A new generation of L.A. Satanists finds community in blasphemous times

August Brown

Los Angeles Times

January 5, 2018

In November, in the candlelit basement of a house just above the Silver Lake Reservoir, Alexandra James walked over to an altar where her husband, Zachary, waited near a bleached human skull, teeth locked in eternal rictus. From the altar, she lifted a sword and drew points across his chest while a circle of onlookers watched solemnly (well, a few giggled too). An organist played eerie minor key chords and Alexandra turned to face the group.

“On this altar we consecrate swords to direct the fire of our unholy will,” she said. “A human skull, symbol of death. The great mother Lilith created us all, and will destroy us all.”

“Hail Satan! Hail Satan! Hail Satan!” The group chanted back.

The Jameses had planned the ritual as the climax of a low-key house party that included a dozen or so friends associated with ritual magic — artists, writers, rock musicians who freely mingle occult vocabularies (Satanist, coven, witches), none taken too literally. But a bigger moment came a few hours later when word circulated that Charles Manson had died. Far from mourning a man whose crimes burned satanic imagery into the American mainstream, everyone cracked beers in celebration and jammed on psych rock tunes. Bonnie Bloomgarden, the singer for the band Death Valley Girls, joked that Manson’s spirit would be reincarnated as a small dog, and that she’d probably accidentally adopt it.

It was a great night for a heterodox generation of new self-described Satanists who are upending old “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Helter Skelter” stereotypes in service of radical politics, feminist aesthetics and community unity in the divisive time of Trump.

Given the never-ending chaos in American life, when nuclear war seems to many to be just one juvenile presidential tweet away, a coterie of artists are rediscovering Satanism’s imagery and rituals in a city with a long, rich and weird history of contrarian philosophies. Traditionalists might debate if any of it is properly “Satanic” at all; this new take is much more feminist than nihilist, flexibly self-aware and better versed in internet culture than orthodox theology.

“In terms of the aesthetics of the occult, it’s everywhere you look. There are so many young women especially who use occult imagery to define their identity,” said Anna Biller, a director whose 2017 film “The Love Witch” beautifully revamped ’70s Technicolor genre films for our era of wry misandry and new social movements.

“What I’m trying to do is to transform the witch from a figure of male fear and fantasy into a figure of female power and sexuality. For some women it represents healing, for others, raw power, for others, the freedom to be unorthodox or to find their own spirituality outside of the family system,” she said.

“It’s important for women to try to reclaim our images for ourselves.”

That, more than anything, is the animating force behind this new wave of interest in both Satanism and the occult (which are two separate things, sometimes mingled together). If satanic rituals of old were centered on smashing Christian orthodoxy and middle American propriety — or, more basely, taking drugs and getting laid — this form of Satanism explicitly uses a huge range of ideas to give shape to the inchoate rage felt by so many — especially women and other marginalized groups.

These new converts believe that when confronted with so much chaos, one way to make sense of it is to conjure it themselves.

“If you don’t give people some sense of magic and community, you get the Proud Boys,” Alexandra said, referring to the fraternal neo-fascist group created by Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes. Zachary agreed: “People like the Proud Boys have their own social clubs, and that’s black magic. Instead of running away from that, we need to find better ways of organizing ourselves.

In these times, a lot of people want to not feel helpless. And Lucifer was the original rebel angel.— Zachary James

"In these times,” he added, “a lot of people want to not feel helpless. And Lucifer was the original rebel angel.”

Like in any extreme subculture, the definitions and lessons of Satanism have always been fought over (whenever anyone in the scene talks about Satan and magic, it's usually not literal but a metaphor for human potential). Was Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic spiritual thought or Anton LaVey’s atheist Church of Satan the more effective path? Should any of this be a heartfelt religion, or just a psychological tool and a way to needle the pious?

L.A. history is filled with outsiders coming together under the mantle of the occult, an oft-conflated sphere of sometimes-opposing worldviews, which range from atheist Satanism to neo-pagan traditions like Wicca. They left their mark on the city in a variety of ways.

Jack Parsons, an early figure at CalTech and co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Lab, was a Thelemite who worshipped at the Ordo Templi Orientis, as did his wife Marjorie Cameron, an artist whose work recently had a retrospective show at MOCA PDC. They followed Crowley’s school of thought, whose main principle is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.” Their onetime friend L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology.

LaVey’s Church of Satan broke with Crowley’s spiritual side and structured itself as a platform for rejecting all supernatural religion. Before the Manson murders, he had a Hollywood contingency that included Sammy Davis Jr. and Mansfield.

Some in the current generation of self-described Satanists seem more flexible on doctrinal disputes, favoring inclusivity, especially for women, often the losers in both traditional religion and radical politics. L.A.’s chapter of the Satanic Temple has a mission statement that promises to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.” In 2015 the temple held a ritual to “demonize” St. Junipero Serra, who founded the brutal early Spanish missions in California.

LaVey wouldn’t approve, but there are also common threads here with young women of color exploring traditions like Santeria or Yoruba beliefs for rebellion and self-care today, including Bri Luna, the black and Mexican Seattle mystic and artist behind the Hood Witch brand, which just received a glowing profile in Vogue.

Ruth Waytz is a magistra in the official LaVey-founded Church of Satan, whose mission is “dedicated to the acceptance of man’s true nature — that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos that is indifferent to our existence” (it also maintains a hilarious, politically salient Twitter feed). For her, Satanism should also be a corrective to contemporary liberal pieties.

“Our writers, directors, producers, and designers lead the charge on our real-world individualist approach — not some spooky, occultnik mumbo jumbo, which is often anti-Satanic and mired in mysticism,” she said. “LaVey formulated Satanism as a resistance to the collectivist ‘resistance’ of the ’60s. His philosophy is one of individual self-empowerment, of a will to power via the manipulation of the carnal and material world. And sometimes that takes unconventional, controversial forms because Satanists are often the outcasts within their externally-defined social groups.

“Satanism is not now and has never been about seeking inclusion in the herd, but celebrating being apart from it,” she said.

Even among the merely Satan-curious, the imagery seems to be popping up all over art, film and music.

The Jameses’ group — not officially affiliated with any one strain of Satanism — is loosely based around their doo-wop band Twin Temple, which sounds like the Marvelettes if that group had pined after the blessings of Baphomet instead of the boy next door. They got their start playing shows for the music-activist collective Play Like a Girl. Dressed in uniforms of black leather and lace, the couple made quite a striking duo on the town, and soon enough others wanted in on their scene.

“They were these barfly regulars with a Gomez/Morticia Addams vibe. We would riff on all things weird,” said Brent Smith, a novelist who met them at the rock bar Harvard & Stone. He sees their rituals as less of a religion and more of a structure for community and making art.

“It's hard enough inspiring people in L.A. to congregate,” Smith said. “But there's also real philosophy there, and the means to apply it. Rituals keep you accountable to the work you're doing. Satanism doesn't require ideology, and it's ideology that so often kills writing.”

On Halloween, much of the group gathered in the basement of the Hollywood bar Black Rabbit Rose, where a who’s who of modern occultists gathered for rituals, rock shows and talks from the scene’s demimonde elite.

Avant-garde director Kenneth Anger (whose “Lucifer Rising” is a favorite of Satanists and starred eventual Manson family murderer Bobby Beausoleil) took questions from fans like Matt Skiba, the Blink-182 guitarist and Satanist. Noise musician and prominent Satanist Boyd Rice interviewed Karla LaVey (daughter of Anton LaVey) about war stories from the scene’s midcentury heyday. Glenn Danzig, founder of the horror-punk band the Misfits (who recently sold out the Forum for a reunion show), gabbed with fans in the VIP suite and showed off an archive of rare last-days-of-Jayne Mansfield photographs alongside the Lethal Amounts gallery owner Danny Fuentes, who organized the party and often hosts exhibits of transgressive occult-y art.

At the witching hour, Twin Temple performed a full set, capped with a ritual during which it performed an anti-baptism of its coven-mate, the young film director Kansas Bowling. Blood-smeared and stripped down to nearly “sky-clad,” as they put it, Bowling was offered up in service to the goddess Lilith as an avenging angel for crimes against women.

“Some of these men, like Harvey Weinstein, are finally being held accountable for their crimes,” Alexandra yelled at the crowd. “What do you think, shall we burn him at the stake? Or shall we drown him and see if he floats?” The crowd erupted in cheers for both.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-satanism-music-20180105-story.html

One of Us

"Nobody leaves the Hasidic community, unless they're willing to pay the price."

One of Us offers a look into the secretive world of Hasidic Judaism and those who wish to leave that community for a life among the non-religious, whatever the costs. 

Watch One of Us on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80118101

Footsteps

"Whether you are considering leaving the ultra-Orthodox community or have already begun a new life in the secular world, there is a place for you at Footsteps. We offer programming and resources for people at any stage of the journey. We also welcome formerly ultra-Orthodox people who would like to help others considering or actively making the transition."

"Footsteps is the only organization in North America that assists people who wish to leave the ultra-Orthodox community. Based in New York, Footsteps provides a range of services, including social and emotional support, educational and career guidance, workshops and social activities, and access to resources. Thanks to Footsteps, former ultra-Orthodox Jews have a safe, supportive, and flourishing community to turn to as they work to define their own identities, build new connections, and lead productive lives on their own terms."

https://footstepsorg.org/

ICSA's 2018 Annual Conference

The International Cultic Studies Association's (ICSA) 2018 Annual Conference is in Philadelphia, PA. July 5-7; preconference events July 4 detaila are now available online, including registration, agenda, speakers, abstracts, hotel, etc.

Conference details: http://www.icsahome.com/events/conferenceannual 

Meditation is common across many religious groups in the U.S.

DAVID MASCI AND CONRAD HACKETT

Pew Research Center
January 2, 2018

In popular culture, meditation often is associated with Eastern spirituality and its secular offshoots, such as mindfulness. But substantial shares of Americans of nearly all religious groups – as well as those who have no religious affiliation at all – say they meditate at least once a week.

Americans tend to say they meditate regularly (40% do so at least weekly) or rarely, if at all (45% seldom or never do). There’s not much middle ground – only 8% say they meditate once or twice a month and only 4% say they do so several times a year. But these figures vary widely among different U.S. religious groups.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, many Buddhists and substantial numbers of Hindus say they meditate regularly, according to Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study. Indeed, two-thirds of Buddhists and one-third of Hindus in the survey say they meditate at least once a week. (An earlier Pew Research Center survey of Asian Americans, which was conducted in several Asian languages and included a different question about meditation, produced a much smaller estimate of the share of Buddhists who meditate regularly.)

At the same time, many Christians, including 49% of evangelical Protestants, 40% of Catholics and 55% of members of the historically black Protestant tradition also say they meditate once a week or more, according to the Religious Landscape Study. Among some smaller Christian groups, the share of self-described meditators is somewhat higher. Six-in-ten Mormons and 77% of Jehovah’s Witnesses say they meditate at least once per week. Both Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are encouraged by their churches to meditate.

Within Christianity, the practice of meditation or silent contemplation dates back to the Desert Fathers (early Christian monks and nuns who sought God in the quiet and solitude of the Egyptian wilderness) during the first centuries after the death of Jesus. Today Christians of various traditions still encourage meditation as a means to try to get closer to God. Eastern-style meditation, by contrast, generally involves clearing the mind.

Some Christians and others may think of meditation as a form of prayer, given that there can be some overlap between the two practices. In addition to the question about meditation, the survey asked separately about prayer, finding that the more often someone prays, the more likely they are to say they meditate. Among those who say they pray at least weekly, for instance, 50% say they meditate regularly. By contrast, among those who rarely pray (less than a few times a month or never) only 17% say they meditate.

Roughly a quarter (26%) of religiously unaffiliated Americans – defined as those who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – also say they meditate regularly. Even among self-described atheists, about one-in-five (19%) meditate weekly or more often, an indication that not all people who meditate do so for religious reasons.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/02/meditation-is-common-across-many-religious-groups-in-the-u-s/

'Don't step out of line': Confidential report reveals how Chinese officials harass activists in Canada

'They said if this (critical) story comes out in the Canadian press, then you are responsible for the life of your relatives'
Tom Blackwell

National Post

January 5, 2018

At home in Ontario, his activism barely raised an eyebrow.

But when a quiet-spoken Chinese dissident travelled to the country of his birth last year, security officers shadowed him for weeks, booking hotel rooms next to his, even following him to breakfast.

Before he left, they also had a disturbingly direct message: Stop condemning the Chinese government to Canadian media, or the family he had come to visit would face the consequences.

“They said if this (critical) story comes out in the Canadian press, then you are responsible for the life of your relatives,” he recalls.

According to a confidential report submitted to the federal government earlier this year — not yet released to the public — it’s just one example of a sweeping intimidation campaign by Chinese officials against activists here in Canada.

The product of a coalition led by Amnesty International Canada, the report catalogues harassment ranging from digital disinformation campaigns to direct threats.

Targets include Canadian representatives of what the Chinese sometimes call the five “poisons”: the Uyghur Muslim minority, independence-minded Tibetans, Taiwanese, democracy advocates and, especially, the Falun Gong.

“This is not just a matter of occasional and sporadic incidents,” said Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty Canada, one of the organizations behind the report, along with groups representing Chinese religious, human-rights and ethnic minorities in this country. “There is a consistent pattern … a troubling example of a foreign government being very active in Canada in ways that are undermining human rights.”

The threats also seem to be working. The report, which comes just as the Liberal government and business leaders strive for closer economic ties with China, notes a “significant chilling effect” on human-rights activism among Chinese-Canadians.

That includes the Ontario dissident interviewed for this story, who agreed to speak only on condition of total anonymity, and has ceased activism since his trip.

Among those who continue to speak out are Falun Gong organizers. And as recently as last month, emails making grandiose claims about the group — that their leader was “the greatest God in this world, exceeding any others including Jesus Christ” — were sent to members of Parliament. The missives also claimed that MPs such as Liberal Judy Sgro were being featured in the group’s posters.

The emails were purportedly from Falun Gong practitioners themselves, but according to organizer Grace Wollensak, they had nothing to do with the group, and clearly echo Beijing’s propaganda campaign against it.

Seen as a threat to communist party control, China banned the Falun Gong in 1999, and has allegedly jailed, tortured and killed countless practitioners since. Although Chinese authorities often call it an “evil cult,” Canadian experts have described Falun Gong as a new, loosely organized religion emphasizing meditation and “profoundly moral” teachings.

When the fake emails began to arrive a few years ago, says Wollensak, they were easily traced to accounts in China. They’re harder to track now, and some politicians are unaware they are not from Falun Gong.

“It’s really an attempt to disparage the Falun Gong’s followers,” says Sgro, who chairs a parliamentary “friendship” committee with the organization (and keeps getting the emails).

Over the last decade or so, city councilors, mayors and other politicians have certainly tried to quash Falun Gong commemorative events or protests, often under pressure from local Chinese consulates. The former mayor of Vancouver, for instance, publicly ordered the group to stop protesting outside the local consulate in 2006.

Uyghurs in Canada, who number about 2,000, have faced more insidious intimidation, says community leader Mehmet Tohti.

The Muslim ethnic group is at the centre of unrest in China’s Xinjiang region, with human-rights groups accusing Beijing of repressive crackdowns in response to calls for independence and alleged terrorist acts.

Tohti, who founded the Uyghur Canadian Association, believes he too has been shadowed by Chinese agents in Toronto. And he says telephoning kin back home can land them in prison.

When he rang a distant relative two years ago, for example, “immediately she was put in police custody.” “It was in February and she was put outside for two hours,” says Tohti. “They’re punishing me and forcing me to stop doing what I’m doing.”

Experts say such tactics form part of a larger push to influence and monitor Chinese-Canadians, Chinese citizens who study here and Canadian society as a whole — a project active in many other countries, too — that has reportedly swelled under leader Xi Jinping.

The groups behind the report — presented to Global Affairs Canada, RCMP and CSIS officials at meetings in September — want Canadian authorities to take a more coordinated, aggressive approach to the harassment.

Adam Austen, a spokesman for Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, declined to comment on the broad-ranging report, saying the department does not talk about “specific cases.”

But he says any attempt by a foreign government to improperly influence or harass Canadians is taken seriously. “In instances where unacceptable activities by foreign diplomats do occur, appropriate action is taken, up to and including rendering the diplomat ‘persona non grata.’”

One Chinese official accused of harassing Falun Gong was blocked from renewing Canadian credentials. Another was successfully sued for libelling the group. But activists say they are unaware of any Chinese diplomat actually declared persona non grata.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, activists suggest the long arm of China continues to punish dissents in Canada. Former Miss Canada Anastasia Lin is acutely aware of the collateral damage from criticizing China: After speaking to Canadian media about China’s oppression of the Falun Gong, she was barred from the 2015 Miss World contest in Sanya, and says her father, still living in China, has been intimidated repeatedly by police.

Lin also revealed to the Post that her pageant sponsor — a Toronto dress shop owned by a Chinese-Canadian — dropped her after receiving an admonishing email from the local consulate.

“Most of the Chinese here would have business ties or family back in China, and that itself is holding everything they have in China hostage,” she says. “So people here don’t step out of line.”

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/confidential-report-reveals-how-chinese-officials-harass-activists-in-canada-there-is-a-consistent-pattern

Inside 5 of the most infamous cults in American history

ABC 13 News
January 04, 2018

Nearly 25 years have passed since the horror in Waco, yet many still wonder how a cult like the Branch Davidians and leader David Koresh could hold such incredible influence over its followers.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a cult is a religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader, like Koresh.

Here's a closer view of five of the best known cults in the United States, and the story of how their converts showed incredible devotion to beliefs outside the mainstream, often with deadly and horrifying consequences.

JONESTOWN - November 18, 1978

Reverend Jim Jones was embraced by African-Americans after his fiery speeches on racial equality in America. From the 1950's until the end of "The People's Temple" in 1978, Jones was seen as a beacon of peace across the racial divide and a leading advocate for socialism.

But when Jones moved hundreds of cult members to "Jonestown" in Guyana, where he and followers believed they could create a "socialist paradise," concerned family members garnered the attention of California Congressman Leo Ryan.

The congressman sought to investigate whether some cult members were being held against their will, as relatives suggested. When Ryan traveled to Guyana to meet with Jones, he was ambushed on a plane by the reverend's followers, and died after being shot repeatedly in the body and face.

Fearing retribution for the congressman's death, Jones led 918 followers into a mass murder-suicide known now as the "Jonestown Massacre" on November 18, 1978. Most died by drinking cyanide mixed with Kool-Aid. The reverend, however, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

THE MANSON FAMILY - 1967-1969

Ex-convict and singer-songwriter Charles Manson was able to woo followers, especially women, into a non-religious cult that believed a race war known as "Helter Skelter" was imminent.

Manson, who described Scientology and Satanism as influential to his beliefs, told those who joined The Manson Family cult that when the African-American rebels won the war, they would be elevated by the survivors to lead the survivors in the United States.

As leader of The Manson Family, Charles influenced the murders of nine people in California, including the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others in her home. The family also was involved in a number of crimes, including the plotting of an attempted assassination of President Gerald R. Ford.

Charles Manson was sentenced to death for his crimes, but because California banned the death penalty, he lived in prison for decades before he died on November 19, 2017.

BRANCH DAVIDIANS - 1959-1993

Formed by charismatic leader David Koresh after his expulsion from the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Branch Davidians shared a belief that the end of the world was drawing near.

Koresh, recognized often for his musical talents on the guitar, believed he was a messiah who spoke the true word of God. He also believed all women were his spiritual wives, resulting in multiple relationships with women in the cult, married and single alike.

Members stockpiled weapons at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, preparing for the pending apocalypse. They also caught the attention of ATF agents, who attempted to raid the compound on February 28, 1993, for alleged weapons violations.

An intense gun battle ensued, killing four agents along with six Branch Davidian members. The incident sparked a 51-day standoff that would come to a deadly conclusion on April 19, 1993.

When negotiations stalled following the release of 19 children, the FBI and state authorities moved in on the compound with tanks firing tear gas. As television cameras carried live pictures on cable and network news, a major fire erupted inside the compound as the Branch Davidians set the compound ablaze.

In the end, 76 people were killed in the building. Investigators determined those who did not perish in the fire died of gunshot wounds or from being crushed when a concrete wall collapsed.

HEAVEN'S GATE - 1974-1997

Finding meaning through the cosmos and extraterrestrial life, former University of St. Thomas (Houston) professor Marshall Applewhite led dozens of people in a cult known as "Heaven's Gate."

Launching the society in 1974 after a near-death experience, Applewhite and his followers believed the end of Earth was near, and that the planet was going to be "recycled."

As a result, believers were prepared to leave Earth by boarding a spaceship that was trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet. But in order to leave, followers had to make the ultimate sacrifice by shedding their earthly bodies.

After drinking a mix of cyanide, pineapple juice and vodka on March 26, 1997, 39 people died, including Applewhite, in Rancho Santa Fe, California. When police found their bodies, the members all wore black clothing, matching armbands and tennis shoes.

Before the group committed suicide, their website was updated to read: "Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate ... Our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion -- "graduation" from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave "this world" and go with Ti's crew."

WARREN JEFFS FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH - 2006

Formed by leader Warren Jeffs as a breakoff sect, The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had one fairly obvious difference from believers of the Mormon faith: its practice of polygamy.

Jeffs, who was excommunicated by the church for polygamy, watched as his church membership swelled to more than 10,000 members in Arizona, Utah and Texas.

Amid allegations of ongoing and far-reaching incest and sexual misconduct with minors inside the church, federal officials raided Jeffs' Eldorado, Texas ranch in 2008.

Evidence led investigators to charge Jeffs on multiple counts for sex crimes against children. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years, to be served consecutively.


http://abc13.com/religion/inside-5-of-the-most-infamous-cults-in-american-history-/2859622/

Javier Wolcoff About Kabbalah Center

Javier Wolcoff About Kabbalah Center

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SNKgtZ31kmUzXZBdOfChIjSqz9t2VRCr/view

Avatar Uncovered: Exposing the Inner Workings of the Avatar Course

"We are a platform dedicated to investigating and exposing the inner workings of the Avatar Course, the Stars Edge Network, the Advanced Intern Program and Stars Edge International."

"The information, education and support we provide is suitable for ex-members, Avatar Masters who are questioning, potential students who are considering the Avatar Course, public awareness, journalists, law enforcement, professionals, and concerned friends, family and loved ones."

"We strongly believe that our investigation, and information shared on this site is absolutely critical and that this type of in-depth study and exposure is in the public interest. We aim to provide an alternative view of Avatar than what is merely shared in their marketing materials and current perspectives of Avatar Masters."

https://avataruncovered.is/who-are-we/

Peter Popoff: Miracles or manipulation?

DARREN CUNNINGHAM

Fox 17

January 5, 2018

WEST MICHIGAN -- Steve Lyles said he found letters written by his father to Peter Popoff Ministries. He described them as heartbreaking letters that detailed his father's desperation to beat stage IV cancer. Lyles said Popoff promised his father he'd live another hundred days with only one catch, and that was to send Popoff money.

You may have seen Popoff's commercials. Peter Popoff Ministries promises 'miracle water' and other items that can heal your body or cause you to reap financial blessings.

Lyles said, "He was claiming that if you send him enough money that he's got a miracle phone line to God, and he can just pick up this phone line, talk to God and you'll be cured as long as you send him enough money."
​
Lyles said his father, Vernon, received a money pouch and a plastic glove from Popoff.

"And that if you rub it over your body and send [Popoff] money, you'll be cured. I don't think God works that way," Steve Lyles recalled.

He said his dad, who lived in Rothbury, was diagnosed with prostate cancer 6 years ago.

"Earlier this year [2017], we discovered that it went to stage IV," he said.

Lyles said desperation set in for his father as Vernon learned he had months to live. Vernon Lyles sent Popoff more money before passing away months ago.

"We're still getting letters for this guy to have money sent to him for my father. So my father can be cured," Lyles said.

Lyles said his brother made the initial discovery of their dad's communication with Popoff Ministries when checking his father's mail. The brothers learned their father had sent about $70.

"I reached out to you just to let everybody know that this is going on and for those of us that have elderly and sick parents, we've got to watch out for this. My dad and I were best friends and he never told me," Lyles said.

The FOX 17 Problem Solvers called and left a message for Popoff Ministries. An online search reveals numerous complaints and accusations of Popoff being a charlatan. In the mid 80s, Johnny Carson aired a segment exposing one of Popoff's alleged schemes. He then declared bankruptcy and listed nearly 800 creditors, but Popoff made a comeback in the 90s.

"I don't know how he lives with himself," Lyles said.

"All that he is is someone who's looking for people who are in their last hours, grasping at straws, looking for anything to stay alive a little bit and sucking money out of 'em," he added.

John Masterson, with the Better Business Bureau said, "These guys know how to hit the pressure points and sell it hard, and they're hoping that you really don't look into it or think about it or consider what you're doing and just write a check."

So before sending any money the BBB has a suggestion.

"Always just take a second, research, think about it, and then make your decision," Masterson suggests.

Again, Lyles said his brother checked his father's mail and made the discovery that he'd been writing Popoff. It's a warning to be aware of what your loved ones may be doing.

http://fox17online.com/2018/01/05/miracle-or-manipulation/

Attorney for David Koresh during Waco standoff reflects on seige's 25th anniversary

Elissa Rivas
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) 
January 04, 2018

Like most, Houston-based attorney Dick DeGuerin first heard of David Koresh through a newscast.

"I didn't know anything about the Branch Davidians until the afternoon of February 28, 1993," DeGuerin recalled.

That was the day federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tried to serve warrants at their compound. Four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians died in the violent shootout.

A quarter century later, DeGuerin remains critical of how the ATF conducted the initial raid and how the Federal Bureau of Investigation chose to end the standoff.

"Some men lost their lives and they shouldn't have," said DeGuerin.

As for DeGuerin's involvement in the incident that rocked 1993, he was hired by Branch Davidian leader David Koresh's mother, Bonnie Haldeman.

"My job, as I saw it then --and I still see it, was to show that the Davidians were protecting themselves from excessive force," DeGuerin said.

He met with Koresh five times during the standoff and says though federal agents were worried Koresh and his group would kidnap DeGuerin, he believed it was Koresh who was most in danger.

"I said, 'It's good that you're not showing yourself at the window, because there's snipers out there and they could very easily take you out,'" DeGuerin recalled saying to Koresh.

At the time, DeGuerin described Koresh to reporters as 'bright, cheerful, very lucid' and today is still convinced Koresh would have surrendered had the FBI been more patient.

However, on day 51 of the standoff, the FBI launched tear gas into the compound and a fire later started, killing dozens of Branch Davidians, including many children.

"By the time I got there, it was over, burned to the ground," said DeGuerin.

After the seige had ended, DeGuerin went to the jail to ask the survivors critical questions, but says he wasn't convinced Koresh had intended the incident to be a suicide.

"I don't believe Koresh or any of the others wanted to die," DeGuerin said.

During a recent trip back to the property, DeGuerin took a walk on the gravel road to what used to be the compound.

"My boots were crunching on the gravel but then they started crunching on a metallic sound, hundreds if not thousands of expended shells from the ATF," DeGuerin said of the property, so many years later. "The evidence was still there."

Though more than two decades have passed, DeGuerin says the incident is still worth talking about today.

"The more the public knows about how horrible what happened in Waco was, the better chance it's not going to happen again," he said.

http://abc13.com/society/attorney-unconvinced-waco-cult-leader-david-koresh-wanted-to-die/2863044/

The rise and rise of the ‘spiritual’ economy in 2017: From Patanjali to Sri Sri Tattva

Gurbir Singh
Express News Service
January 1, 2018

Lest we forget, 2017 was also the year of godmen. Yoga and spiritualism have come a long way. Thirty years ago, for the westernised elite, it was associated with outlandish sadhus in the Himalayas and ‘Hare Ram’ was a fad that the Beatles pursued with Maharishi Yogi. Today, spiritualism is going through a renaissance and yoga is the new route to both mental and physical wellness.

Tantrics and godmen have always had a place in the economy. Earlier, they had sold products like amulets and herbal concoctions. But these are small change compared to the current multi-billion dollar market for ‘organic’ products of daily use like soaps, branded ‘atta’ and noodles.

The new tribe of spiritual entrepreneurs is tapping the world-wide rejection of processed foods and the new focus on health. The wellness industry worldwide is estimated to be worth $3.4 trillion, and three times the size of the pharmaceutical industry.

The Patanjali story

No one has succeeded in growing the ‘spiritual economy’ as Baba Ramdev has. Brand Trust Report India 2017 declared Patanjali as the most attractive brand in India among 10,000 brands vetted in the study. From yoga guru, Baba Ramdev has moved rapidly to become the third-largest producer of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG).

His company Patanjali Ayurved Ltd claims to have doubled sales from Rs 5,000 crore in FY16 to Rs 10,216 crore in FY17. With a range of products including soaps and toothpaste, atta, hair oils amla juice oil, biscuits and noodles, Patanjali hopes to cross Rs 20,000 crore in sales in FY18.

Baba Ramdev’s rise

Patanjali has reportedly surpassed the revenue of FMCG majors such as Nestle India,Godrej Consumer Products  and Dabur, clocking 140 per centgrowth rate

Ramdev’s marketing has focused on India’s yen for discovering grandmother’s natural remedies. Patanjali is said to have surpassed the revenue of other FMCG majors such as Nestle India (Rs 9,159 crore), Godrej Consumer Products (Rs 9,134 crore) and Dabur (Rs 7,691 crore). It has clocked a heady 140 per cent growth rate, in a market where competitors struggle to reach double-digit growth.

The new marketers

The latest to join the race for a slice of the Rs 4.2 lakh crore FMCG market is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the ‘Art of Living’ fame. He has announced that his wellness brand Sri Sri Tattva will target a turnover of Rs 500 crore by FY20 through three formats of retail stores - Mart, Wellness and Home & Health - offering a range of FMCG products, prescription medicine and Ayurveda items. The company plans to roll out 1,000 franchised stores by March 2020.

Critics say the meteoric growth of spiritual entrepreneurs may not have been possible without government support. A Reuters report estimates that since the Modi government took office in 2014, Baba Ramdev has acquired about 2,000 acres of land at discounts totalling around Rs 300 crore. In Uttar Pradesh, Patanjali has bagged a Rs 700-crore midday meal contract for government schools. There are muted protests among other FMCG giants that that they are not on a level playing field.

Old babas vs new-age gurus

Babas of yesteryear were billionaires many times over, but they were not manufacturers and retailers. Dhirendra Brahmachari and Chandraswami of the Congress era had millions of followers as well as politicians funding them. But, the new era spiritualists are for erecting well-oiled corporate machines selling wellness and spirituality products.

While Ramdev has already given the consumer goods giants a run for their money, competition between the established brands and new entrants is likely to intensify with Ravi Shankar too entering the fray.
On the flip side, there are some like the disgraced Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh ‘Insan’ who have given a bad name for spiritual entrepreneurs.

Ram Rahim had set up not only hospitals and schools, but also retail chain and e-marketing websites commanding a huge market. In January 2016, he had launched a huge marketing blitz, putting on sale 400 products under brand ‘MSG’.  These included 14 varieties of pulses, dozens of grocery items, and a whole spectrum of salt, ghee, spices, honey, mineral water, and noodles. Many of these products have disappeared and it is not known whether his marketing machinery exists after his conviction and incarceration.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2018/jan/01/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-spiritual-economy-in-2017-from-patanjali-to-sri-sri-tattva-1741392.html

Community or cult? Experts share why people join Overcomer Ministry in rural South CarolinaBy Angie Jackson and Michael

Angie Jackson and Michael Majchrowicz
Post and Courier
December 30, 2017

Sixteen years after she moved out of Overcomer Ministry's secluded Christian compound, one former follower of self-proclaimed prophet Ralph Gordon Stair has a hard time attending church services.

For another woman, wearing pants felt foreign after more than a decade of living under Stair’s dress code for the ministry, where about 70 people live on a rural commune near Walterboro as they await the return of Jesus Christ. 

And one young woman who grew up attending school at Overcomer Ministry feels she was robbed of an education. Her schooling there didn’t include science courses, and she doesn’t have a high school diploma.

Some defectors like these women say they consider Stair's group a cult, a term the 84-year-old preacher has rejected. They describe a place where residents surrender their possessions and financial assets and are largely stripped of their free thinking in exchange for rules set by Stair, who founded the ministry in the early 1980s. 

Congregants are told to cut ties with people outside the compound, a swath of farmland in the unincorporated community of Canadys. Stair's end-times message has, up until recently, reached an international following of radio listeners.

Law enforcement over the years has fielded calls from relatives of residents at Overcomer concerned about whether the ministry is a “cult,” according to Colleton County Sheriff’s Office reports. One of those calls came during a recent criminal investigation into Stair, which culminated earlier this month with the preacher’s arrest.

Stair remains in jail on eight criminal charges, including three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, after multiple parishioners — girls and women — said he had sexually assaulted them in incidents dating back to 1992. The allegations bear similarities to charges leveled against Stair in 2002, when he was arrested on two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery. 

Several of Stair’s accusers in the latest investigation said he would coerce them into sex acts, telling them it was “God’s will.” One woman who reported she was raped at least 35 times said Stair told her she’d “made the Man of God happy,” investigators wrote in an affidavit.

“What we thought was normal wasn’t really normal,” said Shannel Robinson, 31, who lived at Overcomer as a child with her family until 2001 and was not a victim of sexual abuse. “He didn't (kill) us with Kool-Aid, but it was probably the same thing.”

Educators who study cults and similar groups say there are likely thousands of religious and political sects in the United States, though an exact count is impossible because many such groups are small and not widely known.

Janja Lalich, professor emerita of sociology at California State University, Chico, said a cult begins with a charismatic leader who trumpets a transcendent belief system and a “recipe for change.”

“They tell you exactly how you need to change in order to be on the path to salvation, resolution or whatever it may be,” she said.

Lalich said sexual exploitation is prevalent among cults.

“The cult leaders thrive on money, sex or power, or a combination of all three,” she said. “Sex is, of course, a very deep and intimate way of controlling someone.”

At Overcomer Ministry, Stair is accused of committing some of his alleged crimes before scores of witnesses. His accusers told investigators he groped underage girls from the pulpit while on camera, and a video posted to YouTube earlier this year showed Stair touching a 12-year-old girl’s breast during a worship service. In other cases, women said alleged assaults occurred as Stair strolled the grounds of the compound in broad daylight.

Gisele Bennett, who worked at the ministry as a teacher before leaving Overcomer in 2001, said she tried to look out for young women. Once, Bennett said, she confronted Stair about his conduct and was brushed off.

“I said, ‘Hey y’all, he’s messing around with these women on his farm who don’t wanna be messed with, these single women,’ ’’ Bennett said. “He said I had the devil in me.”

Steve Eichel, a psychologist in Delaware and president of the International Cultic Studies Association, a nonprofit based in Florida, said it’s common for cults to teach adherents to bury and reframe their doubts, a practice known as "thought stopping," because questioning the leader is viewed as “a demonic or satanic or an evil thing to do.”

For these reasons, it’s difficult for deeply indoctrinated followers to speak out or leave in light of perceived misconduct, said Eichel, who is familiar with Stair’s ministry. Additionally, there are what he calls “exit costs.”

“In a group like Stair’s, for example, you've got whole families involved, so to leave may very well mean losing your family,” he said. “That’s a pretty serious cost.”

Bill Goldberg, a clinical social worker in New Jersey, has also tried to understand why members of cults fail to intervene when they witness wrongdoings. He and his wife specialize in working with individuals who have defected from cults.

Speaking generally, Goldberg said a majority of these types of defectors have what he calls “unconscious doubts.”

“Every former cult member I’ve worked with has told me they had doubts when in the group that they learned to suppress,” he said.

Often, Goldberg said, members of cults become fixated with idealism and desire a deeper connection with the group leader who touts a “direct relationship with God or the truth.”

This was the case for Laura Johnston Kohl of San Diego, who was part of the Peoples Temple for most of the 1970s. The sociopolitical cult was headed by Jim Jones, who infamously compelled more than 900 followers to commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid at his South American compound, popularly known as Jonestown, in Guyana in 1978.

“Who could even believe it when it happened?” said Kohl, 70, who was not at the settlement when the suicides occurred. “It just kind of stopped the world.”

Jonestown historians, academics and former members alike say Jones was a master manipulator who used charisma and coercive sex to control those who felt obligated to him.

From Kohl's perspective, the community largely lived in peace. She relished the idea of living on a compound among diverse residents with a common goal of creating a utopia of sorts.

But it was that devotion to idealism, Kohl added, that blinded her to the larger problems in Jonestown, including the coercive tactics Jones employed to keep order.

Bennett, the former teacher at Overcomer, said she saw a similar dynamic play out at Stair's ministry. The prospect of living among fellow Christians drew her and her family to the compound. She expected people to adhere to moral principles.

“It was like we’re all Christians, we don’t have nobody lying, cheating, stealing, doing stuff like that,” she said. “We fell in love with the place.”

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/community-or-cult-experts-share-why-people-join-overcomer-ministry/article_f2930d60-ec04-11e7-a439-53620a3e5259.html

In breakthrough, polygamous sect members reach agreements to stay in homes on Utah-Arizona line

Nate Carlisle

Salt Lake Tribune

December 26, 2017

They refused to sign agreements. They refused to pay $100 a month. They let the property taxes go unpaid. They moved from house to house to stay ahead of constables with eviction orders. Or they moved out of their community altogether rather than cooperate with the legal entity they thought was an affront to their religion and the so-called apostates working for it.

But after 12 years of impasses, members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints appear to have found a way to stay in the homes in Hildale, Utah, and adjoining Colorado City, Ariz.

Recently, according to people on all sides of the long dispute, FLDS members have begun submitting letters of intent saying they will live in and maintain homes owned by their former land trust, called the United Effort Plan, or UEP. The letters say the occupants also will pay the property taxes on their respective homes.

As for the $100-per-month occupancy fee for each home that has been a particular sore spot for FLDS members, UEP Executive Director Jeff Barlow said Tuesday that is being negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

For some members, the fee may be deferred permanently — going on a ledger but never to be collected. In other cases, the fees may be directed toward some project that benefits the entire community rather than go toward the administration of the UEP.

“So far, I have not had anybody contact me that we couldn’t keep them in their house,” Barlow said.

In one recent example, Barlow said, the UEP served eviction notices on 20 homes in Colorado City. Residents at 10 of those homes opened a dialogue with UEP or engaged a third-party who worked out an arrangement with the trust. Those evictions were halted, Barlow said.

Norma Richter, an FLDS member who says she has reached such an arrangement with the UEP to stay in a home, chose her words carefully Wednesday. She was adamant that the arrangement did not represent a compromise or an agreement.

Richter said “an understanding” had been reached between some FLDS members and the land trust.

“We aren’t even agreeing with them,” Richter said of the UEP. “We’ve just worked out a situation or something where they will stop the evictions.”

Richter said that earlier this month, she moved into a 13-bedroom house in Colorado City that is owned by the UEP. Twenty-three family members will live there with her when everyone is moved in, she said.

“The land still belongs to Heavenly Father,” Richter said. “I feel like if you prayerfully take care of what you have here, it’s pleasing to our father in heaven.”

Hildale and Colorado City are collectively known as Short Creek. In 1942, residents there donated land and property and created the UEP to practice a so-called fundamentalist Mormon tenet of living in a united order. The FLDS was incorporated in 1991. While technically separate legal entities, leaders of the church controlled the UEP.

In 2005, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff moved to seize the UEP out of concern that FLDS President Warren Jeffs was mismanaging it — putting people at risk of losing their homes and furthering Jeffs’ own lawbreaking. A state judge in Salt Lake City still maintains oversight of the trust, though he has given a board of trustees management authority.

FLDS members believed properties owned by the UEP had been consecrated to God and, acting on orders from Jeffs and other church leaders, refused to cooperate with a state-controlled UEP. In all but a few occasions, they eschewed the requirements to sign occupancy agreements and pay the $100 monthly management fee. Many FLDS members also let property taxes go delinquent on the parcels where they were living, though those bills were usually paid just before deadlines for any tax sales.

After a Utah Supreme Court ruling in 2014 ordered the Hildale properties subdivided, the UEP began evicting people who were behind on taxes and hadn’t signed occupancy agreements. Most of the Hildale properties have since been sold — often to former FLDS members or their family.

Earlier this year, a federal judge in Phoenix ordered the Colorado City properties subdivided. FLDS members still unwilling to work with the UEP faced the prospect of having almost no housing in Short Creek.

UEP trustees and staff, all of whom have family in the FLDS, have long said they did not want to evict people. Barlow believes the breakthrough may have come in October when the trust was poised to seize the FLDS’ meetinghouse.

When sheriff’s deputies and a locksmith arrived to serve the eviction on the Leroy S. Johnson Meetinghouse in Colorado City, an FLDS leader — Barlow has declined to say who — appeared. An agreement was reached for the FLDS to keep the meetinghouse.

“I think that the word is getting out that the board of trustees truly does want people to stay in their homes,” Barlow said.

Barlow said the arrangements between the UEP and FLDS members specify the resident responsible for maintaining the property and paying the taxes.

Some of the arrangements have been made through an intermediary — an organization called Voices For Dignity. It helps people in Short Creek — in and out of the FLDS — find housing, legal assistance, clothing and other necessities.

Christine Marie Katas, who runs the organization with her husband, said the UEP has started giving her a list of properties to be served eviction notices. She goes to the occupants in those homes and encourages them to come to an understanding with the trust.

“We are delighted to help the FLDS find ways to remain in their homes without having to violate their religious beliefs,” Katas said in a text message.

Katas said she is speaking with Barlow about extending the arrangements to commercial properties owned by the UEP, as well as buildings the FLDS members have been using as schools.

The housing dispute has coincided with hunger and poverty for FLDS members who have remained in Short Creek. Phil Jessop, who operates a food bank out of his transmission shop a few miles north of Short Creek, said the FLDS members he sees there appear to not belong to the United Order — the sect’s upper echelon. Jessop believes the leaders have largely forgotten the congregation in Short Creek.

“I do think that if they can keep their homes in Colorado City, they’re probably not in the FLDS or in the Order,” Jessop said. “They may be trying to hold on, but from what we understand, [Order members have] been instructed to move out of Colorado City.”

Still, Jessop said, anyone with permanent housing may be less reliant upon Jeffs, and that’s a good thing.

Jeffs is serving a sentence in Texas of life plus 20 years in prison for sexually abusing two girls he married as plural wives.

Richter said she has not signed anything promising anything to the UEP. To reach her understanding with the trust, she said, she had to borrow money from a bank and friends to pay about $21,000 in back taxes owed on the home where she moved this month.

She then made the eight-hour round trip to Kingman, Ariz., to pay the taxes in person. Richter did not want to give the UEP the check so it could pay the bill.

Richter gave the tax receipt and her letter of intent to Voices For Dignity. Richter said she did not seek permission from FLDS leaders before reaching the understanding.

“It’s an individual reach in prayer and faith,” she said.

She doesn’t know how many other FLDS will reach such understandings. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of her fellow parishioners have already moved out of Short Creek, feeling as though the homes there have been desecrated by former FLDS members, whom current members refer to as apostates.

“But at the same time, some of us feel like we’ve got to hang on to what we have the best we can without compromising,” Richter said.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2017/12/26/in-breakthrough-polygamous-sect-members-reach-agreements-to-stay-in-homes-on-utah-arizona-line/

In Brooklyn, a Hare Krishna Reckoning

KAYA LATERMAN
New York Times

December 22, 2017

Weekdays at Govinda’s Vegetarian Lunch, a cafeteria in the basement of Sri Sri Radha Govinda Mandir, the Hare Krishna temple located in the rapidly developing area of Downtown Brooklyn, is a peaceful affair. Outside, there are cranes, scaffolding and cement trucks. But inside and down a few stairs, there is faint, dulcet chanting piped through speakers. Contented diners, ranging from municipal workers to financial sector employees, sit together with plates piled full of eggplant Parmesan and chana masala.

It’s a soothing respite for Govinda regulars. “It’s been a weekly staple,” said Javiel Vazquez, who works for Consolidated Edison nearby.

The tranquil atmosphere hasn’t permeated the four floors above, however, where a fight over leadership has roiled the shrinking congregation. Prompted by a possible sale of the temple, at 295-311 Schermerhorn Street, for close to $60 million to a developer, a power struggle has pitted the temple president and his board of trustees against the leaders of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, also known as Iskcon or the Hare Krishna Society.

It’s the latest chapter in a series of sweeping changes for the Hare Krishnas in New York, many of whom have divergent views on how to adhere to the rules and tenets of what is now a large, international organization. These days the religion is more popular in India than it is in the United States, the country that nurtured and fueled the movement in the late 1960s and ‘70s. But at its most basic, the conflict also reveals how the real-world notions of financial power and political control can disrupt a religion that is supposed to embrace selflessness.

For a humble spiritual movement that was born in an East Village storefront, the Hare Krishna conflict in Brooklyn involves a lot of money, a good amount of litigation, and even, at some point, locked temple doors and private security guards.

The man who started the Hare Krishna movement in the United States, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, was part of Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement in India and later became a disciple of a prominent Hindu guru who asked him to spread his teachings to the English-speaking world. So in 1965, at the age of 69, Swami Prabhupada stowed away on a cargo ship, arriving in New York with about $7 in Indian rupees and a crate of Sanskrit texts, according to the documentary “Hare Krishna! The Mantra, the Movement and the Swami Who Started It All.”

Soon Swami Prabhupada found himself on the Bowery, leading workshops on the Bhagavad Gita and overseeing devotional chanting in Tompkins Square Park, where there’s now an elm tree dedicated to the religion. The idea of Krishna consciousness, that the material world is temporary and that people could attain high spiritual development through devotional service to the deity Krishna, dovetailed easily with the city’s counterculture scene, according to Burke Rochford, a religion professor at Middlebury College.

The poet Allen Ginsberg, an early devotee who attended some of the first outreach sessions in New York, told The Times in 1966 that the chanting “brings a state of ecstasy.”

Swami Prabhupada, known to his followers as Srila Prabhupada, officially founded the Hare Krishna Society that same year. Its first temple was located in a former gift shop at 26 Second Avenue in Manhattan. Early devotees were mostly white Westerners, many of whom were disillusioned with American culture as the Vietnam War bore on.

Devotees quit their jobs or dropped out of school; initially, they also gave up drugs and extramarital sex. Buoyed by the positive reaction from New Yorkers, and as donations and book sales started to bring in some money, Swami Prabhupada started to crisscross the nation to spread his teachings.

He even made hippie history in San Francisco, when members of the Hare Krishna Society organized the Mantra Rock Dance at the Avalon Ballroom in December 1967, according to the documentary. The Grateful Dead and other bands performed for free to raise money for a new Bay Area temple, with the founder as its special guest.

Celebrity Krishnas also included George Harrison. “The Vedic scriptures gave some sort of backbone to my life,” Harrison said in the film. Harrison’s first solo single after the Beatles, “My Sweet Lord,” was an ode to Krishna and a worldwide hit.

By the religion’s heyday in ’70s New York, devotees were out in full force, chanting and selling scripture at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and at area airports. The temple moved several times, first to another Second Avenue location and then to 439 Henry Street in Brooklyn. In 1975, the organization moved to 340 West 55th Street, a 11-story building, where it thrived. There was a theater, a gift shop and a hotel, with hundreds of followers living communally in the upper floors.

“The Manhattan location was so central, there were tons of people coming in and out of the building, raising money,” said Lorelee Somershein (Jambavati Devi Dasi), a Springfield Gardens, Queens, resident who used to attend services there. “It was an exciting place to be.”

In 1977, Swami Prabhupada died, and soon thereafter, the Krishnas were troubled with financial difficulties. Local leadership decided to sell the Manhattan property and splinter off into three groups, according to Jay Israel (Jayadvaita Swami), a disciple of Swami Prabhupada and the editor of many of his books. Between 1981 and 1982, one group went upstate, another to New Jersey and the third group decamped to the current temple in Downtown Brooklyn.

“We let prime Manhattan real estate go,” said Mr. Israel.

In Brooklyn, the temple attracted hundreds of people for Sunday services at first, but the congregation soon started to fracture, as did the organization at large. In 1996, a prominent leader in West Virginia, who had once run the largest Krishna community in the United States, was accused of murder and jailed for racketeering. Two years later, the Hare Krishna Society conceded that physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children occurred at its boarding schools across the country, including in Dallas, Seattle and several in India.

As the original, mostly Western members started to abandon the religion, there was an almost simultaneous uptick of new South Asian congregants. Many Hindu immigrants were attracted to the society’s temples because they were reminders of home, said Mr. Rochford, who is the author of the book “Hare Krishna Transformed.”

These days, the congregations of many American temples don’t follow the Hare Krishna Society’s tenets strictly, but rather use the temples to gather for cultural reasons, he said.

The religion, he added, is actually thriving in India. The society is currently building a $90 million facility, which includes a planetarium, in Mayapur, near the Bangladesh border, where it will serve as the new global headquarters. Alfred B. Ford, a devotee and the great-grandson of Henry Ford, donated $25 million to the project, said Geoffrey Walker (Anuttama Dasa), a spokesman for the society.

Back in New York, however, the organization is suffering from an identity crisis and a lack of vision.

Although there were between 50 and 60 devotees who lived at the Brooklyn temple in the ’80s, the number of full-time volunteers dwindled over the years. By the ’90s, many of the congregants were Indian and Bangladeshi immigrants who traveled from Queens and Long Island to the temple, which prompted the idea of building a new temple in Queens, said Heather Britten (Satya Dasi), the temple’s treasurer and the force behind Govinda’s Vegetarian Lunch.

The qualities that had once made the 93-year-old building attractive — large communal rooms and upper-floor dormitory space — now seemed outdated and unnecessary, Ms. Britten said. The income from donations, book sales and the cafe has not been enough to pay for the much-needed building repairs and utility bills.

Ms. Britten said that she believes a more modern space would benefit the community and help attract future members. Even though Downtown Brooklyn is booming, she explained, “The rent is so high in the area, there’s not a lot of people from our congregation who live around here anymore.” About 100 or so members attend Sunday services on a regular basis, she said.

The Krishnas are not the only religious order facing hard real estate decisions in New York. Many organizations, including several Catholic churches, have become key players in high-power real estate transactions. Facing dwindling attendance, churches, temples and synagogues have sold their properties to start fresh elsewhere, combine parishes or even sell their properties’ air rights to developers.

The New York State attorney general’s office, whose approval is required for most sales of religious properties in New York, received 165 sale petitions in 2016. So far this year, it has received 198, according to a spokesman. (In its review, the office, among other things, considers whether the transaction terms are fair and reasonable and if the interests of its members will be promoted by the sale.)

The temple’s president, David Britten (Ramabhadra Das), and his board twice asked the Hare Krishna Society’s ecclesiastic directors, known as the Governing Body Commission, for permission to “move the deities,” which implied a property sale — once in 1998 and again 2008. Mr. Britten and his board were given approval both times, said Seth Spellman (Sesa Das), a commission member and the head of a group tasked with halting the current sale. But a lack of interest from buyers, and then the financial crisis, held back possible deals.

As the economy and the real estate market once again gathered steam, however, it became easier for the board to find a buyer. Two years ago, congregants were shocked to discover that the temple board had signed a sales contract with a developer for $58.8 million.

Pragnesh Surti, 39, a member of the Downtown Brooklyn congregation since childhood, recalled Mr. Britten first mentioning a possible sale during a service in 2014: that the property could fetch $60 million and that it was “a sign from Krishna” that it was meant to happen. In 2015, Mr. Britten told the congregation that the New York State attorney general’s office was reviewing a sales petition. Mr. Surti recalled Mr. Britten envisioning details of the new temple with large domes and Swarovski crystals.

“Many of us,” Mr. Surti said, “were like, ‘Wait, what?’”

Congregants said they were worried as questions to the board about a temporary location went unanswered. Financial details and architectural plans were not disclosed. People wondered where in Queens land was available. Discord over the sale increased.

Many members say an existing temple, and more important, the deities that live there, cannot be moved unless there’s an urgent need, as stipulated in Swami Prabhupada’s will. It is sacrilegious, said Shakti Assouline, a 36-year-old yoga instructor and former congregant of the Brooklyn temple who said she is no longer welcome there because of her differing opinion (she prefers to raise money to renovate the building rather than sell it).

“We are in an amazing location, which serves our outreach endeavors and is conveniently located for visitors,” Ms. Assouline said.

Although the Hare Krishna Society’s Governing Body Commission had previously approved the sale, it had not been informed that a contract was signed in 2014, or that it was revised in 2015. By this time, Downtown Brooklyn was thriving; giving up the property seemed unwise. So the Commission revoked its previous approval, and in March 2016 it told Mr. Britten to stop the sale, said Mr. Spellman.

In the year that followed, commission leaders started to suspect that the Brooklyn temple board was defying its order and was continuing to push the property sale through, Mr. Spellman said. Mr. Britten declined to comment for this article.

Tensions erupted in late July 2017, when the commission tried to remove Mr. Britten from his post after decades of service. He refused to leave the temple, where he lives, or abdicate his position. Instead, he locked the temple doors for several weeks, shuttering Govinda’s as well. Although Sunday services resumed a few weeks later, congregants noticed private security personnel at the door blocking several members who had been vocally against the sale from entering the building.

The commission grew more concerned when the large Hare Krishna Society temple sign was removed from the building’s facade in August, leading some to believe that Mr. Britten was disassociating the temple from the society, said Mr. Spellman.

The tension, of course, is over which governing entity — the local temple board, led by Mr. Britten, or the global Hare Krishna Society, led by the Governing Body Commission — will have control over the millions of dollars from the property sale, if it is allowed to proceed.

As usual, when ideals and money are at odds, things get complicated.

The temple property is owned by a religious corporation called the Bharati Center Inc., which legally makes the temple board trustees the owners of 295-311 Schermerhorn Street. The Hare Krishna Society was not mentioned in the paperwork when the building was purchased in 1982, because some members of Congregation Mount Sinai, the synagogue that owned the property, had concerns over selling the building to Hare Krishnas, said Mr. Walker. The commission has allowed temples to be purchased under various names before to protect the group from potential legal action, he said. This was one of those cases.

If the sale goes forward, the commission is worried that the money will be in the hands of a temple board that no longer seems to be part of the Hare Krishna Society, so it has taken steps to wrestle back control of the temple by forming a new board of trustees, which includes Mr. Surti. But the Brittens, as well as the other board members who are supportive of the sale, continue to exist and operate.

The New York State attorney general’s office told the Bharati Center board in September that the multiple proposals it had submitted didn’t meet the legal requirements for approval and that it should find recourse in court. A date has been set for late January at State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

David G. Samuels, a partner at Duval & Stachenfeld LLP and the attorney representing the society, said there is legal ground for the court not to approve the sale because it is not in the best interest of the temple congregation. Mark J. Weinstein, counsel to Mr. Britten’s temple board, declined to comment.

“A real estate transaction for religious entities can be very complex,” said Patricia C. Sandison, a senior associate at Hodgson Russ LLP, whose firm is not involved in the sale. “People identify themselves with a temple or a church, and it’s a facet of their belief, so selling that property can be very challenging.”

Nikhil Gupta (Nimai Pandit Das), a Hare Krishna follower, said a prolonged court battle should be expected. He would know, since the Hare Krishna Society has been trying to remove him, as well as other leaders of a temple in Freeport, Long Island, for 13 years.

In 2004, the commission accused the Long Island leaders, and subsequently Mr. Gupta in 2007, of not following Krishna doctrine. In court filings, the Commission said Mr. Gupta, the current temple president, was deviating from society philosophy and must therefore be removed. Mr. Gupta disputes this claim and said he has many other grievances with the commission’s governance.

In October, State Supreme Court in Nassau County ordered Mr. Gupta to vacate the temple premises, but he appealed, and has attained a stay. Mr. Gupta said he will continue his fight to remain as president of the local temple in court.

“The society’s penchant for legal battles takes away from the purity of the founder’s teachings,” Mr. Gupta said.

The fractured Brooklyn congregation has led to the formation of many smaller Hare Krishna groups. Mr. Surti said a group in New Rochelle attracts society members from Westchester, the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, while there are several in Queens, including a Bengali and Gujarati group that meets in Long Island City and Jackson Heights.

There are also splinter groups in the city. Cesar Bisono (Gopal Campu Das), 23, tried services at the Downtown Brooklyn temple, but he said he was more attracted to the purity of NYC Harinam, which he joined full time in 2015, he said. The group has 10 devotees, all in their early 20s, who live communally with their mentor in an apartment on the Lower East Side. Their daily lives revolve around chanting and conducting outreach services; they all lead a monastic lifestyle.

Mr. Bisono surmised that NYC Harinam was more akin to how the society was in the early days. “I felt more spiritually inspired by going outside,” he said of his decision not to join the Brooklyn temple. “This group was more inviting.”

Mike Ramlogan (Sunandana Das), the president of the Hare Krishna Society temple in South Richmond Hill, Queens, has been watching the Brooklyn conflict unfold from afar. He said that both sides seem to be more concerned about the money and haven’t come forth with a vision for the future.

“Would it be nice to have a big, new temple in Queens? Sure,” Mr. Ramlogan said, noting that the small space he manages can squeeze in only about 100 people during Sunday services.

“I hope the good souls, the good swamis, put the place back together again. But I’m not exactly sure who they are.”

A version of this article appears in print on December 24, 2017, on Page MB1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chants Can’t Drown Out the Discord.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/nyregion/in-brooklyn-a-hare-krishna-reckoning.html

Religion is no excuse for anti-vax nonsense

Peter Kurti

The Daily Telegraph
Decembef 28, 2017

ATTEMPTS by anti-vax campaigners to invoke religion as a way of dodging vaccinations for their children is an excellent example of the limits the state rightly puts on religious freedom.

Claims by the Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network (AVN) that some vaccines contain “the proceeds of abortions” has been turned into a so-called ‘right’ to deny inoculation to children.

And now that some taxpayer funded childcare allowances have been stripped from parents who don’t vaccinate their kids, the AVN is claiming entitlements on the basis of religious freedom — saying that the use of vaccines containing foetal material violates the teaching of pro-life religions such as Christianity.

The Australian Medical Association has slammed the AVN’s arguments as “irrational” and “unscientific”. Vaccines protect children, says the AMA. Few would disagree.

Australia committed to upholding religious freedom when it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1980.

While the ICCPR is not directly enforceable in Australia, its provisions inform various state and federal laws that are concerned with protecting individual freedoms, such as religious liberty.

But the right to religious freedom is never absolute. It can’t be used to overturn laws and policies that are directly concerned with the public good.

For example, section 18 (3) of the ICCPR explicitly allows for religious freedom to be restricted in the interests of “public safety, order, and health.”

In other words, the greater public good takes priority — and must always take priority — over the preferences and predilections of the individual religious believer.

Many ‘anti-vaxxers’ believe that diet, herbal remedies, and alternative therapies are much safer for their children than conventional vaccines — all in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The eradication of so many diseases that were at one time commonplace, and often life-threatening, is a tribute to the advances made by medical research.

Some people do react badly to vaccines; from time to time there is a so-called ‘adverse event’ which can be life-threatening. But for the most part, vaccines are safe for everyone.

No individual should ever be forced to take medication against their will. And although it involves the health and wellbeing of another individual, parents should be free to determine what kind of health care their kids receive.

But sometimes, religion and science do conflict: for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse the transfusion of all blood and blood-related products for themselves and their children.

However, when religious belief leads to conduct that threatens the health of another, or the health and wellbeing of the wider community, the state is entitled to step in and set limits.

Parents opposed to vaccines for themselves or their children should be free to make those choices — but they need to accept there are consequences of such decisions.

The state is right to forbid unvaccinated children from attending childcare centres or schools; and it is right to withhold taxpayer funded benefits when those decisions threaten public health.

Anti-vaxxers who say they are entitled to do — and receive — whatever they please, and who plead religious freedom to justify their choices, are making a mockery of the hard-won freedoms enjoyed by the rest of us.

Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and the author of The Tyranny of Tolerance: Threats to Religious Liberty in Australia.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/dont-use-religion-to-spout-antivax-nonsense/news-story/548a423c42f9120f7750ae9a246548b8

Treated 'worse than animals': thousands of Indian women feared trapped in ashrams

Nearly 250 women and 48 girls so far found confined behind gates in properties belonging to the Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya religious organisation


Michael Safi in Delhi
The Guardian
December 29, 2017

Neither the din of traffic nor the roar of aircraft from a nearby airport could blot out the screams neighbours say they regularly heard from the apartment building in west Delhi.

On Saturday, on the second floor of the unassuming complex in Mohan Garden, authorities discovered 21 women and children living in a heavily fortified “spiritual university”, at least five believed to be minors.

Raids across India in the past week on properties linked to the same religious organisation, Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya (AVV), have unearthed nearly 250 women and 48 girls apparently confined behind layers of locked gates.

Authorities in Delhi say they fear thousands more women could be living in similar conditions in the 300 properties estimated to be linked to the group nationwide.

Syringes and medicines were found scattered throughout the Delhi ashrams and many of the residents appeared to be drugged, according to Swati Maliwal, the city commissioner for women, who participated in five of the raids.

Most of the women have refused opportunities to leave the ashrams. Those who appear to be under 18 have been taken to shelters but are providing little concrete information, Maliwal said.

“We ask where they’re from, they can’t say. We ask them the address of their parents, they don’t have that. We ask how long they’ve been there, they give evasive answers,” she said.

Gurus are enlightening guides in the lives of many Indians, providing counselling on issues ranging from moral quandaries to the choice of a new car.

But months after a flamboyant guru, Ram Rahim Singh, was convicted of raping two followers – sparking riots that killed 30 people – the raids of the past week have cast light on the immense, often unchecked power wielded by some spiritual leaders.

At the centre of the organisation is a self-styled “godman”, Virendra Dev Dixit, with a chequered history including allegations of sexual assault dating to 1998. He is currently being sought by police and could not be reached for comment.

Accusations contained in documents filed with the Delhi high court allege that Dixit, 75, is portrayed by ashram workers as an incarnation of the Hindu god Krishna, with the women and girls cast as his gopis, or wives.

The group claims to be a fundamentalist offshoot of Brahma Kumaris, an Indian spiritual movement with about 800,000 members and branches around the world including in the US, Australia and the UK. Brahma Kumaris disavowed Dixit decades ago and reject his beliefs.

Families have complained of losing daughters to Dixit’s organisation for decades but have been unable to secure official attention until this year, when the Delhi high court took up a public-interest lawsuit against the group.

The case was spurred by the November disappearance of a 24-year-old woman from a town near Jaipur in Rajasthan state. Family members said she had initially become involved in yoga and meditation events put on by the Brahma Kumaris.

But quietly, over the past five years, she was growing closer to members of Dixit’s group.

One day last month, in what investigators believe is standard practice for new converts, the woman entered a local police station with a signed affidavit declaring she was joining the AVV of her own free will. Soon after, she vanished.

A frantic search effort by the family traced the woman to a large Dixit ashram in Rohini, a neighbourhood in the north-west of the capital.

In submissions to the Delhi high court, the family say they were only permitted to meet their daughter after protesting for days, and had to pass through seven layers of locked gates to meet her. They claim she was flanked by women guardians, and appeared to be anaesthetised.

“The girl told them, I am 24, I have come here of my own wish, and I should not be forced to go back,” said Satendra Singh Rathore, a lawyer for the family.

After their story was broadcast by Indian media, disaffected former members of the group and other families searching for their daughters reached out with their own allegations against Dixit.

According to the public-interest lawsuit, they include accusations that Dixit has sexually assaulted multiple women and children and keeps residents confined in conditions “worse than farm animals”.

A spokeswoman for the AVV declined to comment but the organisation has previously said its residents stay of their own volition and are well-treated.

In a society riven by caste hierarchy and yawning economic inequality, ashrams and large-scale spiritual communities, called deras, were an appealing site of social equality and fraternity, said Ronki Ram, a professor of political science at Panjab University.

Their popularity has grown as India’s economy has opened to the world and incomes have soared in past decades. “Once people have everything, a partner, a good job, a family, and find they are not really happy, they go to a dera,” Ram said.

Spiritual organisations have also stepped to provide welfare in places where the state had retreated, he said. “Some have their own schools, hospitals. When the state starts withdrawing from providing basic facilities, the deras fill in the gaps.”

He said politicians have been more likely to seek out gurus for votes than to try to regulate their communities: “They see [the gurus] have a large numbers of followers who can be constituencies.”

Dixit has never registered his organisation with the government. Years of criminal complaints against the guru did not heed a single inspection of his properties. Maliwal said it was typical of the lawless environment in which many spiritual leaders operated. “Nobody bothers to go inside their ashrams,” she said.

“These babas are very influential people, they have a lot of clout. Sometimes they have mafias, and sometimes they are mafias. Nobody wants to deal with this issue.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/29/india-ashrams-thousands-women-feared-trapped-adhyatmik-vishwa-vidyalaya