8 Dreamy California Destinations That Were Once Home to Cults
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California and cults—it’s definitely a thing. Theories abound as to why so many cults have been drawn to the Golden State. Was it the lack of established religion during California’s early days? The presence of hippies and Hollywood celebrities willing to buy what cults were selling? Or maybe it was simply what’s always brought people to California: the weather.
Regardless of the reason, California has played host to some of the most infamous cults and new-age churches in history. While many of the places these groups left behind are creepy, dilapidated, or uninteresting to all but the most hardcore cult history fanatic, others have managed to hide their past so well that you’d never guess at their shadowy secrets. In fact, some of the most beautiful spots in California—destinations in their own right—were once home to cults and controversial new-age churches.
Steps from the Pacific, overlooking the Santa Monica pier and the magical lights of the Ferris wheel, sits the historic luxury hotel Casa del Mar. The lobby alone is reason enough to visit. Entering via the glamorous double staircases, you’re greeted by a cross between a Mediterranean villa and a Nantucket living room. Settle in for a drink in a cozy indoor “cabana” if you want some privacy. Or relax on a couch and mingle with the visiting dignitaries—after all, the hotel shares an interior designer with the Obama White House.
Today, Casa del Mar welcomes visitors into a paradise by the sea. Yet the hotel’s sun-drenched facade hides a dark secret: It was once the headquarters of a violent cult.
The Church of Synanon began as a drug rehab program in founder Chuck Dederich’s Santa Monica apartment. But by the 1960s it had devolved into a cult that forced its members to shave their heads, get vasectomies, and divorce their spouses to take new partners.
Dederich made his followers participate in “The Game,” supposedly a form of “group therapy” in which participants were screamed at and verbally abused as a method of what he later admitted was brainwashing.
If anyone tried to escape Synanon, Dederich sent his thugs, the “Imperial Marines,” after them; many so-called “splittees” were severely beaten. In 1978, Dederich and his marines attempted to murder a local lawyer by placing a four-and-a-half-foot diamondback rattlesnake in his mailbox.
Content retrieved from: https://www.fodors.com/world/north-america/usa/california/experiences/news/californias-cult-history-luxury-hotels-and-secretive-sites-that-once-housed-infamous-cults.
