Inside Look at Bizarre Cults and Religions

The world is filled with people who try to think in concepts that are considered to be "outside of the box". This is where most cults or bizarre religions stem from.

The Church Of Euthanasia is number one on my list of the most bizarre cults. The Church Of Euthanasia was started by the Reverend Chris Korda in the Boston, Massachusetts. According to the church's website, it is "a non-profit educational foundation devoted to restoring balance between Humans and the remaining species on Earth". The four basic convictions of the Church Of Euthanasia are suicide, abortion, cannibalism and sodomy. They stress that population should be decreased but only by volunteering for it, not by murder or involuntary sterilization.According to Mark Dery, in his article titled Death To All Humans!,states that the Church claims to have "hundreds of card-carrying members as well as one thousand e-members scattered across the Net".

Second on my list of most bizarre cults is Raelism. Claude Vorilhon, now called Raël, founded the Raëlian Movement in Paris, France in 1974. While Raelism is prominently a peaceful cult, it still is considered outside of the normal practice of religions. The members believe all life on Earth was created by humanoid extraterrestrials called Elohim and that is where they believe cloning to have first started. Clonaid, founded by Rael, announced that a baby had been successfully cloned and named Eve. They also believe that the Elohims scientific advancements have allowed them to provide eternal life to a few individuals, including Jesus and Mohammad, who live with other worthy human beings on another planet. If you would like to know more about this practice they have their own website at raelianews.org.

Heaven's Gate was an American UFO Religion based in San Diego, California. The group began in the early 1970s by founders Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. Heavens Gate members believed that they were disembodied extraterrestrials waiting for a mother ship to take them home and the planet Earth was about to be 'recycled'. On March 22, 1997, most of the members joined in on a mass suicide. Heaven's Gate still has their website up at www.heavensgate.com.

One of the more bizarre cults calls themselves the Sun Eaters. They believe a person can live on solar energy and prana, without food and sometimes with no water. Many believe it will lead people to immortality and total cleansing. Right now there are about 3,000 people practicing in Sun Eating. According to Alina Shanin, who wrote an article called Shanin: Sun Eaters- Plain stupid or actually real?, there are documented people who do live and thrive off of the sun alone.

The Solar Temple is the last but not least at my look into bizarre cults and religions. The Temple's activities were a mix of early Protestant Christianity, mixed with a New Age philosophy using variously adapted Freemason rituals. It is believed to have been a secret society based upon the modern myth of the continuing existence of the Knights Templar. The Order of the Solar Temple was founded in 1984 by Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro. The cult taught that life was an illusion and that followers would be reborn on a planet revolving around the Dog Star Sirius. In 1994, 48 members attended a Last Supper ritual and a few days after that mass suicides and murders were conducted at two villages in Switzerland. According to B.A. Robinson, from the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance,the group murdered a baby that was born into the cult because they believed it to be the Anti-Christ. In Western Switzerland, 48 members of a sect died in another apparent mass murder-suicide. Many more death/suicides followed the first, all hoping to be taken to their beloved home planet of Sirius.