Top 10 Most Infamous Cult Leaders

You can find few figures more disturbing than a cult leader who manages to turn personal charisma into unquestioned authority over other people's lives. Their influence can begin with promises of belonging, enlightenment, salvation, or a better future, only to spiral into manipulation, exploitation, violence, and sometimes mass tragedy. What makes these leaders so unsettling is not simply what they did, but how effectively they persuaded ordinary people to surrender their judgment, relationships, money, freedom, and even their lives.

As you look through the names associated with some of history's most notorious cults, you see very different personalities using remarkably similar tools, including isolation, fear, loyalty tests, and claims of special knowledge or divine purpose. Their stories offer a grim reminder of how dangerous unchecked power can become when devotion replaces doubt and one person's word is treated as absolute truth.

The Top Ten

Charles Manson

Charles Manson led the Manson Family, a communal group that formed in California in the late 1960s and followed his apocalyptic and racial beliefs. In 1969, several of his followers carried out a series of murders, including the killings of actress Sharon Tate and four other people at her Los Angeles home. Manson was convicted in 1971 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and remained imprisoned until his death in 2017.

Leader of his "family."
Jim Jones

Jim Jones founded the Peoples Temple, a religious organization that began in Indiana during the 1950s before relocating to California and later establishing a settlement called Jonestown in Guyana. On November 18, 1978, U.S. Representative Leo Ryan and several others were killed near Jonestown after investigating reports of abuse within the group. Later that day, more than 900 Peoples Temple members died at Jonestown, most from cyanide poisoning, while Jones was found dead from a gunshot wound.

Leader of the People's Temple.
Shoko Asahara

Shoko Asahara founded Aum Shinrikyo in Japan in the 1980s and taught a mixture of Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and apocalyptic beliefs. Members of the group carried out several violent crimes, including the March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 13 people at the time and injured thousands. Asahara was convicted of murder and other offenses and was executed by hanging in Japan in 2018.

His cult released gas into the Tokyo subway.
Marshall Applewhite

Marshall Applewhite co-founded Heaven's Gate with Bonnie Nettles in the 1970s and taught that followers could leave their human bodies and ascend to a higher extraterrestrial existence. The group later became associated with the belief that a spacecraft was traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet. In March 1997, Applewhite and 38 followers were found dead in a California house after participating in a mass suicide.

Old man who caused a mass suicide.
David Koresh

David Koresh became the leader of the Branch Davidians, a religious group based at the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas. Federal agents attempted to execute search and arrest warrants at the compound in February 1993, resulting in a gunfight and a 51-day standoff. The siege ended on April 19, 1993, when the compound burned, killing Koresh and dozens of other Branch Davidians.

Leader of the Branch Davidians.
L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard was a science-fiction writer who founded Scientology in the early 1950s after developing ideas first presented as Dianetics. He established the Church of Scientology in 1953 and produced a large body of writings and recorded lectures that became central to its teachings and practices. Hubbard died in California in 1986, after which leadership of the Church of Scientology passed to other senior officials.

L. Ron Hubbard:
1. The only way you can control people is to lie to them. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.
2. You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.

He was an evil psychopath who promoted hate, vengeance, coerced abortions, and families being ripped apart, all to make a buck. His followers still carry out his verbatim policies and directives 30 years after his death.

The sci-fi writer with probably the most devoted fan base
Warren Jeffs

Warren Jeffs became president and prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamist religious denomination that broke from mainstream Mormonism. He exercised extensive authority over marriages and community life among followers in communities including Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. Jeffs was convicted in Texas in 2011 of sexually assaulting two underage girls whom he had taken as plural wives and was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.

Leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh became head of the Indian spiritual organization Dera Sacha Sauda in 1990. A court convicted him in 2017 of raping two female followers, and violence by supporters following the verdict resulted in dozens of deaths in northern India. He was later convicted in separate criminal cases involving the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and the killing of former Dera manager Ranjit Singh, although the latter conviction was overturned by a high court in 2024.
Dwight York

Dwight York founded and led several religious organizations that eventually developed into the Nuwaubian Nation, whose teachings incorporated elements of Islam, ancient Egyptian themes, extraterrestrial beliefs, and other traditions. The group established a large compound called Tama-Re in Putnam County, Georgia, during the 1990s. York was convicted in federal court in 2004 on charges including racketeering and transporting minors for unlawful sexual activity and received a 135-year prison sentence.
Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere, and Bee Tait

Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteere were leading figures in Uganda's Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, which emerged in the late 1980s and promoted apocalyptic beliefs centered on claimed visions of the Virgin Mary. On March 17, 2000, hundreds of followers died in a fire at the group's compound in Kanungu, and investigators subsequently discovered additional bodies at properties connected with the movement, leading authorities to treat the deaths as mass killings. The organization didn't just rely on laypeople, as it also attracted several former Catholic clergy members to its leadership ranks, including excommunicated priests like Dominic Kataribabo.

Leaders of a Ugandan doomsday cult.

The Newcomers

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Heinrich van Geene
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Monte Kim Miller

Monte Kim Miller founded Concerned Christians in Colorado during the 1980s, initially as an organization opposing New Age movements and groups it considered cults. Miller later claimed to speak for God, made apocalyptic predictions, and led dozens of followers to leave the Denver area in 1998 as he predicted coming destruction and his own death and resurrection in Jerusalem. Israeli authorities detained and deported 14 Concerned Christians members in January 1999 amid allegations that members planned violent acts connected with their end-times beliefs, although Miller was not among those arrested.

The Contenders

Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps founded Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, in 1955 and remained its longtime pastor and central public figure. The church became nationally known for picketing funerals and other events while displaying signs condemning homosexuality and asserting that deaths and disasters represented divine punishment. Phelps was disbarred from practicing law in Kansas in 1979 and died in 2014 at the age of 84.

The Most Hated Family in America
Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954 and taught that he had been called by Jesus to complete an unfinished religious mission. The movement became internationally known for large-scale marriage ceremonies in which thousands of couples were matched or blessed. Moon expanded the organization into a worldwide religious and business network and remained its central figure until his death in 2012.
Harold Camping

Harold Camping was an American Christian radio broadcaster who served as president of Family Radio and became known for predicting dates for the end times. He calculated that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011, and later said that the final destruction of the world would take place on October 21, 2011, neither of which occurred. Camping subsequently acknowledged that his predictions had been incorrect and died in 2013 at the age of 92.

In August 2018, President of Family Radio Tom Evans, who took over after Harold Camping's death in 2013, went on a religious podcast to apologise. Quote: "I do want to humbly apologise to those who are listening here who were affected by Family Radio. I cannot defend Mr. Camping. I will not. It's time now to let it go. We made a mess of things."

I suppose some of his former followers think it was a test by God, or that God betrayed them.

End-of-the-world type stuff.
Chris Korda

Chris Korda co-founded the Church of Euthanasia in 1992 as an antinatalist organization advocating voluntary reductions in the human population as a response to environmental degradation. The organization promoted four principal themes involving suicide, abortion, cannibalism, and sodomy, while stating that its population-reduction program should be voluntary. Korda served as the group's public spokesperson and used performances, demonstrations, publications, and a website to disseminate its environmental and antinatalist message.
Anton LaVey

Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco in 1966 and served as its high priest until his death in 1997. He published The Satanic Bible in 1969, outlining a philosophy that rejected belief in Satan as a literal supernatural being and instead emphasized individualism, self-interest, and ritual symbolism. LaVey became a prominent public figure associated with modern Satanism and also wrote works including The Satanic Rituals and The Satanic Witch.
Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan became a minister in the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and rebuilt an organization under that name after Warith Deen Mohammed moved the original group toward mainstream Sunni Islam following Elijah Muhammad's death. Farrakhan became the leader of the reestablished Nation of Islam and organized the Million Man March held in Washington, D.C., in 1995. He has repeatedly drawn criticism for statements about Jewish people, white people, homosexuality, and other subjects that civil rights organizations and political figures have described as antisemitic or discriminatory.
Jaime Gomez

Jaime Gomez, also known as Michel and Andreas, led Buddhafield, a spiritual community that developed in California during the 1980s and incorporated New Age ideas and practices associated with Eastern religions. Former member Will Allen documented his more than two decades with the group in the 2016 film Holy Hell, and former members accused Gomez of psychological manipulation and sexual abuse, allegations that Gomez denied. Buddhafield later relocated from California to Texas, while Gomez and remaining followers subsequently established themselves in Hawaii.
Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley was an English occultist who developed Thelema, a religious and philosophical system centered on the principle expressed in his teaching, "Do what thou wilt." In 1904, he produced The Book of the Law, which became the foundational text of Thelema, and he later became a leading figure in the Ordo Templi Orientis. Crowley wrote extensively about ceremonial magic, mysticism, and occult practices before his death in England in 1947.
Father Divine

Father Divine was an American religious leader who headed the International Peace Mission movement and taught that he was God manifested in human form. His followers lived in racially integrated communities, practiced celibacy, and addressed him as Father Divine while participating in businesses and communal properties associated with the movement. He became particularly prominent during the Great Depression, when the Peace Mission operated inexpensive restaurants, residences, and other services in several American cities.
Gerald B. Gardner

Gerald B. Gardner was an English civil servant, author, and occultist who played a central role in bringing the modern religion of Wicca to public attention during the 1950s. After British laws restricting witchcraft claims were repealed in 1951, Gardner publicly discussed his involvement with a witchcraft tradition and published books including Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft. The religious tradition associated with his teachings became known as Gardnerian Wicca and influenced the development of later forms of modern Pagan witchcraft.
Jeffrey Lundgren

Jeffrey Lundgren was a former member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who formed a splinter religious group around his interpretations of scripture in Kirtland, Ohio. In 1989, Lundgren and several followers murdered Dennis and Cheryl Avery and their three daughters, whose bodies were placed in a pit inside a barn on property used by the group. Lundgren was convicted of five counts of aggravated murder, sentenced to death, and executed by lethal injection in Ohio in 2006.
Joseph Smith Jr.

Joseph Smith Jr. founded the religious movement that became the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after publishing the Book of Mormon in 1830 and organizing a church in New York that same year. Smith said he had received divine revelations and introduced doctrines and practices including continuing revelation, temple rituals, and plural marriage, while his followers established communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. He was killed by an armed mob while jailed in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844 after being charged with treason and other offenses.

Founder of the Mormons.
Li Hongzhi

Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, in China in 1992 as a spiritual practice combining meditation and exercises with teachings centered on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The movement grew rapidly during the 1990s, and the Chinese government banned Falun Gong in 1999 following escalating tensions and a large demonstration by practitioners in Beijing. Li left China before the ban and subsequently lived in the United States while continuing to publish teachings associated with the movement.

Falun Gong (a.k.a. Falun Dafa) founder and leader
Joseph Di Mambro

Joseph Di Mambro co-founded the Order of the Solar Temple with Luc Jouret in Switzerland during the 1980s and exercised substantial control over the organization's internal affairs. The group combined neo-Templar traditions with New Age and apocalyptic beliefs, including the idea that selected members could undergo a "transit" to another plane of existence. In October 1994, Di Mambro died in Switzerland during a series of murders and suicides involving more than 50 members and associates of the Solar Temple in Switzerland and Canada.
Steven Anderson

Steven Anderson founded Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, in 2005 and became associated with the independent fundamental Baptist movement known as the New Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. His preaching has included opposition to homosexuality, Islam, Judaism, and several other religious and social groups, and some of his statements have resulted in public controversy and restrictions on his travel to multiple countries. Anderson has also promoted the belief that the King James Version is the authoritative English Bible and has rejected several commonly accepted evangelical doctrines and practices.