10 of The World’s Most Bizarre Cults

The Ordo Templi Orientis(O.T.O), also known as the Order of the Temple of the East and Order of Oriental Templers, is a fraternal international and religious group which was created in the beginning of the 20th century. Aleister Crowley, an English author and a known Satanist occultist is one of the most renowned members of the order.

Initially the cult was anticipated to be modeled after and connected to Freemasonry, a form of a Gnostic Order, however, under the headship of Aleister Crowley; O.T.O has been documented around the Law of Thelma as its fundamental religious principal. This law is expressed as “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and “Love is the law, love under will”. These laws for the cult were promulgated in 1904 with the dictation of The Book of the Law.

The O.T.O is well known for practicing Black Magic. The creepy cult is branded to include sexual rituals that are both heterosexual and homosexual in nature. Many of the practices that O.T.O teaches are related to magical orders which enlighten the system of Masonic style of sexual magic. However, the O.T.O still restricts access to its “inner secrets”. The controversial book, Secret Rituals of the O.T.O, was withdrawn from print by the publisher after receiving a threat of legal action by the O.T.O. Nevertheless, as there has been a growing interest in the writings of Aleister Crowley, his work has been reprinted due to which various new societies have come into existence and have modeled themselves as the new generation of O.T.O.

The Aghori or Aghouri is a Hindu cult that is considered to have split off from the Kapalika order in the fourteenth century AD. Many Hindus condemn the Aghorias non-Hindu due to their cannibalistic rituals. The streets of northern Indian cities are littered with followers of this cult carrying a kapala, which is a cup made from a skull! These bizarre people will eat anything from rotten food to animal faeces. In order to achieve the highest citadel of enlightenment, the Aghori will perform horrendously crude rituals. The finality of their rituals is attained from eating the decaying flesh of a human. 

According to Hindu mythology and practiced beliefs, everything emanates from “Brahman". Therefore, there is no evil. The Aghori believe everything to be god itself and to abandon anything would be equivalent of abandoning god. This is the bizarre philosophy followed by the Aghori Babas.

The roots of the Aghori date back to ancient times. An Aghori ascetic who went by the name of Kinaram is responsible for the present-day rituals and beliefs of the cult. Since the Aghori worship lord Shiva with all their fervor, they believe that Kinaram was a reincarnation of lord Shiva.

The Aghori cult dwells on cremation grounds, daubing themselves with the ashes of the corpses and eating from a cranial begging bowl or a kapala. Many Aghori opt to roam around baring all. This is their representation of their detachment from the ways of life that normal people abide by. A strong belief which surrounds them is that by doing so they are above and beyond the normal worldly emotions of human beings.

Raëlism is a UFO cult that was formed in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon. The cult is famous for believing that all life on Earth was formed in scientific labs by species of extraterrestrials. Members of this species materialized into the human form when having personal contacts with the humans that they created. They believe that these species were mistaken for angels, cherubim or gods. The cult fervently believes in scientifically advanced humanoid extraterrestrials known by our archaic ancestors as Elohim (meaning: “those who came from the sky”).

Raëlism has been described as the largest UFO religion in the world. Raëlism mainly focuses on the social ideology of sexual self-determination, individualism and humanitarianism. Some of the women, who are members of this cult, are strong advocates of refinement and erotic sensualistic activities. They participate in groups within such as Rael’s Girls and the Order of Angels.

Furthermore, the Raëlians believe that the Elohim will visit the Earth authoritatively when more than half of the world’s population is peaceful and come to know about them. They also believe that this has been foretold in nearly all the religious texts as the predicted “Age of Apocalypse” or “Revelation”.

From time to time extremely bizarre and weird cults are born. One baffling insertion in the list of bizarre cults is the Sect of the Gadget Hackwrench. The members of this cult believe in a Disney cartoon that is Gadget Hackwrenchfrom the famous the “Disney's Rescue Ranger TV show”,as being a divine being. She is considered to be the most untouched and perfect sibling of the great god on Earth. The members of the Gadget Hackwrench cult fervently believe that she is some sort of a goddess. They consider her to be firm, adorable and sanguine and that her degree of technical knowledge is practically unachievable for any existing mortal being. These are just a few of the testimonies of the sect followers.

What is completely bizarre is the fact that this hero or goddess that they believe in is a Disney cartoon. The members of the cult burn candles around a poster size image of the cartoon and chant to her to grant their wishes.

The philosophy of this cult revolves around the fact that it is a combination of every religion possible on the planet. The supposed scetic of the cult is Saint Germain. The founders Guy and Edna Ballard likened themselves to the Illuminati. Guy Ballard had supposedly met this Saint while on a trip to the Mount Shasta in California. It is believed that this cult was based on the premise of destroying the individuality of people. What makes it so creepy is the fact that this cult tries to manipulate the human mind into believing that one has the ability to become a millionaire over night only by using the power of the mind. In other words, proclaiming every follower to be a demigod himself. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the cult had more than a million followers. The followers were made to believe that Ballard was taken to a mystical place while on his trip to California and that his spirit went to a different realm, the realm of Saint Germain. Saint Germain is the main character of worship for the followers. His myths are strikingly hard to swallow. The reason for holding him in such high esteem was due to the fact that the founders claimed he was a direct descendant of Will-“I-Am”-Shaker-Spear (William Shakespeare), Rasputin and Merlin.

The Body of Christ is a diminutive authoritarian group that focuses on “direct revelation” and not the Bible for its direction. As of late this cult has been in the news as two children have died pointlessly. Samuel, the ten month old baby of the founder’s son, Jacques, died of malnutrition. The little baby was not fed, because the cult believed that they were going to get a sign from God to feed him. The other child who died was Jeremiah, son of Rebecca Corneau. The baby died shortly after the mother gave birth. The reason for the death of the baby has been attributed to the lack of medical care provided.

Ten years ago, Dennis Mingo a former member of the cult, left the group. He gave a diary to the police in which he described the deaths of the two babies in depth. Regardless of the effort the police has put into finding the bodies of the children, they have remained to be unsuccessful.

The cult denounces the “seven systems” of a conventional society. These primarily, include: education, government, banking, religion, medicine, science and entertainment. The members of the group have consistently denied any cooperation with civil and governmental authorities. They have also refused any forms of legal counsel. They have constantly been refusing to assert their primary constitutional right against self-incrimination. This bizarre cult expects that the world will soon erupt in outrageous violence and turmoil, and that they alone will be the sole survivors of the disaster that they predict.

This Japanese cult was created by Hogen Fukunaga. It is often referred to as the “foot reading cult,” as the founder of this cult believed that he could make a diagnosis by examining people’s feet. The group was created in 1987 after a supposed spiritual event where Fukunaga declared that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and the Buddha.

The Ho Na Hana Sanpoygo cult had nearly 30,000 followers not so long ago. However, Fukunaga charged $900 for the foot readings and a widespread doubt arose that he used money to profit himself. He had been accused of bagging money from housewives which resulted in a massive disproof from the cult’s followers. Fukunaga had to pay over 200 million yen in damages to followers of the cult who had been swindled.

The Ho Na Hana Sanpoygo declared openly in court, to the people who stood against their practices that their only salvation was to go through the cult’s expensive training sessions and to buy lucky charms.

The Creativity Movement is a xenophobic and White-supremacist cult which advocates a religion known as the “White Religion” called Creativity. Though, in the contemporary sense, the cult is “Anti-Christian”, yet the Creativity Movement is a proxy of Positive Christianity. It is directed by elements of a pseudo-Christian racial mechanism. The cult also denies the Holocaust; it embraces racial neo-eugenics with a religious mission that is devoted to the “survival, expansion and the advancement of the White Race completely.

The cult was founded as the Church of the Creator by Ben Klassen in 1973. In the summer of 1993, Klassen committed suicide. After the demise of its creator, Mathew F. Hale led the cult until his incarceration on 8th January, 2003 for scheming with an FBI informant Anthony Evola to murder a federal judge. On 22nd July, 2002, two of the cult’s followers were found guilty in a federal court of plotting to blow up Jewish and Black landmarks around the area of Boston. The prosecutors deemed this to be a scheme to spark a “racial holy war” by the cult.

A few of the “16 Commandments of Creativity” include: It is our sacred goal to populate the lands of this earth with White people exclusively. Inferior colored races are our deadly enemies, and that the most dangerous of all is the Jewish race. Destroy and banish all Jewish thought and influence from society.

The Iglesia Maradoniana (Spanish for “Maradonian Church”) was founded by the fans of the retired Argentine footballer, Diego Maradona. The members of this cult believe Maradona to have been the best player of all time. On 30th October 1998, this cult was formed. The day also commemorated the 30th birthday of the athlete. The group held its first official meeting in the year 2001. Today, they reportedly have more than 80,000 members from 60 countries around the globe.

The formation of this cult can be viewed as a type of syncretism. Unlike other normal fan clubs, this cult has many rituals like naming their children Diego to literally worshipping him. Arguably the best footballer to have lived, he is officially a god in Argentina. The passion for the group between its different members is what glues them together. Supporters of the Maradonian Church, allegedly from all corners of the world, count the years since Maradona’s birth in 1960. It is very popular amid the followers of this cult and also amongst other football fans, the use of neo-Tetragrammaton D10S as one of the names of Maradona. D10S is a portmanteau word which blends 10 (diez in Spanish), Maradona’s shirt number and dios, the Spanish word for god. The cult has its own commandments, one of which states, “Spread news of Dieogo’s miracles” and apart from naming your son Diego, it is a commandment as well to change your middle name to “Diego”.

The cargo cult is primarily a religious practice and has had numerous followers over the years. The term “cargo” is aimed at obtaining the advancements in technology used in foreign cultures. The cargo cults are bizarre because they believe that the technological advancement man has made over the years is actually their property left to them by their ancestors. So your laptop basically belongs to one of the followers of the cargo cult. These cults thrived in the southwestern Pacific and New Guinea.  A substantial increase in the followers came during World War II. Immense logistic support and manpower would throng these islands and hence their beliefs turned into reality. Once the war ended, the ascetics of the cult ordered building of false landing sites and military equipment, so as to keep the gods interested in sending goods their way. The most publicized and prolonged cult is that of John Frum. It started well before the war and still thrives in Tannu, a small Island of Vanuata.