Cults

Security official Abu Ali has reviewed hundreds of documents about the obscure messianic cult that incited deadly clashes last weekend at the height of Shiite Islam's most important holiday. The group, Abu Ali and other security and government officials say, wants to spark a war among Shiite Muslims. Officials said the so-called Supporters of the Mahdi disrupted Shiite worshipers last weekend in Basra and Nasiriya and fought security forces, leaving as many as 80 people dead.

Texas child welfare officials said Saturday that they had removed 183 people -- including 137 children -- from an isolated polygamist compound in southwestern Texas after allegations that a 16-year-old girl there had been sexually abused.

Falling into a depression after her husband was killed last year, Iman immersed herself in religious studies and became fixated on a Shiite Muslim saint. Soon, a secretive group of worshipers tried to recruit the young widow, telling her that she could help bring the holy figure back to Earth. All she had to do was sleep with the group's male followers. Horrified, Iman, now 20, refused.

The dead wore the same footwear, imitation leather dress shoes with Velcro flaps. Their mangled bodies filled the trenches. Bags of ammunition, with the names of fighters written on them, sat by their sides. A pulpit made of bamboo stood next to a grassy field, a newspaper filled with rambling and enigmatic religious writing strewn nearby.

Iraqi forces early Friday rounded up 38 alleged members of a Shiite Muslim cult involved in a battle last month with Iraqi and U.S. troops that left hundreds dead and injured. Three contingents of Iraqi police raided several neighborhoods in the southern Iraqi city of Hillah and detained members of a mysterious religious group called Heaven's Army, said Brig. Gen. Abbas Jabouri, commander of the Hillah-based Scorpion Brigades.

A judge rejected a request to move the trial of a polygamous-sect leader from St. George to Salt Lake City but said he would change his mind if he couldn't seat a fair-minded jury. Judge James Shumate said jury selection in the trial of Warren Jeffs would be conducted in private. Jeffs, 51, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is charged with rape as an accomplice in the spiritual marriage of a 14-year-old girl to a 19-year-old cousin in 2001.

For filmmaker Ondi Timoner, the path to mind control was paved by rock 'n' roll. The 34-year-old documentarian first became intrigued by brainwashing and group think while making her 2004 Sundance Award-winning documentary "Dig!" about the conflicting fortunes and ideologies of two emerging rock groups, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Earlier this summer, almost 100 psychedelic music fans, subculture aficionados, students of the occult and local literati climbed the flower-petal-strewn steps of publisher couple Jodi Wille and Adam Parfrey's Silver Lake home for a salon celebrating the upcoming publication of "The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWa 13 and the Source Family" (Process), the definitive history of a mystical cult that thrived in Los Angeles between 1970 and 1974.

Incense lingered heavily in the air as cult members wearing silk headbands, caftans and long, long hair swayed to the sounds of YaHoWa 13, a three-man jam band rocking out with guitars and a large gong. The crowd talked about mind expansion and a new era of consciousness, while swirly visuals and flashing lights shone above them. At the end of the night, Sky Saxon, the singer for a psychedelic garage band called the Seeds, took the stage and sang "Give Peace a Chance."

Could a CBS fall pilot be the next flashpoint in Hollywood's growing conflict with Scientology? With Comedy Central's "South Park" in a fracas involving celebrity Scientologists Tom Cruise and Isaac Hayes, CBS is scheduled to wrap shooting late this week on "Orpheus," a drama by writer and executive producer Nicholas Meyer ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") about an organization that bears a striking resemblance to L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology.