This is apparently such a common occurrence that there's an entire section
to it devoted to it on Wikipedia. It seems that the life of the average
person is not enough for some, and so these folks decided to get really
ambitious and aim for godhood. It kind of worked out for some of
them--as L. Ron can tell you, there's a lot of money in organized
religion--and they've gained a following. Others, well, not so much,
unless you count notoriety and criminal activity as success. (Which
perhaps it is.)
Either way, these 15 living people are currently claiming that they
are, in one form or another, a living version of Jesus or God. All of
them take a Christian(ish) bent on things, and note that while not
necessary, beards are big among the self-deifying crowd.
And no, Kanye West is not on this list.
1. Alan John "A.J" Miller
Formerly an elder in the Jehovah's
Witnesses, A.J. Miller started his own religious movement in Australia,
called "Divine Truth." He also claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus of
Nazareth, a realization that came to him over the course of a week. His
partner claims to be the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene, but she didn't
figure that out until she met Miller. Naturally. Miller uses his powers
to "predict" planet-wide environmental changes that will wipe out
Australia's coasts. We're pretty sure that's not an original idea, and
Miller himself compares his predictions to the movie 2012, and suggested, in 2011, that people go see it. He's Jesus with a movie tie-in, you guys.
2. Apollo Quiboloy
Quiloboy is the founder of the
Philippines-based Restorationist church, and claimed to be the
"Appointed Son of God," which sounds rather bureaucratic. He's been
accused of brainwashing members, and of the murder of a family in 2008.
In 2010, he predicted the outcome of the country's presidential
elections. He was wrong, but of course he suggested that "fraud and
cheating" were possible reasons for the outcome.
3. Charles Manson
Manson is most famous for the murder of
actress Sharon Tate, then the wife of director Roman Polanski and eight
months pregnant, but he was behind a lot of other murders in California
in the late '60s as well. His "Helter Skelter" scenario, named after the
Beatles song, foretold of a race war between black and white Americans,
which would lead to the blacks winning, but the Manson Family being in
charge. To get this war started, the Family, under Manson's instruction,
began murdering wealthy white people in California.
4. Brian Davis Mitchell
This former street preacher is best known
for his conviction in the abduction of Elizabeth Smart. Prior to this,
his other hobby besides preaching was pedophilia. He actually didn't
claim to be Jesus, but rather an incarnation of an angel who would serve
a messianic position and prepare the world for the second coming.
Before resorting to kidnapping, he would approach women in Salt Lake
City, wearing robes, and ask them to be his polygamist wives. Needless
to say this was unsuccessful, even on former polygamists, and so he
ended up kidnapping Smart, who was returned to her family nine months
later.
His name really is Jehovah, in case you
were wondering, and he considers himself to be God and his son to be
Jesus. We're not sure which son, exactly, as Wanyoni has 25 wives and 95
children. He also claims he can cure AIDS and demanded the equivalent
of $34.6 million from the Kenyan government. Besides his 25 wives, he
also enjoys the company of about 1,000 followers, who also believe he's
God.
6. Wayne Bent
Bent is the leader of the Lord Our
Righteousness Church in New Mexico, although within the church he's
known as "Michael Travesser," which may be a separate personality of
some sort, as he will refer to "Michael" in the third person. He claims
that in 2000, he was personally told by God that he was the Messiah. A
lot of other people claim he engaged in criminal sexual contact with
minors, including his own daughters, then aged 14 and 15.
7. Hogen Fukunaga
Fukunaga founded the Ho No Hana cult in
1987 after realizing he was not only the reincarnation of not only
Jesus, but also the Buddha, Siddartha Gautama. Because just being the
reincarnation of one is for chumps. Ho No Hana is also referred to as
the "foot reading cult" because Fukunaga claims that he can make
diagnoses and predictions by looking at people's feet. He charged $900
per foot reading, but used the money on himself, evidenced in the fact
that despite all the money coming in, the cult went bankrupt in 2001. In
2005, he was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
8. Ariffin Mohammed
Why yes, that is a giant teapot. No cult
compound is complete without one. Ariffin is the leader of a sect in
Malaysia called Kerajaan Langit, or "Sky Freedom." Not to be confined to
one or two measly reincarnations, he claims to be the reincarnation of
not only Jesus and Buddha, but also Muhammad and Shiva. The cult clashed
with Malaysia's sharia courts, and as of 2009, Ariffin is said to be
living in exile in Thailand. Sadly, the giant teapot was demolished.
9. Inri Cristo
His pseudonym, Inri, stems from the
acronym often seen on images of the crucifixion, which stands for "Iesus
Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum" or "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
Born Álvaro Theiss, he's been traveling the world being Jesus and
promoting a new age of peace on earth. Costume aside, peace is nice.
What's a little more unsettling, though is that his followers all seems
to be young women. Also? He dislikes Christmas.
Matayoshi is known for constantly running
for office, and, due to the fact that his platform involves enacting
the Last Judgement in the role of Jesus, he doesn't win. Other political
ideas involve making all countries self-sustaining economies based on
agriculture, removing ethnically non-Japanese people from Japan, and
throwing the corrupt into the fire.
11. Shoko Asahara
Born Chizuo Matsumoto, Asahara founded
the Aum Shinrikyo group, which is based on Biblical teachings, and
declared himself "Christ." He had a doomsday prophecy that involved
nuclear war and conspiracies by the Jews, the Freemasons, the British
Royal Family and the Dutch. Most famously, he's the one behind the 1995
sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system, in which 13 people died
and thousands were injured.
12. Marina Tsvigun
Tsvigun was the leader of the New
Community of Enlightened Humanity, one of the most popular New Age
movements following the fall of the Soviet Union, with an estimated
80,000 members at its height. She was decided to be a messiah by the
leader of the "White Brotherhood," a cult that required members to sever
family ties and donate their money and property to the cult. Tsvigun
predicted that the end of the world would happen on November 10, 1993,
and on that date, the cult members stormed Saint Sophia Cathedral in
Kiev. They were promptly arrested.
13. Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez
Ortega-Hernandez drove all the way from
Idaho to Washington, DC, to fire a few rifle shots at the White House.
After becoming increasingly upset with the government, Ortega-Hernandez
decided that Obama was the "devil" and the "anti-Christ" and that he
needed to be the one to do something about it. He opened fire out of his
passenger window using a semiautomatic rifle. Luckily, no one was hurt.
In fact, the president and first lady weren't even home, having left
the White House a few hours prior to the shooting.
14. David Shayler
A journalist and former MI5 officer,
Shayler seems like an unlikely candidate for self-deification, but it's
true. Convicted of leaking official secrets, he was sentenced to six
months in prison and, on release, to an electronic tagging and a curfew.
Besides disseminating national secrets, he's also a 9/11 Truther and
has claimed to the reincarnation of various historical figures, as well
as being the Messiah and holding "the secret of eternal life."
15. Vissarion
Born Sergey Torop, he claims he was
"reborn" in 1990 as Vissarion, the second coming of Christ. According to
him, he's not God, but the "word of God," and his brand of religion
combines Russian Orthodox Christianity with Buddhism. Followers are
strict vegans, abstain from alcohol and smoking, and money is banned.
His group is said to number in the ten-thousands, many of whom live in a
small settlement on the taiga in Russia.
The real question is: what would happen if you put all of these people in the same room? Awkwarrrrrd.
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