Shiloh

Rejected medicine and relied on faith healing instead (source)

Calamities that endangered member's health, such as sickness and accidents, were blamed on a lack of faith (source)

Members died due to lack of medical care (see "Murder" section below)

Although the rejection of medicine resulted in several deaths, many of the faith healings in the earlier years were widely recognized, even outside the community, including healing broken bones, typhoid, and cancer (source, source p. 113)

• One hundred and fifty people testified to have witnessed Sandford resurrecting member Olive Mills from the dead, which became widely reported in newspapers throughout the nation (source)

• Several members testified to have witnessed a girl being cured of permanent blindness by prayer (source)

Sandford believed that he was not responsible for his actions but only needed to answer to the Holy Spirit (source p. 3)

Sandford trained his 6-year-old son to desire physical abuse. To accomplish this goal, he locked the boy in his room without food and water and beat him until he broke the boy's will. It took three days of the boy begging to get beaten before Stanford determined the boy genuinely wanted it and set the boy free (source)

Children were severely malnourished and therefore were forced to hide in the woods when Child Welfare inspectors came (source)

Children were often severely beaten (source)

Children died of neglect in the colony (source) (see "Murder" section below)

A girl was punished with a three-day fast for vanity because she confessed to looking in a mirror (source)

In 1920, after investigating the death of a child, the Children's Protection Society of Maine urged that all minors be removed from the community (source)

Sandford declared himself to be the reincarnation of the Prophet Elijah and King David from the Hebrew Bible (source)

Members believed that Sandford had a "supernatural connection to God" and would one day rise from the dead (source, source)

Sandford declared that his son, like John the Baptist, was also "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb" (source p. 85)

n 1903, after 14-year old Leander Bartlett expressed a desire to leave, the cult denied him food and water for three days and refused to give him either medical attention or faith healing. As a result, he got sick and died, which was interpreted as a punishment from God for wanting to leave (source)

Believing that God told him to travel to Greenland without stopping, Sandford refused to get food and water for the passengers of his ship. While the passengers were saved from starvation by a ship that found them and gave them emergency supplies, six passengers still died of scurvy due to the lack of a proper diet, and Sandford was convicted of manslaughter (source, source)

After member Joseph Sutherland died, the other members were forbidden from grieving for his death since it was seen as a punishment from God (source)

Members gave up all private property and did not take any salary, believing that God would provide for their needs (source)

When Sandford died in 1948 his followers kept his death a secret, and destroyed his writings (source)

Stanford and others tried to keep the death and failed attempt to resurrect an infant secret from the other cult members (source)

When member Florence Whittaker expressed a desire to leave while traveling in a ship with the sect, they refused to let her land, which resulted in a legal battle (source)

Over half of the members on the ship allegedly did not agree with the teachings of the community but were unable to leave because they were starving on a ship in the ocean (source)

Members were forbidden from leaving the commune (source)

After a child expressed a desire to leave the cult, he died after being refused food, water, or medical attention (see "Murder" section above)

Members had to give up all of their property when they joined but did not receive anything when they left, forcing all ex-members to walk away homeless, penniless, and fully isolated from everyone they knew. As a result, those who left were often forced to return to the cult, as they were unable to survive on their own (source)

When one member left, other members bought a ticket on the same train as her to publicly shame her to other passengers (source)

Parents were punished if their child escaped the cult (source)