Apocalyptic
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Church Universal and Triumphant (1975)
The Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) is a New Age religious organization founded in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet after the death of her first husband, Mark Prophet. The group developed from the Summit Lighthouse, which Mark Prophet established in 1958. The movement’s teachings combine elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Theosophy, with significant influence Continue reading
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Church of Immortal Consciousness (1983)
The Church of Immortal Consciousness (COIC) was an apocalyptic new religious movement founded by Trina and Steven Kamp and incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1983. The group presented itself as an alternative spiritual community, offering teachings that diverged from mainstream religion. It became best known for its central doctrine centered on Trina Kamp’s claimed Continue reading
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Church of God Preparing for the Kingdom of God (1998)
The Church of God Preparing for the Kingdom of God (COG-PKG) is a splinter group of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God (WCG) that was founded in 1998 by Ronald Weinland, a former WCG minister. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, the COG-PKG operates internationally and primarily through the Internet. It is one of several groups Continue reading
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Church of Almighty God/Eastern Lightning (1991)
The Church of Almighty God (CAG), also known as Eastern Lightning, was founded in China in 1991. Its central belief is that Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and now lives as a Chinese woman who is worshipped as the “Almighty God.” The name “Eastern Lightning” references Matthew 24:27: “For as the lightning cometh out Continue reading
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Chino-Shoho/Pana Wave (1977)
In 1977, Yuko Chino founded Chino-Shoho, a Japanese new religious movement blending Christianity, Buddhism, and New Age teachings. The group’s “scientific arm,” Pana-Wave Laboratory, later became notorious for its unusual doctrines. It was also considered a UFO or contactee religion, with membership ranging from several hundred to more than a thousand followers. Chino, a former Continue reading
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Children of God/The Family International (1968)
David Brandt Berg was born on February 18, 1919, in Oakland, California. He was the youngest of three children born to traveling evangelists Hjalmar Emanuel Berg and Virginia Lee Brandt. His maternal grandfather, John Lincoln Brandt, was a Disciples of Christ minister, ensuring that religious authority surrounded him from a young age. Berg’s parents were Continue reading
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Chen Tao (1993)
Chen Tao, also known as the “True Way” or the God’s Salvation Church, was a UFO religion that originated in Taiwan. The movement combined elements of Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, and extraterrestrial belief. It was founded by Hon-Ming Chen, a former associate professor of sociology. Hon-Ming Chen was born on April 22, 1955, in Chiayi, Taiwan. Continue reading
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Ramón Gustavo Castillo (2009)
Ramón Gustavo Castillo Gaete, born on December 20, 1977, was a Chilean musician who later became known as the leader of a doomsday sect. He styled himself as “Antares de la Luz” (Antares of the Light) and proclaimed that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Castillo studied pedagogy at the Metropolitan University of Continue reading
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Ca Van Liem (1993)
Ca Van Liem was a figure who gained notoriety in a remote Vietnamese hamlet in the early 1990s. Blind and charismatic, he proclaimed himself a king and prophet, amassing a following among the local hill tribe villagers of Ta He, a community approximately 200 miles northwest of Hanoi. Liem’s influence grew as he presented himself Continue reading
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Branhamism (1946)
William Marrion Branham was born in 1909 in Burkesville, Kentucky. According to accounts he later shared, a light entered the room at his birth and hovered over him — an event he interpreted as the beginning of a divine calling. From an early age, Branham claimed to hear voices, including one that warned him against Continue reading
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Branch Davidians/Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists (1929)
Though best known for the fatal conflagration at its Texas compound in 1993 while under the leadership of Vernon Wayne Howell, better known as “David Koresh,” the Branch Davidians date back to a schism within the Seventh-Day Adventist Church several decades earlier. The group’s foundational beliefs were first articulated by Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant Continue reading
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Black Hebrew Israelites (c. 1885)
The Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI) movement is a collection of groups that emerged in the late 19th century in the United States among African Americans who believe that they are descended from the ancient Israelites. Some BHI groups consider themselves to be the only true Jews, while others have a more syncretic theology that includes Continue reading
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Beta Dominion Xenophilia (c. 1985)
Beta Dominion Xenophilia was a small group based in Carroll County, Maryland, from the mid-1980s until the turn of the century. Founder Scott Caruthers began fabulating stories about his life as early as high school. By the time he dropped out, he was telling people that he was being pursued by extraterrestrials. Over the next Continue reading
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Awaiting Christ Church (c. 1990)
Awaiting Christ Church, also known as Silinde u-Yesu, was a millenarian Christian church in South Africa led by Nokulunga Fiphaza. The movement was characterized by its apocalyptic predictions and its fervent belief in the imminent return of Jesus Christ. The church originated in the village of Corhana. In 1995, the congregants, who initially worked as Continue reading
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Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph (1984)
Aum Shinrikyo, renamed “Aleph” in 2000, is best known for orchestrating the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which resulted in 13 deaths and thousands of injuries. The sect’s theology is an amalgam of Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu elements with millenarian overtones and the expectation of an impending apocalypse. Chizuo Matsumoto Continue reading
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Attleboro Sect (c. 1980)
The group commonly called the “Attleboro Sect,” but known to its members as “The Body of Christ” or simply “The Body,” emerged through a Bible study group in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, in the late 1970s. Its origins traced back to Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, originally the Radio Church of God, an offshoot Continue reading
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Antrovis (1993)
In 1983, Edward Mielnik, a 42-year-old Polish boiler stoker, claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who urged him to save the Slavic people with the assistance of extraterrestrials. He began spreading his message in his native city of Wrocław and eventually expanded his activities to other cities. Mielnik taught that Slavs Continue reading
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Ant Hill Kids/Holy Moses Mountain Family (1977)
Roch Thériault was born in Thetford Mines, Quebec, in 1947. He was an intelligent and charismatic child, and he developed a deep interest in spirituality. He left formal education after seventh grade. In early adulthood, he moved to Montreal and met Francine Grenier, who he would marry in 1967. They had two sons, Roch Sylvain Continue reading
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Alamo Christian Foundation (1969)
Bernie Lazar Hoffman was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1934. While the details of his early life are obscure, he claimed to have been abandoned at Father Flanagan’s Boys Town and said that he was abused there, in part because he was Jewish. By the time he was 21, he had been convicted of burglary, Continue reading
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Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (2015)
The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light was founded in 2015 by Abdullah Hashem, who was born in the United States in 1983 to an American mother and Egyptian father. He studied comparative religion at Purdue University, and in 2005, he and a friend traveled to Las Vegas to film a Raëlian seminar. They intended Continue reading
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Agape Ministries International (1993)
Rocco Leo was born in Italy in 1956 and was said to have survived a near-death experience after nearly drowning in a shipping channel at age six. He would claim to have been dead for several hours and that he was revived through his mother’s prayers. Leo also said this experience gifted him with divine Continue reading
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Adonai-Shomo (1861)
Adonai-Shomo, from the Hebrew “the Lord is there,” was a Christian commune in western Massachusetts in the latter half of the 19th century. It emerged from an 1855 meeting between Frederick T. Howland, a Quaker, and Caroline Hawks and Sarah Hervey at a religious meeting. This encounter sparked the community’s spiritual foundation, rooted in Adventist-influenced Continue reading
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 