The Masters of WorldNetDaily

Masters and his FHU has been accused of cult-like tendencies over the years; his followers have been called "Roybots." Masters moved his operations to Grants Pass, Oregon, in 1982 -- followed by 2,000 of his supporters, who proceeded to attempt to take over the town; that prompted a boycott of Masters-related businesses by some local residents. A July 1992 episode of Geraldo Rivera's TV show featured a former FHU member who said of the group: "The role of women is to be very submissive, quiet, never questioning, not thinking, no decisions." The ex-wife of one of Roy Masters' sons denounced Masters on a 1999 TV show, citing a "long history of Masters' denigration of women."

A Nov. 29, 1990, Washington Post article quoted Steve Hassan, a Boston-based counselor and author of a book on cults, as calling Masters "a cult leader" who sways disciples through hypnosis and meditation. He says Masters has staged "phony exorcisms" in which "he would hypnotize people into believing there were demons inside of them, and they would drool and grumble and he would force the demons out."

The Washington Post article also reported that in 1988, Masters and his sons filed a $2 billion lawsuit against Oregon's governor and attorney general, several other officials and the local paper, the Grants Pass Courier. The suit charged an unlawful conspiracy to deprive the plaintiffs of their rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the suit a "rambling, unintelligible harangue," and Masters dropped it. Masters' TRN also sued to shut down three web sites critical of Savage, suits it later dropped.

In 1984, according to a Nexis search, Masters issued a press release declaring that there is no such thing as mental illness; rather, "[i]t's all a matter of demon possession." The release added: "He proved his point, he says, in front of television cameras for a Cable News Network (CNN) documentary. He passed a wooden cross over the audience, and, he says, all the fiends came popping out, screaming and growling like animals. Masters adds that the CNN reporter almost went into shock."

The most direct connection between WorldNetDaily and Masters is David Kupelian, WND's vice president and managing editor. In the early 1990s, Kupelian was managing editor of a Masters-published magazine called New Dimensions. The magazine's tagline was "The Psychology Behind the News," but it appears to have been merely a conservative-oriented magazine taking on such issues as opposing abortion and gun control and supporting convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. (The fixation on Pollard in particular has been a crusade picked up by WND, with Jerusalem reporter Aaron Klein regularly agitating for his release.) From the 1990 Washington Post article:

Masters sold New Dimensions in April 1992 to a group headed by Lee Bellinger, longtime publisher of the right-wing, national security-oriented newsletter American Sentinel. Joseph Farah served for a time as its editor-in-chief, a tenure that apparently started after the sale.