True crime tip of the day: How To Become A Cult Leader

Netflix did it again: there is a new true crime addition online. And not just any one, no, a miniseries with six episodes of half an hour each, so we can look forward to it. How To Become A Cult Leader may not be the standard true crime documentary you usually watch, but it is quite grim and very interesting.

The title says it all: this series indeed dives into various cult leaders and investigates how they reached that ‘status’. How do you get people, let alone a large group, to worship you and believe everything you say?

The series analyzes six cult leaders in particular; each episode focuses on a different one. The first episode is about Charles Manson, who is probably familiar to everyone. Personally, I am especially curious about the second episode: it is about Jim Jones – I still find that such a bizarre story.

He built his own city called Jonestown, in Guyana. By the time it was finished, he had gathered a gigantic group behind him: over 20,000 people were completely under Jim's spell. Some of them moved with him to Jonestown. Here, in 1978, a mass suicide took place, and if you spend a lot of time on the internet, you probably know it: the phrase ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ (or rather not doing it) comes from here. Audio clips of this can still be heard on the internet, but be warned: they are really intense. Parents who were present with children were forced to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid. A lot of crying and screaming, and ultimately over 900 people died that day.

Other cult leaders being examined include Jaimie Gomez, Marshall Applewhite, Aum Shinrikyo, and pastor Sun Myung Moon. Honestly: I don't know any of them, but I am very curious about their stories.