What are the cults that functioned in your country?

20 comments

1. jehovas are extremely active in Poland. They thrive. In my city they have a huge, expensive headquarters. They are very visible on the streets with their stands. I don’t understand it.

2. There used to be this thing (idk if they exist anymore) called “space people,” or vesmírni lidé. They believed in some god like chatacter Ashtar Sheran, alien from idk where, and that he will come to save us from lizard people from underground. When I went to school, stickers with Ashtar were everywhere, street lamps, bus stops etc.

   Also, Mormons had some sort of “local HQ” or whatever in the neighborhood I grew up. Sometimes I saw them on streets, they were always wearing black pants, white shirt and black nametag so they were easy to spot. Hare Krisna is here too, sometimes you can see them singing and chanting in Bratislava city center. Jehovas – I know they exist, but never saw them myself.

3. Orbáns son had a cult called Felház, where he posed as a sort of prophet of Jesus, it was fucking bizarre.

4. There was the [screamers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis_(commune)) but they’re pretty much gone.

   There’s the [Burke family ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_family_(Castlebar)).

   And there’s the [House of Prayer ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Prayer,_Achill).

   We also have Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses and Scientology.

5. There was the House of Prayer cult in Achill. Originally endorsed by the Catholic church, that was revoked when it became clear they were extorting money from people, claiming they were performing ‘miracles’ and having ‘visions’.

   Revenue (Irish tax department) revoked their charitable status and the main woman running it has multiple mansions. They’re still going, somehow.

6. Jehova’s Witnesses, Hare Krishna, Scientology. I’m sure the Mormons are here as well, but I’ve never once run into them (though I did get my hands on a Dutch language edition of the Book of Mormon via a friend).

   My country has also had its fair share of smalltime faith healers and survivalist cults. A couple of years ago there was a family that was freed from a farmhouse in the village of Ruinerwold, where they had been forced to live completely isolated from the outside world because of the beliefs of their cult leader father.

7. In Spain a lot of weird cults seem to go to the Canary Islands, the Children of God one was based there for a while, then there was an infamous one family German cult with incest and shit that ended in murder in the 70s, “el Cabrito” a cult around an Austrian painter (not that one). All of them had incest and sex with minors in common.

   Then in the country in general the usual Jehovas Witnesses who I think have grown a lot in the last decades by preying on Latinamerican migrants, Mormons I don’t think there are many, Scientology had a building in Madrid but I don’t think there are many either.

   And our most known local weirdoes are in el Palmar de Troya, a weird Catholic alternate universe cult around a blind guy who now is dead and was their pope, they have a compound [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Iglesia+Cristiana+Palmariana/@37.057156,-5.8115662,1216m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0xd0d83fb1ff3bc31:0xa04640009eafae0!2s41719+El+Palmar+de+Troya,+Sevilla,+Espa%C3%B1a!3b1!8m2!3d37.0624156!4d-5.8057207!16s%2Fm%2F04644th!3m5!1s0xd0d83824a163403:0x570c079d270d03d8!8m2!3d37.0563375!4d-5.8089117!16s%2Fg%2F11twhw9p3x?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkwMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)

8. We have Mormons, Jehova’s witness, Salvation Army(used to big, not anymore) scientology and such in Denmark.

   In true homegrown variety, I only think Inner Mission counts, they used to be huge. A variant of pietism, but it is dying out. Turns out being against dancing and partying(but unlike JW, they do allow birthsday parties and on holidays) isn’t how you get new members.

9. How do we define cults?

   Mormons are heretical in terms of theology – e.g. the Nicene Creed, that all Christians have agreed for hundreds of years, with the exception of the disagreement over the Filoque clause. But in terms of culture, they have transformed themselves from fairly dubious beginnings (polygamy etc), to become socially respectable.

10. There are the Plymouth Brethren in the UK alongside mormons and Jehovahs and scientologists, probably a lot more but idk.

11. Along with the usual ones you get everywhere, when I was young there was a [Plymouth Brethren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Brethren) group near me and you sometimes saw the women out with blue shawls on. They don’t interact with non-members and, like many groups, ostracise those who try to leave. They have a parallel set of private schools owing to various objections to mainstream education, this isn’t as rare though.

    The recent Channel 4 sitcom ‘Everyone Else Burns’ about a family in a hardline Christian sect (starring Will from the Inbetweeners) was largely inspired by this group above all apparently.

12. In Finland? From my childhood in a small town in Eastern Finland I remember Mormons and Jehova’s Witnesses. There were also small Pentecostalist groups which made a sectarian-ish impression.

13. Jehovas are particularly nasty. They stay in busy places looking nice and waiting for people to fall for their trap – they are everywhere. It’s often the most desperate and gullible that end up there and it’s hard to come out for these people.

    Scientology is next level nasty but their tactics are more incognito – at least I can’t spot them easily although I pass several of their “locations” in the UK

14. The only one I run into now and then is Islam. I’m sure there are others in Sweden but I don’t really know them that much. Christianity is of course also present, but you dont see it outside of physical churches. Our country is very secular, outside of our immigrant population.

    Depends where you are in the country. At least in big city centers, Islam sticks out.

15. Pentecostal Christians are big, especially in Budapest. I’ve had a colleague whom’s family was pretty deeply brainwashed into it. They think dinosaur fossils were left on Earth by God to make us doubt his existence and they are also into Christian-Zionism. The Faith church had a TV show every Sunday with American-style singing, sermons, exorcism and a pretty charismatic preacher who makes a shit ton of money out of this business. Otherwise they are pretty harmless – they make a lot of anti-drug campaigns, public gatherings and stuff.

    The Krishna hindus bought a large plot of land and turned it into [an impressive hippie wonderland](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZbm2xCVrU). Worth a visit for tourists. You can run into them in public spaces as well or when they are doing charities. It’s a small community, but they are generally one of the more popular cults that people have positive opinion of.

    The Jewish faith in Hungary is split into two. There’s the original Federation of Jewish Communities that tried to cater for every Jew. However some ultra-orthodox Hassidic Jews though it’s too secular for them and formed their own Chabad community. The two groups are constantly arguing with each other and the Chabads are considered kind of a cult due to the suspiciously large money and political backing the group receives. They are very non-transparent and operates very remotely from public sites. Other Jews described they are trying to aggressively convert them and that they tend to interpret the Talmud to their own liking.

    There are also various shamanist and pagan groups – they are super cool with drumming, chanting, etc. – and a few satanists. But apart from these it’s the same as everywhere else.

16. We have a cult called: “asatru”. They are essentially people who have embraced their own intepretation of the Norse gods, based on the known myths and legends and then have spliced it together with spiritualism.

17. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a pretty marginal group, and the Mormons (who might be heretical in Church doctrine, but seem generally too harmless to be a proper “cult” imo) are pretty much all foreigners on a “mission” here. In general, Croatia is quite Catholic and any deviations in form of protestant sects are struggling to recruit locals.

    New Age groups that target non-religious folks and/or complete edgelords are more succesful. The usual nuisance is the people we call [Harekrišnas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_Krishna_Consciousness), a neo-Hindu movement that usually recruits ex-junkies and the like. Usually they are not more than annoying, but things get problematic when their kids die due to “natural healing methods”, as was the case a few years ago.

    There was (?) also the Banovina Horosan movement, which was a batshit insane Salafist neo-Nazi group that seems to have died off after their leader has been institutionalized.

18. Well we have JW, which I definitely think is a cult, LDS (Mormon), which is a cult to some extent but then I’d also have to count many other churches like Baptist, Pentecostal and whatever denomination ”Word of Faith” churches (ie ”Livets ord” and others like it) and perhaps the Catholic Church as cults too.

    We also have Scientology although they don’t seem to attract a lot of people. One of their ”ideal orgs”, a fancy house they bought, is near my workplace but it’s not in the center of town, which is sort of weird because I thought the purpose of ideal orgs was to lure as many people in as possible. But I’ve seen them post about their events in the local Facebook group sometimes. And during Covid they obviously went to all the local restaurants and shops to place their brochure about ”How to Keep Yourself and Others Well”.

    And of course there have been other smaller cults. There was a very weird cult called World Light Center a few decades ago led by a lady who claimed to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. Lots of child abuse in that cult IIRC.

19. We’re not renowned for cults but we did spawn the Jesus Army. They were notorious in the 1970s through to the 90s. All sorts happened including mysterious deaths and sex abuse algations amongst minors.

20. În romania we have Jehovah’s Witnesses, MISA, New Age, Neopagan groups (Dacian-inspired spirituality, Wicca), some conspiracies people those with earth is flat mentality