Cult News

The Mormon Church (LDS) bought a city block adjacent to their Salt Lake City temple through a controversial deal with the city in 1999. They then heavily restricted activity on the property, which included the exercise of free speech.

Converting the property from public to private seemed to be a practical way to essetially create a buffer zone for the historic temple. And the church made this clear by imposing rules that specifically prohibited evangelical Christians from preaching and handing out anti-Mormon tracts on the block they bought.

Ultimately a lawsuit ensued and the LDS won the first round when a Mormon judge ruled in its favor. However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appealed that decision and a federal court in Denver reversed the lower court’s rulings, reports the Salt Lake City Tribune.

The evangelicals are now back and exercising their free speech by proclaiming Mormonism a “false religion.” LDS leaders are not happy and contemplating whether they will appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

It seems that within Utah, a state dominated if not controlled by the Mormon Church, officials are often willing to do just about anything to accommodate the powerful religion. Allowing the church to buy city property to create the buffer zone looks like one example.

Interestingly, the Mormon religion promotes the idea that America is God’s promised and special land. But the constitutional rights that uniquely define the United States, such as free speech and the free exercise of religion, don’t seem to matter much to Mormons unless it’s their own. This seems odd for a religion that came to Utah as a result of “persecution.”

One non-Mormon Salt Lake City councilwoman who was outvoted regarding the sale of the property in question observed, “This is very symbolic for a lot of people of the tension between the LDS Church and the non-LDS people [in Utah].”

What will the church do now? The mayor of Salt Lake City has apparently decided to bail out of the situation and will not join the LDS in any further court battles. A good politician usually knows when to cut his losses. Hopefully the Mormon hierarchy, known for its historic pragmatism, will do the same.

In Texas, the state that gave us David Koresh and the Waco Davidians, a new cult is “brewing” quite literally.

The St. Arnold Brewing Company of Houston, Texas has developed a cult following of deeply devoted beer drinkers. So devoted in fact, they actually paid for the privilege of being inscribed on the brewery’s new water tank, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Texans must take their beer seriously and in Houston for some this has taken on almost religious proportions.

Brock Wagner owner of the brewery “obviously has done something right,” according to one expert who commented to the Chronicle. The proof is he didn’t need to pay for new equipment, instead he simply called upon the faithful to “pony up.”

But unlike David Koresh, Wagner is just stacking cases of beer, not ammunition.

Perhaps fanatical partakers of the good brewery’s product might get in trouble if they drive while under its influence, but no one is likely to make a federal case out of it.

Despite massive failure rates cited by respected scientists regarding cloning the “Raelians,” cult followers of a former French journalist who now calls himself “Rael,” claim that they have done it. That is, that ten cloned humans are now growing within the wombs of designated surrogates reports CNS News.

Rael and his devotees have turned publicity into a a sacred rite. They seemingly pull one stunt after another to gain attention. One day it’s bashing Catholics and burning crosses, the next day it’s cloning claims.

What will the group based upon outer space myths come up with next?

The Raelians appear to be like the proverbial “boy who cried wolf” and the media is becoming increasingly bored with their histrionics.

William Pierce the founder of the National Alliance has been dead three months, but his followers are managing to keep busy. In state after state they have doled out hate tracts on parked cars, doorways and porches.

This apparently organized effort has been reported across the United States in such places as West Virginia, Wyoming and Colorado.

Of course the peripatetic Neo-Nazis are doing their promotional effort anonymously, as local residents certainly do not appreciate it. The Alliance’s handouts often seem to be regarded as little more than annoying litter.

Their tracts tout such themes as “White History Month” and “Just say no to diversity.”

This recent flurry of activity seems to be a frantic attempt to prove there is still life after Pierce for the National Alliance. But Pierce’s posthumous legacy appears to only be fodder to fill up trashcans.

The Mungiki are an outlawed “cult” in Kenya. However, despite their status the group is still active. Three people were killed in riots staged by the Mungiki this week, reports The Nation in Nairobi.

The Mugiki sect was founded in 1980 and advocates “traditional African values” such as female circumcision, regarded by many as mutilation.

The crackdown on the sect began last year when leaders were arrested. Many Kenyans have died since as a direct result of repeated confrontations with authorities and rival sects.

Africa’s cult problems reached a climactic point in 2000 when a doomsday cult in Uganda called “The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments” became the largest recorded cult murder/suicide in history.

About 1,000 members of the splinter schismatic Catholic group led by Joseph Kibwetere perished. No accurate count of the cult’s victims will ever be known, but the government recovered hundreds of bodies buried, burned and hidden by the group.

Since the Ugandan tragedy of 2000 African governments seem to have become more “cult conscious” and now appear to monitor the activities of violent and potentially dangerous groups closely.

The crack down on the Mungiki can be seen as an extension of this new commitment, which has included increased surveillance and law enforcement.

The Washington D.C. area serial sniper has now claimed the lives of seven people in a shooting spree that began little more than a week ago.

As in most major national crime stories speculation has been intense. What is his profile? How does he think? These are the questions law enforcement experts are now asking in an effort to catch the murderer.

A provocative clue surfaced recently when the killer left behind a tarot card upon which was written, “Dear Policeman, I am God.”

Professionals that use such cards for “readings” or “fortune telling” were quick to point out that the specific card found, known as the “death card,” was misused, reports the New York Post.

One tarot reader said the killer must have picked the card “to scare people,” clearly an observation that did not require clairvoyance.

The media has speculated that the serial sniper might be a “hate group” or “cult” member.

However, the police in this case appear to have ruled out racial or religious hatred as motivation for the murders. The shootings fit no pattern demographically and have included people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The murders also appear to be random and not a ritual, excluding the activities of a “cult.”

Tarot readers that commented for the Post got two things right, which was more common sense than an exercise in any metaphysical discernment. The sniper seeks attention and is delusional.

When this killer is caught he will probably fit the historic profile established by previous serial murderers such as San Francisco’s “Zodiac” killer or Richard Ramirez the “Night Stalker” of Los Angeles.

The serial sniper is no doubt deeply disturbed. He is likely to be a loner and not the member of an organized group. If he is a “true believer,” it is probably a commitment to his own version of religion, such as Ramirez a self-styled “Satanist.” And like Ramirez it is the sniper’s own demons that drive him.

Justice grinds slowly in Japan, but it does seem to grind fine and completely.

Seiichi Endo, once “health minister” for the notorious cult “Aum” helped produce the gas used in an attack on Tokyo subways seven years ago. He was sentenced to death by hanging today in a Tokyo courtroom. Endo is the ninth member of Aum to receive a death sentence, reports Mainichi Daily News.

The judge rejected a “brainwashing” defense offered by Endo’s lawyers. Once again proving that such a defense is not viable when violent cult members kill people.

Aum murdered 19 and injured thousands through the 1995 attack.

Aum’s once supreme leader Shoko Asahara has not been sentenced yet. However, It seems certain that he will eventually receive the death penalty.

A church allegedly told a minor child that unless she had illegal sex with a man twice her age, she would lose her salvation and “burn in hell,” reports the Salt Lake City Tribune.

When Ruth Stubbs was only sixteen she was apparently coerced through threats about damnation, to cooperate sexually and become the third “spiritual wife” of Rodney Holm, a Utah police officer.

Stubbs gave in to those threats and became essentially a household concubine for Holm, eventually producing two more children for the polygamist father of 21.

Now Holm is charged with criminal sexual misconduct and bigamy.

It seems that somehow criminal sex with a minor is “holy” within the isolated polygamist communities of northern Arizona and southern Utah.

What most faiths would call “sinful lust” or simply adultery, the so-called “fundamentalist Mormons” say is part of some heavenly plan. Well, it might be heavenly for fundamentalist pedophiles, but it appears to be hell for the young girls they victimize.

Again and again, stories like that of Ruth Stubbs have surfaced through the media, but until recently little if anything was done by law enforcement. Now Utah seems to be taking some steps to enforce its laws and protect the children caught within polygamist cults.

Hopefully, Holm will receive his just reward, and that would be prison not paradise.

A father and son were arrested in Newark, New Jersey for the desecration of human remains, reports Associated Press.

Three human skulls were found in caldrons within a building basement owned by the father. The skulls and other animal remains found are suspected to be the residue of cult rituals allegedly associated with the practice of “Palo Mayombe.”

Palo Mayombe is a West African religion, brought to Cuba by slaves in the 19th Century and more recently to the United States through Cuban immigration.

In the United States since the 1980s there have been often bizarre claims made about human sacrifices supposedly associated with “Satanism“. However, these claims were later proven false. At times religions such as Palo Mayombe have been falsely cited or impugned in the resulting hysteria.

But human sacrifice is not a part of Palo Mayombe. A cemetery was acknowledged by Newark police as the probable source of the body parts regarding this recent arrest, not people from the neighborhood.

It seems likely that the Newark father and son were perhaps involved in their own idiosyncratic composite religion, which included aspects of Palo Mayombe.

The Black Panthers of the 1960s were a grass-roots social movement that began in Oakland. They were dedicated to black empowerment, civil rights and gained a cult following. One of their founders was Bobby Seale who became both a folk hero and media star.

Now Seale is “furious,” but not about racism directed at blacks. His anger is instead directed against a black group generally regarded as both racist and anti-Semitic, which uses the Panther name. Seale feels the group has falsely used the Panther name and expropriated its history, reports the New York Times.

The so-called “New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense,” even doctored a famous photo of historic Panther icon Huey Newton, replacing his image with their own deceased leader and hero Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a former leader within the Nation of Islam.

Seale says the “new Panthers” have done nothing for the black community and it seems he plans to take them to court over the use of the historic name and logo, which are trademarked.

The “new Panthers” now led by Malik Shabazz has gained attention through sensational comments. Shortly after September 11th they named the United States and Israel respectively, the top two terrorist nations on earth.

Shabazz sees “Zionist plots” everywhere and favors vitriolic terms like “white devils” and “bloodsucking Jews.” Commenting about Seale’s effort to preserve the history and name of the historic Panther movement he said they are “working with the Zionists.” And he added, “I think their lawyer is one.”

Perhaps everyone who somehow objects to or opposes Mr. Shabazz is either part of a “Zionist” conspiracy or in league with “white devils”?

Maybe the next doctored photograph produced by Shabazz and his followers will be Bobby Seal’s head superimposed on Israeli leader Sharon’s body touring the West Bank.