Cults can come in all different sizes and styles, but the scariest cults all seem to
have one thing in common.
Creepy cults often seem to revolve around one person trying to control their members,
and even sometimes the wider public as a whole.
Whether it’s a typical doomsday cult or a political motivated sect, these are some
of the most terrifying cults in the world.
Number 5
In the 1980s, Japanese rigid society and the increasing pressure on young people to take
high pressure jobs was the perfect conditions for a new religious organisation to take root
among university graduates.
Aum Shinrikyo (Ohm Shin Ree Kee Oh)was a mixture of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, and its leader,
was supposedly both Christ and the first enlightened one since the Buddha.
It started out with Asahara selling quake medicines from his home and creating a small
yoga school, before rumours spread that his followers could read minds and levitate.
Followers spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars for Asahara’s hair, bathwater,
or other bodily fluids which were supposedly part of the medicines.
Initiation rituals involving bathing in scalding water and imprisoning members that tried to
flee the cult was also happening.
Christian doomsday mythos was added to the blend of religion and before long it became
a doomsday cult.
Aum Shinrikyo reached around 10,000 Japanese followers at its peak, but spread to Russia
and other former Soviet block countries, where it’s numbers reached 30,000.
The cult’s enemies were attacked with poisonous gases and nerve agents that had been developed
during the World Wars.
Some were locked in purpose built microwave ovens.
Great, young scientists straight out of university were attracted to the cult, and they built
a laboratory near Mount Fuji to create these dangerous gases.
Small gas attacks had already taken place before the 1995 attack that would make the
cult famous around the globe.
It was the morning of March 20th, 1995, when millions of commuters began their day like
any other on Tokyo’s underground system.
Also aboard some of the trains that day were five bags of a liquid nerve agent.
The fumes leaking from the bags left victims choking, blinded and even paralysed.
13 people passed away due to the attack, while thousands more were left hurt.
Shoko Asahara and several of his followers were arrested and tried for the attacks.
Asahara claimed the attacks had been coordinated without his knowledge, but nobody outside
the cult believed the claim.
He eventually received capital punishment.
Today, Aum Shinrikyo is not banned in Japan, but it is no longer classified as a religion.
Two offshoots of the cult have developed.
They have tried to distance themselves from the cult’s violent past, but it’s not
an easy past for them to shake off.
Elsewhere around the world, the group has been condemned.
It’s banned in Russia, where it still has a relatively strong following.
Number 4
In Uganda in the 1980s, there was what was described as an “epidemic of apparitions
of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ”.
The Catholic Church and the church in Uganda rejected the claims of these apparitions,
but religious movements sprouted up around them, including the Movement for the Restoration
of the Ten Commandments of God.
The Movement was started by Joseph Kibweteere and Credonia Mwerinde (mwhere end), who both
claimed to have been spoken to by the Virgin Mary.
They said the war, diseases and other struggles Uganda was going through at the time was due
to the fact so many people were disobeying the Ten Commandments.
Alcohol had been infected by the Devil, as had dogs and cats.
They believed only by strict adherence to the Ten Commandments could they be saved from
the upcoming apocalypse.
Kibweteere gathered more and more followers until, in 1992, his family forced him to move
out of his home.
They moved to Kanungu (Kuh Noon Guh) and formed a village whose name literally translated
to the Rescue place for the Virgin Mary.
Before entering the Movement, people had to read “A Timely Message from Heaven: The
End of the Present Time” or have it read to them.
This outlined the Movement’s beliefs and explained how even something like women wearing
trousers was contributing to the destruction of the Earth, and how Aids was caused by the
consumption of beer.
They believed their church, which they referred to as an arc, would either be spared from
the devastation of the upcoming apocalypse and they would inherit a new earth, or they
would be transported to heaven during the disasters.
Kibweteere initially claimed that this end of the world would come at the end of December
31st, 1999.
When the new millennium was greeted without any doomsday, many followers became sceptical.
But Kibweteere moved that date to March 17th.
In the build up to March 17th, a new church was built and large amounts of food and soft
drinks were acquired.
The group gathered in the church for a day of singing, prayer, and feasting on the day
the world was supposed to end.
The doors and windows were bordered up, and the church was engulfed in flames with hundreds
of people inside.
After the destruction of the church, mass graves were discovered containing the bodies
of people who, presumably, hadn’t bought Kibweteere’s new doomsday prediction.
Officially, it’s believed Kibweteere was in the church when it was burned to the ground
and was one of the 530 people who perished there, but some believe he escaped and is
still alive, living under an assumed name.
Number 3
The Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought was the wordy name given to
a British cult based in Brixton for three decades.
The cult was run by Comrade Bala.
Bala had been born in India 1940 and travelled to Singapore when he was eight years old.
He went to university in the British colony, where he witnessed the Malaysian emergency,
and the fight between the British and the anti-British national liberators.
After university he travelled to England where he studied at the London School of Economics.
He joined socialist and communist student organisations but was too radical for the
groups and decided to start his own commune.
The Workers’ Institute got under way in the early 1970s.
Bala was extremely paranoid.
He believed things like fire engines going past the bookstore he ran was part of some
psychological warfare against him and his organisation.
He also believed the Chinese communist party would come to liberate them by 1980.
Despite Bala’s paranoia, the organisation attracted like minded young men and women
but, after a police raid in 1978, it seemingly disappeared.
In reality, the organisation had gone underground.
Most of his followers had drifted away due to Bala’s increasing need to control and
dominate others.
But a small number of women stayed part of the group.
Bala would call it loyalty, as was likely the case with his wife, Chandra, but there’s
no doubt many of the group were simply unable to leave.
The women were treated like slaves, according to later reports.
Some were allowed to go out and work in the community, but only so they could earn money
to keep a roof over Bala’s head.
Physical attacks were common, even against Bala’s own daughter.
They were not permitted any privacy, even inside their own minds, and Bala would routinely
humiliate them in front of the other members.
Two of the women would pass away.
One supposedly fell out of a window, while another hit her head on a cabinet and did
not wake up.
By 2013, four followers were left.
These were Chandra, Bala’s daughter, and two others.
His daughter and the two others were able to escape and the truth about the Worker’s
Institute came to light.
Bala and Chandra were imprisoned for numerous crimes, while the remaining members of the
group were taken to safety.
Number 2 In August 1987, police in South Korea began
investigating what they thought was a minor assault.
They received a report from a couple who had invested in a local business.
When they went to claim their money back, they were beaten by 13 people and forced to
give up any claim to the money they were owed.
By the end of the month, police realised they had stumbled upon a cult lead by the president
of the company, Park Soon-ja.
Park was a 48-year-old woman who had claimed God had cured her cancer, and believed she
was the chosen one.
Given the cult came to a tragic end before police even realised it existed, there aren’t
a whole lot of details about its beliefs, but it did claim to be a Christian sect, which
preached spiritual discipline, blind obedience to Park’s word, and possibly that the world
was soon to come to an end.
To the outside world, Park was a successful business woman and did lots of charity work.
She gained a reputation in the community through her charity work, helping the homeless elderly
and orphans.
The fact her husband was a senior provincial government official also helped.
Using her good standing, she started a company, the Odaeyang (Ode Yang) Trading Company, which
created traditional Korean furniture which was sold to tourists.
She was able to get loans from several investors, including the couple that had come looking
for their money that fateful day.
Park and her followers used her charity work to draw in more followers, praying on the
vulnerable who they could put to work in the factory.
After police received the report about the assault, Park and 13 of her followers were
arrested, but they were soon let go while police investigated.
Police realised there were dozens of people who had accused Park of fraud.
Realising this was actually a major fraud case, they went to arrest Park again, but
discovered she and about 80 of her followers had disappeared.
49 of those followers were found hiding in the factory, but Park was nowhere to be found.
A maid that worked in the cafeteria, Mrs Jang, claimed she hadn’t seen them.
Mrs Jang was questioned repeatedly by the police.
Eventually, on August 30th, she phoned the police to say the people they were looking
for were in the factory, but the “circumstances were quite odd”.
Police discovered the bodies of 33 people stacked in piles in the attic space above
the cafeteria.
They had passed away about two days earlier.
Park was among those found.
Mrs Jang explained to police how Park had been using the company as a front for her
cult.
She was referred to as the Benevolent Mother.
Exactly why the cult members had decided things should end this way is unknown.
Many believe it’s due to the debt they were facing and the investigation into the fraud,
while others have claimed it was due to the fact they believed the world was about to
end.
Number 1
Up until the early 1990s, Knutby Filadelfia in Sweden had been a relatively normal Pentecostal
church community in Sweden.
But with the arrival of Asa Waldau (walld ow), everything changed.
Waldau was a charismatic leader.
After getting baptised in 1983, she began to teach and evangelize, and would be sought
after for advice and leadership.
This caused friction with some parts of the church but, when she arrived at Knutby, she
was welcomed with open arms.
There had previously been a prophecy that a female servant who had once been derided
would come to Knutby and lead the church to wonderful things, and it seemed like Waldau
was just that person.
She took on a leadership role within the church and her teachings doubled the size of the
congregation.
Some of the older church goers disagreed with the new direction she was taking the church
in, but newcomers were quick to fill their spaces and it wasn’t long before the church
was 100 strong.
As with a lot of cults, the year 2000 was seen as being a big year for the church.
They believed Christ would return to welcome in the new millennium and not only would Knutby
Filadelfia play an important role in that, but Asa Waldau would become the literal bride
of Christ.
This was allegedly first suggested by Helge Fossmo, one of the pastors in the church,
but Waldau took on the role.
According to Fossmo, demons were trying to hurt Waldau, and only through prayer could
this be stopped.
The church seemed to be focusing on protecting Waldau spiritually, and that led to some very
unorthodox practices.
At the centre of it all with Waldau was Fossmo.
Fossmo had come to the church not long after Waldau and, while he was below her in levels
of authority, he was still a key figure in the church.
He had originally been married to a woman named Helene but, in 1999, she passed away
after an apparent accident.
Officially, she fell and hit her head on the shower head, but there was a large amount
of medication found in her system.
According to Fossmo, the accident had happened shortly after Waldau had told Helene that
God would take her due to her arguments with Fossmo.
It was just the first passing linked to Fossmo, Waldau and the apparent will of God.
Fossmo would marry again, this time to Waldau’s sister Alexandra.
But he soon started a relationship with another member of the church, a young woman named
Sara Svensson.
The two would pray together for Waldau’s safety.
Even though Fossmo was married, their relationship was seen as a positive, as they were spiritually
connected.
Sara was seen as second only to Waldau herself, and Waldau would come to Sara for advice.
But when Sara told Waldau that God did not want Waldau to sing at her wedding, Sara fell
from grace.
The relationship was now seen as a sin and Sara was condemned by Waldau and the rest
of the church.
She was physically punished and ostracized.
Then, in 2003, she started to get cryptic, anonymous messages on her cell phone which
she believed to be from God.
The messages said she should take the life of Alexandra and another member of the church.
Believing it was what God wanted, she did what she was told.
She took Alexandra’s life and attempted to take the life of a neighbour.
Thankfully, he survived.
It would emerge that the messages came from Fossmo’s phone.
Fossmo would later claim Waldau had originally sent them to him to pass them on, though her
involvement has never been confirmed.
Fossmo was convicted for the crime, while Sara was sent to a mental hospital.
Knutby Filadelfia was rejected by the Pentecostal church due to its unorthodox beliefs and Waldau
stepped away from the church after the media attention due to the crimes.
In 2020, she was convicted for assault towards members of the church.