Was your last sandwich made by a cult?

Was your last sandwich made by a cult?

Michelle Cyca
The Georgia Straight
March 10th, 2024

On a rainy January Saturday, my daughter and I rode the Canada Line to Waterfront Station. We were on our way to an art exhibition, but even the journey itself was a treat for her. Children love transit: tapping the card, riding the escalator, sitting at the front of the train as if they’re aboard the world’s least thrilling roller coaster.

In an attempt to model healthy screen time boundaries, I kept my phone in my bag and encouraged my kid to engage with the world around us. “Look,” my daughter said, pointing at the phone screen of the passenger in front of us, which was open to TikTok, “That lady is dancing. Can they turn up the music so we can listen?” I looked around for something other than a stranger to entertain us, and that’s when my eye landed on the bizarre ad over our heads.

Featuring a hazy background of white clouds and blue sky, it suggested—in large green-and-blue font—that we all “Be Vegan, Make Peace”. Below it, in slightly smaller text, was an even more cryptic message: “Do Good Deeds = Heaven Godspeed”. There was also a URL for a website called Supreme Master TV.

Supreme Master TV is the platform for Ching Hai, a Vietnamese-born spiritual leader described in a 1997 TIME magazine profile as a combination of Martha Stewart and the Dalai Lama. She founded the Quan Yin method, which requires adherents to maintain a vegan diet and rigorous meditation practice and which some have described as a cult.

Hai is also the founder of Celestial Shop, an apparel and accessories company, and a chain of vegan restaurants called Loving Hut. According to their website, Loving Hut has more than 200 locations around the world, from New Zealand to Paraguay to Cameroon. An unusual feature of the chain is that each restaurant operates independently, with no consistent menu items or unifying aesthetic. The only requirement is that they broadcast Supreme Master TV to their patrons.

If the name “Loving Hut” sounds familiar, it might be because until 2020, the chain had an outpost in Vancouver: a bright yellow food truck on the seawall called Loving Hut Express. And before that, there was a brick-and-mortar location near Broadway and Cambie, which burned down in 2010. By all accounts, the vegan burgers were excellent. In the words of one Google reviewer: “Kinda creepy to have a TV streaming propaganda while you eat. Still, worth it for the food.”

For the past several years, local fans of Loving Hut’s combination of delicious vegan fare and dubious proselytizing have been out of luck. Presently, there are no Loving Hut locations in Canada; for Lower Mainlanders, the nearest outpost is in Seattle. By email, in which they kindly referred to me as a “noble saint,” Loving Hut headquarters confirmed that the TransLink ad was placed to promote Supreme Master TV, not a new Vancouver location.

According to TransLink’s corporate policy, any advertisements that “promote or oppose a specific theology or religious ethic” must be printed with a disclaimer. An anti-abortion ad by a Catholic organization that ran on buses in 2021, for example, included the required text: “This is a paid advertisement. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of TransLink or its subsidiaries.”

The same rule applies to ads for political parties or candidates. A 2009 Supreme Court ruling confirmed that TransLink, as a public agency, must uphold freedom-of-expression rights by accepting advertisements—excluding those that contravene laws or ad standards. So while hate speech is not permitted, alleged cults are okay, as long as they have the disclaimer. Which this ad did not.

TransLink confirmed by email that this was an oversight—one they are remedying after I contacted them with questions. By email, they wrote, “TransLink is aware that Canada Line’s advertising licensee is temporarily removing these specific advertisements and reprinting them with a disclaimer.” TransLink also mentioned to me that a third-party company, Lamar, is contracted to review ads and ensure their compliance with laws. (Lamar did not respond to my emails.)

Even more surprising than encountering unmarked religious messaging on public transit is that Supreme Master TV is not the only purported cult operating out of a restaurant chain with ties to the Lower Mainland. Sitting humbly in Chilliwack is the Yellow Deli, which is the third-ranked restaurant on TripAdvisor and boasts 4.5 stars on Yelp. What most hobby reviewers likely don’t know is that it’s run by the a religious sect Twelve Tribes, which has been investigated for allegations of child abuse and exploitation of members.

Twelve Tribes members live in communal compounds and operate businesses owned by the sect, including the Yellow Deli (which also has BC outposts in Nelson and Courtenay, as well as international locations). In 2022, the Denver Post interviewed ex-members who reported being made to work at the Yellow Deli in Boulder, Colorado without pay. Despite this disturbing (and easy to Google) reputation, the Chilliwack restaurant remains enduringly popular. In Maclean’s, a 2022 student guide to the University of the Fraser Valley called it “the best hangover breakfast”—though dining among savvy cult recruiters in a pliant state seems rather unwise.

Could there be other food hubs run by cults in the Lower Mainland? It’s possible. In January, Mount Pleasant Vintage & Provisions reported that their building’s exterior sign reading “THIS IS NOT A CULT” had been stolen, which is exactly what I would do if I were a cult leader looking to furnish my new restaurant venture with soothing decor on the cheap.

https://www.straight.com/city-culture/was-your-last-sandwich-made-by-a-cult

CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/22/2022 (SGA Event, Opus Dei, Cathars, Breatharianism, Video, Supreme Master Ching Hai, Clergy Abuse, Legal, Event, Coercive Control, Sexual Exploitation, Psychological Abuse)

SGA Event, Opus Dei, Cathars, Breatharianism, Video, Supreme Master Ching Hai, Clergy Abuse, Legal, Event,  Coercive Control, Sexual Exploitation, Psychological Abuse

ICSA Online Event: Second and Multi-Generational Adult Former Cult Member Series (FREE!)

Sunday, March 27th, 2022, 1:00 - 2:15 pm EST: Destigmatizing Medical Care Post-Cult, Presented by Eva Mackey and Ck Rardin

Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc.

ODAN challenges many of Opus Dei's Questionable Practices because of the way they affect an individual's personal freedom, choices and family life.

InfoCatholic: The sect of the Cathars spreads throughout Spain and attracts young people

"With the title "Neither sex, nor meat, nor social life: this is how the Cathars of the 21st century are", a Spanish digital media published on June 20 a report on the so-called Association for the Study of Cathar Culture , present in Spain . A group that, according to its own website, "studies, recovers and promotes the universal values of Catharism'."

SFGATE: The strange, sad Bay Area 'diet cult' that fell apart over a chicken pot pie

" ... [Wiley Brooks] was the founder of the spiritual and pseudoscientific movement known as Breatharianism, famous for spreading the gospel that humans could live on air alone. He claimed he hadn't eaten in 19 years. To his followers, the binge was an unforgivable sin — as if God himself had taken a bite out of the forbidden apple."

" ... 'Breatharianism is a philosophy that believes that the human body, when it's in perfect harmony with itself and nature, is a perfect Breatharian — you know, all the constituents that we need is taken from the air we breathe,' Brooks told Snyder, in front of a studio audience that seemed both amused and entranced by his words."

San Francisco Examiner: More than just a vegan eatery—some call it a cult

"Many go vegan and skip the cult bit.

If you have ever ventured into the Bay Area vegan restaurant scene, you'd be familiar with the Asian fusion restaurant chain Loving Hut. Lien Hoang opened San Francisco's version Hut on Irving St. in December 2010 largely because of her concern about killing animals and the meat industry's harmful impact on climate change.

The storefront's bright yellow appearance and the aroma of food could capture the attention of any hungry pedestrian. Plant-based meat replacements are aplenty – chicken, pork, fish. Right now, the San Francisco restaurant is still taking COVID precautions by only offering take-out.

It seems innocuous; it's just vegan food. But underneath it all lies an international chain with over 200 locations across 42 countries run by a multi-millionairess named Supreme Master Ching Hai who claims god-like status, reputedly has 2 million followers and hawks expensive merchandise over the internet.``

Daily Beast: 'Cult-Like' Ohio Church is Secret Hotbed of Incestuous Abuse, Minister's Niece Says

"An Ohio woman who escaped her family's home after years of what she described as horrific, religiously-motivated abuse has filed a lawsuit accusing her mother, father, uncle, brothers, and a local cop of not only causing the abuse, but allowing it to continue, then covering it up once authorities became suspicious.

In the 22-page civil suit, filed Feb. 21 in Cincinnati federal court, Serah Bellar says her parents "mandated" that all of their 18 biological children and one adopted child attend their uncle's Dove Outreach Church in Waverly, Ohio."

ICSA Annual Conference: Coercive Control & Sexual Exploitation - Carrie McManus, Andrea Silverstone, Rod Dubrow-Marshall, Linda Dubrow-Marshall

"The language and understanding of coercive control has begun to shift how we view and understand experiences of domestic abuse, deepening our capacity to understand the long term impacts of this crime often perpetrated against women and girls. Little research however, has been done into the intersections of coercive control and sexual exploitation/trafficking. This presentation will provide an overview of a research project completed by Sagesse in partnership with the University of Salford exploring how coercive control and experiences of sexual exploitation link together to impact victims of crime. This project explored the impacts of sexual exploitation within practice, policy and legislation in multiple jurisdictions including Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands. This presentation will provide an overview of the linkages between practice, policy, legislation and personal lived experience of sexual exploitation and coercive control. Pulling from experiences of Sagesse participants, the presentation will review the push and pull factors related to individuals engagement in sex work/exploitation. We will discuss the themes from participants connecting their experiences to coercive control and the experience of the loss of personal agency and the implications of that loss on their emotional and physical liberty. Superordinate themes that were also identified and will be discussed in this presentation included the journey of sex work, wellbeing, coercive control, interventions and services, protection, and enforcement, and lastly, the intersections of COVID 19 and sex work. Recommendations for practice and policy with a lens for understanding coercive control and its impact on sex work and sexual exploitation. This presentation will include a discussion to understand how to implement suggested adjustments, practice necessities and create more space for survivor voices within prevention, prosecution and protection components of this complex issue."

ICSA Annual Conference: Assessment of perceptions and experiences of family members or individuals concerned about a loved one who is or was in a controlling or abusive group or relationship

Carmen Almendros, Michael Langone
Friday, June 24th

"Psychological abuse within cultic groups is a worldwide social problem that has negative impacts on the health of victims-survivors, families and communities. A growing body of research has evidenced the manipulative and abusive practices endured by many followers of these groups and their deleterious effects on members and former members' well being. Despite progress here, little is known about how the involvement and/or ongoing membership of a loved person to such groups affects their family members or friends. In fact, the lack of study of the experiences and problems faced by families and relatives of victims-survivors seems to be a common research gap within other areas in which coercive controlling relationships occur (e.g., intimate partner violence). To address these gaps we conducted a study to examine the concerns, responses and experiences of family members, relatives and friends of members and former members of controlling and/or abusive groups or relationships. The initial sample of the study consisted of 230 participants who were/had been concerned over a current or past involvement of a loved one in one of such groups/relationships. Some of the participants were themselves survivors of the same groups/relationships (around 30% had been born and/or raised in such). Results showed that responses seemed very comparable with those obtained when studying family members of people with other problems (generally a diagnosis of a mental health problem) in terms of family distress and emotional experiences of caring. Understanding the difficulties and problems faced by family members and their coping responses may not only give visibility to the suffering of these close relatives of victims/survivors of abusive relationships, as well as evidence the scarcity of useful helping resources, but may contribute to inform prevention and intervention efforts on this crucial societal problem."

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

Flipboard

Twitter

Instagram

Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.

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 cultintervention@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Joe Kelly (joekelly411@gmail.com)

Patrick Ryan (pryan19147@gmail.com)

If you do not wish to be subscribed to this list, or you think you are being maliciously subscribed to the list, or have any other questions, send them to: pryan19147@gmail.com or send an email to: cultnews101+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

More than just a vegan eatery—some call it a cult

Loving Hut chain offers food, meditation and access to the ‘Supreme Master’

Melanie Velasquez

San Francisco Examiner

February 22, 2022

Many go for the vegan and skip the cult bit.

If you have ever ventured into the Bay Area vegan restaurant scene, you’d be familiar with the Asian fusion restaurant chain Loving Hut. Lien Hoang opened San Francisco’s version Hut on Irving St. in December 2010 largely because of her concern about killing animals and the meat industry’s harmful impact on climate change.

The storefront’s bright yellow appearance and the aroma of food could capture the attention of any hungry pedestrian. Plant-based meat replacements are aplenty – chicken, pork, fish. Right now, the San Francisco restaurant is still taking COVID precautions by only offering take-out.

It seems innocuous; it’s just vegan food. But underneath it all lies an international chain with over 200 locations across 42 countries run by a multi-millionairess named Supreme Master Ching Hai who claims god-like status, reputedly has 2 million followers and hawks expensive merchandise over the internet.

But before I knew all that, during my early vegetarian years, I would go to the San Diego Loving Hut on Friday nights with my friends and family. Later, I visited my older sister in Santa Clara and was surprised, yet so ecstatic, to find a Loving Hut in the food court of the Valley Fair Mall. I thought Loving Hut only existed in San Diego. That day, my sister referred to it as “cult” food. But as I carelessly chowed down on orange faux-chicken, my 16-year-old mind didn’t fully process that — even when she went on to talk about how it was a joke in an animated series she watched.

In college, I became vegan and did not have a vegan-friendly dining hall. I got take-out from Irving St. Loving Hut more often than any other vegan restaurant. Sometimes you just need non-pretentious, good, solid food. That’s exactly what you get: good, solid, comfort food. It was won-ton soup when I contracted the flu going around the dorm pre-pandemic; chow mein and potstickers on any given evening; and a slice of carrot cake when I needed some extra uplifting.

Hoang’s personal favorites include the spicy “cha cha” (vegan shrimp), spicy lemongrass delight, and bun hue spicy noodle soup. Hoang has been happy with the local support of the Inner Sunset and other San Francisco regulars who come by often to order to-go or just chat with her. You can feel the homemade food love.

Hoang is a firm believer in translating kindness into cuisine. As she greeted every new patron who ordered to-go, you could feel her smile through her mask. She attributes these values of her restaurant to Supreme Master Ching Hai. When asked about her mission, Hoang said, “[For] everyone to live in harmony as brothers and sisters.”

Back in 1992, when one of Hoang’s friends introduced her to Supreme Master Ching Hai, she fell in love with her lectures after watching one of the Supreme Master’s talks in Gilroy. Soon after, she was initiated by Ching Hai, herself (which is rare nowadays), in April 1993 on UC Irvine’s campus.

Born in Vietnam as Hue Dang Trinh, Ching Hai is the founder and self-appointed spiritual leader of the Guanyin sect of Buddhism, which may have as many as 2 million followers, many of whom follow her on the internet. She has likened herself to the reincarnation of Buddha and Jesus. She says she’s “God’s direct contact.” In fact, that is the name of one of her many websites that accompany her spiritual and business ventures.

Ching Hai is also a businesswoman who started Loving Hut as a way to provide accessible vegan food. She runs everything from ecoVegan, a food distribution company, to a musical that ran for one night in Los Angeles named “Loving the Silent Tears.” In addition, she sells expensive jewelry, lamps, clothes, art, framed portraits of herself, music, and books.

Van Luong and Karen Lam are two Ching Hai appointed volunteers — they prefer the term liaisons — from the San Francisco center of Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association. They were initiated in 1990 during college. We sat down for a conversation at the Milpitas location of Loving Hut. Luong and Lam are frequent patrons of Loving Hut and have been following Ching Hai for 30 years.

Ornate lamps from Ching Hai’s webstore, The Celestial Shop, inside the Milpitas location of Loving Hut. (Melanie Velasquez/The Examiner)

Ornate lamps from Ching Hai’s webstore, The Celestial Shop, inside the Milpitas location of Loving Hut. (Melanie Velasquez/The Examiner)

Lam explained the promises of Ching Hai that can be achieved when you dedicate yourself to lifelong veganism — plus two-and-a-half hours of daily meditation: “You will live great in one lifetime, one life liberation… you follow everything else, all the precepts and meditation, everything, then Master promise you, she’ll take you back home, this one lifetime.”

Lam said initiation is imperative towards the journey “going home,” which is a metaphor for heaven.

“The initiation is the important part,” she said. “You have to get that first. Otherwise, you can sit for 1,000 years and do all this aesthetic, ‘stand on one leg’ or something; you still don’t get this enlightenment. The important thing is you have to find that teacher that is already enlightened,” said Lam.

Luong and Lam says Ching Hai is their enlightened teacher who guides her followers through meditation. Without her guidance, Lam warns, demons can pretend to be Jesus or the Supreme Master during meditation and could lead you astray.

If you have visited a few Loving Hut locations, you would notice that the decor is similar, but not exactly the same as the last one you visited. The answer is the Celestial Shop. It’s one of Ching Hai’s many side gigs (in addition to being Supreme Master) where she sells her blessed merchandise to her followers. For example, a common motif of the San Francisco and Milpitas location is the lamps. The cheapest lamp on her website goes for $430 and the most expensive one is $3,030 plus tax and shipping. Some of the other decor in the restaurant is also bought from the Celestial Shop. Lam said that she saves up to buy Ching Hai’s paintings and jewelry.

Where the money goes from these all these businesses is unclear. In the past, she has been criticized for her questionable practices. In 1996, Ching Hai and her followers attempted to donate $640,000 to Clinton’s Presidential Legal Expense Fund, but the money was returned because the organizers said they were suspicious about the source of funds. Lam says the profits go back to Ching Hai’s followers, vegan activists, or to relief funds for different natural disasters. The most recent major donation was $20,000 for the 2018 earthquake that struck Hualien, Taiwan.

The duality of Ching Hai, being both a spiritual leader and business tycoon, is ever present in her endeavors.

Her spiritual precepts and practices seem well-intentioned – combating climate change, being truthful and faithful, not harming any living beings and refraining from intoxicating substances. Luong, Lam, and even CJ, the owner of the Milpitas Loving Hut, said they found Ching Hai when they were young and felt depressed.

“When I was young, I always feel depressed. You feel like you’re lost, (you don’t) belong here or something is missing,” said Luong, “One day my mom had a friend that would (play Ching Hai’s) videotape… I happened to watch it and I go ‘Wow, this is what I’m looking for.’”

Cult or not, Ching Hai’s followers are firm in their beliefs. What Hoang, Luong, Lam, and CJ have in common is that they seem like genuine people who care about being kind to all sentient beings and passing the love to all who meet them.

But Ching Hai is also a businesswoman looking to sell expensive goods to a loyal consumer base. She also sells photos of herself poorly photoshopped in front of different whimsical fantasy scenes of nature.

Supreme Master TV is played at every Loving Hut, a 24/7 online livestream with scheduled programming of shows captioned in 14 languages. Programs include interviews conducted and produced by volunteer members about different vegan restaurants in the world, vegan cooking, weather around the world, and replays of Ching Hai’s lectures.

On a special day, Supreme Master TV airs urgent messages from Ching Hai. The latest one is her most recent conversation with the Chief of COVID (a presumed spiritual being who controls COVID) announcing the end of the pandemic to be November 4, 2099. According to Ching Hai, the Chief of COVID said the only way for the pandemic to end, is not the vaccine or any medically recommended protocols, but for everyone to be vegan and seriously repent through meditation.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/its-more-than-just-a-vegan-restaurant-some-call-it-a-cult/

The curious connection between health food restaurants and cults

Stephanie Weber
The Takeout
April 9, 2020

My favorite breakfast spot in Chicago was Victory’s Banner. It was a quirky, cheerful cafe in Roscoe Village with yellow walls, a diverse waitstaff wearing saris, pictures of an older man weightlifting and smiling on every wall, and sugar packets that had quotes on the back of them like “listen to your heart whispers.” My heart whispers told me to continue eating there, because the French toast with peach butter was truly the best I’ve ever had. I continued to eat there for years despite a mounting list of questions, like: Who exactly was the weightlifting man in all these photographs? Who was telling me, via fortune-cookie-esque sugar packets, to live my best life journey? And why would a restaurant also organize meditation workshops? The answer to all of these questions was Sri Chinmoy, a spiritual guru who promoted healthy living and meditation from the 1960s until his death in 2007. His followers continue to propagate his teachings.

I once asked a server at Victory’s Banner if the owners and staff were part of a religion, and she informed me they were “a meditation group” that offered seminars. “Meditation group” is pretty vague, but to some, that’s exactly what they were. Others would consider them a cult, albeit one that served a great vegetarian brunch with bottomless chai.

When I looked into Sri Chinmoy, I found that his followers operated vegetarian restaurants all over the country. A cursory search on Reddit brings up threads that ask the question, “Is the vegan restaurant near me owned by a cult?” Maybe!

The followers of Sri Chinmoy aren’t the exception; they appear to be the rule. Why would all these self-proclaimed meditation groups own meat-free restaurants? An easy answer is that many such groups adhere to very strict and specific diets. According to the Sri Chinmoy Center’s website, “Vegan and vegetarian diets are often the preferred lifestyle choice of seekers and meditators. The mild qualities of the plant kingdom likewise nourish mild qualities in ourselves, strengthening our simplicity, kindness and oneness with others.” It’s not too far off from what you might have been told by some yogis in your own life.

It’s fair to say that the promotion of vegetarianism and veganism by groups like Sri Chinmoy is at least partially responsible for the health food movement of the 1960s and ’70s. The Hare Krishnas, also founded in the 1960s, are known for having inclusive and free vegetarian dinners on Sundays, but they also run Hare Krishna Food for Life organization which is a nonprofit vegan food relief fund. The Twelve Tribes, which arose in the 1970s, are responsible for The Yellow Deli. All of these groups ran their restaurants to promote what they deem a healthy balance of diet and spirituality.

Perhaps the O.G. of spiritual restaurants was in Los Angeles. In 1969, Jim Baker, aka Father Yod, recruited his followers to open and operate The Source, the nation’s first health food restaurant of any renown that served organic vegetarian food to hippies, locals, tourists, and movie stars. Employees of the restaurant were like family. Literally: they were a cult (and rock band) known as The Source Family. The Source had crossover appeal with the general public; the restaurant was even featured in Annie Hall. It continued to prosper until Baker sold the business in 1974.

In more recent years, the most famous modern example of a cult-run vegetarian restaurant is likely The Loving Hut. Entrepreneur Supreme Master Ching Hai is the mysterious spiritual leader behind The Loving Hut, a vegetarian franchise that boasts over 100 locations around the world and whose locations all have TVs broadcasting Supreme Master TV, a channel owned by Ching Hai that promotes “24 hours of positive news a day.” (This is a bit more forward than the meditation workshops recommended to customers at Victory’s Banner.) The group behind The Loving Hut practices the Quan Yin Method, the Buddhist-based meditation practice and belief system that Supreme Master Ching Hai promotes to followers around the world. Ching Hai is a Vietnamese millionaire who has been growing both her fortune and her following since the 1990s.

Since its peak in 2015, however, some of The Loving Hut’s 140 locations around the world have closed. The Sri Chinmoy restaurant I frequented in Chicago is also now closed—sort of. It reopened in 2018 as Lucy’s Cafe, and while it has the same menu, the new owners informed me they are not affiliated with Sri Chinmoy. They bought the restaurant a few years ago, but they kept the Victory’s Banner menu, which means we can all still enjoy French toast with peach butter. The inspirational sugar packets, however, are long gone.

It’s hard to tell where the Sri Chinmoy–affiliated owners went, or why they sold the business. There was negative press surrounding Sri Chinmoy after his death in 2007, with a former member publishing a book about her experiences in what she deems a controlling cult. But that was ten whole years before the closure of Victory’s Banner. Still, it’s possible that with each damning expose, institutions like Chicago’s brunch cafe and The Loving Hut lose out on interested parties who arrive with an appetite for both pancakes and enlightenment.

Because, after all, these restaurants are operating under a dual business model: they want the restaurant to make money to fund their respective organizations, but they also consider recruitment a metric for their success. With the restaurant industry’s razor-thin margins, the health food is just as much a promotional expense as a moneymaker. I reached out to representatives from these groups and the employees of several spiritually inclined vegetarian restaurants around the country, but they all declined to comment on the particulars of their restaurants. Instead, I’m left with what Sri Chinmoy himself had to say: “We came into the world, not only to eat material food, but also to feed our heart with our aspiration-meal.” My own aspiration is to skip the meditation workshops and order another serving of that peachy French toast.

https://thetakeout.com/sri-chinmoy-and-the-vegetarian-health-food-restaurants-1842726300

Vegan restaurants run by cult leader who 'speaks to God'

Elizabeth Schumacher
DW
August 13, 2018

A millionaire businesswoman whose followers call her "Supreme Master" is behind a chain of popular vegan cafes, including four in Germany. No one knows how Ching Hai amassed her vast fortune.

In just four years, vegan restaurant Loving Hut has opened more than 140 locations in the United States, Austria, Germany, Australia and South America, which makes it the biggest vegan chain worldwide. Its founder, known as Ching Hai, has more than 500,000 followers (by some counts up to 2 million) who believe she has direct conversations with God and call her Supreme Master.

With thousands of videos on YouTube showing spiritual lectures going back to the 1990s, Ching Hai preaches all over the world to acolytes of a meditation-based philosophy she has dubbed Quan Yin. Wearing colorful outfits and sitting on outlandish sets with one or two favored followers, Hai mixes Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam to instruct her believers in how they can achieve higher levels of consciousness and also speak directly to God. She claims to be the next "master" following in the likes of Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed.

In the lectures, she also reminds her adherents that they should not be ashamed of making money, "people will make you feel guilty about making money…it's none of their business."

She also sometimes advocates something called breatharianism, which is a denial of food and water in favor of spiritual "sustenance." The practice, sometimes associated with older religions, has been tied to numerous dehydration and starvation deaths.

Supreme Master TV

Born Hue Dang Trinh in Vietnam in 1950, Hai came to Germany in the early 1970s after she met and married a German scientist. In the following decades, she founded Supreme Master Ching Hai International, selling jewelry and clothing and books authored by Hai.

The company also produces content for Supreme Master Television, which is usually played on large screens at Loving Hut locations, in which Hai, photoshopped onto glowing and sparkly backgrounds, recites aphorisms about time travel and different dimensions.
Hai, who also goes by Celestia De Lamour in the US where she is now based, has been described by the media as a cult leader for decades, and according to Humanewatch.org "inspires feverish adoration like a kind of deity-cum-rock star."

Questionable business practices

She has also run afoul of the authorities on several occasions. In 1996, $640,000 (€562,000 at today's rate) she donated to the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton was returned for being of "suspicious" origin, and her business has been targeted by Taiwanese authorities for illegally transferring funds in and out of the country.

In China, a group of her followers was accused of using an electronics company as a front for recruiting Quan Yin members and organizing initiation rituals. And according to University of Oxford political scientist Patricia Thorton, the origin of Hai's vast fortune is unknown.

However, unlike practices used at better-known cults, Hai does not seem to be calling on her followers to cut themselves off from their friends and family nor hustling them for their money. According to her website, her lectures, which are attended by hundreds of devotees, are free of charge.

Loving Hut has four locations in Germany: two in Hamburg, one in Hanover and one in Lüneburg. Their offices declined DW's request for a comment.

https://www.dw.com/en/vegan-restaurants-run-by-cult-leader-who-speaks-to-god/a-45061424

Visiting the Vegan Restaurant Chain Owned by a Cult

VICE

By Justin Caffier

July 15, 2016

 

Vegan restaurants are a dime a dozen in Southern California. They're so commonplace that even us non-vegans wind up at them from time to time and, with each visit, have the recurring epiphany that hey, this stuff ain't half bad! But there's one vegan chain that stands out among the rest: Loving Hut, an international chain of more than 140 restaurants and one hotel, which has been called the fastest-growing vegan franchise in the world. It's also operated by a group that many consider to be a cult.

Loving Hut was created by Supreme Master Ching Hai, a 66-year-old Vietnamese businesswoman. Besides her restaurant empire, Ching Hai—who was once called the "Buddhist Martha" by TIME—is the creator of a jewelry line, a clothing line, and the Quan Yin Method, a pseudo-religious philosophy with as many as 500,000 followers, by some estimates.

You probably haven't heard of Ching Hai, because she's pretty toothless as far as cults of personality go. There have been no mass suicides done in her name, and she's not squeezing her followers for every red cent, a la Scientology. Instead, the Quan Yin Method preaches preservation of life above all else. Other pillars include not telling lies, not taking that which is not offered, not drinking alcohol or doing drugs, and avoiding "sexual misconduct," whatever that means.

 

Every cult leader needs a vehicle to spread his or her message, and for Ching Hai, that vehicle is food. The Loving Hut chain has locations everywhere from Portland to Pittsburgh to Prague, which are operated less like a traditional franchise and more like a free-for-all, where each location can choose how to run the restaurant, as long as it's in line with Ching Hai's philosophy.

I decided to visit the closest Loving Hut, about an hour's drive from Los Angeles in Claremont, California. It's nestled in a modern shopping plaza next to eateries like Le Pain Quotidien and Yogurtland. The Loving Hut, which has sun-faded, printer-paper photos of various entrées taped on the front windows, is a misfit among the meticulously crafted aesthetics of its neighbors. The word "Lynchian" gets thrown around a lot lately, but there was no other way to describe what it's like to enter the restaurant.

 

The curtains were drawn to mitigate the hot midday sun, so the only light in the entire room came from a few beams poking through the cracks, catching the dust particles hovering in the air. A white guy with dreads in a polo shirt was feeding his baby in a stroller. At another table, two women sat across from each other, not eating, not talking. Soothing massage parlor ambient music played from speakers around the room.

A wall-mounted television played grainy scenes of nature, like those from a karaoke-music video, while a ticker of affirmations scrolled below. I later learned this was Supreme Master TV, the channel owned by Ching Hai, which broadcasts in most Loving Huts and on 71 cable and IPTV networks, according to its website. The 24-hour channel features shows called things like "Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living," "Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants," and "Words of Wisdom."

 

After a few moments, the lone front-of-house staff member approached me and led me to my table. The menu was intimidatingly large. Every Loving Hut location chooses its own menu, meaning there is no consistency between the various locations other than the fact that all the food is vegan.

 

I asked my server what she recommended from the menu, and she suggested the Asian Gyro—a meat substitute wrapped inside homemade scallion bread with lettuce, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and a spicy sauce. I figured I might go the rest of my life without encountering a vegan Asian/Greek fusion dish, so I jumped at this rare opportunity.

 

While I waited for my food, I noticed a row of celebrity portraits. These were photos of the "vegetarian and vegan elite," which ranged from people I did not recognize to Bill Clinton. The placard next to them explained with unusual capitalization, "These Smart, Beautiful, Talented People are Vegan and Vegetarian. Why aren't you?" It seemed like an odd question to pose in a restaurant where people had come specifically to eat vegan food.

The owner of this Loving Hut, Charles Liang, later told me that he's been a disciple of Ching Hai since 1996. When the first Loving Hut opened in 2008 and the brand rapidly expanded, he jumped at the opportunity to spread the vegan gospel by opening his own location.

"Most important is saving lives. Loving animals, loving others, loving yourself," Liang told me. "Everything connects with one another. Everything has vibrations. Nature is the best magic to maintain everything. That's why my restaurant is organic vegan, and not just vegan."

 

Liang mentioned that Supreme Master Ching Hai loves to visit her restaurants around the world and has even dropped into the Claremont location a number of times. Deities gotta eat too, after all.

My Asian Gyro came out fast and tasted great. The imitation steak tasted like real cow, and the scallion flatbread added an interesting twist. And rather than proselytizing the merits of vegan living, the servers at the Claremont location pretty much left me to enjoy my meatless meal in peace.

Sure, the Supreme Master TV was still humming in the distance, and the portraits of intelligent, brave, famous, beautiful vegans were staring back at me from nearby wall of fame. But if you can ignore all that for long enough to enjoy a delicious meal, you might even start to feel like a devotee of Ching Hai yourself.

 

http://www.vice.com/read/the-restaurant-chain-owned-by-a-cult