Former members describe the Self-Realization Fellowship as a yoga cult that requires its most devoted followers to give up everything in exchange for becoming gods through stretching, and they definitely almost convinced Elvis to do so in the ‘60s. According to his ex-wife, he wanted to start a commune for the group, but in the end, he wasn’t willing to make the commitment. He just loved bacon too much.
You probably know that tons of celebrities were involved in the creepy MLM/self-help group/sex cult NXIVM, but one surprising name that’s come up is Shirley MacLaine -- you know, Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment, Glee, etc. It’s not clear what her role in the organization was, but she (probably) never branded anybody.
This is a sad one, so gird up. Are you girded? Kilmer is a Christian Scientist, i.e. those people who don’t believe in medicine, preferring to pray the sick away with often catastrophic results. When he was diagnosed with throat cancer (or what he called the “claim” that he had cancer, which he regarded as an “outward manifestation” of a spiritual cold) in 2014, he initially planned to do just that, but his family convinced him to get treatment. By then, it was severe enough to require a tracheotomy and a feeding tube. He’s pretty pissed about it -- not the cancer, which he believes he prayed away, but the treatment, which he insists is what “caused [his] suffering.”