Since 2019, fans of the TV series ‘Supernatural’ have flocked to Austin, where their encounters with 1967 Impalas customized to mimic the one used in the show arouse elation, astonishment and tears.
The story of Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s cult The Family has been told in a non-fiction book and documentary, a novel, In the Clearing, and now a Disney+ series. What can stories like this teach us?
Worshippers gather at the New Life Prayer Centre and Church. The head of the Church was recently arrested.
Photo by SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images
Both cults and violent extremist movements have similar push and pull factors at the individual level.
The Head of a Celestial Church of Christ parish stands in front of the church where worshippers were killed and valuables stolen by the Badoo gang in 2017.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
Daniella Mestyanek Young grew up in the Children of God cult, also known as The Family. She escaped aged 15, then joined the US army after college – and recognised similar systems of toxic control.
Young women members of the Charles Manson family kneel on the sidewalk outside the Los Angeles at Hall of Justice March 29, 1971, with their heads shaved.
Wally Fong/AP
What is the appeal of cults? How do they work? And what is the damage they do? A new book, by the creator of the podcast Let’s Talk About Sects, answers these questions and more.
Romana Didulo salutes in a photo on her Telegram page.
(Antihate.ca/Telegram)
Romana Didulo has declared herself the Queen of Canada. Thousands of people follow her and her outlandish conspiracy theories, and here’s why that’s so dangerous.
Many of those arrested in the U.S. Capitol siege on Jan. 6, 2021, were QAnon believers.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
A professor of religious studies argues that describing QAnon followers as brainwashed overlooks their role in accepting and spreading potentially dangerous beliefs.
Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman.
Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images
The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.
Valley of the Dawn members celebrate ‘Day of the Indoctrinator’ at their temple complex in Brazil on May 1. This year’s event is postponed due to coronavirus.
Márcia Alves
Brazil’s Valley of the Dawn faith is often dismissed as a cult. But many of the group’s fantastical rituals are a recognizable reaction to this harsh world of inequality, loneliness and pandemics.
Hosni Mubarak, the late former President of Egypt.
EFE-EPA/Amel Pain
Mubarak held power for three decades, on the foundation of a personality cult.
The ‘Christ of the Pacific’ statue in Lima has caused controversy in Peru because of its financing by a graft-tainted Brazilian construction company. Both religion and corruption loomed large in Peru’s 2020 legislative elections.
CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP via Getty Images
After a bribery scandal that took down four presidents and led Congress to dissolve, some Peruvians are putting their faith in an austere religion called the Israelites of the New Universal Pact.
Trump is seen in the Oval Office in early January 2020. Viewing him as a cult leader and his supporters as cult followers doesn’t help us understand why he appeals to some voters.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
There are many legitimate ways to critique Donald Trump, but demonizing his voters as cult followers doesn’t help us understand why they are attracted to him and how their world view has developed.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg listens during a meeting with climate scientists at the COP25 summit in Madrid, Spain.
AP Photo/Paul White
From a sarin attack on a city subway to the rebirth of Buddha to protest marches against indecent magazines, Japan’s religious movements have covered a lot of ground.
A scholar visited Rajneeshpuram and met the many highly accomplished men and women who became devotees of the controversial guru. What brought them to the spiritual community, and what made them stay?