Topic
A curious word derived from a 1930s drama, gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation whose victims often don’t understand what’s happening to them.
- Kenyan authorities are releasing the bodies of victims of a doomsday starvation cult to distraught relatives, almost a year since the discovery of mass graves
- DNA identification has been slow, with just 34 of the 429 bodies exhumed between April and October last year positively identified through DNA profiling
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie was arrested in April 2023 after bodies were found in the Shakahola forest. Autopsies revealed most of the 429 victims died of hunger.
In central Thailand, where a Buddhist UFO sect claims it has been speaking to aliens for two decades, believers are flocking to the ‘first UFO music festival in Asia’.
Their ‘love cult’ features in Netflix docuseries Escaping Twin Flames – so what are the allegations, did they ever get charged, and where are they now?
Grace Road Church has been accused of being a cult and its leaders charged with abuse, but its companies have also had a major impact on Fiji’s economy.
The Unification Church – a cult linked to the motives of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s alleged assassin – has long wielded influence in Japan’s politics and society. Now it could be dissolved.
If the court grants the request, the church will no longer be a religious corporation and be deprived of tax benefits, but will not be required to stop operating.
Top members of the “Grace Road Cult” from South Korea will be deported from Fiji following years of allegations of the movement’s involvement in bizarre and violent rituals.
A request for it to disband could be filed with the court as soon as October, and comes after an investigation of the church regarding alleged illegal donations and ‘spiritual sales’.
Lori Vallow, who claimed to be a goddess charged with preparing humanity for the second coming of Jesus, was found guilty in May over the deaths of her daughter, 16, and adopted son, 7. The murders became the subject of a Netflix true-crime series.
Police believe most of the bodies found in a forest near the Indian Ocean town of Malindi belong to followers of taxi driver-turned-preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who is accused of inciting people to starve to death ‘to meet Jesus’.
She and her fifth husband Chad Daybell, who called her a ‘sexual goddess’ meant to help him save the world, were both charged in the triple homicide.
Autopsies on dozens of bodies found in mass graves linked to a Kenyan cult that practised starvation found some of the victims were strangled, beaten or suffocated.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who set up the Good News International Church in 2003, is accused of inciting followers to starve to death ‘to meet Jesus’.
The number of victims linked to the so-called ‘Shakahola Forest Massacre’ stands at 98, but there could be dozens more.
Kenyan investigators unearthed another 16 bodies on Tuesday in a forest where a cult was believed to be practising mass starvation.
Seven deaths were earlier reported in connection with the arrest of Makenzie Nthenge, a pastor who reportedly told followers to starve themselves to ‘meet Jesus’
Nearly 40 per cent of respondents to a survey said they had lost trust in religion over the past two years, with some saying they have no reason to visit a Buddhist temple any more.
Group has been under the spotlight since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was gunned down in July by a church member’s relative who held a grudge against the organisation and believed Abe was a supporter.
Netflix’s latest true crime docuseries reveals the horrific case of Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell’s crimes … but where are they today?
Scores of followers, including teens, turned up at a farmhouse after a doomsday prophet predicted the end of humanity on August 30. But some youths have refused to go home.
Groups known as “fringe churches” have long been of concern, particularly to people with family members involved, now they’ve been thrust into the public spotlight.
Jesus’ burial in a northern Japanese village might be one of the country’s stranger tales but the land of eight million gods unsurprisingly has a complex relationship with religion.
The seven members of the New Light of God cult killed a woman and six children in a religious rite in 2020.
Adnan Oktar preached creationism and conservative values but ran a decades-old sex cult and said he had nearly 1,000 girlfriends.
Disgraced self-improvement guru, who made women his sex slaves and branded them with his initials, showed no remorse during hearing.
Three splinter cells of the original cult, which carried out a deadly sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, are actively recruiting new members and building up funds.
A week after six children and a pregnant woman were sacrificed in a brutal religious ritual, the inhabitants of a remote village in northwestern Panama fear they might be next.
Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie star in film about Roger Ailes’ downfall at Fox News, with sex trafficking, blood testing, a cult and a college admissions scandal among other topics
