Doomsday cult leader's fall exposed in Netflix's latest documentary

This documentary depicts the beginnings of the cult and how it wasn’t nearly as dark as it ended up being.

Pablo, a former member of Antares de la Luz’s doomsday cult, who turned himself in, says that only when he saw the dawn of December 22, 2012 did he realise he had been living a lie for four years. He was not alone. The other ‘awakened warriors’ felt, on occasions, that there was something weird about their cult led by Ramón Gustavo Castillo Gaete or Antares de la Luz, who claimed to be God.

The latest Netflix documentary—The Doomsday Cult of Antares de la Luz—follows the activities of this clandestine group, which left a trail after the trafficking of ayahuasca from Peru to Chile, and conducted a ritualistic human sacrifice, the first of its kind in the Latin American nation. This documentary depicts the beginnings of the cult and how it wasn’t nearly as dark as it ended up being.

Investigative journalist Verónica Foxley speaks of few members from before the inception of the cult, and explains why they gravitated together—all of them were desperate for recognition. Being called warriors, who would save the earth on Judgement Day, by Ramón was all it took for this bunch with low self-esteem to proclaim him an incarnation of God.

The narration alternates between accounts from the police and journalists and former members, including Carolina, Pablo and Natalia (whose child with Antares was killed after being called the anti-Christ). The film also looks at Ramón’s background. His interest in folk religions began when he was in a music band in the early-mid 2000s when he travelled to China. His cult, which had roots in Reiki, first focused on harmless meditation, but soon turned from the Oriental to the Biblical.

Ramón soon develops a sexual relationship with Natalia, whose child he ‘prophesied’ would bring the second coming of Jesus, and be born on December 18, 2012, three days before the apocalypse according to the Mayan calendar. But, when he had the child killed after dubbing it the anti-Christ for being born in November, the cult started to fall apart. Pablo recalls how Antares laughed when nothing happened on December 21, and said they had to wait till 2017 when the ‘real apocalypse’ would occur. That was the final disillusionment for the members. The narration switches to real-time probe and court proceedings in 2013, where they are all pardoned for being under the influence of ‘collective mind control’. Antares kills himself in Peru.

The film ends with the members bulldozing their once safe-house in Chile as an act of atonement. There is a lot unsaid about Antares’s past though, and more information was certainly needed to truly understand him and his motivations. But, what the documentary does manage to establish is that bizarre cults emerge from simple human frailties, like a yearning to belong. That is something to think about.

Film: The Doomsday Cult of Antares de la Luz

Director: Santiago Correa

Genre: Documentary

Platform: Netflix

Language: English

Rating: 2.5/5