Many people do not believe in cults. Despite the fact that very real cults have existed throughout history, many ordinary folks like to cast them aside as just a “conspiracy theory.” The problem is that, in many cases, such thinking is akin to an ostrich voluntarily dunking its head in the sand. Cults exist, and some are truly dangerous.

One such cult is called the Order of Nine Angles. This organization has links to neo-Nazi and left-wing anarchist groups, plus its strong adherence to the “Left-Hand Path” has earned it accusations of human sacrifice and murder. Examining this group involves a peek in at the world of true radicalism—a world where Satanism, extremist politics, and hard-line Islamism cohabitate.

10 Origins

The Order of Nine Angles (ONA) was founded in Great Britain by a man named Anton Long. At the time, Long and others formed ONA out of a diverse collection of occult groups then centered in England. According to Long himself, as a child he traveled all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Here, in the latter area, Long began studying religions and taught himself Greek, Arabic, and Persian.^[1]

By his own admission, in the early 1970s, Long found attraction in the darker side of society, and at some point, he began committing various crimes. Before long, this blossoming occultist fell in with other British witches and warlocks, many of whom claimed descent from Britain’s original pagans. Indeed, beginning in the 1980s, the ONA began publishing tracts and articles claiming that their brand of “sinister” occultism had roots in the original “solar paganism” of the ancient Indo-European peoples. As such, Anton Long and priestess Christos Beest claimed in writing that their Satanism was an attempt to revive Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic paganism in the face of Christianity. The group published a book entitled The Black Book of Satan, which promised its readers a sevenfold path toward reaching the sinister.

9 Distinction

Lazy journalists who became aware of the ONA linked them with Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino. Founded on Walpurgis Night 1966, LaVey’s Church of Satan was all about showmanship and self-promotion. Indeed, the group’s official “bible,” The Satanic Bible, is more philosophy than theology. LaVey rejected the existence of Satan and instead espoused the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand.^[2]

Michael Aquino was the founder of the Temple of Set, an occult order based in Southern California. Aquino, a former officer in the US Army, preached what he called “esoteric Satanism.” The Temple of Set broke off from the Church of Satan in order to pursue their path toward “enlightenment” without the supposed hang-ups of Judeo-Christian morality. For the followers of Aquino, the goal is to become an individual god.

The ONA believe in none of this. They are theistic Satanists, which means that they believe in a deity named Satan. For them, practicing black magic and causing chaos in the world is all part of glorifying their black god.

8 The Importance Of David Myatt

British citizen David Myatt has lived a most interesting life. Born in Tanzania and raised in East Asia by a civil servant father, Myatt began practicing martial arts at a very young age. From here Myatt, began studying the religions of the world, including Buddhism and Islam. However, instead of becoming a priest or a scholar, Myatt first became a political activist.

Beginning in 1969, Myatt became involved in the British Movement (BM), a right-wing group founded by Colin Jordan. Then and now, Jordan was a controversial staple of British politics. During his heyday, Jordan supported the idea of sending all of Britain’s Jews to Israel, the complete halt of all non-European immigration to Great Britain, and removing all blacks and Asians from British life. As can be guessed, Jordan and his followers got into many street battles with Labour Party supporters and immigrant groups. As such, Jordan hired Myatt to be his bodyguard.

In 1974, Myatt formed the National Democratic Freedom Movement, an openly neo-Nazi organization that published a newspaper entitled British News. Myatt was frequently arrested for engaging in street brawls. At the same time, he was also collaborating with London-based Thelemites and members of the ONA. Under the sway of Myatt, the ONA embraced National Socialist racialism and the idea that Christianity is a religion fit only for slaves.^[3]

In 1998, Myatt converted to Sunni Islam. Following this, he began trying to synthesize hard-line Islamism with neo-Nazi ideals of political revolution.

7 Links To Right-Wing Groups

Thanks to the influence of David Myatt and other British political activists, the ONA began collaborating with right-wing organizations all over Europe. Sometimes, this collaboration was indirect, with groups independently adopting the ideals and ideas of the ONA.

One intellectual influenced by the ideas of the ONA is French journalist Christian Bouchet. In 1991, Bouchet, a mainstay of right-wing politics in France, founded the Nouvelle Resistance, a revolutionary nationalist movement, and the pan-European European Liberation Front. Bouchet’s ideas have not only been informed by the Aryanism of the ONA but also by the American author Francis Parker Yockey and the founder of “Esoteric Hitlerism,” Savitri Devi.^[4]

In New Zealand, the Black Order, founded by author Kerry Bolton, took direct inspiration from the ONA, while the German group the National Socialist Underground were similarly influenced by ONA. Just this year, one of the longest trials in German history concluded when Beate Zschape of the NSU was convicted of ten counts of murder.

6 Links To The Left

The ONA considers itself open to differing views. As such, membership in the ONA includes members who subscribe to left-wing politics. While most authors have focused on the group’s connections to right-wing organizations, the ONA’s theology, which embraces chaos, has been adopted by some anarchist groups who routinely engage in acts of vandalism.^[5]

According to the group’s own words, the ONA “upholds anarchism” as the most compatible with black magic. For ONA adepts, the initiation of anarchy is desirable because tragedy and trauma create wisdom and enlightenment. As such, ONA members are against organized society and its institutions. This idea has been adapted by several small anarcho-communist groups. However, unlike the ONA’s connections to the right, its connections to the left are less tangible.

5 The Atomwaffen Division

In several articles, the American neo-Nazi organization Atomwaffen Division has been linked to the ONA. In March 2018, The Daily Beast published an article detailing how the Satanist wing of the Atomwaffen Division had declared war on the group’s non-Satanic adherents. The article, written by Kelly Weill, said that the group’s supposed leader, James Cameron Denton, has posted ONA images online in the past.^[6] Denton and his followers reportedly see no contradiction between Satanism and the ONA (which encourages its adherents to infiltrate any extremist organization), while other members of the Atomwaffen Division do not agree.

The Atomwaffen Division are not some fringe group, mind you. They’ve been known to place flyers on American college campuses, are well-armed, and have made threats to attack the US government and American electrical grids in the past. At one point, the group was accused of playing a role in the murder of college student Blaze Bernstein. Bernstein’s killer, Samuel Woodward, had been a member of Atomwaffen Division, but he admitted in court that he targeted the Jewish Bernstein because he was gay.

4 The ONA’s Goals

The main goal of the ONA and its followers is to bring about the so-called New Aeon.^[7] The ONA is convinced that the modern world has failed and that global capital, consumerism, religious extremism, and environmental destruction are the result of Magian (Judeo-Christian) culture and politics. The New Aeon will come about as soon as society returns to its tribal roots.

The ONA also believes that the new age will be inaugurated by Vindex, a revolutionary hero who will restore justice. Vindex will be, like Achilles, a semidivine warrior with a preordained mission. Once Vindex reaches his destiny, the New Aeon will come forth.

The ONA believes that its “sinister” ideals must be spread as much as possible in order for the New Aeon to come. That is why ONA members are encouraged to join radical organizations with predominately young membership.

3 The Dark Gods

According the ONA theology, a series of sinister deities known as the Dark Gods exist. These gods exist in the acausal realm, which is connected to our own causal realm. The acausal realm is bounded by acausal time and has more than three spatial dimensions.^[8] These Dark Gods have the ability to enter into the minds of adepts in a process that is somewhat reminiscent of Lovecraftian fiction. Indeed, also akin to Lovecraft is the ONA notion that a new age will come when the Dark Gods of the acausal realm bleed over into the causal realm.

One of the Dark Gods is Baphomet, the mother and bride of Satan. The goat-headed Baphomet is, according to the ONA, associated with the feminine and is the creator of all demons. Students of history may remember that the Knights Templar were accused of worshiping Baphomet by at least two sources.

The other Dark Gods of the ONA pantheon are completely unique to the group and do not have any obvious connections to the Western occult tradition.

2 The Seven Fold Way

The core tenet of the ONA is the concept of the Seven Fold Way. The Seven Fold Way is a hermetic hierarchy of practitioners. Each category of the Seven Fold Way represents a certain level of occultism. Keep in mind that the ONA’s brand of occultism demands sharp aestheticism, scholarship, and physical endurance.

The seven stages of adeptness for the group are: 1) Neophyte, 2) Initiate, 3) External Adept, 4) Internal Adept, 5) Master/Mistress, 6) Grand Master/Mousa, and 7) Immortal.^[9] The exact number of ONA members in each category are unknown. At best, it has been theorized that there over 1,000 members of the ONA throughout the world.

1 Human Sacrifice

The ONA is infamous in the Satanic underground as one of the few organizations that encourages human sacrifice. To the ONA, sacrificing human life is “powerful magick” that releases an individual’s energy, which can be stored and reused by magicians.^[10] In their own mythology, the ONA’s ancestors in pagan England practiced human sacrifice every 17 years in order to maintain “cosmic balance.”

Members of the ONA believe in “culling,” or committing sacrifices wherein the victim self-selects their own death. Some former members of the ONA claim that Myatt is still active in the group and actively encourages fellow members of the cult to commit crimes and murders as part of magical rites.

Movies! Of course we all are fond of movies and love to include them in our family and friends gatherings to have a wholesome enjoyment. Though most of the movies are noted for their sweet, harmonious and amusing themes, there are some that are celebrated for having unusual storylines and such themes also that are bizarre and have odd effects on their audience.

These movies are often based on the untold peculiar social, cultural and religious premises that are considered unfit to be discussed rather because of their mysterious nature or because of the controversy related to them. In both the cases, these movies attract much critical appraisal and views. We have collected list of some of the most deemed notorious, the cult movies for you to choose and enjoy your next movie.

Top 10 Greatest Cult Movies Ever Made

1. Spartacus

The movie is based on the character of Roman slave Spartacus who caused uprising against the Roman government in 73 BC, he was a Thracian gladiator forced to fight for the amusement of Roman elite and later defeated it.

But what we are talking about here are the Spartacus movie series made for British television; though it is also based on the gladiator character of Spartacus but with much much more DETAILS of the happenings of Roman throne. The series are considered to be unfit and too violent for the taste of British viewers while some of its parts like Blood and Sand were on the verge of getting banned.

The movie has extremely violent and explicit sexual and bloodshed scenes, which cause the viewers to shut or bulge their eyes out in horror and disbelief. The movie has displayed some of the most overt sexual techniques like threesome, oral sex, homosexuality, masturbation and group sex; moreover the scenes were strikingly CLEAR frontal nude view of men and women. The bloodshed is highly defined with excessive decapitating and carnage in the arena; the war scenes and mutilating of human body are horrific and unbelievingly realistic.

Though one of the main characters of the movie, Hannah, stated in his interview that the movie series are on-aired after 10 pm, the time by which the kids are peacefully in beds, hence making it less threatening. But still Spartacus continues to be one of the most controversially explicit movies ever made. You may like; top 10 war movies.

2. In the Land of Blood and Honey

The movie is the debut made by one of the hottest and successful Hollywood stars, Angelina Jolie, as her doorway to the world of directorship. The movie is based on the universal subject of war and the conditions during and after the act; on the surface it is a romantic tale of a Serb officer Danijel and Bosniak prisoner Ajla.

The story deals with the treatment of Bosniak Muslims, especially women, in the war camps most commonly referred as ‘rape camps’. As soon as the movie is released, and even during its making, it received criticism more than acclaim; the Bosniak women association objected on the subject as they believed that Jolie is trying to bring their personal matters on universal level, which is unacceptable by them. Apart from this, the movie contains love making scenes between Danijel and Ajla, which caused another conflict as Ajla is a Muslim girl and such lucid depiction of sex is considered offensive by the Muslim viewers.

Apart from all the controversy, the movie was a disturbing experience for the war survivors, especially the women raped during it, as they feel as if the war is still going on. Another controversy that strikes is that the story was claimed to have been stolen by the director, which she counteracted by saying that she had collected the information through varied sources. You may also like; top 10 war movies.

3. Stigmata

The movie was released in 1999, based on supernatural horror theme and was directed by Rupert Wainwright; movie is based on the common belief of stigmata, which deals with the occurrence of Christ’s five signs on crucifixion.

The movie revolves around an atheist Pittsburgh hairdresser, the role played by Patricia Arquette, and her life during and after having experienced stigmata. Stigmata is a Roman Catholic religious belief of having Christ’s sacred wounds on body of priests and other religious people as a result of having close affiliation with Christ and desire to experience His pain.

The movie shows Catholic Church and the stigmata in negative light as Patricia (Frankie) is shown as a possessed being with appearance of Holy Wounds. The release of the movie was received with huge success as it was immensely fruitful in acquiring considerably large budget, but this did not stop the religious figures from criticising it. Frankie is possessed by the deceased investigating Father Almeida who has found and was translating the missing Gospel; the Gospel was a threat to the Church as it says that holiness is not limited to Church only, which is something the Church does not want the people to know.

4. Blue is the Warmest Colour

Gyrating around the theme of love affair between two girls, Blue is the Warmest Colour is some of the movies that caused disturbance in France. The movie consists of a 14 years old girl who is experiencing sexual awakening but is not interested in boys; she dreams of being sexually involved with a blue haired senior girl who afterwards becomes her lover.

The movie contains sexual scenes between the two girls, which raised eyebrows of many viewers; however it succeeded to win the award in France. Though the movie was notable for its unusual and daring theme, the director and both the lead actresses had many issues, which they expressed in their interviews.

The director, Kechiche, goes as far as saying that he wished that he did not made the movie on the first place and that he was about to replace one of the actresses because of her unsatisfactory performance. While the story on the actresses’ part showed an entirely different side of the coin, both the actresses, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos, admit that the director was a ‘torture’ to work with and only his fame and expertise made them to work with him. As both the actresses were heterosexual in nature, shooting lesbian sex scenes was immensely difficult for them with the director’s ever increasing demands. Moreover, they acknowledge that they do not want to work with the director ever again.

5. Viridiana

Directed by the exiled director Luis Bunuel and produced by Gustavo Alatriste, Viridiana is some of those films that are sure to stir your spiritual belief. The movie has the themes of rape, incest, evil and hollowness of ideal religious beliefs at its base and believed to be Bunuel’s backlash against the government and Church.

The story is about a young nun who is about to take her sacred vows, she is invited by her uncle who is mourning his wife’s death on the night of their marriage, her uncle is astonished at her astounding resemblance with his dead wife and even proposes to her, which she declines. He forces her into wearing his deceased wife’s wedding gown and spikes her drink with the help of his faithful servant taking her to his room where he attempts to rape her but stops in horror and humiliation.

Later he tells her that he did not rape her and kills himself with a skip rope leaving all of his property and estate to Viridiana. The girl cancels her return and changes the house into a shelter for poor and devastated people including beggars, poor women and children. Soon afterwards her good deeds are rewarded by the rape attempt on her by the people living in the house; however, she is saved by her uncle’s illegitimate son.

The movie has an infamous scene where all the people of the house are acting in the way of Da Vinci’s famous painting of the last supper in a comical manner. The film has believed to mock the Christian belief of goodness as it shows the difficulties faced by Viridiana in her quest of doing well to all; at the end Viridiana is shown in a more realistic light as she is now a changed woman playing cards with fellow residents.

The movie was deemed controversial and banned on several grounds; of having shown an incest inclination of a man towards his niece, religious weakness in people apparent from their mocking of the last supper painting and showing of the irrational goodness of the young nun.

6. Baise-Moi

Baise-Moi is the French crime thriller revolving around two women and their meeting of roads and combined journey of crime, violence and sex. The film received a lot of media hype and coverage due to graphically explicit sex, sadism and it’s shocking title as Baise-Moi in English is ‘Fuck Me’.

The movie is based on the bestseller novel written by one of the directors Virginie Despente but did not receive the same acclaim as of the book. Virginie Despente directed the movie in collaboration with Coralie Trinh Thi, both the directors are known as former porn stars while the actresses in the lead roles, Karen Lancaume and Raffaela Anderson, are also associated with porn industry.

The story is about two independent women who feel themselves as misfits in the society they are living it, Nadine (Lancoaume) works as a part time prostitute and Manu (Anderson) works as a minor porn star. After meeting, both of them form a team and starts making their own ways and get involved in a number of killings. The movie was banned in a number of countries including its hometown France; it was released in UK with rating R18 and is considered as violent porn in many countries.

The directors rejected the claim saying that the film is not meant for masturbation hence it’s not porn; the movie has real sex scenes as the heroines are porn stars and have no problem in filming it. The movie is the very first one to show penis entering into vagina in the gang rape scenes and the anal penetration of a man through gun.

7. I Spit on Your Grave

Remembered as one of the most hated movies ever made, I Spit on Your Grave had created considerably impressive upheaval both in 1978 and 2010; the 1978 version starred Cammille Keaton while the later version has Sarah Butler.

The film has a typical and common theme of rape and revenge but with a more vivid and disturbingly realistic depiction; a lonely young woman rents a cabin in a nearly deserted neighbourhood and is spotted by a low profile gas station worker who later rapes her with his two friends and a police officer. Later on Jennifer (Sarah Butler) takes her revenge in an utterly horrific and detailed manner as she chopped, raped and tortured them to death.

The film was condemned and banned on the grounds of extreme violence, nudity, obscene language and lengthy rape and torture illustration. It is disqualified on both professional and moral means as the critic remark that the movie has low quality sound and artistry with nothing exceptional rather than high and distorted sound.

The remake of the movie received same negative comments as Roger Ebert states that the 2010 version is the ‘despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film’. The movie has lucid scenes of Jennifer’s rape, Jennifer’s anal raping of the sheriff with his rifle, cutting off of one of the boy’s penis and the killing of other boys, which came as a shock to the viewers.

8. The Magdalene Sisters

The film is directed by Peter Mullen and is based on the negative character of religious institutions and their treatment of the women residing there; the movie is purely a work of fiction but was aimed at giving voice and recognition to the former and rescued residents of the Magdalene laundries.

However, the story is loosely connected to the actual account of the Magdalene Asylums and the treatment women receive there; the former Magdalene Asylums’ inmate Mary-Jo McDonagh articulated that the real happenings were worse than the ones shown in the movie.

The story centres on three women; Rose having an illegitimate son, Margaret who was raped by her cousin and Bernadette, fond of flirting with boys. The three women are sent to the asylum to repent for their sins and are received by the Head Sister; the Sisters teach the women that washing clothes mean that they are washing away their sins through hard work. They even make fun of their bodies by criticising the differences and change their names as an act of eradicating their true identity.

The reason the film for making serious controversy is the way the religious figures are portrayed in it; one of the girls at the asylum was sexually abused by a reputable Father and later the same girl was delivered to the mental asylum to stop the issue from heating up.

On its release where the movie received positive comments, though it was very rare, it caused some grave distaste too, especially among the religious society. William Donohue, president of conservative Catholic league, condemned the movie severely and demanded Disney to break its ties from Miramax whereas the Vatican believed it to be a sheer piece of exaggeration and insult to the ecclesiastical institutions and bodies.

9. Grotesque

Grotesque is a Japanese movie written and directed by Koji Shiraishi and had resulted into a considerably high level of horror and storm. The movie is themed on psycho killer and torturer who kidnaps innocent people and kills them for his pleasure; much of the shock for the acute representation of violence is because the movie does not have anything in it besides violence.

In the beginning a couple is shown sitting in a cafe and talking about their future together, in the very next scene the same couple is shown shackled in what seems like a basement with white plastered walls. The main character is introduced who is a doctor as apparent from his dealing with his victims’ wounds; he starts cutting and chopping their body parts out one by one. As he cuts off their fingers, hauls out the man’s eyeball, cuts off the girl’s leg and man’s genitals. He rapes them in front of each other and later treats them to health. He tells them that he acquires extreme pleasure from torturing them and in one of the most disturbing scenes he rapes the man in his eye socket too.

In the final scene he pulls out the intestine of the man while keeping the girl on the other side of the room, he tells the man to reach and save the girl which results in his heavy bleeding and death. The thing which makes the respective film all the more appalling is that it does not have any storyline, character development, the motive of the killer and even the name of the doctor is unknown. The bizarre surrounding, wacky personality of the doctor and the lifelike torture scenes fuel up the disturbing effect of the movie.

10. Fire

Directed by Deepa Mehta, Fire is the first movie in the renowned Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy; the story is loosely based on the Ismat Chughtai story A Quilt (Lihaaf) and has two of the prominent Indian actresses in its lead role, Shabana Aazmi and Nandita Das.

The movie is based on a middle class Indian joint family where both Aazmi and Das are married to two brothers of the family. Sita (Nandita Das) longs for her husband and attention, which she is unable to receive and feels lonely and desolate; as the film progresses, it is revealed that Aazmi is experiencing the same fate as both the men are busy in doing business. In such moments of solitude both the women become lovers and seek solace in each other’s company; at the end they leave their husbands and unite with each other.

The movie was condemned by the social circles of India as it is the country where family system has strong roots and, much or less, many of the women lead the same life of isolation. Mehta’s movie has uncovered a corner of a usual Indian household, which is not acceptable in the conservative eastern society. People believed the film to be a source of corruption for women as its one of the few movies that has openly portrayed the theme of homosexuality. The director received verbal threats and had lived under complete police protection for a long time as the people attempted to attack her.

Related Posts

Having a cult following as a celebrity doesn’t always imply Charles Manson and Jim Jones. Sometimes it just means that you have a loyal group of fans who love to see everything you’re in. Why? Because you’re quirky, good at what you do (unless you’re Tommy Wiseau), probably have something to do with science fiction or horror films, and are otherwise an interesting person. Heck, you don’t even have to be alive to have a cult following. All your fans need at that point is a complete set of your work and a TV or computer.

Now, some celebrities are more cultish than others in terms of their fanbase—and that’s not always a good thing (fanfiction is…a rabbit hole)—but the ones on this list are more of the mainstream kind. The cult following is there, but they aren’t entirely relegated to indie and B-list films.

With that, here are ten celebrities who have cult followings.

Related: 10 Former Cult Members And Their Chilling Stories

10 Zoe Lund

One look at Zoe Lund, and yes, that’s a cult film actor. Her unique appearance and style, which fits the description of 1990s hipster perfectly, makes her the perfect fit for cult and indie films. Though she doesn’t have an extensive resume—unfortunately, she died due to a cocaine-induced heart attack at the age of 37—two cult film classics stand out: Ms. 45 and Bad Lieutenant. Because of her popularity in the movies, she is directly associated with director Abel Ferrara’s work.

9 Bela Lugosi

The horror movie icon, best known for playing Count Dracula in 1931’s Dracula still reigns supreme after all these years. His depictions of classic horror characters have terrified, entranced, and charmed audiences for decades. Unfortunately, he was always seconded and given minor roles because of his thick Hungarian accent. Still, it’s Bela Lugosi who Bauhaus sings about, not Boris Karloff, and it’s this Dracula who audiences watch old-timey monster movies for.

8 Divine

Harris Milstead, better known as the actor, singer, and drag queen Divine, should be numbers 1 through 10 on this list, but this isn’t a top 10 Divine facts list. Divine was one of John Waters’ favorite actors, and for a good reason. (S)he could fearlessly do what the script required, no questions asked. For those familiar with Pink Flamingos, you know the scene to which I’m referring. To those unfamiliar, look up Divine “dog poop.”

Anyway.

Divine’s life was filled with the excitement of drag, disco, and drugs. But the actor suffered from depression as his disco career ended, and he found it harder to land acting jobs. Shortly after the release of Hairspray, he died of a heart attack related to an enlarged heart.

The legacy Divine left behind was a counterculture icon, the inspiration behind Ursula’s look from The Little Mermaid, and a fan base with strong stomachs and undying dedication.

7 Nathan Fillion

I say “Nathan Fillion,” you say “Firefly.” That’s just how it goes. I don’t know what else he’s been in other than that—who am I kidding! Yes, I do: Modern Family, Santa Clarita Diet, Gravity Falls, Con Man…the list is pretty long, so why is his following cultish?

Because his fans loyally follow him wherever he goes. Between Josh Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, Fillion amassed a niche audience who didn’t even know they liked vampires or space westerns. This could just be the result of good writing on Whedon’s front, but there’s no denying that Fillion went along for the ride.

6 Dennis Hopper

You can spot a Dennis Hopper film from a mile away, a true enfant terrible—watching his work is like taking acid, cocaine, and a punch to the face simultaneously. And his followers can’t get enough of it.

Hopper’s passing in 2010 from prostate cancer reminded everyone, not just his niche following, just how larger than life he was. He was a painter, photographer, and modern art collector. He was also a well-known drug and alcohol abuser at the beginning of his career. He’s acted alongside James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant and really made his mark in the cult/indie film world with Easy Rider. Dennis Hopper is so indie that he starred in Neil Young’s mostly unknown movie Human Highway as a cook.

After a successful stint in rehab, he focused on directing some of the 1990s’ best and worst (looking at you, Super Mario Bros.), films including Speed, Waterworld, and True Romance.

5 Peter Weller

Peter Weller, why does that name sound familiar? Because he was Robocop. Robocop was a cult hit, and by relation, Peter Weller ended up a cult hit too. The science-fiction actor has left his mark in the world of futuristic 1980s television and beyond, and those who appreciate the genre know how significant he is. But his appeal is two-fold.

First, there’s a camp to the roles he plays, the kind of forgivable camp that was seemingly required for all ’80s science fiction actors (the furrowed brow, hard stares, and futuristic moods). But his camp was better than others; it didn’t feel as put on. As a result, he maintained appeal as an actor, fitting into more diverse roles on shows and movies like Sons of Anarchy, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Mighty Aphrodite.

Second, Weller is, well, good-looking. Yes, he’s old now, but you don’t understand.

When he played Buckaroo Banzai in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, his character was supposed to be multi-talented, extremely intelligent (Weller has a Ph.D. in real life), and a handsome scientist and hero. Okay? He’s hot. Even Ali McGraw would agree with me.

So yes, Robocop is cool and all, but Peter Weller was nice to look at. Don’t judge my cult worship, people.

4 Danny Trejo

Looking for a cult celebrity who met a cult leader? Hi, Danny Trejo. Apparently, Trejo met Charles Manson in prison. Manson then hypnotized him to make him feel high. Cool.

Outside of a reputation for being one of the nicest celebrities you could meet and a jaw-dropping past, Trejo is a cult celebrity because of his involvement in cult films. Otherwise, we’re pretty sure he’d be more than cult status. He’d be regular famous. Still, Trejo “regular?” I don’t think so.

Trejo’s standard typecast is the bad guy you love to hate and love to love. He has a signature scowl and long, dripping hair, with a voice full of road grit and danger. The badass roles he has played are iconic and well-loved by followers of the Sons of Anarchy and Machete franchises, and he keeps the character going. He’s appeared in Breaking Bad, co-starred in Death Race, and is Mr. World in the third season of American Gods.

But behind the fierce facade is a man who has helped people battle drug addiction, runs a taco truck franchise (Trejo’s Tacos), and is a devoted father of three.

3 Lucy Lawless

Xena: Warrior Princess was a 1990s kick-ass, feminist-fantasy TV sensation. It blended mythology, sexy battle garb, action, and a redemption story. The battles were hard, dirty (get your mind out of the gutter, not that kind of dirty), and required the physical strength historically ascribed to male action heroes. Xena was, and always will be, a warrior first, princess second.

Because the show’s popularity coincided with the rise of the Internet, it was one of the first cult shows where people could virtually discuss it. And so Lucy Lawless, the actor behind Xena, built herself a following of first-generation Internet subcultures, whether it’s because she represented the strength of a woman or because she was the perfect fit for the role.

Today, Xena: Warrior Princess is a show people binge to get a taste of the sensation it once was. People enjoy it more for its dated aesthetic (similar to Barbarella), but the love of Lawless is strong. She’s since appeared in Battlestar Galactica, Salem, and Ash vs. Evil Dead and continues to act both in stage shows (Broadway status) and TV. Lawless even had a semi-successful singing career. Like our next celebrity on this list, she is an icon for the LGBTQA+ community.

2 Judy Garland

Judy Garland wouldn’t be considered a celebrity with a cult following in her heyday. She was simply an A-lister—everyone followed her. But as the generations grew older and the popularity of movie musicals fizzled out, her presence in the mainstream turned incredibly niche. Garland now has a massive cult following, completists knowing that there is way more to her than The Wizard of Oz.

Garland’s life was far from perfect; certainly no Mickey Rooney fairytale. She battled with substance abuse, as was somewhat expected of Hollywood women at the time, to stay thin, but she could not recover from it. Garland died of an accidental overdose from barbiturates, possibly made worse by a struggle with bulimia. Her marriage was also not a happy one.

Despite this, though, she was an absolute sensation. The Judy Garland Show on CBS was one of the biggest talent deals to hit television, and her 1961 performance at Carnegie Hall is considered one of the greatest nights in the history of show business. She also had a massive following in the gay community and still does.

Though historians can’t quite identify why Garland is a gay icon, several possible reasons include the Stonewall Inn riots coinciding with her death and funeral.

1 LeVar Burton

Take a look, inside a book; it’s Le-Var Bur-ton. LeVar Burton will forever be the actor we love as children and adults and eventually geriatrics. And yet, despite his mainstream appeal and massive success on shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow, no one talks about him unless he is spoken about.

Though Burton has a running list of movie and TV show appearances pre-Star Trek, his success as Geordi La Forge has successfully kept him the subject of science fiction show conversations. A cult figure. Yet, Burton is everywhere.

He’s guest-hosted Jeopardy, played MLK Jr in 2001’s Ali; he’s taught a MasterClass on storytelling and cameoed as himself on Community and The Big Bang Theory. Reading Rainbow remains one of the most popular Millennial-aged cult children TV shows out there, and he’s even reached a new generation of kids by providing the voice for Doc Greene in Transformers: Rescue Bots.

But again, he will forever be, above any other character, Geordi La Forge. He is the next generation of Star Trek royalty, having played a groundbreaking character, only one of seven principal black characters in the entire franchise. He gave us hope for medical innovations to treat blindness and showed that being born differently abled doesn’t limit one’s potential.

LeVar Burton is the ultimate cult celebrity, on the Bridge, at the game show podium, and behind a book.

What comes to mind when you first think of a cult? An image of brooding black-robed, heavy death-metal teenagers gathered around a pentagram comes to mind, but that’s occult, or the belief in the supernatural, mystical, and magical. A cult has a much more pleasant philosophy—sometimes.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary officially defines the term as “a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion, and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous.” Cults sometimes aren’t even based on religion. Often these social groups are founded on a certain way of living, and each member is devoted to that unusual belief.

Some of your favorite faces from the big screen have been swayed to take part in, help, or even grow some of the biggest, most well-known cults around. Here are 10 celebrities that are or were members of a cult.

Related: 10 Former Cult Members And Their Chilling Stories

10 Val Kilmer

From Top Gun to The Prince of Egypt, actor Val Kilmer kills the stage no matter the role. The popular performer from ’80s and ’90s films also happens to be a devout believer of Christian Science. The religious group is prolific for their metaphysical practices, such as a connection to the Divine Mind and the idea that all problems could be cured with the right mindset.

In January of 2015, Kilmer was hospitalized for a possible tumor after denying that he had been diagnosed with cancer. It wasn’t until April 2017, after suffering needlessly for two years, that he stated he experienced healing from his cancer due to his affiliation with the cult. He claims the traditional medical treatments caused his current condition, not the tumor healed by his beliefs.

9 Allison Mack

If you think you don’t know Allison Mack, think again. “You’ve probably heard of her work on” projects such as 7th Heaven, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, and Smallville. But before she was shoulder to shoulder with Clark Kent, Mack joined NXIVM, the sex trafficking cult which posed as a marketing company offering personal and professional development.

Mack helped recruit women through blackmail and forced labor and even performed initiation ceremonies where victims were branded with her and the cult founder’s initials. She was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to three years in 2021.

8 Jaden Smith

Son of famed actor Will Smith, Jaden Smith, is an avid conspiracy theorist and supporter of Orgone. Orgone, sometimes known as the Orgonite Society, was thought of as the organizing principle of the universe, a creative building block to everything in nature.

Orgone was introduced back in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian doctor and psychologist after Sigmund Freud. Orgone is viewed as a massless, constant substance associated with living energy ranging from the smallest microscopic units to macroscopic organisms like planets and galaxies.

7 Patricia Arquette

She was commonly known in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Holes, and even Toy Story 4; still, Patricia Arquette wasn’t always so well known. Her family grew up in rural Virginia in the commune known as Skymont Subud. The community functioned without utilities like bathrooms and electricity to find and follow their inner guidance.

Founded in 1920s Indonesia by “prophet” Muhamad Subud Sumohadiwidjojo, the group itself identifies as a spiritual movement that aims for its members to become more of who they were destined to be. However, Arquette saw the flaws in the following, noting its biggest hypocrites as her own parents. She eventually left the commune, took refuge with her sister, then moved out west for sunny California.

6 R. Kelly

The 1996 hit from Space Jam “I Believe I Can Fly” is by American singer, songwriter, record producer, and convicted sex offender R. Kelly. Despite being one of the world’s best-selling music artists, Kelly has faced multiple accusations and criminal counts of sexual abuse with underage women.

A civil suit filed in 1996 detailed allegations that starting in 1991, a promising, underage high school singer was encouraged to recruit her school friends and pressure them into engaging in group sex with other underage girls. In 2019, Kelly was arrested on federal charges alleging sexual exploitation of a child, human trafficking, child pornography, racketeering, bribery, and obstruction of justice.

During one of the many hearings, witnesses came forward testifying about a sex cult. They described the experience as mentally and physically abusive as Kelly was in charge of things like what they ate and wore. Kelly faced a total of 22 criminal charges in January 2021, and by September of that same year, a federal jury in New York found him guilty on nine counts. Kelly faces two more trials later in 2022.

5 Michelle Pfeiffer

Growing up in sunny SoCal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Take it from Academy Award nominee Michelle Pfeiffer. Though the young star grew up just a short drive from Hollywood, there was no going back once she started working in the film industry.

Pfeiffer was taken in by some friends who were members of a new age metaphysics cult called Breatharianism. Also known as Inedia, Breatharianism can be a deadly pseudoscience in which cult members claim that food and water aren’t necessary to sustain life. Some members have even died while practicing their beliefs. While Pfeiffer admits that the Breathariansim cult did take a lot of her money, her fellow members also helped her break harmful addictions, which led her to become the world-renowned actress she is today.

4 Winona Ryder

Known for oddball roles like Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, award-winning actress Winona Ryder is no stranger to communities of outlandish ideas.

The Rainbow Family commune is a cult of loosely affiliated individuals from all walks of life who come together to share experiences, music, food, love, and the hope of a better world. Inspired by the Woodstock Festival, the gatherings originated in Oregon in 1970 and spread to various parts of the country. The gatherings were used to pray, meditate, observe silence, and above all, concentrate on world peace.

Ryder joined the commune when she was seven years old. The 300-acre plot of land in California had no utilities and was shared with numerous other families. With such limited access to the outside world, Ryder spent most of her time reading books and delving into her imagination for the entertainment we would later know today.

3 Joaquin Phoenix

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in the United States, Joaquin Phoenix has had a wild journey that landed him in Los Angeles. And we don’t just mean on the silver screen. Phoenix is a critically acclaimed actor, ranging from roles in Gladiator, Signs, Walk the Line, and Joker.

Phoenix’s parents met when his mother was hitchhiking in California. With his siblings receiving the names of River, Rain, Liberty, and Summer, we can’t say we’re surprised where the Phoenix family got their ideas from. They joined the Children of God, now known as The Family International, where they believe in salvation, spiritual reformation, and the apocalypse of an anti-Christ. Phoenix lived this way for over a decade as his family traveled across South America as missionaries for the Children of God.

But around 1974, things started to get a little fishy. The Children of God implemented a form of gospel preaching called flirty fishing where female members of the cult, or “fisherwomen,” would persuade men, or “fish,” to join the community and contribute a charitable donation via sexual intimacy. The practice was a primary source of financial income and a spike in membership as over ten thousand children would be born from these encounters. Due to the distorted practices, Phoenix and his family returned to the States in 1978 and settled in Florida.

2 Rose McGowan

Despite the beauty of her name, Rose McGowan has a dark past and even darker film history. Though her breakthrough performance in 1996’s Scream earned her praise and recognition, McGowan has a track record of characters known for seduction and darkness stemming from her childhood.

Born in Florence, Italy, to American artists, her father ran an Italian chapter of the Children of God. You know, the flirty fishing cult that Joaquin Phoenix left. McGowan spent her early childhood at the group’s communes, often traveling through Europe with her parents, and witnessed many sex crimes, including assault, abuse, and molestation. Her parents were members of the cult until 1978 when they returned to the United States only for McGowan to run away as a young teenager. At 15, she officially emancipated herself from her parents and moved to Los Angeles only to find Hollywood may be just as bad as the cult she left.

1 Glenn Close

Lastly, and certainly not least, the three-time Emmy, Golden Globe, and Tony award winner Glenn Close. Born in Connecticut in 1947, The Natural actress grew up under the watchful eye of the MRA, the Moral Re-Armament.

Founded in 1938, the international cult encourages its members to actively participate in political and social issues. One of the cult’s core ideas is that changing the world starts with changing oneself. They believe in the Four Absolutes of honesty, purity, selflessness, and love. However, Close recalls the commune-like conditions and altruistic attitude shrouding the cult’s sense of superiority. All of her actions were watched, and she was shown how to foster a disinterested concern for others, though the group claimed to promote wellbeing and selflessness.

Close believes she made her career about understanding the behavior she witnessed, and what better way to explore that than with acting.