(suspenseful music)
- Oof!
Hi, I don't usually hang out in alleys
but when I do it's to tell you about cults.
(suspenseful music)
So lots of people don't like the word cult.
It's a controversial label, right?
But there are a few groups most people agree are
not only cults, but doomsday cults.
(suspenseful music)
Take the Movement for the Restoration
of the Ten Commandments of God.
That's a mouthful but that's their name.
Founded by four ex priest, two ex nuns,
and one ex prostitute in Uganda.
This group predicted the Apocalypse would occur on,
get ready, December 31st, 1999.
That didn't happen, obviously you're watching this.
When that didn't happen, they altered their prediction
and they claimed that the Virgin Mary
would come on March 17th, 2000.
Spoiler alert, didn't happen.
When March 17th arrived, policed discovered
that an explosion and a fire had killed hundreds
of the groups members.
Initially, everyone assumed this was a mass suicide,
but subsequent evidence indicated that these leaders,
murdered their flock and fled town.
(suspenseful music)
Or, how about the Order of the Solar Temple.
Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret founded
it in Geneva in 1984.
Now Jouret claimed to be both Jesus Christ
and a Knight Templar.
Together these guys believed that
Di Mambro's daughter would take
the group to a planet near Sirius,
when the world ended in the 1990's.
So in 1994, the leaders decreed that it was
time to skedaddle.
Fifty-three member committed suicide
or were murdered on October 4th and 5th in 1994.
More deaths followed and there's no word on
whether they made it to Sirius yet.
(suspenseful music)
Then there's the Japanese, Aum Shinrikyo.
Founded in 1987 by Master Asahara Shoko.
This began as a yoga school but Asahara eventually ditched
yoga entirely when he figured out that he embodied a god.
To deflect police attention and to instigate the violence he
prophesied, Asahara orchestrated a subway attack.
His followers succeeded in killing 12 people
and sickening 5500.
(suspenseful music)
In the 1970's this guy named Marshal Applewhite and
Bonnie Nettles decided they were the witnesses
mentioned in the Book of Revelation.
They regaled followers with Apocalyptic prophecies
about salvation via space ship.
Members lived communally, they forsook their
possessions, their families, and their sex lives.
Why? Because they were convinced that the
Hale-Bopp comet was the instrument of their salvation.
And all of this preparation was necessary to catch a ride.
In March 1997, all members were found dead
from an apparent suicide.
(suspenseful music)
We can't forget, The People's Temple.
Jim Jones founded it in 1950's Indianapolis,
but after reading an Esquire magazine about
how to survive a nuclear holocaust,
his congregation packed up and moved to California in 1965.
Jones began building a commune called Jonestown in Guyana.
U.S. Congressman, Leo Ryan, flew down
to visit the place in 1978.
But as Ryan was about to leave,
Jones' men arrived and killed him.
And on that same day, more than 900 people died,
including 276 children in, again, a mass suicide.
This is just scratching the surface.
It's true that the world is ending for
someone, somewhere, everyday.
I mean maybe even me, we haven't even mentioned
the British Davidians or the Manson family,
but who else do you think should be on this list?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you'd like to know more check out our article,
"Ten Most Infamous Cults".
And subscribe for way more, What the Stuff?
(fast footsteps)
- We had a lady who visited us a week ago here
and was speaking to one at the door.
She was a member of a prominent church, a pastors wife.
And she said, "I think that the poor should be
made to control how many children they
bring into the earth".
You remember?
(audience agrees)
Some leading scientist say we have to have euthanasia.
Oh no.
Who's gonna decide, who and when a person's going to die?
We must never allow that.
Because this is the kind of thing that ushers in
the terror of a Hitler's Germany.
We must not allow these kind of things
to enter our consciousness.
(screaming and audience applause)
(inaudible)
(chime)