As police and families search for six people missing from the St. Louis area, rumors and half-truths swirl around their involvement with Rashad Jamal, a spiritual influencer now in prison for child abuse.
Tim Marchman
Anna Merlan
Vice
January 18, 2024
The last time Mikayla Thompson's aunt, "Ella," saw her was over the summer. She arrived at Mikayla's apartment in Berkeley, a suburb of St. Louis, to pick up the younger woman's toddler daughter, who'd been staying with her some of the time, and caught a glimpse of a heavyset man in the hallway.
"That's my mom's boyfriend," the little girl said.
Later that summer, Ella—we are referring to her by a pseudonym to protect her privacy—discovered that Mikayla, who is 25 years old, had laid out her daughter's birth certificate and a few photos, along with several letters. There was a note addressed to her daughter "encouraging her to live her best life, to not let people put her down or boss her around, to be the best she can be," Ella remembered.
Mikayla and three other young adults including Naaman Williams, the heavyset man, and Makayla Wickerson, a distant cousin, also 25, vanished, along with two young children. They haven't been seen since leaving a hotel in Florissant, Missouri in early August, and none of their families have heard from them. Steve Runge, an investigator with the Berkeley Police Department, says he has no leads.
The young people, it's clear, had become deeply involved in a large, loose online community of young Black spiritual seekers, and exhibited strange behavior including meditating outside in the nude in full sight of neighbors, adopting the names of ancient gods, and cutting themselves off from their families. They were, more specifically, deeply interested in the teachings of influencers including the charismatic Rashad Jamal, a convicted child molester and self-proclaimed divine being who preaches that Black and Latino people are gods, that polygamy is essential to the cultivation of the conscious mind, and whose online followers have, as VICE News has reported, been accused and in some cases convicted of serious crimes, including two bizarre murders in Alabama. One person who knows the young people said in an online conversation viewed by VICE News that they probably went off the grid to prepare to ascend, believing something akin to the Rapture was coming.
Over the past two weeks, the case has drawn considerable attention from local and national media due to these sensational elements. Much of the reporting on the case, though, has drastically overstated what is currently known about the reasons why these people disappeared, as well as presenting a distorted picture of the loose community they appear to be a part of. That network of conscious young Black people, meanwhile, is full of whispers about where the missing people might be.
While a great deal remains unknown, the truth appears to be both stranger and more complicated than portrayed in reports suggesting that the young people could be, as both the Guardian and NBC put it, "in the clutches of an online cult." Mikayla Thompson, in particular, seems more than anything to have been seeking to escape a troubled past; in the process, she and the young people with whom she joined forces made their way into an uncertain future, falling down an online rabbithole of esoteric beliefs that further alienated them from a society they already felt had spurned and oppressed them.
"Being a Black person in America, we're unheard," one of Thompson's relatives told VICE News, reflecting on her possible state of mind before the disappearance. "We're shut out. Our opinions and how we feel don't matter. That may take a part in this also."
At least as far back as 2021, Williams, a young man from Washington, D.C., was, to go by his social-media presence, fascinated by what might be best called "conscious influencers," figures preaching esoteric spiritual beliefs placing Black people at the center of the divine order. Many conscious influencers also share bizarre conspiracy theories about ancient aliens, pseudohistory, vaccines, stargates, time travel and the significance of the Planet Ki, often a reference to Earth or a previous iteration of it. Williams not only followed popular creators like Jamal and Rod Hayes, but appeared to emulate them—posting, for instance, a video of women appearing to peel the skin off of and dismember babies alongside claims that sinister forces were feeding these babies to the population. His caption would have been as legible to his followers and fellow travelers as it would baffling to outsiders.
"QUICK TO ENFORCE THE LAW ON YO BLACK AS" he wrote in January 2022, "THE MOMENT YOU GIVE YO PLASMA ENERGY BACT TO PLANET KI AKA 'PISSING IN PUBLIC‼️'"
At around this same time, according to three relatives who spoke at length to VICE News, MIkayla Thompson was undergoing a change that even in retrospect they can't make sense of. They described an extremely bright young woman who was processing an unsettled upbringing, traumatic experiences, and bad relationships, and had been cycling through periods of homelessness. She was raising her daughter with the help of her aunt, who had also helped raise her, and alternately attempted to heal troubled relationships with people close to her and to shut them out entirely, going so far as to intermittently block her mother on social media platforms. She began to find deep meaning in what one relative called "witchcraft," including reading tarot cards. For a period of time, she was living in her own apartment and paying her bills with income she made from her readings. Then things changed and became, in the words of one relative, "darker."
According to what Williams' mother told Runge, the investigator, he was a loving son who in 2022 began a "spiritual journey," with consequent changes. One of the last times they spoke, for instance, he told her that she wasn't his mother at all, and that she was merely a "shell"—the type of delusional-sounding belief frequently preached by conscious influencers. (Tragically, when "conscious" beliefs shade into seeming delusion, family members have ended up as victims of extreme violence. Damien Washam, a Rashad Jamal fan in Alabama, killed his mother with a sword and gravely injured another family member following an argument over his marijuana use, he told police. Washam had become increasingly immersed in Jamal's videos in the leadup to the killing, buying thousands of dollars worth of crystals from Jamal's University of Cosmic Intelligence as well as a Glock and armor-piercing rounds. Washam had no known mental health issues, according to his family, and there is still considerable uncertainty about what motivated him to commit the murder. He was acquitted by reason of insanity last year.)
While it isn't clear precisely when, Williams met Thompson online, and in January 2023, she drove across the country to Washington and came back with him—a serious commitment for someone who had not long before been sleeping in her car and was piecing together a living with online spiritual readings.
Thompson never formally introduced her relatives to Williams, or really spoke about him, and her aunt only became aware of his presence in her home when Thompson's daughter mentioned it. Another relative realized Thompson had a new man in her life when the two started posting videos on Facebook together, talking about esoteric beliefs. To this day, none of them are exactly sure what the nature of the relationship was or is, and none understand what she was doing with Williams, who was heavyset, unemployed, and to their eyes, simply not as smart as Mikayla. The same month she collected Williams from Washington, though, her social-media presence, which had largely been focused on tarot, the zodiac, and positive affirmations, changed.
In a posting offering an "Energy Update From the Cosmos," she wrote "I highly advise y'all to start watching Rashad Jamal's live lectures & book a Cosmic Counseling Session with Aramean Robutu," this latter being the online name Williams had adopted and used to sell readings offering clients the opportunity to receive counseling from dead ancestors. She and Williams appeared together in winding Instagram and Facebook videos, talking about esoteric spirituality, and began touting something called the Cosmic War Room, seemingly the name they gave their online broadcasts. She, meanwhile, also sold crystal jewelry similar to that sold by Jamal's University of Cosmic Intelligence.
During this time, Thompson became close friends with one of her distant cousins, Makyala Wickerson, who is now also missing along with her young daughter. Having gone through periods of silence and disconnection from Thompson, relatives were surprised that Wickerson became close with her, let alone moved in with her and Williams. "She's always been up in spirit, very happy and goofy," one relative remembered, referring to Wickerson. "Liked to keep herself up, liked nice things. She stayed around family, very family-oriented. She kept a job." The only unusual thing they could remember was that in the months before her disappearance, Wickerson had begun talking about God on Facebook much more frequently than usual, and was less and less available when her family tried to contact her.
Before long, the two women, as well as their young daughters, were living not just with Williams, but with another woman named Gerielle German. According to Runge, in the summer of 2023, German told her husband that she'd seen demons and became highly spiritual. In July, she fled with her two-year-old son from the small town in Mississippi where they lived, with a friend bringing her to Berkeley. (German also has two older children who she appears to have left with her husband.)
The group drew attention to itself; neighbors reported seeing the group meditating outside, sometimes in the nude. While the exact arrangements among the group are unknown, during this time, Williams shared approving content about polygamy, arguing in nearly impenetrable Instagram captions that—as Jamal also preaches—it is the divine cosmic order.
"See when you innerstand the Cosmic essence of us you drop all of the PROGRAMED constructs," he wrote in one post. "It was never about sex it was about divine order And Maximizing creative energy. if one is not deeply rooted in the divine essence of source energy, This will be difficult to incept or injust. Because the most high counsel of nine created it to be this way as a reward for the most high God which they created and put evenly on the throne beyond the cosmic kingdom THAT WHICH WE ARE! because The Gods are to PROVIDE, PROTECT & IN-FORCE. So this is why when Goddesses do it it creates an imbalance in you. This is why the Goddesses out number the Gods."
The group never exactly went definitively missing; it simply became clear after a time that they were gone. Wickerson's brother had difficulty getting ahold of her over the summer, and finally went to the house one day in August to find her, knocking on the front door.
"When he didn't get an answer he walked the house and noticed the back window in the house was broken out," a relative told VICE News. "That's when he went in and looked at the state of the house and was like, 'This is not my sister.'"
The house was "a complete mess," they added. "Makayla didn't do clutter or mess or anything like that."
The last solid lead investigators have is that the group stayed in a hotel in Florissant, about 20 miles away, for four days, listing Thompson's aunt's address as their fixed residence. After that, they simply vanished. One acquaintance said in an online coversation viewed by VICE News that they had probably gone "off the grid" and were getting ready for ascension.
"Everyone who is aware is getting prepared," they wrote.
It's clear that Williams and Thompson, at the least, were fans of Jamal, the controversial, bombastic spiritual influencer who is now in prison for child abuse. There is, though, no evidence that he is linked to their disappearance, or that they left home to follow or join any community linked to him. Jamal, who has denied being a cult leader to VICE News, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he doesn't know the missing people, and he was in fact imprisoned as their group came together.
It isn't simply the fact that at least two members of the group promoted Jamal's work and preached ideas similar to his that is leading investigators to look into the connection, though.
As VICE News has reported in a series of stories about Jamal and his most ardent fans and followers, there is a pattern of young Black people from stable backgrounds and leading quiet lives exhibiting radical changes in behavior and personality after encountering his preaching online, frequently becoming obsessed with the idea of going off the grid and returning to nature.
Mostly, this has been seemingly harmless, as in the case of a group of young seekers who documented the conflicts they ran into with police while carrying out a low-grade crime spree and attempting to connect with nature by sleeping in public parks. The most puzzling aspect of such cases has largely been why young people from conventional backgrounds have become convinced that rainbows are gates to other dimensions, that birds are government-built machines, or that NBA players are synthetic robots.
There are darker aspects to the mystery, though: Three people whose personalities abruptly changed after engaging heavily with Jamal's content have been connected to murder. In addition to Washam, the young man who was acquitted of killing his mother by reason of insanity, Yasmine Hider and Krystal Diane Pinkins are both serving lengthy prison sentences after Hider shot and killed a college student, Adam Simjee, during a bungled robbery attempt against Simjee and his girlfriend in a state park in Alabama. Pinkins, according to police, watched the confrontation, and fled into the woods, where police said they found a tent encampment and Pinkins' five-year-old child armed with a rifle. (The child put the gun down and Pinkins and Hider were taken into custody without incident; the USDA Forest Service later disputed that there was an encampment in the woods, a discrepancy that has not been explained.)
Darshell Smith is the mother of the child who Jamal went to prison for abusing. She told VICE News she's deeply disturbed by the disappearance of the young people, saying she "tried to warn people" about what she sees as Jamal's malignant influence.
"Now he's affected the whole world," she added.
Runge told VICE News that he is investigating the influencers the young people were following online and whether their spiritual beliefs had a role in their disappearance, and is comfortable using the word "cult" to describe the group—though he is clear that he has no evidence or reason to think that this makes Jamal the cult's leader, or involved directly in any way.
Nevertheless, the idea that the young people were brainwashed at long distance by an internet cult leader seems to have proved irresistible to the media. ("Police continue search for 6 missing people tied to online cult leader who bashed Jesus," the Christian Post headlined a story about the case.) This erases the more complex dynamics that were going on in their lives, and the way that New Age spirituality both served as a balm for them and, at the same time, deepened the problems they were having with money and earthly authority.
"She was really into the whole spiritual awakening and crystals and horoscopes and zodiac," one of Thompson's relatives told VICE News. "I don't know if she found something online or it just connected with her." But, they added, she "went in 100 percent."
In response to a request for comment, a person identifying themselves as "Rashad Jamal Publicist" emailed VICE News from Jamal's email account, saying "Recent accusations regarding his involvement in the disappearance of 6 individuals require a comprehensive discussion to provide context and address any misconceptions." They did not reply to a follow-up email; a VICE reporter missed a phone call from Jamal's number. In the past, Jamal has asked for $100,000 for an interview, which he claims—incorrectly—he's owed under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and has asserted that VICE "will not stop the spiritual progression of this planet."
Police have said that they believe the young people "don't want to be found," but their prolonged silence on social media is extremely concerning to people who understand the conscious community. A livestreamer who covers that community—sometimes critically—and goes by the name Duhkulu, Kulu for short, online has suggested that the missing people could be in a community in Mexico. On Instagram, he offered a small monetary reward for anyone with further information about their whereabouts.
"That's what worries me about these people," Kulu told VICE News. "They're not posting it online to help inspire other Rashad followers." Abandoning both their online community and their livelihood is a worrying sign, he said. "We have to find these people."
Kulu's suspicion that the group could be in Mexico comes via information from a young woman whom VICE News is not naming because she is not a public figure. The woman reportedly said in a private message that one of the women living in the Berkeley house had asked her to join their community, and suggested she accompany them to Mexico. Recently, she wrote a post expressing frustration at the way the story had been covered in the press.
"This story is all fcked up," she wrote, linking to a news story about the missing group. "And has nothing to do with Rashad Jamal. I knew Mikayla Thompson personally. She always been spiritual. The guy she was dating 'Naamen' in all black used Rashad Jamal teachings and added to them."
Mikayla grew more distant as she got closer to Namaan, the woman added. "I am a spiritual person but I have enough since to know where I draw the line. And Naamen teachings is where I drew that mf. Meditation and sungazing is normal. There's nothing cult about it."
Today, as the silence stretches on, one of Mikayla and Makayla's relatives says they simply hope to hear from the young people, wherever they may be.
"Anything can be worked out," the woman says. "We're not mad, we're just hurt. We love them dearly and we'll do whatever we have to do to get them home safely and get them the help they need to recover. To get them home as a family and continue on as we have before."
Do you know anything we should know about these missing people or the broader conscious community? Email tim.marchman@vice.com, anna.merlan@vice.com, or call/text on our secure Signal line at (267) 713-9832. If you have information about where the missing people are, Major Steve Runge of the Berkeley, Missouri Police Department's Homicide and Major Crimes Division can be reached at wrunge@ci.berkeley.mo.us.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg548g/rashad-jamal-online-cult-st-louis-six-people-vanish
Showing posts with label Rashad Jamal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rashad Jamal. Show all posts
Jan 18, 2024
YouTube cult, naked meditation, and a convicted child molester linked to 6 disappearances
USA TODAY
Januaryu 18, 2024
When Cartisha Morgan’s daughter said she was going on a “spiritual journey,” she was initially supportive.
But troubling signs soon appeared, especially when Ma'Kayla Wickerson, 25, distanced herself and her 3-year-old daughter, Malaiyah, from the rest of her family – a decision Morgan said was unlike anything her daughter had ever done.
“She was so different,” Morgan told USA TODAY. “I didn’t understand.”
Although she grew increasingly concerned, Morgan could never have known what they were caught up in.
Police say Ma'Kayla and Malaiyah have vanished, swallowed up with four other people by a "spiritual cult."
Authorities are investigating the disappearances, the suspected cult and possible ties to murders in other states, Missouri police say. Berkeley Police Maj. Steve Runge told USA TODAY he hopes spreading the word will help authorities find the missing alive and well.
In addition to the Wickersons, that includes 24-year-old Mikayla Thompson of St. Louis; 27-year-old Gerrielle German and 3-year-old Ashton Mitchell of Lake Horn, Mississippi; and 29-year-old Naaman Williams of Washington, D.C. They were last seen at a Quality Inn near St. Louis in August.
"There’s been no response from them whatsoever despite multiple attempts," Runge said. “Nobody’s heard anything, the holidays have come and gone, and these people, from speaking with the family members, they can’t believe that their family members wouldn’t reach out.”
Runge says the investigation has not turned up direct evidence that those missing are in imminent danger, and there is “no indication that this is a violent group."
The adults are believed to be followers of Rashad Jamal, a convicted child molester who leads "The University of Cosmic Intelligence.” Police described the group as a "spiritual cult," which has about 200,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel and tens of thousands more across other platforms.
Authorities said believers have been active on social media and shared Jamal’s videos, disconnected from family and friends, quit their jobs, meditated outside without clothes and had polygamous relationships.
Morgan said she holds out hope for her missing loved ones.
"We miss Ma'Kayla and Malaiyah so much," Morgan said. "Faith has been keeping us together as a family. ... We still believe that everything's going to be OK and they're going to come back home safely. I just wish I knew where they were."
'There were signs I should have noticed'
Ma'Kayla Wickerson has four siblings and a large extended family who mostly live near St. Louis, where she was born and raised. Her mother said she excelled in school and was always independent.
For years she had lived on her own but remained in constant contact with family. That changed in late 2022, when Wickerson moved with young Malaiyah into a house in Berkeley, Missouri, and became close with people she had met online, Morgan said.
She slowly withdrew from family, and in March 2023, things came to a head. Morgan received a call from her daughter's boss, who told her Wickerson had quit her job. When confronted, Wickerson told her mother she was going to start her own business.
That same month, Morgan dropped by Wickerson's house and saw people she didn't recognize. Wickerson told her mother the people were "her family" and asked that she not come over anymore. Morgan listened, and from then on drove by the house only to make sure things looked "all right," she said. Morgan twice asked authorities to conduct a wellness check, but Wickerson answered all their questions and seemed OK to them, so nothing was done, Morgan said.
Since the group was last seen at the hotel in August, Morgan said she has been plagued by thoughts of what else she could have done for her daughter.
"Now that I look back, she was saying she was overwhelmed and needed a break," Morgan said. "There were signs I should have noticed."
She believes Wickerson suffered from long-term postpartum depression and was vulnerable to online manipulation.
"My granddaughter was her first child, and that's overwhelming," she said. "There were probably some things that she was dealing with in silence, too."
What happens in the 'spiritual cult'?
The behavior Wickerson's mother described tracks with what authorities have seen from other followers of Jamal. Berkeley police said adherents have quit their jobs, changed their names to "a spiritual God or Goddess" and disconnected from families.
Other behaviors that have been red flags, police say:Living off of credit cards.
Going “off the grid” – a total disconnection from cell phones and social media.
Embracing sovereign citizenship.
Polygamy.
"Strange behavior" such as meditating nude in front and back yards with neighbors present.
Referring to their mother as a "shell" that brought their spirit into the universe.
Several of those behaviors appear tied to Jamal's teachings in his videos.
Jamal, whose full name is Rashad Jamal White, denied knowing the missing people or being a cult leader in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by phone from a prison in Georgia, where he is serving an 18-year sentence for child molestation and cruelty to children in Georgia, the Post-Dispatch reported. He said the University of Cosmic Intelligence is an online platform he uses to share opinions, much like any social media influencer would.
What is The University of Cosmic Intelligence, and who is Rashad Jamal?
In University of Cosmic Intelligence videos, Jamal says Black and Latino people are gods and goddesses, while people of other races and ethnicities are not originally from this planet. He also claims that the weather is being controlled by weather machines disguised as "5G towers" and that elite families and presidents are "reptilian shapeshifters ... who actually eat the blood of the gods."
His website and social media channels promote sales of "crystals," merchandise and rap music videos he also creates.
Jamal describes himself as a "Black activist, scientist, author, philanthropist ... working hard to raise the vibration of the collective consciousness."
“I’m just giving you my opinion on a plethora of different subjects: from metaphysics to quantum physics to molecular biology to marine biology to geography to Black history to world history. I’m giving you my opinions on these things,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “That doesn’t make me a cult leader.”
Families rocked by disappearances, and the draw of Rashad Jamal
In one of the last conversations Naaman Williams had with his mother, Lukeitta Williams, he told her she was not his mother, just a “shell” that brought him into the universe, police said.
Williams secretly moved to St. Louis after Mikayla Thompson, whom he had met on the internet, drove from her home in the St. Louis area to Washington, D.C., to pick him up. The Berkeley Police Department said in a news release that Williams “began his ‘spiritual journey’ around September of 2022.”
Ivory Hill, one of Thompson’s great-aunts, told USA TODAY she and her family are “shocked” by her disappearance. Thompson has a daughter who is being raised by another great-aunt.
“She has a family she loves: a sister, three brothers, a daughter. … It’s just so sad to see this happening,” Hill said.
Runge is asking anyone with information, including other law enforcement agencies grappling with similar cases, to contact Berkeley police.
Vanished6 people disappeared without a trace from a Missouri hotel. Is an online cult involved?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/18/university-of-cosmic-intelligence-cult-disappearances-police-say/72257648007/
New Developments in the Search for Missing Cult Followers
Kalyn Womack
The Root
January 18, 2024
January 18, 2024
The Missouri police have dug their heels into the sudden vanishing of four adults and two children believed to be in association with an online cult member who is currently behind bars. Their latest finding, however, suggests the group went off-grid on purpose.
Berkeley Police Maj. Steve Runge told NBC it is likely the group doesn’t plan to be found given the recent bits of evidence he’s collected.“They’ve shut off their phones, shut off their social media, shut off everything. We’ve even sent them money via a cash app and they haven’t collected it. They’re just gone,” Runge said via NBC.
After the group vanished in August, police discovered they were followers of Rashad Jamal White, an online conspiracy theorist who calls himself a god, supports polygamy, teaches mythology and basically tries to convince Black people that they are of another multiverse. Their family members told local St. Louis reporters they often found the group members meditating and chanting outside their homes.
So far, this is the biggest lead toward an explanation as to why the group up and left civilization. However, the report says this wasn’t the first Rashad Jamal White-worshipper who did something sideways like this.
Earlier this month, Yasmine Hider was hit with a 35-year prison sentence for her role in the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Adam Simjee of Apopka, Florida, in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama. She and her accomplice, Krystal Pinkins, had been living off the grid in the forest when they tried to rob Simjee and his girlfriend.
In social media postings seen by NBC News, Hider repeatedly mentioned Jamal.
Pinkins, who received a life sentence for the Simjee killing, was also a follower of Jamal, according to various published reports.
The whole connecting to the cosmos, looking for portals to Africa in the Grand Canyon and hyperspiritual teachings would seemingly encourage a person to disconnect. However, their guru can’t be of much guidance serving an 18-year sentence in prison on child molestation charges.
Actually, he denied knowing these people at all.
“I am pretty sure I have never met these people. I get on my phone and I give a lecture. I go live, and then I get off the phone. I do not know the people that are in my live(stream). It’s too many people,” he said in a phone interview with St. Louis Post-Dispatch from Georgia prison.
He also denied being a cult leader but insisted he was an educator on metaphysics, molecular biology, Black history - and so on and so forth. With that being said, he then argued that the police “put a target on his back” upon the group’s disappearance.
Berkeley Police Maj. Runge could not be reached for comment on next steps in the investigation.
https://www.theroot.com/new-developments-in-the-search-for-missing-cult-followe-1851173720
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