May 10, 2021

CultNEWS101 Articles: 5/10/2021

Love Has One, Scientology, Australia, Gwyneth PaltrowBlueface,  IndoctriNation Podcast, AA, Narcissists

Meaww: Carlson? Decayed corpse of 'Love Has Won' cult leader found in Colorado, group arrested
"The remains of the so-called cult's group leader were found in their Colorado headquarters, a mobile home. Members in custody were charged with child abuse and tampering with deceased human remains, however, no foul play is suspected.

"Described as a bizarre spiritual cult group, the leader of 'Love Has Won' was found dead in Colorado. The remains were extremely decayed and an investigation into the same resulted in the arrest of the group members. The remains were found in a mobile home in Casada Park, west of Crestone.

The police found the body after receiving a tip from a member who had revealed that the body of the woman, who is a self-proclaimed "divine being", was transported to Colorado from across the country. The connection between the leader's death and the group in Colorado was first reported by Be Scofield. This group that had quarantined in Kauai has been labeled as a cult by a law enforcement officer. They claim however that they are a religion."

SMH: OPINION, The peculiar experience of being targeted by Scientology
"A month ago, I wrote an investigation in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald that looked into how Scientology shifted tens of millions of dollars into Australia's tax and scrutiny-friendly jurisdiction. It showed how Scientology held extensive assets here for both Australia and the UK and examined its extraordinary wealth against its dwindling number of adherents.

Since then, it's fair to say I've been inundated by blowback. Some of it is so absurd I've laughed out loud.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he has been paid to put out his smear camping (sic) on behalf of top psychs and big pharma," another account wrote.
So let me confirm: I'm not working for Vladimir Putin and I am not a paid agent for anyone other than The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, where I've worked for the past 15 years.
Other material has been less laughable. A Scientology organisation called STAND accused me of inciting genocide, of being a bigot akin to an anti-Semite or Islamophobe and of being the "proud new face of hate in Australia".

One Scientologist wrote of me: "Could it be the dark side of his Germanic DNA gave rise to such bigoted and false claims?"
That would be news to my family, who suffered through Nazi invasion and occupation in Europe in the 1940s."

The Guardian: Gwyneth's Ark: sailing towards wellness but never quite getting there
"If you want to get rich, you start a religion." This was the reported opinion of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, who in 1967 bought the first in what was to become a fleet of cruise ships. According to various whistleblower accounts, longtime devotees were finally initiated into the innermost secrets of Scientology on board one of these vessels, having spent years passing through various confected levels and parting with incremental payments totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was where you found out about Xenu, among more weapons-grade lunacy, the galactic tyrant who 75bn years ago exiled multiple individuals to Earth in special craft that weirdly looked exactly like DC10s, then imprisoned them in mountains before blowing them up with hydrogen bombs and brainwashing them with a huge 3D film. My theory has always been that they told you this stuff at sea to reinforce the notion that you were now in too deep to get off the boat, both literally and metaphorically.

So, yes: it's no real surprise to learn this week that turbocapitalist fanny egg pedlar Gwyneth Paltrow has got into the cruise business. Face it, there's never been a better time, with the possible exception of 13 minutes after the end of the Black Death.

As it turns out, Gwyneth had announced a cruise as part of her Goop brand over a year ago but was forced to hit pause with the advent of The Great Unpleasantness. But there was obviously no way a deadly pandemic was going to sink Gwyneth's latest big idea for long. Indeed, you wouldn't even fancy an iceberg's chances against a Goop cruise.

Anyway, madam has partnered with Celebrity Cruises, and will become the brand's new "wellbeing adviser". "I'll be behind the scenes, working on some special projects," explained Gwyneth with the air of someone who would rather die than mingle front-of-house with whichever dreary civilians actually go on these things. "My team @goop is curating programming and fitness kits to add to Celebrity's wellness the [sic] experience."

Ah, there it is: wellness. "Wellness" is part of a class of words unified by the fact that only the most dreadful bores on Earth know what they mean. See also "neoliberalism". Celebrity Cruises itself adds that the fitness kits will enhance "self-care and collective wellbeing", with Gwyneth's role expected to focus on "wellness programming" and something called the "Women in Wellness initiative".

Along with Goop's £1,000-a-day health summits, it all marks a move towards more organised forms of wellness religion by Gwyneth. "She's not necessarily discovering new things," Goop's former content director once breathed reverentially, "but she's bringing ancient things into the mainstream." Mainstream life expectancy in the ancient times was about 32, but whatever floats your cruise ship, of course.

Certainly, Paltrow has often described setting up Goop as "a calling". Without wishing to come off as Joan of Snark, though, you have to wonder what sort of company much of her activity places her in, however she might hate to admit it. A few years ago, the business publication Quartz produced a fascinating article revealing how large numbers of the exact same products were sold on both Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop and Alex Jones's Infowars outlet, only with different packaging. (To refresh your memory chakra, Jones is the far-right wing nut and conspiracy theorist who believes the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, among myriad other grotesqueries.) A supplement called Bacopa is marketed on Goop as part of a pack branded Why Am I So Effing Tired, and promises to "rebalance an over-taxed system". Over on Infowars, Bacopa features in Jones's signature Brain Force pills, pushed on the premise that "Top scientists and researchers agree: we are being hit by toxic weapons in the food and water supply that are making us fat, sick, and stupid."

Not quite the words Gwyneth would ever use – and yet, how they lurk beneath the surface of a $250m-plus empire that unavoidably implies the path to happiness is via intense consumerism. It's also very much an iterated journey – you buy the vagina egg for one problem, which gives you back pain, so you buy the FasciaBlaster, which gives you bruising, so you buy the homeopathic arnica montana. And so on and so on, forever course-correcting towards wellness but never quite attaining its shores. It's possible to see your life in this church as a cascade of highly priced non-solutions, each purchase flowing from the problems caused by the previous one. How does it end? I guess by then you're an old lady and you swallow a horse. And end up dead, of course.

It goes without saying that Paltrow is not short of believers. Whether Gwyneth's pushing post-Covid quackery or recommending something called "whole body vibration" as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, there is something powerfully religious about the brand she has created in her own image."

Daily Beast: The hip hop star's been compared to R. Kelly and called a "cult leader" for allegedly pressuring the women of his 'Blue Girls Club' to brawl, strip, and get a tattoo or go home.
" ... 24-year-old Blueface saw ... potential: to house an entire show on OnlyFans. The poorly produced content never garnered too much attention outside his fan base until this week, when some social media users went so far as to liken him to R. Kelly after a portion of the latest episode was leaked outside the site.
"Ready to get tatted?" Blueface asks a room of sleeping women that he had flown out to his $1.3 million home in the quiet Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth in early April. The cameraman pans around the room showing unmade bunk beds and clothes strewn around. "Tattoo or go home, which one is it?" he asks."

"If it's negative, it's a lie" w/ Erin and Rachel Alder. In the second part of this 3-part story, the Alders detail some of the most heart-wrenching experiences they endured during their time in the group and explain the painful lessons they learned while trying to overcome tragedy. 
Rachel Bernstein without condemning AA itself, Bernstein acknowledges the dangers of this kind that AA's program can pose for some people. 

IndoctriNation Podcast:  Rachel reveals a few red flags that are common patterns of narcissists.


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