CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/27/2024 (Scientology, John Smyth, South Africa, Norway, Jehovah's Witnesses, Legal, Deprogramming)

Scientology, John Smyth, South Africa, Norway, Jehovah's Witnesses, Legal, Deprogramming

Journal  IE: Reports of Church of Scientology recruiting asylum seekers 'deeply concerning', says O'Gorman

"MINISTER FOR INTEGRATION Roderic O'Gorman has said that reports of the Church of Scientology recruiting asylum seekers to volunteer for the church under the guise of helping them with their applications for international protection is "exploitation" and "deeply concerning".

This morning, The Irish Times reported that the controversial church had recruited numerous asylum seekers residing at the tented accommodation in Crooksling to leaflet and volunteer in the church.

The volunteers received certificates for their participation and were told that this volunteer work would aid them in their applications for international protection."

News4: Church in South Africa reeling from John Smyth abuse scandal

Allegations of a cover up of decades of abuse by John Smyth has sparked debate within the Anglican Church in South Africa where Smyth spent the final two decades of his life.

Stop Mandated Shunning: Norwegian Court to Hear Landmark Case Against Jehovah's Witnesses in February 2025

"A historic appeal case will take place at the Oslo Appeal Court from February 3-14, 2025, with critical testimonies scheduled for February 7 and 10. This case, brought by Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) against the Norwegian State, has the potential to reshape how mandated shunning is understood and addressed legally.

The Norwegian State previously revoked JW's status as a recognized religion, stripping the organization of annual financial support of approximately €1.6 million. This decision was largely driven by the efforts of Jan Frode Nilsen, a former Jehovah's Witness and a victim of mandated shunning, who courageously brought the issue to the attention of Norwegian authorities. Through his tireless advocacy, Jan provided the State with insight into the harmful practices of mandated shunning, amplifying the voices of victims who often suffer in silence. His work has made it clear that this is not merely a local issue but a global one, affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide.

Now, Jehovah's Witnesses are appealing the State's decision for the third time in five years, claiming procedural reforms. However, victims and advocates, including Jan, maintain that these changes do little to address the systemic harm caused by mandated shunning."

From Deprogramming to Thought Reform Consultation - Patrick Ryan, Carol Giambalvo, Joseph Kelly, Hana Whitfield

"  ... In the 1980s many attempts were made by individuals doing interventions to get together to find ways to improve our profession and ourselves. But a difficulty arose in the definition of exit counseling and deprogramming. Some helping organizations at the time contributed to that confusion by maintaining a position that there was voluntary and involuntary exit counseling and voluntary and involuntary deprogramming. As a result, without the ability to establish a clear-cut definition, at those meetings people who called themselves exit counselors but were doing involuntary deprogramming could not be excluded and our work to establish ethical guidelines and a more professional approach spun its wheels, so to speak. A group of individuals who had committed themselves to voluntary interventions only began to meet regularly to share ideas and information and to develop Ethical Standards. We formed an organization of Thought Reform Consultants and eventually published our Ethical Standards. Those Ethical Standards were patterned after the Ethical Codes or Standards of the following organizations:

•        American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy
•        National Association of Social Workers
•        Standards for the Private Practice of Clinical Social Work
•        American Psychiatric Association
•        National Academy of Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselors

We worked diligently to combine those standards with some uniquely necessary to our profession. And we owe our gratitude to the following advisors for their professional support and encouragement:

•        Margaret Singer, Ph. D.
•        Michael Langone, Ph. D.
•        Herbert Rosedale, Esq.
•        David Bardin, Esq. and Livia Bardin, M.S.W.
•        Bill Goldberg, M.S.W. & Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W.
•        Paul Martin, Ph. D.

Thought reform consultation involves much, much more family preparation. It is necessary for a 2-3 day, sometimes more, formal family preparation involving all members of the family team and all thought reform consultant team members. This formal preparation accomplishes the following:

•        The family team experiences how they work together under pressure and how the thought reform consultants work together
•        Enables the thought reform consulting team to observe how the family works together under pressure and who may or may not be appropriate for major roles in the intervention
•        Improves family communication with the group member
•        Enables the family to understand the culture of the group, its teachings and how thought reform techniques impact the group member
•        Prepares the family for how to communicate in the intervention and what practical arrangements should be made
•        Emphasizes the recovery process and their responsibility in it
•        Emphasizes the seriousness of an intervention and all its repercussions
•        Facilitates the family in making a fully informed decision about doing an intervention

Thought reform consultation involves even more assessment, as you see — and places much more responsibility on the family. They realize that a team is not just going to come in and perform some magical process and things will forever be okay.

In both exit counseling and thought reform consulting, the purpose of the intervention is not to get someone out of a cult. While that may be a desired outcome, the purpose is to give the group member the information that enables them to make a fully informed choice."

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.

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

The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.

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

Anglo donates CBD building to pioneering institute set on bolstering education, inner city

Tasneem Bulbulia

Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

Creamer Media

August 4, 2023

Diversified miner Anglo American on August 4 announced the handover of its 45 Main Street building, in the Johannesburg central business district (CBD), to nonprofit private education institution the Maharishi Invincibility Institute.

The building forms part of the company’s former Johannesburg CBD Campus, where its South African headquarters were housed until the miner relocated its Johannesburg CBD colleagues to a new consolidated corporate office in Rosebank, north of the city centre, in 2021.

The institute, since its inception in 2007, has been dedicated to empowering underprivileged youths (and sometimes older students), in the inner city and from all of the surrounding areas, by providing them with access to quality education.

The institute focuses on access to on-the-job training for students and actively works to help graduates secure sustainable jobs at some of the country’s biggest corporates.

It boasts a pre-school, high school, college and 12 Industry Academies, which gets students into critical scare-skills jobs. 

Speaking to Engineering News on the sidelines of the handover event, Maharishi founder and CEO Dr Taddy Blecher said Anglo had turned down several high-paying offers for the building.

He lauded the company for choosing to donate the building to the institute instead, thereby continuing to give back to communities and striving to engender change in the inner city.

Blecher also said that, as part of the agreement to secure the donation of the building, the institute had set up a maintenance fund with several partners to ensure the sustainability and longevity of the site and the precinct.

He noted that there were some internal renovations that had to be undertaken to convert the building from an office space to an educational one, with Paragon Architects to undertake the interior work.

Therefore, he said, the first cohort of students would begin making use of the building in about six weeks’ time. The building is expected to be fully operational by January next year.

This donation also builds on Anglo’s previous donation to the institute, in 2005, of the 9 Ntemi Piliso Street building, which currently houses one of the institute’s campuses, and is located in direct proximity to the 45 Main Road building.

Blecher emphasised that the day was not only a celebration of the new donation, but also, of the success the institute had enjoyed, thus far, at the Ntemi Piliso Street building, where it has educated 22 000 people, and placed 19 000 into high-quality jobs.

He highlighted that the institute boasts a 94% job placement rate for graduates and that, from the over 19 000 individuals placed into jobs (excluding entrepreneurs), conservative estimates showed that they would earn R41.85-billion over their working careers.

With this new building, the institute would be able to accommodate an additional 3 000 to 3 500 students a year at the 42 000 m2 premises – more than doubling the number of students it could support.

Blecher acclaimed that the institute would now be able to educate 5 000 students a year, bringing it closer to its long-term goal of educating 100 000 students in the CBD.

JOBURG REVIVAL

Meanwhile, Anglo is continuing to explore possibilities for the adaptive use of the rest of its historic Johannesburg CBD Campus, with several potential partners and collaborators involved in helping to develop the campus into a mixed-use precinct.

Blecher said an exodus of corporates from the CBD to the northern suburbs looked set to continue and that it was unlikely that the area would become the city’s business hub again.

However, he said this presented an opportunity to develop it for other uses.

For its part, Blecher said the institute was aiming to build an “Education City” in the CBD, with it now boasting two buildings in one precinct.

The donation forms part of Anglo’s drive to play a meaningful role, along with several public and private stakeholders, in the regeneration of the Johannesburg CBD.

“We firmly believe that Johannesburg's inner-city regeneration hinges on nurturing the potential of its young people, who represent the city's future.

“The Maharishi Invincibility Institute has emerged as a driving force in paving pathways to opportunities for thousands of young people in the inner city, and it fills us with great pride to entrust them with the custodianship of the iconic 45 Main Street—a building that holds deep historical significance in Johannesburg's evolution,” Anglo chairperson Nolitha Fakude said.

“Looking beyond this, we are thrilled by the strides made in the last two years through collaborative efforts with various stakeholders. Together, we have crafted a shared vision for Johannesburg's renewal, culminating in establishing the Johannesburg CBD Coalition—a platform where the Maharishi Invincibility Institute also actively participates.

“This coalition serves as a powerful catalyst for change, fostering synergy among like-minded organisations, pooling their collective expertise, resources, and insights to forge a cohesive and actionable blueprint for the city's rejuvenation,” she added.

Blecher highlighted that the donation would enable the institute to continue to further its mission of developing a new generation of competent leaders in Johannesburg’s inner city.

“We are deeply grateful to Anglo American for their long-term and profound vision. Through our intense focus on getting youth into quality jobs, based on scarce-skills development, and on doing this in a holistic and sustainable way, we truly believe that if more companies, organisations and the government come together to tackle the city's challenges, we can help secure a more productive future for all.

“By entrenching ourselves in the CBD, we want to play a more active part in making the inner-city a more attractive and safer place to live, work and thrive,” he averred.  

https://m.miningweekly.com/article/anglo-donates-cbd-building-to-institute-to-bolster-education-inner-city-development-2023-08-04

Say sorry, KwaSizabantu told by religious communities' watchdog as it finally releases report

Tammy Petersen
News 24
July 13, 2023

• KwaSizabantu has been instructed to apologise to its former members who spoke out about their maltreatment and abuse.
• The CRL Rights Commission could make no findings on allegations of criminality at the mission, referring victims and complainants to the police.
• It, however, found the teachings, principles, and rules of the mission are within the scope of freedom of religion.

---

KwaSizabantu Mission has been ordered by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) to apologise to its former members for the hurt caused" because of its practices.

On Thursday, the Chapter 9 institution released its long-awaited report into allegations of cultism and human rights abuses.

This was laid bare following a seven-month investigation by News24 into harrowing claims, including of sexual assault, physical and psychological abuse, as well as financial crimes.

No findings were made into criminal allegations, which include rape, grievous assault, corruption, and money laundering as it falls beyond the CRL's scope and mandate.

CRL chairperson Professor David Mosoma advised witnesses to lay criminal complaints, although he acknowledged one of the mission's rapists was serving a jail sentence as confirmed by KwaZulu-Natal police.

Similarly, employment issues related to KwaSizabantu's business enterprises such as aQuelle and Emseni Farming, were referred to the labour department and CCMA.

Ironically, Mosoma and his fellow commissioners all had bottles of aQuelle in front of them during their briefing.

He laughed when this was pointed out.

"We didn't know," Mosoma said, adding the water contract had been taken out prior.

The commission found, unsurprisingly, beatings indeed took place at KwaSizabantu.

And children were subjected to virginity testing, which the watchdog promotes as a "cultural" practice if done voluntarily and in a manner consistent with the Bill of Rights. 

Both had, according to the mission, come to an end. The CRL commission accepted this.

According to the CRL's mandate, it could only investigate matters relating to cultural, religious and linguistic issues to "facilitate the resolution of friction".

"We can only comment on what we have investigated. We are making a determination on what we found.

"Our view is that we are not a court of law, hence some of the recommendations clearly indicate where justice could be sought if complainants feel strongly if they did. Some of the allegations we could not prove because we don’t have the instruments to do that; only the court can do that," Mosoma said.

It found however, the teachings, principles and rules of the mission were within the scope of freedom of religion.

READ | From KwaSizabantu outcast to Zuma's inauguration: 'Intombi Yomzulu' lived loud, says her sister

The mission, however, was instructed to apologise to the former members for the "hurt caused as a result of the practices" at KwaSizabantu.

Mosoma said reconciliation between the mission and former members, who were hurt and wronged by KwaSizabantu's practices, could be facilitated by the CRL "for the purposes of peace and unity".

Deputy chairperson of the CRL committee, Dr Sylvia Mamohapi Pheto, said the victims felt that KwaSizabantu mission destroyed good families and lives.

Pheto said: 

One of the allegations was that many parents disowned their parents at the mission mainly because families were forced to choose between loyalty to the church and their families. Anyone who was charged by the mission was expelled, and members who stayed in the mission were not allowed to communicate or interact with that member of the family.

"They felt it was breaking up good families.  Many children roaming around may be of the consequences of such families that were broken during that time," she added. 

Pheto said that all the victims wanted was for KwaSizabantu to apologise, because some of them had never been allowed to say goodbye to relatives who had died.

The release of the report comes just over a week after witnesses approached the Gauteng High Court with a mandamus application.

They prayed for an order for the commission to publish its long overdue findings related to allegations of gross human and religious rights violations at one of the continent's oldest mission stations.

Three years had passed after the commission launched its probe into countless accusations related to "unbiblical and unchristian" teachings, cultism, and other malpractices.

But at the briefing on Thursday, commissioner Richard Botha said the Covid-19 pandemic had delayed many of the processes.

"Because of the restraints of the institution, it takes a lot because KwaSizabantu wasn’t the only investigation, and we had to make sure we gave it the proper attention it required, because there was a lot of media around it and there was a lot of heat around this," he said.

"We thought that time was rather important in the process."

Regarding the cult aspect, Botha said the commission had been able to establish that the mission did appear to be centralised in its control.

"They did have a bit of a persecution take when it came to the institution," he said.

https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/say-sorry-kwasizabantu-told-by-religious-communities-watchdog-as-it-finally-releases-report-20230713

 

CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/6/2022 (Murder, South Africa, Legal, New World Order, Shape-shifting Reptilian Aliens, Worldviews)

Murder, South Africa, Legal, New World Order, Shape-shifting Reptilian Aliens, Worldviews

Mail & Guardian: Missing the point about the murder of women

One warm Saturday evening in October 2011, a group of eight friends, a mixture of male and female, white, black and coloured, aged between 15 and 23, walked up a small hill behind a swimming pool in the suburb of Linmeyer in the south of Johannesburg. They went equipped to spend the night drinking, smoking marijuana and chatting around a campfire, as they usually did on weekends. But this was not a normal weekend.

Hours later the majority of the group had fled, while two of them stumbled and crawled back to town: Kirsty Theologo, 18, most of her body covered in third and fourth degree burns, somehow assisting Bronwyn Grammar, then 16, her arms and body burned from trying to roll her friend in the sand and douse the flames that were covering her. Soon after, her brother found Kirsty in the kitchen of their home, so heavily burned that she was barely recognisable. She was rushed to hospital where she lapsed into a coma. The fire had severely damaged her lungs and upper body and she died days later.

A story began emerging almost immediately of a planned attack in which the other members of the group soaked Kirsty with petrol, set her on fire and left her to burn to death. Lurid details including a bloody ritual, five-pointed stars drawn on the ground and the desecration of a bible led to a swift diagnosis by press and police that this was a 'Satanist murder', a phrase that has a long resonance in South Africa. Six people were arrested: five male, the oldest of them 21, and one 15-year-old female.

The Theologo murder shocked South Africa, garnering a comparatively large amount of press coverage for a country with a high rate of violence against women. Journalists, editors, religious leaders and politicians flocked to report and comment on Kirsty's brutal fate.

Hers was far from the only story of "satanic" killing to appear in the South African press in recent years. In the summer of February 2014, just days after some of the accused had been jailed for Kirsty's murder, a man working in the veld near Dobsonville in Soweto, Johannesburg, stumbled across the mutilated bodies of two local teenage girls. Best friends Thandeka Moganetsi, 15, and Chwayita Rathazayo, 16, had been missing since the previous day.

The girls, both pupils at nearby George Khoza Secondary School, were found metres apart, still wearing their school uniforms, with open wounds on their backs and cuts on their hands and necks. Three razor blades and a black candle were found near the bodies, once again leading to a quick diagnosis of Satanism from the press, police and parents.

Distraught friends told tales about satanic cults operating within the school that may have "sacrificed" the girls. Two teenage boys, pupils at the same school, were quickly arrested. Religious and political leaders descended on Dobsonville to decry the scourge of Satanism in schools. Once again, these killings received an unusual amount of media and public attention in a nation that often glosses over public violence."

Grunge: HOW AN OBSESSION WITH A CULT LEADER LED ONE FOLLOWER TO MURDER THEIR PARTNER

" ... Shriner began espousing views that a New World Order composed of shape-shifting, reptilian aliens were seeking to take over the planet. To do this — at least, according to Shriner — the aliens were masquerading as politicians and other prominent public figures tasked with doing the bidding of their overlords. "We've been seeing it on a massive scale," she said in 2016. "Celebrities, news announcers, even people in commercials. Everybody you see on TV, about 90%, is a clone or a synthetic robotoid."

Shriner began spreading her beliefs through websites, and then eventually by way of YouTube videos and podcasts. Through these media, she was able to tap into a somewhat small, but extremely dedicated audience. As time went on, her ideology shifted from being a fringe conspiracy theory to a pseudo-religion with vampires, demons, and zombies sprinkled in for good measure."

Clearer Thinking: Understand how other people think: a theory of worldviews.

"A libertarian, a socialist, an environmentalist, and a pro-development YIMBY watch an apartment complex being built. The libertarian is pleased - 'the hand of the market at work!' - whereas the socialist worries that the building is a harbinger of gentrification; the YIMBY sees progress, but the environmentalist is concerned about the building's carbon footprint. They're all seeing the same thing, but they understand it differently, because they inhabit different worldviews.

We can think of worldviews as snow globes. We each occupy our own snow globe and, when we're inside it, it can seem like the whole world. If it's snowing in our snow globe, we think it's snowing everywhere; if our snow globe is made of green glass, everything looks green to us. We might not even realize that there's anything beyond our snow globe! But if we can step outside, we see that our view from inside was only part of a much larger picture. If you can step outside your snow globe - and visit other people's - you'll be able to see a more accurate representation of the world and communicate better with others. For every snow globe you master, you'll gain a powerful new lens through which to see the world - and you'll see that no single snow globe has all the answers.

Worldviews are a type of story we learn about how the world works and about what things matter and why. In this post, we put forward a theory of worldviews that will help you understand how different worldviews work. We call this "Snow Globe Theory." Every worldview includes many beliefs, but after reflecting on a wide variety of worldviews, we believe that almost everyone has four central components. There are other common elements that some worldviews have but others don't - for example, a strong culture, or a theory about trustworthy sources of knowledge – but this article will focus on these four central elements:

• What is good?

• Where do good and bad come from?

• Who deserves the good?

• How can you do good or be good?

You can understand a worldview quite well if you know what thoughtful people with that worldview would all answer in response to these four questions."

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

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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.

Missing the point about the murder of women

OPINION

Nicky Falkof
Mail & Guardian
June 22, 2022

One warm Saturday evening in October 2011, a group of eight friends, a mixture of male and female, white, black and coloured, aged between 15 and 23, walked up a small hill behind a swimming pool in the suburb of Linmeyer in the south of Johannesburg. They went equipped to spend the night drinking, smoking marijuana and chatting around a campfire, as they usually did on weekends. But this was not a normal weekend.

Hours later the majority of the group had fled, while two of them stumbled and crawled back to town: Kirsty Theologo, 18, most of her body covered in third and fourth degree burns, somehow assisting Bronwyn Grammar, then 16, her arms and body burned from trying to roll her friend in the sand and douse the flames that were covering her. Soon after, her brother found Kirsty in the kitchen of their home, so heavily burned that she was barely recognisable. She was rushed to hospital where she lapsed into a coma. The fire had severely damaged her lungs and upper body and she died days later.

A story began emerging almost immediately of a planned attack in which the other members of the group soaked Kirsty with petrol, set her on fire and left her to burn to death. Lurid details including a bloody ritual, five-pointed stars drawn on the ground and the desecration of a bible led to a swift diagnosis by press and police that this was a ‘Satanist murder’, a phrase that has a long resonance in South Africa. Six people were arrested: five male, the oldest of them 21, and one 15-year-old female.

The Theologo murder shocked South Africa, garnering a comparatively large amount of press coverage for a country with a high rate of violence against women. Journalists, editors, religious leaders and politicians flocked to report and comment on Kirsty’s brutal fate.

Hers was far from the only story of “satanic” killing to appear in the South African press in recent years. In the summer of February 2014, just days after some of the accused had been jailed for Kirsty’s murder, a man working in the veld near Dobsonville in Soweto, Johannesburg, stumbled across the mutilated bodies of two local teenage girls. Best friends Thandeka Moganetsi, 15, and Chwayita Rathazayo, 16, had been missing since the previous day.

The girls, both pupils at nearby George Khoza Secondary School, were found metres apart, still wearing their school uniforms, with open wounds on their backs and cuts on their hands and necks. Three razor blades and a black candle were found near the bodies, once again leading to a quick diagnosis of Satanism from the press, police and parents.

Distraught friends told tales about satanic cults operating within the school that may have “sacrificed” the girls. Two teenage boys, pupils at the same school, were quickly arrested. Religious and political leaders descended on Dobsonville to decry the scourge of Satanism in schools. Once again, these killings received an unusual amount of media and public attention in a nation that often glosses over public violence.

The press narratives that surrounded the deaths of Thandeka Moganetsi, Chwayita Rathazayo and Kirsty Theologo were not just examples of news sensationalism. While there were undoubtedly features of the events of both nights that could be described as satanic, the media’s overdetermined focus on these elements of the murders meant that they were defined as a bizarre and unusual occult crimes rather than as part of South Africa’s ongoing epidemic of gender-based violence.

In repeating moral panic tropes around Satanism to the exclusion of all other potential contributing factors, newspaper reporting on these cases disregarded the disturbing truth that violence in South Africa is usually structural and often gendered. The focus on Satanism also allowed newspapers to avoid considering the forms of these murders, which, in their echo of late apartheid violence, recall historical trauma. Within the reporting, anxieties about the alleged threat of Satanism displaced knowledge of how male violence and the residue of apartheid atrocities shape contemporary life, especially for the poor.

Elements of these murders that could be defined as occult, ritualistic or satanic were descriptive rather than fundamental. They tell us as much as other explanations offered for violence against women in contemporary South Africa: punishment for sexual or gender “misconduct”, as in cases of corrective rape; jealousy, as in domestic violence; the influence of drugs and alcohol, as in many random acts of extreme violence that happen to women.

Any one of these causes could have been brought to bear without changing the base facts of the murders. Media claims that these killers were working under the influence of supernatural evil are just one of many ways to understand violence. Nonetheless media outlets failed to consider any meaning to the murders other than Satanism, a diagnosis that they, hand in hand with police, had imposed. In valorising Satanism as the only possible motivation for what was done to these girls, the South African press in effect legitimised its own claims.

In these cases, the spectacular violence of a Satanist act almost entirely erased the possibility of more “normal” (equally brutal but less sensational) violence against women. The deaths of Moganetsi, Theologo and Rathazayo were made exceptional, categorised alongside other Satanist murders but never discussed in context of the rates of death of South African women or of other acts of violence perpetrated against them.

Unlike in the case of Anene Booysen, whose killing was clearly sexualised, responses to these murders almost entirely avoided talking about them as instances of the rage and aggression meted out so frequently on the bodies of South African women by South African men. The spectacularisation of Satanist murders allowed the media to sidestep the disturbing awareness that, in fact, the greatest monsters are not monstrous at all: they are human, familiar, part of our communities and our worlds.

The deaths of Chwayita Rathazayo, Kirsty Theologo and Thandeka Moganetsi were individual tragedies, appalling crimes and symptoms of a larger condition. They reveal the continuation of the embedded structural violence that has wounded South Africa since the start of the colonial project. The press’ incapacity to see past the screening fiction of Satanism recalls the way in which apartheid-era realities were deferred by privileged white people who claimed not to know about the violence and injustice surrounding them.

Like the many South African women whose murders go unreported and unnoticed, Theologo, Rathazayo and Moganetsi are victims of this willed blindness, this refusal to know and concurrently to act against both the structural causes of violence and those pathological modes of gender that work out their rage, despair and fear on the always-available bodies of women.

This is an edited extract from the book Worrier State: Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa, published by Wits University Press.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.

Nicky Falkof is a senior lecturer in the Media Studies department at Wits.





https://mg.co.za/opinion/2022-06-22-missing-the-point-about-the-murder-of-women/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 4/26/2022 (Shincheonji, Manson, Hillsong)

Shincheonji, Manson, Hillsong, South Africa

IOL: Cape Town women lured into secretive religious sect

"THREE Cape Town women have lifted the lid on how they were lured into joining a "cult-like" South Korean-based church whose leader is labelled the immortal messiah.

The women, between the ages of 23 and 29, said they were recruited into the Shincheonji Church of Jesus (SCJ), a known secretive religious sect, under the false pretence of becoming better Christians. They wanted to speak about their experience to ward off others from falling prey to the alleged "secrecy, lies and a false prophet from South Korea".

The church, which has been labelled a pseudo-religion or cult by other mainstream churches, was founded in the 1980s by leader Lee-Man Hee and is believed to have more than 200 000 members. The church has been the subject of numerous investigations because of its cult-like activities.

The church was at the centre of huge controversy last year when it emerged that it accounted for more than half of South Korea's coronavirus cases.

Lee was also found guilty of embezzling billions of rands from his organisation and given a suspended prison sentence.

The church's teaching claims that their founder is a prophet called to deliver God's work before the second coming of Christ and that only he can decipher the Book of Revelation and its metaphors.

The Cape Town women as new recruits had to write a test on the church's teachings before they were welcomed into the fold. They were also warned not to speak to their family or friends about the church.

The women, like other newbies, were recruited through social media such as Instagram, BumbleBee and LinkedIn."

How Well Do You Know Your Moon: Jeong Myeong-seok, a former FFWPU member, started his own cult and is now in jail for multiple rape

"Jeong Myeong-Seok's group gave these "Vagina necklaces" to selected female followers known as evergreens. (evergreen = someone who won't get married because they have fully given themselves over to Jeong.) 

His cult is known as Providence (officially Christian Gospel Mission). Christian Gospel Mission are known by different names in different regions. Providence or Providence Church in Europe and the US, Setsuri (Japanese for "providence") in Japan, the Bright Moon Church, the Morning Star Church, and Jesus Morning Star (JMS). Every year in spring, Providence holds a Flower Festival event in Wol Myeong-dong, South Korea. In 1999, Jeong founded the Global Association of Culture and Peace (the GACP). It also uses front groups called: Elohim Bible Academy and Save the Earth from A to Z".

National Post: Manson follower denied parole, deemed 'unreasonable danger to society' after 50 years in jail

"Leslie Van Houten, who has already been imprisoned for 50 years and is serving a life sentence for her role in the notorious Manson family murders, was denied parole on Tuesday.

The 72-year-old "currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time," California Governor Gavin Newsom said in his parole review, the Associated Press reported.

A tentative date for another parole suitability hearing is expected in May 2023, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Van Houten's release has been recommended five times since 2016.

This is the fifth time her parole has been blocked by a governor in the state.

A petition to keep Van Houten in prison was created by actress Sharon Tate's sister, Debra Tate. It had garnered almost 180,000 signatures by Tuesday morning.

In the petition, Debra Tate wrote that after the victims were killed, Van Houten showered and stole a dress and a leather purse to wear."

Christian Post: The dangerous legal structures of Hillsong Church

" ... In 2010, the legal structure for Hillsong in the United States was being constructed. Attorney Stephen Lentz, the father of Carl Lentz who would become Hillsong's most popular American pastor, drew up the articles of incorporation for Hillsong Ministries USA, Inc., and used language common to many televangelist churches' governing documents. Stephen Lentz wrote in Article 6, "The Corporation shall have no members."

These words started appearing frequently in church corporation documents in the 1990s. In 1994, before Joel Osteen became pastor, Lakewood Church restated its articles of incorporation with the words, "The corporation elects to have no members."

The churches of televangelists Mike Murdock, Eddie Long, and Creflo Dollar also adopted similar language. Ironically, the bylaws of Grace Community Church, pastored by well-known Hillsong critic John MacArthur, use the exact same words as Hillsong Ministries USA: "The Corporation shall have no members."

This odd phrase prevents church attendees from being "corporate members," which means that church attendees have no voting rights in the church. Instead, key decision-making is restricted to the church board of directors or church elders."

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