Rev. Moon was persecuted & imprisoned by the communists in Korea, & before you knew it, he owned the Washington Times & a slew of other businesses! (And now we know his followers as "Moonies")
Jim Jones started with a small town in the Bay area, and before you knew it, he had expanded to large acreages in Guyana after becoming a key civic leader in the Bay Area. (You've heard all about the coolaid in Jonestown, haven't you?)
Shall I go on?
As for the societies he created, well, that's a myth. He moved first to Ohio, but he didn't create the community of Kirtland, OH. In fact, he fled that town in the middle of the night because the bank he started wasn't solvent. (He literally issued $3 bills, giving us the phrase, "As phony as a $3 bill.")
The Missouri experience? Smith sent others ahead to populate MO while he remained in OH. He wasn't responsible for setting up those small, temp communities -- others were. It was a non-Mormon who helped to carve out a new county for Lds in MO in 1838.
So now we're down only to Nauvoo. Oh, sure, Smith was directly involved in creating Nauvoo. But what kind of a "society" did he create? (All I can say is that if you want to go to a community where "Mayor Smith" orders his henchmen to go smash your opposition printing press because he didn't like your critiques of him, then quick, head off to those Phillippine compounds where they've surrounded these regional lords for killing off the opposition party's family -- & about 15 journalists in the process!).
you should read up on nauvoo, it was a pretty amazing place for the time. and they built it out of swamp.
i know you dont like the guy, for some reason, but you cant deny what he built. take a look at his legacy in Utah. thats not out of a hat, it is real.
anyway, signing off on this thread. been fun.
Actually, he was a good ol' Hoosier, starting here in Indianapolis.
I go to church with a lady who did NOT blindly follow him to California.
(He was fairly orthodox here.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones