"Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play cult leader Jim Jones in "White Night," a psychological thriller, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones was the leader of the infamous People's Temple cult that established "Jonestown" in Guyana. On Nov. 18, 1978, Jones commanded his followers to drink poison and more than 900 people died in one of the largest mass murder-suicides in history, according to Brittanica.
Chloë Grace Moretz will play Deborah Layton, who was a member of Jones' inner circle but escaped the People's Temple cult in 1978..."
"In a chilling new interview, two longtime members of the Lev Tahor cult described their experiences and defended cult leaders, who are known child abusers and kidnappers, a clear sign of the extreme brainwashing they have undergone. One of the women whose husband is currently detained on charges of child abduction in the U.S., vehemently defended his actions and proclaimed his innocence.
As reported in B'Chadrei Charedim, Esther and Chaya Sarah Weingarten, currently in Sarajevo, Bosnia, were interviewed on local television, discussing the cult's highly bizarre culture, including how they raise children, and the horrific accusations against their cult
Esther, a lifelong member, says that she does not want to know about any other way of life. She added that the group did well in Canada, until welfare services knocked on the door, concerned about her children.
"They came again and again, trying to get us to send our children to public schools. But we know this is not the way we want to raise them. It is not written that way in our holy book, to learn things such as that man comes from an animal, a monkey. I will not let my children learn such things," said Esther.
When asked if it was possible to escape the Lev Tahor community, she replied yes, although she concedes that many former members and friends claim that they were not able to leave voluntarily, rather they were forced to flee the evil group, to save their lives. One who has accused the cult of dangerous behavior after he escaped, is a cousin of Esther."
A handwritten note that a paedophile cult leader allegedly sent a young woman through his wife's Facebook account has been revealed in court.
"A paedophile cult leader will remain behind bars after a court heard that he used his wife's Facebook account to send a young female a handwritten note saying she had been "chosen" to be one of his "12 wives" and would "soon receive your first child".
William Costellia-Kamm, the self-proclaimed leader of the "Order of Saint Charbel" who calls himself "Little Pebble", was last year rearrested after allegedly breaching a supervision order slapped on him by the NSW Supreme Court.
The disgraced religious leader - who led his cult based on a property at West Cambewarra near Nowra - has served two jail stints for the aggravated sexual assault of teenage girls."
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"Twitter is flooded with posts that claim a currency called "Raam" is being used as legal tender in Holland or the Netherlands. Such posts also claimed "Raam" is the most expensive currency in the world. However, the fact is "Raam" is not a currency but a bearer bond. Launched in 2001 by Global Country of World Peace (GCWP), "Raam" has been used as a medium of exchange within a closed group of stakeholders in some parts of the United States and Netherlands. Rs 500 Note in Which Green Stripe Is Not Near RBI Governor's Signature Should Not Be Taken? PIB Fact Check Reveals Truth Behind Fake Post.
The Global Country of World Peace, set up by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, launched "Raam" in October 2001. Headquartered in Maharishi Vedic City in US state of Iowa, the GCWP is a non-profit organisation. The Maharishi Vedic City described "Raam" as "the ideal local currency to support economic development in the city and development of local businesses and organisations wishing to accept that currency". Rs 1,000 Currency Note to be Rescinded Into Cash Circulation? PIB Fact Check Trashes Rumour, Says No Such Move Planned by RBI."
" ... I saw Maharishi in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after my daughter got hooked, before my wife got hooked, and on the very day that Mia Farrow got hooked. This was last January. Miss Farrow had been suggesting for about a year that she was a Transcendental Meditator, but that was the bunk. She had merely been hankering to be one. You can't be the real thing without an initiation.
And not just any Transcendental Meditator can turn you on. Maharishi has to do it, which would be a great honor, or one of the few teachers he has trained. Miss Farrow got the great honor in Maharishi's hotel room in Cambridge. My wife and daughter had to make do with a teacher in the apartment of a Boston painter and jazz musician who meditates.
Maharishi says that his thing is not a religion but a technique.
There is private stuff, but no secret stuff in the initiation. You go to several public lectures first, which are cheerful and encouraging. You are told lovingly that this thing is easy, never fails to make a person more blissful and virtuous and effective, if it is done correctly. The lecturer does not explain what meditation feels like because he cannot. It must be experienced, he says.
So you ask for an interview with the teacher, and during that he asks you a little about yourself. He will want to know if you are on drugs or drunk or under psychiatric treatment or plain crazy. You have to be clean and sober and sane, or you won't be initiated. If you're under treatment for mental kinks, you will be told to come back when the treatment is complete.
If the teacher thinks you're okay, you're told to go to a certain address at such and such a time, and to bring as gifts a handkerchief, some fresh fruit, some flowers, and $75. If you are a student or a housewife, you bring $35.
So I have $70 in this new religion so far. Maharishi says that his thing is not a religion but a technique. Still, at cocktail parties every so often, I can be heard to say sulkily, often within earshot of my wife or daughter, "I've got seventy goddamn simoleons in this new religion so far."
The money goes into traveling expenses for the Master and his teachers, and they don't live very high, and a decent set of books is kept, and the books are open. This is not Southern California religion. Sergeant Friday is not about to appear.
Only you and your teacher are present at your initiation into this thing that, to its followers, is so definitely not a religion. And there is candlelight and incense, and there are small pictures of Maharishi and his deceased Master, who was His Divinity Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, Jagadguru Bhagwan Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math.
Your teacher, most likely a fellow American in a business suit, will give you your own private mantra, a sound which, when contemplated, will begin your descent into your own mind. This giving of sounds, usually Sanskrit words, is the teacher's special art, or, I beg your pardon, science.
"Commonly driven by financial stress, many people will readily adopt even the wildest conspiracy theories. Disavowing them, on the other hand, often requires the help of social psychologists."
"A review of Journey to Nowhere by Shiva Naipaul (1980), a journalist account about Jim Jones, his People's Temple, and the social context for the murder-suicide cult tragedy in Guyana in 1978. I suggest the book helps us understand how and why tension between radical left and right narratives continue today."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
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.
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.
"A discussion of John Lifton's thought reform criteria and how it relates to multilevel marketing.
MLM like any other high control group uses thought reform tactics that erode your critical thinking. Examining the criteria Lifton outlines helps to examine the destructive nature of multilevel marketing."
"Frank Powell, a Philadelphia police officer who in 1985 was chief of the city's bomb disposal squad, remembers vividly the moment he was given his instructions. "Wow," he recalls thinking. "You want me to do that?"On 13 May 1985 Powell was handed an army-style green satchel containing a bomb made of C-4 plastic explosives of the sort widely deployed in Vietnam. He boarded a state police helicopter, and took up his position balanced precariously on the skids of the aircraft."I can't remember being scared," he told the Guardian, "though I must have been."At 5.27pm as the helicopter rose into a crystal-clear blue sky he carried out his orders. Flying over a largely African American residential neighborhood of west Philadelphia, he lined up his sights, lit the 45-second fuse with a military igniter and followed his orders."I reached out and I dropped it. Perfect. It was going right where it was supposed to go."It was to lead to one of the great, largely forgotten, outrages of modern AmericaHis target was the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue, a row house which at the time had 13 American citizens inside. They were all members of Move, a group which combined the black liberation struggle with back-to-nature environmentalism.Each Move member took the last name Africa to signal their commitment to race equality as well as to each other as a family. For years they had been in a running battle with the Philadelphia authorities culminating that May in arrest warrants, for a range of offenses including "terroristic threats", "riot" and "disorderly conduct", being served and a standoff ensuing that ended with the dropping of Powell's bomb on to their house.It led to one of the great, largely forgotten, outrages of modern America.After the bomb struck, a fire took hold and began to spread. The police commissioner, Gregore Sambor, critically and fatally decided "to let the fire burn".By the following morning 61 homes had been razed to ashes, leaving 250 Philadelphians destitute and homeless.Only two of the 13 residents of the Move house got out alive.The remaining 11, including five children aged seven to 13, were similarly reduced to ashes."
"President Russell M. Nelson wants Jesus Christ front and center not only in the name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but also in the faith's meetinghouses.To emphasize that, he and his counselors in the governing First Presidency directed local lay leaders Monday to place artwork that depicts Christ himself — or Jesus ministering to others — in all church foyers and entryways.That will be the only art allowed in those prime spots. Banished to other parts of the buildings will be landscape paintings, portraits or pictures of Latter-day Saint leaders, bulletin boards, tables, easels, missionary plaques and other displays."
"In 1978 David Netterville was a young combat controller stationed at Howard Air Force Base in Panama. On the morning of November 19, Netterville and seven others received a call from command telling them to pack a bag for at least 24 hours, with no information about where they were going or why. In later testimony, David would report being told to simply "get my butt in gear, pack my stuff, and get to the work section ASAP."It was only later when airborne in a Hercules transport plane that he was told what was happening. A Californian congressman had been shot by a cult in the South American country of Guyana, and the team was being flown in to investigate. As David describes: "support was unknown and no further information was available. [We went in] totally blind, but willing."What Netterville found on arrival, of course, was nightmarish.In an ultra-remote swath of Guyanese jungle, the recon team found a small village of flimsy, makeshift buildings. Among these buildings were hundreds upon hundreds of bloated, decomposing bodies, fanned out upon the grass."An initial count was made of approximately 400 bodies and no survivors," he recalls. "But the count increased daily since many were stacked on top of each other… command staff kept upgrading the numbers from 400 to 500 to 700."For first responders like David Netterville, there was chillingly little information available about what Jonestown was or what had happened there. They faced only the enormity of the tragedy, and the task of somehow getting all these dead U.S. citizens back to the States.The name "Jonestown" has now been part of the public consciousness for 42 years. In those years, popular culture has scavenged the story for parts, giving us the band The Brian Jonestown Massacre and phrases like "drink the Kool-Aid." But when you look at these photos, and see the faces of people processing a mass suicide, you feel its weight. You realize anew how disturbing the whole thing really was."
