Accused of imprisoning and brainwashing children, Anne Hamilton Byrne convinced her almost 500 followers that she was the female reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

In the 1920s, the House of David baseball team was taking the nation by storm with their entertaining style of play.

Benjamin Purnell arrived in Benton Harbor, Michigan in 1913, claiming to be the seventh and final messenger of God.

Sherry Shriner believed Satan disguised himself as Jesus and subsequently tricked the world into praising him. So she became the virtual leader of an online Reptilian ET Cult that believed demonic, alien reptiles were sent by Satan to take over the world.

When the cult moved to Hawaii, James Baker never expected his penniless followers to find him.

When James Baker started his health food restaurant on the Sunset Strip in the 1970s, he had no intention of creating a spiritual commune.

In the late 1940s, the eccentric Krishna Venta founded the Fountain of the World and claimed to be the embodiment of Christ.

As a wandering lecturer who opened up a religious compound in the San Fernando Valley in 1949, Krishna Venta claimed to be from a mythical valley in India.

When former Nazi serviceman Paul Schäfer fled Germany in 1961, he founded a rural community called Colonia Dignidad in Southern Chile.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans and the Lev Tahor preyed on impressionable youths.

Charming, electric, and persuasive are just some of the ways people described Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans.

While the church became notorious for its aggressive recruiting practices through the 80s and 90s, it also experienced incredible growth—eventually reaching Los Angeles.

Before his church became one of the fastest growing—and most controversial—religious organizations in the United States, Kip McKean developed strict beliefs as a Bible literalist in 1960s Florida.

Witness the growing pains Wicca went through as it transitioned from a small secret society to a global religion, and explore the fallout from Gerald Gardner’s decision to speak publicly about their practices in 1954.

September 1939: Occultist Gerald Gardner makes contact with what he believes to be a remnant of the long rumored "Witch-Cult."

After he was publicly humiliated when his memoirs were exposed as a hoax, Castaneda retreated into seclusion.

In 1960, anthropology student Carlos Castaneda followed a Native American Yaqui guide into the desert.

Members of the Fall River Satanic cult were suspects in the murder of a young woman in 1979, but detectives couldn't find anyone who was willing to testify against them.

In 1979, biker and pimp Carl Drew joined sex worker Robin Murphy to create a Satanic cult in Fall River Massachusetts.

In the 1970s, Ervil Lebaron broke with his brother’s church to form his own polygamous fundamentalist sect known as the Lambs of God.

In 1971, Ervil LeBaron received a revelation from God: he had inherited the mantle of Joseph Smith, and was destined to rule over God’s Kingdom on earth.

From within the confines of the Vacaville prison medical center, Donald DeFreeze started recruiting young, idealistic Berkeley radicals for his leftist political cult.

Donald DeFreeze was a gun-obsessed drifter throughout the 1960s. But he didn't use his guns — he had nothing to fight for.

In the early 1980s, Hulon Mitchell, Jr.'s Nation of Yahweh became a fixture in Miami's black community.

From the moment Hulon Mitchell, Jr. was born in 1935, he was raised to think he was special.