Rick Ross

Jackie Speier, one of Leo J. Ryan's staff members who would later become a United States congressman from his very district, was shot five times and almost bled out. But she miraculously survived. Other people survived as well, but Leo J. Ryan was killed. And Jim Jones knew this is the end. They're going to come for me. And he was right.

The authorities were coming from Georgetown in Guyana for him. And so he mixed these tubs of punch and they were laced with cyanide. And he encouraged, insisted that all of his people take the cyanide. And so that's what, when the phrase came, you drank the Kool-Aid because people would say, well, it was Kool-Aid and the people in Jonestown drank the Kool-Aid and they died.

And so if you, the expression you drank the Kool-Aid is an illusion to Jonestown and the idea that you're brainwashed, that you're not thinking clearly. So many of the people in Jonestown were forced to drink the Kool-Aid. They didn't have a choice. The children, there were hundreds of them. They were all murdered. There were people that were shot that were trying to run away.

So it was a massacre, and almost 1,000 people died in one day in 1978. And that was Jonestown. And that was really the beginning of people saying, well, what about these cults? What's going on? Because people started to write about them and write about Jim Jones. Of course, Jonestown came before me because I started my work in 82. So that was four years after Jonestown. But I remember Jonestown.

And I also remember Charlie Manson. And I remember Patty Hearst. who was abducted by a cult called the Symbionese Liberation Army. So cults were becoming known before Jonestown, but at Jonestown, that was the shock that really woke everybody up, that this could be very, very bad. And of course, since Jonestown, there have been a number of cult tragedies.

Another is the movement for the restoration of the Ten Commandments in Uganda. In 2000, the leader of that group, Joseph Kibwetere, ordered the deaths of over 700 of his followers. And right now, there's a man named Paul McKenzie in Kenya, and he is responsible for the starvation deaths of over 400 of his followers, many children. Why? Because he said, it's the end of the world.

That's what Joseph Kibbutere said. That's what Paul McKenzie said. We have to get ready. It's the end. And the end it was for their followers. 750 in Uganda, 400 in Kenya. And then, of course, we know about the suicide of the people of Kenya. the Solar Temple, which was in Europe, and those were the followers of Luc Giray. They all died in what could have been a murder or a suicide.

There were almost 100 of them. And then there was Heaven's Gate around the same time in the 90s that 39 people in a house rented by their leader, you know, all died together. because he determined that this was the end and that they were going to somehow move from their bodies to a level above human.

So we have had a number of cult tragedies, and they have happened over and over again, some of them worse than others. And I think that it, you know, of course, these are the most extreme groups where people die, But there are many groups where people's lives are horribly damaged, where they lose their job, they drop out of school, they become estranged and isolated from family and old friends.

They lose all their money because of some group. They're not dead, but they've been badly hurt. And so this is the reason that people pay attention to these groups, not because of their beliefs, but because of their behavior and how they negatively impact people's lives. Wow.

I wouldn't, you know, there's no religion that has not been used as a facade, a mask by cult leaders. There have been groups that have used Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam. In my opinion, ISIS and Al-Qaeda, both cults. One following al-Baghdadi as their savior, the other following, you know, Now I'm spacing out. Bin Laden. Bin Laden, excuse me. There have been cults using any religion.

Islam, you know, Osama bin Laden led Al-Qaeda and al-Baghdadi led ISIS. Both of them basically as saviors, as messiahs, leading their followers to death. So, Every religion has been used. Now, in the United States and in Europe, of course it's Christianity, because Christianity has currency. Christianity has credibility.

And so if you're a cult leader, you want to use something as a facade, as a mask, to invoke your authority, to invoke your power. So what you're saying to your followers is, I'm not telling you to give up your life for me, I'm telling you to give up your life for God. And you're going to do it because I'm calling upon your deeply held beliefs as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu,

And because of that, you will see me as an authority representing that higher power. And you will then obey me. You will give me what I want. You will do what I say because you think that by following me, you're following that higher power. And so that's why they use that authority.

I am very concerned about Israelites United in Christ. That is an African American identity group, a hate group, that has a YouTube channel. I think YouTube should do something about that. I think that they're negligent by not looking at that closer. I hope they will. So I would encourage YouTube in particular to police YouTube more and look for these cult leaders that are on YouTube.

Look for these people that are using social media because they are and they're hurting people. And I think there should be more policing done on those platforms.

I hope so.

The 12 tribes. You can find a whole historical archive about them at culteducation.com. I've been following them for decades.

No, they've been in the media. Oh, really? There was a fire in Colorado that allegedly started at one of their communities. And they've been in the news many, many, many times over many things. The 12 tribes began in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That's where they started. And then they branched out and they moved around and they're all over the place.

Is it close to Chattanooga?