Obscure Cults and the Devastation They Left Behind

At this very moment, hundreds if not thousands of cults are operating in various locations around the globe. While cults make the news for their bloody actions and radical beliefs, most actual cults operate in quiet seclusion, preferring to keep out of controversy. Other cults, however, make the news after they embark on chaotic arcs that result in senseless abuse, murder, and mayhem. While a few cults sit in the public consciousness, others are the most destructive cults you've never heard of.

The most destructive cults follow a similar path. Usually, a larger-than-life leader with megalomaniacal tendencies manages to enchant a group of lost people into following their mission. From there, the leader exerts increasing control and even enslavement, using the group's belief system to convince followers of practically anything. While many cults that end in destruction subscribe to doomsday-like beliefs, others find their way to violence through unconventional methods. In this article, we will explore 10 of the most destructive cults you've never heard of.

(For more frightening groups, discover 17 of history's most terrifying cults.)

To compile a list of the most destructive cults you've never heard of, 24/7 Tempo consulted a range of news, history, and entertainment publications including CBS News, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and Live Science. Next, we selected bloody, murderous, or abusive cults that remain relatively obscure compared to more publicized groups. After that, we confirmed aspects of our research using sites like APNews.com and Cultfacts.com.

From an early age, Roch Thériault subscribed to the extreme Seventh-Day Adventist Church beliefs. In the mid-1970s, he convinced people to leave their lives and join him in Sainte-Marie, Quebec to form a commune. There, they could live in unity, listen to his teaching, and be free from sin. Soon, Thériault moved the group further into the wilderness and his beliefs shifted from peace and love to the apocalypse, resulting in one of the most destructive cults in history. However, the end of the world failed to materialize and his followers began questioning his religious authority.

In response, Thériault flexed his power by impregnating all the female members, resulting in 20 children fathered by him. As his alcoholism worsened, Thériault began enacting levels of abuse reserved for the Spanish Inquisition. Under the guise of purifying their sins, he tortured, maimed, and brutalized his followers in increasingly horrific ways too graphic to mention in detail. Due to claims of abuse, social workers removed 17 children from the commune in 1987. Surprisingly, Thériault faced no consequences.

It all came to a head when follower Gabrielle Lavallée suffered harsh treatment at Thériault's hands. Once she managed to escape his clutches, she led police to the commune where they promptly arrested Thériault. After receiving a 12-year prison sentence, he was found guilty of murdering a cult member and received life imprisonment. Though most of his followers abandoned him upon imprisonment, Thériault managed to father another four children with holdout followers via conjugal visits.

Though Aum Shinrikyo may be the most well-known cult on this list, its story bears mentioning due to the sheer destructiveness of its actions. Shoko Asahara started the cult as a yoga and meditation class in his one-bedroom apartment. Within two years, it gained official status as a religious organization and its following grew. Due to the sheer number of followers who graduated from elite Japanese universities, it became known as a religion for the elite.

Asahara started as your garden variety guru but soon became obsessed with science fiction, Biblical prophecies, and an obscure form of Buddhism. Though relatively secret and hermetic, rumors began swirling about Aum Shinrikyo enslaving followers, extorting others, and taking part in murders. Thanks to an incredible war chest and high-profile members, however, the cult's nefarious activities were ignored until it was too late.

Seeking to bring about the apocalypse themselves, Aum Shinrikyo began stockpiling weapons, nerve agents, and other violent ephemera. On March 20, 1995, the cult released sarin gas in various Toyko subway cars in a highly coordinated attack. Though only a few nerve agents went off, it ended up killing 13 people, hospitalizing 54, and injuring hundreds more. This led to a series of other attacks before police raided the cult's compound and found stockpiles of weapons that would make a dictator blush. There are even rumors the group tested nuclear weapons in the Australian outback. Finally, Asahara was arrested with other cult members and sentenced to death. The Japanese government executed Asahara and other top members on July 6, 2018.

Before becoming a cult leader, Joseph Di Mambro made his money as a jeweler and serial fraudster. After attending a lecture by homeopath Luc Jouret, however, the pair joined forces and created the Order of the Solar Temple. In terms of belief, the Solar Temple combined elements of Rosicruscianism, Theosophy, and other New Age ideas. Esoteric and bordering on the occult, the group began to attract members. At its peak, the Order of the Solar Temple counted up to 400 members spread across France, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States.

From there, the group followed a common cult narrative arc. Members began questioning the validity of the group's beliefs, the leaders doubled down and injected apocalyptic ideas, authorities heard tell of the group's activities, and the group started stockpiling weapons. Starting in 1994, Di Mambro and Jouret began planning for a mass suicide as both a resolution to the group's belief system and as a purity test for skeptic followers. After being investigated for money laundering and arms trafficking, the leaders ordered the murders of a family of ex-members in Quebec.

From there, they orchestrated two mass suicides of followers in cult communes in Switzerland. Over the next few years, other factions of the Order of the Solar Temple engaged in mass suicides in France and Quebec. At the very least, Di Mambro and Jouret held to their beliefs, as they both killed themselves in this series of mass suicides. While it may be one of the most destructive cults you've never heard of, its activities led to countries like France toughening their stance on religious cults.

Born in Miami, Florida, Adolfo Constanzo served as an altar boy before becoming acquainted with Haitian Voudou. As a teenager, he apprenticed under a sorcerer and began practicing Palo Mayombe, a voodoo-like religion that uses sacrifice to earn favor with the spirits of the dead. Upon entering adulthood, Constanzo moved to Mexico City. There, he met a group of men who would become his followers. Together, they operated a sorcery business, using animal sacrifices to empower good luck spells for clients. These magical displays soon attracted the attention of drug dealers and hitmen. After being introduced to several powerful drug cartels, Constanzo began an association with the Gulf Cartel.

He also began connecting his success with magical power, and the insanity and violence only ratcheted up from there. Constanzo sought to enter the drug trade and approached the powerful Calzadas family to do business. After rejecting his offer, seven family members disappeared before turning up dead, missing fingers, limbs, and organs. Not long after, he met Sarah Aldrete, who he made the high priestess of his cult. From there, Los Narcosatánicos began conducting sacrifices with live humans and shipping drugs over the border.

In 1988, the cult set up shop in the desert. There, they ratcheted up their dark magic and stored large supplies of drugs. A year later, they kidnapped an American student named Mark Kilroy and murdered him at their desert compound. Under pressure from Texas politicians, police eventually raided the desert hideout where they found fifteen mutilated corpses. Constanzo and four followers fled to Mexico City, where a chance police visit resulted in Constanzo and a follower killing themselves. Later, 14 cult members were charged with various crimes including murder and drug-running.

Another one of the most destructive cults you've never heard of is the Movement for the Restoration of the 10 Commandments of God. Credonia MwerindeandJoseph Kibweteere founded the cult in southwestern Uganda in 1989 after the pair claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary. The Movement started as a Catholic-style group before moving towards a more apocalyptic-style cult.

Mwerinde and Kibweteere established a commune, where they attracted thousands of followers including defrocked priests and other religious leaders. Though the commune thrived thanks to its pineapple and banana plantations, the leaders set a hard deadline for the looming apocalypse in the year 2000. As the date approached, the cult became frenzied, selling off their material possessions and confessing their sins in prolonged struggle session-style meetings. January 1, 2000, came and went, however, and many followers grew disillusioned.

In response, the leaders chose a new date of March 17, 2000. This time, however, they made good on their promise. On that day, followers attended a large party. After being lured into a boarded-up building, an explosion went off, killing all 530 people in attendance. Thought originally to be a mass suicide, later investigations discovered scores of mass graves at other cult compounds in the area. Police announced the deaths of 924 people total, with hundreds being poisoned or murdered. While many assumed leaders Mwerinde and Kibweteere died in the initial explosion, police now believe they may still be alive and hiding in other parts of Africa like Malawi.

Before getting into the cult business, David Brandt Berg worked as a Christian and Missionary Alliance Pastor. In the late 1960s, however, Berg began attracting followers to his sermons at a coffeehouse in Huntington Beach, California. After having a revelation that California would be hit by a major earthquake, Berg took his followers on the road. From there, Berg went off the map while the cult continued growing, gaining thousands of members in the 1970s as its belief system devolved into a twisted version of free love.

Emblematic of this shift was the tactic of "flirty-fishing," a Berg-commanded strategy where female followers would attract new members through the use of sex and seduction. Reports of abuse and sexual misconduct led the group to refashion itself as the Family of Love in 1978. Nevertheless, reports of rape, abuse, and misconduct with minors continued to surface unabated. After Berg died in 1994, his partner Karen Zerby took over the group and spread it even further.

While the cult committed no murders to speak of, the Children of God is surely one the most destructive cults you've never heard of. Many claim these led to the systematic sexual abuse of child members, as well as the physical abuse and corporal punishment of followers who got out of line. There are even reports of the cult meddling in third-world politics due to their widespread reach. Remarkably, several celebrities grew up in the cult including River and Joaquin Phoenix, founding member of Fleetwood Mac Jeremy Spencer, and Juliana Buhring, the first woman to bicycle around the world.

Sometime in 1972, Lidia Naccarato and her uncle Antonio Naccarato began receiving visions and revelations from God. A year later, they turned these revelations into a religious group called Gruppo del Rosario, which grew into one the most destructive cults you've never heard of. At some point later, Antonio died, but Lidia claimed he spoke to her from beyond the grave. She claimed that he would return on a certain date to "conquer the world's evil."

Throughout that time, Gruppo del Rosario attracted nearly 100 followers. Employing fiery rhetoric and increasingly intense revelations, Lidia tightened her grip on the group. She told followers that she was born to "prepare the new advent of the Christ on earth and to combat Evil and Satan." In the process, she exerted increasing control, relying on abuse and manipulation including forcing female followers to have sex with multiple female members in an attempt to redeem evil. By 1988, Lidia told followers to expect the return of Christ and the resurrection of Antonio on May 24, 1988.

That date came and went, however, with no resurrection. Conveniently, Lidia had another revelation that cult member Peter had made a pact with Satan to prevent the return from happening. In response, they murdered Peter in a ritualistic display. When police arrived at the group's location, they discovered 30 members in white robes standing around an altar containing Peter's body as well as a dismembered cat. Though police failed to link them to any other murders, they discovered stockpiles of weapons and hundreds of thousands of dollars, suggesting links with the nearby 'Ndranghetta mafia.

(For cult-like prophecies, learn about 31 ominous visions of doom coming.)

Since Yoo Byung-eun and Pastor Kwon Shin-chan founded the Evangelical Baptist Church (EBC) of Korea in 1962, the group faced constant controversy. While it proved popular, attracting tens of thousands of members in intervening years, it also faced criticism for its beliefs. Media outlets claimed the church taught followers that if they were saved by God, they would be completely free to sin for the rest of their lives. For their part, the church denied such accusations.

In the 1980s, a group within the Evangelical Baptist Church led by a woman named Park Soon-ja splintered off. The group then formed the Odaeyang Church, under the front of Odaeyang Trading Co, and began espousing doomsday-like beliefs. While accusations sprung up linking Soon-ja's nefarious activity to the original Evangelical Baptist Church of Korea, none could be proven. By 1987, however, South Korean police began investigating Soon-ja over accusations that she had swindled over 200 people out of $8.7 million total. Moreover, they suggested further links to the original EBC and its founder Yoo Byun-eun.

When police raided the church on August 29, 1987, they found the bodies of 33 members in a factory attic bound and gagged including Park Soon-ja and her three children. Police surmised this to be a case of murder-suicide, perhaps more related to her fraud than religious beliefs. Nevertheless, a later investigation uncovered a paper trail leading to Yoo Byung-eun, the EBC's founder. For his part, Yoo Byung-eun served a four-year prison sentence related to Park Soon-ja's fraud case.

Another one of the most destructive cults you've never heard of is the Good News International Church. Paul Nthenge Mackenzie founded the group as a small church in Nairobi, Kenya in 2003. After attracting followers, Mackenzie moved the group to Migingo Village where he attracted even more followers by claiming to be able to personally communicate with God.

As the church grew, so did the controversies surrounding it. Mackenzie began amassing wealth from follower donations and used it to enrich himself by buying various properties and vehicles. After creating a television channel to promote his teachings, more followers gave him their life savings. In 2017, Mackenzie and his wife were charged with promoting radicalization but were declared innocent. A year later, he faced criticism from nearby community leaders for inciting children to drop out of school without parental consent and join his church. As more reports of abuse, fraud, and brainwashing came to light, Mackenzie ratcheted up his group's doomsday prophecies until they reached a fever pitch.

In April 2023, a man contacted the police claiming his wife and daughter left to join the church but never returned. When police entered the Good News community to investigate, they found the emaciated bodies of dozens of followers. Over the next few weeks, police uncovered the bodies of over 400 people. As the story goes, Mackenzie convinced his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus while he lived and ate comfortably. Eventually, Mackenzie and other church leaders were charged with hundreds of murders. Though he pled not guilty, the trial is still ongoing.

Perhaps one of the most mysterious of the most destructive cults you've never heard of is the New Light of God. The cult only became known to the public after police uncovered a gruesome series of murders deep in the Panamanian jungle. According to those familiar with the case, the New Light of God church operated for about three years in the Ngabe Bugle region of El Terron on the Panamanian Caribbean coast. It consisted of about a dozen lay priests who espoused a mysterious form of Christianity for those who would listen.

Things changed, however, when one of the followers told the lay priests he received a vision. In this vision, God anointed the group's lay priests to exterminate any unbelievers. On January 13, 2020, the group asked villagers to visit their makeshift church and wait in a long wooden shed. When a collection of villagers arrived, they were told to close their eyes and hold hands in prayer. Almost immediately, the church members attacked the visiting group, hitting them with cudgels, bibles, and even machetes. They forced others to strip, and even walk across glowing embers barefoot.

In the end, the New Light of God killed seven villagers including six children. Afterward, followers hung up their bodies in hammocks or dumped them in a nearby shallow grave. After a witness to the attacks fled and informed the police, authorities entered an extremely secluded village and became horrified at the bloody sight. In short order, they arrested seven members of the cult. In December 2021, a Panamanian court imposed a maximum sentence of 50 years on the seven cult members for their part in the vicious killing spree.

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