These cult rituals are guaranteed to shock and disturb. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re examining our picks for the most unsettling, bizarre, and messed up practices by real-life cults around the world that often led to disaster.
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00:00And the first step is making a vow of obedience to her as me being a slave and her being my master.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're examining our picks for the most unsettling,
00:11bizarre, and messed up practices by real-life cults around the world that often led to disaster.
00:17The flirting was more than flirting. It was actually, you know, religious prostitution.
00:22Constant coconut consuming. The order of the sun.
00:30August Englehart was in his early 20s when he joined the Youngborn,
00:35a cult focused on vegetarianism and nudism. In 1902, after the Youngborn was dissolved,
00:41Englehart relocated to modern-day Papua New Guinea. There, he developed his own cult,
00:47the Order of the Sun, and promoted the consumption of a fruit-based diet,
00:51particularly coconuts, which he believed were special since they grew the closest to the sun.
00:57It looks like the human head. One can make everything out of it one needs,
01:02can derive sustenance from it, and so he plans on establishing this cocavore colony.
01:09At its peak, around 30 followers joined this coconut cult. However,
01:13relying on coconuts as a primary food source led to many members' deaths. Englehart himself
01:19lost a lot of weight, which was compounded by a drought, and he developed various illnesses.
01:24He ultimately passed away in 1919 at the age of 43.
01:30Mass weddings. The Unification Church.
01:32Would you let your parents pick your spouse? How about your religious leader?
01:37For members of one controversial movement, marriage is part of their messiah's grand vision.
01:42In 1954, Sun Myung Moon formed the Unification Church in South Korea,
01:47declaring himself the second coming of Christ. Not long after, Moon began arranging for members
01:53to get married to each other. These ceremonies were believed to free the couple and their future
01:58children from original sin. Starting today, I hope not just to love each other, but I want
02:04to form a family where I can share all the love with people around me. Moon relocated to the U.S.
02:10in 1971, and the ideologies of the group soon began to gain popularity there. In 1982,
02:16the Unification Church began its first mass holy marriage blessing ceremony in New York
02:22with 2,000 couples. Over the years, thousands more have participated in these ceremonies,
02:27often marrying people they've never met before, who were chosen by Moon and other leaders.
02:32From an American culture's standpoint, it is, it's not normal to be married with, you know,
02:38hundreds of other couples. But really, objectively, we don't feel like it's actually that strange.
02:43The Game. Synanon. Synanon was founded by Charles Dietrich Sr. in 1958,
02:49originally as a rehabilitation program. Synanon was revolutionary. It was addicts helping addicts.
02:57It was such a deep comfort. In 1991, the main U.S. branch was shut down due to a slew of scandals
03:04and crimes committed by the cult. However, it still survives in some countries. To control
03:10its members, Synanon introduced The Game, a twisted form of group therapy. During The Game,
03:16one person is selected, whom the others would then verbally tear apart,
03:20picking on their weaknesses, talking about their secrets, and humiliating them.
03:25In Synanon, within the Synanon Game, we were able to tell our truth and we were accepted within that
03:30place. Once you were done, you would get up and you'd leave. The chosen person had to agree with
03:35the attacks. If they resisted, others would join in, which only intensified the tirades. The Game
03:41was later turned into a 72-hour ordeal, increasing the brainwashing even more.
03:47Violence became a solution for Chuck at some point. He was a master manipulator in so many ways.
03:53Disrobed and disorderly. Freedomites. The Dukobors are a Christian community
03:59who originally emigrated from Russia to Canada in the late 1800s.
04:03Persecuted by the church and state in Tsarist Russia for their pacifist beliefs,
04:07some 4,000 Dukobors immigrated to Saskatchewan in 1899 under the leadership and spiritual guidance
04:14of Peter Verrigan. A few years later, some members broke away to form the Freedomites,
04:20which later became known as the Sons of Freedom. This new group rejected materialism and opted to
04:26educate their children themselves rather than send them to government-run schools.
04:30In retaliation, the province eventually forced their children into a school where they could
04:35only see their parents through a chain-link fence. This caused clashes with the local government
04:40and led to wide protests among the group. Some Freedomites took their descent to extreme levels,
04:45committing acts of arson and using explosives without clothes on. The cults believed that
04:50uncovered human skin, which was created by God, was more perfect than fabric, made by imperfect
04:57human hands. It is not a failure of the society of British Columbia to adapt to the Sons of Freedom.
05:02It is rather a failure of the Sons of Freedom to adapt to British Columbia.
05:06That failure is marked by police reports, which I get every week.
05:10Sacrifices to Protect Criminals – The Narco-Satanists
05:14Born in the U.S. in 1962, Adolfo Constanzo eventually settled in Mexico City, where he
05:20would perform animal sacrifices, claiming it helped cartels in their criminal activities.
05:26This enhanced the reputation of his cult, the Narco-Satanists, with gangs in the area,
05:31believing he actually possessed magical powers. Constanzo moved from using animals to the bodies
05:36of the deceased, then to live human sacrifices. In 1989, after taking the life of American student
05:43Mark Kilroy, Constanzo fled with some of his followers. Before he could be arrested,
05:48he commanded his followers to kill him. Mark's parents say they would have liked to see
05:52Constanzo captured rather than killed. The Kilroys planned to remember their son by setting
05:57up an anti-drug foundation in Mark's honor. Afterwards, several cult members were apprehended
06:03and convicted for their crimes. It is believed that the Narco-Satanists' rituals claimed up to 26 lives.
06:10Extreme Sweat Lodge – Spiritual Warrior Retreat
06:14After finding his feet in motivational speaking, James Arthur Ray began promoting
06:19New Age beliefs with self-help advice. There's at least one area of your life
06:23where you know you deserve more. This led to him hosting several
06:28Spiritual Warrior events, which involved testing the participants' resolve by putting their lives
06:33in danger. In 2009, Ray brought members, who paid him around $10,000 each, to a retreat in Arizona.
06:50He got them inside a non-traditional sweat lodge for several hours for, quote,
06:55spiritual cleansing. As a result, 18 people suffered burns, dehydration, organ failure,
07:02and other conditions, and three people tragically died. Ray was subsequently sued by the victim's
07:15families for millions of dollars. In 2011, he was also found guilty of negligent homicide
07:20and sentenced to two years in prison. Cave Living – True Russian Orthodox Church
07:26Originally from Belarus, Pyotr Kuznetsov traveled to Russia to preach about the impending apocalypse,
07:32where he formed the doomsday cult, True Russian Orthodox Church. Members were forbidden from
07:37handling money, watching TV, or eating processed foods. In 2007, Kuznetsov instructed his followers
07:44to enter a cave and pray until the end of days, which he predicted would occur in May 2008.
07:50However, Kuznetsov couldn't join them, as he was arrested beforehand. Despite the efforts
07:56of authorities, the cult members initially refused to leave the cave. Some eventually came
08:01out after falling ill or due to fears about the cave's instability. In May of 2008, the remaining
08:07nine members were forced to leave after the corpses of two deceased people released toxic fumes.
08:14Flirty Fishing – Children of God Known today as The Family International,
08:19The Children of God was founded by David Berg in 1968 to form communes around the world and spread
08:25their version of Christianity. Years later, ex-members would call him demonic, evil, psychotic.
08:31Several celebrities, such as Joaquin Phoenix and Rose McGowan, grew up in the cult. In the mid-70s,
08:37after promoting free love methods, Berg brought in the concept of flirty fishing.
08:42Women were encouraged to use their sexuality to recruit men into the cult.
08:47Berg had this revelation that his women needed to be fishers of men,
08:53like Jesus called his disciples who were fishers of fish, they should be fishers of men,
08:58and basically go out and share God's love with lonely businessmen.
09:03It's believed that around 200,000 men were victims of this disturbing methodology,
09:08resulting in the births of thousands of babies and the widespread transmission of STDs.
09:14The flirty fishing practice was eventually stopped in 1987 due to the HIV-AIDS crisis.
09:20The flirting was more than flirting, it was actually, you know, religious prostitution.
09:24Building the Master Race – The Family In the mid-60s, Ann Hamilton Byrne,
09:30declaring herself a reincarnation of Jesus, created The Family in Australia.
09:35For more than 30 years, this is the only glimpse the world has had of Australia's most
09:40secretive cult leader, Ann Hamilton Byrne. This New Age cult combined various worldwide
09:48religions in its philosophy. In 1987, with the aid of Sarah Moore, who had been kicked out of
09:54the group, the police raided The Family compound and discovered their insidious methods. The
09:59children, some of whom were abducted or obtained through scams, had their hair dyed blonde,
10:04were given prescription medicine as punishment, and were homeschooled in isolation from society.
10:10Of all the crimes that I investigated, she is the most evil person that I've ever met.
10:17As teenagers, they were given psychedelic drugs in an initiation rite known as
10:22Going Through. Survivors of the cult have revealed that these rituals were aimed at
10:26creating a quote-unquote Master Race. Bleached hair, blonde, singing like the
10:32Von Trapp family, living out Ann's fantasy of, in her thoughts, I'm sure it was something like
10:39canary in rice. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to
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10:53notifications. Making Slaves, NXIVM. Founded by Keith Ranieri and Nancy Saltzman in 1998,
11:02NXIVM initially operated as a personal development company with multi-level marketing strategies.
11:08However, it soon morphed into a grim cult. Participants say they're taught to call Ranieri
11:13Vanguard. Vanguard, yes. Vanguard is the name that we refer to Keith as because he is a leader of a
11:20philosophical movement. With aid from celebrities such as Alison Mack, a secret society of women
11:26known as Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS, was created. Within DOS, women were treated as
11:33slaves to masters. They were branded with Ranieri's initials, beaten, and had their sensitive
11:39information and intimate photos held as leverage. Additionally, they were made to perform various
11:45sexual acts. Alison told me that Keith had no involvement in this. She said it was women
11:50mentoring women in a very specialized, deep way. After Sarah Edmondson blew the whistle on NXIVM,
11:58the police began investigating, and arrests were made. Ranieri was sentenced to 120 years
12:04in prison, Saltzman to 42 months, and Mack to 3 years. What's the most dangerous cult to have
12:16existed? The Manson Family? The People's Temple? One of the ones we covered in the video? Or
12:22something else? Let us know below!