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Ever since Homo sapiens gained consciousness and self-awareness, we've been asking some big questions. What does it all mean? What's the purpose of existence? Is there something more to life and the universe than what I can see? This has led us down all kinds of spiritual journeys and rabbit holes. For billions, this has meant turning to religion. But what if traditional spirituality and beliefs don't cut it? If you're not careful, you might find yourself in a cult.
Maybe you're seduced by a charismatic leader who claims to have all the answers when it comes to religion, philosophy, spirituality, and maybe even politics. It's non-mainstream stuff, which is part of the appeal. Maybe this leader and his followers really do have all the answers to everything that you've been searching for. Here's where things get weird. You're introduced to unorthodox teachings, strange rituals, odd practices, and wild belief systems.
Maybe you're given a task or caught up in the group's goals and objectives. Then we get into mind control, brainwashing, shaming, suppression of individual identities, totalitarian enforcement of behavior, separation from family and friends, and even terrorism, violence, and death. There are thousands of such groups around the world. Many are generally benign. Hare Krishnas, for example. Others are sketchy and warrant skepticism. I put the wacky realians in that group.
And a few are downright dangerous. Think the Heaven's Gate UFO group and suicide cult in San Diego. Now, what happens when you mix cults with music? Well, it's possible a lot of very, very bad things. I'm Alan Cross, and this is Uncharted, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, episode 13. I've got some stories for you. This is what can happen when music and cults intersect.
Music can be a spiritual experience, something that can take us to places in our mind that nothing else can. But for some, it's not enough. They're lost souls looking for someone to guide them through life's complexities. And when they encounter a leader who claims to have all the answers, answers that no one else seems to have, then we may have a problem with a cult. Let's start with the benign and well-meaning. And don't worry, we will get to the mayhem.
When the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, died in the summer of 1967, the group was lost. He'd been with them since 1962 and had shepherded them through their critical early years. Now that the Beatles were at their peak, who was going to look out for them? And how could they recover from such a terrible loss? One suggestion came from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a spiritual advisor who first met the band after a lecture on transcendental meditation.
He invited them to his Shankaracharara Nagar compound in India to explore his brand of spirituality. Although all four members of the band went in February 1963, Ringo wasn't really into it. Paul could take it or leave it. John was intrigued. And out of everyone, George was into it the most. Both he and John stayed in India for two months. Harrison first encountered these teachings in 1965 when he played with a sitar on the set of the Beatles movie Help.
This led him to discover the musician Rabbi Shankar. By 1966, he was in India studying Vedic philosophy and learning yoga. The Hare Krishnas could be considered a cult. They have the markings of it: a hierarchical structure under a charismatic leader, hardcore rules like dietary restrictions, celibacy, mandatory chanting, and practices, rituals, and dress that may seem weird to outsiders.
At the same time, though, the Krishnas can be seen as a legitimate religious organization. They promote spiritual growth, do community work, and provide cultural education. So, take your pick. Back in England, he met Swami Prahoopada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, otherwise known as the Hare Krishna Movement. He was deeply affected by the group's teachings and quickly began to incorporate Krishna teachings into his life and music.
When 18 disciples moved into John Lennon's house, George co-signed a lease for a new spiritual headquarters in London called Bhakti Vindhara Manor. He helped with other projects too. And when he died of cancer in 2001, two Hare Krishna devotees were at his bedside. George's last words were, Hare Krishna. His ashes were spread in the Ganges River in India. So was George Harrison a member of a cult? Depends on your definition of cult.
As far as we know, nothing bad came out of this relationship. And we did get some good songs too. But hang on. George also had his Dark Horse record label. Didn't he sign a culty band to a contract in 1972? He did. It was one of at least three groups dedicated to the Prim Rawat, another Eastern spiritual leader known as Maharaji and his divine mission organization.
Maharaji, who was maybe 15 years old at the time, also had the title of Lord of the Universe. He called his organization the Divine Light Mission. Those three rock bands were made up of Maharaji disciples. They were Jeeva, One Foundation, and Blue Aquarius. Jeeva was the first to get Harrison's attention. He was involved in the songwriting, the demos, and the recording of their album. He even played piano on one song.
Gary Wright, the singer behind the hit Dreamweaver, was hired to play keyboards. And Minnie Riperton, the woman behind the song Lovin' You from the mid-70s, helped produce the record. The whole record was dedicated to Guru Maharaji. And although they toured with Fleetwood Mac in 1975, nothing really much happened with Jeeva.
There were more than 50 members in Blue Aquarius. A lot of people rotated in and out, including George Bridgeford, who left his gig as the drummer for the Bee Gees to join up. We hear him playing on the hit song, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? Another member was Kevin Dempsey, who played guitar for a variety of musicians, including Percy Sledge. Both chose a world of musical obscurity and religious enlightenment over fame and fortune. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Blue Aquarius eventually fell into chaos and, as far as anyone knows, just sort of disappeared. For the record, they sounded like this. The name of this track is, predictably, "Rock Me Maharaji." Pretty devotional stuff, right? But as for Maharaji, he created a cult atmosphere for his benefit.
He was actually a hard drinker. He diverted donations for his personal use. He coerced members to hand over inheritances. And he once had an 18-car garage filled with vehicles from Rolls-Royce, Cadillac, and Mercedes-Benz, including a bunch of sports cars that lived at his Malibu mansion. Then came more multi-million dollar homes and a private jet. Yet his followers could be absolutely fanatical. Worshiping his feet was a big deal.
Drinking the water his feet had been washed in was thought to confer miraculous powers. In August 1973, several members attacked a journalist with a hammer, fracturing his skull and leaving him for dead, all for saying bad things about their guru. George Harrison was above this fray, but he did help finance Divine Light mission bands. Did some of his money end up with Maharaji so he could continue to grow his cult and personal wealth?
I'd say probably. There's more, too. Harrison was besotted with a book entitled The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga by Swami Vishnu Devanda. He was later accused of sexually abusing some followers. So, not a good look for someone who publicly claimed to be a celibate monk. And what about the old Maharishi? Well, when the Beatles discovered some unsavory things about him, they cut all ties. Back to the Hare Krishnas for a moment.
Bob Dylan, Donovan the folk singer, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, they were all influenced by the Hare Krishnas. Cult members? Maybe not. Were they exploited by the cult? Depends on your perspective, I guess.
But then we have the story of Jeremy Spencer. He was a co-founder of the original Fleetwood Mac back in 1967. That was back in the days when Fleetwood Mac was a blues rock band. Things were just fine until February 1971. Fleetwood Mac was in L.A., set to play a show at the Whiskey A Go-Go in the Sunset Strip.
Spencer said he was just stepping out for a bit to buy a magazine, but he never came back. A missing persons report was sent out. The FBI got involved. Radio stations made announcements. It wasn't until five days later that Jeremy Spencer was found. The problem was he no longer answered to Jeremy Spencer. His new name was Jonathan. He'd shaved his head and was living at the headquarters of a cult known as Children of God as part of its family.
All he could say was, "Jesus loves you," over and over and over again. Mick Fleetwood credits this to a bad recovery from a mescaline trip. The story was that Spencer was convinced to meet with the children of God by a busker named Apollos. Spencer was frustrated and unhappy with Fleetwood Mac and was looking for a way out. He also had bad vibes about being in LA with all its earthquakes. And this cult, for some reason, seemed to be an answer.
He officially quit Fleetwood Mac, and somehow he convinced his wife Fiona and his children to join him in L.A. He then formed his own group, Jeremy Spencer and the Children, and in 1972, they released a self-titled major label record. Benign-sounding music, but this was an important part of the Children of God.
This cult was horrific and abusive. It was founded by a Christian evangelist named Dave Berg and once had tens of thousands of adherents around the world. Followers claimed that Berg was the reincarnation of Jesus and the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. He sometimes called himself King, the last end-time prophet, and Moses David. Children of God, who were also known as the family, the family of love, and teens for Christ,
We're getting ready for the end times, the final battle with the Antichrist and the coming of a one-world government. Once they were victorious, everyone would receive special superpowers direct from God. Members had to give up all their possessions and money and inheritances and often had to live with up to 150 people in the same place. Teenage members were often sent to busk and preach on street corners wearing nothing but sackcloths and some ashes on their foreheads.
Female members engaged in something called flirty fishing, where they used the promise of sex to rope in new members. There was child labor, sexual abuse, including that of children, plus threesomes and mandatory orgies, plus required pairings every night. No contraception was allowed either, so up to 70% of the cult were children. Pedophilia was rampant, including by founder Dave Berg, who, by the way, was also a raging alcoholic.
Children were often separated from their families and sent to live as far away as Greece or Thailand or Argentina. Members were brainwashed, beaten, abused. They were deprived of sleep, locked in closets, and sometimes forced to remain silent for up to a month. If they didn't, there were consequences. And we're talking thousands of children here. A bust in Argentina found 268 enslaved children and literature promoting sex with children.
This led to raids in Australia, France, and England. Hundreds of children ranging in age from 2 to 16 were taken into protective custody. Jeremy Spencer was all wrapped up in this. A 1995 custody case revealed details of his abuse of his daughter and the granddaughter of Dave Berg while at the Music with Meaning commune. He was also found to have participated in the making of porno videos that were incredibly disturbing because of the use of children.
There were other cases and accusations filed with the FBI. One victim testified that routine sexual abuse with her began at age seven. He says his sister was subjected to violent abuse at age two. Spencer moved to Germany in 2013 and is still a member of the Children of God. He illustrates their children's book, occasionally performs live, and was inducted with the rest of Fleetwood Mac into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
The story of another famous musician who ended up following an abusive guru is coming next. Back in the 1960s, when millions were rejecting the status quo, some embarked on a search for something or someone that would show them the path to, if not nirvana and enlightenment, but something that would give their life meaning. Eastern mysticism was attractive and seemed to be more in touch with the natural world
Perhaps the wisdom they sought was available from a spiritual teacher from that part of the planet. Sri Chinmoy was one of those teachers. He chanted in Sanskrit and spent hours meditating in an incense-filled room. All right, so far so good. But Chinmoy also insisted that he was the only God-realized person alive, and he began to impose rules. No caffeine, no alcohol, smoking was forbidden, as were drugs. He promoted a vegan diet.
All right, fine. So far, so unremarkable. But then he also forbade TV, radio, movies, music, dancing, newspapers, magazines, any books not written by him, and even pets. You had to stay single. Even married couples who followed him had to stay celibate. Everyone in the group was encouraged to run ultra-long marathons. Is this a cult? Kind of has the earmarks of one. One person attracted to the guru's teachings was Carlos Santana.
He discovered Sri Chinmoy in 1972 as a short, balding man in red robes and followed him for close to a decade. Santana's spiritual name was Diva Dip, which means Lamb of God. If you look back through some of Santana's records, you'll see that name. There's even a picture of the guru on the back of a 1973 album entitled Love, Devotion, Surrender that Santana did with jazz musician John McLaughlin.
As far as we can tell, Santana's relationship with the guru was pretty benign. For some reason, he was able to receive special dispensation to marry his girlfriend, but he did have to cut his hair and he did have to live in an ashram in Queens, New York. Santana genuinely seemed to benefit from Chinmoy's teachings. However, a lot of people say that Chinmoy was a monster. One member named Ann Carlton says she was summoned by Chinmoy for sex a couple of times.
And he said, you should surrender your vital sexual energy to me. No resistance allowed. This from a man who claimed to be celibate his entire life. Another follower named Salia Corona Duran was ordered to have lesbian sex with another disciple while Chinmoy watched. Others came forward with similar stories. Was Sri abusive with some of his followers? Perhaps. Santana stopped being a hardcore acolyte in about 1981, although he still speaks well of Chinmoy.
Sounds like he got off easy. Leonard Cohen found himself in a similar situation. In 1994, he completely disappeared and moved into the Mount Baldy Zen Center outside of Los Angeles. Cohen was severely depressed and was having a very hard time with anxiety. So maybe a little spiritual booster shot was necessary. After all, he'd gone on several retreats before in his life. Maybe he needed something just a little more thorough.
The Mount Baldy Zen Center was run by Joshu Sasaki Roshi. Up every morning at 3, followed by intense chanting. Throughout the day, there were six-hour long meditation sessions. If you looked like you were falling asleep while meditating, you got a thwack from a monk carrying a big stick. There was walking meditation outdoors, regardless of the weather. There were mandatory work duties. Meals were eaten in silence, of course. And then more chanting and teaching sessions.
This sometimes continued until 11 at night, and then four hours later, it was up again to do the same thing. Cohen was given the name Zikan, which means "ordinary silence." He remained there for six years, and for the most part, it did Cohen good. But once again, there were stories about sexual abuse of some of the followers. There were stories of sexual and physical assaults involving women disciples, including, it is alleged, at least one with an underage girl.
An L.A. Ripe Crisis Center interviewed more than a dozen women about the allegations with their experiences going back as far as the 1960s. What they found was weird and disturbing. Zen teachings were distorted to meet Rashi's needs. There was the use of porn, verbal abuse when sexual favors were refused. There's a story that sometime in the late 70s, a woman in her mid-20s was acting as Sasaki's chauffeur.
When he and Cohen were being taken to dinner one night, it said that Sasaki offered the woman to Cohen for sexual services. Cohen declined, embarrassed about the whole thing. Cohen left the order in 1999, and the scandal really erupted about 15 years later, although documents show that there were problems as far back as the late 70s. It was also revealed that Sasaki had served eight months in a Japanese prison for financial crimes.
And then more allegations of sexual improprieties emerged. These went back as far as the 1950s. In fact, Sasaki ended up in L.A. because he was disgraced in Japan. But like Carlos Santana, Leonard Cohen never said a bad thing about his guru, someone he knew for more than 30 years, even caring for him when Sasaki was in ill health. He died on July 14, 2014, at the age of 107.
But Cohen was also known to refer to Sasaki as a monster. Now, speaking of monsters, there's no doubt that Jim Jones was such a person. He was the head of the People's Temple Agricultural Project, a remote settlement in Guyana, also known as the People's Temple. Jones founded his cult in Indianapolis in 1955, mixing hardcore Christian evangelism with Marxist thought. He was fascinated by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.
There was a move to California in 1965, and with its headquarters in San Francisco, people's temples began to sprout up all over the state. Jones schmoozed all the politicians. But when eight members defected and went to the media with some horror stories, the cult moved to Guyana in October 1973 to set up an agricultural commune, which Jones envisioned as some kind of communist utopia in the jungle.
About 500 members went to build the settlement on 3,000 acres of land. When it was operational, Jones enforced a system where everyone worked eight hours a day and then studied for another eight hours. You got that from reading about Kim Il-sung and his regime in North Korea. Members were increasingly subjected to various types of behavior modification and mind control.
Information about the outside world all had to go through Jones, no exceptions. And all communication with the outside world was done through shortwave radio. For an agricultural commune, it was in a horrible location. The soil wasn't good for growing much, and large quantities of foodstuffs had to be imported. If members got rice and beans, well, that was a good day. Meanwhile, money exchanged hands with the local authorities, allowing for shipments of guns and drugs.
Jones and the colony got in deep with the Guyanese government and local politics. But the investigations that began in San Francisco never went away. Stories of abuse began to surface. There was the torture hole, a tiny plywood box. Misbehaving children were reportedly to spend the night in a well, sometimes hung upside down.
If you tried to escape and were caught by the armed guards that patrolled the perimeter, you were sent to the extended care unit, where you might be treated with opioids and benzos. At least 33 babies were born in Jonestown. Children were cared for communally and only allowed a few minutes a day with their biological parents. Everything was funded by the Social Security checks sent to members. Over time, Jones grew more paranoid.
In 1976, he started importing half-pound shipments of cyanide, convincing the supplier that he was running a jewelry operation and he needed the chemical to clean gold. In 1978, the mass suicide drills began. Jones was positive that the community would be raided by someone. Resistance would be for everyone in the community to die first. There was even something called the Six-Day Siege, a rehearsal that lasted almost a week.
Jones believed that the Guyanese government was no longer his friend. There were talks with North Korea, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia about moving the commune. Meanwhile, family members stepped up the pressure. What was going on in Jonestown? Were their relatives, some of them children, being held against their will? The U.S. government got involved, launching an investigation. Jones became ill and deranged. It's possible he had a series of small strokes caused by chronic high blood pressure.
His hands and feet swelled enormously. He couldn't sleep, staying awake for three days at a time. And he was taking handfuls of tranquilizers, stimulants, downers, and uppers. On November 14, 1978, Congressman Leon Ryan of California flew to Guyana with a delegation of concerned relatives to see what was going on. Ryan and another member of the delegation were allowed in. Jones ranted to them about some kind of conspiracy. Some members took this opportunity to escape.
On November 18th, 1978, the delegation tried to leave. And as they tried to board their small plane, Jonestown's Red Brigade security squad opened fire. Five people, including Congressman Ryan and an NBC cameraman, were killed. Believing that this was, in fact, Jonestown's end times, Jones ordered the preparation of a large metal tub loaded with tranquilizers and cyanide. A Kool-Aid-like grape drink called Flavor-Aid made it all drinkable.
This is the source of the meme, drinking the Kool-Aid. People were summoned and ordered to drink. Most did. In the end, 909 people drank up and died. Jones shot himself in the head. It was the worst mass death of American civilians until September 11th, 2001. All right, fine. So where does music come into all this? Well, the people of the Jonestown settlement made a record in 1973, a few years before everything went to hell.
It was a pretty well-produced project, too, recorded in the same California studio where Fleetwood Mac recorded their Rumors album. It sounds innocuous with its children's choir and gospel themes, but many of the people we hear on this record died in the jungle in November 1978, which makes it ultra, ultra creepy. The album is called He's Able, and this is Welcome. All right, not rock.
But this record has been reissued several times, including one edition with Jim Jones' final speech tacked on at the end. That's a 40-minute track entitled "Mass Suicide." There's another cult we need to talk about that also had a musical element. And things also ended up in a mass casualty. The story of the Branch Davidians is next. Every story on this episode on cults has a music angle. And the saga of the Branch Davidians is no different.
This was a religious cult that splintered from the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church, which had been around since 1929. In 1955, when the founder died, it split into several factions. One branch was taken over by someone named Vernon Howell. He'd later change his name to David Koresh, and he became this messianic figure for his followers. They eventually ended up in a compound called Mount Carmel near Waco, Texas.
The Branch Davidians led a communal lifestyle and prepared for the end of the world. Koresh dictated everyone's lifestyle. Everyone was vegetarian. Everyone had to abstain from smoking, drugs, dancing, and movies. And Koresh taught that the apocalypse was imminent, thanks to his interpretation of the seven seals from the Book of Revelation. He also believed in polygamy, at least for him, and insisted that all women followers be sexually subservient to him, including those who were underage.
One follower had her first child with Koresh at the age of 14. Koresh may have had up to 15 kids within the Davidians. In late 1992 and early 1993, local authorities started to hear reports of allegations of abuses going on inside the compound. The lives of children were thought to be in danger. There were worries that the Davidians had stocked a super-lethal number of illegal weapons and explosives for, uh, well, they weren't sure.
On February 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms launched a raid. It was a disaster. In the gun battle, four federal agents died and six Davidians were dead. A 51-day standoff followed. That ended with an attack on the compound with a tank and CS gas on April 19. The compound caught fire, and in the end, 76 Branch Davidians died, including 23 children.
The reverberations of this have been felt ever since through extreme right-wing groups who believe that the government took things way too far. Okay, so how does music work into this? Well, David Koresh, the Davidians' prophet and messiah, was actually a rock and roller. When he was 22, he was expelled from his mother's Seventh-day Adventist church and moved to Los Angeles. He wanted to be a rock star. That did not work, so he moved to Waco and got involved with the local music scene.
He got a gig booking bands at a club called Q-Sticks, which was behind a local Kmart. It was stocked with some pretty high-quality musical instruments. There was an excellent sound system and even a recording studio. Bands would play in the main room, which also, weirdly, had an altar. Koresh's thinking was he could use music to infiltrate the local scene and recruit new members for his cult, and it worked surprisingly well.
Koresh also wrote songs, many of them while living with his followers at Mount Carmel, which also had a lot of musical gear on hand. Almost no one knew about them until after the events of April 1993. And that's when a three-track CD was released containing two religious rock songs and an hour-long sermon about the end of the world, which leads me back to an archive of lo-fi recordings that Koresh made himself. This is called Waiting So Long.
And if we're honest, if this had been recorded properly and cleaned up, it wouldn't be that bad. Here's another sample. This is called Madman in Waco. That's a madman living in a private bed.
Again, not terrible. But Koresh's rock star power was being a cult leader and not a musician. And so many people died as a result. There is one more cult leader that we need to discuss. But his story is so deep, so bizarre, so horrible, and so wide-ranging that he requires his own episode. So on the next Uncharted, we'll look into the musical nightmare
That was Charles Manson. And trust me, this is wild. You can catch up on all episodes of Uncharted by downloading them from your favorite podcast platform. Please rate and review if you get a chance. If you have any questions or comments, shoot me an email at alan at alancross.ca. We can also meet up on all the social media sites, including my website, which is ajournalofmusicalthings.com. It's updated with music news and recommendations every single day. And there's the free daily newsletter that you should get.
And please check out my other podcast, The Ongoing History of New Music. There are hundreds and hundreds of episodes that you can enjoy for free. Join me next time for the story of how Charles Manson, a failed rock star, became one of the most notorious criminals of all time. Technical Productions by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross.
