Each week, ANIMAL will rank the world’s most despicable, deplorable, and undesirable human beings walking the earth, making the news. Behold: Evil Empirical. Last week, we covered religions. This week: cults.

We’re gonna go ahead and define “cults” as religions that are either strictly capitialistic endeavors or just wackadoo nutjobs who can’t handle the daily stress of life and need a hit of something stronger than your average opiate of the masses. These people are divine crazies, and they’re scary-evil. Meet ‘em:

Raymond M. Jessop, Mormon
Is the Church of Latter-Day Saints a cult? Well, no major American “religion” gets more secretive proportional to the larger and faster they grow, so, it’s entirely possible. Also, no other “religion” has a history of sketchy fundamentalist sects that they condemn in public but are well known to fly high in private, so, it’s entirely possible. And no other religion with sketchy fundamentalist sects they “dismiss” via the at-large “stance” of the mothership still can’t (won’t?) prevent 40 year-old-ish leaders of said sects from schtupping and impregnating one of their nine 16 year-old-ish wives, like Raymond M. Jessop, recently convicted, so, you know, it’s entirely possible.

Tommy Davis, Scientology
Tom Cruise. Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. A physically abusive, psychotic leader. Stalking. A batshit spokescreature named Tommy Davis, who tries to dodge and suppress questions about Scientology’s well known Intergalactic leader, Xenu. This is a “Church” that makes its defectors disconnect from family members who don’t follow in their footsteps, who collect files on everyone who joins them, these are the people responsible for fucking Battlefield Earth. Scientology are the KGB of religion, and Tommy Davis is their twisted, mangled mouthpiece trying to convince us that the words coming out of his mouth are something more estimable than completely alien bullshit.

Shoko Asahara of Aum Shinri Kyo/SUPREME TRUTH
This beast of a man is Chizuo Matsumoto – or rather, his chosen name Shoko Asahara – but maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s part of a “doomsday cult” called Aum Shinri Kyo, or SUPREME TRUTH. To make a long story short, they throw Bhuddism, Christianity, and a desire for everyone to die slowly and painfully in a blender, and out comes the kool-aid their followers drink. If they were organized and slightly less Japanese, they could make Jonestown look like the the LA Clippers to their LA Lakers of craziness. Maybe this will jog your memory: the 1995 Japanese Sarin Gas Subway Attacks. Why these guys, now, though? Because Japan just laughed at two former members appeals to get off Death Row. They wanted to extinguish these people, who want the world to end with a whimper, and not a bang, and they want it to be loud. Japanese culture, down to the Yakuza – one of the world’s two scariest organized crime syndicates – still fear SUPREME TRUTH’s rise, and really, it only takes one guy. Asahara’s indoctrination was that bad.

Marcus A. Cobbs and Ria Ramkissoon of 1 Mind Ministries
Know who your neighbors are? Sure they aren’t in a child-starving cult? You probably aren’t. Well, 1 Mind Ministries, who helped a mother starve her toddler, kill him, put him in a suitcase, and drive from Baltimore to Philadelphia with his body in the suitcase, all while other members prayed for his “resurrection.” They wore all white and had titles like “Prince” and “Princess.” One of the members discarded his “guilty” plea and is now going to try to skirt the crime with a new non-guilty plea. Who cares what they believed? They put a kid in a suitcase and waited for him to come back to life. And these people lived in a house, just like the one you live next to.

Most Evil: Glee Creator Ryan Murphy
Look at this guy. Looks evil, right? He is. Have you ever met a musical theater dork? They sit in a room with songs for three hours and if the curtain call told them to wipe out everyone who’s name begins with the letter “J,” Johnny, get your gun. Well, after he was done playing around with the supposedly crack-addictive television of Nip-Tuck, he decided to give theater dorks a venue on national television. It’s called Glee, and I have no idea what it’s about, but every musical theater dork is watching it, and if Glee told them to eat their intestines to the tune of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” they wouldn’t think about it for a moment. This man is to be watched. He is dangerous. Now they have an album, soon, they’ll just take over every media medium possible. Glee fans love themselves because they’re so exclusive, and supposedly, their product is contagious. They’re dormant now, but eventually, Murphy will have the means to strike out in the worst ways. Again: these people and this man are to be watched. Relentlessly. Fucking musical theater dorks.