10 Utterly Fascinating Cults
3. Ho No Hana
It's sometimes difficult to attach the term cult to a group: for one thing the word carries some pretty serious negative weight, and secondly some groups are more focused on ideals rather than adoration of one individual. Ho No Hana on the other hand is a proper, by the book cult.
Ho No Hana was established in 1987 by His Holiness and master foot reader Hogen Fukunaga; and the most memorable practice of the cult is that they do a kind of palm reading, except with feet. They're foot readers. Readers of feet. People who can gaze into the sole.
Aside from claiming to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and the Buddha, Fukunaga didn't really seem to develop a coherent narrative or ideology to his church. There's no creation myth, or commandments, or doomsday prophecy, instead Hogen focused all his energy into one mantra: read those feet and make those stacks.
He charged $900 dollars for a reading, which was usually followed by dire predictions of health troubles that could only be alleviated by attending a cure session costing $18,000. Hogen and his more steadfast followers used threatening techniques to fleece as much money as possible, before Hogen was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud and practising medicine without a licence.