A lot of mystery still surrounds the history of the Thuggee, it is even believed that they may have just been a bunch of highway-men who were demonized by the British in order to get the Indians on side when they were taking power and it helped them secure Indian loyalty to the British Raj.
The word Thuggee came from the Sanskrit word ‘sthaga’ which means to conceal, and is usually used in conjunction with fraudulent concealment. Why would the Indian people have named the Thugs so if they were in fact a group of heartless murderers? Would they not have been named something that showed the extent of their crimes?
It is believed that the Thuggee cult were responsible for over one and a half million deaths but it is hard to know what is propaganda and what is fact when the history of the country is hugely written by the colonizer. Maybe the British Raj feared this group as they were anti-class and anti-imperialism, two things that the British Raj relied heavily upon when colonizing India.
But if the colonizers have written the truth then the Thuggee cult holds the record for the most murders committed by one group of people.
Roch Theriault
The Ant Hill Kids Commune
One of Canada’s most disturbing criminals, Roch Theriault abused the members of his commune physically, sexually and psychologically. He led a staggering reign of fear, which involved torturing, castrating and killing. A polygamist, he took 12 wives, one of whom he killed, and one he disabled by hacking off her arm with a meat cleaver. Roch Theriault believed that God had charged him with a mission to help construct a better world. God had told him that the apocalypse was approaching, and that it was his task to guide God’s followers out of the despair to a new beginning.
Over a period of 12 years, approximately 20 people left their friends and families in order to follow Roch Theriault and to lead what they believed to be an existence outside of sin and temptation. Beginning with the desire to rid themselves of their dependances, their reasons for joining the group soon changed and became more of a need to help Roch achieve his divine mission.
During this period the group members lived their dream – being the people elected by God. For some, the experience was sometimes difficult, yet generally satisfactory. For others, the pursuit of this ideal became a nightmare. Some suffered greatly as they strove to be recognized as faithful servants and dignified of being accepted into the kingdom of God. They suffered daily physical and psychological abuse, and gave away all their money and possessions to belong in the group.
Roch’s view of the world was of a universe split into two: the good and the bad; rule-abiding members, and rule-breaking members; members and non-members. Using this vision, he isolated his followers from the outside world. They were not permitted to speak to non-members for fear they may become corrupted, influenced, and therefore impure, through contact with them.
Roch believed that he was God’s representative on Earth. He was different from everyone else, and had been elected by God. His followers were spiritually inferior to him. That is why they could not accompany him right to the top. He was the last prophet on Earth, and God spoke to him as he had done to his ancestor, Moses.
ROCH THERIAULT
Born in Chicoutimi, Quebec, in 1947, Theriault showed signs of abnormal behaviour from a young age. This could perhaps be attributed to his lack of a particularly healthy role-model to set him an example. His father was a member of the ‘White Berets’, a radical and fanatical Catholic group. One of his favourite pastimes was to gather his young son, with his three brothers, to sit together at the table and play a game called ‘bone’. This involved kicking each other’s shins as hard as possible, wearing heavy boots, until one of them finally gave in.
Roch Theriault claims to have spent a lot of time in the Quebec bush as a boy. It was here, he says, that he first learned to talk to the trees and the animals. Not long after his eighth birthday, he discovered another talent – he was able to heal the sick. His first patient was a friend who had broken his teeth, and from there he moved on to performing the castration of farm animals, which after a while he was able to achieve without causing any bleeding whatsoever.
He joined a Catholic group called the ‘Aramis Club’, but quickly went about trying to re-direct their worship, telling members to wear the image of Satan on their backs. The group was not comfortable with Roch Theriault, and so he was asked to leave.
Roch went instead to the Seventh Day Adventist church, where he found the existing members much more willing to listen to his views and beliefs. Only two months after joining the Adventists, the charismatic Theriault had already attracted the attention of six women and two men who saw him as their religious teacher. Possessed by a desire to help the population to rid themselves of their dependencies on drugs and cigarettes, he decided to hold sessions, across Quebec, on health and how to give up smoking. The sessions were a programme of five days, and focused on a healthy diet, psychology and group therapy. He claimed these delivered excellent results. A strict vegetarian himself, he also held vegetarian banquets to promote a healthier diet.
EXPULSION
When Roch indirectly caused the death of a woman suffering from Leukemia, by persuading her husband that he should take her away from hospital and let Roch heal her with a healthy diet, he was asked to leave the church. He took his following, which now consisted of six men, 12 women and two children, with him.
Although Roch’s original mission was not to establish a group or a commune, several of those who had joined him decided to live with him and to follow him in his mission. According to Roch, the creation of the commune was more of a fortuitous development than a planned occurrence. He claimed that, originally, the arrival of these volunteers posed a serious organizational problem. They had all left paid jobs to devote themselves full time to this new work. Given that the sessions were free and that those who attended gave only as much as they wanted to at the end of each one, it was impossible for Roch to put any of his helpers on a fixed salary. That is why they decided to embark on communal living.
After several months, the progressive disinterest of the Quebec citizens for the detox programmes Roch offered led the group to retreat into their own isolated part of Quebec.
GASPE REGION
On 5 June, 1978, several of the members went out to research the Gaspe region in east Quebec, looking for a new residence. Roch had decided to leave Beauce in the south. The group had been living together for almost one year when the decision to move was taken. He claimed that the group was unified in this decision, and that although he had been at the heart of the creation of the group, all big decisions were made with the consent of the whole group. Without hesitation apparently, they all agreed to leave for the mountains of Gaspe, where they settled in July, 1978.
MOSES
Shortly after their arrival in Gaspe, Roch consigned a new name to each of the members in order to mark their new departure. He wrote biblical names on pieces of paper, and one by one, each member chose. When they all had their names, they decided on a name for Roch. He was to be known as Moses. At the same time, and again on Roch’s instructions, the members adopted identical tunic uniforms.
Roch, who felt that the world was becoming intransigent towards the group, ordered his members to reduce contact with their families and friends. He backed up this order with the Bible’s instructions to keep evil far away. This command was just one of a set of guidelines which Roch established for them to follow in their daily lives. He expected them to: