Religion can bring out some strong emotions in people. Whether these emotions are positive or negative, the outbursts are usually significant when they come. Since the concept of religion has been around for so long and is such a passionate topic for so many, it makes sense that there are times when things get out of hand. Religious cults are a perfect example of how easy it is for a simple idea to completely take over common sense and better judgment.
While you are likely to know a name like Heaven’s Gate, one of the more noteworthy cults to have arisen in modern history, there are plenty of interesting groups you might not know ever existed. Take a look at some of these bizarre and interesting stories and see how far some people are willing to go in the name of what they believe.
The Sun Also Rises
In France during the 1980s, a small group of people banded together to form a secret society. Of course, since secret societies don’t tend to keep a lot of paperwork, there are many who believe this specific organization started long before the 1980s. The group? The Order of the Solar Temple. Their purpose? A little unclear to this day. While the group claimed to base its teachings on the Knights Templar, the collective beliefs were a bit scattered. Many believed in the Second Coming of Jesus, though they also believed Jesus would return as a reincarnated sun god.
The group itself seemed harmless and grew slowly until 1994, when the first of several mass suicides connected to the Order of the Solar Temple took place. In October 1994, the bodies of dozens of people were discovered at centers belonging to the group in the city of Quebec and several small villages in Switzerland. In 1995, another mass suicide took place in the Vercors mountains in France. Other isolated incidents have occurred over the years in connection to the group, and surviving group leaders have been put on trial for using religion to manipulate people to kill themselves.
The Wrong Kind of Creativity
Religion is important to humanity because it brings people together to form communities. Naturally, bringing like-minded individuals together is not always a winning recipe. A perfect illustration of this point can be found in the next cult, the Creativity Movement. When white people in Illinois began feeling threatened by the Civil Rights movement and the progress being made, certain extremists began developing delusions. One such delusion led to the founding of the Creativity Movement in 1973, aimed at “uniting whites” under a “racial religion.” The group itself is incredibly anti-Christian, adopting a pantheistic view.
Members of this group believed they were responsible for waging “holy wars” on groups they found to be “less than.” This usually included people of Jewish faith and anyone who wasn’t white. The organization has been labeled a Neo-Nazi group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, though it has maintained a consistent following over the decades despite this status. This is a strange example of mixed ideologies coming together to form a religion that is also not a religion, a cult where members are willing participants.
Religious Cults
While there may be a number of ways to tell a cult from a religion, there often is only the thinnest veil that separates one from the other. Bringing people with similar viewpoints together has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people. What separates the two is why they come together in the first place. When the end goal is mass suicides and declaring a “holy war” against other races, then it seems like the distinction between religion and cult is a bit more clear.