Mar 13, 2020

CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/12/2020




Jehovah's Witnesses, Twelve Tribes, Australia, Legal, Eliezer Berland, Israel, Child Abuse, Addiction, Edgar Cayce, Psychic, Scam, Jihad, Documentary, Shincheonji, Korea

"For 15 years John and his family were committed Jehovah's Witnesses and highly thought of among the community who would meet at the Kingdom Hall in Barry. "I just put my head down and thoroughly enjoyed myself," said John. He was chair of the hospital liaison committee in Wales, trying to work with the medical profession to offer alternative treatments that didn't use donated blood for Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Jehovah's Witnesses don't have a death wish so I genuinely felt my work was helping people," he said. But then came the bombshell that Karen, who had just turned 16, had been abused by her uncle and Jehovah's Witnesses elder Mark Sewell.

Karen was just 12 when she first indicated that something was wrong, telling John she didn't like the way Sewell was kissing her when he visited. "It went over my head what she was trying to say," sighed John. "I don't remember ever thinking about my own abuse. I had no idea that there were other things going on." It wasn't until she wrote it all down on paper when she was 16 that Karen's parents discovered the full truth.

Like "good Jehovah's Witnesses" they dealt with the issue through the church's internal judicial system.

The Jehovah's Witnesses religion is one that polices itself and teaches members to avoid interaction with outside authorities. One of the rules set by the main governing body requires that for child sexual abuse to be taken seriously there must be two witnesses to it. In addition any alleged child sex abuse victims must recount their allegations in front of their abuser.

The whole process was a harrowing ordeal for Karen and the family eventually involved the police too. Even so no prosecution was brought at that time and Karen had to live with the judgement and disbelief of the religious community for 20 years.

It wasn't until July 2014 that businessman and former Butlins holiday camp driver Sewell was jailed for 14 years after being convicted of eight historic sex charges against girls and women in a period spanning more than eight years."

"'I think you could use that word, I don't normally. Sect is probably better- a little bit less emotional. But definitely high controlling," he told A Current Affair.

Czarnecki has never spoken publicly before about the three decades he spent as a leader of the Australian arm of the Twelve Tribes.

He contacted A Current Affair after our investigation in October revealed the severe disciplinary measures enforced on children as young as six months of age.

"How did I feel about it? I thought it was great," he said of his views of the group's disciplinary methods.

However, the arrival of his own children saw a change of heart.

"Life takes on a different flavor and smacking your own little human being on the bed there … sounds different all of a sudden," Czarnecki said."

"When attorney for elderly rabbi raises concerns over his health, judge suggests he take Mentos mints, which he allegedly gave out as a 'wonder drug'.

The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Thursday extended by eight days the detention of Rabbi Eliezer Berland, a convicted sex offender who has been arrested anew for allegedly fleecing millions of shekels from terminally ill patients by promising miraculous recoveries.

Judge Sharon Lary-Bavly wrote in her decision that Berland "cynically exploited" his alleged victims by, among other things, giving "Mentos to patients under the guise of medication."

During the deliberations Berland's attorney Amit Hadad raised the issue of his client's poor health as a reason to not keep him in custody.

Lary-Bavly shot back, "Give him a Mentos."

Dozens of Berland's supporters demonstrated outside the court during the proceedings, their vocal protests audible in the courtroom."

"For nearly three weeks, a Gunnison jury weighed the evidence against purported religious leader Madani Ceus, who was accused of murdering young sisters Makayla Roberts, 10, and Hannah Marshall, 8, in 2017.

The children's badly decomposed bodies were found on a Norwood farm that September.

Late Thursday, the jury returned a verdict: Not guilty of first-degree murder, but guilty of both charged counts of child abuse resulting in death, a class-2 felony.

"The jury's spoken and found the defendant guilty of child abuse causing death, which is certainly true," San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters said Thursday."

" ... On average, 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. An estimated 20 million people are struggling with a substance use disorder in this country. It's important to understand that addiction starts long before the first drug is ever taken. Drug addiction is not a moral failing; it's a public health issue. People with addiction disorders are human beings struggling with a human condition. Ostracizing people who likely already feel damaged, unlovable, stigmatized does nothing to solve what is, almost invariably, at the core of addiction—emotional pain and trauma.

These earlier models of tough love keep those struggling locked in a cycle of shame. And that shame becomes a gatekeeper that prevents people from reaching out for help. That shame kills people. It nearly killed me.

Personal boundaries are healthy and essential for everyone. What does that look like when you have someone in your life struggling with addiction? Drugs aren't allowed in my house. You can't drive my car. I am not participating in illegal activity with you. I'm not covering up for you. If you are violent, physically or verbally, I will remove myself."

" ... Once in the US, he shot to fame with an iodine solution that he created to enhance people's psychic abilities, which was also promoted by Edgar Cayce -- an American Psychic and Mystic. Followers of Cayce continue to use this solution. Post this, however, Bhise's trajectory shifted from science to occultism -- that eventually tarnished his reputation -- creating objects like a 'spirit typewriter' which was a different take on the mystical Ouija Board.  He passed away on 7 April 1935, in New York at the age of 68."

" ... Hospitals don't have paid faith healers on their staffs (although patients may invite them to the rooms of their loved ones), because what they claim to offer has no scientific backing, no evidence of efficacy. The equivalent of "quacks." And if psychics actually could foretell the future, such as what the Powerball numbers will be next week, they would be among the only — if not the only — winners ever. But they don't, so rationally speaking they're not."

" ... 'So I was just exploring that world. How somebody in Philadelphia and somebody in Colorado and somebody in Baltimore and somebody in Waterford were all planning to kill someone in Sweden. It was all so strange. And it's a story that couldn't have happened in the 1960s or 70s it could have only happened at that moment.'

Cassidy's questions form the spine of his fascinating new feature documentary, Jihad Jane. Colleen LaRose's strange radicalisation began following an anonymous sexual encounter with a 'Middle Eastern guy' she met on holiday in Amsterdam. Returning to American life, while caring for her elderly mother and her partner's elderly father, she became fascinated by the Arab world and the Palestinian cause. It was a lonely and tough existence for someone her partner Kurt Gorman described as a 'social person'."

" ... Members of Crossroads Church were recently sent a letter warning about the Shincheonji cult, also know as New Heaven and New Earth.

Shincheonji was founded by Lee Man-Hee in South Korea in 1984, with Man-Hee professing to be the second-coming of Jesus Christ and claiming only he can properly interpret the Bible.

Shincheonji has been active in Wellington, with senior pastor Nick Field of The Street Church saying members of the group invited people from his church to Bible studies, which were then used as fronts to isolate people.

The letter to Crossroads members said Shincheonji recruiters were believed to be targeting highly populated student areas.

While having no confirmed sightings of the cult being active in Palmerston North, the church wanted to proactively let people know what was going on."

" ... There were overseas reports of Shincheonji recruiters infiltrating churches and stirring up concerns about the leadership by sowing lies about financial issues or inappropriate sexual relationships, she said.

Young people were targets for all cults, as they had likely never encountered a predator like cult recruiters before.

Students were especially appealing, as they were good at understanding abstract concepts, she said.

Despite the fears about Shincheonji, many people who entered cults did not regret the experience.

The deep relationships with members, often closer than family ones, the satisfaction of religious certainty and fast-paced action were all positives to those inside the cults, [Massey University senior lecturer Dr Heather Kavan]
said.

'The negative parts are the relentless pressure tactics and feelings of powerlessness against unassailable leaders.'"



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