Does L.A. have an addiction to cults and cultists? - Production & Contact Info (original) (raw)

When powerful professed men and women of God come to grief, they almost always do so over two transgressions older than the Commandments: sex and money. In 1906, Ernst Otto Haenisch, calling himself Otoman Zar-Adusht Hanish, visited here ...See moreWhen powerful professed men and women of God come to grief, they almost always do so over two transgressions older than the Commandments: sex and money. In 1906, Ernst Otto Haenisch, calling himself Otoman Zar-Adusht Hanish, visited here from Chicago to lecture about his sun worship faith, Mazdaznan. He spoke to a Times reporter in the royal "we" and explained the virtues of fasting. Short of the Manson gang, the Blackburn cult may rank as L.A.'s creepiest. The Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven, inspired by a passage in the Book of Revelation, invested prophetic power in a mother and daughter who did not scruple to use sex, gullibility and greed. Written by LA Times See less