Tess Kehoe's blog

This cult is yet another one centered on apocalyptic principles ending in a mass-murder/ suicide, but I hope you find it interesting. The Order of the Solar Temple or Ordre du Temple Solaire was founded in 1984 by Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro in Geneva. Jouret was a legitimate health professional with a medical degree who found himself disenchanted with medicine, looking for more out of life which led him to travel and become affiliated with several groups including Templar Renewed Order, where he eventually met Di Mambro in ‘81. Di Mambro was less legit, he scammed his way as a psychologist and was charged with a few things including fraud and violation of confidentiality (Butz). Di Mambro got very wealthy and owned a 15 bedroom home in France which raised some eyebrows, forcing him to move to Switzerland.  

The Order of the Solar Temple was derived from after the french revolution when Bernard-Raymond Fabré-Palaprat revived the Knights Templar, a religious order from the 12th century which was banned by the Pope in 1312. This revival split into many factions, one of which was the Templar Renewed Order, based on the idea that the world was going to end. In The Order of the Solar Temple, they preached that the world would in a catastrophe in the mid 1990’s (Melton). In 1986 they moved the OST headquarters to Quebec, where Jouret claimed the world would end in a great famine but Quebec would be the only place to end up okay.  

Jouret and Di Mambro lead in different ways. Jouret was only really interested in the sex and money. Before every ritual he would have sex with one of the women members to give him spiritual strength. He had many wives and switched them out frequently. Di Mambro had a strong need for power, anything he told the followers to do, they would do. Their followers believed everything DiMambro said because he could perfectly manipulate them.  

Between 1994-96, in anticipation for the end of the world,  numerous groups of around 20 members were found dead in burning buildings. Some were shot in the head, others overdosed on drugs and injections. Their bodies “On the floor, arranged in a sun shaped circle with their feet pointing inwards, were 22 bodies: nine men, 12 women and a 12-year old boy.… Some of the dead were wearing the coloured ceremonial robes”(Butz 2). I found this especially interesting, that they were so systematic in their deaths. Today, there are said to be somewhere between 150-500 members of the The Order of the Solar Temple.  

Sources:

Melton, J. Gordon. “Order of the Solar Temple.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Nov. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/Order-of-the-Solar-Temple.

Butz, Mary . “The Order of the Solar Temple.” Watchman Fellowship Profile, www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/ordersolartempleprofile.pdf. 

Image:

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The Brethren is a small group with sites all around the world. The people are non-materialistic and have a strict set of rules. While there is no hierarchy in the group, there is a Man of God who is seen as a messiah figure. The Man of God changes periodically, the current one lives in a $5 million mansion in Australia and is listed as one of Forbes most richest men in the land down under. One of their big premises is that members are not allowed to associate in any way with non-members. Brethren men work at Brethren businesses and the women stay at home. Brethrens are not permitted to eat at non-brethren restaurants, stay in hotels, or even live in apartment buildings because of non-member neighbors. They are not allowed to swim in public pools, nor can they add one to their homes, only if the house comes with it. Members cannot use computers, aside from those created by Brethren companies with limited software and connections to the outside world. “Until 2005, Brethren banned cell phones, computers and fax machines. The Internet is regarded as a “pipeline to filth.” Now, Brethren businesses provide cell phones and computers with software called “Wordex” that permits only word processing, spreadsheets, accounting programs and email, but no Internet. Skype is also prohibited.”

Brethren people have a dress code, the women wear long skirts down to the ankle and have long hair with something to cover the head like a ribbon or handkerchief. Brethren men are clean cut and shaven, dressed in business casual, sideburns are not even allowed. The group places a clear importance on the men. In their meetings, which are held in a windowless building, women are to sit silently with the children in the back rows with their only role to pass out pamphlets. The men sit in the center rows, with the especially important male members in the center of it all. Brethren children are to live at home, with their parents, until the day they are married. Typically the women get married young, because their purpose is to be a dutiful wife and produce a lot of children.   

The Brethren genuinely believe those who are outside of the cult, especially those who left, are evil and living life wrong. When someone is “withdrawn from” this can be for any plethora of reasons, it’s the group’s way of keeping members in check. Members know if they do anything or question beliefs in a way the Brethren does not like, they will be withdrawn from, or kicked out, and their life as they know it is over. Family members are conditioned to vilify the person who left. There are many accounts of people who ran into their kids, parents, or friends on the street and were completely ignored. This is a heartbreaking reality which is difficult for many to deal with. Some people will try to go back to the cult and admit they were wrong just to get back with family, of course this does not come without extreme humiliation.  

I thought this cult was very interesting because of their exclusive, strict, and elitist premises. All of those qualities seem like the antithesis of what a religious movement should be.  

Sources:

Redekop, Bill. “The closed-door church: Inside the secretive and strict Plymouth Brethren sect in Manitoba.” Cult Education, 10 May 2014, culteducation.com/group/1289-general-information/27227-the-closed-door-church-inside-the-secretive-and-strict-plymouth-brethren-sect-in-manitoba.html 

Image:

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Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was an unorthodox Indian guru who led the Rajneeshpuram group in India until they essentially got kicked out of the country for not getting along well with the locals(foreshadowing). Rajneesh relocated the movement to a ranch in southern Oregon in 1981 where they cultivated their own small town of roughly 2,500 people, called the City of Rajneeshpuram. He build his commune with many highly educated adults, he himself had a BA and an MA in Philosophy, and roughly 10% of his members had masters degrees.    

Rajneesh was man who enjoyed the finer things in life. He personally owned 93 rolls royces and purchased the 65,000 acre ranch for roughly $5 million. His teachings were unlike any other group at this time. Rajneesh taught his people to do whatever felt good, materialism is good, and that sex was free expression of love to be explored freely. Rajneesh was not the biggest fan of kids being involved in his cult. He encouraged members to sterilize and break off ties with their children if they were not involved. One account of a man who moved to the commune in Poona, India from London as a child with his parents and two siblings. He said the kids were primarily separated in their own area during the day where they had “school” lead by a blond hippie man called Shaman. When he returned to the UK at the age of 10, he could barely read or write or even do basic math like 2+2. He claims to have been fully aware his parents had other partners and could hear people throughout the commune having sex at all hours of the night.

The Rajneeshpuram city in Eastern Oregon was essentially fully functioning and run by the members. They had meeting halls, a gas station, an airport, pretty much everything Rajneesh needed to get his political foothold. The members were working hard labor for hours a day, and all the food they ate was communal and vegetarian, making the people sleep deprived and not critically thinking so Rajneesh could easily manipulate them. All of the media they consumed and even exposed to was created by Rajneesh.  

Ma Anand Sheela was an Indian woman who became very close and high up in ranks with Rajneesh. She implemented the “Share a Home” program which brought thousands of homeless people to the commune, and registered them to vote in efforts to sway a local vote. This did not work out, so Rajneesh saw the next obvious solution to have his members poison the people of the largest town next to them in order to reduce voter population. They went to restaurants and tampered with the food, ended up poisoning 750 people in the country’s first bioterrorist attack.  

The Rajneeshpuram trademark was their bright orange and red clothing, which they dyed themselves. My mom has lived in Portland her whole life and remembers in the ‘80’s sometimes seeing the Rajneeshpuram people walking around town, clearly noticed by their clothing.  Today, the former Rajneeshpuram ranch is now home to the largest Christian Young Life summer camp, for middle and high school students. My sister and a lot of people I know have gone there and have fantastic memories. There are still remnants of the commune, buildings that have not yet fallen down, bus stops, all interesting history. If you are curious or would like to learn more, Netflix released a 6 part documentary called Wild Wild Country , I have not yet watched it but it’s highly recommended

. 

Sources:

Urban, Hugh. “Rajneeshpuram Was More than a Utopia in the Desert. It Was a Mirror of the Time.” Humanities, Spring 2018, www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/spring/feature/rajneeshpuram-was-more-utopia-desert-it-was-mirror.

Wollaston, Sam. “Growing up in the Wild Wild Country cult: ‘You heard people having sex all the time, like baboons’.” The Guardian, 24 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/apr/24/wild-wild-country-netflix-cult-sex-noa-maxwell-bhagwan-shree-rajneesh-commune-childhood.

Huber, Lucy. “20 Facts About the Rajneeshpuram Cult That ‘Wild Wild Country’ Never Told You.” Twenty two Words, twentytwowords.com/facts-about-the-rajneeshpuram-cult-that-wild-wild-country-never-told-you/.

The Children or God was a New Religious Movement(NRM) started in 1968 by David Bergg. Based on a combination of Christianity and the free love movement of the 60’s the group originally began as a little group of hippies a runaway teens. Bergg promoted that the closest way to God was through love and love is sex. He also instilled in all of his followers that the apocalypse is impending.  In 1978 after the Jonestown massacre, which brought a negative light to all NRMs, Bergg changed the name to the Family of Love.

Members took this in a very literal way and lived each day like it was their last. They lived in communes with about 4 families to a house. At the height of the movement, there were around 130 communes across the world with 10,000 members. The people were discouraged from sending their kids to real schools, getting a regular or “system” job, and even speaking to people outside of the movement.  

This movement was dangerous place for young children, particularly girls. After Bergg gave the members license to have sex with whoever they want, regardless of age, nearly any kid above the age of 3 was subject to sexual abuse. Their dads were the most common perpetrators, but not the only ones. One  account of a girl who escaped the movement at 15, she was sexually abused by other members and her father from the age of four. She reported being physically whipped and or beaten at the sign of any imagination, questions, or other minuscule transgressions.

At some point, in attempts to get new members, Bergg told them women of the cult to offer themselves to men. Essentially, he started a prostitution ring which caught the attention of the FBI. This was the beginning of the end for Bergg. The FBI started investigating accounts of child abuse and wanted to find the leader. Bergg fled the country in 1993 and died in 1994. The Movement was left in the hands of his wife, Karen Zerby and her new husband, Steve Kelly.

Zerby and Kelly started off running the cult with strict and harsh rules, but they realized that was not working very well so they changed it up in 2009. They released a statement saying they do not foresee the apocalypse as impending as Bergg did. They told the people they should start planning for 30 years, encouraged members to get system jobs, send their kids to real schools, and actually talk to non members. This came as a shock to many members, up until this point it was entirely sac-religous to plan for retirement or a future at all. The people did not know what to do, members began moving off of the communes and getting less involved with the movement. Personally, I think Zerby and Kelly came to, realized this sex cult is not the move, and gave their members a much needed “out” even if they realize it or not. Today, there are still a few thousand members scattered around the world, known as Family International.  

Side note: Actors Rose McGowan and Joaquin Phoenix along with siblings were born into this Cult.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/11/children-of-god-church-sex-cult-texas-mexico-fbi

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-44613932

The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, a church group in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania believes in the right to bear arms and wear crowns. Led by pastor Sean Moon, a Harvard grad with a degree in theology, this Christian sect held an AR-15 blessing ceremony just two weeks after the Parkland, Florida shooting last year. This controversial group has been receiving a lot of attention lately with their new recent addition of guns to their belief system. The Sanctuary stemmed from Pastor Sean’s fathers group after he died, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (The Unification Church). Reverend Moon of The Unification Church was known as the King or True Father, and his son Pastor Sean now goes by the Second King. The Unification Church made headlines for their mass arranged marriage ceremonies were hundreds of couples would be married with their crowns. The Unification Church is often grouped in with the Rod of Iron Ministry but they released a statement earlier this year after the rifle/marriage ceremony that they do not condone violence and are in no way associated with them.

The crowns symbolize the sovereignty of kings and queens and in the Rod of Iron Ministry, the rod of iron represents defending one’s community and home. Many of the members’ crowns, including the Second King’s are made with rifle shells. Members only get a crown once they are married, which is set up by their parents. Marriages are a great honor and members are very excited when their parents have selected their future spouse because then they can start to communicate and get to know each other.  

The Second King has interpreted the Bible in a new way. He claims that last December, he had a vision and came to the realization that “rod of iron” from the Bible was actually a metaphor for a rifle, AR-15. “As coheirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), we are to love God and love our neighbor through protecting God’s Kingdom with the Rod of Iron.” a direct quote from the ROIM mission statement on their website. Essentially the group is working here now on earth to prepare for god’s kingdom, or heaven. Both the True Father and Second King have notoriously been associated with right wing politics, supporting presidents and their policies. Pastor Sean posts 3 hour videos of his teachings on youtube and the website, frequently promoting the 2nd amendment and talking negatively about the left. This group was fascinating to research because of their seemingly paradoxical ideals of creating peace by bearing arms. In part of my research I watched a documentary series episode from Vice news, if you’re curious to learn more, I definitely recommend giving it a watch.

The Sullivan cult existed of around 500 members in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Led by Saul B Newman, a Spanish Civil War veteran and his wife, Dr. Jane Pearce, a self- taught marxist therapist. Neither of them had any formal training in the field of psychology but started the Sullivan Institute in 1957, a therapy and polygamy center which attracted many artists and intellectuals in the ‘60’s. Newton’s goal was to establish an alternative to the traditional nuclear family, which he thought to be the main cause of social anxiety. Sullivanians, as the members were called, were forbidden from being in exclusive relationships, everyone was encouraged to have sexual relationships with each other. Children born into the movement would be sent off to boarding school or have caretakers, only seeing their parents for an hour or two a day. Members were also encouraged to cut off all relationships with outside people, including family members, except in the event of needed monetary support.

Over the years, the movement became more authoritarian and destructive. In the 70’s Newton replaced his first wife, Jane, with Joan Harvey, an actress. Sullivanians joined forces with a theater group and wanted to sign a lease on a theater space. When the occupants refused to vacate, hundreds of Sullivanians flooded the theater and ascended the space with chaos, destroying sets, resulting in 3 arrests. After the Three Mile Island accident, a nuclear power plant disaster in Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, Sullivanians went to Orlando for a few weeks to avoid the destruction of Manhattan. When they came back, anyone who did not go on the trip was ostracized by Newton. Things changed drastically. Newton became extremely paranoid and even requested a room at their new facility be built with quarter in steel plated walls so Joan Harvey could edit her new film without the CIA interfering. Because Newton thought the world was out to get him, he resorted to intimidation and violence.Throughout the ‘80’s, therapists used intimidation and fear tactics to get the members to conform and act as they wished. They desired to control who had kids and how many and who with. One account of when a member tried to leave, two Sullivanians tracked the man down to the subway and dangled him over the tracks threatening to kill him if he left the movement. One of those men was Newton’s son. The movement slowly crumbled throughout the ‘80’s, with several court cases revealing the brutalities and controversial practices around raising children. The cult ultimately ended in 1991 with Newton’s death.