# Thuggee · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/cults/024-thuggee/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Cult Dossier · No. 024 · Occult / Esoteric / Satanic
Thuggee
The Thugs; Phansigars (noose-men)
disputed; alleged 13th c. – 1830s · Central and northern India
II. MEDIEVAL — HERESY, DUALISM AND THE MILLENNIUM
Contested — allegedly religious banditry
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 1356 Firuz Shah Tughlaq reportedly captures and deports a thousand Thugs — the earliest cited reference, and thin.
- 1830 Sleeman appointed to suppress Thuggee; the approver system offers informants their lives for testimony.
- 1835 Thuggee and Dacoity Department established.
- 1830–1841 Roughly 3,700 to 4,500 suspects tried; around 500 hanged, about 1,500 transported for life, the rest imprisoned.
- 1836 Act XXX makes mere membership a capital offence — conviction without proof of any specific murder.
- 1904 Department renamed and folded into the Criminal Intelligence Department.
### Its people
### William Henry Sleeman
Thuggee Sleeman
British officer who suppressed — and largely defined — Thuggee · 8 August 1788 – 10 February 1856 · active 1830–1841
Before the law. Colonial administrator. His approver system is now regarded as evidentially unsound by modern standards.
Where things stand. Deceased 1856. THE MOST IMPORTANT CAUTIONARY FILE IN THIS TRANCHE: an investigator who suppressed a phenomenon and simultaneously authored the only surviving evidence for it.
- 1830 Appointed to suppress Thuggee.
- 1835 The Thuggee and Dacoity Department established.
- 1836 Act XXX makes membership itself a capital offence.
- 1830–41 3,700–4,500 tried; ~500 hanged, ~1,500 transported.
- 1839 Publishes Ramaseeana, his account of the 'Thug' language and religion.
- 10 February 1856 Dies at sea.
Checked 2026-08-24
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