Cults

The Cult of the Chatbot Is Rising

The church of the spiral.

Scientologists Tell Feds They Don’t Want Randos Repairing Their E-Meters

L. Ron Hubbard’s literary organization told the U.S. copyright office that it didn’t support DMCA exemptions for repairing personal electronics.

The Church of the SubGenius Documentary Examines the Cult of a Cult

Long before the internet invaded every aspect of culture, a pair of friends who first bonded over their love of comic books and Captain Beefheart dreamed up “a weird fringe cult specifically for weirdos” that would walk the line between sincerity and parody. Thus, the Church of the SubGenius was born. For those who have…

I May Have Died Laughing While Watching Riverdale

Greetings from the Afterlife (with Archie). I am now deceased after watching the latest episode of Riverdale. It may have started as just another day of shirtless car washes and rat corpses, but then it did what might be the most out-there thing in the history of the show. Yes, even stranger than Cheryl hiding…

Milla Jovovich Joins in the Cult Fun in the Gorgeously Weird Paradise Hills Trailer

Satan? So out. Creepy cults? So in. Yes, as if Midsommar at the box office or Handmaid’s Tale on TV wasn’t enough to satiate your cult-lust this summer, the new trailer for Alice Waddington’s Paradise Hills is here to give you more of what you crave. Sinister monotone outfits! The disgustingly extravagant revelry of an…

Midsommar Looks Like What Would’ve Happened if Fyre Festival Was Run by Swedish Cultists

So you know, like, slightly less scuzzy businessmen and tents, slightly more…animal sacrifice? A24 dropped the new trailer for Ari Aster’s Midsommar (his highly-anticipated followup to Hereditary), the creepy supernatural horror movie about a young couple (Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor) whose relationship is on the edge of falling apart before they decide to go…

The First Eerie Trailer for Ari Aster’s Midsommar Turns a Cult Into Paradise

In Hereditary director Ari Aster’s latest film Midsommar, a vacationing couple find themselves transported to a dreamlike Swedish village where the locals are unnervingly friendly, the land is lush, and a distinct kind of horror lurks just out of the camera’s sight. Though you know it’s just waiting to reveal itself. Paradisiacal settings like Midsommar’s…

Legion’s Dan Stevens Faces a Nightmarish Cult in the First Apostle Trailer

What do you do when not facing mutant marvels and battling in wild mental planescapes in Legion? If you’re Dan Stevens, you apparently spend your time investigating old-timey cults that are proooooobably up to no good. Directed by Gareth Evans, the writer/director behind The Raid, Netflix’s Apostle follows Stevens’ character Thomas Richardson at the dawn…

The Doomsday Cult Leader Behind the Tokyo Sarin Gas Attack Has Been Executed

Shoko Asahara—the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult behind the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo’s subway that killed 13 and poisoned thousands—has been executed. Asahara, birth name Chizuo Matsumoto, was killed along with six other members of the cult on Friday morning. They were all hanged, which is the only method of death…

Wild Wild Country is the Best Documentary About a Homicidal 1980s Oregon Sex Cult That You’ll See All Year

The Rajneesshee cult started building their utopian city of the future in rural Oregon during the early 1980s. And while it all began with peace and love, it ended with attempted murder, the exploitation of thousands of homeless people, and cult leaders who ordered the poisoning of an entire town by spraying salad bars with…

6 Lesser-Known Cults That Will Give You More Nightmares Than American Horror Story

American Horror Story’s latest venture is Cult, looking at what happens when an enigmatic personality goes a step too far and things turn deadly. It’s an interesting premise, especially considering it’s using the 2016 US presidential election as its starting point, but it’s not exactly unique. There are plenty of famous cults that have popped…

Mother Divine, Leader of a Shady Celibacy Cult, Has a Shockingly Small FBI File

We’ve looked at a number of different cults and cult leaders here at Paleofuture, and they usually have pretty hefty FBI files. Synanon? 346 pages. The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? 591 pages. But a cult leader who recently died this past March has a shockingly small FBI file. How small? Just six pages. Edna Rose Ritchings…

The Largest Bioterrorism Attack in US History Was An Attempt to Swing An Election

In September of 1984, at least 751 people got violently sick in The Dalles, Oregon. At first, no one in the town could figure out why. Those sickened had all eaten at ten different restaurants in the area, but local health officials couldn’t find a common food that may have caused their illness. A year…

Jake Gyllenhaal To Produce Jim Jones Series Because Cults Are Suddenly All the Rage

We’ve been eagerly following the rise of Satanic TV, thanks to new shows like Lucifer and Damien. But it turns out there’s room for another sinister trend: cults! A just-announced, Jake Gyllenhaal-backed drama for A&E joins upcoming Hulu series The Path in delving into this scary subject. The Gyllenhaal project is as-yet untitled, but it…

Rob Rhinehart’s Latest Attempt to Make You Buy Soylent Is Terrible

I think Rob Rhinehart is trying to turn himself into some sort of creepy nerd messiah. Today he posted a giant essay to promote the release of Soylent 2.0, the next version of his sperm-esque food replacement drink. It was all about how he’s given up alternating current so he can get ready for his…

Mormon Doomsday Survivalist Preppers Are All Over Pinterest

Pinterest—the mason jar lobby’s most effective propaganda apparatus—is an aggressively wholesome social platform. It’s The Container Store of social networks, but past the arrangements of DIY barn-wedding souvenirs, there’s another Pinterest, one focused on surviving doom. This is Mormon survivalist Pinterest. It’s grade-AAA Pinterest, a hodgepodge of pins that remind me of the 1998 film…

Angels Made Them Do It: A Brief History Of The Blackburn Cult

The Blackburn Cult, also known by the far more mystically delicious moniker “Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven,” was dreamed up by a mother-daughter duo who got into the religion business in 1924, after having visions of angels … and visions of dollar signs. For awhile, business was booming. Sixty-year-old May…

The Man Who Fought the Synanon Cult and Won

Paul Morantz knew Synanon would try to kill him. He just didn’t know how or when. You probably don’t know the name Paul Morantz. That’s a shame. And if you know about Morantz at all it’s likely because of what was done to him rather than what he accomplished in his career as a cult-busting…

The Online Legacy of a Suicide Cult and the Webmasters Who Stayed Behind

Every month, the bills get paid on time. The emails get answered, and any orders filled. Which, for HeavensGate.com, is positively extraordinary. Because as far as the public is aware, every last member of the suicide cult died 17 years ago from a cocktail of arsenic and apple sauce. A few stayed behind, though. Someone…

Supreme court judges in the UK have ruled that Scientology is a “place of meeting for religious worship.” Louisa Hodkin launched a suitafter officials refused to register a Scientology chapel as a place for marriage. The judges said religions don’t require a God — potentially paving the way for Jedi marriages. Image: Wikimedia Commons/PictorialEvidence.