Mormons, hands down.

"THE PEOPLES TEMPLE" who's founder Jim Jones lead hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in a remote part of the South American nation of Guyana on November 18, 1978. That way 918 people died, one third being children. Can you beat that?

One weird one that always pissed me off (more so because it could have been easily stopped) is the Prince Phillip movement. A group of Pacific islanders see him as a god and he has done nothing thing to stop such nonsense. If anything, he has encouraged it. Twit of royal with one son a pedophile and the other, who knows.

At the moment it is the cult of trump. Trumpists worship a crazed, pathological lying, sexual predator, monster, who said he was the second coming, and has a troop of radical evangelical dominionists who tell them it is god's plan that he was elected, and, while they are at it, demand that their " flock" send them tons of money . They seem to think he is infallible, they attend his Hilteresque rallies, chanting, and threatening, believe his insane conspiracy theories, wear weird slogans on their clothing, are permanently angry, aggressive, abusive, and are bigots, misogynists, worship their guns, and think democrats want to take all of them,( I don't dislike guns, I would like to see a few more common sense laws about them), and think that saying Merry Christmas is against the law or something. It is almost surreal, and it is hard to believe that an ignorant monster like trump is president.

The Divine Light Mission with the 13 yr old guru who scammed his followers out of their wealth I went to the satson a couple of times . He didn't get me for anything but I had friends that gave him their car watches jewelry in exchange for wisdom which was the Music the Nectar and the light all which you would meditate on . The Music was your pulse from your Thumb over your ear , the Nectar was the mucus in the back of your throat which you could taste with your tongue and the light was caused by pressing your finger against you eyeball . I was never given the knowledge but my friend told me all about it and for revealing the knowledge you would be reincarnated to an ant . The Mormon bible makes them a close second .

They're all crazy as hell if you're on the outside looking in. I remember growing up, I thought the things I was taught about Christianity were logical. Of course that's all I'd known since birth. Looking back at it now, it looks batshit crazy.

Well, long gone now, but Ishtar was the goddess of fertility, war, sex and sudden death - which always struck me as a bit of a whacky combination.

Her temples employed girls who would offer 'Istar's Blessing' (sex) in return for religious donations - which seems a cracking way of running a brothel, but pretending it's actually ever so moral and proper.

Christian Reform. They don't screw standing up cuz they're afraid God will think they're dancing

The opus dei flagellates are pretty fucked up.

Then again, I'm sure they're not the worst.
All religions are pretty bizarre to begin with.

The snake handlers strike me as being the most stupid though.

We don't even have to go back very far in time.

I think the Heaven's Gate group were pretty fuckin' weird. [en.wikipedia.org]

And so were the Rajneesh, which I had particular experience with.

[en.wikipedia.org]
Did you ever hear of the Raelians? This religion is very popular among Canadians. When I lived in Hollywood Florida there were many Canadians living nearby. The Raelians used to proselytize on the boardwalk. Read the link to find out more..

I like the 'isms." When you really look at it there is an "ism" for everybody.

Where to start? So many to choose from.
Scientologists, now that's a practical joke that just went way too far.
Now local to me there are the Wee Free Kirks, nothing to do with lots of tiny James Tiberious Kirks boldly going boldly where no bold tiny men have boldly gone before boldly, boldly. They are small congregation Scottish Presbyterian churches who follow the rules of the new testament very closely. Each of them hate each other with a passion. Some of the bible interpretations are completely mad. Some of these groups are now low enough to count on the fingers of one hand and still have change left over. A friend of mine used to work on a small fishing boat run by three generations of the same family, each of whom were members of different wee kirks and none of them would speak to any other and relied on the two deck hands to pass on communication. Bloody madness. The only matter that draws them together is a paranoid fear and loathing of Catholicism and Jews, for they are the anti-Christs.

Can't say that I've ever heard of the Southcottians. They do sound insane.

I read all the Tony Hillerman novels, mostly mystery involving the Native Americans around the Four Corners region. Descriptions of their religions and cultures are vivid and engrossing. Elegant tales of supernatural beings, many that inhabit animals. They don't discard their "sinners" to jails but work to bring them back into society. Beautiful fables of creation and the things around them. Some silliness for sure but not the rancor or decisiveness of Western religions.

The one were a zombie cmae to save the world from himself but failed to do so. It is interesting that christianity was not the frist on many peoples list. This is probably due to the fact that its absurd beliefs are so commonly known that they are not considered unusual.

Interesting question.

1. I did have a good friend who had escaped the Jehovah's Witnesses and he told me a bit about it that opened my eyes.

2. Also, these folks are (presently) not far away from where I'm sitting, even more than 20 years after this NBC dateline expose. In fact they have pretty formidable legal and internet powers, and have managed to cleanse the net of much that exposes them, but the video expose is at the bottom of this link:
   [americancynic.net]

3. Not to be oblivious to my own culture, when you meet folks who actually get very into (in an orthodox literal way) garden variety Judaism or Christianity or whatever supernatural blah-blah in an aggressive way, then I guess that kind of qualifies.

Being a life-long night shift worker I spent many long nights being entertained at the church of Art Bell and his night time call-in radio show dedicated to every weirdo and nut job that he could find... from Bigfoot hunters to star gazers, ghost catchers, channelers, remote viewers, UFO watchers, and time travelers - even J.C. would call in regularly! You can find old recorded shows online and I have some of the best recorded on cassette tape... Art was a great entertainer and some of his old programs are available on YouTube they are classic Woowoo! Here is a sample...

They are brilliant. I want to be one!

The Southcott's Box that was opened may indeed have been a fake, since at the time it was opened it was owned by Harry Price - who, I've long suspected, decided at some point after he'd spent years exposing mediums only to find the public still believed in them to concoct as much festering bullshit as he could possibly imagine (see The Bloksberg Tryst for an example) just to see how much of it people would swallow, as much for his own personal amusement as anything else.

If so, and if the real Box still exists, it would be fascinating to discover what old Joanna put in it. My inclination is that she was consciously taking the piss every bit as much as Price was, and the object most likely to be found inside would be a note saying something along the lines of "WTF? U believed me? LOL!!!11!roflmao u idiots!!!"

(Incidentally, there was one medium whom Price claimed he could not debunk. She was an attractive young woman, and one gets the distinct impression that he simply chose not to because he wanted to get in her knickers.)

The Urantians. Tres weird.

I can only go by my own personal experience, but when you get to the guts of it, and the rituals, it's tough to top Catholicism.

I wrote my Master's thesis on a millenarian group. Most of them were nice & normal enough.
The problem is that prophesying the end of the world gets to be a self fulfilling prophesy. Members of that group joyously shouted, "We told you so" on 9/11. I bet their delight over the Corona virus is over the top.
Of course there are always the Christian "end times" crowd who are actively working to bring on the end.
I lack the faith to think they will necessarily fail.

Imho the catholic church is the most twisted and pervasive cult ever perpetrated on this world!

The Republican Party first. Communism, Fascism, Anarchy and Corporate Conglomerates. All are profit oriented and the only way to procure profits is through the manipulation of those within your immediate grasp. You are leading the schlepped to the schlepping under the guise of laws and rules that limit freedom of though and idea for the good of the cult. When you get their pocketbooks their minds will follow and if you don't pay you cannot play. You go to Jail or live in banishment like our overcrowded prison system dictates. Its for the under privileged who fell astray trying to be better but was caught up where the affluent are exempt. The 'Wall' is not for the purpose of keeping drugs or criminals out of our country. Its to make sure that all the profits go select groups while those addicted are made the unfortunate ones to ever get a decent job or be able to vote for that matter. Mass Shootings and Massacres are all home grown fed through bigotry, racism, misogyny and Religious Fundamentalists.
Lots of room for discussion here. Pick a topic and relate a yarn or a chapter of knowledge for all to share and voice about. My favorite is Doctors, Lawyers, Priests and Politicians are the most destructive forces that exist today. Peter Maas wrote a book "King of the Gypsies" In his introduction he quotes. " If you ask 50 gypsies the same question you will get 50 different answers. Likewise if you ask one Gypsy the same question 50 times you will get 50 different answers." Think about it. I have.