Self-Help Group Lured Man Into Sexual Cult, Lawsuit Claims

KELLY WEILL
The Daily Beast
December 13, 2017

So many people have Googled “Gratitude Training cult” that the self-help seminar company launched the webpage “GratitudeTraining.com/cult” to combat the allegations.

“Is Gratitude Training a cult?” it asks. “Well, the answer is simple...you decide!”

A new lawsuit has decided yes.

Mark Robbins claims he and his twin children joined the Florida-based group for its personal development seminars. Instead, Robbins claims, he got suckered into an exploitative club that left a dead rat on his doorstep after he left. In a new wage theft lawsuit, Robbins accuses Gratitude Training of being a cult. But Gratitude Training’s founder says they’re no more a cult than Apple fans are.

Gratitude Training advertises itself as a three-step self-improvement program to “awaken the planet, maximize joy and actualize peace.” That peace can be yours for $3,585, the combined price of Gratitude Training’s increasingly expensive and time-consuming sessions. (The final session clocks in at nearly 200 hours, spread out over three months.)

Robbins, who joined Gratitude Training in June with his twin children, says he made it through the program’s first two phases before his doubts began piling up. In his suit, he describes allegedly witnessing Gratitude Training staff bully a young woman into an “altered state” during an “exercise,” and berate a man with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Robbins claims Gratitude Training knowingly enrolled people with histories of sexual misconduct and that he witnessed those members participating in sexualized rites, “which include group stroking and massaging, lifting members in the air by their buttocks; and skits in which male members wear diapers.”

Jo Englesson, Gratitude Training’s founder who is named as a defendant in the suit, says that’s not true.

“There’s nothing immoral or sexually inappropriate going on in these trainings,” Englesson told The Daily Beast. “It’s a completely frivolous lawsuit and we’re filing a defamation suit against him next week.”

If Gratitude Training is a cult, then so are people who line up for the iPhone, Englesson said.

“If it’s a cult in the sense of the cult of Apple, people who like the computer product, then yeah,” she said. “But it’s not a cult in the way he’s alleging.”

But Robbins claims Gratitude Training suckered him out of time and money. In his suit, he accuses Gratitude Training of pushing members to work unpaid for the company. Robbins worked over 100 hours without seeing a penny, and one woman in the group “gave so many hours of unpaid service… that she was poverty stricken, and posted on Facebook that she would pose nude for food or money,” he claims.

When Robbins claims he complained about the lack of pay part way through the training’s third phase, he was booted from the group while his children remained on the inside, he alleges. Englesson said Gratitude Training members sometimes volunteer their time and that while Robbins might have volunteered to work security for the group, he never had reason to expect pay.

But other Gratitude Training students have also taken to the internet to complain about an alleged pressure to volunteer for the group. In a 2014 review on the consumer complaint website Ripoff Report, one person claiming to be a former student decried an alleged push for Gratitude Training members to “volunteer, work and recruit for free” while the company profited.

The former student accused Gratitude Training of being a “cult” that uses “public humiliation,” “manipulation,” “food and sleep deprivation,” and “psychological breakdown” to keep members hooked. Gratitude Training staff “keep you in a room for 12-14 hr days, scolded people if they needed to use the rest room other than the assigned few breaks,” the student alleged.

Another reviewer accused Gratitude Training of luring her daughter into a cult. “Not being aloud to speak of what just happened that night (of ‘class’), not coming home and staying at ‘elders’ of the group’s home, being evasive of what her weeks entails,” the reviewer claimed, “I have asked for opinions of others and they all say ‘cult.’”

It’s reviews like these, and numerous threads on cult-discussion forums, that led Gratitude Training to launch the webpage GratitudeTraining.com/cult to combat the cult allegations.

“We are aware that there are a few people - some that have actually completed a training with us and others that have not - who had an adverse experience of the Gratitude Training and has utilized cult forums on the internet to share this experience,” the page reads, under a picture of a person making a heart with their hands. “Their ‘testimonials’, even if only a handful, show up at the top of search engines.”

The page goes on to enumerate other “cults you may be part of,” including fans of the brands Apple, Mini Cooper, Ikea, and Lululemon. “Cult” is a misunderstood word, the company argues, while conceding that Gratitude Training might be a cult, depending on one’s definition.

“If we neutrally look upon the word ‘cult’ we can simply recognize that there is a deep faith,” one that Gratitude Training students share, the company claims. The page encourages skeptics to read former students’ reviews.

And most public testimonials are glowing, with some former students boasting of repeating their courses multiple times. On Gratitude Training’s Facebook page, nearly every review is five stars. But the negative reviews are vivid. “Crazy cult-like people comparable to Scientology or religious extremists,” one Facebook reviewer alleged in a one-star review in September. “Run. Away. Fast.”

But when Robbins left, his children remained in the group, which “intentionally and maliciously placed [distance] between Robbins and his sons,” his suit alleges. Since Robbins left, one of his children “was coerced in GT into dancing in a thong with 60 other scantily clad people,” he claims. Englesson told The Daily Beast no sexually inappropriate behavior happens in the trainings.

Robbins has also filmed himself calling “hey cult members” at people gathered outside a Gratitude Training center, and expounded on his Gratitude Training conspiracy theories on his blog, which Englesson claims is defamatory.

Both sides agree a rift has opened between Gratitude Training and the former member.

“Since leaving the Cult, Robbins has received death threats, and been the subject of false claims,” his suit alleges. “Robbins’ car was also vandalized. Cult members left a dead rat on his doorstep.”

The three-month course and the stress of splitting from it have left Robbins with “chronic headaches, nausea, vomiting, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression,” he claims.

He also claims the group “filed meritless claims against [him] with police, and wrongfully obtained a restraining order against [him] based on baseless stalking allegations.”

Englesson confirmed she got a restraining order against Robbins. “He’s also, on a daily basis, contacting all the students who have done our leadership training on Facebook. He’s finding friends of friends of friends and sending them stuff daily from his blog.”

In October, she sent Gratitude Training’s high-level students an email apologizing for what she described as Robbins’ “continuous online harassment and publishing of defamatory content.” The email, which Robbins posted online, prompted students to fill out a questionnaire if Robbins’ emails had led them to cancel their classes—lost revenue that Gratitude Training could try to extract from Robbins if they sue him for defamation.

“We have tons and tons of proof it’s all just crazy talk,” Englesson said. “I’ve been going through this for like three months and it’s pretty hardcore.”

That’s almost exactly what Robbins alleges of her classes.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/self-help-group-lured-man-into-sexual-cult-lawsuit-claims

An excerpt from Meditation : A safety guide

TM-Free Blog

December 10, 2017

 An excerpt from "Meditation : A safety guide"

Here's an excerpt from a book written by a "meditation mentor" in Singapore. My posting of this excerpt is not to endorse any system of meditation or any religious tradition. It does serve as a rather thorough exploration of the downsides of meditation, and why it may not be recommended for a lot of people.

REAL DANGERS OF MEDITATION

[Abridged from Piya Tan, Meditation : A safety guide, Singapore: The Minding Centre, 2013 Intro.]

The meeting of western science and eastern meditation has not always been smooth [1]. On the positive side, we now know more about the nature and effects of meditation—and how to recognize the “real” thing—or at least avoid the negative aspects.

PROBLEMS WITH MANTRA MEDITATION

By the mid-1970s, clinical reports of negative outcomes of various mantra meditation programs began to appear in psychiatric literature [2] These included people becoming unemployable because they were unable to control their mental states (for example, everything around them seemed unreal), and even more serious problems ranging from depression and agitation to psychosis.

Leon Otis, a psychologist at Stanford Research Institute, found that adverse outcomes were related to how long that person had meditated using such methods [3]. Michael Persinger, neuroscientist at the Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, found that, for some people, meditation can bring on symptoms of complex partial epilepsy, such as visual abnormalities, hearing voices, feeling vibrations, or experiencing automatic behaviours [4].

SELF-HYPNOSIS

Another concern, explored by Esalen founders, Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan, was that advanced practitioners of mantra meditation ranked high in suggestibility [5], not surprising given its similarity to self-hypnosis. A number of people in the US have successfully brought legal suits for damages suffered as a result of their participation in meditation programmes, especially commercialized methods such as TM (“transcendental meditation”) [6]. Legal suits against TM for damages were common [7].

Many people doing TM suffered from problems and difficulties regarding thinking and attention. Other impairments included emotional difficulties, blackouts, anxiety, “spacing out” [feeling drowsy, weak and bored], amnesia, and losing track of time [8]. In short, TM is not safe [9].

In the early years of Buddhism in the US, two approaches were common. The first was the empty-mind mantra meditation based on the Hindu tradition. The second, from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, is reflective meditation, where you reflect as a way of focusing the mind.

In the former, a close relationship between teacher and pupil included attention to individual differences and any problems which might arise. In contrast to earlier approaches, meditation today is often being sold by mass marketing, and often by individuals who have no religious affiliation or do not declare it [10].

FOOTNOTES

[1] This section is mostly based on http://www.ex-premie.org/pages/ismeditation.htm.
[2] Clinical reports of negative outcomes. A A Lazarus, “Psychiatric problems precipitated by Transcendental Meditation,” Psychological Reports 39 1976:601-602. For full biblio, see Meditation: A Safety Guide, 2013.
[3] N Mead, “Why meditation may not reduce stress,” Natural Health 23,6 Nov-Dec 1993: 80-85. For full biblio, see Meditation: A Safety Guide, 2013.
4] Michael A Persinger, “Transcendental Meditation and general meditation are associated with enhanced complex partial epileptic-like signs: Evidence of ‘cognitive kindling’?” Perceptual and Motor Skills 76, 1993:80-82. For full biblio, see Meditation: A Safety Guide, 2013.
[5] Michael Murphy & Steve Donovan, The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, Big Sur, CA: Esa¬len Institute, 1989.
[6] On the dangers of TM (Transcendental Meditation) (a detailed insider report by Joe Kellett), see http://www.suggestibility.org/. Another comprehensive insider’s website is www.minet.org.
[7] Legal suits for damages. John Doe I-VI and Jane Doe vs Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; World Plan Executive Council-United States; Maharishi International University for the US District Court for the District of Columbia, 95-2848, 2849, 2851, 2852, 2853, 2854 (consolidated); Jane Green vs Maharishi Mahesh Yogi et al. US District Court for the District of Columbia, 87-0015-OG. Patrick Ryan vs World Plan Executive Council-United States et al. US District Court for the District of Columbia, 87-0016-OG.
[8] Problems found in therapy. M T Singer & R Ofshe, “Thought reform and the production of psychiatric casualies,” Psychiatric Annals 20,4 1990:189-190.
[9] On the ineffectiveness and problems of TM, see A Lutz, Donne & Davidson 2007:41-43.
[10] On various aspects of the commercialization of meditation and pseudoscientific claims, see eg Barry L Beyerstein, “Pseudoscience and the brain: Tuners and tonics for aspiring superhumans” at http://www.sfu.ca/…/…/articles/06Pseudoscience-and-Brain.pdf.

http://tmfree.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-excerpt-from-meditation-safety-guide.html

Russian court turns properties of banned Jehovah’s Witnesses over to government

Tass
December 08, 2017

According to the court findings, the Jehovah’s Witnesses administrative center in Russia transferred an estate on the shore of the Gulf of Finland to the Society as a donation in 2000

ST. PETERSBURG,  A district court in St. Petersburg passed a resolution on Thursday to confiscate 16 items of real estate in St. Petersburg worth more than 880 million rubles [$14.9 mln], which belong to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania registered in the U.S., and to turn them over to the government, the united press service of city courts said on Thursday.

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania received the immovable property from the Jehovah’s Witnesses administrative center in Russia that has been banned by the Russian authorities.

"The Sestroretsk district court entertained a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Kurortny district against the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania legal entity and confiscated in favor of the state the entity’s properties consisting of 16 items [land plots, residential houses, buildings] having the cadastral value of 881,407,566 rubles [$ 14,939,111]," the press service said.

According to the court findings, the Jehovah’s Witnesses administrative center in Russia transferred an estate on the shore of the Gulf of Finland to the Society as a donation in 2000. Later on, however, it continued using the compound - a fact proceeding from which the court recognized the transfer null and void.

The real estate will be turned over to government property.

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared the Russian affiliation of Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization and banned its activities in this country.

http://tass.com/world/979788/amp

Girls are found after Amber Alert issued in Utah; their father, a member of a group called Knights of the Crystal Blade, is linked to their disappearance

Nate Carlisle
Aubrey Wieber
Salt Lake Tribune
December 4, 2016

Police have found two young girls allegedly kidnapped by their father, who court records say is a “doomsday prepper” belonging to a new religious group.

An Amber Alert that was sent about the two girls Monday afternoon was canceled at 7 p.m. The girls, 4 and 8 years old, were recovered shortly after a friend of their father was found and taken into custody west of Cedar City, in the Lund area.

Lt. Del Schlosser of the Iron County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Monday evening that Samuel Warren Shaffer, 34, was in custody of the Sheriff’s Office .

Shaffer was booked into the Iron County jail early Tuesday morning on suspicion of two counts of child kidnapping and four counts of reckless child abuse.

“For us, the value of the Amber Alert system, that was key in locating Mr. Shaffer and recovering the girls,” Schlosser said.

Shaffer was believed to be traveling with his two daughters and the two daughters of his associate, John Coltharp. Shaffer allegedly sees himself as a prophet for a new fundamentalist Mormon group, of which Coltharp, 33, is a member. Coltharp was arrested and booked into the Sanpete County jail Friday on suspicion of kidnapping and obstructing justice. Formal charges have not been filed.

Schlosser said a person called to report a single male walking about Lund. The male was Shaffer, and officers apprehended him. Shortly afterward, they located two young girls. One was one of Shaffer’s daughters, and the other was one of Coltharp’s daughters, Schlosser said.

Police found the other two girls shortly afterward, within 5 miles of Shaffer and the other pair.

“They were in good conditions,” Schlosser said, adding that they were cold and hungry before they were taken to Cedar City Hospital for medical evaluations.

“They were shaken, but as they got warmer, they became much more calm and talkative,” he said.

The girls had been with their father, who does not have legal custody of them, since September. The circumstances of their lives over the past few months are being investigated, Schlosser said.

Deputies from the Iron County Sheriff’s Office raided a compound in that county Monday, said Spring City Police Chief Clarke Christensen, and found Coltharp’s two boys, who also had been reported missing. A KUTV reporter tweeted video of law enforcers searching a train in Lund as a helicopter flew above.

Coltharp may have put his daughters in danger, said Kelly Peterson, an attorney representing Coltharp’s ex-wife, “and he has stated, according to my client’s understanding, that he would rather see the kids dead than with the police.”

On Friday, 4th District Judge Derek Pullan imposed a $100,000 cash bail in a divorce case between Coltharp and his ex-wife, citing Coltharp’s unwillingness to tell police where his daughters were.

Christensen said Coltharp refused to disclose the location of the children, even though the county prosecutor visited him in jail and offered him a deal in return for his cooperation.

“The information this morning was that he was going to make bail, and then the concern would be that he would be in the wind,” Peterson said.

Coltharp’s sister, Cindi Ray, on Monday said her brother has fundamentalist Mormon beliefs, including support for polygamy, though he has never practiced plural marriage. Coltharp and Shaffer, Ray said, started a religion called Knights of the Crystal Blade and have baptized each other and Dinah.

On a website titled “The kingdom of God or nothing!!!,” Shaffer outlines a religious doctrine he says was handed down to him by God on the morning of June 22, 2015.

God told him the Book of Mormon is law, he says on the site, as is plural marriage, including coupling with children. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not endorsed polygamy since 1890.

Ray worried her nieces were being hidden so they could be placed in a marriage at an early age.

According to her, Coltharp has “said to all of [his] siblings in the past that girls are meant to get married at the age of 12 — their bodies are ready.”

According to court records from Coltharp’s divorce, his ex-wife said he is a survivalist “doomsday prepper” who distrusts modern medicine and refused to allow her to use pain medication during childbirth.

Coltharp’s ex-wife also says, Pullan wrote in a September ruling, that Coltharp carries a pistol and “has threatened to send any DCFS [Division of Child and Family Services] worker or police officer to the next life if they try to take the children from him.”

The court records say Coltharp’s group is called Knights of the Crystal Blade and is led by Shaffer, who is referred to as a prophet. He also goes by Fredrick Shaffer and has published writings and videos espousing fundamentalist Mormon beliefs.

Pullan, in that September ruling, denied a temporary restraining order that would have granted the ex-wife custody of all four children. Pullan said Coltharp’s religious beliefs were not extreme enough to constitute an immediate threat to the children.

But as normal divorce and custody proceedings continued, Pullan granted the ex-wife full custody on Nov. 27. Coltharp is accused of not turning the children over to their mother. Besides their two daughters, the former couple have sons, ages 7 and 6.

Samuel Shaffer’s brother, Benjamin Shaffer, said Monday that his brother is no threat to any of the children, and that he is probably just taking care of the girls to do a favor for his friend.

“I certainly hope they don’t go in there, guns blazing, threatening my nieces just because he’s taking care of other kids,” Benjamin Shaffer said before the girls were found.

Benjamin Shaffer also disputed the characterization of the Knights of the Crystal Blade in court documents. It is not a church, he said, but more of a club or fraternity that Samuel Shaffer and Coltharp formed to discuss philosophy and religion.

There is no record of Knights of the Crystal Blade being incorporated with the state, as most churches are.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/12/04/search-underway-for-utah-girls-whose-father-is-said-to-belong-to-religious-sect-called-knights-of-the-crystal-blade/

Deputies raid house of polygamist sect in Southern Utah, find 2 boys, but 2 girls missing

Spring City, Utah police arrested John Coltharp for investigation of kidnapping his children

KIRK MITCHELL

The Denver Post
December 4, 2017

An Amber Alert has been issued for two sisters believed to be with a man calling himself a prophet after authorities raided a home in Lund, Utah and rescued two boys in a case with Colorado ties.

The Iron County Sheriff’s Department activated the Amber Alert on Monday afternoon after learning that the two sisters, Dinah Coltharp, 8, and Haddie, 4, were last seen with Samuel Shaffer, his two daughters and two women.

Family members had said Monday before the discovery of the girls’ two brothers, William, 7, and Seth, 6, that they fear the girls may have been betrothed to a man for marriage by their father, John Coltharp, who was arrested Saturday.

Family members of Coltharp, who moved from Highlands Ranch to Utah and then helped form a religious/survivalist sect, say they are worried about the safety of his two daughters after they say he told relatives he would rather kill the kids and anyone who tried to take them than let the government take custody of them.

Police in Spring City, Utah, arrested Coltharp, late Saturday for investigation of kidnapping his four children, said Spring City Police Chief Clarke Christensen.

Upon his arrest Coltharp refused to divulge the location of his children, even after a prosecutor offered to release him on his own recognizance from jail if he told officials where they were, Christensen said. He is being held on a $50,000 cash bond, Christensen said.

“I consider them to be in danger because of the group they are with,” Christensen said.

He said the boys were found Monday afternoon just outside Cedar City limits.

John Coltharp and Shaffer, who calls himself a prophet and a seer, formed a polygamist sect called “Knights of the Crystal Blade” about a year ago, said Coltharp’s wife, Micha Soble, 28, of Springville, Utah.

Soble and John Coltharp’s sister, Cindi Ray, said they were concerned about the safety and well-being of the children because they say he has threatened to kill the children and anyone who tries to take them.

“My brother’s views are so extremist I wouldn’t put it past him to put a bullet in their heads,” Ray said Monday. John Coltharp has told family members it would be preferable to kill the children so they could go to heaven rather than let the government take custody of them, said Ray’s husband, Greg Ray, 30.

The daughters may have been with Coltharp’s parents, Keith and Catherine Coltharp, formerly of Highlands Ranch, Christensen said.

John Coltharp persuaded his father, Keith Coltharp, to quit his job as an accountant at Lockheed Martin and his mother to quit her job at a Highlands Ranch nurse’s office and move to Spring City two years ago, Soble said.

Even if the girls haven’t been physically harmed, Cindi Ray said she is concerned about their health and nutrition.

“Are they being fed? Are they being taken care of?” she said.

But Shaffer’s brother, Benjamin Shaffer, said his brother may not even know of the Amber Alert and that from his perspective all he is doing is babysitting the Coltharp sisters.

“The last thing I want is for police to shoot a babysitter,” Benjamin Shaffer said. “My brother is a bit eccentric. But I don’t believe any of his religious beliefs are dangerous. I don’t see a concern about child brides.”

He said the allegations against his brother, who is harmless, are exaggerated. Their group was a philosophical club, not a religion, and certainly not a cult, he said.

The Coltharps grew up in Highlands Ranch and were members of the Mormon church, Soble said. At the age of 16, Soble joined the Mormon church and married John Coltharp, who immediately began “brainwashing” her about beliefs not held by the church, she said. They moved from Colorado to Provo, Utah, in 2008.

Soble said the Mormon church excommunicated her husband because of his extreme beliefs. She said her husband forbade her from interacting with their Mormon neighbors, claiming that the Mormons are Satan worshipers who “eat babies.” Their children couldn’t play with neighborhood children because the kids were “spies.”

He wanted her to move into the woods and live “off the grid.” She refused. They separated, but continued living in the same apartment, one living upstairs and the other downstairs. John Coltharp quit his job in May and took their four children with him to live with his parents in Spring City, Soble said. Soble couldn’t pay rent on her wages alone, she said.

“There was no way he was going to let me take my children, so he took them first,” she said. “I was left homeless, living in my van.”

On Sept. 15, John Coltharp and his parents gave their chickens away and disappeared, presumably to live near Cedar City, Utah, Soble said.

Soble called police and filed a report. But Christensen said at that stage her husband was the children’s legal parent.

“A parent can take their kids. He’s claiming he’s on an extended vacation,” Christensen said.

Soble said she filed for divorce and obtained sole custody of her children. She said she hasn’t been able to sleep and lives in constant fear for her children. Police and family members have received tips that John Coltharp is in a mountain retreat where he has stockpiled weapons and food.

“I have been living an absolute nightmare,” Soble said.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/04/southern-utah-missing-girls/

Relatives, associates want remains of cult leader Charles Manson

Don Thompson

CTV NEWS
December 6, 2017

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The body of murder mastermind Charles Manson was barely cold when competing bids began for his remains and belongings among relatives and longtime associates.

Their plans have not been divulged, but some fear they might create a shrine for those who are still fascinated by the man behind the bizarre celebrity slayings that terrorized Los Angeles nearly a half-century ago.

The value of Manson's belongings -- said to include music, artwork, writings and at least two guitars -- is unclear. But probate attorneys said the real value of his estate could be in controlling the use of his image and the power to authorize any biographies or documentaries.

"It's going to be a food fight," said probate attorney Adam Streisand, who is not involved in the Manson case but was involved with Michael Jackson's estate and currently is representing the estate of Hugh Heffner.

"You have to sort of worry about creating a monument that becomes a focal point for people to exercise their extremist views," he said.

At the very least, it seems, Manson devotees want to prevent his ashes from being anonymously interred with other indigent inmates.

One person seeking control of Manson's estate is his purported grandson, Jason Freeman, who flew into California with a documentary film crew after Manson died last month.

His effort is challenged by Manson associate Michael Channels, who exchanged letters and visited the killer in prison. Channels has filed a two-page will in court dated Valentine's Day 2002 that purportedly leaves everything to him.

Freeman's attorney, Dale Kiken, said there might be a third claim by Los Angeles musician Matthew Roberts, who has described himself as Manson's son. His bid is backed by Ben Gurecki, who has done YouTube videos focused on Manson and told several media outlets that he obtained a January 2017 will from Manson naming Roberts as his heir.

Kiken said prison officials told him Manson left no will and he disputes the validity of the ones that have surfaced.

Kiken provided The Associated Press with a copy of a 1986 Ohio court ruling saying Freeman is the son of Charles Manson Jr., and a 1993 Colorado death certificate showing Manson Jr. as the son of Charles Manson and his first wife, Rosalie Willis.

Manson, 83, died Nov. 19 of natural causes after spending decades in prison for orchestrating the 1969 killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight other people. Prosecutors said the slayings were intended to trigger an apocalyptic race war.

Tate's sister, Debra, fears those seeking control of Manson's remains and belongings hope to profit from his dark legacy.

"Whatever he was in life, in death he deserves dignity," she said, asserting that the only way to ensure Manson is undisturbed is to have his body cremated and placed at an undisclosed site.

Freeman said he is a man of faith who wants to have his grandfather cremated and his ashes properly placed.

"It won't be in the media, it will be a private family matter from that point," he said, adding that he won't disclose his plans until the release of his planned documentary.

"We've got some plans and I'd like to see this ship take flight," he said.

Freeman, a Florida resident, and his film crew travelled last week to Corcoran State Prison, where Manson was housed in a special protective cell because of his notoriety. Freeman was accompanied by Manson associate John Michael Jones, who said he wants to ensure "that Mr. Manson's death wasn't turned into a spectacle like his life was."

Joe Townley, chief operating officer and executive producer of MY-Entertainment, said the company has been filming for about six months.

At one point, Freeman requested $3,000 each time the AP published an article about him, to provide "assistance in my time of hardship being away from my family and taking care of my grandfather." He dropped the request after it was refused.

Freeman said he was largely protected growing up when his mother and grandmother "kept the Manson name away from my doorstep."

However, he long blamed Manson for his father's suicide until he came to believe the real cause was the media pressure from being Manson's son.

He exchanged letters and phone calls with his imprisoned grandfather in recent years, and said he is determined to be present for his own children to break the cycle of fatherless upbringings that he believes doomed both his father and grandfather.

"It was almost as if he had a shield in front of his heart and I tried to share personal stuff with him about my father and about my children so he could understand that in my lifetime I brought the family tree full circle," Freeman said of Manson.

Gurecki and Roberts did not return repeated telephone messages, and Channels could not be reached despite repeated telephone calls.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/relatives-associates-want-remains-of-cult-leader-charles-manson-1.3710440

This is Your Brain on God | Michael Ferguson | TEDxSaltLakeCity

Can science give us insights into age-old questions about religion? In this talk, Dr. Michael Ferguson describes the study he and his team conducted on believing Mormons when they reported to "feel the Spirit," a central event in Mormon worship. What they found might surprise both believers and skeptics.

Michael Ferguson is inspired by questions about human brains and the gods they adore. His research program examines the intersections of culture and brain through the lenses of cutting-edge fMRI methods and cognitive neuroscience. Most recently, he is conducting interdisciplinary work with philosophy of mind to analytically describe intelligence. As a graduate student at the University of Utah’s department of bioengineering, he, his committee chair, and co-investigators designed and executed a first-of- its-kind fMRI study, looking at the brain activity of returned missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while the research participants were involved in acts of religious worship and devotion. Michael and his husband were the first same-sex couple legally married in the state of Utah, and they retain a major portion of their heart and love in Salt Lake City. They currently live in upstate New York, the spiritual cradle of their native faith.

https://youtu.be/ocuqguH1OIw

Cult leader Simon Kadwell inquest hears police failed to investigate leads including reports of 'dead flesh' smell

Gian De Poloni
ABC Online
December 6, 2017

A coronial inquest into the baffling disappearance of a cult leader and his family has been told police failed to fully investigate all of the evidence and possible sightings.

Internet cult leader Simon Kadwell, partner Chantelle McDougall, their daughter Leela, and lodger Tony Popic left their home in the small West Australian town of Nannup in 2007.

Coroner Barry King is probing their suspected deaths at the request of Ms McDougall's parents.

The four left behind a house full of furniture, but few personal belongings.

In his testimony, Senior Sergeant Gregory Balfour said there were four reported sightings of the family in the Busselton area in 2008, but police did not investigate due to a lack of evidence.

He said three months after Ms McDougall disappeared, prison workers also reported finding a woman's T-shirt along with the smell of "dead flesh" in bushland near Northcliffe.

However, the report was not fully investigated until 2015, by which time bushfires had swept through the area.

It was also revealed items belonging to Ms McDougall were found at the Nannup tip, but never recovered by police.
Plans for 'peaceful' family suicide pact

Senior Sergeant Balfour described Mr Kadwell as a heavily spiritual self-styled shaman who had a cult following online.

Weeks before his disappearance, Mr Kadwell discussed plans with his online followers for a "peaceful" family suicide pact using drugs.

Mr Kadwell said he planned to take the drug after Ms McDougall and Leela, giving him time to bury their bodies in the forest.

However Senior Sergeant Balfour said Mr Kadwell went cold on the idea, instead contemplating moving to an isolated location.

A few days before vanishing he was stopped by police while driving in Nannup.

Senior Sergeant Balfour told the inquest the officer involved said Mr Kadwell looked uncomfortable with questions about his identity.

He said the officer believed the incident was a catalyst for the family's disappearance.

Police suspect Mr Kadwell stole his identity from an associate in his native England, and have established his real name as Gary Felton.
Pizza delivery driver's 'creepy' encounter

The inquest also shed light on the last known movements of Tony Popic, a friend of Mr Kadwell and Ms McDougall, who lived in a caravan parked on their property.

Police believed Mr Popic checked into a backpackers' hostel in Northbridge on July 15, 2007 — a day after the last reported sighting of Ms McDougall.

A pizza delivery driver was the last known person to see him alive, when he delivered food to him that night in bushland in Perth's Kings Park.

The man, who now lives in Malaysia, later described the encounter to police as "unusual" and "creepy".

Senior Sergeant Balfour told the inquest police believed Mr Popic used a fake name to travel on several bus and train routes spanning from Northcliffe to Kalgoorlie in the two days after leaving Nannup, but his final destination was unknown.
Parents continue to hold out hope

Outside the inquest, Ms McDougall's parents Catherine and Jim said they would never give up, even if the inquest provided no answers.

"Sometimes I think they have just sort of gone off the grid and are hiding somewhere and just living their quiet lifestyle," Catherine McDougall said.

"Then sometimes I think that something has happened to them. That they've been killed or committed suicide or something like that."

The family's Nannup landlord Lyndon Crouch found a note written by Ms McDougall indicating the family had moved to Brazil.

He told the inquest he did not believe the four were dead and suggested they followed through with their travel plans.

The hearing has been set down for three days.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-06/inquest-in-to-disappearance-of-wa-cult-leader-and-followers/9231556

Church of Almighty God

Massimo Introvigne

Cesnur

Last Updated: December 2017

Summary of Movement

The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese millenarian movement, is also known as Eastern Lightning. This name was originally given to the group by outside observers. It came to be accepted by the movement, and refers to a passage in Matthew 24:27: “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” This “lighting that comes from the east,” according to the Church, is Jesus Christ returning as Almighty God, from a country in the east, China, to inaugurate the third age of humanity. While its theology is certainly different from the doctrines of traditional Christian churches, American scholar Holly Folk believes it is one among several new contemporaneous “authentic Christian traditions,” “and its intellectual and theological lineage within Christianity is very rich” (Folk 2018).

History/Origins

The Word Appears in the Flesh, the scripture collecting the utterances of Almighty God

Although the movement never mentions her name nor any biographic details, and cautions that any information supplied by outside sources may be wrong, most scholars believe it identifies the incarnated Almighty God with a Chinese woman, Yang Xiangbin (b. 1973), who was born in northwestern China. In 1989, a revival took place in the Chinese independent churches (i.e. the Protestant churches that are not part of the government-controlled Three Self Church, and are also known as House Churches or Underground Churches). In the same year, the person identified by the movement as Almighty God formally entered the House Church movement. In 1991, she began to utter words, that followers later compared for authority and power to those expressed by Jesus Christ, while attending meetings of the group founded by Witness Lee (1905–1997), known as the Local Church in the West and as Shouters in China. Many Christians in the Chinese House Church movement believed that those words were from the Holy Spirit and started to read them in their gatherings from 1991, when the Church of Almighty God emerged, and subsequently when the person who was the source of these messages was recognized as Christ, the incarnate God and the only one true God.

Among those converted to the message and the person of Almighty God was Zhao Weishan (b. 1951), a native of the Heilongjiang Province in China, who was at that time a leader in an independent branch of the Shouters movement. He was later recognized as the Man Used by the Holy Spirit, and the Priest of the Church of Almighty God. The Church of Almighty God is personally led and shepherded by the person it recognizes as Almighty God, while Zhao Weishan is cooperating with the work of Almighty God, and is in charge of the administrative affairs of the Church. There are only a handful of photographs of both Yang and Zhao, allegedly taken many years ago and whose authenticity cannot be proved.

In the mid-1990s, a harsh repression targeted both the Shouters and the Church of Almighty God, whose theological differences were not necessarily clear to the Chinese authorities. Both were included in the first list of xie jiao, published in 1995. The Chinese expression xie jiao is translated in Chinese official documents into English as “evil cults” or “destructive cults.” The translation, however, is wrong, and is connected to an attempt to argue that the problem of “destructive cults” is not only Chinese, but international. In fact, the notion of xie jiao was born in the Ming period, and a more correct translation is “heterodox teachings.” What teachings were “heterodox” was determined by the Emperor, and lists of xie jiao were based on both theological and political grounds. For example, Christianity as a whole was classified as a xie jiao in 1725, but taken out of the list in 1842, due to Western political and military pressure. The Republican and Communist governments inherited this old notion and policy.

Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code makes proselyting and being otherwise active on behalf of a xie jiao a crime, punishable with jail penalties from three to seven years and more. Definitions of xie jiao are, however, vague. The most recent attempt to date resulted in Rule 1 of the Interpretations on the Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Criminal Cases Relating to Organizing and Utilizing Evil Organizations to Destroy Law Enforcement, issued on January 25, 2017, by the People’s Supreme Court and the Office of the People’s Supreme Attorney. Xie jiao were defined as “illegal organizations, which, through fraudulent use of religion, qi gong, or any other name, by deifying and promoting their ringleaders, or by fabricating and spreading superstitious fallacies and other means to confuse and deceive others (…), control group members and harm society.”

In practice, groups that are regarded as xie jiao are those which are included in the lists periodically updated by the Chinese authorities. In 1995, both the Shouters and the Church of Almighty God were included in the list. The Church of Almighty God has appeared in all lists of xie jiao ever since. Its inclusion was also supported by some leaders of both the State-controlled Three Self Church and some House Churches, which regarded the fact that the Church of Almighty God believes that a living person is the Second Coming of Christ as heretical.

 

Portraits of twelve members and leaders who, according to the Church, were killed during the repression in China

Since 1996, the Church of Almighty God has been severely persecuted in China. In 2000, Zhao and Yang went to the United States, which they entered on September 6, and in 2001 they were granted political asylum. Since then, they have lived and directed the movement from New York. In early 2009, He Zhexun, who used to be in charge of the work of the Church in Mainland China, was arrested by the Chinese authorities. On July 17, 2009, Ma Suoping (female, 1969–2009), who took over He Zhexun’s role, was also arrested by the Chinese police and died while in custody. The Church of Almighty God releases periodical statistics, and claims that between 2011 and 2013 more than 300,000 members were arrested. These figures are impossible to verify, but do not appear unbelievable if one considers the frequent references to “successful” campaigns against the Church of Almighty God in Chinese anti-xie-jiao propaganda and other official sources. The Church also reports that many of its members were tortured in China, and some died while in custody in suspicious circumstances.

Despite governmental repression, and hostility by some leaders of the mainline Christian churches, the Church of Almighty God grew in China and, according to Chinese official sources, had reached four million members in 2014. The figure is disputed by scholars, and the situation in China makes statistics difficult. Since the Zhaoyuan McDonald's murder of 2014 (discussed in the “Controversies” section), the repression in China has intensified, and several thousand members have escaped abroad, where they have founded churches in South Korea, the United States, Italy, Canada, and other countries, in addition to those established in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

 

The headquarters of the Church of Almighty God in Seoul

As happened with Tibetan Buddhism, the persecution in China and the international diaspora of the Church of Almighty God had two unintended consequences. First, it led to a globalization of the movement, as non-Chinese started joining it in South Korea, the United States, and elsewhere, although ethnic Chinese still form the majority of the communities in most diaspora countries. Second, it also caused an unexpected flourishing of artistic activities within the communities outside of mainland China (see Introvigne 2017b). Although in China, because of the persecution, the Church was limited in its possibility of promoting and organizing artistic activities, its theology did include a doctrine of beauty. After 2014, members of the Church of Almighty God were able to practice their religion freely and openly outside China, and a number of important artistic productions followed. Between 2014 and 2017, members of the Church of Almighty God produced some 2,000 paintings and fifty movies (as well as more than 600 religious videos). While the paintings are mostly intended for use in the movies and videos, or are used to beautify the places of worship of the Church of Almighty God, the movies have a larger audience. Some of them entered the circuit of the Christian film festivals, the theology of which is undoubtedly far removed from that of the Church of Almighty God but, nonetheless, they have honored some of the movies, including the musical Xiaozhen’s Story and the docudrama Chronicles of Religious Persecution in China, with several significant awards.

Beliefs

The beliefs of the Church of Almighty God derive from The Word Appears in the Flesh, first published in 1997, which is a collection of the utterances of Almighty God, amounting to more than 1,000,000 words, considered by the Church as normative and including “what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17; 3:12) and the truths to be expressed by “the Spirit of truth” (John 16:13) in the last days, as prophesied in the Bible (The Church of Almighty God 2017a).

The Church defines as its member whoever truly believes in God, has “good humanity,” and is certain that Almighty God is the returned Jesus in our days from China, a country that, according to the Church, represents at the same time the place where the evil dragon of the Book of Revelation manifested itself in the semblance of the Chinese Communist Party and the place where the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the “Eastern Lightning,” must manifest himself.

Almighty God came to inaugurate the third age of humanity, the Age of Kingdom, which follows the Age of Law, i.e. the time of the Old Testament and the Age of Grace, which went from the birth of Jesus to the advent of Almighty God in the twentieth century.

The Age of Law lasted for 4,000 years, from humankind’s fall (believed to have occurred 6,000 years ago, according to the traditional literalist interpretation of the Bible) to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth During this period, God revealed himself as Jehovah and gave to the Israelites his ten commandments. Although the sinful nature of humans justified God’s wrath, from the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden to the Flood and beyond, God also revealed and manifested his love. In this respect, the Church of Almighty God emphasizes some details of the Biblical narrative. For example, in the story of Adam and Eve, the Church notes the importance of the clothes with which they will be able to cover themselves, overcoming the newly discovered shame of being naked. According to the Book of Genesis (3:21), God made them with his own hands. Although humans sin, God loves them to the point of taking personal care of their clothing. After the Flood, the rainbow that appeared to Noah’s family symbolized the promise of God that he would not destroy his people with a flood again. The Church of Almighty God teaches that even today rainbows appear to remind us of God’s love.

The Age of Grace was inaugurated by the birth of Jesus. Before starting his ministry, Jesus was God incarnate in the form of a “normal man.” His divinity was made manifest only after he formally started his ministry. With Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the sins of humans were forgiven, but their sinful nature was not eradicated. Thus, “although people saw that God had gained great glory, this was not the entirety of His glory; it was only one part of His glory, which He had gained from Jesus” (The Church of Almighty God 2015). “Although Jesus was able to endure every hardship, to be humble and hidden, to be crucified for God, God only gained one part of His glory, and His glory was gained in Israel. God still has another part of glory: coming to earth to actually work and make perfect a group of people” (The Church of Almighty God 2015).

In the Age of Kingdom, God becomes flesh in China and achieves the other part of his glory. This work is final, and there will not be another incarnation of God after the present Almighty God. In the last days, the work of Almighty God has the main aim to eradicate the humans’ sinful nature. When a group of believers will have been made perfect, and the righteous will have been acknowledged and the evildoers exposed, the work of Almighty God will come to an end and God and humans will enter into eternal rest (see below, under “Millennial Beliefs.”)

An important, if often overlooked, aspect of the beliefs of the Church of Almighty God is its doctrine of beauty. Beauty is, first, an inherent feature of the words of Almighty God, described as uniformly “beautiful and moving” (The Church of Almighty God 2017a: 3). The presence of Almighty God on Earth is not only momentous and decisive: it also creates unprecedented beauty. One of the distinctive characteristics of the new kingdom of God is “beauty” (The Church of Almighty God 2017a: 46, 88). The Word Appears in the Flesh also mentions the “piteous state” of those who, remaining outside the new kingdom, are deprived of this beauty, “watching the beautiful scenes within the kingdom but unable to enter” (The Church of Almighty God 2017a: 166).

Believers respond to this divine beauty by producing beauty on Earth. This beauty manifests first in the life itself of the believers. The testimony and the strenuous activities of the followers of Almighty God are in themselves “beautiful” (The Church of Almighty God 2017a: 9). A miracle follows: nature itself reacts to the efforts and prayers of the believers and becomes more beautiful. “When people give great praise before Me,” Almighty God revealed, “I am exalted among all things, and thus the flowers on earth grow more beautiful beneath the hot sun, the grass becomes more verdant, and the clouds in the sky seem more blue” (The Church of Almighty God 2017a: 121).

Beauty, however, is also produced by those who “give great praise” to Almighty God in an artistic form. God’s utterances mentioned the “most beautiful songs” (The Church of Almighty God 2017: 34), but the production of significant works of the visual arts would soon follow in the experience of the believing community.

Millennial Beliefs

Words of Almighty God about the Millennial Kingdom

The Church of Almighty God is a millenarian movement, but its brand of millennialism is often misunderstood by critics. A video posted on the movement’s Web site in 2015 distinguishes between the Age of Kingdom, in which we now live, and the Age of the Millennial Kingdom:

“How do you see the vision of the Millennial Kingdom? Some people think about it a lot, and say that the Millennial Kingdom will last for a thousand years on earth, so if the older members of the church are unmarried, do they have to get married? My family has no money, should I start making money? … What is the Millennial Kingdom? Do you know? People are purblind, and suffer a great ordeal. In fact, the Millennial Kingdom has yet to officially arrive. During the stage of making people perfect, the Millennial Kingdom is merely a microcosm; at the time of the Millennial Kingdom spoken of by God, man will have been made perfect” (The Church of Almighty God 2015, from which the following quotations are also taken).

The slogan “The Millennial Kingdom Has Arrived” is used by the Church of Almighty God, but described as a “prophecy,” which is “analogous to the foretelling of a prophet, one in which God prophesies what will happen in the future.”

According to the Church of Almighty God, we live in the Age of Kingdom, but this is not to be confused with the Age of the Millennial Kingdom. In the Age of Kingdom, Almighty God speaks “to make people perfect, to purify that which is dirty within them, and to make them holy, and righteous before God.” During this necessary purification period, the Millennial Kingdom “is merely a microcosm,” living as a prophecy in the believers who are being made “perfect” by the words of God. In fact, God’s glorification on earth is not yet complete. Only “when the day comes on which people are made perfect by God, and are able to surrender before Him, and can completely obey God, and leave their prospects and fate in the hands of God, then the second part of God’s glory [the first having been achieved by Jesus] will have been entirely gained.”

At this stage, God’s “work on the China mainland will come to an end; in other words, when those who were predestined and chosen by God have been made perfect, God will be glorified.” The Church does not believe that the person it worships as Almighty God would live on earth forever. The return to Heaven of Almighty God would mean that the purification work had come to an end. The disasters prophesied in the Book of Revelation will follow, in the shape of earthquakes, wars, and famines. Planet Earth, however, will not be destroyed. It will become the eternal home of God’s purified followers. Not all members of the Church of Almighty God will survive the disasters and live forever, only those purified by God’s work.

The Church clarifies its teachings about the Millennial Kingdom

The disasters are prophesied in the Bible, but we do not know the details. Nor do we know exact dates. Although some members of the Church of Almighty God developed an interest in the so-called Mayan prophecies predicting the end of the world in 2012 (see below, under “Controversies”), they were rebuked by the leaders, as their position was not consistent with the theology of the Church. Almighty God does not announce the end of the world, but its transformation. And this will not occur before the work of Almighty God on Earth is completed.

A painting by the Church of Almighty God depicting the Last Days

In the Age of the Millennial Kingdom, “people will have already been made perfect and the corrupt disposition within them will have been made pure. At that time, the words spoken by God will guide people step by step, and reveal all of the mysteries of God’s work from the time of creation until today, and His words will tell people of God’s actions in every age and every day, how He guides people inside, the work He does in the spiritual realm, and will tell man [sic] of the dynamics of the spiritual realm.” The visible sign that the Age of the Millennial Kingdom has arrived will be that “all nations will come under God’s name, and all come to read God’s words,” a situation obviously not yet realized in the present Age the Kingdom. With their sinful nature truly eradicated, the “saints” made perfect by God will live forever in the Kingdom, surrounded by peace and beauty. As Almighty God revealed, all that is beautiful and pure in this world will survive: “This life, this beauty, from time immemorial and forevermore, will not change. This is life in the kingdom” (The Church of Almighty God 2017a: 92). The Church of Almighty God believes that this millennial scenario will fulfill the prophecy in the Book of Revelation, “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev 22:3-5).

Some of the millennial beliefs of the Church of Almighty God are presented in the musical movie New Heaven and New Earth, completed and released in 2016, yet another award-winning production of the Church’s audiovisual department.

  

The musical New Heaven and New Earth

Practices

There is no formal liturgy in the Church of Almighty God, nor sacraments such as baptism or eucharist. The Church of Almighty God believes that its members now “must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24) in their meetings, and that traditional Christian sacraments were practices of the Age of Grace, which have no place in the Age of Kingdom.

This, however, does not mean that gathering together is not important for the members of the Church of Almighty God. They “fellowship” by meeting and discussing Almighty God’s words, hearing a sermon as well as meeting to sing hymns, share testimonies, and listen to preaching. The richness of the religious life contrasts with a minimalist style of worship. There is no pattern of the religious life’s frequency or duration, which depends on the needs and situations of the members of each local community.

Sometimes, families and opponents complain that the routine of “fellowshipping” takes too much time and distracts believers from their secular pursuits. Some believers may decide to serve as full-time missionaries (which, obviously enough, occurs in many religious organizations). They answer the criticisms by claiming that, in fact, the teachings make them better Christians and better family men and women, and help them learn how to treat their family and relatives more appropriately.

A Church’s video about family life and worship

Fellowshipping today is often done by Internet, and it may happen that believers from different countries and even different continents fellowship together. This is described as an exciting experience by members. They also note that they have frequent occasions to speak and express their views, contrasting this with the “passive” attitude towards the pastor’s or priest’s sermons in the mainline churches.

Controversies

Accusations of serious crimes against the Church of Almighty God come from two sources: the Chinese Communist Party and other Christian churches. The Chinese government and media periodically accuse the Church of Almighty God of crimes. Other incidents are also mentioned, but the most frequent accusations concern the Zhaoyuan McDonald's murder of 2014, which was at the center of a BBC World Service news item (BBC World Service 2014). Other alleged incidents were connected, according to critics, to announcements that the end of the world would occur in 2012. Some scholars believe that the accusations are grossly exaggerated and, in some cases, fake news have been fabricated by the Chinese government (Introvigne 2017a; Introvigne and Bromley 2017; Folk 2017b).

The Zhaoyuan McDonald's murder was the brutal homicide, on May 28, 2014, of 37-year old salesgirl Wu Shuoyan (1977–2014), in a McDonald’s diner in the city of Zhaoyuan, in the Chinese province of Shandong. Six “missionaries” entered the McDonald’s and asked for the cell phone numbers of the customers. Wu refused to supply hers, was identified as an “evil spirit,” and killed.

The McDonald’s murder as captured by a surveillance camera

Chinese authorities claimed that the perpetrators were members of the Church of Almighty God, and used the claim to justify their increasing public repression of the Church. The claim was also repeated by mainline media in the West. However, scholars who studied the documents of the subsequent trial, where two of the assassins were sentenced to death, concluded that the group, although using the name “Almighty God,” was not part of the Church of Almighty God and in fact believed in a different Almighty God, a dual deity incarnated in the two female leaders of the movement: Zhang Fan (1984–2015), who was executed, and Lü Yingchun.

At trial, Lü Yingchun clearly explained:

“The state labeled Zhao Weishan’s fake ‘Church of Almighty God’ as a xie jiao, and we label them as ‘evil spirits.” Only Zhang Fan and I, the ‘firstborn sons,’ could represent the real ‘Church of Almighty God.’ Zhang Fan and I are the unique spokeswomen for the real ‘Almighty God.’ The government has been cracking down on the Almighty God that Zhao Weishan believes in, not the ‘Almighty God’ we mention. They are fake ‘Almighty God,’ while we are the real ‘Almighty God’” (The Beijing News 2014).

In turn, Zhang Fan declared:

“Up till now, only my father, my younger brother, my younger sister, Lü Yingchun, Zhang Qiaolian and me are adherents of the real ‘Almighty God.’ In 2010, I was the ‘firstborn son’ of ‘Almighty God.’ I became ‘God Himself’ because I obtained the authority from the heaven to kill evil spirits this May [2014]. Speaking of ‘God Himself,’ that is to say, I am God in substance. Lü Yingchun is also God in substance” (The Beijing News 2014).

On August 24, 2013, a woman pulled out the eyes of a young boy called Guo Bin in Shaanxi. The boy later became internationally famous for a successful ocular prosthesis surgery performed on him in Shenzhen. Some Chinese media attributed the crime to members of the Church of Almighty God. However, an examination of available sources supports the conclusion that the crime was perpetrated by Guo Bin’s aunt, a mentally disturbed person who later committed suicide, and had nothing to do with the Church of Almighty God. In fact, Chinese anti-cult sources started associating the crime with the Church of Almighty God only in June 2014, after the McDonald’s murder, and ten months after the local police had closed the case by concluding that the aunt was the sole perpetrator (Folk 2017b).

The Church of Almighty God has also been accused of predicting the end of the world for 2012, within the global framework of the 2012 phenomenon, based on prophecies attributed to the Maya civilization, causing riots and even crimes around China. This was another justification used by Chinese authorities to arrest a great number of members of the Church. Australian scholar Emily Dunn, in what was the first scholarly book devoted to the Church of Almighty God in 2015, noted that, like many Chinese, some “members of Eastern Lighting embraced the Mayan prophecy” but they “appear to have done so without sanction from the group’s self-proclaimed authorities,” who in fact declared “Mayan” and other theories about the end of the world as theologically and factually “mistaken” (Dunn 2015b: 95). As mentioned earlier, the belief that the world would end in 2012 was inconsistent with the Church of Almighty God’s theology. The Church also maintains that some flyers and brochures depicted in Chinese anti-xie-jiao Web sites as evidence of its 2012 prophecies were in fact either fabricated or derived from alterations with Photoshop and other techniques of existing materials of the Church of Almighty God. Certainly, opponents of the Church of Almighty God resort at time to questionable tactics. In the UK, for example, a false Web site “Church of Almighty God UK” has been created at the address www.chinesetouk.co.uk/. Attempts by the Church of Almighty God to have it removed have been so far unsuccessful. A “Declaration Concerning Websites Imitating The Church of Almighty God” was issued by the Church denouncing the incident (The Church of Almighty God 2017c).

Other Christian churches have accused the Church of Almighty God both of “heresy” and of “sheep-stealing” through devious strategies. Accusations include the claim that, in 2002, the Church of Almighty God kidnapped thirty-four leaders of the China Gospel Fellowship, one of the largest House Churches in China, in order to convert them (Shen and Bach 2017). While a number of Christians in the West found the accusations believable, the Church of Almighty God published a rebuttal noting inconsistencies in the story, finding it strange that nobody was arrested or committed to trial for the crime, and concluding that, by inventing the story of the kidnapping, the China Gospel Fellowship simply tried to find a justification for the fact that many of its members, including national leaders, had converted to the Church of Almighty God (The Church of Almighty God 2017b; see also Introvigne 2018).

Other controversies concern the denial of refugee status to members of the Church of Almighty God who escaped to South Korea and other countries. While authorities in these countries claim that there is not enough evidence of the fact that asylum seekers have been persecuted, some international experts counter this with the argument that, since the Church of Almighty God is persecuted as a movement, this is sufficient evidence that the members can be viewed as genuine asylum seekers, and decisions unfavorable to applicants are unjustified (Šorytė 2018).

Personal reflections

Several members of the Church of Almighty God who have been persecuted in China have presented their testimonies in international conferences, press conferences and on the Internet. Some have been posted on the Web by independent human rights organizations, which regard them as believable. In this section, we present one of them through a video, and then discuss four personal stories of conversion.

Testimony of a Church member persecuted in China, presented at a human rights conference in Seoul on October 23, 2017

Ann, an American convert, was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. As she grew up, “through the years, I saw that the disasters across the world became ever more frequent and the people increasingly panicked and corrupt. In light of the great disasters and various signs of the last days mentioned in Revelation, I was more convinced in my heart that the last days have arrived, and the little scroll [of Revelation 10:10] shall have been opened now. But how is it opened?” Ann did not find persuasive answers among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and joined a Pentecostal church. There, when she asked for details about the Last Days, the pastor answered: “These are all mysteries, and you don’t have to know.” Disappointed again, she returned to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But she also put out her doubts on Facebook.

A member of the Church of Almighty God called Danny answered, and told her: “God has come to do His work on earth and expressed the words to judge and purify man in the last days. I know a sister who has more knowledge of God’s work of the last days. If you like, I can invite her to have a meeting and fellowship with us about it as well as how the little scroll prophesied in Revelation is opened.” Interestingly, and following a pattern repeated in other stories of conversions by Westerners, fellowshipping with the more experienced believer, Sister Flora, also took place on Facebook. She persuaded Ann that “The Word Appears in the Flesh expressed by Almighty God in the last days is precisely the little scroll opened by the Lamb mentioned in the Bible,” and includes all the truths we need to know about the Last Days.

After reading and “carefully investigating” the words of Almighty God, Ann converted and concluded: “I’ve fully ascertained that Almighty God is really the return of the Lord Jesus. He has opened the scroll and revealed all the mysteries. Then I lost not a moment in preaching the gospel to my family; both my mother and husband have come before God. How fortunate we are! Later, I will preach to my daughter and friends, too. I will proclaim God’s words and I want to say my heartfelt word: Behold! The scroll has been opened!” (“Ann” 2017).

Max was born in the United States but his parents soon returned with him to their home country, China. At age 14, he came back to the United States to attend high school there. He was very concerned when he learned that his mother in China had converted to the Church of Almighty God, as he searched for information on the Web and found various sites describing the movement as a cult guilty of serious crimes. He went to visit his mother, and could not accept her claim that this time Jesus Christ had incarnated as a female. His mother repeated to Max the words of Almighty God: “Each stage of work done by God has a real significance. When Jesus arrived, He was male, and this time He is female. From this, you can see that God created both male and female for His work and with Him there is no distinction of gender.” But he was not persuaded. Gradually, however, he came to accept the notion, particularly because he fellowshipped with members of the Church of Almighty God and found them to be “normal” and pleasant people, not the violent “cultists” depicted in the anti-cult Web sites. But he was still disturbed by the allegations of crimes the Church was accused of having committed.

Finally, he overcame his doubts through a theological approach. In the Last Days, he learned, “under the guidance of God’s words, more and more people are able to distinguish the evil forces that originate from Satan. They also see clearly the satanic and demonic essence of the leaders of the [mainline] religious world and the atheistic political regime of the Chinese Communist Party. […] Will Satan just do nothing as God comes to do the work of saving man and helping man break away from Satan’s dark influence? It is not willing to be defeated. In order to vie over God’s chosen people with God, it will fight to the end. The religious world and the satanic CCP regime have teamed up together and through the internet and media, they spread rumors about and smear the name of the Church of Almighty God without restraint in order to deceive those who do not have the truth or cannot distinguish. They are attempting to obtain control over the human race forever.” But they will be ultimately defeated (“Max” 2017).

The two elements, of discovering the Church of Almighty God through Facebook and being originally disturbed by the negative information on Internet, are also part of the experience of Tina and Charlie, an American couple operating their own small business in Arizona I personally interviewed after their conversion. Tina was not religious, but was curious about the future of humanity and the causes of the present troubles. She discovered the Church of Almighty God on Facebook and started fellowshipping. Her daughter and husband were originally concerned she spent too much time on her religious activities, and also read on the Web that the Church of Almighty God was a dangerous cult. Tina, however, asked them whether, since she fellowshipped, she had become a better or worse mother and wife. They admitted she appeared to be more calm, loving, and caring. Her daughter remained skeptical, but her husband Charlie was persuaded to read The Word Appears in the Flesh and concluded that he “could not deny these words.” An enthusiastic Tina considered leaving her business and going to New York to work as a full-time missionary for the Church. Contrary to stereotypes about the Church of Almighty God, she was told that her duty was to remain with her family. She still encounters opposition based on charges that she has “joined a cult,” but Tina and Charlie maintain a good relationship with their daughter and neighbors, and do not despair of eventually bringing some of them to believe in Almighty God, not through insistence but through example, cordiality, and good grace.

“Christopher” (not his real name) was a pastor of the International Christian Life Center (ICLC) in the Philippines. Understandably, his testimony is much more theological, yet grounded on his personal experience. He believed to be a good and effective Christian pastor, yet after years of service to his church he still looked on himself as a sinful and less than perfect human being, who easily lost his temper with his family. How was this possible, since he firmly believed he had been saved by Jesus? Almost by coincidence, when performing a different search on the Web, he found a Web site of the Church of Almighty God, became interested in the Church’s theology, and wrote seeking a contact.

What won him was the doctrine of the two stages of salvation, and the idea that “saved” and “purified” are different concepts. “I got to understand that being saved means that one has received Jesus’ salvation, and will no longer be condemned […] for violating the law. It doesn’t mean that he has been completely purified.” The sinful disposition remains, and is only being eradicated now, by the second appearance of Christ as Almighty God in the Last Days.

“I have believed in the Lord for so long,” Christopher concluded, “often gave sermons to believers, disciplined my body, yet I could not keep the Lord’s way, living in sin and being unable to get rid of it, and feeling agonized and distressed day after day. I finally understood at that time if people don’t experience God’s work of judgment and chastisement in the last days, they can never get rid of the bondage and shackles of sin on their own. Now I have beheld the path of achieving purification and reaching the true salvation. I am so grateful to God for His mercy and salvation upon me. […] God’s work is so practical” (“Christopher” 2016).

Further information

From the Church of Almighty God:

Official Website: http://www.holyspiritspeaks.org.

The Church of Almighty God (2015) “A Brief Talk About ‘The Millennial Kingdom Has Arrived.” https://www.holyspiritspeaks.org/a-brief-talk-about-the-millennial-kingdom-has-arrived/.

The Church of Almighty God (2017a) The Word Appears in the Flesh, Seoul: The Church of Almighty God.

The Church of Almighty God (2017b) “Statement: The Church of Almighty God Did Not Kidnap 34 Leaders of China Gospel Fellowship in 2002. The Kidnapping Incident Is Simply a Fabrication,” October 18, 2017. https://www.holyspiritspeaks.org/statement/.

The Church of Almighty God (2017c) “Declaration Concerning Websites Imitating The Church of Almighty God,” February 24, 2017. https://www.holyspiritspeaks.org/solemn-declaration/.

For a Critical Approach:

(Christian counter-cult approach): Shen, Xiaoming, and Eugene Bach (2017) Kidnapped by a Cult: A Pastor’s Stand Against a Murderous Sect, New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House.

(Secular anti-cult approach, from the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party): “Inside China’s ‘Eastern Lightning’ Cult,” China People’s Daily, June 3, 2014, http://en.people.cn/n/2014/0603/c90882-8735801.html.

(Journalistic account, largely adopting the anti-cult perspective): Gracie, Carrie (2014) “The Chinese Cult That Kills ‘Demons’” BBC News, August 13, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28641008.

(Documents on the McDonald’s murder, from a Chinese governmental source): The Beijing News (2014) “山东招远血案被告自白:我就是神” (The Confession of the Defendant of the Murder Case in Zhaoyuan, Shandong: “I am God Himself”), August 23, 2014. Compiled by Yang Feng. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-08- 22/123730728266.shtml.

For an Academic Approach:

Dunn, Emily (2015a) “Church of Almighty God / Eastern Lightning,” World Religions and Spirituality Project, February 19, 2015. https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/church-of-almighty-god/

Dunn, Emily (2015b) Lightning from the East: Heterodoxy and Christianity in Contemporary China, Leiden: Brill.

Folk, Holly (2017) “‘Cult Crimes’ and Fake News: Eye-Gouging in Shanxi,” The Journal of CESNUR 1(2):96-109. http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/tjoc_1_2_5_folk.pdf

Folk, Holly (2018) “Protestant Continuities in The Church of Almighty God.” The Journal of CESNUR 2(1):58-77. http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/tjoc_2_1_4_folk.pdf

Introvigne, Massimo (2017a) “’Cruel Killing, Brutal Killing, Kill the Beast’: Investigating the 2014 McDonald’s ‘Cult Murder’” in Zhaoyuan,” The Journal of CESNUR 1:61-73. http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/tjoc_1_1_6_introvigne_ter.pdf.

Introvigne, Massimo (2017b) “The Church of Almighty God and the Visual Arts,” World Religions and Spirituality Project, December 3, 2017. https://wrldrels.org/2017/12/04/church-of-almighty-god-eastern-lightning-and-the-visual-arts/.

Introvigne, Massimo (2018) “Captivity Narratives: Did The Church of Almighty God Kidnap 34 Evangelical Pastors in 2002?” The Journal of CESNUR 2(1):100-110. http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/tjoc_2_1_6_introvigne_bis.pdf

Introvigne, Massimo and David Bromley (2017) “The Lü Yingchun – Zhang Fan Group,” World Religions and Spirituality Project, October 16, 2017. https://wrldrels.org/2017/10/16/lu-yingchun-zhang-fan-group/.

Šorytė, Rosita (2018) “Religious Persecution, Refugees, and Right of Asylum: The Case of The Church of Almighty God.” The Journal of CESNUR 2(1):78-99. http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/tjoc_2_1_5_soryte.pdf

Personal testimonies:

“Ann” (2017) “Behold! The Scroll Has Been Opened! – Return to God.” https://www.findshepherd.com/behold-the-scroll-has-been-opened.html.

“Christopher” (2016) “A Pastor’s Spiritual Confession.” https://www.findshepherd.com/a-pastor_s-spiritual-confession.html.

“Max” (2017) “I Will No Longer Define the Gender of the Returned Lord by My Imagination.” https://www.findshepherd.com/no-longer-define.html.

Author: Massimo Introvigne, Cesnur

Last Updated: December 2017

Title: Church of Almighty God

Author: Massimo Introvigne, Cesnur

Last Updated: December 2017

Source: https://censamm.org/resources/profiles/church-of-almighty-god

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Reprinted with permission of Massimo Introvigne.

https://censamm.org/resources/profiles/church-of-almighty-god