Educational tool only. All groups exist on a spectrum of control. Individual experiences vary. Based on publicly available reports, ex-member accounts, court records, and expert analyses — not medical or legal advice.
3 group profiles for organisations whose documented founding falls in the 1770s. Sorted by CLCI score, descending.
Russian sect (1772+) that broke from the Khlysty over the requirement of literal self-castration ('the seal of fire', 'the small seal' / 'the great seal'). Founder Kondratii Selivanov claimed to be the resurrected Tsar Peter III and the second Christ. Criminalised throughout the Tsarist period; effectively extinct by mid-20th c.
United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing — a communal Christian tradition founded by Mother Ann Lee in Manchester, England (movement begins 1747; Lee emigrates to America 1774). Distinctive features included communal property, lifelong celibacy for all members, ecstatic worship (the eponymous 'shaking'), and full gender equality in leadership and labour. The celibacy mandate has driven the community to functional extinction; Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine — with 2 to 3 surviving members as of 2024 — is the last active Shaker community. The Hancock Shaker Village (Massachusetts) and Pleasant Hill (Kentucky) operate as museums.
Hasidic Jewish movement based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, distinguished by its global emissary (shluchim) network and the messianic veneration of the late Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson (d. 1994). Outward-facing; internally high-demand.