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  • Los Angeles Times

    The 16 best cult documentaries you can stream right now

    by Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times Dec 28, 2023 8 minutes
    The Church of Scientology community center in South Los Angeles on June 5, 2013.

    Call it a sign of the strange times in which we live, when disinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant on social media, but a decade after TV's true crime renaissance began, the cult documentary is having a breakout moment. In 2023 alone, we had dueling series about Twin Flames Universe, "Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God," an exploration of Larry Ray and the so-called "sex cult" at Sarah Lawrence, and a four-part documentary on Synanon, the Santa Monica drug-rehab program turned armed extremist group.

    For those who can't get enough content about new religious movements, high-control groups and spiritual sects of all kinds, we've compiled a list of the best documentaries on the subject you can stream right now.

    'Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God' (Max)

    This documentary opens with bodycam footage of police discovering the mummified body of a woman named Amy Carlson, wrapped in a sleeping bag and Christmas lights — and it only gets more disturbing from there. Better known to her followers as "Mother God," Carlson led a small, cult-like group called Love Has Won, which was based in the tiny town of Crestone, Colo., and espoused an incoherent mishmash of New Age spirituality and internet conspiracy theories such as . The group also believed it was guided by the "Galactics," an eclectic mix of (mostly dead) celebrities that included Steve Irwin, Robin Williams, Carrie Fisher and Donald Trump. In livestreams, they preached

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