Today, there are thousands of cults around the world. Broadly speaking, a cult is a group or movement with a shared commitment to a usually extreme ideology that's typically embodied in a charismatic leader. But what exactly...

It’s easy to assume that people who join cults have something wrong with them, but usually the people who join cults are just like the rest of us. So, how does it happen?

What do Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Hitler have in common? They were all obsessively studied by Jim Jones, the cult leader who convinced and coerced more than 900 members of his "People's Temple" to commit suicide in the...

What is a cult? How are cults different from religions? And why do many religious scholars say we shouldn’t even use that label? In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn why the line between cults and religions is much...

What is it about cults that captures the public imagination? Why are we so interested in the stories of Jonestown, Charles Manson, and Patty Hearst? Today Danielle explores how these groups entered the public consciousness and why we...

You've heard the term "cult" before. It conjures images of authoritarian leaders and sheep-like followers. Many people claim that some religious groups are not religions at all...but rather..."cults." But is there any real difference...

Overview of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the 1978 massacre at Jonestown, Guyana.