Jesuit order in Spain apologises for decades of sexual abuse by members

Society of Jesus admits 81 children and 21 adults were sexually abused by 96 of its members since 1927

Sam Jones in Madrid
The Guardian
January 21. 2021

The Jesuit order in Spain has admitted that 81 children and 21 adults have been sexually abused by 96 of its members since 1927, and has apologised for the “painful, shameful and sorrowful” crimes.

In a report released on Thursday, the Society of Jesus, whose members often work as teachers, said most of the abuse had taken place in schools “or was related to schools”.

According to the document, 48 of the 65 Jesuits who abused children are dead. Four of the surviving abusers are no longer Jesuits and 13 have been prevented from working with children pending the outcome of civil or canonical cases, or have already been ordered to cease their ministry and sent to isolated Jesuit communities.

The order said the 96 Jesuits who carried out abuse of children and adults between 1927 and 2020 represented 1.08% of its members over the period.

Antonio España, the order’s provincial superior in Spain, said the abuse filled its members with shame and pain.

“We want to learn to apologise to the victims and to society for the abuses, for the culture of silence, and for not facing the facts fair and square,” he said. “We also want to bear in mind that there are people who’ve suffered these wounds and we’re trying not to increase the pain they feel.”

The order did not name the abusers, telling El País newspaper: “We want to find a balance between avoiding a witch-hunt and sending a message to possible victims that they can trust in our desire to seek out the truth.”

It said it was committed to transparency, adding that protocols and plans had been devised to guarantee that Jesuit institutions were “safe places for children and vulnerable people”.

The order said it believed some people had come forward to report abuse over the past two years using the email address proteccion@jesuitas.es, which it had set up to help victims.

Infancia Robada (Stolen Childhood), an association that represents victims of childhood abuse, welcomed the report but said its figures were “ridiculous” given the era in which many of the crimes had happened.

“They seem to have forgotten that victims don’t report abuse when they want to – it’s something they only do when they can,” said the association’s president, Juan Cuatrecasas. “In 1927, no one would have been able to report something like this. We appreciate the effort that the Jesuits have gone to by diving into the past and providing dates and statistics, but this should be seen as the very beginning of something else – of acknowledgement and recognition.”

Cuatrecasas said the Jesuits needed to talk to the victims and set about the process of punishment and compensation.

In 2018, Pope Francis – who is a Jesuit – acknowledged the failures of the Roman Catholic church in dealing with sexual abuse by priests, attacking a “culture of death” and deferential “clericalism” that he said helped perpetuate evil.

But he was criticised the following year for failing to take concrete action on the matter and for arguing that the sexual abuse of children was not confined to the church but had, historically, been “a widespread phenomenon in all cultures and societies”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/21/jesuit-order-spain-apologises-sexual-abuse

Libertarian Gore-Tex heiress fuels hidden political donations

Gregory Nickerson

WyoFile

April 28, 2015

Susan Gore is arguably Wyoming’s most influential libertarian promoter.

She puts millions of her personal wealth into political activities and nonprofit groups that speak loudly in the Legislature and on the campaign trail.

Since 2008, Gore has founded and financed three non-profit organizations that seek to reshape Wyoming politics and loosen restrictions on campaign spending nationwide. These include the Wyoming Liberty Group, Republic Free Choice, and the Pillar of Law Institute. Her staff had a role in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that allowed corporations, unions, and certain nonprofits to ramp up their political spending.

Even so, many who oppose her activities seem somewhat in the dark about just who she is, where she came from, and what her ultimate goals are. WyoFile’s review of published biographies, court cases, land records, and historical documents reveals some of the facets of her life.

Gore, a resident of Cheyenne, has lived in Wyoming for almost 20 years. Her Wyoming roots go back three generations in the southwest part of the state. She came to Wyoming in the mid-1990s after living for more than a decade in a transcendental meditation community in Fairfield, Iowa. Before that she lived in Delaware and Vermont.

More widely known is that Gore grew up in the family that founded the company most famous for inventing Gore-Tex fabric. Through the course of her life, the private family company grew from a small operation in a basement to a global chemical engineering behemoth that makes more than $3 billion in annual revenue and employs 10,000 people.

Gore’s own assets have fluctuated. She was wealthy by the 1980s due to inheriting shares of a family trust, but nearly bankrupt by the late 1990s after falling ill and ending her support of the meditation movement. She later viewed her involvement in the movement as a mistake, according her testimony before a Delaware court.

Her mother then gave her enough shares of family stock to make her wealthy again in the 2000s. In 2003 she adopted her ex-husband in an unsuccessful attempt to boost her children’s share of the family inheritance.

Through it all, Gore pursued her version of a better world. And in Wyoming, she seems to have found her niche as a promoter of conservative-libertarian ideas.

Two of her sons, Joel Otto and Nathan Otto, also play a role by serving on the boards of her groups.

Together, their efforts put pressure on Wyoming’s small-money elections, where nearly every legislative race costs less than $20,000.

Dan Neal, a long-time legislative observer who formerly directed the Equality State Policy Center, has followed Gore’s groups for years.

“I think they are getting more attention than they deserve,” Neal said. “This woman moves in from out of state and hires a bunch of people to come here and tell us what to do. It seems a little odd.”

“Everybody’s got a right to speak their mind,” he said, “but people need to recognize she’s got a lot of money, and she can make her voice a lot bigger and a lot louder than most people.”

Susan Gore’s rise in Wyoming is two intertwined stories: the work of three conservative-libertarian groups with national ambitions to promote anonymous political spending, and the journey of their founder, whose experience as an heiress to a successful family business informed the political changes she proposes.

WyoFile requested comment from Gore through her staff. She did not respond. [ ... ]

Susan Gore’s life

" ... Susan Gore was born in 1939. The family originally lived in Salt Lake City, but moved to Delaware in 1950. According to reporting by the Wilmington (Delaware) News Journal, she attended Newark High School in Delaware where she met her future husband Jan C. Otto. They both attended Middlebury College. Otto later earned a graduate degree in physics from Dartmouth and an M.B.A. from Harvard. She and Otto divorced in 1981, and he later moved to Boulder, Colorado.

During the 1980s Susan Gore put part of her resources into supporting the transcendental meditation movement, advocating for prisons to use meditation as part of rehabilitating inmates. She gave to the effort in Vermont, a state where she had lived with Otto.

Gore and her sons later lived near the Fairfield, Iowa, headquarters of the transcendental meditation movement started by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, one-time spiritual advisor to the Beatles. The community included a university and dozens of start-up businesses founded by followers of the Maharishi, including Gore and her sons.

Delaware Chancery Court documents cite Gore as testifying she became ill and was in “very, very bad shape” by the end of her time in the meditation movement. According to Susan Gore’s testimony as cited in a Delaware Supreme Court decision: “After leaving the [meditation] movement in 1995, Susan spent three years convalescing in a series of monasteries. By the end of the 1990s, Susan was facing the possibility of personal bankruptcy.”

Her financial troubles came after years of selling her shares of family stock and putting money into the meditation movement and her sons’ businesses, according to her siblings. At one point she invested $5 million into her son Joel Otto’s airplane business, according to the Wilmington News Journal reporting.

During Gore’s marriage to Otto, she sold a portion of her 3,900 shares in the Gore company to support herself and her family, according to court documents. She also put 1,340 of her shares into trusts to benefit her children and out of her own reach.

Susan Gore moved to Wyoming in about 1996. In an effort to resolve her financial situation Gore wrote a letter in 1999 to her mother asking for more Gore stock from the family’s Pokeberry Trust. Vieve Gore eventually released 336 shares of stock to support Susan, according to court documents. The shares together were potentially worth tens of millions of dollars."

https://www.wyofile.com/libertarian-gore-tex-heiress-fuels-hidden-political-donations/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/26/2021 (Jehovah's Witnesses, QAnon, Hillsong, Ireland, Child Abuse)

Jehovah's Witnesses, QAnon, Hillsong, Ireland, Child Abuse

The Telegraph: Singer Aled Jones hits false note with Jehovah's Witnesses

"When Aled Jones decided to record a Christmas album he was determined it should celebrate every faith to try to unite all the world's religions after a difficult and challenging year.

But now the 40th album of the Walking in the Air singer has become embroiled in a legal battle with the Jehovah's Witnesses who claim sales should be halted because the inclusion of one of its "unauthorised" songs "breaches" copyright.

Lawyers for the church have filed legal papers in New York accusing the singer and BMG Rights Management of failing to get permission to use 'Listen, Obey and Be Blessed'.

They say featuring it on a Christmas album is "hypocritical" because Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas and it causes them "to be viewed in a significantly negative light" by its believers around the world."

NBC News: Like QAnon's Capitol rioters, the Nashville bomber's lizard people theory is deadly serious

Bonkers? Sure. Harmless? Definitely not.

" ... The notion of shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptilian humanoids invading Earth to control the human race sounds like a cheesy sci-fi plot. But it's actually a very old trope with disturbing links to anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic hostilities dating to the 19th century.

Bonkers? Sure. Harmless? Definitely not.

Law enforcement sources say Warner's writings indicate his interest in a number of conspiracy theories — including the lizard people takeover. He may even have had a pastime of hunting such aliens in the park. Before the blast, Warner sent packages to friends filled with material expounding on his bizarre worldview. They included a letter that began "Hey Dude, You will never believe what I found in the park."

The world-ruled-by-lizard-people fantasy shot to prominence in recent years in part through the ramblings of David Icke, a popular British sports reporter-turned-conspiracy theorist known for his eccentric ideas.

Icke would have you believe that a race of reptilian beings not only invaded Earth, but that it also created a genetically modified lizard-human hybrid race called the "Babylonian Brotherhood," which, he maintains, is busy plotting a worldwide fascist state. This sinister cabal of global reptilian elites boasts a membership list including former President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Mick Jagger."

NY Post: Hillsong leader's old sex book slur reignites shocking church scandal

" ... As pastors leave en mass and former members continue to come forward with abuse allegations against megachurch Hillsong, co-founder Bobbie Houston's 2003 audiobook, "Kingdom Women Love Sex," has come under fresh scrutiny, as have her and the church's allegedly entrenched sexist and homophobic beliefs.

In the unearthed sex advice guide, Houston also invokes a slur against the developmentally disabled in describing how women should be physically fit to attract men.

"If I carry weight I feel like a r – – ard," she said in regard to her own ideals regarding the ideal weight and fitness.

"How are you going to do anything to surprise your man when you need a hydraulic crane just to turn over in bed?" the Pentecostal pastor, 63, asks on the three-CD box set."

The Guardian: Report to reveal scale of abuse at Ireland's mother and baby homes

Results of investigation expected to tell how 9,000 children died in 18 institutions between 1922 and 1998.

"The grim history of a network of religious institutions in Ireland that abused and shamed unmarried mothers and their children for much of the 20th century is to be laid bare.

A judicial commission of investigation into Ireland's mother and baby homes has documented shocking death rates and callousness in institutions that doubled as orphanages and adoption agencies.

The mother and baby homes commission is to share a 3,000-page report with survivors of the system on Tuesday. Its five-year investigation was prompted by the discovery of a mass grave of babies and children in Tuam, County Galway.

The taoiseach, Michéal Martin, is to give a formal state apology in the Dáil on Wednesday. Martin, who has read the report, reportedly found the contents shocking and difficult to read.

It estimates 9,000 children died in 18 institutions between 1922 and 1998 when the last such home closed, according to a leak published in the Sunday Independent. The infant mortality rate is said to have been double the national rate, underlining the impact of neglect, malnutrition and disease.

Another source of anger for survivors is the policy of the religious organisations – and the state – to impede them from tracing each other. Ireland denies adopted people the legal right to their own information and files. The report is understood to chronicle many of the lies and obfuscations of priests, nuns and officials."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

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

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

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House of Commons passes motion to designate Proud Boys a terrorist entity

THE CANADIAN PRESS

January 25, 2021


The House of Commons has passed a motion to designate the Proud Boys a terrorist entity.

The motion passed with unanimous consent, but at this point it’s not an official designation.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair is still gathering evidence to possibly make it an official designation.

If that happens, the Proud Boys would join groups like al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Islamic State on Canada’s national list of terrorist organizations.

 

Founded by Canadian Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys are a right-wing group that is unapologetically misogynist and increasingly linked to white supremacy and hate.

The group was banned by Facebook and Instagram in October 2018 for violating their hate policies.

The Proud Boys first made headlines in Canada when several self-identified members in the Royal Canadian Navy disrupted an Indigenous protest in Halifax in 2017, and has since grown its international profile and membership.

Several members were reportedly among those who stormed Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., following a speech by Donald Trump last week.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/01/25/house-passes-motion-to-designate-proud-boys-a-terrorist-entity/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/30-31/2021 (Research, Book, Extremism, QAnon, Covid, Israel, ultra-Orthodox, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters)

Research, Book, Extremism, QAnon, Covid,  Israel, ultra-Orthodox, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters

Study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations

Letter from the Researcher:

I hope this email finds you and your family safe and healthy. My name is Carlie Cegielski and I am an undergraduate student in my senior year at the University at Albany. Through the school of Criminal Justice Honors program, I have been given the opportunity to conduct my own research, which I invite you to take part in. The goal of my study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations. More specifically, to understand the system of cults, their leaders and how individual's get involved.

You will be asked to respond to a series of questions via an anonymous online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes. Prior to beginning the survey there are a few things you should note. I ask that you answer these questions to the best of your ability. If at any point you feel uncomfortable sharing information, there is the option to skip the question or stop the survey altogether. This survey has no intention of collecting any identifiable information, as all information will be completely anonymous, and all information will be held confidential. I urge you not to share any information that may be too descriptive or could potentially be identifiable. If I believe any information could possibly be traced back to any person, it will be excluded from the research.

Chicago Tribune: I was caught up in a religious cult. I know there's a way to reach today's young extremists

"I was once an extremist. Now I am not. I was a member of a fundamentalist Bible organization that was homophobic and misogynistic, denied the Holocaust and used psychological terror and manipulation to control its followers. The leader believed in eugenics.

Now I am a retired grandmother living on a farm. How did this happen?

President Biden wants to unite the country by encouraging us to stand in one another's shoes. But standing in the shoes, more likely boots, of one whose views we consider abhorrent and immoral is no easy matter. The first step, if you'll forgive the pun, is to acknowledge our views are equally abhorrent and immoral to them.
During my 15 years in the group, the only "outsider" who made a consistent effort to keep in touch with me was my mother. She wrote letter after letter, though I rarely answered. She had been, after all, offended by the leader from the moment she heard him speak. "Sounds like the Third Reich to me," she said. I didn't understand what she meant. I was only 14.

Being the liberal-minded intellectual that she was, my mother, a secular Jew, never attempted to limit my explorations. She believed the First Amendment applied to everyone, irrespective of age. She learned this lesson at 6, when her progressive father sat her at Sunday dinner and engaged her in lively conversation with his guest, the political activist and socialist, Eugene V. Debs. (My grandfather, William Castleman, owned a press that published The Unionist, the largest labor newspaper in Chicago in 1920.)"

CultNEWS101: QAnon Collection

Independent: Ultra-Orthodox rabbi tells followers Covid vaccine 'can turn people gay'

LGBT+ rights group Havruta says it is 'currently gearing up to welcome our impending new members' after a bizarre and factually inaccurate claim.

"An ultra-Orthodox rabbi has told his followers to avoid getting a Covid vaccine because it can "make them gay".

Israeli media reported that Rabbi Daniel Asor, who has amassed a large online following, also claimed inoculation efforts were part of a "global malicious government" trying to "establish a new world order".

While his claim of a link between the vaccine and homosexuality is factually incorrect, it also contradicts statements from leading orthodox rabbis who have called on their followers to come forward for a coronavirus jab.

According to news outlet Israel Yahom, Mr Asor used a recent sermon to claim: "Any vaccine made using an embryonic substrate, and we have evidence of this, causes opposite tendencies. Vaccines are taken from an embryonic substrate, and they did that here, too, so ... it can cause opposite tendencies," seemingly referring to homosexuality.  

Responding to his comments, LGBT+ rights group Havruta joked that it was 'currently gearing up to welcome our impending new members'."

Washington Post: FBI moves on alleged members of extremist groups Oath Keepers, Three Percenters

"A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two ex-military militia members from Ohio have been charged with allegedly taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building.

Jon Schaffer, an Indiana musician, turned himself in to the FBI on Sunday afternoon, officials said. On Jan. 6, Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing a hat that said "Oath Keepers Lifetime Member." Schaffer founded Iced Earth, a heavy-metal band, and music fans quickly recognized him as the FBI circulated wanted posters with his face on them.

Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray.

Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; "encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building."

Gieswein runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a patch for that group was visible on a tactical vest he wore during the attack on Congress, an FBI affidavit said.

Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was 'that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.'"

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

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

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

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

Facebook

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Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to CultNEWS101.com.

Swiss text sleuths unpick mystery of QAnon origins

Geneva (AFP)
France 24

The mysterious "Q" behind the QAnon conspiracy movement, which was instrumental in the storming of the US Capitol, is in fact two people, according to Swiss experts.

Swiss startup OrphAnalytics said it had used its algorithm-based machine-learning text analysis software, developed to detect plagiarism, to help crack the mystery behind QAnon.

"There are clearly two styles characterising the QAnon messages," company chief Claude Alain Roten told AFP in an interview at his home in western Switzerland.

The conspiracy movement is based on messages by "Q Clearance Patriot", who claims to be a US intelligence official leaking classified information.

The so-called Q-drops began appearing on fringe messaging board 4chan in October 2017 and later moved to 8kun, promoting a vast conspiracy theory claiming President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping paedophiles.

There has been speculation about Q's identity and whether one person is really behind thousands of these Q-drops but Roten said it was now clear "two people are behind them".

- 'Two styles' -

The 60-year-old asked AFP not to divulge the location of the house, which serves as a meeting place for the dozen or so employees currently all working from home, over concern about the reaction to the firm's analysis.

The company does so-called sequential stylometric analysis, which statistically analyses character sequences, comparing the frequency of single letters, letter pairs or triplets to determine the author or authors of a text.

They use the technique to uncover academic plagiarism, ghostwriters or, for instance, to determine whether portions of a will or a contract may have been tampered with.

But Roten, who spent three years in the United States, said he had grown increasingly concerned over QAnon's "population manipulation" there, and had decided to apply his software on the movement without being paid.

A biologist by training, Roten switched fields after realising the same principles used to identify genetic codes could help spot the singular characteristics of a person's writing style.

"I feel like I am still in the same profession," he said.

- 'Looks convincing' -

His colleague, a lanky 63-year-old with grey hair and a fabric facemask who asked to be identified only as Rene, showed off the software on a laptop perched on Roten's dining room table.

After "cleaning" 4,950 Q-drops of irrelevant content like web links and greetings, he feeds them into the software.

On the screen, a colourful scatter plot chart appears showing two clearly distinct collections of dots.

He said the chart showed a clear difference in style between the first Q messages that appeared on 4chan, from October 28 to December 1, 2017, and the subsequent messages.

"The signal difference is strong enough to leave very little doubt on this author's swap," OrphAnalytics said in a white paper published last month.

Florian Cafiero, a renowned stylometry researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, said OrphAnalytics' work on QAnon "looks convincing".

Stylometry has been around for more than a century, but the advent of computers has dramatically boosted the capacity to analyse large quantities of data.

OrphAnalytics has made a number of headlines since its founding in 2014, having put its software to sometimes surprising use.

It helped sniff out the likely author behind the beloved Elena Ferrante pseudonym, comparing her writing to samples from two Italian authors suspected of being behind her books, discovering, Roten said, that "Domenico Starnone writes in a style that is indistinguishable from Elena Ferrante".

- 'Dark side'? -

And it has reportedly been engaged as an expert witness in criminal cases, including the unsolved 1986 murder of four-year-old Gregory Villemin in France.

Roten refused to say whether his company was working on that case, or comment on any of the handful of judicial cases it has been asked to weigh in on, saying such comments could taint a case.

He said the company's approach of focusing purely on statistical analysis, and stripping away all the context and hypotheses generally used to enrich text analysis, helped avoid allowing preconceptions colour the outcome.

"It is difficult to imagine anything more neutral than this," he said.

Cafiero agreed the novel adaption of the technique to the judicial process could help "avoid making mistakes".

But he voiced concerns about "risks" linked to broadening the application of an increasingly powerful technology, such as potentially helping to identify whistleblowers.

"With any technology, there is light and there is a dark side," Roten acknowledged, stressing that his company had strict ethical guidelines to "avoid our stylometric sequencing approach being used to serve the dark side".

As for the QAnon probe, he said he felt an obligation to help illuminate who was behind the curtain.

"We are responsible people. If we can act, we act."

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210117-swiss-text-sleuths-unpick-mystery-of-qanon-origins

If someone you care about has been radicalized, here's what to know

Alia E. Dastagir

USA TODAY

January 17, 2021

The violence America witnessed at the U.S. Capitol was more than unleashed rage. Terrorism experts say it was the culmination of years of radicalization.

"A lot of people at the Capitol protest I would describe as radicalized," said Mary Beth Altier, a professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs and an expert in political violence. "I'm worried about the next two to three weeks, and then after the election about the potential for escalation."

Wednesday's insurrection left much of the nation stunned. But many friends and family of the rioters felt something else, too: grief, powerlessness, humiliation. The daughter of a Virginia man who was arrested said she was "ashamed and disgusted" by her father's actions. The sister of Rosanne Boyland, who was killed in the riot, said her family begged her not to go.

"It can be heartbreaking for families to realize that they have lost family members to this way of thinking," said John Horgan, a psychology professor at Georgia State University and director of the Violent Extremism Research Group.

USA TODAY spoke with Altier and Horgan about what radicalization is, how de-radicalization works and where there is room for loved ones to help: 

What is radicalization?

Radicalization is when someone accepts or believes in ideas that are considered extreme or outside the status quo, Altier said. When someone becomes radicalized, they are so committed to their extreme beliefs that they can't accept the fact that other people believe different things.

Not all people who become radicalized are violent, though radicalization can lead to violent extremism. Some people at the Capitol riot were radicalized, Altier said, but not all committed or even condoned violence.

What is de-radicalization?

De-radicalization is the process of giving up your belief in an extreme idea. It's also accepting pluralism – allowing for a reality in which we can all hold different beliefs and recognizing that we shouldn't impose our beliefs on others. Extreme ideologies usually maintain that other versions of reality aren't acceptable. 

Horgan said de-radicalization usually happens when someone grows disillusioned with their involvement in an extreme group. Often many people have to cross a line before they decide to step back. 

Why someone can't be forced to de-radicalize

Experts say people generally can't be forced to de-radicalize. A person has to want to change.

"It's not something that people can be convinced to do," Horgan said. "I don't know that it's ever necessarily too late ... but be careful about the allure of a quick fix."

He notes much of what we know about the process of de-radicalization from terrorism comes from prison settings, which is not comparable to a setting in which a concerned family member may approach a loved one. But even then, the success of these efforts has been limited. 

Experts say de-radicalization can take years, decades even, especially when someone is deeply ideologically committed.

"I've interviewed a neo-Nazi who would look at bagels and wouldn't eat them because they were 'of the Jews' essentially," Altier said. "Even though he's left this Nazi group, he doesn't really engage in that anymore. ... You've trained your mind to think one way, and now you have to untrain it – that when you see a bagel, you don't think horrific things."

Prevention is the best bet

It's easier to prevent radicalization than it is to become de-radicalized. Once someone becomes radicalized, they engage in what's called "psychological reactance."

"The more that you tell them something's wrong, the more they kind of dig in and believe it, especially if it's coming from a non-credible voice," Altier said.

It can be frustrating for families since their efforts to help are often reflexively rebuffed, while the internet acts as a vital accelerant for radical ideas.

Analysis:The psychology of misinformation

When someone is vulnerable to radicalization, they are often in distress, so if you see someone you care about struggling, experts say reach out and offer support. The problem, they say, arises when distress becomes combined with ideology.

"When somebody tells you, 'Hey, I know you're in distress, but guess what? Somebody is responsible for it.' That's when people find themselves being radicalized and scapegoating others," Horgan said.

Offer an alternative social safety net

Directly challenging someone on their beliefs will not be fruitful. Instead, experts say you should offer alternative opportunities to channel frustration that don't involve violence, as well as alternative avenues for socialization. 

Altier said some of the people who attended the Capitol riot likely did so because they were lured by the group. 

It can be as simple as saying to someone "Hey, come hang out with us and do something else," she said.

Studies show over time, when people have more social options, when they engage in other social relationships through their jobs or their schools, their beliefs can start to change. 

"They're interacting with people who have alternate views, but those views aren't being pushed on them, they're being exposed to them," Altier said.

A role for all of us to play

The bad news is there are no easy answers. There are endless pathways to radicalization for people with diverse histories who are motivated by a mix of grievances. Some people won't be reached. Others will, but it will require patience and recognizing there are limits to what loved ones can do. 

If someone does want to take a step back from their extreme beliefs, to reexamine them or eventually disengage, one of the most productive things we can do is make it safe for them to change their minds.

"We need to reassure people that there are ways for them to come back," he said. "They have a role to play in warning others about the dangers of getting sucked in." 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/01/14/capitol-riot-radicalization-what-know-de-radicalization-how-to-help/4160249001/

QANON: THE SEARCH FOR Q

Vice

WHY DOES Q EXIST?

Bayan & Marley examine Q's impact on the American electorate as Q theories spread from the far-right to the far-left, and as more crimes are committed in the name of Q.
#QAnons

Watch
https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/why-does-q-exist/6000c19f3c91d075b70ff4a3

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/29/2021 (LGBTQ, Mormon, Church of Satan, Legal, Albania, Sabbatai Zevi, Radicalization)

LGBTQ, Mormon, Church of Satan, Legal, Albania, Sabbatai Zevi, Radicalization

Your Tango: Torn Between Two Worlds: What It's Like To Be A Mormon Lesbian

"Around age 13, I realized that I felt somewhat "different" from other girls my age.

I felt annoyed and ashamed when female peers would talk about the boys they were crushing on. One night, I told my best friend that I experienced "a weird feeling in my stomach" when I was near one of our other female friends.

Although my friend and I didn't understand my feelings at the time, I later discovered that I felt those butterflies because I found that particular girl attractive.
Even after the realization that I had feelings for my own gender, I never called myself "gay." I never told anyone about my attractions, either.

After all, my Mormon upbringing told me that homosexuality was sinful. I needed to live a moral life if I wanted to go to Heaven with my family someday.
I tried dating boys, but those relationships never worked out. Still, I fought against my "same-sex attraction" and focused all of my energy on my salvation.
I lived "in the closet" for 8 years, but eventually, I could no longer keep my secret to myself.

The moral dilemma around my sexuality caused me to experience daily panic attacks, severe depression, and even thoughts of suicide. For the longest time, I genuinely believed that dying would be easier than facing the reality of being a lesbian Mormon."

ABC: Hell to pay: Arson shakes a Church of Satan community

"Members of the Church of Satan are grieving the destruction of a historic "Halloween House" north of New York City that authorities say was set ablaze this week by an unidentified arsonist.

The historic home, built in 1900, served as an Addams Family-style hub for local adherents of the religion, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports. One member of the church likened the arson to a terrorist attack.

"Everybody's in shock and everyone in the neighborhood is worried," the member, who goes by the name Isis Vermouth, told the newspaper. "Whoever did this is going to be hexed by all of us."

"Now there's going to be hell to pay," Vermouth added.

Surveillance footage shows a man walking up to the house after 5 a.m. Thursday with two gas cans, splashing liquid on the front porch and igniting it, people said. Two people escaped the house unharmed, authorities said."

Haaretz: In Search of Sabbatai Zevi, the Self-proclaimed Messiah Who Led a crypto-Jewish Sect

"Countless bunkers, a mystical sect's paradisaical shrine and a royal palace – a journey through Albania to find the burial place.

I cast my eyes up at the high wooden ceiling and see a painting of an upside-down paradise. A green field crisscrossed by canals of golden water, a golden fountain in the center and around it depictions of flowerbeds and fruits. Below the ceiling, around the perimeter, is a latticed gallery, and below that panels decorated with paintings of imaginary dream cities, and a strip with the 99 names of Allah encircling the entire space. Under that come wooden doors painted with flowers in the colors of joy, which open into cells of seclusion. Everything is bathed in a soft light which enters through large stained-glass windows, between the decorated ceiling and the strip, in all the splendid colors of the rainbow."

Der Spiegel: The Growing Problem of Online Radicalization

The raid on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., has shown clearly just how dangerous online radicalization can be. By promoting hate and inciting violence, social media platforms represent a danger to democracy.

" ... The fact that the insurrectionists filmed their crimes in real time, thus presenting clear proof of their misdeeds to the authorities, isn't just evidence of their limited intellectual capacities. It also demonstrates a certain loss of touch with reality among these self-proclaimed "patriots." Nourished by QAnon conspiracy narratives, fantasies of election fraud and Trump's unceasing stream of lies, they believed they were in the right and felt unassailable. As such, the events of Jan. 6 could also be seen as their arrival in a world where they don't feel at all at home: The real one.

The fanatics on the front lines weren't the only ones who had one foot in the virtual world throughout that Wednesday. Hundreds of people in the crowd of supporters outside filmed what they saw on their mobile phones, posted selfies on social networks, sent pictures to friends and liked the images posted by others. The world became witness to the intoxicating narcissism of a mass of people who are constantly online and searching obsessively for clicks and likes. Trump's mob both inside and outside the Capitol were essentially an assault team made up of digital-world friends who had forgotten that they weren't in a video game, but at the seat of Congress, a place where the glass actually does break and people actually do die when shots are fired.

ANZEIGE

European Commissioner Thierry Breton of France told the news website Politico that the storming of the Capitol was akin to a 9/11 moment for social media. Just as the attack on the Twin Towers in New York resulted in a paradigm shift of global security policies, Breton believes, the attack on the Capitol also represents a critical moment for the role played by digital platforms. Jan. 6, Breton makes clear, will go down as a day of infamy and could ultimately mark a turning point in the relationship between society at large and social media platforms."

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I was caught up in a religious cult. I know there's a way to reach today's young extremists

KRISTEN SKEDGELL
CHICAGO TRIBUNE 

JANUARY 28, 2021

I was once an extremist. Now I am not. I was a member of a fundamentalist Bible organization that was homophobic and misogynistic, denied the Holocaust and used psychological terror and manipulation to control its followers. The leader believed in eugenics.

Now I am a retired grandmother living on a farm. How did this happen?

President Biden wants to unite the country by encouraging us to stand in one another’s shoes. But standing in the shoes, more likely boots, of one whose views we consider abhorrent and immoral is no easy matter. The first step, if you’ll forgive the pun, is to acknowledge our views are equally abhorrent and immoral to them.

During my 15 years in the group, the only “outsider” who made a consistent effort to keep in touch with me was my mother. She wrote letter after letter, though I rarely answered. She had been, after all, offended by the leader from the moment she heard him speak. “Sounds like the Third Reich to me,” she said. I didn’t understand what she meant. I was only 14.

Being the liberal-minded intellectual that she was, my mother, a secular Jew, never attempted to limit my explorations. She believed the First Amendment applied to everyone, irrespective of age. She learned this lesson at 6, when her progressive father sat her at Sunday dinner and engaged her in lively conversation with his guest, the political activist and socialist, Eugene V. Debs. (My grandfather, William Castleman, owned a press that published The Unionist, the largest labor newspaper in Chicago in 1920.)

My mother assumed my innate good sense would lead me out of the fantasy land of absolutism back onto a reasonable path. But she underestimated the seductive power of certainty, especially to an adolescent. Extremists know. I knew.

Eventually, I was sent to an elite New England boarding school. It was a ruse I wasn’t going to fall for. I brought the leader’s message to Phillips Exeter with both barrels blazing. But, I was still naive to the true agenda of the organization.

A prominent leader in the group visited me during the spring semester of my senior year. He revealed a plot by an elite group of multimillionaires to form a one-world government and challenge God’s natural order (which included the supremacy of white European races). Many of my classmates, he said, were children of this elite group and they must learn The Truth. He charged me to stir things up on campus.

Doubts arose. What did conspiracy theories have to do God? This was a moment when I might have let someone stand in my shoes. I was sure I was no longer in them myself and I was afraid.

But I didn’t know who or how to ask for help. So, I went ahead and attempted a stir, but the only one at all affected was the chaplain, who castigated me for being, among other things, an appalling disgrace to an intellectual community.

I can’t say as I disagree with him now, but had he been the one to step into my empty shoes, he might have spared me more than a decade of future grief — things such as paramilitary exercises, survivalist training, hostage exercises, target practice and all kinds of serious abuse at the hands of a deranged leader.

True, I might have been insufferable but, over the years, I’ve fantasized another outcome.

In my dream, I see a nonjudgmental man, sitting down next to me, curious about me and my experience in the group. He doesn’t criticize or argue about my beliefs. He’s just interested in me. He listens.

And in my dream, the man wonders what I wished for as a child and what I hope for in the future. He asks about my dearest memory and darkest fear. And I tell him because there’s some kind of goodness and sincerity in him. Empathy, maybe.

Whatever it is, it brings me back to myself. To my damaged, vulnerable, heartbroken human self. And he tells me not to be afraid because there’s a whole country full of people like me, and we’re all just trying to work it out together. United.

I wish that’s how it happened for me. Once I was stripped of the last remnants of my integrity, identity and independence, death seemed like the only alternative. But I had a toddler and a newborn to think of. And a mother waiting for us, willing to do anything, which included getting me professional help.

I didn’t start out as an extremist. It happened little by little, the way a frog boils to death as you slowly turn up the heat on a pot. It never feels the temperature rise until it’s too late. Healing takes time too. But it’s possible if we reach out and there’s somebody’s outstretched hand to grab.

Kristen Skedgell is the author of “Losing the Way: A Memoir of Spiritual Longing, Manipulation, Abuse and Escape.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-extremist-religious-cult-personal-story-skedgell-20210125-nhq6ggzxczccfnc7srliqmqhwq-story.html

Study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations

Letter from the Researcher

I hope this email finds you and your family safe and healthy. My name is Carlie Cegielski and I am an undergraduate student in my senior year at the University at Albany. Through the school of Criminal Justice Honors program, I have been given the opportunity to conduct my own research, which I invite you to take part in. The goal of my study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations. More specifically, to understand the system of cults, their leaders and how individual’s get involved.

You will be asked to respond to a series of questions via an anonymous online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes. Prior to beginning the survey there are a few things you should note. I ask that you answer these questions to the best of your ability. If at any point you feel uncomfortable sharing information, there is the option to skip the question or stop the survey altogether. This survey has no intention of collecting any identifiable information, as all information will be completely anonymous, and all information will be held confidential. I urge you not to share any information that may be too descriptive or could potentially be identifiable. If I believe any information could possibly be traced back to any person, it will be excluded from the research.

Survey Link: https://albany.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a5eGbHnSOjU5pgV

If there are any questions you can either direct them to myself or my advisor.

Carlie Cegielski (Email: ccegielski@albany.edu, Telephone: 914-299-1466) or
Alan Lizotte (Email: alizotte@albany.edu, Telephone: 518-428-8389)

If you have questions about your rights as a research participant please contact the IRB office at UAlbany.

Email: orrc@albany.edu, Telephone: (518) 437-3850

These Canadians lost their loved ones to Qanon. Is there any hope of getting them back?

Adam Kovac
CTV News Montreal Digital Reporter

January 21, 2021

MONTREAL -- As Joe Biden was sworn in as America's 46th president on Wednesday, not everyone was celebrating.

Countless followers of the Qanon conspiracy theory gathered in their online echo chambers. Some mourned. Others insisted that the reality unfolding on their television screens and social media newsfeeds was not, in fact, real. A few wondered if they had been had all along.

For almost four years, they had been promised world-shattering revelations. That Donald Trump would not only win re-election, but would expose corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle. That he would prove victorious in the secret war he was waging against a powerful pedophile cabal who controlled not just the United States, but the world. That even as the results of the 2020 election were certified, it was all an elaborate ploy by their leader. A 4D chess game that would end in a mass arrest of Joe Biden and countless others, all broadcast for the world to see. But it didn’t happen.

Banned from most major social media outlets, they have found their people on encrypted apps like Telegram and on extremist message boards. Qanon has become a truly international movement – some of the sites founded to host the lost herds cater specifically to adherents in countries outside the United States, including Canadians. Experts estimate though the conspiracy theory has spread to over 80 countries, Canada has one of the five largest populations of Qanon supporters in the world.

But even as these people have found their kindred spirits online, they have left heartbreak out in the real world. Family members have founded their own online communities, where they commiserate and share advice on how to talk to fathers, mothers, wife and husbands who they feel they no longer know.

One of the most popular is a Reddit forum called QanonCasualties, which has attracted its share of Canadians whose family members have become acolytes. Some are angry, others bewildered. Some talk about family members who had always been prone to conspiracies; others say that until recently, they had been on the opposite end of the political spectrum, moderate or completely politically disengaged. Some use dark humour to cope with the major personality shifts they've witnessed.

It's a forum that has brought Jackie some solace, as her father's obsession with Q “killed our relationship,” she says. Where once her father was “a man's man,” who was into fixing cars and carpentry and had very little interest in politics outside a passing admiration for former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, now the only thing he wants to talk about is Q.

“There is no telling a Q follower anything,” Jackie, who asked to remain anonymous, told CTV News. “Everything not related to Trump or Q's ideals is garbage to them. It’s irrelevant. I may as well be speaking a different language when I speak to him. What I say, whether it’s political or not, doesn’t compute. Everything is a distraction from Q, even personal successes. Q has all the words, ideas, ideals, opinions, and information that matters.”

She said the descent began in February of 2019 as her father began consuming YouTube videos dedicated to Qanon. One night, while eating out at a restaurant, his family noticed he wasn't acting like himself.

“He was completely preoccupied with the Qanon content he had watched earlier that day,” said Jackie. “Someone asked him what was wrong because he looked so down. He said he doesn’t find excitement in much of anything anymore and later told the table 'If you knew what I know, you would never smile.'”

The details are always different, but the end result is usually the same. Mike's father also leaned conservative, but had a streak of the conspiratorial: he bought into the conspiracy theory, for instance, that the shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School that claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly small children, had been faked as an excuse for the government to take Americans' guns.

He had interests outside politics, though those have mostly fallen by the wayside; once a big hockey fan, he turned on the NHL after the league embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. Though Mike says they were never that close, he and his father did share a passion for NASCAR racing. But now, all his father wants to talk about is Q.

“I just remember my dad being a lot less outraged, a lot less angry,” says Mike. “Even if he still had seen some of the same tendencies, they just weren't on the same extreme scale. I think that was the big thing. You were able to kind of have a normal conversation with him just about in about whatever, without it spilling into, into anything else even.”

That anger has consequences. Mike, too, asked to remain anonymous. The economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic led him to move back in with his parents and he fears what could happen if he goes against his father's beliefs too strongly.

As Mike's father got into Qanon, so did much of his family – they would share their latest discoveries on Facebook. (Facebook and Twitter have both announced crackdowns on Qanon content).

“It's really hard to kind of grapple with honestly, because you witness people that you've lived with for years, and known for years and are people that you trust," he said.

"For them to just start saying things like, 'Oh, well, they're sucking blood out of babies to get extra youth,' as much as it dumbfounds you, you wonder... how did they come to the conclusion this was even remotely true?”

Despite the all-ecompassing obsession described by Jackie and Mike, Steven Hassan believes there is hope for Q followers. An expert in cults and author of the books "The Cult of Trump" and "Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs," Hassan has spent much of the past few years studying Qanon and explaining how he believes followers can be pulled back from the brink.

Hassan himself is a former member of the Moonies, the religious movement that has been accused of brainwashing its followers.

While other experts have stressed to CTV News the importance of media literacy and widely available mental health resources in combatting conspiracy theories, Hassan said that loved ones displaying empathy is vital in fighting the spread of cults like Qanon one-on-one.

“There is a whole protocol of what I recommend, but it always starts with building rapport and trust and taking a position with the person of 'Hey, you're an intelligent person. If you if you take this seriously, then I want to take it seriously. But please convince me, show me what is so important to you, that convinced you to take this seriously,' rather than 'How can you believe this crap?'" Hassan said.

"If you take that frame, you're not going to get anywhere.”

With Trump out of the Oval Office and facing a trial in the Senate after being impeached a second time, as well as several criminal investigations, Hassan said he believes there will come a time when the cult of Q will fade away.

But north of the border, and in places across the globe, thousands of people are left to try and pick up the pieces of their relationships, or abandon them all together. Trump may have lost the election, but some people will hold on to their fantasies, no matter how outlandish. Jackie says she has no hope of ever getting the father she once knew back.

“Q is something bigger at this point,” she says. “Q is symbolic of protecting children, defeating Satan, ending wars, and exponential growth in the number of people who can be saved and go to Heaven for eternal paradise. How can you reject that?”

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/these-canadians-lost-their-loved-ones-to-qanon-is-there-any-hope-of-getting-them-back-1.5275811