Dec 9, 2024

Call to outlaw ‘coercive’ cults, stop financial secrecy for extreme churches

Sydney Morning Herald 
A widening of coercive control laws to cover groups such as cults and changes to the tax breaks afforded to religious organisations are among reforms proposed after the exposure of extreme teachings at a secretive Australian church.
Former members of the hardline Geelong Revival Centre want criminal coercive control laws, which predominantly target domestic violence, expanded to include extreme religious sects and high-demand groups.
The Geelong Revival Centre.
The Geelong Revival Centre.CREDIT:SIMON SCHLUTER
The GRC has been active since the late 1950s and has a network of more than 20 assemblies across Australia and overseas. Pastors in the church have the power to expel members and demand families cut loose any loved ones who decide to leave.
Tore Klevjer, president of volunteer group Cult and Family Information Support, said coercive control was a common feature of cult abuse and states needed to protect vulnerable people.
“The harm done to victims is at least and often more horrific when perpetrated by cults, as it is in domestic relationships,” Klevjer said.
Two former members recalled being kicked out of home as teenagers by their parents on the instruction of the church’s pastor, Noel Hollins, who died earlier this year.
Geelong Revival Centre founder Noel Hollins pictured in church material.
Geelong Revival Centre founder Noel Hollins pictured in church material.
Their stories echo those of other people who have come forward in Australian media outlets in recent months to reveal concerning “cult-like” behaviour within other groups such as the Plymouth BrethrenTwo by Twos and the Shincheonji church.
Greens federal justice spokesman Senator David Shoebridge said the allegations about the GRC network raised serious questions about the risks to children and other vulnerable members.
“The extreme limitations on the movement, communication and actions of some members of this church would in any other circumstance amount to coercive control,” he said.
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Unlike NSW and Queensland, which have recently made coercive control a criminal offence in domestic partner relationships, Victoria has yet to specifically criminalise coercive control.
At present, Victoria relies on existing family violence laws to cover such control in domestic relationships. South Australia and Western Australia are drafting legislation to make it a criminal offence in domestic settings.
The former GRC members, who have shared their allegations of abuse and trauma in the new investigative podcast Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder and this masthead, urged Geelong state Labor MP Christine Couzens to raise their concerns about the church’s coercive control with Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes.
A delegation of members met Couzens this week to detail how tightly controlled their lives were growing up in the secretive and hardline Pentecostal church.
They told her of how the GRC controlled their relationships, living arrangements, ability to work and access to medical care.
Former members of the Geelong Revival Centre met with Labor MP Christine Couzens (second from right).
Former members of the Geelong Revival Centre met with Labor MP Christine Couzens (second from right).
“They are all very brave for talking about their harrowing experience to help others and to advocate for change to address the abuse they spoke of,” Couzens said.
The podcast and subsequent reports in this masthead have detailed allegations of historical child sex abuse cover-ups, physical and emotional abuse of children, and harsh restrictions placed on the freedoms of women.
In response to questions, Symes urged members who had suffered abuse or violence to contact police.
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“We’ll continue to monitor the operation of our laws to ensure they prevent and respond effectively to any kind of abuse,” her spokeswoman said.
NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley did not respond to questions, and federal Attorney-General Mark Drefyus said coercive control was primarily a matter for the states.
Amy Olver, head of abuse practice at Shine Lawyers, said dozens of former GRC members had contacted her in the past two years alleging historical abuse during Hollins’ long leadership of the church.
“There’s been horrific stories of abuse both within the church walls and abuse at home … many of these people have grown up knowing this as their reality,” Olver said.
She said there was a need to extend coercive control laws to include religious and high-demand groups, but conceded finding the best way to do that was “a really big question”.
Amy Olver from Shine Lawyers.
Amy Olver from Shine Lawyers.
“I would hope that politicians hear these stories and realise the urgency at which this needs to be looked at,” she said.
As well as coercive control laws, Olver said, lawmakers should consider the tax breaks afforded to extreme religious groups that had a history of disturbing behaviour, and more regular compliance checks on mandatory reporting of abuse.
The GRC and its affiliated assemblies across Australia are registered as “basic religious charities”. This means they are exempt from paying tax and are required to provide far less detailed reporting than regular charities.
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The Productivity Commission last year recommended ending the special rules for such charities in the interest of public transparency.
Federal Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh declined to comment on the government’s response to the recommendation, but said the reports about the treatment of GRC members were deeply concerning.
Shoebridge said it was time for the Albanese government to act to require greater transparency and accountability from Australia’s more than 8000 basic religious charities.
If groups such as the GRC wanted to accept the financial benefits of being a recognised charity, then they had an obligation to show basic transparency and operate in a way that did not harm children, he said.
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Former senator Nick Xenophon, who once campaigned for Australia to adopt anti-cult laws, backed the calls for coercive control changes and9 greater transparency.
He also said there was no reason for religious charities to be less accountable than other types of charities.
“Politicians are scared and unwilling to go after the tax-free status of religions,” Xenophon said.
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Dec 6, 2024

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/6/2024 (Ashleigh Freckleton, Kripalu Maharaj, India, Legal, Guru's, Kripalu Maharaj)


Ashleigh Freckleton, Kripalu Maharaj, India, Legal, Guru's, Kripalu Maharaj

There was a period in 2018 when Ashleigh Freckleton felt split in two.

There was the lucid, rational Ashleigh who was alarmed by what was unfolding around her, who knew the yoga school she'd joined was something far more dangerous, manipulative, and abusive than it claimed. Then there was the Ashleigh who'd been coerced and brainwashed into justifying it all, into unpicking her suspicions, one by one.

Ashleigh, who many will recognise from the current season of The Bachelor Australia, joined the school while living in London. She was 25, alone in a new city, recovering from a relationship breakdown, and searching for a purpose.

A deeply spiritual person, raised in the Catholic faith, she was contemplating studying yoga in India when a well-meaning friend recommended a yoga school with branches across Europe. (The group will remain unnamed in this article.)

"This friend was so charismatic, and he was the first person I'd spoken to about spirituality who wasn't afraid to use the word God, who wasn't afraid to talk about all different types of faith, and synchronicity, and fate and destiny and life path, and all these sorts of things. I was like, 'This is my calling. This is the first person I've ever met, that understands me,'" Ashleigh told Mamamia.

"Eventually, he said, 'Look, rather than going to India, come to Romania and live for a month amongst all the yogis. It's one of the only true schools that teaches real yoga with a real guide.'"

After taking classes online for several months, Ashleigh flew to Romania in August 2018.

There was a period in 2018 when Ashleigh Freckleton felt split in two.

There was the lucid, rational Ashleigh who was alarmed by what was unfolding around her, who knew the yoga school she'd joined was something far more dangerous, manipulative, and abusive than it claimed. Then there was the Ashleigh who'd been coerced and brainwashed into justifying it all, into unpicking her suspicions, one by one.

Ashleigh, who many will recognise from the current season of The Bachelor Australia, joined the school while living in London. She was 25, alone in a new city, recovering from a relationship breakdown, and searching for a purpose.

A deeply spiritual person, raised in the Catholic faith, she was contemplating studying yoga in India when a well-meaning friend recommended a yoga school with branches across Europe. (The group will remain unnamed in this article.)"

"The driver and conductor responsible for the accident involving the car of Dr. Vishakha Tripathi, daughter of spiritual leader Kripalu Maharaj, have been detained. The accident occurred on the Yamuna Expressway while the victims were traveling to Delhi. A case has been registered under multiple legal sections.

The driver and conductor linked to a fatal accident involving the car of Dr. Vishakha Tripathi, eldest daughter of spiritual leader Kripalu Maharaj, were arrested, police confirmed Tuesday.

The tragic road collision on the Yamuna Expressway claimed Dr. Tripathi's life and left others critically injured. The accused, residents of Firozabad, had initially fled the accident scene, said Dankaur SHO Munendra Kumar.

While Bablu was arrested on Monday, Sonu was tracked down early Tuesday for questioning. The victims were en route to Delhi, intending to travel to Singapore. Legal charges have been filed, and distressing footage of the wreckage has surfaced online."
The Belated Writer: Gurification
"Back in the 1990s, my then therapist pointed out that I had a tendency to 'gurify' certain people, i.e. to see them as far wiser, more spiritually aware and generally better human beings than I was, even when this turned out not to be the case. At that time I'd just started my psychotherapy training and had been to see Mother Meera, an Indian guru or, if you believe it, a divine avatar or incarnation – there are quite a lot of those in India. I paid several visits to Mother Meera in Germany, where she still lives, and not long after that I made a life-changing trip to India. There I visited the ashrams of two living gurus/divine avatars, Ammachi (Mata Amritananda Mayi), who is known for hugging people, and Satya Sai Baba, instantly recognisable by his Afro hair and orange gown, which on Christmas Day he exchanged for a white one – make of that what you will. Sai Baba has since died but Ammachi is still hugging people. I also spent time in two ashrams dedicated to teachers who are no longer alive, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo, whose ashram is a shrine to him and his consort, known as The Mother.

These weren't the first beings described as gurus that I'd come across. Back in the seventies I knew people who were involved in the Divine Light Mission led by Guru Maharaj Ji and later I learnt Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This is really very little different from any other mantra meditation except that you have to pay a lot to learn it and some practitioners go in for 'yogic flying': bouncing about the room in a cross-legged position. The flying is said to have huge benefits for the practitioner and the world, but I have to take their word for that. I was never advanced enough to try it. In the late seventies and throughout the eighties I was involved in what was then called the 'growth movement' and took part in different therapy groups where many of the participants were followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later Osho). For those who remember, they were the ones who called themselves sannyasins and wore orange or dark red. A few still do and many have kept the Sanskrit names they were given, but many have also become disenchanted or drifted away. The leaders of a series of groups I attended were at that time devotees of Baba Muktananda. I once went to their flat in Amsterdam for a course that consisted of chanting, meditation and video presentations by Muktananda himself. People spoke about his extraordinary power to call forth deep devotion and awaken spiritual energies. At that time I didn't experience much of it, but I could see from his photograph that he was an enormously charismatic and attractive man.

Despite becoming involved with Theravada Buddhism, which unlike Tibetan Buddhism doesn't see the power of the teacher as central, I still longed to find someone whose presence would enable me to enter new realms of experience. Like many people, I was led to Mother Meera by Andrew Harvey's book Hidden Journey. I longed to be turned upside-down and inside-out the way he was. Or part of me longed for it. Another part would have been shit-scared if anything so dramatic had happened. It didn't, but at a time of upset and upheaval in my life I was more than usually open to the atmosphere that surrounded her, and a sense of its peace and beauty definitely reach me. If Harvey and her other devotees were to be believed (he is no longer a devotee), she too seemed to be a divine incarnation and she apparently speaks about herself as such, referring to the rest of us as 'human beings'. At the time I was prepared to entertain the possibility. I'm less so now; I believe we all have the divine within us and are all ordinary human beings, even though it's clear that in some people certain energies that I would call spiritual have been awakened to an extraordinary degree."

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A Utah couple infiltrated a new polygamous sect and helped put its abusive leader behind bars

Trent Nelson and  Jessica Schreifels
Salt Lake Tribune
December 6, 2024

Samuel Bateman faces decades in prison after admitting that he took 10 girls as his “wives,” and sexually abused nearly all of them.


Colorado City, Arizona • Squeezed into the back seat of a Bentley, Christine Marie was sitting with three young wives of self-proclaimed prophet Samuel Bateman.

She couldn’t believe what he was revealing.

Bateman was describing how he “gave away” the three “wives” sitting next to her — two adults, the other a 12-year-old girl — to three male followers and ordered them to have sex with the wives while he watched. He called it “The Atonement,” explaining it as a religious ceremony.

Marie recognized the actions that Bateman described as something else: A man raping a child.

And the reaction of the two women made her wonder whether they had felt coerced.

“Sam kept revealing more and more and more and the young ladies were clearly in distress as he was talking about it,” Marie recalled. “I was in absolute shock. I was mortified. And to think that he thought this was somehow from God was just mind-blowing.”

For months, Marie and others had been trying to alert local police to their fears about Bateman, the leader of a small offshoot of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The sect’s traditional home is in the state border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, a historically tight-knit region known as Short Creek. People there had told police they suspected Bateman was having sexual contact with girls he referred to as his “wives,” the youngest of whom was 9 years old when they “wed.”

But police told her they needed evidence, Marie recounted, and calling someone his wife doesn’t prove that he had committed any crime.

Sitting in that back seat, Marie grew angry as Bateman kept talking. She wanted “to assault him,” she recalled, and to pull the girls out of the car with her.

Instead, Marie calmly listened as she quietly pulled her phone out of her purse.

Then she hit record.

“All I could think was I have to save this girl next me, who was a child,” Marie said. “... I was absolutely obsessed with doing whatever I needed to do to get the evidence needed to get this man behind bars.”

That recording from inside Bateman’s Bentley was the first piece of evidence Marie sent to local police, and later the FBI — but it wasn’t the last. Marie and her husband, a professional filmmaker, had already been documenting Bateman and his followers. They had filmed him at barbecues and picnics. They were rolling when Bateman’s followers bore lengthy testimonies about him.

And after that pivotal day in the Bentley, they kept recording as Bateman again described ordering his followers to have sexual contact with his young wives. The leader expressed in that second recording that it was a “great personal sacrifice” for him to watch, according to court testimony. But he said it needed to be done to appease God.

The evidence helped prosecutors bring criminal charges against and convict Bateman, 48, who now faces decades in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to two felonies. Federal prosecutors charged him and 11 of his followers, accusing them of a “years-long conspiracy to travel across state lines in order to amass ‘wives’ for Bateman, including minor girls.”

Bateman is expected to be sentenced on Monday, after a federal judge hears testimony about whether he is competent. Bateman’s attorney raised questions about his mental state because an expert hired by the defense found Bateman is “mentally ill” and “delusional,” and would benefit from a sentence served at a treatment facility rather than a traditional prison.

This conclusion of Bateman’s criminal case comes three tense years after the November morning in 2021 when he asked Marie and her husband, Tolga Katas, to sit inside his car as he detailed the “Atonement.”

Thinking back to that day in the Bentley, Marie remembered panicking, praying her phone was capturing what Bateman was saying.

Once she and Katas were alone back inside their home, she called the local police.


“I got the bombshell you’ve been waiting for,” she told a sergeant.

Marie first visited Short Creek in 2015 to help after a flash flood swept through the towns and killed 13 women and children. A year later, she and her husband moved from Las Vegas to Hildale, renting a small, tan stucco house in the tiny Utah town.

The couple aren’t polygamous or FLDS members, but Marie was drawn to keep helping the community and started a nonprofit charity called Voices For Dignity.

There were other organizations offering help, she said, but some focused on assisting people only once they left polygamy. Her Voices for Dignity took a harm-reduction approach, accepting that people needed support as they stayed or while they were deciding whether to leave, and served anyone who knocked on the front door.

She focused on handing out food and school supplies. The FLDS have been cloistered, so she would look up housing information online for those who felt uneasy going on the internet. Marie gained the trust of many FLDS members — in one later court hearing, she estimated she’s helped about 2,000 people in Short Creek. Only a few dozen of them, she said, left polygamy.

Her organization helped Bateman in 2019 while he struggled through a divorce from his first wife, Marie recalled. Esther Bistline, an FLDS member on the board of Marie’s nonprofit, remembered Bateman talking “about the fact that he had no money.”

In a 2019 text message to Marie, which she shared with The Tribune, Bateman worried about going on a photography day trip with her and her husband to a Utah ghost town if he would have to pay for anything.

“Hello dearest Christine,” the text reads. “If where we are going tomorrow requires pecuniary additions I am apologetic in saying that I am in the middle of some dire straits in my financial world. If we are not in need of helping in this manner in this picture[-]taking jaunt with you and Tolga it would be a marvelous privilege to participate. You and Tolga are greatly appreciated and loved!”

“He was broke,” recalled Katas. “He called Christine and wanted to borrow like $20. He was homeless, broke, everything.”

Bateman began spending more time in early 2019 with Moroni Johnson, another FLDS member who grew up in Short Creek, according to court testimony from Julia Johnson, Moroni’s wife. The Colorado City couple, both faithful FLDS, had married in 1995 and took Julia’s sister on as a second wife in 2001; Julia and Moroni had eight children.

Some FLDS families had grown frustrated about the lack of guidance from Warren Jeffs, the longtime FLDS leader who was in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing his child brides at a Texas enclave.

In their faith, marriages were arranged by the FLDS prophet. But marriages stopped being performed in 2006 when Jeffs was arrested and later sent to prison. Word came down from church leaders in 2012 that FLDS couples were to stop acting as husband and wives — that meant no sex and no children.

“We wanted children and sex,” Julia testified at a trial for two of Bateman’s followers. “I wanted a baby. It was a common sentiment [among the FLDS].”

Soon, Bateman and Moroni began teaching that women could now pray and receive revelation about marriage for themselves, without the prophet’s guiding hand. “This was not well received by the FLDS,” Julia testified.

Moroni began marrying more women that year, Julia said, but she wasn’t comfortable with these unions that weren’t approved by Jeffs. “It was a devastation,” she testified. “We were leaving the church and not being obedient.”

The Johnsons moved from Short Creek to Nebraska for work later in 2019 and Bateman later joined them. As a group of other FLDS families moved there, too, Bateman began marrying women and girls — a total of 13 by the end of 2020, she testified.

Seizing leadership of the small group, Bateman was taking advantage of Jeffs’ absence, several of Bateman’s followers later told The Tribune. Bateman told them the reason they hadn’t heard from Jeffs was because he was dead or translated — a teaching of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that refers to God changing a person from mortal to immortal.

Bateman claimed to be the new prophet, they said, and told the families that Jeffs would now only speak through him. He started to pressure them to give him money, to bear testimony of him, and for him to be given new wives, those who spoke to The Tribune also said. They called themselves “Samuelites.”

“There were so many things about it that just didn’t line up with our [FLDS] beliefs,” said Bistline, with Voices for Dignity. She remembered how the families who followed Bateman would text or visit people in Short Creek and “look at us like we’re weird” when the FLDS members talked about writing letters to Jeffs.

“Why would you do that?” she recalled the Samuelites saying. “He’s not even there.”

FLDS leadership rebuked Bateman in 2020, issuing a revelation confirming that Jeffs was still alive in prison and was the sole prophet — calling Bateman and his followers “gross and wicked men.”

“Father yet lives,” the revelation read, referencing Jeffs, “and is the mortal Keyholder Prophet on this world.”

Bateman and some of his followers moved back to Short Creek in 2021. He was now driving a Mercedes, Katas recalled, and could fill two SUVS with his more than a dozen wives — a far cry from two years earlier, when he was alone and asking for money.

Marie remembered how Bateman would drive an SUV around Short Creek’s dusty red roads, pulling a flatbed trailer where he had his wives sit in two neat rows, “singing to show off, like they were [his] prize horses.”

It was no secret in Short Creek that Bateman was claiming that he had married young girls, and several residents reported him to law enforcement, police officials have confirmed.

“Reports were coming from a lot of different directions,” testified Sgt. David Wilkinson, from the small Hildale and Colorado City Police Department. He said Marie talked to him about Bateman “at least six times” before the FBI eventually became involved.

But Wilkinson felt there was “not enough specific detail to begin to take action,” he testified. “There were allegations,” he added, “but we did not have any witnesses coming forward and giving details of specific crimes that were occurring.”


Documenting Bateman

But Katas had started recording hundreds of hours of Bateman and his followers, footage that he would later give to law enforcement. The filmmaker had been working on a documentary about the FLDS community for a few years — and he recalled that when Bateman learned of the project in 2021, he seemed desperate to be included.

Bateman wanted them to film him and post YouTube videos, but neither Katas nor Marie wanted to give him a platform, they said. But Marie thought that it would be worth filming him anyway, she recalled, thinking, “they’ll get used to it and we’ll catch them with some evidence.”

In February 2021, Marie and Katas were invited over for the first time to what was known in the group as the Blue House — a large Colorado City home where Bateman had taken over the top floor, where only he and his wives were allowed. The couple went over for dinner and to watch what was essentially a family talent show, they recalled in interviews.

Katas was filming. The video he made — which was later played in a federal courtroom at a trial for two of Bateman’s followers — shows Bateman surrounded by 13 women and girls, as well as a few men who are seated at the edges of the room.

“These wonderful ladies are going to sing a song for us,” Katas narrates as his camera focuses on two small girls holding guitars. “How old are you guys?” he asks.

“We’re both ten,” one of them says.

The girls then sing a song about how much they love “Father,” a term of endearment that the Samuelites have used when referring to Bateman.

Marie and Katas continued visiting Bateman and his growing number of wives, and said they began to see a pattern when they visited his second home, a cramped and crowded house the group called the Green House.

In this second home, “there are 24 ladies and him sitting there, and every day there would be two girls in the back crying.” Katas said. “... And the next day it’s another two girls.”

“Christine told me, ‘You keep Sam busy, I’m going to go back there and try to get more information,’” he recalled. “So in the videos, there’s a lot of me asking really stupid questions like, ‘Hey, let’s go see the Bentley. Wow, that’s amazing!’”

The hardest thing, he said, “was being at the house, trying to be funny.”

Becoming an informant

The couple kept filming through 2021. That November, Marie recorded Bateman detailing sexual abuse in his description of the “Atonement” ceremony and immediately gave the evidence to the Hildale and Colorado City Police Department.

Because the small office lacked the resources he felt they needed, Wilkinson testified, it asked the FBI to take over the case in the summer of 2022. His testimony came during the trial for two of Bateman’s followers, and prosecutors did not ask him during questioning to detail what happened in the meantime.

By that summer, Marie said, she heard Bateman belittling Moroni in a way that made her fear for his safety. “Things got real scary,” she said, and she hoped that becoming an FBI informant would make her feel protected. “I kept saying, I want to be official.”

Marie became an official FBI informant, and the FBI encouraged Katas to share any video he thought would be useful to investigators.”That’s what I did,” Katas said. “Every day there was so much evidence that was [being turned in]. It was terabytes of stuff.”

The couple doubled the time they were spending with the group, from 20 hours a week to being nearly a full-time job. Katas passed up film gigs and lost income.

The stresses of the time commitment, the fear of being found out, and the weight of feeling that girls were continuing to be sexually assaulted were taking a toll.

“Every day it was like, I’m done with this,” said Katas. “I’m done. I’m leaving. You know, even divorce at some times. We would fight. And then she would just say, ‘Fine, fine, but then I’m going [to Bateman’s house].’ And I’m like, ‘You can’t go because you’re going to get caught. Don’t take your phone, take another phone, he’s going to want to see your phone.’”

Those close to Marie were also growing concerned. “I was worried that they were going to find out that she was working with law enforcement and shut it down or try to hurt her and Tolga,” said Bistline, the Voices for Dignity board member.

Katas continued to struggle. “I would cry every day. Do I say, f— this, I’m not doing it? Do I let another girl get raped? Why is it on me?”

He vented his frustrations to the FBI. “I kept telling the FBI I don’t know if I can do this,” Katas said. “I said I want to kill him. They said, ‘Don’t do that.’”

Convincing Julia: Julia Johnson was also struggling.

Julia’s oldest adult daughter was one of the women Bateman had married in 2019 in Nebraska — with no ceremony, or the ability for the young woman to consent before witnesses. Julia felt this was wrong, she later testified, but other followers shunned and excluded her.

Then, Bateman and her oldest daughter started pressuring another adult daughter to also marry the leader. That daughter, Julia testified, “didn’t want to go. [She] told me, ‘I don’t want to do this. I want to wait.’”

When Bateman married her anyway, “I could see it was becoming forced,” Julia testified.

Bateman then married a 9-year-old girl, Julia recalled from the witness stand, followed by taking Julia’s teenage daughter as a wife. “I was becoming numb,” she said.

When Julia’s teenage daughter became pregnant, Bateman cut off contact between the woman and her daughters. Julia still lived in the Blue House with other followers, she testified, and was told to stay away from the other home, where her daughters were staying.

Her daughters sent her messages, she recalled, calling her a b—-. Doing laundry, she noticed that Bateman’s wives’ long religious underwear had been replaced with lingerie.

Arizona child welfare officials attempted to visit the Samuelites several times, asking questions about the girls and their relationship to Bateman — including in May 2021, when the parents of two of the girls refused to speak to child welfare workers but denied that there was anything inappropriate happening between Bateman and their young daughters. Child welfare officials also tried to speak to some of the girls, according to court records, but their mothers would not allow them to speak to the government workers alone.

After that, Bateman became more “paranoid,” Julia recalled on the witness stand. He installed security cameras, and questioned her about whether she was speaking to the police. His wives were given code names, according to court testimony. And the group established hideouts in the neighboring desert, Marie recalled.

Bateman had also pressured Julia to marry him, she recalled, and although she refused, she still followed him. On the witness stand, she admitted she was present in moments when Bateman had sexual contact with other Samuelites, including his underage “wives.”

Julia began spending time in Marie’s yard, letting her young son play with the chickens, a donkey, a horse and other animals that Marie kept to calm herself and others. As the two spent more time together, Marie realized that Julia could be the inside witness law enforcement needed.

“I spent hours with her, hours and hours and hours,” Marie said. “If I wasn’t over there [at Bateman’s homes] I was secretly talking to her or meeting her. We were very much walking on eggshells.”

Julia opened up to Marie one Friday in July 2022, and expressed fear that Bateman’s behavior could escalate to violence. “Following Samuel to hell is not doing right,” Marie remembers telling her.

“It isn’t,” she said Julia replied. “And Uncle Warren says a woman does not have to follow a man to hell.”

Seizing the moment, Marie shared her own past with someone whom she described as “a con man prophet predator.”

“You’re going to save your children,” Marie said, trying to boost Julia’s courage. “All of this is to save your children.”

It was the tipping point, Julia later told The Tribune outside court, that convinced her to talk to the FBI and tell them everything.

An unexpected arrest

Bateman’s first arrest was unexpected. In August 2022, local Arizona police pulled Bateman over after several drivers called law enforcement to report that they saw small fingers holding the door of a trailer shut as Bateman drove the GMC Denali pulling it down the freeway near Flagstaff, Ariz.

Bateman was arrested and charged with child abuse. As soon as Julia found out about the arrest from local police, she called her FBI contact. The FBI agents tracking Bateman were not expecting this complication, she recalled on the witness stand.

For Bateman’s followers, this arrest was a sign that he was a prophet, since it happened 16 years to the day on the same day as the Aug. 28, 2006 arrest of Warren Jeffs. For the FBI, it was a possible derailment of their investigation.

After Bateman’s arrest, his followers began destroying potential evidence.

“I could see in Signal, a group chat was no longer there,” Marie testified. “I saw things happening at the Green House where they were throwing away and ripping journals.”

One of Bateman’s followers quickly bailed him out of jail. Marie was sitting in the back seat of the car that picked him up from jail, her phone in hand. As he got in the car and sat down next to two of his wives in the middle seat, he immediately started asking about erasing data from his phone and deleting messages, though he said there was “really nothing to hide.”

“What I was wondering,” Bateman asks in the video, which was shown in federal court. “Is there a way to factory reset a phone?”

“And I’m filming the whole time,” Marie recounted. “I sent it to the FBI before we even got out of the car.”

The raid

Within weeks, the FBI had a warrant to arrest Bateman again and search for evidence of child sex crimes at three properties: The Green and Blue houses and a small warehouse where he spent time in Colorado City.

FBI agents asked Katas to help them diagram the Green House and its multiple entrances a little more than a week before the raid, Katas said.

“I said, ‘Sam, you know since the Flagstaff incident, I think people are watching you. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna come to your house and drone to see if it’s your neighbor.’” Katas recalled. “He goes, ‘That is so smart. This is why God sent you to me, you’re so smart.’”

Using his phone to control the drone’s flight over the property, Katas recorded the gates and entryways with Bateman looking on. As both men stared at the phone, a text from the FBI popped up on the screen.

“It’s showing up and he’s looking over my shoulders,” Katas said. He quickly moved the text notification off his screen, feeling lucky that he had used a fake name for his FBI contact.

On Sept. 13, 2022 — the day the FBI had planned to execute their search warrant and arrest Bateman — it was drizzly and overcast. Colorado City was quiet. The plan was for Katas to meet Bateman at a warehouse, under the guise that the filmmaker wanted to record an interview with the leader for his documentary.

When Katas knew where Bateman was, he planned to text 1, 2, or 3 to tell the FBI the location, followed by the number of wives Bateman had with him. That morning, Katas dropped Marie off at the Green House and texted, “I’m at 2 and I dropped her off.”

“Copy,” came the response from the FBI. Katas arrived at the warehouse. “I’m at 3,” he texted. “Copy.”

If a swarm of agents ready to pounce was anywhere around, Katas said, he saw no sign of them.

Bateman soon arrived at the warehouse with three wives. Katas started to set up his camera for a purported interview with Bateman. He texted the FBI, “3-3.”

“Copy.”

Before he started recording the waiting Bateman, Katas unlocked the front and back doors and walked back to his camera. Within moments, the doors were flung open and agents rushed in. “There were like 25 people who were in there in a second,” Katas recalled.

“They just lifted him up,” Katas added. “They got everybody really so fast …. I knew it was coming, it still got me. That’s how good they were.”

Katas was moved to a wall and held by agents, just as Bateman was, in an effort to not disclose to the leader that he had been working with the FBI.

The wives who were there were crying, Katas recalled, while Bateman said little before he was taken away in handcuffs.

The large FBI team next surrounded the Green House, several toting assault rifles outside, their cars parked on the road flashing red and blue lights.

Marie was inside with Bateman’s other wives and some small children. Mattresses were strewn on the floor, further crowding the small home. As agents called for the women to come outside with their hands raised, Marie began recording a video. It shows the women running around the small home, confused.

Marie walked each person out to police through a front foyer of the home, a prayer room which had been adorned in expensive marble and gold accents. She recalled: “I felt as if I was walking them to freedom.”

The FBI team last went to the Blue House, where it told several more female followers to leave and spent the rest of the day searching.

Groups of Bateman’s wives, crying and in shock, made their way to Marie’s home. Displaced and with few other options, it was a place they felt safe.

https://web.archive.org/web/20241206184213/https://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2024/12/06/polygamous-prophet-how-flds/

Dec 5, 2024

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/5/2024 (Brahma Shree Narayana Guru, Jehovah's Witnesses, Multi Level Marketing, Universal Medicine, Book)


Brahma Shree Narayana Guru, Jehovah's Witnesses, Multi Level Marketing, Universal Medicine, Book

"Speaking at an interfaith gathering organized at the Shivagiri Math in Vatican City, Pope Francis remembered Brahma Shree Narayana Guru in his blessings. He remarked that Guru's teachings hold immense significance in an era marked by growing intolerance and hatred between nations and individuals. The interfaith conference, held earlier today (November 30) in Vatican City, saw the participation of representatives from over 15 countries, including Italy, Ireland, the UAE, Bahrain, Indonesia, England, and the United States."
A devoted Jehovah's Witness is forced to reconsider her beliefs during a judicial committee hearing led by three congregation elders.
The Illusion of Consent in Multilevel Marketing

" ... If you've never been targeted by a scammer or been in a toxic work environment or an abusive relationship, you might think that nothing could ever convince you to join a pyramid scheme cult. Nothing could allow you to spend upwards of a decade pouring your heart out for some phony cause. But, as NXIVM whistleblower Anthony "Nippy" Ames always says, 'If you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty—you're already prime recruitment material.'"

Esther RockettUniversal Predator
" ... Universal Predator is the incredible inside story of Esther Rockett's campaign to expose Serge Benhayon, the multimillionaire leader of Universal Medicine — a female-focused 'esoteric healing' enterprise marketing dubious services like Esoteric Breast Massage.

Esther recounts her creepy first encounters with the former tennis coach and self-styled guru that lead her to investigate and blog about his operations. Her efforts to uncover his lucrative industry of exploitation bring fierce retaliation from his fanatical followers — devotee doctors and lawyers among them — who go all out to shut her down.

When Benhayon sues her for defamation, she struggles with scarce resources to get her defence to trial.

Told in Esther's inimitably incisive style, Universal Predator is a David and Goliath tale for the internet age: a true account of one woman's battle against a patriarchal money-raking cult. A post-New Age MeToo story, it's also a riveting courtroom drama.

No one can predict what will happen when the slippery manipulator enters the witness box in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and faces questions from Esther's veteran criminal and defamation lawyer Tom Molomby SC."

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CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.



Dec 4, 2024

Healthcare and Cults Part 1 with Gina Catena"



Cult Chat
December 4, 2024

Caz interviews Gina, a nurse practitioner & midwife from California. Gina grew up in a cult which discouraged mainstream evidence-based health treatments, in favour of non-scientific treatments. Gina talks about growing up in the group and watching people die to suicide, or suffering from treatable health conditions because the group did not allow Western medical care. This first episode of two starts the conversation about how cults can damage the body, as well as the mind.

https://youtu.be/vytkhynv8bI?si=wDY9KOZHARMsScim

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/4/2024 (Jagatguru Kripalu Maharaj, India, Obituary)


Jagatguru Kripalu Maharaj, India, Obituary

EVT Bharat: Spiritual Guru Kripalu Maharaj's Elder Daughter [Vishakha Tripathi] Dies In Road Accident On Yamuna Expressway
"Mathura: Dr Vishakha Tripathi, the elder daughter of Indian spiritual guru Jagatguru Kripalu Maharaj, died and her two other sisters were seriously injured in a road accident on Sunday, the police said. The accident took place while she, along with her younger sisters, Shyama, 69, and Krishna Tripathi, 67, were heading from Mathura to Noida on Sunday morning, the police added. Soon after the accident, a police team reached the spot and admitted the injured to Kailash Hospital in Noida where Vishakha breathed her last while undergoing treatment. According to sources, the three sisters had planned to go to Singapore for personal work, therefore, they were going to Delhi by car to board the flight. At that time, a speeding Canter hit back-to-back two cars on Yamuna Expressway, sources added.

According to officials, the 75-year-old Vishakha Tripathi's body will reach Vrindavan late on Sunday evening, and the last rite will be performed on the banks of the Yamuna River. Dr Vishakha Tripathi was the president of the Prem Mandir of Vrindavan and the Mangadi Mandir of Pratapgarh. Soon after receiving the information, the officials from Vrindavan Prem Mandir left for Noida. After the death of Jagatguru Kripalu Maharaj, Dr Vishakha Tripathi became the president of Prem Mandir of Vrindavan and Mangadi Mandir of Pratapgarh."

India News Press Trust of India: Spiritual Leader Kripalu Maharaj's Daughter, 75, Dies In Road Accident: Cops
The daughter of spiritual leader Kripalu Maharaj was killed on Sunday after a truck rammed into her car here, police said.

Vishakha Tripathi (75) along with her two sisters and five others was travelling to Delhi from Vrindavan via Yamuna Expressway, in two cars. From there, they were to travel to Singapore, police said.

On Sunday morning, a canter driver hit both cars in the Dankaur area. Eight people including Maharaj's three daughters were seriously injured in the accident, a police spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said that the victims were admitted to hospitals in Noida and Delhi for treatment, where Vishakha Tripathi died. Seven other people, including the sisters, Krishna Tripathi and Shyama Tripathi, were seriously injured and are undergoing treatment.

Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat in a condolence message said that it is with great sorrow that it has to be informed that the President of Bhakti Dham, Dr Vishakha Tripathi has unfortunately passed away and her last rites will be performed in Vrindavan.

Rishika X CultThe God Con — When the Mark is Ready, the Con Man Appears
"There is a popular saying in the spiritual world: When a student is ready, the teacher appears. I would amend this saying to reflect today's Western obsession with Eastern "gurus": When the mark is ready, the con man (or woman) appears.

In hindsight, I see exactly how easy it is for less-than-holy men and women to pose as gurus and perpetrate the God Con upon people who are sincerely searching for "the divine."

A person's desire to find God, or the truth, or self-realization, or whatever, sets the perfect stage for conmen and women to swoop in and take over our lives. Spiritual seekers are, as a rule, lost, vulnerable, and desperate. Yet, they don't realize this fact, and they forge ahead with only positive feelings about their quest.

Often seekers' quests go unfulfilled for years or decades — until one day a magical person enters their lives with all the answers. A "guru." The fake gurus (and that is most of the ones targeting Westerners) can smell their innocence, their desperation, their desires — and they use it all against them to create a spiritual lure and set a trap.

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.


Dec 3, 2024

Debutante - Award-Winning Short Film (2021)

 


July 5, 2024

Irish Film & TV Academy Award-nominated, multi-award-winning drama offering a closer look at one of the most devastating policies of Jehovah's Witnesses.

A devoted Jehovah's Witness is forced to reconsider her beliefs during a judicial committee hearing led by three congregation elders.

Written, directed and produced by Kamila Dydyna.

Awards & Nominations:

  • Irish Film & TV Academy Award (IFTA) Nominee: Best Short Film (Live Action) 2022
  • Winner: Best Irish Fiction Short, Kerry International Film Festival 2021
  • Winner: Best National/ International Film, @ Richard Harris International Film Festival, 2021
  • Winner: Audience Award @ Chicago Irish Film Festival, 2022
  • Winner: Best Short Film @ Achill Island Film Festival, 2022
  • Nominee: Best Irish Short, Dublin International Short Film & Music Festival 2022
  • Nominee: Best Writing (Kamila Dydyna) & Best Actress (Úna O'Brien) @ Richard Harris International Film Festival, 2021
  • Nominee: Best Sound Design (Killian Fitzgerald / Avatar Audio Post Production) @ Fastnet Film Festival 2022
  • Official Selection/ World Premiere: 33rd Galway Film Festival, 2021

Reviews: "One of the most powerful short films I have seen in some time, Debutante is a moving tribute to the vision and dedication of writer, director, and producer, Kamila Dydyna. With heartrending and touchingly believable performances from both lead roles, Meg (Úna O'Brien) and Sam (Richard Neville), it tells the story of a young couple balancing personal happiness when their feelings are set in opposition to their religious beliefs." FILM IRELAND


Audience feedback:

"It’s incredibly skilfully written and made. It takes just 18 minutes to break your heart and make you incandescent with rage."

"Absolutely true to life (...) and devastatingly honest in the portrayal of the damage of the judicial system and the shunning policy."

"So simple and efficient in its storytelling (all killer, no filler, atmospheric and not a moment wasted), but really arresting, such strong performances."

The story behind the making of Debutante: linkedin.com/pulse/making-film-against-all-odds-kamila-dydyna


https://youtu.be/nDApJdZJ0ss?si=1NQtJz9TYrFmGY4E

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/3/2024 (Scientology, Millah Abraham, Malaysia, Legal, Misinformation )



Scientology, Millah Abraham, Malaysia, Legal, Misinformation 

ENDEVR Documentary: The Dark Side of the Scientology Cult
"It is one of the world's most secretive and controversial cults… brought to light by one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Tom Cruise. Since its creation in 1953, Scientology has won millions of disciples, up to 40,000 in France alone, according to its leaders.

Scientologists follow the teachings of a former bestselling Science Fiction author, L. Ron Hubbard. They believe in reincarnation and undergo extraordinary practices to gain enlightenment. Scientology is also an institution plagued by headline-grabbing scandals when former members go public about their experiences with the sect. While it is recognized as a religion in some countries, others consider it a dangerous cult.

How does this organization, often convicted of fraud, manage to recruit and retain followers? What are its beliefs? Who was L. Ron Hubbard, its charismatic proto-messiah? How did Scientology become a recognized religion in the United States? And what influence does it have in France? Join experts and former high-ranking scientology members as they unmask one of the most powerful self-proclaimed religious organizations on the planet… the church of scientology."

Free Malaysia Today: 8 suspected Millah Abraham cult followers arrested in Melaka
"Three married couples and two men were detained during a midnight raid on a house here on suspicion of being followers of the deviant Millah Abraham sect.

Melaka education, higher education and religious affairs committee chairman Rahmad Mariman said the suspects, aged between 28 and 71, were retired civil servants, private sector workers, self-employed and housewives.

"The authorities received a public complaint about the spread and practice of the Millah Abraham teachings, which have been declared deviant and contrary to Islamic teachings in Melaka through a fatwa.

"A raid was carried out by 70 Melaka Islamic religious department staff and police officers to inspect and search the house believed to be occupied by Millah Abraham followers," he said in a statement here today."

Study: Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online.
Misinformation evokes much more outrage than trustworthy news sources do, outrage facilitates the spread of misinformation, and people are much more willing to share outrage-evoking misinformation without even reading it first.

Don't spread misinformation! But how would you know?

Science: Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online

Misinformation evokes much more outrage than trustworthy news sources do, outrage facilitates the spread of misinformation, and people are much more willing to share outrage-evoking misinformation without even reading it first.


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Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.


Thanks