This Week In Cults

Issue #1 (9/8/25)

Happy Friday! Welcome to the first CULTstack Weekly Newsletter — news, history, and quizzes from the cultiverse.

📰 Headlines of the Week

“Queen of Canada,” Romana Didulo, bailed out
Romana Didulo — a QAnon-influenced conspiracy leader who crowned herself “Queen of Canada” — was arrested after police raided her British Columbia compound, an abandoned school where followers lived under strict control, surrendering assets and cash. Didulo claims she answers only to “natural law.” (CBC News)

Back in 2021, she was detained for urging her followers to “shoot to kill” anyone vaccinating young people, warning that such “traitors” would face a military tribunal punishable by “firing squad or hanging.” (Sootoday.com)

Robert Jay Lifton, brainwashing expert, dies at 99. Psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton, whose work on brainwashing, cults, and totalism shaped how we understand authoritarian control, died this week at 99. His 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism remains a cornerstone. In 2019, at the age of 93, Lifton published Losing Reality, a book on cults, authoritarianism, and the collapse of shared truth - my treasured copy is dog-eared, underlined, and highlighted.

Alleged Jesus Army child abusers could receive millions
More than 600 victims of the UK’s notorious Jesus Army cult won a settlement for years of abuse. But now the defunct cult’s multimillion-pound trust is being scooped by current members — including alleged abusers — instead of the victims. (BBC 2024 story about victims)

FBI raids House of Prayer
Federal agents stormed a Georgia mansion linked to House of Prayer, a cult accused of exploiting U.S. military veterans by stealing their benefits in excess of . Authorities allege the group siphoned off millions while maintaining strict control over members’ lives. (KSOW - ABC 7)

🙄 So Culty

Cult leaders crown themselves with made-up titles that reinforce their authority and “specialness”:

• THE VANGUARD: Keith Raniere, NXIVM

• THE PROPHET: Warren Jeffs, FLDS

• IMPERIAL GRAND POTENTATE NOBLE: REV. DR. MALACHI Z. YORK 33°/720°: Dwight York, Nuwaubian Nation

⍰ Guess Who

Guess which one is the cult leader who weighed her followers as proof of their Christian faith and loyalty to her?

A.

B.

Answer: B

Gwen Shamblin, founder of Tennessee-based cult, Remnant Fellowship, and The Weigh Down Workshop - a Christian-based diet plan integrated into the church doctrine. As her cult and power grew, Shamblin got thinner — and her hair got bigger. Shamblyn died in 2021 when her private plane crashed.

*Person A is Theresa Caputo, an American psychic medium, best known for her TLC reality television series Long Island Medium. ,

🎥 Beth Recommends

Documentary Film: Aum: The Cult at the End of the World
Directed by Chiaki Yanagimoto & Ben Braun

This documentary unpacks the Japanese doomsday cult behind the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack that killed 14 people and injured thousands. I first caught it at Sundance in 2023, then again this spring in L.A. at a Q&A with the directors.

The Russian branch of the cult still has me wondering what became of them after 1995. Shockingly, the film didn’t get a streamer deal — but you can rent it on Apple TV+, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Fandango at Home.

Check it out, then jump into the subscriber chat and tell me what blew your mind most. For me? The brain sensor caps.

🧠 Trivia Quiz

Q: Which cult leader claimed to be both the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and Lenin?

Was it:

A. Sun Myung Moon (Moonies cult)
B. Shoko Asahara (Aum cult)
C. Jim Jones (People’s Temple)
D. Charles Manson (Manson Family)

Answer…

C.

Jim Jones - The People’s Temple

James Warren “Jim” Jones founded the Peoples Temple (1955–1978), blending Marxist and Christian identities and claiming to embody both Jesus and Lenin. After moving his followers to Jonestown, Guyana in South America, he preached a final act of “revolutionary suicide.”

On November 18, 1978, more than 900 people were coerced into drinking cyanide-laced Flavoraid - a horrifically painful way to die. A mass murder — over 300 were children, and 74% of the victims were African American. Jones died from a single gunshot to the head.

📌 TO END THE WEEK

THE TRACE

“Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.”

— Philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (1677)

I will be back next Friday with another edition of This Week In Cults.

Be well,

Beth

Thanks for reading. Share this with a friend who’d never join a cult (but definitely loves to read about them).