41 Cults Not Many People Know About But Maybe They Should Be Aware Of

I dated a girl who was into Advocare and went to their big convention in Fort Worth. Definitely a cult.

Kneel_Before_Non:

I worked at a hotel that hosted a bunch of Advocare folks for their convention one year. Started getting emails on my personal email from one of them trying to recruit me.

I never gave them my personal email.

Shincheonji Church of Jesus — A South Korean apocalyptic Christian movement that has expanded internationally. Former members have alleged deceptive recruitment tactics, pressure to devote significant amounts of time to the organization, and restrictions on outside information. The organization disputes the cult label.

The Kingston Group (also known as The Order) — A relatively obscure fundamentalist polygamous community in Utah. Former members have brought civil lawsuits alleging coercive marriages and exploitation. Those allegations should be distinguished from claims established in court.

Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) aka Church of Christ. They are global and all over the place. It’s a Filipino cult believing that anybody who is not a member of their church they donate to twice a week goes to the ring of fire. If you google they are all over and you wouldn’t know.

I dated one girl from there. She was nice but very naive. They don’t care that their church is run like a business and their thousands of dollars they donate each year is siphoned back to their cult leader or head family, the Manalos. The church owns a Philippine arena. They use it for worship and rent it out for concerts. Lots of hypocrisy. I did love her but it was a trap. Unfortunately because she grew up in the cult, it was her core identity so as much as she loved me, she couldn’t leave. It’s sad. The irony is most of the people are miserable in there, you can see it on their faces. Any time you have “trouble” with other members, even if it’s illegal, you’re to handle it within the church. Think of it like going to arbitration instead of a real court proceeding.

I do hope the people trapped in this cult can see through the lies they have been told or grew up with some day.

Great Commission Churches (GCC), which was started by Jim McCotter.

It has gone my many names and they keep changing it to make sure no one finds their history.

In the past they’ve gone by:
- The Blitz
- Great Commission International (GCI)
- Great Commission Association of Churches (GCA)
- Great Commission Ministries (GCM)

They mainly recruit on college campuses, pretending to be a “normal” Christian group or Bible study. But once you’re in, they make you go to all their events and become part of a “growth group” where you share secrets that are then taken to the leader to be used against you.

Their main recruiter/lightning rod is Campus preacher and GCC legacy leader, Tom Short.

Theres this lady who started a church in LA she goes by Apostle Katherine. Watched a video where she “cured cancer” onstage it was pretty hilarious. Shes also got a bunch of videos where shes doing book signings and people are just throwing themselves on the floor and screaming the funniest things ever. Honestly though. Every religion is a cult just been told some are more acceptable than others by society.

Couple years ago, my nan passed away and I was wandering through the park quite visibly distressed. Two ladies stopped me and asked about praying together, and I just went along with it. They took me to their "church" and showed me a video about how there's not only God, but also "God the Mother"? I went home and Googled it and it turns out they think God is a South Korean aunty, something weird about stained glass windows being blasphemous because they inspire sun worship, and only X amount of people can go to Heaven so you gotta convert more to up your chances. It was so weird it jolted me out of my mourning a little, so thanks I guess...?

I AM - Ascended Masters. Founded in the 1920s by a guy who claimed to meet St. Germain on Mt. Shasta. Sucked in my great-grandmother back in the 60s and was an integral part of my childhood.

They’ve had some high ranking members with access to political figures (great grandma got an invite to Reagan’s White House). 

In her house, we had to listen to “decrees,” surrounded by pictures of Father Godfre and Mother Lotus, having to wear certain colors on certain days (no black or red ever), eat vegan, know what Master ruled what planet, and stay on top of the dates that a portal would open and the Elohims would descend to earth disguised as humans.

Wikipedia doesn’t say anything inherently negative about them but leaves out the fact that they impose strict rules and bleed their members dry financially, encouraging them to give all their assets to the organization, not their relatives or even children. .

Ramtha. From my hometown. Pretty big following including folks like Selma Hayak.

I dated a girl who turned out to be one of her followers. Super kooky. Jz knight / ramtha was in that new agey psuedoscience movie “What the Bleep?”. She claimed to channel some 35000 year old enlightened being, pushing notions that your thoughts alone can create your physically reality (and not requiring action to bring those into fruition). One of her main disciples, a chiropractor called Dr Joe Dispenza, used some of her same teachings and techniques to start his own cult following for spiritual energy based healing. Ramtha ended up suing him, allegedly because she saw it as stealing her intellectual property. Dispenza attempts to frame his work as legitimate science, talking about things like the placebo effect, presenting himself as a doctor without mentioning he’s only a chiropractor, cherry picking anecdotes and misrepresenting studies to fit his woo narrative.

I think Breatharians are still a thing. They are anti-food and think you can live on air and light.

The church with no name, also known as the two by twos.
I'm not 100% sure they are a cult, but they are really strange, and nobody knows about them. They have big international conferences and the members I've known just say they are Christians and that they go to church. When you ask them "what church?" is when it gets weird, they will just keep repeating "church" when you ask what they believe it's just "the Bible"

They don't have any written documents and their pastors are itenerant and stay with families in their church. They do not acknowledge ANY doctrines or any names for their group. They are just the church and they believe the Bible.

They are weird, but seem harmless.

The Art of Living. They are a money hungry meditation groups that blindly follows a self proclaimed guru. The practices have been found to cause brain damage.

AI is definitely sounding like a cult….

Check out Jack Hickman and the Shoresh Yishai cult. There are some bloggers who have detailed their experiences growing up in this cult and ended up breaking free. They started out as a Lutheran church and this guy Jack went off the reservation and converted everyone to Jews. Then, he convinced these people that the world was going to end, so they all moved to Maine and started building survival camps. It appears very harmless and benign, but this cult has generational control of its members, arranged marriages. Funny thing is, this guy Jack passed like 20 years ago, and there was a big upheaval in the 70s that almost broke the group up, but a few key people carried on the tradition and it’s pretty sad. As far as I see, this is a pretty unknown group that should have some better visibility because it’s very corrupt, the cult members are required to tithe 10% of their earnings to the cult, and I think that money just goes to real estate and investments for the cult leaders. I have acquaintances that have gotten out and told me the crazy stuff that goes on there, and it’s been around since the 70s.

The intense health and wellness programs that charge so much money for week long retreats offering people very unrealistic results.

For example, the Monroe institute that sells the idea that people will experience out of body experiences through their meditation process. They tell people that if they are able to master their meditation system that they will be able to continue living after passing in a different reality. The kool-aid the Monroe institute pushes is that once you have achieved the out of body non-physical form then you will be able to move into that form after dying and then find a new physical body to be reborn.

Their weekly virtual seminars are $2500+ depending on skill levels.

It's insane.

They target older people who are afraid of dying and want to believe they can live in this other reality. Very scummy to target vulnerable people.

The order, an incestious polygamous fundamentalist offshoot of Mormonism. They are sometimes known as the Kingston clan as that is the main/top family who are on their 4th or 5th generation of incest atp.

I discovered this thing called Celebrate Recovery that seems mildly cultish. It‘s like a step program, religion and group therapy combined. It did seem helpful for people struggling but I was raising an eyebrow at some of it. Felt kind of like if AA were an MLM for lack of a better way to describe the vibe.

There's one I'm familiar with called the Golden Drum based in Brooklyn and the Catskills of New York. Basically it's a bunch of hippies gardening, playing homemade musical instruments, eating vegan, doing psychedelic ceremonies in the forest, and treating their leader guru guy like a god. Not the worst cult in the world, by far.

There is a cult in NWI called Fair Haven. They have a whole compound and everything. I used to live near them and all of their members are nuts and go out of their way to push their religion on everyone. For example they empty out "little libraries" and refill them with religious books and bibles.

Happy Science cult in Japan. It's basically Japanese Scientology. They also made a bunch of insane anime movies.

I have a parent in the Modern Mystery School cult. They seem to be structured pretty similarly to Scientology and while it’s primarily a new age cult it’s got aliens in there somewhere.