New Book, Recovery, Nathan Chasing Horse, Legal, Sexual Abuse, Religion in America
Esther Friedman: The Gentle Souls Revolution: A Secret Cult, an Open Rebellion, and Lessons in Protecting and Honoring Your Gentle Soul
"Have you been told, "you're too sensitive" or "you think too much"? Do you wonder what is wrong with me? Nothing, according to The Gentle Souls Revolution.
After a five-year cultic misadventure in a secret "school," author Esther Friedman wrote her cautionary tale. Memoir led to research on narcissistic abuse and a recovery template for empaths. With humor and compassion, Friedman describes how the cult exploited her empathy. She interviews former members from other cults and includes research from leading experts. We learn that all cults and cons market false hope by leveraging human nature to profit from the vulnerable.
This revolution teaches Gentle Souls to self-protect by accepting the existence of—and learning to identify pathological selfishness. Recovery requires valuing your proclivities and protecting them like priceless gems. When you do that, those vulnerabilities can become your greatest strengths. That is The Gentle Souls Revolution."
" ... Charges are mounting against a "Dances With Wolves" actor who is accused of sexually abusing and trafficking Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. and Canada for decades.
A grand jury in Nevada indicted Nathan Chasing Horse on [2/22/2023] on 19 counts, expanding on previous charges of sexual assault, trafficking and child abuse to include kidnapping, lewdness and drug trafficking. Chasing Horse, 46, now faces charges in four jurisdictions, with the newest case brought by prosecutors on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Police in Las Vegas have described Chasing Horse as a cult leader who used his position as a self-proclaimed medicine man to gain access to Indigenous girls and women, who he physically and sexually assaulted and took as underage wives. Prosecutors also accused him of grooming young girls to replace his older wives. His followers in the cult known as The Circle believed he had healing powers and could communicate with higher beings.
Chasing Horse's public defender, Kristy Holston, told The Associated Press that she was looking forward to revealing holes in the state's case during a preliminary hearing that was canceled Wednesday morning ahead of the indictment. She declined to elaborate.
"Since the public is so interested in this case and because only select details of the accusations have been released, we think it would be most appropriate for the State to present their evidence in a public hearing where the defense can reveal the weaknesses of the State's case on the record in court," she said in an email.
Police in Las Vegas have described Chasing Horse as a cult leader who used his position as a medicine man to access to Indigenous girls, who he physically and sexually assaulted."
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Native American activists speak out against alleged cult leader
"A group of Native American activists plan to hold a rally this weekend in support of the alleged victims of Nathan Chasing Horse, an accused cult leader they say took advantage of their culture.
"There are people who are under the impression that he has nothing but support within our nation, from our state, from our region and from the whole Native American community across America," said Allison Renville, a political organizer and Lakota media consultant."" ... Chasing Horse was known to travel to ceremonies on reservations throughout the western United States, according to the police report. In 2015, he was banished from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, which is located in northwest Montana and is home to the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, after he was accused of human trafficking, spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members.
Simona Bearcub, a member of the Fort Peck tribes who also traveled to Las Vegas for the court hearings and rally, said Chasing Horse was well known in the communities surrounding Montana and South Dakota. She said many of his followers were women not from the reservations, who were looking to reconnect with their culture."
Religion News Service: How much do Americans know about the faiths around them?
"One of the truly unique features of the United States is it's incredibly diverse religious landscape. A county or region dominated by a single religious group is the exception, not the rule. Scholars have pointed to this religious competition as one of the reasons religion is still relatively robust in the U.S. compared with other industrialized societies, such as Western Europe.
It would behoove those of us living in the United States, then, to have a decent working knowledge of faith traditions beyond our own. But our religious diversity often comes at a cost: intolerance and infighting, often driven by mutual ignorance. As the writer Andrew Smith once wrote, "People fear what they don't understand."
There is also a gap between Americans' confidence in their grasp of the nuances of other religious traditions and their actual religious literacy, according to data from the Pew Research Center posted by the Association of Religion Data Archives.
Pew asked individuals to assess their level of knowledge about a variety of faith traditions, from different types of Christians (evangelical and mainline Protestants, Catholics and Mormons) to faith groups that make up a smaller portion of the population, such as Jews, Muslims and Buddhists."
"A team of lawyers lodged a complaint with Japan's health ministry in Tokyo on Monday [2/26/23] against the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious group. The complaint said the group's practices such as declining blood transfusions for their children could amount to child abuse.
The lawyers provide legal assistance to former followers of the group as well as to the children of group members.
About 100 people said in interviews with the team that they had been instructed by senior members of the religious group to refuse blood transfusions for their children.
Others said they were whipped by their Jehovah's Witness parents while growing up.
The lawyers say such practices may constitute child abuse.
Monday's action comes as the health ministry in December issued guidelines to municipalities stating that denying children necessary medical treatment, including blood transfusions, is neglect, a form of abuse.
The guidelines also state that resorting to such punishments as whipping a child constitutes physical abuse."
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