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The Rev. Jim Jones led 900 fervent believers into mass murder-suicide at Jonestown in 1977. Many swallowed cyanide and gave it to their children.
Ohio cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren made a human sacrifice of a family of five in 1989. Then he and his followers wandered through West Virginia, Missouri and California before being caught and convicted of murder.
David Koresh led 85 adherents to fiery death at his Bible prophecy compound at Waco, Texas.
Undark
Days before the inauguration of President Joe Biden, at a time when some Americans were animated by the false conviction that former President Donald J. Trump had actually won the November election, a man in Colorado began texting warnings to his family. The coming days, he wrote, would be
the most important since World War II. Trump had invoked the Insurrection Act, the man believed, and he was arresting enemies in the Vatican and other countries. Predicting turbulence ahead, the man urged his wife and two adult children to begin stockpiling essential goods.
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Can Cult Studies Offer Help With QAnon? The Science Is Thin.
Many families have become divided over online political conspiracy theories, but the science on “brainwashing” is weak.
MICHAEL SCHULSON
February 24, 2021
DAYS BEFORE THE inauguration of President Joe Biden, at a time when some Americans were animated by the false conviction that former President Donald J. Trump had actually won the November election, a man in Colorado began texting warnings to his family. The coming days, he wrote, would be “the most important since World War II.” Trump had invoked the Insurrection Act, the man believed, and he was arresting enemies in the Vatican and other countries. Predicting turbulence ahead, the man urged his wife and two adult children to begin stockpiling essential goods.
my family freaked out. they said i was brainwashed. they wanted to hire somebody to deprogram me. i was an adult, they couldn t do anything. i mean, we all joked. we knew that we looked funny following a man in a speedo, but it turns out some people didn t see it the way we did. there is this guy kenny who fell in love with this girl in our group. she was this beautiful model type. he was not in the group. he was not a model type, and he was not very nice. this guy was stalking and his motivation was to tear down the group so that he could have this girl. kenny started to attack michel saying he was a cult leader, telling us what we could and couldn t do. he went to cult awareness network, an organization run by rick ross. when you have leaders who claim to speak for god, cannot be questioned by their followers and have little if any accountability, you have a very volatile mix. so he pulled in cult awareness network to try and
Buddhafield and i had a group of new disciples eager to do service with me. i set out to make our house in austin a place of peace and beauty. by the time we were finished, we had built not only a massive garden but also an aviary complete with peacocks, exotic birds, even a wallabee. the garden became our sanctuary and his house became like a refuge from the outside world. things quieted down. time went by and we didn t hear much from cult awareness network anymore. we thought we might be getting back to normal but the demands of the buddhafield and andreas became greater and greater. the aviary with all the birds and bunnies was overrun by rats. we would lift up a rock and hundreds of rats would go running out.