"Police in Gowa, South Sulawesi recently arrested an elderly man named Puang Lalang on suspicion of blasphemy over his leadership of a sect that was considered too deviant for Indonesia.According to the police, Puang Lalang founded the Tajul Khalwatiyah Syekh Yusuf school — an Islamic offshoot — in 1999 and declared himself a prophet.In mainstream Islamic beliefs, the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be the last messenger of God."The suspect spread misguided beliefs by having followers take a pledge, indoctrinating them and promising them safety in life and the afterlife," Gowa Police Shinto Silitonga told reporters this week.Police suspect that the sect was a vehicle for self-enrichment for Puang Lalang. According to the police, Puang Lalang charged followers IDR10,000-50,000 (US$0.71-3.57) for the aptly-named "heaven card" to signify membership. He also mandated members to pay religious alms, which amounted to IDR5,000 for every kilogram of the followers' body weight."
The author, most recently, of 'Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry' selects books on the aftermath of cataclysm.
"In 2013, after Debbie McDaniel left her Jehovah's Witness congregation in McAlester, Oklahoma, she went to police and told them members had been sitting outside her apartment, monitoring her every move. The Witnesses, she said, were trying to make the case that she was unfit to parent her son, on account of being in a relationship with a woman. But it was something else she told a detective that most alarmed the cops, she said: "You would think an organization that would allow me to be molested for years could now just let me go in peace."Within weeks, cops had arrested Ronald Lawrence, whom McDaniel, 50, accused of molesting her when she was underage, as Reveal News reported. At least two other people came forward with similar allegations. According to the Tulsa-World, Lawrence told prosecutors he had been "disfellowshipped" (basically excommunicated) from the church over sexual abuse allegations, that he had admitted misconduct in the past in order to be reinstated, and that law enforcement had never previously been informed. He has also denied abusing any Jehovah's Witness children, including McDaniel. When brought before a judge in 2014, 19 charges of sexual abuse against him were deemed to have passed the statute of limitations, and he walked free.Eventually, Witnesses stopped waiting outside McDaniel's home."
" ... Chinese media reported a case involving the unusual deaths of Qian Xude and three of his family members from Xinzhuang village, under the jurisdiction of Nanjing city in the eastern province of Jiangsu. The bodies of Qian Xude and two others were found hidden in a freezer in a rental room in Shenzhen city in the southern province of Guangdong, while Qian Xude's daughter, Qian Limei, committed suicide by jumping off a building in Shangqiu city in the central province of Henan. However, the police never filed a case after investigating the deaths, attributing some to natural causes and others to suicide.On October 17, The Beijing News, owned by the Beijing municipal Party Committee, and Southern Weekly, a well-known newspaper owned by the Guangdong provincial Party Committee, simultaneously published an article, repackaging and sensationalizing this sensational case, placing the blame on The Church of Almighty God (CAG). Afterward, this fake news story was widely reported by the official media, in an attempt to create a new public opinion campaign against the CAG."
"One day in November, 2006, Jintao Liu, a 26-year-old chemical engineering student at the China University of Petroleum in Beijing, got a phone call from his lecturer, asking if he could come to the chemistry lab for a quick chat. It was about noon and Jintao was about to start lunch, but the lecturer was an important man, so Jintao did as he was told."I thought he wanted to talk to me about work," says Jintao. When he entered the lab, however, he saw his lecturer, together with two policemen and four plain-clothed members of the 610 Office, an extra-judicial body set up by the Communist Party with the sole purpose of eradicating Falun Gong, a spiritual movement the Chinese government regards as an evil cult and a challenge to its authority.Jintao, who practised Falun Gong, had recently downloaded some material – music mainly – onto his desktop computer in the lab. When the policemen examined the computer, they found the Falun Gong material and arrested him. "I asked them if they had a search warrant or an arrest order and they scribbled on a piece of paper, chucked it at me and said, 'That's your warrant.' "Jintao, who has anglicised his name to Tony, lives in a 1970s red-brick home in Epping, a quiet, leafy suburb in Sydney's north-west. He and his wife, Tina, fled China in 2013, coming to Australia where they were granted protection visas. (They are now Australian citizens.) At 39, Tony has broad-set eyes, a cautious smile and a pronounced liking for black tea, which Tina supplies in prodigious quantities throughout our conversation. He still adheres to Falun Gong, which he credits with far-reaching mental and physical benefits. In a country like China, where organised religion has been repressed, Falun Gong gave Tony what he calls "a deeper sense of meaning".Following his arrest, Tony underwent four months of brainwashing in the Beijing Changping Detention Centre, where he was forced to watch videos and read newspapers detailing Falun Gong's alleged crimes. When he refused to denounce the movement, he was put in a cell with eight drug addicts who were induced by the guards to regularly beat him. 'One day, they were beating me around the back and waist when a guard ran in and told them, 'Don't damage his organs!' '"
"Fobes Ranch, once home to psychologist Timothy Leary, has been purchased by YouTube star Logan Paul.Located in the San Jacinto Mountains near Lake Hemet, the 80-acre ranch, which features a 500-square-foot residence, served as a gathering place for Leary and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, otherwise known as the Hippie Mafia.The ranch was on the market for $1.495 million, and Paul purchased it for a dollar over $1 million, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Known for a controversial video showing the corpse of a man who committed suicide in 2018, Paul is also an actor and has appeared on the TV series "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" and the 2019 film "Airplane Mode."The cozy getaway home in Duchess Canyon has one bedroom with sleeping loft, a three-quarter bath, slate tile shower, solar-powered electricity, Vermont soapstone wood stove and pine cathedral ceilings along with propane cooking, refrigeration and tankless hot water."
"Last year, Netflix proved our cultural obsession with cults is far from over with "Wild Wild Country," the hit docu-series about Rajneeshpuram cult leader Bhagwan Rajneesh and his followers. In the years since its massive international popularity has grown, yoga has attracted millions of devotees as fervent as any cult followers. But none as cult-like as Bikram yoga, or hot yoga, founded and popularized by Bikram Choudhury. A new Netflix documentary titled "Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator" tells the story of the cult-like figure, who abused his position to rape, assault, and harass multiple women in his ranks. The newly released trailer showcases countless interviews with his followers and victims, often blurring the line between them."He sees himself as a cross between Mother Teresa and Howard Stern," one male interview subject says in the trailer. Another woman recalls, "I'd see flashes of megalomania, but I didn't know how diabolical he actually was." The rest of the trailer is full of explosive interviews with women who remain supportive of Choudhury, as well as difficult to stomach archival footage of Choudhury literally standing on top of multiple women in supine yoga poses."
"The new documentary "Blessed Child" provides a fascinating look at the Unification Church, a movement founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, through testimonials of those who escaped."
"Vancouver antiracist educator Tony McAleer is astonishingly transparent about his past life as a neo-Nazi activist.In his new memoir, The Cure for Hate: A Former White Supremacist's Journey From Violent Extremism to Radical Compassion, he describes attending the Aryan Nations World Congress of 1988, which took place at the racist group's compound in Idaho.'There were various members of Klans (contrary to popular belief, the Ku Klux Klan is not a large solitary force but has splintered into dozens of regional and sometimes competing groups of different sizes) and old-school Nazis from the days of George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party, founded in 1959, wearing brown shirts and swastika armbands,' McAleer writes. 'Every major white supremacist faction was represented, but at this Congress, skinheads were present in large numbers for the first time. There was even a group of Christian Identity skinheads from Las Vegas accompanied by sisters and girlfriends who all had blonde hair and brown Nazi uniforms—they were euphemistically referred to as the Brown Skirts.'"
We suggest that you check all characteristics that apply to you or your group. You may find that your assessment changes over time, with further reading and research.
- The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
- The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
- The group is preoccupied with making money.
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
- Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
- The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
- The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
- The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
- The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
- The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
- The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
- Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
- Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
"Christy's name has been changed to protect her identity due to fear of retribution from church members.Christy listened eagerly as the stranger from the post office told her about their bible study group. She'd grown up religious and wanted her son to have a similar upbringing, so she wrote down the church's address and paid them a visit. Less than two years after joining the church, she was homeless, had lost over $3,500 and was sharing custody of her son with her now ex-husband.Christy's experience with the World Mission Society Church of God, which occurred in Nebraska, wasn't unique. Since the church was established in Korea in 1964, several ex-members have released videos urging the public against joining. Two UTD students reported recruitment attempts from church members while one witnessed what happened after her friend joined the UTD chapter of the church, the Elohim Bible Study Club. Political science senior Kathryn Higgins ran into church members in 2018 while running errands in Arlington."
"New Age guru Abraham Hicks has made many shocking and disturbing statements about rape, slavery, 9/11 victims and Holocaust deaths. She claims "less than 1% of rapes" are "true violations" and the rest are attractions. Hicks believes slavery was "the beginning of a journey that was better" and part of an "overall improvement in humanity." She says "AIDS is the physical manifestation of not liking yourself." Hicks and others like Rhonda Byrne, creator of "The Secret," have taken a partial truth and concretized it into a religious absolutist system known as the Law of Attraction and made millions in the process. The teaching is harmful and a form of spiritual bypassing."
New York Post : Inside the alleged 'cult' that has been quietly operating in NY for decades."In December 1978, a bizarre theater company headed by an actress from the "Slaughterhouse-Five" film was run out of San Francisco.Members of Sharon Gans' so-called Theater of All Possibilities had come forward to claim they were pressured into arranged marriages, beaten if they didn't sell tickets and had gone broke paying for classes — while Gans and her husband lived in a tony home in the posh neighborhood of Pacific Heights.With the police asking questions and the ex-members' claims splashed across the pages of local papers, the actress and her theater group closed up shop and seemingly disappeared from public view.But they never really went away.A new group sprang up in the 1980s in New York under the name Odyssey Study Group and has been operating here quietly ever since — still led by the washed-up actress, now 84, who reigns from a $8.5 million apartment at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel that was mostly paid for by devotees, according to public records."
" ... No one is sure what will come of La Mora after the ambush, suspected of being perpetrated by a drug cartel, but everyone agrees the place has changed. The people who grew up here tell of a childhood of romping in the brown desert hills that surround the valley, of fishing and swimming in the river that runs past the homes, and of helping their families raise the crops or cattle that thrive nearby.Now, they talk about their fears."I do not feel safe here and I won't," David Langford, the husband to Dawna Langford and father to Trevor and Rogan, said Thursday at the closing remarks to their funeral.Later Thursday, Joe Darger, a polygamist from Herriman, Utah, who attended Thursday's services, tweeted that Dawna Langford's family members planned to relocate, though they didn't know where yet."
Mexican officials have confirmed an "unspecified number" of arrests in connection with last week's cartel massacre that left nine Mormon women and kids dead."There have been arrests, but it's not up to us to give information," Security Minister Alfonso Durazo told reporters Monday.Prosecutors in Sonora, as well as at the federal level, are leading the investigation, according to Durazo.But a spokeswoman for the state government of Sonora told Reuters, "We don't have that information."Three women, 8-month-old twins and four other children were killed in the Nov. 4 bloodbath in the border state of Sonora, near where they worship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The families were members of La Mora, a decades-old settlement in Sonora founded as part of an offshoot of the mainline Mormon church."
