CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/22/2024 (Plymouth Brethren, Book, India, Bhole Baba, Maharishi, Beatles, Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Yoga Retreat In Bahamas)

Plymouth Brethren, Book, India, Bhole Baba, Maharishi, Beatles, Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Yoga Retreat In Bahamas

The Bookseller: Blink to publish 'unflinching' memoir of breaking away from Christian sect

" ... Out of Faith: A Mother, A Sect and A Journey to Freedom by Maria Compton (writing under a pseudonym) will be published in hardback, audio, and e-book on August 15th, 2024."

" ... The author was born and raised in The Plymouth Brethren Christian church believing the end of the world was near. She was married as a teenager to a man she barely knew.

Compton said: 'Writing this memoir has been one of the most difficult yet therapeutic things I've done since I escaped the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. As I immerse myself into the chapters of my life within this strict sect, my hope is for my story to not only illuminate the trauma and sacrifices of breaking free but also to show the empowering journey of finding freedom and embracing my true self.'"

EEW: Tragic Stampede at Bhole Baba's Gathering: Understanding the 'godmen' Phenomenon

"In the small village of Bahadurnagar, India, 85-year-old Ramkumari claimed that a simple pat on the back from preacher Bhole Baba made her kidney stone disappear. Although she offered no proof, such stories of miraculous healings have skyrocketed Baba's following in northern India.

Last week, a massive gathering in a crowded field to hear Bhole Baba speak drew a staggering 250,000 people, resulting in one of the deadliest stampedes in the country's history, reports Reuters.

Born Suraj Pal Singh Jatav, Bhole Baba, which means "Innocent Elder," left his job as a police constable in 2000 to join the ranks of Hindu preachers known as "godmen." These figures are sought after for their supposed miracle cures and spiritual guidance, wielding significant influence and often attracting political attention."

Highbrow: 'Meeting The Beatles in India' Highlights the Fab Four's Encounters With the Maharishi

" ...  For any Beatles fan, the documentation of this period is a holy grail. The images and anecdotes captured by Saltzman provide insight into the group's creative process and its eventual culmination in The White Album. Throughout this journey of self-discovery, Saltzman recounts being a firsthand witness to the inception of songs like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" or "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill." For any fan (myself included), these moments are awe-inspiring and, in some ways, even comforting to see the beauty unfold. Yet, therein lies the fundamental flaw of the film's storytelling: nostalgia left unchecked.

It is an impossible task to uncover in the span of 800 minutes, let alone the film's runtime of 80 minutes. As a result, Saltzman's retelling of his time there feels nostalgic, almost to the point of blissful ignorance. The film presents a narrative with rose-colored glasses, focusing on the positive reactions of TM and the beliefs of Yogi, while seemingly avoiding the spiritual guru's alleged sexual misconduct. Mia Farrow, briefly mentioned in the documentary as one of the high-profile celebrities studying under Yogi and interacting with the band, has been candid about her experience there. The film spends little of its runtime discussing Farrow's alleged sexual assault at the hands of the spiritual guru, which ultimately is believed to have been a factor in the band's decision to leave Rishikesh."

Duvar: Court of Cassation upholds 8,658-year prison sentence for Islamic televangelist cult leader

"Turkey's Court of Cassation upheld 8,658-year prison sentence given to Islamic televangelist cult leader Adnan Oktar who involved in sexual assult, deprivation of liberty, torture and many more crimes.

The Court of Cassation, Turkey's highest appeal court, on July 10 upheld the 8,658-year prison sentence delivered to notorious cult leader Adnan Oktar.

In November 2023, a local court sentenced Oktar to 8,658 years in prison over the charges of "leadership of a terrorist organization," "sexual abuse," "holding a person against their will," "torture," "interruption of the right to education," and "recording personal data," along with other members of the cult."

True Crime Travel: Man MISSING 11 Years Ago From Yoga Retreat In Bahamas Before Taylor Casey!

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Court of Cassation upholds 8,658-year prison sentence for Islamic televangelist cult leader

Duvar

July 10, 2024

Turkey’s Court of Cassation upheld 8,658-year prison sentence given to Islamic televangelist cult leader Adnan Oktar who involved in sexual assult, deprivation of liberty, torture and many more crimes.

Court of Cassation, Turkey’s highest appeal court, on July 10 upheld the 8,658-year prison sentence delivered to notorious cult leader Adnan Oktar.

In November 2023, a local court sentenced Oktar to 8,658 years in prison over the charges of "leadership of a terrorist organization," "sexual abuse," "holding a person against their will," "torture," "interruption of the right to education," and "recording personal data,” along with other members of the cult.

Court of Cassation First Criminal Chamber upheld the prison sentence given to Oktar and the other sentences issued under the "Adnan Oktar Armed Criminal Organization."

Court case on cult’s current organization continues 

At the same day, another court case continued regarding the "cult’s current structure" formed by the organization through lawyers and social media groups “to keep its members active and recruit new ones to replace those who had been exposed.”

Oktar who held in Van Prison and four women defendants were connected to the hearing via audio and video communication system.

Arrested women began to "praise" Oktar before the hearing when they see him, as they used to do in television broadcasts.

In his broadcasts on "Islamic values" when he had a TV channel, Oktar forced women, whom he held captive in his compound, to “praise” him with bizarre statements.

What happened?

The 68-year-old cult leader was arrested in 2018 along with 200 collaborators, following allegations of sexual abuse and kidnapping of minors.

Before his arrest, Oktar ran his own television channel, A9, where he hosted talk shows on so-called Islamic values. On occasion, he was broadcast dancing with young women whom he called his “kittens” and singing with young men, his “lions.”

In January 2024, Turkish court documents revealed that 49 high judiciary members, including a former justice minister, were linked to Oktar’s cult.

A former justice minister, a deputy justice ministers, heads and members of Court of Cassation departments, heads and members of courts of appeal, a former chief prosecutor, along with active judges and prosecutors were among the 49 people contacted by the members of the cult who either “associated” with the cult or “aided” to it.

https://www.duvarenglish.com/court-of-cassation-upholds-8658-year-prison-sentence-for-islamic-televangelist-cult-leader-adnan-oktar-news-64638

CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/1/2024 (Legal, Kenya, Good News International Church, Meditation, Wellness Programs, Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Sexual Abuse, IndoctriNation Podcast, MindShift Podcast)

Legal, Kenya, Good News International Church, Meditation, Wellness Programs, Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Sexual Abuse, IndoctriNation Podcast, MindShift Podcast

The Guardian: Kenya death cult leader charged after hundreds found dead in forest

"A Kenyan court has charged a cult leader and dozens of suspected accomplices with manslaughter over the deaths of more than 200 people.

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 94 other suspects, including his wife, pleaded not guilty to 238 counts of manslaughter, according to court documents seen by AFP.

Mackenzie, who was last week also charged with terrorism, is alleged to have incited his acolytes to starve to death in order to "meet Jesus" in a case that provoked horror across the world.

He was arrested last April after bodies were discovered in the Shakahola forest near the Indian Ocean. Autopsies revealed that the majority of the 429 victims had died of hunger. Others, including children, appeared to have been strangled, beaten or suffocated.

The 238 victims mentioned in Tuesday's hearing were killed between January 2021 and September 2023 at Shakahola, court documents said."

Financial Post: Work wellness programs have zero mental health benefits, study says

"Employers sinking money into workplace wellness programs such as mindfulness training, on-site massages and meditation apps might want to think again because new research suggests the programs do absolutely nothing to buoy mental health.

People who take part in well-being programs aimed at teaching them how to firm up their mental health get zero benefits when compared to employees who don't participate, according to an Oxford University study of more than 46,000 British employees at over 200 companies. The research, released Jan. 10, examined how workers' well-being fared after participating — or not — in programs ranging from volunteering and charity work to mindfulness classes to apps promoting well-being and healthy sleep habits.

Oxford researcher William Fleming then compiled data from employees across a wide range of industries and positions who had anonymously answered survey questions about their stress levels, job satisfaction and sense of belonging, among other indicators. "Across multiple subjective well-being indicators, participants appear no better off," Fleming said in the report. "Results show that those who participate in individual-level interventions have the same levels of mental well-being as those who do not."

The findings are the exact opposite of a narrative that has helped fuel the adoption of workplace wellness initiatives in the United Kingdom, Canada and beyond. "It's a fairly controversial finding, that these very popular programs were not effective," Fleming said in the New York Times."

Duvar English: Turkish court reveals former justice minister linked to notorious cult leader Adnan Oktar

"Turkish court documents revealed that 49 high judiciary members, including a former justice minister, were linked to Islamic televangelist cult leader Adnan Oktar, according to the reporting of KRT TV.

The judicial process initiated after the 2018 operation against the group referred to by the government as the "Adnan Oktar Armed Crime Organization" has came to an end.

The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation has requested the approval of the sentences handed down by the local court in the case involving 215 defendants.

The court also examined the thousands of pages of documents seized during the operation in 2018. It determined that the members of the cult especially profiled members of the higher judiciary."

" ... The 66-year-old Oktar who owned a TV channel was arrested in 2018 along with 200 collaborators, following allegations of sexual abuse and kidnapping of minors.

He was also convicted of sexual abuse of minors, holding a person against their will, torture, interruption of the right to education, recording personal data, and threatening someone."

Crossover Episode Part 2: An Interview with Rachel Bernstein of the IndoctriNation PodcastMindShift Podcast

This episode marks now the second time I've done a crossover episode with Rachel Bernstein, host of the fantastic IndoctriNation podcast.

As a therapist, cult expert, and specialist in dealing with folks who suffer from religious trauma syndrome, Rachel is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to dealing with a wide variety of issues caused by cults, fundamentalist religions, and other high-control groups.

If you suffer from RTS, or have come out of a controlling religious or group background, you'll benefit from this discussion. And don't forget to head over to the IndoctriNation podcast platform to catch Part 1, Rachel's interview with [Clint].

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

Turkish court reveals former justice minister linked to notorious cult leader Adnan Oktar

A Turkish court found that 49 high judiciary members, including a former justice minister and a deputy minister, had "aided or been associated with" the notorious Adnan Oktar cult.

Duvar English

January 24 2024

Turkish court reveals former justice minister linked to notorious cult leader Adnan Oktar

Turkish court documents revealed that 49 high judiciary members, including a former justice minister, were linked to Islamic televangelist cult leader Adnan Oktar, according to the reporting of KRT TV.

The judicial process initiated after the 2018 operation against the group referred to by the government as the "Adnan Oktar Armed Crime Organization" has came to an end.

The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation has requested the approval of the sentences handed down by the local court in the case involving 215 defendants.

The court also examined the thousands of pages of documents seized during the operation in 2018. It determined that the members of the cult especially profiled members of the higher judiciary.

A former justice minister, a deputy justice ministers, heads and members of Court of Cassation departments, heads and members of courts of appeal, a former chief prosecutor, along with active judges and prosecutors were among the 49 people contacted by the members of the cult.

The court noted that 25 members of the judiciary "aided" the cult and 22 members were "associated" with it.

While the former justice minister, whose name was mentioned in the court documents, was considered to have aided the organization, the former deputy justice minister was considered to be associated with the cult.

The court's examination of the documents emphasized that members of the cult established relationships by contacting members of the judiciary through their social media accounts, subsequently seeking to gain benefits in cases involving the organization.

The court also stated that there were judges and prosecutors who were not included in the list of 49 people. "Many prosecutors and judges who were not profiled were in contact with the organization, established dialogue with it, and were directed in line with the interests of the organization," the court underscored.

The court concluded, “Adnan Oktar Armed Criminal Organization derived its main power by manipulating judiciary.”

Oktar previously received a total of 1,075 years and three months in prison over the charges of founding and leading a criminal organization, political or military espionage and aiding U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, Ankara's top suspect for the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016.

The 66-year-old Oktar who owned a TV channel was arrested in 2018 along with 200 collaborators, following allegations of sexual abuse and kidnapping of minors.

He was also convicted of sexual abuse of minors, holding a person against their will, torture, interruption of the right to education, recording personal data, and threatening someone.

https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkish-court-reveals-former-justice-minister-linked-to-notorious-cult-leader-adnan-oktar-news-63706

CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/25/2022 (Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Tinder Swindler, Waldorf Schools, Anthroposophist)

Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Tinder Swindler, Waldorf Schools, Anthroposophist

NY Post: Inside TV preacher's 'kitten' sex cult as survivor says she was made to have a nose job without anesthetic

"A survivor of a TV preacher's brutal sex cult says she was made to have a nose job operation without an anesthetic.

Turkish televangelist Adnan Oktar, 64, was jailed for 1,075 years for a series of horrific crimes.

He had built up a devoted band of brainwashed followers over decades while living a life of luxury surrounded by glamorous women he called his "kittens" while his young male followers were his "lions".

He was eventually found guilty of ten separate charges including leading a criminal gang, sexual abuse of minors, sexual abuse and engaging in political or military espionage."

The Jerusalem Post: Netflix is creating cult numbers from con artists - opinion

'The Tinder Swindler' is a new Netflix documentary telling the story of an Israeli con man.

"Social media has exploded this month with posts, jokes and memes about Simon Leviev, the Israeli scammer who conned his victims out of an estimated $10 million. Though Leviev's story initially broke a few years ago, he's making international headlines again after his crimes were the focus of a Netflix special. The Tinder Swindler documented his elaborate schemes and featured interviews with many of his victims. It was a big hit for the streaming service, amassing over 45,800,000 hours of watch time around the world in only a week.

Despite the shocking story of widespread theft and lies that devastated the lives of multiple girlfriends he conned, a quick search on Instagram will give you no shortage of fan accounts for Leviev - yes, fan accounts. The sudden fame has worked in his favor, in a way.

Leviev, whose real last name is Hayut and is originally from Bnei Brak, took on the last name of a billionaire and pretended to be his son in order to lure women on Tinder. After his victims were in an established relationship with him, he would spin tales of enemies who were after him, even staging fake photos of being attacked, in order to borrow money and open credit cards in their names – money he would use to finance the luxurious lifestyle he was simultaneously leading with multiple girlfriends.

The Netflix special is part of a recent trend of shocking true stories on con men (and women), including The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman and Inventing Anna. The public can't seem to get enough, but is it a good idea to give narcissistic sociopaths more attention and money?"

Exberliner: How Germany's favourite cult took over everything from schools to supermarkets

"Waldorf schools have a hippy image, but are they in fact Germany's equivalent to Scientology?

There are over 250 Waldorf schools in Germany. The private institutions give off a hippy image: students stage elaborate theatre productions and learn to dance their names in a practice called Eurythmy. In the press, they are described as  "progressive" or "left-leaning." 

But as you look closer, the vibe gets stranger and stranger. It's more than just that the buildings have rounded edges and all the toys are all made of wood. Students are educated according to their "seven-year life cycles" and judged according to their "four temperaments" (do you feel more "phlegmatic" or "sanguine"?).

As one former teacher reported to Süddeutsche Zeitung, when teachers were discussing why a particular student was jumpy, it was decided they must have experienced trauma between their previous life and this one. 

Waldorf Schools are run according to the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. To understand Steiner, imagine a German version of L. Ron Hubbard. Both men spread esoteric ideas at times when science was all the rage, so they claimed they explored the spiritual realm according to scientific principles. Both considered themselves experts on every imaginable topic, from music to botany to how to wash your car.  Their constant lectures — 5,965, in Steiner's case — were preserved as the ultimate wisdom on everything.

Both Steiner and Hubbard have been frequently accused of racism. But while Hubbard embodied an American ideal of the 1950s, with rugged individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and whatnot, Steiner was a product of imperial Germany with its ethno-nationalist pulse. So while Hubbard based his teachings on the Marcab Confederacy in distant galaxies, Steiner was more interested in Atlantis beneath the waves.

Steiner's Anthroposophy is every bit as complex and weird as Hubbard's Scientology — the former calls itself "the science of knowledge," while the latter is "the wisdom of the human being." To any outside observer, both seem like ravings of delusional narcissists. 

Scientology, while it gets lots of coverage in the tabloids, is limited to a few Hollywood actors and the downtown of Clearwater, Florida. Steiner's followers are less well-known, but far more powerful. Supermarkets sell fruit from Demeter, which is presented as organic, but in fact follows the principles of Steiner's "biodynamic agriculture." Besides avoiding pesticides, this calls for a cow horn to be buried in the field to harness astral and ethereal energy. The cosmetics manufacturer Weleda uses water prepared in Steinerian rituals. Retailers like dm-drogerie and Alnatura are run by anthroposophists. Otto Schilly, Germany's Interior Minister from 1998 to 2005, even belongs to the cult."

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

The TV preacher and his cult of abuse

The Turkish televangelist Adnan Oktar has been sentenced to 1,075 years in prison for crimes including torture and the sexual abuse of some of his female followers.

Louise Callaghan
The Sunday Times
February 13 2022

Late on a Tuesday night in 2018 I was sitting in a TV studio in Istanbul looking up at an empty stage, waiting for Turkey’s most bizarre — and most powerful — cult leader to arrive. Around me in the audience were at least a dozen perky young men in suits. They were followers of Adnan Oktar, a Muslim preacher who had grown in fame through his TV channel, on which his female followers — known as “kittens” — would dance for him in minidresses after he had lectured them on Islamic theology.

I had asked to interview him that morning in response to serious allegations made by a defector from the cult, who claimed that behind the gaudy façade was a horrifying den of abuse and criminal activity. The cult had denied everything.

To my surprise one of the kittens replied to my interview request straight away, telling me to come to the studio at the cult’s headquarters at midnight. Two hours later I was getting bored. But the men in the audience looked as though there was nowhere they’d rather be. They were polite, engaging and good looking, but with a strange blank intensity: all things that I would in time recognise as hallmarks of Oktar’s followers.

Then Oktar stepped out on to the stage. He was in his sixties, with his beard and hair dyed blue-black and the face of a matinee idol gone to seed. A huge hernia stuck out from his stomach and visibly hung down his leg, making him limp in his double-breasted suit. The TV cameras were off but you wouldn’t know it from the host’s performance.

Over the next half-hour he ranted at me about conspiracy theories, including his belief that a murderous cabal he called the British Deep State was trying to control the world. I asked him about accusations that he had abused and exploited his followers. He said they were all just “friends” who felt a “deep love” for each other. It all made such little sense that my editors didn’t run the story.

Three months later Oktar and more than 200 of his followers were arrested on charges ranging from child abuse to kidnapping and torture. Dragos, the hilltop compound in Istanbul where I’d interviewed him, was raided by police. Some of the women who had lived there claimed it had been like a prison.

In January 2021 Oktar was sentenced to 1,075 years and three months in jail. The strange televangelist with the scantily clad followers (as most people in Turkey knew him) was, according to the Turkish justice system, one of the most serious criminals in the country’s history.

I decided to investigate what had been going on inside this cult, and ended up turning it into a podcast series for Stories of our times. What I found was more shocking than anything I had imagined — and led to me being forced to leave my home in Turkey for months after threats related to my reporting.



Before he became a cult leader, Oktar was a small-time preacher from Ankara, Turkey’s capital. Born in 1956, he moved to Istanbul in his early twenties with his mother after what some of his former followers have said was a troubled childhood at the hands of an abusive father. He began gathering followers, holding meetings in his small house near the Bosphorus. From the beginning he looked for a particular type of person: the sons and daughters of prominent families, highly educated, multilingual, well-connected, wealthy and beautiful.

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Among them was Seda Isildar, then 15 years old and at secondary school in Istanbul. She was introduced to Oktar and his group through school friends in the mid-1980s, though she had first seen him on the cover of the respected news magazine Nokta, which reported on the privately educated students drawn to his new religious community.

Oktar’s group didn’t have a name and its members didn’t see themselves as a cult — more as a circle of like-minded people.

“They tell you you’re special. You are different from the rest of the herd. You’re 15 years and you just don’t want to ruin it for everybody else,” Isildar, now 50, tells me on a video call from her home in Canada. “You’re part of that group. And they isolate you … it’s like a toxic relationship.”

At the time many in Turkey’s upper middle classes saw religion as a relic of the past. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, its leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had strived to create a secular, modern nation and banish religion from public life. Later religious, conservative politicians such as the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would be seen as modernising forces that were shaking off the prejudices of the old elite — repealing the ban on headscarves in public places and arguing that Turkey could be an Islamic democracy.

For Isildar and her friends Oktar represented a new way of looking at things — a modernised version of Islam that seemed progressive and exciting. It was, she tells me, like a thrilling secret. But soon everything changed. Oktar began to sexually abuse Isildar — coercing her into marrying him when she was a schoolgirl and he was in his early thirties. When she was 20 he forced her to have a nose job without a general anaesthetic.

“It was horrible. Horrible. I can still remember the hammer,” she says. “I was counting how many times they were hitting the hammer and the chisel to my nose.”

After eight years under Oktar’s control Isildar managed to escape. Not long afterwards she moved to Canada. Speaking to her I’m struck by how insightful she is about her time in the cult. Before I started working on this story I had believed that cults preyed only on the very vulnerable. But I soon realised that a lot of the people I was talking to didn’t fit that bill. Many were smart, successful and highly educated.

“You have to understand that cults want productive people,” says Dr Alexandra Stein, an honorary research fellow at South Bank University in London — and a former cult member. “They don’t want drains on the system. They want people who are going to add value. Education and wealth just don’t protect you.”

Yet there were still so many things I didn’t understand. When we had met for the interview, Oktar seemed to have little ideology short of a garbled version of Islam, a messiah complex and his theory about the British Deep State. What was it that had drawn people to him?

One person who knew was Ceylan Ozgul, the former “kitten” whose allegations had made me contact Oktar for an interview. She had spent years in the group, becoming one of its most prominent members. Sometimes she would appear on Oktar’s TV channel, where he would conduct discussions about Islamic theology with the kittens and “lions” — male followers — before the women would break into dance. They would beam adoringly at him, laugh at his attempted jokes, nod along with his convoluted theories and praise him constantly.

When she was on TV, Ozgul would do the same. But really, she says, the cult was a prison.

“The only image in people’s minds about Adnan Oktar was girls in bikinis or revealing clothes and dancing,” she says. “Unfortunately this makes the subject really light. But it is not a subject to be taken lightly. It is actually about how to enslave young women and young men.”

Ozgul was 24 and in her third year at Istanbul University when she was introduced to the cult — though they presented themselves as just a group of friends. The members drew her in slowly, separating her from her ordinary life. At that point, around 2006, there were no girls in bikinis, no TV channel and Oktar didn’t only ramble on about conspiracy theories.

“He was, you know, quite fun to have a chat with. He’s like an older guy who will take you seriously and talk about history, physics, medicine. I liked spending time with him,” she tells me.

Ozgul grew closer to the group and began working for them, helping build their profile in Turkey and internationally. Their ideology was hard to pin down. In earlier years Oktar had spouted conspiracy theories about Jews and Freemasons controlling the world. Later he focused more on Islamic creationism — denying evolution and trying to “debunk” fossils — and had courted Jewish and evangelical Christian communities, positioning himself as an interlocutor between different faiths. This was prescient. Following the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, Islam was mistrusted by many in the West. Oktar, with his glamorous followers and public embrace of Christians and Jews, was — for some — the kind of Muslim leader they could get along with.

Ozgul worked with other followers to arrange talks at a US military base and at prestigious institutions, including University College London. But she was also trapped. Her movements were severely limited and her communications monitored. She and other cult members were under constant heavy guard, she says, with dozens of security cameras inside the compound tracking their every move.

“It didn’t happen overnight. It happened over like a year. Even the stupid things started to suddenly make sense to you after a year, because you are thinking it’s normal, everyone around you is doing it,” she says.

In 2011 Oktar established a satellite channel, A9 TV, to expand his audience. The schedule included documentaries based on his beliefs and talk shows with Oktar as the flamboyant host. These evolved into a bizarre blend of televangelism and glitzy daytime TV, with an entourage of blonde, scantily clad women hanging on their leader’s every word.

Although Islam advocates modest dress for women, Oktar argued that its teachings had been misinterpreted: instead of covering up, women should project their “inner beauty” through their physical appearance. Many Turkish people viewed the tacky spectacle as bit of a joke. Others thought he had a point but took it too far.

While Ozgul helped to expand Oktar’s reach, other cult members were engaged in something far darker: grooming girls and young women to join the group.

Sahin was a teenager when he first heard about Oktar. Unlike many of the other members he wasn’t rich, multilingual or blue-blooded. He came from a working-class family in Istanbul. But he was young and malleable — so when some of his close friends started following Oktar, he did too.

Once inside he was introduced to a new world of money and power. As Oktar paid attention to him, Sahin changed. He started to wear expensive suits and watches and drive sports cars. Within a couple of years he had transformed himself into a Prince Charming. It was all part of Oktar’s plan. Sahin was bait. The white teeth, toned abs and easy smile were all engineered towards luring women into the cult.

It worked like this: Sahin — or other “lions” like him — would hang out at cafés and malls in expensive parts of the city. When he saw a pretty girl he’d approach her, telling her he was from a modelling agency or that he was looking for new salespeople for his company. He was always polite, solicitous and professional.

Once the girl had called him, he would worm his way into her life.

“The trick is to get close and become her boyfriend. They advised us to show ourselves as a decent, rich person. Kind of like a dream prince in her life,” Sahin tells me when I visit him at his flat in Istanbul along with my Turkish producer, Beril Eski.

He would make the girl dependent on him. Then slowly he would change the stakes of their relationship, making her cut contact with her friends and cajoling her into performing degrading sex acts, which he would film and use to blackmail her. By the time he handed her over to Oktar, she would already be broken.

“It’s like a race, like you always set a new target and she’s trying to catch up with the targets,” he says. “And then at the end of the race you introduce her to Adnan Oktar … at that point Oktar knows what to do.” He would take the women aside and sexually abuse them. Then their lives as captives of the cult would begin.

They called it the turnstile system — and they had it down to a fine art. Over the years hundreds of girls and young women were brought into the cult this way, though some, like Ozgul, were recruited through other channels and not sexually abused.

Sahin says he brought about 200 women into the cult. When I ask why he did it, he says that he had been so brainwashed that he believed he was doing the right thing. “I saw that as a religious practice at the time. You can picture it like this: there’s a fire in the building and there’s a girl inside the fire and she doesn’t want to get out. And you do everything to take her out.”

Eventually, Sahin grew disenchanted with the cult and turned against it. With a handful of other former members he provided information to the police and prosecutors that led to the cult’s demise. In the trial he was given immunity from prosecution for his crimes.

Three years after he turned against the cult, Sahin is no longer recognisable as the manipulative lothario who ruined so many women’s lives. Now 37, overweight and dressed in a tracksuit, he has dark shadows under his eyes. Just as I am about to leave, he says something that sticks in my mind: “I’ve seen a lot of girls who were really smart and really beautiful who joined this cult. It could have happened to you as well, no matter how smart you are.”

It seemed a good point. But the next day it rang differently. Sahin’s friend Ozkan Mamati, another former cult member who was also given immunity from prosecution after co-operating with prosecutors, contacted Beril to tell her he was going to denounce me to the authorities for an unspecified crime. Unsure of what we might be facing, my lawyer advised me to leave the country for a while.

I returned to Turkey determined to finish the story. It was this culture of threats and coercion that had allowed the cult to survive for so long. They attacked journalists who wrote about them, trolling them online and filing bogus lawsuits against them. They also cultivated top politicians in Turkey: Oktar and his followers have been linked to a number of Erdogan’s allies, and Oktar often praised the president on his TV channel.

According to testimony from former cult members, cash was flowing in from a range of businesses across the world and from the personal wealth of the cult’s supporters.

The cult seemed impenetrable. But in the end it was taken down from the inside. Ozgul, who had once been one of its most recognisable female faces, was at the centre. By 2018 she had spent more than a decade with Oktar. In public she appeared devoted to him. But for years she had been looking to escape.

It wasn’t easy. Her “outspokenness” constantly landed her in hot water with Oktar, which led to her freedoms being restricted. She had no phone, no laptop that wasn’t monitored. On the rare occasions when she left Dragos she was dogged by other cult members — some of whom, she says, were armed.

The cult had forced her to break contact with her family but in the summer of 2018 she found a way back to them — and to freedom. She used a smart TV in her room at Dragos to contact her father. Despite all the years of separation, he was ready to help. One morning Ozgul said that she wanted to go to the doctor. Then she walked out of the door and jumped into her father’s car. All she had with her was her identity card. She went straight to the authorities. Three months after she escaped, teams of police from the city’s financial crimes unit raided Dragos and other properties belonging to the cult across the country.

In the autumn of 2020 Oktar and his followers went on trial at Caglayan courthouse in Istanbul and a few months later they were sentenced. Ozgul, Mamati and Sahin’s testimonies played a vital role in taking Oktar down. Despite the convictions, a significant number of people — including some women — remain devoted to Oktar. They say that he and his supporters were mistreated during the trial and their imprisonment, and that their human rights were violated. Soon, they believe, Oktar will be released and return to his rightful place among them.

It sounds like wishful thinking by brainwashed people. But several very senior Turkish lawyers familiar with the case told me they believed that Oktar could be released within the next few years. They said that disputes over the trial procedures, or with the collection of evidence, could be used to try to overturn many convictions.

Even being sent to prison for more than 1,000 years might not be enough to stop him.

It is not known whether the unidentified women in the photographs that accompany this article were abused. Additional reporting by Beril Eski
The Messiah and his Kittens

Louise Callaghan hosts this four-part series on Adnan Oktar and his cult. Out now and every Friday on the Stories of our times podcast feed.



https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-tv-preacher-and-his-cult-of-abuse-2qdm0g8xl