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5 Cult Documentaries To Watch on Netflix

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Marist chapter.

1) Holy Hell

This documentary is about the Buddhafield cult in Los Angeles.  The filmmaker, Will Allen, was a member of this cult and he discusses his experiences in addition to showing some footage from his time spent with the Buddhafields.   

2) Wild Wild Country

This 6-part series talks about the Rajneesh movement that took place during the 1980s. It discusses how this cult formed and flourished through the use of interviews of past members.

3) Enlighten Us

This documentary discusses motivational speaker, James Arthur Ray, who gathered a large group of followers, many of whom paid him outrageous amounts of money, and took them on a seminar in the dessert in 2009.  Three people ended up dying, and many were hospitalized due to heat stroke, and Ray was certainly to blame.  

4) Deprogrammed

Deprogrammed explores how much being in a cult affects one’s psyche.  The documentary talks about Ted Patrick’s efforts, as a cult-deprogrammer in the 1970s, to get people away from the influence of their cults.

 5) Children of God

This terrifying documentary is about the religious Children of God cult that was present in the 1960s.  The leader of this cult, David Berg, is a disgusting and horrifying man who, despite encouraging sexual acts with children, was able to gain many followers.