Sumerian language, which has been preserved by a cult of the goddess Asherah, forms the basis of the plot to what 1992 novel, named for a drug that spreads the virus by affecting users both in the Metaverse and in reality?

First published in 1966 in Korean, the Divine Principle is the chief theological textbook for the controversial Christian sect led (until his death in 2012) by what man?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the most well-known examples of an initially little-seen film around which a cult following grew. Less popular was what 1981 follow-up, which attempted to trade on Rocky’s cult success by only playing midnight shows when first released?