Learning of a New Cult

 It is mid-week as I write this, and I am for one thing very exhausted right now - with the school year winding down a couple of weeks ago as well as getting some stuff moved here out of storage, the fatigue is catching up to me and I want to just sleep a lot.  But, there are things to be done so that cannot happen, although I am going to bed earlier so I can get a more productive rest at night.  The reason I wanted to talk about this topic today has to do with a podcast I saw by a young lady named Sommer Sanchez.   Sommer's podcast profiles some obscure cults and strange criminal cases that arose from them, and her research has ranged from the more higher profile cases such as the Matamoros occultic sacrifices of Adolfo Costanzo in 1989 to lesser-known groups that few have heard of.  This young lady has done her homework for sure, and she touched on one of these groups that got my attention.  As you know, I have researched Pentecostal history very extensively, and in doing so I thought I knew practically every sect that existed, but this one Sommer touched upon was something totally new to me.  So, I wanted to share some about it here. 

In the earliest days of Pentecostalism there was a great surge of this movement that happened in the Appalachian region, and it produced two different Pentecostal traditions.  The first was the Wesleyan/Holiness groups such as the Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, and the larger group that shares its history, the Pentecostal Holiness Church.  The second was a group in western North Carolina that later became the various Church of God denominations.  The Church of God tradition was one that had some interesting offshoots, as the serpent-handlers came out of that tradition (or one group of them - a Oneness group of serpent handlers had a different origin in the state of Alabama at around the same time as the Church of God faction, the latter led by a preacher by the name of George Went Hensley. In time, the Oneness faction would become the dominant group of serpent handlers, but Church of God heritage serpent handlers do still exist).  The serpent handlers were also noted for other equally risky practices such as drinking poisons like battery acid and strychnine, as well as handling live fire.  As risky and odd as those practices are though, they are limited to those who possess the faith and a strict code does exist among them about making sure they are "in the Spirit" when they undertake those practices.  I have actually gotten to know many of the people in that movement as personal friends over the years, and basically they are pretty decent folks despite the stigma that surrounds their unique religious expressions. Other groups, such as one called the Neverdies in my home state of West Virginia, believe in a form of reincarnation (where they got that from I am not sure - there is very little information on their group, if they even still exist).  In many cases, many of these practices are not anything controversial outside the hype, and their beliefs can be somewhat heretical but still not anything to worry much about.  Then, I watched Sommer's video, and perhaps the most bizarre group of people calling themselves Pentecostal got my attention.   This is a group that ventured into the unthinkable, and they are the focus of this discussion. 

This movement, called I believe the Church of the Unknown Tongue or something like that, no longer exists but it was confined to the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky when it did.  The man whose name comes up first is a more conventional preacher by the name of William Duty who had begun conducting Pentecostal revivals in the area of Johnson County in Eastern Kentucky.  While Duty claimed to have been part of an earlier group inspired by the Azuza Street meetings, it turned out that he was essentially a pecuniary-minded opportunist who saw revivalism as something to exploit and gain some cash from, and he honed his skills to make him appear as a powerful evangelist.  At one of these meetings, a young farmer named John Mills was impacted by Duty's "ministry" and enthusiastically became his disciple.  In time, Duty wanted John to plant a church in the latter's hometown, a place called Tomahawk, and for a while it worked until some congregational disagreements led in John's leaving the church, then striking out on his own and gathering a small group of followers in nearby Martin County.  Things went pretty normal for a while, as John was just a typical mountain Holiness preacher with a devoted following, but the death of his daughter in 1929 caused him to snap, and the group he "pastored" fundamentally changed for the worse.  This is the part, four years later, that creates the uniqueness of this story.

The group John founded was noted for ecstatic dancing, a lot of tongues, and long periods of fasting.  John took on a totalitarian mantle over the group, and even the slightest dissent or disagreement brought dire consequences.  As John became more unhinged and his group became more isolated, he began to manifest these weird "prophetic words" to do some bizarre things.  One occasion was noted as John directing his followers to strip completely naked and dance around a bonfire while shouting in tongues, and this aroused some noise complaints from neighbors.  In 1933 though, this climaxed when, after an extended fast, John got this "prophetic word" to offer a human sacrifice to God - the original target was his old mentor Duty, but later his mother was the victim.  After selecting several "virgin sacrifices" to be offered, two of whom were young girls escaped and alerted the local authorities to what was going on.  When the cops arrived at the house where John's group was holding "church," they saw a group of John's followers dancing around the strangled body of John's mother Lucinda, who had been ritually strangled by her son.  He was sent to prison for life shortly after, although he was released on parole in 1941 before moving first to Akron, OH, and then back to his home turf where he was in several marriages that ended in divorce before he died in 1968.   Those are just raw details of the story, as for more on this you can read H.H. Reed's book, Tongues of Deception (Groveport, OH: Cruiser Press, 2023), as well as a more summative account at https://cultencyclopedia.com/2026/01/28/cult-of-the-unknown-tongues-1933/.  The story was shocking, and it demonstrates that more than one type of sect identifying as "Pentecostal" exists, although most mainstream Pentecostals would disavow such sects as they would not dream of such atrocities.  John Mills also puts me in mind of Yvonne Navarro's fictional teen character Jason Spiro in her 1995 novel Deadrush, as the two share a lot of similar traits. I find this story both of interest to Pentecostal/Charismatic studies as well as the broader field of Appalachian Religion, as it adds some interesting flavor to the narrative too.  However, I also see the danger of stereotypes of mountain religion based on individuals like this, so the person who researches this would need to have some level of knowledge of both these disciplines in order to properly understand the context. 

The main issue with Pentecostalism as a whole is that it seems to be a harbor for the sensational, be it fictionally created or actual individuals.  The expressive nature of Pentecostal practices opens a door for excesses and misunderstandings, and while the vast number of actual Pentecostals don't go to extremes, the stigma of things like this still hangs over Pentecostalism as a movement.   Of course, huckster TV preachers who embrace unbiblical things like "Word/Faith" theologies don't help either, as many televangelists share a lot in common with the huckster William Duty who corrupted John Mills rather than representing authentic Christianity.  A lot more could be said on that, but I just wanted to conclude with a couple of my own thoughts on this.

I grew up in a Pentecostal tradition, and thus I understand it.  Also, there are things about Pentecostal faith I feel are necessary - the emphasis on the role of the supernatural, for instance, is something many Enlightenment-minded mainstream denominations have lost, and there is a challenge to live out faith in a more vibrant way.  In that regard, I never lost my Pentecostal roots, although my Catholic faith today has helped me to refine them a lot.  However, on the other side of that, an emotionally-charged religious setting can be an open invitation for excessive practices, heretical teachings, and even opportunistic fraudsters who find ways to profit off of religious faith.  In order not to create more John Mills types, it is time that maybe we contain the influence of hucksters like Joel Osteen and Robert Tilton that help create them.  Any rate, this will probably not be my last reflection on Pentecostalism, but it does help to share some interesting things I discovered in my own research.  Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time.