Cults

The disturbing reality of Michael Travesser, cult leader of Strong City, who claimed the world would end on October 31, 2007.

The film examines the modern-day phenomenon of religious "intentional communities," or as they are often called, "cults." It takes as its focus "The Church," also known as "The Brotherhood," the 35-year-old ministry of shadowy messianic figure Jim Roberts. Since 1971, this secretive organization has recruited (hundreds) of adherents who live together in austere, separatist, communal groups, preaching salvation and damnation, and turning their backs on the outside world except when proselytizing for new members. They observe strict ascetic values and rigid standards of dress, presentation and gendered behavior, and live off of discarded food and other refuse. And they mutually reinforce the belief systems that brought them into the fold, including a focus on the narrow path to salvation, and obedience to the will of spiritual leader Roberts. The film examines this microcosmic society, and by implication, the "cult" phenomenon itself, with a rare insider's view. Featuring interviews with former group members, it implicitly reveals the sorts of stresses and spiritual longings that make outwardly average young people "ripe for the picking" by opportunistic outsiders. It also reveals the anguish of parents and loved ones left stunned and confused by the defection of their children and siblings, some of whom have been members of the Church for decades. We are present as parents groups, utter strangers brought together by a shared trauma, map the movements of the group from town to town, and compare notes about the lives their children lead, and about their own feelings of helplessness and despair. The film also brings us along as certain family members set out to find their loved ones through detective work and determination, leading to surprise confrontations and just as often to the group's immediate flight to new, secret quarters. In this way, the film traces the tenuous balance that families must strike between attempting to rescue their loved ones, with the psychological, emotional and tactical impediments that so often get in the way of reconciliation. The experience of the families, so close and yet so far, is poignantly and powerfully evoked by extensive surveillance footage and photography, showing Brothers and Sisters in their daily comings-and-goings, moving through the everyday world without seeming to be involved in it. Rare, candid footage of one parents' successful but brief rendezvous with her daughter, provides searingly painful evidence of the seeming hopelessness many of these bewildered families feel. Testimonials from ex-group members detail the tortuous processes by which some adherents regain their psychological independence, only then to have to face the world again, with all its strains - but sometimes, with greater strength than before.

This Oscar-winning documentary explores the life of one-time child evangelist and faith healer Marjoe Gortner. The son of professional evangelists, Gortner was preaching on the Southern tent-revival circuit by the age of 3.

A documentary focusing on the life of dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris, and his exploits over the last decade.

A documentary on kids who attend a summer camp hoping to become the next Billy Graham.

A charismatic leader founds a commune in Los Angeles in the early '70s based on natural food, spiritual practices and psychedelic rock. This short-lived era is recreated with archival material and the memories of participants.

Each Halloween, youth members of Trinity Church, Texas construct a 'Hell House'; a modern-day fire-and-brimstone sermon, presented in the form of a haunted house, seen by over 10,000 visitors each year.

A young guy joins a cult and his parents send his sister and the help of a specialist to bring him home, but she also gets swept up in it.

A rising star young gymnast is lured into a religious cult by a beautiful girl. Every moment with the group brings him more and more under the control of the cult's leader.

An experiment in an American High School where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Based on a true story.

Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

A documentary on the Jejune Institute, a mind-bending San Francisco phenomenon where 10,000 people became "inducted" without ever quite realizing what they'd signed up for.

A documentary about a man who impersonates a wise Indian Guru and builds a following in Arizona. At the height of his popularity, the Guru Kumaré must reveal his true identity to his disciples and unveil his greatest teaching of all.

Award winning filmmaker, Ondi Timoner, follows four families as they leave an abusive church in South Carolina and realize they have been in a cult. The film documents them as they enter Wellspring, the only accredited, live-in cult treatment facility in the world, where they learn the true extent of the brainwashing they have all experienced. Eventually they return home to bring the Pastor and his wife to justice and try to begin to rebuild their damaged lives.

Aum Shinrikyo, the Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara and responsible for the 1995 Sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway, becomes the subject of this documentary.

Follows the dissolution of the cult in the absence of their leader, Shoko Asahara.

History, speculation, experimental footage, and even animation is all used to explore the impact of Carlos Castaneda's teachings of perceiving non-ordinary reality.

This doc by video pioneers TVTV examines Guru Maharaj Ji, 16-year-old leader of a cult-like new age group, known to his followers as Lord of the Universe. The 1974 gathering at Houston's Astrodome features Rennie Davis and Abbie Hoffman.

Tries to prove that all great men of the past were actually aliens.

A documentary on three men who claim to be the second coming of the Christian Messiah.

Escaping Evil: My Life in a Cult on BIO. brings viewers face to face with people who spent years living in fear according to a megalomaniac's version of the truth. Compelling interviews and remarkable re-creations offer a rarely seen firsthand picture of life inside a cult.

A first-person account of growing up in an evangelical Christian cult.

In this hard-hitting cinematic document, ex-followers reveal secrets of life under the domination of India's infamous free sex guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, self-proclaimed God of the Universal.

On January 7th 2005, 29 year old Rick Rodriguez murdered his former nanny and then killed himself on a lonely desert highway. Hours earlier he had videoed his suicide note and this final message provided a remarkable insight into a deeply damaged life. It also lifted the lid on one of the most notorious religious cults to emerge out of the 1960s counter culture: The Children of God sect.

MTV's investigative report on alternative religions including the Church Universal and Triumphant, International Churches of Christ, and Scientology.