The word “cult” is used a lot nowadays. Former President Donald Trump has been likened to a cult leader. Democratic California congresswoman Jackie Speier recently compared Trump to Jim Jones, the infamous leader of Peoples Temple, an American religious group of which nearly 1,000 members died by mass murder-suicide in Guyana in 1978. A congressional staffer at the time, Speier was seriously wounded by temple members during an ambush that killed Congressman Leo Ryan of San Francisco.
Then there’s NXIVM, a “sex cult” based in Albany, New York. Media reports and evidence at trial revealed that NXIVM’s female members recruited “slaves,” who were branded with the initials of the group’s leader, Keith Raniere. Raniere, also called the “Vanguard,” was sentenced to 120 years in prison for sex trafficking.
