The World’s Most Terrifying Cults
Following the gruesome discovery of the bodies of more than 60 suspected cult members in Kenya, who are believed to have starved to death, we examine other notorious killer sects.
914 dead, Guyana jungle apocalypse
On November 18, 1978, 914 adults and children from a US cult died. In the jungle of the small South American nation of Guyana. In one of the most dramatic mass murder-suicides in modern history.
Jim Jones, a charismatic US preacher, led them to their deaths. By pressuring members of his People’s Temple sect to commit “revolutionary suicide” by poisoning their children. Shooting those who tried to flee, or forcing them to drink the lethal liquid.
Jones, who relocated his followers from San Francisco to Guyana to avoid a crackdown by US authorities. Was found dead with a bullet wound to the head. It was never determined whether he committed suicide or was shot to death.
Over 700 fatalities in Uganda
In 2000, approximately 700 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God were burned to death. In the Kanungu district of southwestern Uganda, marking one of the world’s worst cult-related massacres.
Members of the cult, who believed the end of the world would occur at the turn of the millennium. Were locked inside a church with the doors and windows nailed shut.
The structure then set ablaze.
The suspected killers of the cult leaders were never located.
Waco siege: almost 80 fatalities
In 1993, 76 members of a sect in Waco, Texas, including 20 children, perished in a fire at their wooden fortress following a 51-day siege by federal agents.
David Koresh, the charismatic leader of the Branch Davidian cult, which split from the Seventh-day Adventist church, and many of his followers perished together.
US authorities had accused the group of weapon stockpiling. And obtained an arrest warrant for Koresh. A search warrant for the compound, resulting in the tense standoff that lasted for weeks.
1994: Solar Temple
In October 1994, the bodies of 48 members of the doomsday sect Solar Temple were discovered. In the Swiss villages of Cheiry and Granges-sur-Salvan.
Over 70 members of the sect founded by a homeopathic healer perished. Including 10 Quebec residents and 16 Vercors mountain dwellers whose charred bodies were discovered.
Notes left by some members suggested a mass suicide, but investigators determined that as many as two-thirds of the deceased may have been murdered.
Heaven’s Gate toxicity
In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in San Diego, California, committed suicide by poisoning to coincide with the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet, which they interpreted as a signal for their departure from Earth.
Among the deceased was co-founder of the cult Marshall Applewhite.
Bonnie Nettles, the other founder of the group that believed members could become immortal extraterrestrials by rejecting their human nature, passed away from cancer in 1985.
Japan’s sarin gas attack
In 1995, members of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released toxic sarin gas into the Tokyo subway system, killing thirteen individuals and infecting thousands more.
During rush hour, the chemical was released in liquid form at five locations, causing commuters to stagger from trains unable to breathe.
At the cult’s headquarters near Mount Fuji, authorities discovered a sarin-producing facility capable of killing millions.
The crime resulted in the execution of thirteen Aum members, including the cult’s near-blind leader, Shoko Asahara.
The World’s Most Terrifying Cults
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