The Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) is the largest organization in the “Neo-Völkisch” movement. A subset of the larger Germanic Neopaganism “Ásatrú” movement that seeks to revive pre-Christian belief systems of the Germanic peoples through reverence for nature, ancestor veneration, and worship of Norse gods, Neo-Völkism promotes a romanticized Viking mythos that has been used to Continue reading

Daniel Perez was born in Texas in 1959. Few details about his early life are known, but he fled that state in 1997 to avoid sentencing for a child sex crime conviction. He relocated to Kansas, where he adopted the name Lou Castro. He would later claim that he was assaulted by police officers following Continue reading

The American Way Association, or Amway, is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company founded by lifelong friends Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel in 1959. The two had partnered on several endeavors and in 1949 created the Ja-Ri Corporation to import goods from South America. Later that year, they attended a seminar for Nutrilite food supplements, Continue reading

In 1972, Fred and Linda Chamberlain founded the Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia, naming it for Alcor, a faint star in the Big Dipper constellation. They changed the name to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in 1977. Its intention is to develop a rational and financially reasonable approach to cryonics. Alcor’s initial human cryopreservation Continue reading

The Aiyy Faith is a contemporary Yakut religious organization that is the successor to Kut-Siur, founded in 1990 by philologist Lazar Afanasyev, known as Téris, during the period of religious liberation that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Afanasyev, who studied shamanism during the Soviet era, articulated his monotheistic modernization of Yakut teachings Continue reading

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born in 1835 in Punjab, India. He was well-educated and developed a particular interest in Islam. In the mid-1860s, he worked for several years as a clerk, and regularly took pleasure in engaging Christian missionaries in debate. He also developed a respectful sparring relationship with representatives of the Arya Samaj, a Continue reading