CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/24/2019

Sep 24, 2019

CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/24/2019

Event, NXIVM, Apocalyptic Group, Podcast, Gülen, Fethullahist, Psychic, Legal

Event: Building Bridges - Leaving and Recovering from Cultic Groups and Relationships

Topics discussed include: assessing a family's unique situation; understanding why people join and leave groups; considering the nature of psychological manipulation and abuse; being accurate, objective, and up-to-date; looking at ethical issues; learning how to assess your situation; formulating a helping strategy; learning how to communicate more effectively with your loved one; learning new ways of coping.

September 27, 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm.

New York, NY

Vancouver Sun: Former NXIVM sex-cult recruiter hopeful her message can help others

"Sarah Edmondson spent a dozen years as a top recruiter in NXIVM, an executive success and self-improvement program that was later revealed to be a sex-cult catering to the whims of its secretive leader Keith Raniere.

Now Edmondson is baring all in Scarred, a gripping memoir that details her indoctrination into the cult, her psychological enslavement, and the terrifying naked ritual that left her permanently scarred with Raniere's initials, and determined to bring him down.

"We took turns holding each of the other members down on a table as NXIVM's resident female doctor dragged a red-hot cauterizing pen across the sensitive area just below their bikini line. The women screamed in pain as the smell of burnt flesh filled the air," she writes.

The branding felt like a traumatic assault. Her NXIVM superior, and closest friend, Lauren Saltzman, had told her the ritual that would ensure her admission to a secret sorority called DOS — short for Dominus Obsequious Sororium, Latin for Lord of the Obedient Female Companions — involved getting only a small tattoo.

Edmondson knew she had a decision to make: "slip away quietly or blow this whole thing up."

She chose to blow it up."

KUER: Snap Judgment Host Glynn Washington On Leaving A Cult, What Comes Next

"The host of Snap Judgment opens up about being agnostic and rethinking the role of belief after growing up in an apocalyptic cult. Plus, the parts of your spiritual upbringing stick that with you in unexpected ways. Hosted by Lee Hale. From KUER and PRX."

Wikipedia: Gülen movement

"The Gülen movement (Turkish: Gülen hareketi), commonly know as FETÖ in Turkey (Turkish: Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü) Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, is a self-described transnational social movement based on moral values and advocation of universal access to education, civil society, tolerance and peace, inspired by the religious teachings of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic preacher who has lived in the United States since 1999. Owing to the outlawed status of the Gülen movement in Turkey, some observers refer to those the movement's volunteers who are Turkish Muslims as effectively of a sub-sect of Sunni Islam; these volunteers generally hold their religious tenets as generically Turkish Sunni Islam. The movement also includes participants from other nationalities and religious affiliations."

Indy100 Independent: Fake psychic reveals how she tricks people into thinking she has real powers

"A fake psychic has shared how she manages to convince her clients she actually is clairvoyant - despite being just a normal woman.

The anonymous "psychic" (referred to as Sandra) offered to give journalist Katy Ward a free session, to try and show her how easy it is to fool people.

Writing for The Overtake, Ward describes how Sandra alludes to the death of her father when she was a teenager.

She asks if I'd lost a parent at a young age and whether this coincided with a 'major event' in my life. This cuts. My dad did indeed die when I was 18, with this funeral three days before my Oxbridge interview.

Sandra explains that she googled Ward before their appointment, and came across an article she'd written about it.

Looks like journalists would be a fake psychic's dream."

Jezebel: Time For Some Psychic Scammer Drama From, Where Else, Florida

"As crystals, horoscopes, and other associated wellness frauds to make people feel better about their lives keep popping up, so do scammers who want to weaponize them. Last year a New York City fortune teller was arrested after conning a man out of $800,000, while another in Maryland swindled more than $300,000 from clients. But nothing compares to Sherry Tina Uwanawich, a fake psychic from Florida who now must repay $1.6 million to a woman who she convinced was cursed.

The New York Times reports that Uwanawich met the woman, an anonymous 27-year-old medical student, in a Houston mall in 2007. After giving her a psychic reading, she convinced the student her entire family was cursed. Over a seven-year period the psychic charged the student money for meditation materials, crystals, and candles, all needed to lift this apparent curse."