Feb 24, 2025

CultNEWS101 Articles 2/24/2025 (Research, Women, Coercive Control, Zizian, Legal, Mindfulness )


Research, Women, Coercive Control, Zizian, Legal, Mindfulness 

Research to explore women's lived experiences of coercive and controlling behaviour in an intimate relationship and beyond.
Claire Carey is a PhD Candidate at the University of Salford she is conducting research to explore women's lived experiences of coercive and controlling behaviour in an intimate relationship and beyond.

Eligible participants will be women over the age of 18 who have lived experience of coercive and controlling behaviour in an intimate relationship and may be experiencing post-separation abuse.

If you think you would be interested in participating, more information about this project can be found by following this link: https://forms.office.com/e/BCqE1TcTv7

Please share this with anyone who may be interested.

Participation in this study is fully anonymous and as such all results will be anonymised.

AP: Police arrest apparent leader of cultlike 'Zizian' group linked to multiple killings in the US
"The apparent leader of a cultlike group known as the Zizians has been arrested in Maryland along with another member of the group, Maryland State Police said Monday.
Jack Lasota, 34, was arrested Sunday along with Michelle Zajko, 33, of Media, Pennsylvania. They face multiple charges including trespassing, obstructing and hindering and possession of a handgun in the vehicle.

A bail hearing for the two is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday [2/25/2020] at Allegany District Court.

The Zizians have been tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland near the Canadian border in January and five other homicides in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California.
Maland, 44, was killed in a Jan. 20 shootout following a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, a small town about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Canadian border.

Officials have offered few details of the cross-country investigation, which broke open after the Jan. 20 shooting death of Maland. Associated Press interviews and a review of court records and online postings tell the story of how a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, met online, shared anarchist beliefs, and became increasingly violent."

"In the wooded outskirts of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a perplexed landlord noticed odd sights at two of his rental properties.

Tenants wore long black coats and parked box trucks outside the duplexes. They ran an electrical cord from one box truck into one of the condos and kept a stretcher inside another.

A neighbor remembers similarly dressed figures walking around at night holding hands. They never spoke a word.

By the time the FBI searched the property last week, one of the most recent tenants had been killed in a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol agents in Vermont, and a second was under arrest. A third, a shadowy figure known online as "Ziz," remains missing after authorities linked their cultlike group to six deaths in three states.

Officials have offered few details of the cross-country investigation, which broke open after the Jan. 20 shooting death of a Border Patrol trooper in Vermont during a traffic stop. Associated Press interviews and a review of court records and online postings tell the story of how a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, met online, shared anarchist beliefs, and became increasingly violent.

Their goals aren't clear, but online writings span topics from radical veganism and gender identity to artificial intelligence.

At the middle of it all is "Ziz," who appears to be the leader of the strange group, who called themselves "Zizians." She has been seen near multiple crime scenes and has connections to various suspects.

She was even declared dead for a time, before reappearing amid more violence.

Who is Ziz?
Jack LaSota moved to the San Francisco Bay area after earning a computer science degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013 and interning at NASA, according to a profile on a hiring site for programmers, coders and other freelance workers. NASA officials did not respond to a request to confirm LaSota's internship, but a Jack LaSota is listed on a website about past interns."

Science Alert: Meditation And Mindfulness Can Have a Dark Side That We Don't Talk About
" ... Since mindfulness is something you can practice at home for free, it often sounds like the perfect tonic for stress and mental health issues.
Mindfulness is a type of Buddhist-based meditation in which you focus on being aware of what you're sensing, thinking, and feeling in the present moment.

The first recorded evidence for this, found in India, is over 1,500 years old. The Dharmatrāta Meditation Scripture, written by a community of Buddhists, describes various practices and includes reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety that can occur after meditation.
It also details cognitive anomalies associated with episodes of psychosis, dissociation, and depersonalisation (when people feel the world is "unreal").

In the past eight years there has been a surge of scientific research in this area. These studies show that adverse effects are not rare.
A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month.

According to a review of over 40 years of research that was published in 2020, the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression. These are followed by psychotic or delusional symptoms, dissociation or depersonalisation, and fear or terror."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery


CultMediation.com   

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

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The 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 to promote dialogue.


Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.


Thanks,


Ashlen Hilliard (ashlen.hilliard.wordpress@gmail.com)

Joe Kelly (joekelly411@gmail.com)

Patrick Ryan (pryan19147@gmail.com)


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