Japanese Cult of the EmperorĪll throughout history, there have been entire civilizations and religions built upon the worship of a monarch. The official count of people he killed is 23, but it may be as high as four dozen.Įmperor Hirohito. When police eventually found the bodies of people he had killed, what came to light is that he had dismembered many people and used their body parts in his rituals to strengthen his own powers. When people refused, they would mysteriously disappear. Some of the people who followed him found that they were becoming powerful within their cartels, and he tried to extract more money from them, as well as positions of power for his own self.
He charged the leaders exorbitant prices – thousands of dollars – to perform Santeria rituals that would guarantee their safety, particularly from their enemies and the police.Ĭonstanzo’s followers worshiped him as if he was a god. After training with a Santeria sorcerer, he moved to Mexico City and established himself with the local drug lords and crime syndicates. Constanzo became involved with some of the darker, occultish aspects of Santeria, a side that many followers disavow. However, he had a fascination with the Santeria religion – a syncretism of Voodoo and Roman Catholicism – that he may have inherited from his mother and grandmother, both believed to be Santeria priestesses. Adolfo Constanzo’s Santeria CultĪdolfo Constanzo was born in Miami in 1962 and grew up with a traditional Roman Catholic religion. They struck fear in the hearts of both the European Crusaders and their fellow Muslims.Īdolfo Constanzo. They were highly trained and well-read so that they could blend in with their enemies’ surroundings, even speaking different languages, if necessary. The agents in the order were called upon to engage in what the leaders called self-sacrifice in other words, they were to engage in guerrilla warfare and even target specific people for assassination at the risk of their own lives. The order was led by a grand imam, as it was first a religious order, though they largely deviate from the mainstream teachings of Islam. The Assassins were based in Alamut, Iran, and Masyaf, Syria. Today, their name – which derives from the Arabic word for “principle” – refers to somebody who kills a target in cold blood. The assassins were a group of Nizari Ismail Muslims, a splinter group from the Shi’a sect, that formed in response to the First Crusade. Marco Polo had actually misunderstood the word “assassins” and interpreted it as being “hashishin,” referring to hashish, more commonly known as marijuana. When European Crusaders and later Marco Polo returned to Europe after their adventures and exploits in the Muslim world, they carried with them stories of a group of guerrilla fighters known as the hashishin.
Artistic depiction of Hassan is-Sabbah, the founder of the Hashishin. Read on to find out about some of the most notorious, infamous cults in history. A small Christian group that believes its leader is the reincarnation of Jesus almost certainly would.
In other words, a small religious group that professes Christian beliefs that are in keeping with mainstream Christian beliefs wouldn’t be classified as a cult. Mainly though, for something to qualify as a cult, it needs to hold a creed that is deviate from the mainstream religious community or have a leader that is somehow deified.