Reaching Daylight

New book focuses on the children who survived Tony Alamo and his cult

Sean Clancy
Arkansas Online
May 6, 2018

While other children play soccer, watch TV, go to movies and hang out with their friends, you are put to work for no pay while Alamo keeps the profits from his myriad businesses. You are told that he is God's prophet, that he speaks with the Lord, that he can read your mind. You watch as girls, your sister perhaps, are called to live with him and be his "wives."

For the slightest transgression you are beaten with fists, a wooden paddle or a board. You are made to fast for days on end. Your family is separated according to Alamo's whims.

You likely have no birth certificate, no Social Security number, no record of your existence.

Imagine this is all you have ever known, a life spent under the thumb of a man who would be sentenced in Texarkana in 2009 to 175 years in prison on 10 counts of taking underage girls across state lines for sex.

The story of Alamo, the church he started in California with his wife, Susan, and the children who got away from him is told in Debby Schriver's riveting new book Whispering in the Daylight(University of Tennessee Press, $29.95).

Schriver has crafted her book almost like a collage. There is her own reporting, told mostly in short, punchy chapters. There is a transcription of her interview with Alamo along with a transcription of Alamo's deposition with Texarkana attorney David Carter, who represented former followers in civil lawsuits against the preacher. Pages set apart in gray are used to list the timeline of Alamo's life and what was happening outside the cult.

Most poignant are the essays, written under pseudonyms, from five of the now-grown children who left the cult. They are harrowing, but also hopeful.

"In one moment, all that I knew was gone," writes "Irene" about the day Alamo was sentenced. "He was a false prophet. If he was a false prophet, everything he told me was a lie. If everything he told me was a lie, then where was God? ... What about the wives? What about the beatings? With one thought came another and then another, an avalanche of thoughts mixed with incredulity, fear, and grief."

. . .

Schriver, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., is a retired associate dean of student conduct and orientation at the University of Tennessee. She is the author of In the Footsteps of Champions: The University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers, The First Three Decades; Ice 'n' Go: Score in Sports and Life (with Jenny Moshak) and To Read My Heart: The Journal of Rachel Van Dyke, 1810-1811.

She didn't want to write this book at first.

Her husband, Rob, met a foster parent to some of the children of the Alamo cult, and the idea of Schriver writing about them was suggested.

"I said, 'Wow, that's unbelievable,' but I'm not the one to do it," Schriver recalls replying after first hearing the story from her husband.

Still, she met with the Arkansas-based foster parents at a Panera Bread in Knoxville in 2014 and came away determined to tell the story.

"I couldn't say no," she says during an interview in Little Rock last month. "I felt compelled to do it, so I started to learn as much as I could about cults. I had so much to learn. I was getting academic, sociological and psychological definitions, and then I was getting first-person narratives from people."

. . .

Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman on Sept. 30, 1934, in Joplin, Mo. His parents were Romanian and Jewish, though not religiously observant. The Hoffmans left Missouri for Montana, and Bernie eventually made his way to Los Angeles, where he started calling himself Tony Alamo and worked on the fringes of the music business.

It was in California in the mid-'60s that he met Alma native Edith Opal, who had changed her name to Susan Fleetwood. With her young daughter in tow, the blonde, charismatic Fleetwood would scam churches by pretending to be a missionary, pocketing the cash she collected after speaking during services.

They divorced their spouses in 1966, married in a Las Vegas ceremony, changed their names to Tony and Susan Alamo and opened a small ministry out of Susan's Los Angeles apartment, recruiting young, wayward believers into the fold, requiring them to give all their money to the church.

The Alamos eventually bought land at Saugus, Calif., and opened a church there, where followers lived in squalid conditions in dorm-like structures, according to the book, which is subtitled The Children of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and Their Journey to Freedom.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Alamos were hosting their own gospel-theme TV shows.

Schriver says Susan Alamo, who died of cancer in 1982, was the more magnetic of the pair.

"Tony hated women, and Susan was the first woman he didn't hate. She was the preacher. Tony viewed himself as a promoter and he basically promoted Susan. When she died, I had a first-person witness who was in that room who said that [Susan] told Tony, 'You're going to have to break up the church, or you will wreck it.'"

In the later years, according to the book, he didn't even bother to show up for church services, taping his sermons instead.

"I do think he loved her on some level," Schriver says, "but I also think he was terrified because he knew he couldn't do what she did."

. . .

The Alamos moved part of their ministry from California to Northwest Arkansas in the mid-'70s. They owned a restaurant, clothing store, a general store, a gas station, a discount store, a garage and other small businesses in Alma, with church members working for them. Followers, often children, were also sewing the airbrushed and bedazzled jean jackets Alamo sold that were worn by celebrities such as Brooke Shields, Mike Tyson, Reba McEntire, Bono, Larry Hagman and others.

"There is no evidence that he ever paid his employees," Schriver writes. "Even church members who worked outside the church gave their paychecks to Alamo. In return they were given housing, food, and 'bucks' for small allowances from time to time."

Another income stream, according to the book, came from selling and distributing goods that were donated to the church. Children worked in warehouses, scraping price tags off items and preparing them to be shipped on Alamo-owned trucks across the country.

In 1994, Alamo was sentenced to six years in federal prison for income tax evasion. Because the trial was limited to the tax charges, the jury did not hear testimony on alleged violations of sex and polygamy laws. He continued to run his cult while in prison, Schriver writes.

. . .

Some of the most difficult passages are descriptions of beatings given to children who broke rules or disobeyed Alamo. One 12-year-old girl, after being beaten with 2-by-4, went back to work applying rhinestones to denim jackets.

But some escaped. One boy, 17-year-old "Frank," began plotting his getaway in 2007 after enduring one too many beatings. He and another boy, "Brady," made their escape while on their 4-6 a.m. guard shift at the cult's compound in Fouke. Former cult members had arranged for a Fouke couple to pick them up on the highway.

In a scene almost straight out of a movie, Schriver describes how the boys were taken to what is now the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, where Frank was able to board a plane to Washington to meet his brother. Brady, meanwhile, had a problem with his ticket and had to be driven to Memphis, where he boarded a bus bound for Virginia to be reunited with his family, all former cult members.

The same couple from Fouke, "Wilma" and "Drucker," just happened to be shopping at the Dollar General near the compound when they saw two girls, "Paige" and "Pamela," loitering near the parking lot. Suspecting they were from the church, the couple told the girls they would like to help them. The girls, who were running away from the church, agreed to leave with them, and were driven to freedom.

. . .

Even behind bars after the raids in 2009, Alamo continued to run his cult. He was often moved to different prisons after building a following among inmates, Schriver says. He died May 2, 2017, in a prison hospital in Butner, N.C. At its height, his church had about 800 followers, Schriver says, adding that there are still an estimated 300 active members.

Reading about the atrocities and violations members told Schriver they experienced, the question is inevitable: Why would anyone stay?

"People don't leave because they're terrified to leave," Schriver says. "In the beginning it looked like a loving, happy community. That's what they were looking for and that's what was presented to them. As they became trained and mentored and separated from one another, they were absolutely brainwashed, controlled. They believed that was the only community of people that was going to be saved.

"Cult leaders that are successful, for them it's about greed, money and power. Tony was a sociopath and narcissistic, but he was very smart. He could pinpoint someone's vulnerability just like that." He sowed seeds of mistrust among his flock, encouraging them to report anytime someone broke a rule.

The cult was based on "lies, cheating, backstabbing, and tattling," writes "Ian," who was 12 when the group was raided.

Randall Harris became the FBI's lead case agent on the Alamo investigation in 2006. He retired from the FBI not long after the case was concluded. An essay by him about the case is featured in the book.

"There were a lot of people in that group that were second and third generation [members]," Harris says in an interview last month when asked why he thought people stayed in the cult. "They were being provided their basic necessities. You have to think about how fearful those people would have been about how to survive on the outside. And that's aside from the brainwashing done by Alamo. He threatened people with eternal damnation if they left."

David Carter is the Texarkana lawyer whose civil lawsuits have resulted in $66 million for punitive damages for two of the boys who escaped Alamo and $525 million to seven "child brides." In all, judgments against Alamo and the church total just over $1.2 billion.

"He had a dangerous mix of charisma, Biblical knowledge and narcissism," Carter says during an interview from his Texarkana office. "That's the same thing we saw in [cult leaders] Jim Jones, David Koresh ... they play from the same playbook. You convince your flock you're a prophet and you control them with that."

. . .

There were about 40 kids who were either freed or fled the cult, Schriver says. The five featured in her book are young adults now.

"I could have gone in so many directions, but I kept saying that this is about the kids," she says.

Carter sees Schriver's book as one of hope for other cult members:

"It's a story that holds a lot of promise for others who may be in, or have been in, similar high-control groups and can see there's a way out. In my view, the book does a really good job of chronicling what they went through, found their way out of the church and ultimately found new lives."

Proceeds from the book, Schriver says, will be used to establish a foundation to help survivors of cults.

"We need to keep stepping toward this and not stepping away," she says of cults. "These are our children, and it's important to know that this exists. And we need to figure out ways that we can help survivors."

Concluding her essay, "Irene" acknowledges the scars she carries but isn't afraid to confront her past.

"I can't imagine all the psychological issues we are experiencing without even realizing it. I feel we only know a fraction of what happened and how it affected our lives. I suppose I will spend the rest of my life decoding those formative years so that I may truly understand, and that will be my journey."

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/may/06/reaching-daylight-20180506/

Moscow Now Targeting All Non-Russian Orthodox Christian Churches - OpEd

Paul Goble
Eurasia Review
May 6, 2018 

Many in the West naively believe that Vladimir Putin is a defender of Christian traditions against Islam and therefore are inclined to believe that he deserves their support despite what he may be doing as far as other things are concerned. But in fact, the he is defending only the Russian Orthodox Church and attacking all other Christian denominations.

That is the conclusion Roman Lunkin draws on the basis of a close reading of official actions against religious groups and especially “large and small Christian churches in Russia” except for the Orthodoxy of the Moscow Patriarchate over the last year (sclj.ru/news/detail.php?SECTION_ID=487&ELEMENT_ID=7826).

If earlier it appeared that official actions against religious groups bore a largely arbitrary and spontaneous character, the specialist on religion and law in Russia says, in the period since the adoption of the Yarovaya law, one is now justified in speaking “about the conscious choice of Christians as targets for judicial action.”

Officials in the magistracy and police do not know the fine points of religious issues, Lunkin says, “but they know very well that having uncovered a community of non-Orthodox Christians, they must fine it.” And in proceeding against such groups, “they do not devote any attention to formalities.” Indeed, they now openly ignore Russian constitutional norms.

“An analysis of a data base of court decisions carried out by Sergey Chugunov, a lawyer of the Slavic Legal Center speaks about the catastrophic situation with regard to the observation of the constitutional principles of freedom of consciousness.” And “non-Orthodox Christian confessions” have been hit especially hard.

Among these, Lunkin continues, are the Baptists, Evangelical Christians, Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists. Also hit with various judicial actions at the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Krishna Consciousness groups, and Muslims. In 2016-2017, he reports, 312 institutions were fined more than four million rubles (66,000 US dollars).

Particularly hard hit by such official repression, he says, are smaller groups in small cities or rural areas that find it more difficult to attract attention to their causes or the resources necessary to fight these official actions in court.

For such groups, a fine of 30,000 rubles (500 US dollars) is “an enormous sum.” Many congregations simply can’t raise that kind of money. They thus are forced to close up shop and go into private homes or the street where they will be fined for other violations of the anti-missionary provisions of the Yarovaya law.

https://www.eurasiareview.com/06052018-moscow-now-targeting-all-non-russian-orthodox-christian-churches-oped/

From the Jonestown jungle massacre to the streets of Brixton, cults will always attract leaders and followers

With the latest Netflix documentary series shining a light on the murky world of cults, David Barnett meets the man who has devoted the last 40 years to fighting these shadowy organisations which ruin lives.

David Barnett 
The Independent Online
May 6, 2018

In November 1978, Ian Haworth – along with the rest of the world – watched in horror as footage emerged from Guyana where more than 900 people died in a move of “revolutionary suicide” orchestrated by cult leader Reverend Jim Jones.

Unlike many appalled at the mass deaths that saw bodies piled up around the remote settlement dubbed “Jonestown”, Haworth was thinking: “That could have been me.”

Just a month previously, he had emerged from the clutches of a cult in Canada, and his experiences, his escape and the pictures of Jonestown prompted him to devote the next four decades to investigating, campaigning against and plucking people from the hold of cults.

Cults are very much back in the public eye at the moment, due in no small part to the documentary series Wild Wild Country, which debuted on Netflix in March. The series follows Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, and the free-love community which built up around him in Oregon in the 1980s.

It’s perhaps the archetypal image of the cult we’ve come to recognise: the followers of Rajneesh, who died in 1990, dressed in orange; their leader was a charismatic Indian guru (who relocated to the US after the Indian government frowned upon his activities); the disciples gave huge amounts of cash to their figurehead, lost contact with their families.

But cults don’t have to follow the pattern of Rajneeshpuram, as the Oregon ranch was renamed, or the bloodbaths at Jonestown or Waco, where David Koresh’s sect the Branch Davidians was raided by the FBI in 1993. More often than not, they are more mundane than that… but no less damaging.

Katy Morgan-Davies last month published a book about her experiences living in Brixton with the cult leader – and her father – Aravindan Balakrishnan, who was jailed on charges of rape and imprisonment in 2015. Morgan-Davies managed to flee the cult in 2013 after 30 years – her entire life.

Cults are back in the news again, but for Ian Haworth they never went away. As the head of the UK-based Cult Information Centre, he spends his life collating information on cults, offering advice and help to those who have escaped – or wish to – and campaigns for stricter legislation to control the reach and influence of these malign groups.

“I’ve dealt with more than 1,000 different cults,” says Haworth. “That includes the Rajneesh group. The Netflix documentary series has generated a lot of interest internationally, which can’t be a bad thing.”

That interest comes in peaks and troughs, naturally, with particular focus at the moment thanks to Wild Wild Country and Morgan-Davies’ memoir. Haworth says: “I suppose the biggest peak we’ve had began on 1 January 1999, when there was a huge amount of cult activity related to the millennium, when all kinds of things were promised or predicted. Of course, mathematically, the millennium ended at the end of the year 2000, not the end of 1999, but cult leaders don’t really care about such things. They care about money, and controlling people, and power.”

Born in Lancashire, the son of a farmer, Haworth emigrated to Canada in 1972 while in his twenties. By 1978 he was working as a communications consultant for a large company, and had never given a thought to cults. Aged 31, he happened to be stopped by a woman with a clipboard in a Toronto street.

“She was very attractive and I was very single,” remembers Haworth. “When she asked me if I had time to answer a few questions for what I thought was market research, I said yes.”

But after only half a dozen questions, the tone of the exchange altered. The woman told Haworth that his answers indicated he’d fit in very well with a group she was involved with, and that it would enable him to give something back to society rather than just taking. A meeting was taking place the following week and Haworth was invited along.

“I turned up and there were about a hundred people there,” he says. “A woman was talking about her addiction to alcohol and drugs, and how this group had helped her. I was planning to sneak away at the end, because I’d been brought up to be polite and didn’t want to just walk out. Then they brought out drinks and cakes, and as I’d paid $2 (£1.50) to attend I decided I might as well get my money’s worth before leaving.”

During a break he went into the corridor for a cigarette, and that’s when the cult members pounced. Haworth had seen his doctor not long before and been told if he carried on smoking like he did he’d be lucky to see 40. The group told him that they would absolutely guarantee he would stop smoking if he attended a further course for $220. He’d already looked into smoking-cessation courses that were of comparable cost, so decided he’d give this one a go.

“The course took place in September, 1978,” says Haworth. “By the end of the course I’d given notice at my job, promised to dedicate my life to the cult, and handed over all my savings, which amounted to about $1,500.”

Even now, Haworth cannot identify the tipping point that turned him from someone who’d turned up for a meeting at the behest of an attractive woman to someone who gave himself, body and soul, to a cult, other than mid-way through the course when he stopped smoking. “I suppose that was the moment I went over to them – they had done what they said they would do.”

Cults often thrive on feeding into people’s desires. Sometimes they will promise success, artistic or creative talent, fulfil a desire in their targets to effect social change or, as with Haworth, to “give something back” to the world. They will promise freedom from addictions or improved physical or mental health. They’re what Haworth calls therapy cults, as opposed to the religious cults that offer more spiritual promises.

If you’re born into a cult you don’t have that ‘Real Ian’ vs ‘Cult Ian’ internal battle that I had. You emerge from that and the first question is… who am I? It’s an incredibly difficult and delicate situation

Over the next month, Haworth tried to recruit his friends and even neighbours to the group. They were appalled at the change in him, but, he says, “I thought they were wrong, I knew they weren’t part of the elite, like I was.”

It was an almost textbook recruitment, and Haworth firmly believes he would have been lost to everyone who knew him but for one error on the part of the cult. “Most cults programme their members against the media very early on. These people didn’t do that,” he says. And that was what saved him.

A neighbour gave him a copy of the Toronto Star which had featured a front-page exposé of the group Haworth was involved in, written by the investigative reporter Sidney Katz. Haworth read the piece and contacted Katz immediately to verify his facts. He then, as he describes it, “fell apart at the seams”. Having seen Katz’s research and evidence first hand, at the invitation of the journalist, Haworth angrily confronted the cult’s leaders, and they effectively banished him. He was finally free of them.

“That was in October,” he says. “Then, in the November, everything came out about the Jonestown cult. And I knew that could have been me. It took me 11 months to fully recover and get back to myself.”

It took that long for the nagging whispers of “Cult Ian”, as Haworth describes the person he was when he was with the group, to be finally silenced, and for “Real Ian” to reassert himself. And good sense would dictate that was the point he turned his back on cults forever and got on with his life.

“I come from a farming background in Lancashire,” says Haworth. “People used to say, ‘If there’s summat up, then tha’ does summat about it’. So I did summat about it.”

Sidney Katz put Haworth in touch with a TV producer called Peter Scott and together they set up what was first called the Council for Mind Abuse, and which later metamorphosed into the Cult Information Centre in 1987, now run as a charity.

I’ve dealt with more than 1,000 different cults. That includes the Rajneesh group. The Netflix documentary series has generated a lot of interest internationally, which can’t be a bad thing

Haworth and Scott concentrated on the group he had been involved with, even handing out flyers to a party of new recruits flown into Canada, exhorting them to go back to the airport. Faced with Haworth’s evidence, many of them did. Eventually, the resistance proved too much for the group. “Toronto wasn’t big enough for the both of us,” he smiles. “They got out.”

Haworth doesn’t know where they are now, or if they still exist. Cults change their names often, to keep one step ahead of the media or inquisitive minds, and to muddy the paper trail they leave behind. Besides, he soon had more than enough on his plate as more and more people began to get in touch, especially after he had relocated back to the UK.

One of the Cult Information Centre’s primary roles is working with ex-cult members. He likens the trauma that recovering cult followers go through to PTSD, and says systems to deal with and help them are variable, if present at all.

He would also like to see stronger laws to deal with cults; there’s no specific legislation surrounding them, and it’s only when cult leaders are discovered to have committed actual crimes, such as Aravindan Balakrishnan in 2015, that the law can act.

The Aravindan Balakrishnan case, and the revelations of Katy Morgan-Davies in her new book, add an extra dimension to Haworth’s work. It’s one thing to try to help cult members who have managed to break free return to their old, pre-cult lives, but what of those born into cults?

“If you’re born into a cult you don’t have that ‘Real Ian’ vs ‘Cult Ian’ internal battle that I had,” says Haworth. “You emerge from that and the first question is… who am I? It’s an incredibly difficult and delicate situation.”

And don’t think it is only stupid people who would fall for a cult. Experts say that cults are most likely to be attractive to intelligent, well-educated people… they have flexible minds; can consider and be seduced by the alternative lifestyles offered by cults.

From Jonestown in the Seventies to Rajneeshpuram in the 1980s to Brixton in the 2000s: cults endure, and spring up all across the world. Nothing about modern life and its complexities has inured us against the attractions of a charismatic guru or cult leader.

“They start off wanting the usual things,” says Haworth. “Money, sex, power over people. Then, after perhaps about 10 years, they start to believe the things they say, they maybe start to believe they are gods.”

And as long as the false gods continue to prey on the innocent, Ian Haworth will continue his 40-years-and-counting battle against the scourge of the cults.

For more information on Haworth’s work at the Cult Information Centre go to cultinformation.org.uk

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/cults-jonestown-massacre-jim-jones-wild-wild-country-documentary-a8336496.html

Cult or culture? How three letters make the difference between good and bad

Cult is a way of saying: you lot are weirdos. Yet perhaps more of us belong to them than we’d care to admit.

BYAMOL RAJAN
New Statesman
May 6, 2018

When does a cult become a religion – and vice versa? And what is the semantic connection between cults, which are thought of as sinister, and cultures, which are considered refined?

These questions have bothered me for years, not least the negative connotations of the word “cult”, which always struck me as a serviceable synonym for fan-club. We hear it a lot in relation to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, from people trying to convey the depth of affection felt by his followers, and their insider-outsider temper.

Not all cults are bad, nor religions and cultures good; but whatever the difference, I feel I’ve got closer to understanding it by watching the remarkable six-part documentary Wild Wild Country on Netflix.

If you haven’t seen it, do. The films chronicle the establishment in Oregon of a new community based on the teachings of a “guru” calling himself Bhagwan Rajneesh. His aim was to create a “new man” through meditation.

It led to the curious spectacle of thousands of crimson-robed Rajneeshees roaming like so many stoned extras going spare on the set of Shaun of the Dead. It all goes horribly wrong, but not before members of this cult claim their new religion will infect all humanity with love.

A cult is a social association whose members subscribe to an often eccentric philosophy. Fanatical devotion to a leader figure, who tends to be male and make claims to omniscience that are unsupported by evidence, is usually a prerequisite. Cult leaders demand unbending fealty to the group, and enforce it through ritual.

Some people – not me – would say the above paragraph could be applied to certain religions. When Mitt Romney was running for US president, some unkind observers said that membership of the Mormon Church equated to cult behaviour, and disqualified him. He was patently a well-qualified candidate.

But what if the next Republican challenger to Donald Trump is a Scientologist? Is Scientology a cult – or a mainstream religion? The Church of Scientology claims it is the latter.

Cults tend to see themselves as being outside the mainstream, but ambitious to grow such a following that their views become accepted by a majority. Religions are bigger and govern nations. A cult is a would-be religion.

But why has “cult” come to have such negative connotations? It is a way of saying: you lot are weirdos. Yet the roots of the word, and its common inheritance with the word “culture”, show that perhaps more of us belong to cults than we’d care to admit.

One of the most important books published in England in the 1970s is Raymond Williams’s etymological companion, Keywords. “Culture” comes from the Latin colere, which originally meant “inhabit, cultivate, protect, honour with worship”.

The “inhabit” sense developed through colonus, to colony. Yes – when imperialists said they were spreading culture, they had some etymological authority. The “honour with worship” strand developed through cultus to give us cult. But “culture” in all its early uses was a noun of process. This is reassuring for those who argue that cultures have permeable boundaries.

It was in Germany in the first half of the 19th century that Kulturcame to have the lofty connotations we now associate with it. The Germans used that word to imply high civilisation – the best that has been thought and said. Some people talk of culture as habits, norms and values. I think of it as Roger Scruton does: a precious fund of emotional knowledge that teaches us not what to think, but how to feel. Crucially, while cults are exclusive, and depend on antipathy towards challengers, cultures should be inclusive, and strengthened by competition.

At various times, we all belong to both. “A little more than kin, and less than kind,” says Hamlet of Claudius. A little more than cult, and less than culture, is where most of humanity resides.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/05/cult-or-culture-how-three-letters-make-difference-between-good-and-bad

NEARLY 300 REPORTS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AMONG DUTCH JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

Janene Pieters
NL Times
May 2, 2018

The number of reports of sexual abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses now stands at 267, Reclaimed Voices, a foundation that manages the hotline for this type of abuse, said to newspaper Trouw.

Reclaimed Voices was established last year after Trouw published the stories of a number of Jehovah's Witnesses who were abused during their youth. One victim called the religious group a "paradise for pedophiles", because the Jehovah's Witnesses elders tend to keep sexual abuse quiet. In the first week of its existence, the hotline received nearly 50 sexual abuse reports.

According to the newspaper, the victims of sexual abuse asked the Jehovah's Witnesses elders for a meeting to discuss this abuse six months ago, but still haven't heard anything. This has a big affect on the victims, Frank Huiting of Reclaimed Voices said to Trouw. "They are angry, they haven't known where they stand for some time and feel disappointed about the entire process. They still aren't being heard, is what it comes down to."

Minister Sander Dekker for Legal Protection also instructed the leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses to start a conversation with the victims.

https://nltimes.nl/2018/05/02/nearly-300-reports-sexual-abuse-among-dutch-jehovahs-witnesses

'Cults & Extreme Belief': A&E Investigates To Focus On NXIVM In Series Premiere

Denise Petski
Deadline
May 4, 2018

A&E Investigates will look at the so-called self help group NXIVM in the series premiere of Cults and Extreme Belief, hosted by Elizabeth Vargas. The organization has been making headlines in recent weeks with the arrest of its leader Keith Raniere and one of his top lieutenants, Smallville actress Allison Mack, on charges of sex trafficking and other crimes. The group has been called by prosecutors a sex cult that has been keeping women as “slaves,” and branding them with Raniere’s initials.

In the premiere, former members share their experiences of manipulation and sexual violation, including Canadian actress Sarah Edmondson (Psych, Edgemont) who sits down with Vargas to share new details of her ordeal inside the organization.

Additional organizations that will be explored in season 1 include Twelve Tribes, Sanctuary Church, United Nation of Islam, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witness and The Family.

Cults and Extreme Belief is produced for A&E Network by The Intellectual Property Corporation. Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman executive produce for IPC along with executive producer/showrunner Alex Weresow and executive producer Rachelle Mendez. The series kicks off with a two-night premiere on Monday, May 28 and Tuesday May 29 at 10 PM on A&E.

You can watch a trailer above.

http://deadline.com/2018/05/cults-extreme-belief-ae-investigates-nxivm-series-premiere-elizabeth-vargas-1202382812/

How I Became a Satanist

Jason Bunch
VICE
April 25, 2018


Well, technically I'm a Luciferian witch, but try explaining that to a Bible-beater.

When I was six years old, I woke up to find a large black wolf standing at the side of my bed. The wolf was staring down at me. With a nod of its head, it directed me to get up. Oddly, I felt no fear as it led me out of my bedroom, into the living room, and onto the couch. The wolf spoke in a calm but authoritative voice, explaining that I was part of its tribe—"One of us," it said. Then the wolf led me back to my bedroom window, outside of which was an old stone well. When I looked out, three other wolves surrounded the well. They looked back in my direction. Atop the well, they had presented me the corpse of a slaughtered deer. “This is who you are,” the large black wolf said. Then it disappeared.

To the outsider, it would be easy to dismiss this vision as nothing more than a false memory, either a recent invention or the rumblings of my six-year-old imagination. But it is the most vivid memory I have of childhood. It happened, as surely as every other tangible, provable event in my life. But it really doesn’t matter if anyone believes me—more than anything else, it shaped who I would become. Today, at the age of 48, I describe myself as a traditional Luciferian witch. But to the casual outside observer, or the Bible-beater, I’m a Satanist.

While I was raised nominally Christian, worshipping in the Methodist churches of rural Indiana, the occult has always been a part of me. My father’s family was part of the Northern European migration of the 1700s, the clans that followed Daniel Boone into the Appalachian Mountains and settled as farmers and hunters. With them they carried the folk magic and superstitions of the old world. Before my father’s passing, I asked him to describe the southern Kentucky community he grew up in. They were “Christians, but with very pagan beliefs. Their bible was the Farmer’s Almanac, and you did things by how the stars and the moon were aligned,” he told me. “The doctrine of Christianity yielded to the land, not the other way around.”

Although the industrialization of rural America in the 1950s caused my family to abandon the land for the steel mills, the old ways were passed down and maintained. As a child I was taught to fish, hunt, read the stars, dowse for water, and use pendulums for guidance. Yet compared to my mother’s side of the family, this was nothing.

Her first relative to ever set foot in America came from Hampshire, England in the 1600s to Massachusetts, only before hightailing it back across the Atlantic under the presumption of being a witch. My great-great-grandmother, Cora, who went through men like wine, was known to sit in her parlor with a Ouija board affixed to her lap, scoffing at the notion that one should never use the spirit board alone. This practice was passed onto me through my mother, who used the Ouija board with her children the way more pious families might gather around the family bible.

There were two childhood Oujia board readings in particular that foretold my path. The first was when my mother, sister, and I asked the board what I would be when I grew up. The board said I would be an attorney, something I did not want to be, but became. The other was when my sister dared to ask who was speaking to us. The board carefully spelled out S-A-T-A-N. After freaking the fuck out, as any kids would do, we immediately put the board down. But there was something in me that wanted to continue the conversation.

In the 1980s, the Satanic Panic invaded every living room, with nightly news stories linking Satanism and heavy metal music to a litany of social ills, particularly drug use, child abuse, and murder. I was in middle school at the time when a rather conservative congregation that sat across the street from my grandmother’s house, brought the Satanic Panic to my hometown. Every Wednesday night, a study group focused in on the Devil’s influence in rock’n’roll, something me and my best friend were obsessed with. Of course, their warning backfired. Instead of steering me away from the Devil, I only became more fascinated with the dark arts. I spent my late teens driving around the heavily wooded country roads that surrounded my town, always in search of the best places to either have sex or to park with friends and drink Bud Light, smoke the occasional joint, and blast The Cure, the Dead Kennedys and Metallica. More often than not, the best spots would have some supernatural legend attached to it, be it an abandoned dwelling in the middle of the woods or a local graveyard. I, of course, revelled in the ghost stories surrounding these places.

By the time I attended college at Indiana University in Bloomington, I had settled into paganism and Wicca. Quite literally, the devil was in the details: Much to the horror of my hippy-dippy, white-light coven at the time, I remember making a connection early on between Lucifer and the Horned God of Wicca. Had I simply stayed on this path, things may have been fine. I was happy, even if I appeared aimless. My only worries were what the Tarot and the cycles of nature would have to say.

A girlfriend at the time told me I was like a wildflower, growing along my own path. Except somewhere along the way, I got tired and gave in to what I thought was expected of me. Largely out of economic fear and anxiety (being a wildflower doesn’t pay much), I convinced myself that it was time to put away childish things and become a normal, functioning member of society. I left behind my bell, books, and candles for a more settled life. What I didn’t realize at the time was that these common pursuits were triggering a darker rebellious part of myself that would eventually make itself known in starkly self-destructive terms, following years of suppression and neglect.

Oblivious to this, I turned 30, got married, had two kids, and, after living out-of-state for many years, went back to Indiana for law school. I did all the things that outwardly made of me a productive member of society. Yet inside, I was slowly shutting down, the light inside myself dimming. Having studied philosophy in undergraduate and graduate school, I was used to intellectual freedom of thought and spirited debate in the classroom. I mistakenly thought this skill would help me excel in law school, but I quickly learned that law wasn’t about freedom of thought and intellectual pursuit, but instead fitting your arguments into smaller and smaller boxes of arbitrary and settled legal standards. Just as I was editing and censoring my thoughts to conform with what was appropriate for the courtroom, I was also reducing myself to fit into a role I was not born to play. It didn’t take long to I realize I had made a big mistake, but bills were piling up, and it was too late to back out now without at least getting the degree that would supposedly alleviate that debt. At the end of this ridiculous endeavor awaited divorce, mountains of un-payable student loan debt in the amount of nearly $200,000, life in a city and state I had no desire to be in, and a sense of self that was all but shattered. Normalcy had driven me to spiritual desolation.

In my early 40s, I entered my “dark night of the soul.” I had arrived there as a result of putting my life on cruise control and exchanging the magic within me for dour rationalism and extreme atheism. I took to mindlessly indulging in a variety of excesses to soothe the spiritual void. By the time I finally awoke, my relationships were in shambles, my job as a criminal defense attorney was in jeopardy, and I was facing criminal charges for driving while under the influence of alcohol. I needed a spiritual reset. I needed to go back to zero, but I had no idea how.

A cycle of addictions and two years of regular heavy drinking had rewired my brain. Not knowing where to turn, I checked into a treatment center, and goddamn if it didn’t work. Although I no longer craved the poison physically, spiritually I was fumbling around in the dark. Something was still missing.

My required attendance at one of the many “anonymous” meetings only made it worse. Meeting after meeting, step by step, I found myself surrounded by the beaten-down souls of people who exchanged one form of addiction for another. It soon became clear that my life was on the line. If I was going to survive, I would have to figure out how to do it on my own.

This is what led me to the Left-Hand Path. Throughout history, Satan or Lucifer has been invoked by outsiders, romantics, and anarchists as the patron saint of human liberation, the serpent who tempts with the Forbidden Fruit. He was the one who freed humanity from servitude to God, and God, reacting like the loving patriarch "He" is, cast humanity out from his metaphysical playroom and into the world of matter. If you believe that nature is evil, then certainly this great fall was the result of it. But for a pagan soul like me, beaten down by normative Judeo-Christian values and the world of late-stage capitalism, nature was the only thing still worthy of worship. “Nature is Satan’s church,” says Charlotte Gainsbourg's character in the movie Antichrist—and that’s where I go to pray.

In nature there is no sin, only actions that benefit you or don’t. Unlike Christ on the cross, or Alcoholics Anonymous’s “Bill” and his “big book,” in nature you don't have to self-flagellate over past wrongs to find forgiveness. Back then, I had only to take responsibility and ownership for my behavior. I began to think of my mistakes as evidence of the demon inside me, and it soon became time to embrace that part of myself. To suppress my shadow, rather than to embrace, nurture, and love it, had only given way to self-destruction. The path forward had to be through the expression and integration of the Devil into my spirituality.

The first thing I did was dust off my library. Because of my time spent in academia, as well as my past history with the occult, I already had numerous books for reference sitting on my bookshelf. I carried them with me wherever I went. If it was cardio day, I had Stephen Flowers’s Lords of the Left-Hand Path propped up on my bike at the gym. Between hearings in court, I was poring over the works of historian Jeffrey Burton Russell. Every night at home was spent holed up in my room with books strewn around the bed, as I read and cross-referenced what I found with what was available on the internet.

Stories of the Devil, interpretations of the adversary throughout history, and examinations of the role of the rebel against unjust authority only led me into deeper and wider rabbit holes. Rather than the blood-soaked orgies that may come to mind when one thinks of Satanism, my first steps along the diabolical path came through incessant scholastic asceticism. I found invaluable resources in The Devil’s Party, edited by Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen, and Jules Michelet’s classic Satanism and Witchcraft. Ultimately though, this narrative starts in the Holy Bible and finds its culmination in the works of John Milton and William Blake, where Satan is seen sympathetically, in contrast to an authoritarian, violent, and judgmental God. From out of this “just rebel” archetype arose also the more "occult" Luciferian/Promethean archetype, the one that demands people to be their own masters. It was this thirst for knowledge of both myself and the deeper mysteries of the world, unimpeded by others’ dogmas, that drove me.

In my books, I found the strength to remain sober, to remain alive, and the light of Luciferian gnosis showed the way. Friendships fell by the wayside, as did any semblance of trying to fit in. Instead, I wanted to burn it all with fire, with the goal of forging myself anew. I focused inward and what I found was an elemental essence, one as equally capable of destruction as it was creation. A rebellious god of fire, anarchy, and liberation. Satan was the archetype that was already waiting for me.

Immersed in the writings of Anton LaVey and Michael W. Ford, I joined the Satanic Temple, as well as the short-lived Greater Church of Lucifer. I performed rituals of blasphemy like renouncing the Holy Trinity, some of them drawn from LaVey and some from the world of traditional witchcraft. I focused in on divorcing myself from the yoke of a society I no longer wished to be part of, a sort of un-baptism of my soul.

These were all merely starting points, though. I quickly realized that no Satanic organization or grimoire could do anything more than point me in the direction that lay ahead. My own path was always going to be more rooted in paganism and witchcraft than most bastions of modern Satanism, and neither the Satanic Temple nor the Church of Satan made room for that sort of magical thinking. While I do think LaVey’s work is an excellent explication of the human animal, and my own social and political proclivities are aligned with that of the Satanic Temple, after years of atheism, I was slowly but surely headed towards theism, or the belief that there is a transcendental reality and that gods do exist.

At this point, I should probably take a moment to clarify what I mean when I say “Satanist,” because among those who consider themselves as such, there’s a lot of in-fighting as to what is and isn’t Satanism. Personally, I’ve always found this internecine warfare hilarious, given that most of society views even Wiccans as inherently Satanic—and technically, they’re correct. Viewed from an absolutist Christian viewpoint, anything that isn’t Christian is Satanic, since it stands in opposition to Jesus. Try explaining the distinction between a Satanist and a Pagan to an evangelical, and you’ll know what I mean.

But to me, the term “Satanist” is nothing more than an attention-grabbing placeholder for anyone traversing what we call the Left-Hand Path, which is something far greater. What this refers to is any path of self-individuation as an alternative means to achieving mundane or spiritual goals. For most, this means finding a practice that runs in opposition to any prescribed path to salvation. I personally don’t give a damn if someone calls me a Satanist or not. Unlike organized religions with holy books and set practices, the Left-Hand Path forces you to think and act for yourself. It’s highly personalized, and no one person’s practice should look like another's. My own practice is centered around Luciferian witchcraft and incorporates a large amount of Norse paganism. (There is enough congruence between Heathenry and the Left-Hand Path that it is not uncommon to find practitioners who make the Northern mysteries part of their journey.)

The only goal in Luciferianism is the rather amoral goal of gnosis, something I attain through the study of occult theory, ritual meditation, dreamwork, and intuition. Gnosis basically means “knowledge,” but specifically the knowledge of hidden or purposefully corrupted spiritual mysteries including finding the divine within one's self. Much like the concept of enlightenment, no one else can teach it to me. It’s a never-ending quest, and even when I come to understand and assimilate one aspect of the mysteries, another one awaits that may take years to grasp.

On top of forcing the self into places beyond the bounds of socially accepted religious practices—for instance through the use of entheogens (mind-altering substances), sex rituals, and blood magick—it requires rigorous self-examination. I have to know myself so well that I can parse out what is real and what is the byproduct of psychological predispositions, past traumas, fantasies, or undue mental and physical stressors. These could include everything from the time of the year, to what I ate that day, to what a coworker said in passing. And I have to do it all while upholding myself as both the student and the master. Certainly, there are plenty of religions for the faint-of-heart, but the practices that populate the Left-Hand Path are none of them.

Today, I am the taskmaster of my own spiritual practice. I can say honestly that I’ve finally filled the void within my own self, rekindled my soul, and lit my way out of that long, dark night. I’ve taken my place among the tribe alluded to by the black wolf from my childhood. I’ve found peace in following the path set forth by the Devil and his many forms. My demons are my angels, and the restless burning energy within me has a meaning and a purpose. Even if it’s only for myself, it’s enough. Satan saves, Jesus slaves, and I owe my life to the light betwixt the horns.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43bpn3/how-i-became-a-satanist

Indore: 25 private universities come up in last 7 years in Madhya Pradesh

Atul Gautam
The Free Press Journal
April 26, 2018

Indore: With government relaxing rules for setting up private universities, the business of awarding degrees has mushroomed in the state. Madhya Pradesh, which had only one private university till 2009, has 26 private universities at present. “About 25 private universities came up in last seven years,” ex-registrar of Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, R D Musalgaonkar, said.

In comparison, two government universities were set up in MP in last seven years. They include Sanchi Vishwavidyalaya and Hindi Vishwavidyalaya. In all, there are 24 government universities in the state, which include two central universities.

According to Musalgaonkar, all one needs is 30-acre land to set up a private university. “If you have the land and building on it, you can obtain permission from state government to run a private university,” he said. The government does not check whether the institute has library, laboratories and required number of teachers while granting it the status of private university.

The state’s first private university was established in Jabalpur in 1995 and is called Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Vedic Vishwavidyalaya. At that time, the rules for setting up private universities were strict to the extent that no other private player could set up a university in MP for next 25 years.

In 2010, the state government relaxed rules after which the private players made a beeline to set up universities. According to information, three private universities were setup in MP in 2010 followed by six in 2011, two in 2013, one in 2014, five in 2015, four in 2016 and three in 2017.

With 8 private varsities, Indore is leader

The city has the maximum number of private universities in MP. As per UGC website, the state’s commercial capital has a total of eight private universities followed by Bhopal, which has seven universities. At national level, MP stands fourth with maximum number of private universities. Rajasthan has 46 private universities, which is highest in the country. It is followed by 30 in Gujarat and 29 in Uttar Pradesh.

http://www.freepressjournal.in/indore/indore-25-private-universities-come-up-in-last-7-years-in-madhya-pradesh/1265206

JEHOVAHS WITNESSES IN RUSSIA INTERROGATED BY MASKED POLICE WITH MACHINE GUNS 1 YEAR AFTER BAN

CRISTINA MAZA
Newsweek
April 26, 2018

Wearing balaclavas and carrying machine guns, police in four Russian cities have raided the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses over the past two weeks and brought members of the religious group in for questioning, sources connected to the group told Newsweek.

In Russia, where the Orthodox Christian Church has deep ties to the highest levels of the Kremlin, the government has labeled Jehovah’s witnesses an “extremist” sect. The ruling was made exactly one year ago, in April 2017, and came into force just a few months later when Russia’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal. The group’s administrative center in St. Petersburg, Russia was consequently dissolved, and Jehovah’s witnesses were forced to begin worshiping in secret in their homes after almost 400 local chapters shuttered.

Meanwhile, many say they have faced systematic harassment by security forces. Since January, members of the group say they have had their homes raided on at least seven separate occasions, four of which took place in April.

“It’s a new wave of persecution. We don’t know what’s happening,” Yaroslav Sivulsky, a Jehovah’s Witness from Russia who is now living in exile in Latvia, told Newsweek Thursday. “If they wanted to they could put any number of Jehovah’s Witnesses in prison because they know the Jehovah’s Witnesses are worshipping at home and they can find them easily.”

There are around eight million Christians worldwide who self-identify as Jehovah’s Witnesses, an estimated 175,000 of whom live in Russia. Members of the group, which was founded and remains headquartered in the United States, are often seen knocking on doors and standing in the streets, looking for opportunities to speak with bystanders about their faith. But only a handful of countries, including China, Vietnam, and Russia have banned the group outright.

All of those countries were included on a recent list of places of particular concern in the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s annual report for 2018. It is the second year in a row that Russia has been included on the list.

“The [Russian] government continued to target ‘nontraditional’ religious minorities, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists, with fines, detentions, and criminal charges under the pretext of combating extremism,” the report read. “Most notably, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned outright, as was their translation of the Bible, and their followers persecuted nationwide.”

The report’s findings are in line with what many Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia describe.

“On April 20, law-enforcement officers searched the homes of several of Jehovah’s Witnesses, including three former members of the local religious organization in Ivanovo. Igor Morozov was taken to the police station. Mr. Morozov was later released, but is not allowed to leave Ivanovo,” Jarrod Lopes, a representative of the Jehovah’s Witnesses world headquarters, told Newsweek about one of the latest events in Russia.

“On April 19 in Vladivostok, Russia, police raided a religious service attended by Valentin Osadchuk and three elderly women. All four were taken to the police station and interrogated. Valentin remains in custody and has been charged under Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code, ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization.’ Mr. Osadchuk is being kept in pretrial detention until June 20, 2018,” Lopes added.

These events follow on the heels of similar events in the Russian cities of Polyarny, Ufa, Oryol, Belgorod, and Kemerovo, he noted. Russia also brought extremism charges against a 46-year-old Danish Jehovah’s witness named Dennis Christensen. He was held in pre-trial detention for 11 months, and on April 3 a judge in Oryol quickly adjourned his preliminary hearing after he asked for more time to review the materials of his case. He could be jailed for 10 years if found guilty.

“The Russian authorities’ ruthless persecution of Jehovah’s Witness adherents has been picking up steam,” Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Dropping the case against Christensen would be a good first step toward ending the raids and other criminal cases against people who are merely practicing their faith.”

http://www.newsweek.com/jehovahs-witnesses-russia-ban-police-903021

Queensland doctor with ties to ‘cult’ stood down from industry body after sharing medical history

9 News,Australia
May 2, 2018

A doctor who secretly shared a patient’s medical history with an alleged cult leader has stood down from his role representing industry body Australian Medical Association in Queensland.

Dr Sam Kim withdrew from Queensland’s council for the AMA after public broadcaster ABC investigated his second alleged instance of professional misconduct in a year.

The investigation focused on his ties to the controversial group Universal Medicine (UM), an organisation that offered treatments such as “esoteric breast massage” and “esoteric body work” and reportedly has about 700 followers.

AMA Queensland chair of board and council Dr Shaun Rudd confirmed to nine.com.au that Dr Kim has stood down from his position.

 “It is the role of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) to regulate the nation’s health practitioners. AMA Queensland is a professional membership organisation. Dr Sam Kim is a practicing physician and AMA Queensland member,” Dr Rudd said.

“He filled a casual vacancy on the AMA Queensland Council in 2017 but has decided to stand down pending resolution of this current matter.”

UM has drawn criticism for publicly revealing a former client’s schizophrenia diagnosis.

The ABC reports last month the NSW Privacy Commissioner found Dr Kim had violated his patient’s privacy by sharing his records with UM founder, Serge Benyhayon.

Benhayon claims to be the reincarnation of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Business owner Riley Martin told the ABC he consulted Dr Kim for a lung condition in 2010 having already received “energetic treatments” from Benhayon.

Mr Martin said he had grown sceptical about the value of the treatments, stopping them and later criticising UM in the media.

But he then learned his medical history had been shared when his GP looked up his records.

"I felt very aggrieved that my private medical information had been passed on to Mr Benhayon, who has no medical qualifications whatsoever,” he told the ABC.

The privacy report has said it was “unclear” why Dr Kim provided “what appears to be Mr Martin’s entire medical history to Mr Benhayon”.

The privacy commissioner has rejected Dr Kim’s explanation that he had verbal consent to share the records.

Mr Martin has said he wants an assurance that other patients’ information will not be shared.

In a separate case to Mr Martin’s, a former UM client’s full name, image and schizophrenia diagnosis were published on a webpage published by UM’s “facts teams”.

The man discovered it when he did a Google search on himself while preparing for a job interview.

"Finding UM's article was shocking. My privacy in respect to that diagnosis is very important. I'm worried about not finding a job because of that,” he said.


Other

• Universal Medicine Home
• CultNEWS101 "Universal Medicine" Collection

Cardinal Pell likely to face two trials, court hears

Lawyers have asked for two separate trials

BBC
2 May 2018

Cardinal George Pell is expected to face two trials on sexual assault charges, an Australian court has heard.

The Vatican treasurer, 76, has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

On Tuesday, a magistrate ordered him to stand trial. The allegations relate to the 1970s and 1990s, a court heard.

Cardinal Pell appeared at the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday, where prosecution and defence teams asked for the case to be split across two trials.

If a judge agrees, separate juries would hear allegations against Cardinal Pell about his time as a priest in Ballarat in the 1970s, and charges relating to when he was archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

Much of the evidence given at a previous hearing was not open to the public, and remains confidential.

Cardinal Pell is Australia's most senior Catholic and one of the most powerful officials in the Vatican.

Speedy process urged

On Wednesday, Judge Susan Pullen said a trial date was expected to be set during an administrative hearing on 16 May.

The cardinal's lawyer, Robert Richter QC, argued for matters to proceed quickly because "my client is 76 years old [and] everyone needs to get on with their lives".

He also said one "critical witness" was now aged in his 80s, and that health was "important" for other witnesses.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
Lawyers have asked for two separate trials
The court heard that one trial could examine charges relating to a swimming pool in Ballarat, while the other could hear of an alleged incident at Melbourne St Patrick's Cathedral.

"They are of a completely different nature... and separated by 20 years," Mr Richter told the court, Fairfax Media reported.

The proposed trial arrangements would run for a total period of 10 weeks, the court heard.

Vatican leave

Last June, Cardinal Pell was charged in the state of Victoria with allegations involving "multiple complainants".

Following a month-long preliminary hearing, a magistrate ruled that there was enough evidence for some charges to proceed to a jury.

However, half of the original charges were struck out on the basis of insufficient evidence and doubt over the reliability of testimony.

Cardinal Pell has strongly denied all accusations, saying last year: "I am innocent of these charges, they are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me."

The cleric has taken a leave of absence from the Vatican to fight the charges in his home country.

In a brief statement on Tuesday, the Holy See said it had "taken note of the decision issued by judicial authorities in Australia".

"Last year, the Holy Father granted Cardinal Pell a leave of absence so he could defend himself from the accusations. The leave of absence is still in place," the statement said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-43971385

What happened to Allison Mack?

Sandra Gonzalez

CNN
April 26, 2018

(CNN)In 2013, actress Allison Mack, then best known for her 10-season run on the television series "Smallville," posted a video to her YouTube channel titled "You asked, I answered."

With a tree-filled yard as her background, she answers questions that range from innocuous (her favorite snacks are cucumbers with peach salsa and roasted buttercup squash, she says) to reflective ("I want to be remembered for the way that I impacted people.")

Four years later, one question from that video stands out -- "What's it like working for Jness?"

Without providing much context on the group itself, Mack says, "Working for Jness is, I think, the most gratifying thing I've ever done."

She makes references to how women "completely transform" because of their involvement with the group.

Jness is a company founded by Keith Raniere, who along with Mack, is facing charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy.

Mack has entered a not guilty plea.

Requests for comment sent to Mack and Raniere's attorneys by CNN have gone unanswered.

According to Raniere's profile on the website for Nxivm, the group that prosecutors say is a pyramid scheme and the umbrella organization under which Raniere and Mack carried out the crimes of which they are accused, Jness was formed "to promote the furtherance and empowerment of women throughout the world."

"Working for Jness is grounding and satisfying and humbling and, and...wonderful," she says, her edges of her mouth curling up into a slight smile. "Wonderful."
The latest

Leaving the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday, Mack was a shadow of the bubbly woman who waxed poetic about her favorite scarf on YouTube just a few years ago.

Mack was released from jail on $5 million bond just days after being indicted. Mack's mother, Melinda Mack, put up her home as collateral, according to court documents.

Raniere remains in federal custody.

Mack will be under house arrest in California and her release comes with a number of conditions, including one which states she is prohibited from contacting or associating with any present or former members of Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ium), court documents say.

She must also wear an electronic monitoring device and can't use a computer or access the internet through any means, unless it's to communicate with her legal counsel or other pre-approved persons.

Mack is in the process of negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors, according to public filings.

Lauren Hersh, a former prosecutor and national director of advocacy group World Without Exploitation, says a plea agreement would likely not be a get out of jail free card for Mack but notes that important questions remain.

"If I were the prosecutor here, I would want to understand how she got pulled into this world, and what kind of trauma, if any, she experienced -- not that it would mean she should not be guilty of the harm she caused to another person," said Hersh. "But it may, in certain circumstances, make things make sense and may mitigate in some respects."
How did Allison Mack get involved?

At the height of "Smallville's" popularity, Mack enjoyed the attention given to any star whose TV show is closely followed by scores of young, passionate fans.

While "Smallville" was never a ratings behemoth, appearances from the show's actors at San Diego Comic-Con could fill thousands of seats and though the show's debut predated the creation of Twitter, its fans were among the first wave to use the platform to voice their opinions on episodes.

Mack's character, Chloe Sullivan, was especially popular. So much so, that DC Comics introduced the character into the comic book mythology in 2010, The Hollywood Reporter noted in 2011.

So where did it apparently go wrong for Mack?

In a cached page from her now-deleted personal website, Mack's biography states that she "immersed herself in the study of her craft in both conventional and unconventional ways," after completing her work on "Smallville."

"The more 'unconventional' approach came when Allison came across the work of Keith Raniere," the website states. "Over the course of several years, Mr. Raniere mentored Allison in her study of acting and music. As such, she has developed a deep connection to the nature of humanity as it relates to acting as an art form, and a tool for personal evolution."

It is through her love of acting, it seems, that Mack and Raniere have or had a connection.

In a 2017 Nxivm recruitment video featuring Mack and Raniere on YouTube, Mack cries at one point as Raniere carries on for several minutes about "authenticity."

"I guess that's probably part of the reason I have such an obsession with art and creativity and things like that because it feels like the sole purpose of those sorts of things is to generate that type of experience for people," she says, with a shaky voice.

Traffickers are extremely perceptive in figuring out a person's vulnerabilities and preying on those vulnerabilities, Hersh said.

"So, yes, we have an accomplished woman who has a network of people and who is successful, but that doesn't mean she's not vulnerable, that doesn't mean she doesn't have vulnerabilities," she said.

Mack's website says Raniere, Mack and a "small group of equally skilled and dedicated professionals" created a curriculum for a "private arts academy" called "The Source" in 2013.

The Source is among the Nxivm-connected groups named by prosecutors in their filings.

DOS, an alleged secret society within Nxivm, is allegedly the subgroup in which sex trafficking activities took place.
Graphic allegations

Mack's individual experiences within the Nxivm are unclear, but in court documents, prosecutors paint a disturbing picture of what the women Mack recruited went through.

The indictment claims Mack recruited two women, whose names are withheld, into DOS, which was created in 2015.

The sub-group, prosecutors allege, operated under a pyramid formation, in which women were designated as "slaves" until successfully recruiting others, at which time they became "masters." All so-called slaves were at the service of their own masters as well as those above them in the pyramid.

The indictment claims many so-called slaves were branded on their pelvic areas with a symbol which, unbeknownst to them, incorporated Raniere's initials.

Documents describe "branding ceremonies," in which women were held down by others while naked and filmed while being branded with a cauterizing pen.

Raniere was the only male in DOS and the leader, according to court filings.

Prosecutors believe Mack was near the top of the pyramid with Raniere and "directly or implicitly required" her slaves to engage in sexual activity with Raniere.

Mack allegedly received financial and other benefits from Raniere in exchange for the women's cooperation with their demands.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. called the allegations "an inconceivable crime" in a statement last week.

Prosecutors say Mack's accusers claim they were blackmailed into complying, as DOS has compromising information about them.

That, Hersh said, is a classic tactic of traffickers who aim to prevent their victims from speaking out.

"Very often, there are trauma bonds that are established and that's when victims tend to, for a whole host or reasons, do what that perpetrator wants them to do," she said. "Very often victims are too traumatized, too terrified to report the perpetrator. They've been told repeatedly that 'Nobody is going to believe you.' or that, in this instance, if you share information about this secret society, we're going to disseminate any harmful information you shared."

The "grooming process" also normalizes the experience, Hersh said, enabling victims to be turned into recruiters.

"I wouldn't be surprised that as we unpack this we learn that [Mack] is not just a perpetrator but a victim as well," she said.

View image on Twitter






Mack's "Smallville" co-star Kristin Kreuk also admitted some involvement with Nxivm in a note posted to her Twitter account last last month. She said she was 23 when she took a course in hope it would help her overcome shyness.

"During my time, I never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity," she wrote.

She says she left the group five years ago.
'Intolerant of exploitation'

If convicted, Raniere and Mack each face mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years imprisonment, and up to life imprisonment.

As the case unfolds, Hersh feels there are important takeaways to be noted.

"I think where we're in a moment in time where we realized that there are a lot of secrets in [the entertainment] industry and it is our obligation to look really closely at all these circumstances, understand them, and be really intolerant of exploitation," she said.

Also, she said, it's important to understand that sex trafficking is not just something that happens to "foreign-born victims in far away places."

"And I think it's an issue we all...need to understand because I think this highlights how vulnerabilities come in all shapes and sizes," she said. "So in order to prevent it -- I mean, there are many things that need to happen -- but we all need to be aware of these circumstances."



https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/26/entertainment/allison-mack-sex-trafficking/index.html

Miracles, supernatural tales kept Asaram's cult going

Dishank Purohit
Times of India

April 27, 2018


JODHPUR: The appeal of Asaram’s cult is amplified by his astounding claims of performing extraordinary miracles, ranging from halting heavy downpour to being an ‘antaryamin’ (mind reader) capable of curing terminally ill patients.

The dubious stories about his miracles were peddled to keep the faith of supporters reposed in his cult even after he went to jail in 2013.

For instance, his Ashram’s in-house magazine, Rishi Prasad’s online issue number 297, carried an article titled, “Even the clouds obey his commands,” in which a devotee recounts how one day he had to return home after the ‘satsang’ when it was raining heavily. When Asaram asked how he managed to go home, he said he looked up at the sky and said, “Stop now,” and the rain stopped instantly.

Another article from issue number 299 of Rishi Prasad narrates an incident by a devotee who recalls how his minor son was cured of aphasia, an inability to comprehend and formulate language, by a ball of butter as suggested by Asaram.

Jodhpur police officials, who have been managing the godman’s frenzied followers during the many trials at the court, said that Asaram’s claims to “supernatural” powers helped to keep his followers united, despite his involvement in heinous offences.

“During trials when we took him to the court in a Vajra (anti-riot vehicle), his ‘sadhaks’ (devotees) would roll down in front of the vehicle and jostle with each other to get a glimpse of Asaram. They have been trained to believe that proximity to the guru can change their lives,” said an official, adding that these stories were particularly highlighted after his involvement in Jodhpur rape case as his devotees began to leave him.

Neelam Dubey, the spokesperson for Asaram, told TOI that the number of followers hasn’t dwindled and has instead increased. “The number of ‘shivers’ (camps) has increased. Several students who have never even met Bapuji have also begun to attend the ashrams and religious activities,” she told TOI.

Asaram’s core teachings include an emphasis on brahmacharya (celibacy). Apart from “miracles,” his ashram-made medicines are also a rage among his ardent followers. Products like ‘gau chandan’ (cow sandalwood) are still being bought by his followers from his website.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jodhpur/miracles-supernatural-tales-kept-asarams-cult-going/articleshow/63932093.cms

Some of polygamist Winston Blackmore's 149 children make video asking he not go to jail

Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune
April 26, 2018

With his sentencing date approaching, children of Winston Blackmore are taking to social media to ask a Canadian judge not send the man to jail for polygamy.

Some of Blackmore’s 149 children posted a video online Tuesday, saying the Canadian justice system had unfairly targeted him because of his religion. They also discussed how it would affect them and their families if Blackmore, who is facing up to five years in jail but is free pending sentencing, were to be incarcerated.

“He is a huge part of our [lives], and he works very hard,” said Hanna Blackmore, one of the defendant’s daughters. “He needs to be able to go to work. He supports a large part of our family. And not only that, he is a great source of physical and emotional support for so many of us, too, who have left home.”

Some of Blackmore’s sons also appear in the video saying they fear they would lose their jobs without their father. The elder Blackmore, 61, over the years has owned logging and trucking companies.

Blackmore and another man, James Oler, 53, were convicted in July in a court in Cranbrook, British Columbia, of one count of polygamy. It was the first such conviction in Canada in a century. Sentencing is scheduled for May 15.

Blackmore has 27 wives. Sixteen remained in his family as of 2016, when some of his wives and children spoke at a Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City.

In the last month, some of Blackmore’s family have become more active in discussing his case on Facebook.

Hanna Blackmore also started an online campaign seeking $25,000 for her father’s legal expenses. As of Thursday afternoon, $2,100 had been raised.

Blackmore never denied he was a polygamist. Prosecutors have said Blackmore and Oler always knew they were at risk for prosecution, even if Canada’s Constitution was vague on the matter.

Then in 2011, the British Columbia Supreme Court held that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms did not protect polygamy, which the court called inherently harmful to women and children.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/polygamy/2018/04/26/some-of-polygamist-winston-blackmores-149-children-make-video-asking-he-not-go-to-jail/

Documentary reveals the man behind the SOS letter from China's notorious Masanjia labour camp

MARSHA LEDERMAN
The globe and Mail
APRIL 26, 2018

The SOS was hidden in a tombstone. It was a pretend grave marker, made of Styrofoam and purchased at a Kmart an ocean away from where the desperate message had been written. It sat in its box in a storage shed in Damascus, Ore., for about two years, until Julie Keith dug it out in the fall of 2012 for her daughter’s birthday party, which the then-almost-five-year-old requested be Halloween-themed. Out fell a note, handwritten in English and Chinese.

“Sir: If you occassionally (sic) buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization,” began the letter, written from a Chinese forced-labour camp. “Thousands people here who are under the persicution (sic) of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”

Keith didn’t have luck when she tried to connect with a human-rights organization, so she contacted The Oregonian newspaper. The note soon attracted worldwide media attention. Through international pressure, the story effected historic change in China, with the closing of labour camps such as the one where the novelty tombstone was made – the notorious Masanjia.

Now, for the first time, the full story is being told in English, in a documentary that reveals the letter writer’s true identity. In his new documentary, Peabody Award-winning Canadian filmmaker Leon Lee collaborated with the man who wrote the note – Sun Yi – and an anonymous filmmaking partner in China. Letter from Masanjia has its world premiere at Hot Docs this weekend in Toronto, before screening at DOXA in Vancouver next weekend.

Mr. Lee, who was born in China and now lives in Surrey, B.C., has an interest in telling stories about contemporary China that can’t be told from China; his documentary Human Harvest – about illegal organ harvesting – received the prestigious Peabody in 2014. After he saw news reports about the letter, he reached out to Ms. Keith and tried to find the person who had written it. Finally, in 2016, Mr. Lee tracked down Mr. Sun, with the help of dissident journalists who are members of the Chinese underground.

An encrypted Skype call was arranged. Mr. Sun had been working on a book about his story, but he felt a film would be more powerful. Mr. Sun, however, didn’t know how to make a film or even operate a camera. And it is not safe for Mr. Lee to return to China, given his previous films. “We two had to pair up to pull this off,” says Mr. Lee, 37.

Over Skype, Mr. Lee trained Mr. Sun in the art of filmmaking, told him what kind of equipment to buy and instructed him to find a trusted partner for the project. Mr. Sun sent compressed footage through an encrypted drop-box-type service, Mr. Lee checked the footage and offered feedback, and periodically the footage would be sent through underground networks on an encrypted hard drive. Once Mr. Lee received the hard drive, Mr. Sun sent him the password. “It was set up in a way that if I input the wrong password, then the hard drive would be permanently locked and all the footage would be gone,” Mr. Lee says.

In this way, Mr. Sun and his anonymous partner documented his story about joining the Falun Gong movement, which was later outlawed; the horrific torture Mr. Sun underwent at the labour camp; and his clandestine letter-writing campaign – about 20 SOS notes stuffed into Halloween decorations bound, he figured, for the West, given the English used in the packaging.

By the time one of those notes made headlines, Mr. Sun had been released. He eventually managed to escape China for Jakarta, where he claimed refugee status. Finally, Mr. Sun and Mr. Lee could meet in person.

“By that time I have been communicating with him frequently, it was more than a year, he was like an old friend. I knew him inside-out,” Mr. Lee says. “But meeting him, I kept wondering how such a gentle and quiet man possessed such strength.”

Ms. Keith also travelled to Jakarta and their meeting is documented in the film.

Letter from Masanjia also includes interviews with two of Mr. Sun’s former labour-camp guards, who are not identified by name. While Mr. Lee expressed concerns for their safety if they appeared in the documentary, Mr. Sun advocated for their inclusion, telling Mr. Lee,” ’This is not only going to help the film, but it’s going to help these guards,’ ” Mr. Lee recalls. “Because he knew how remorseful they were. Which turned out to be true; he told me after the interview they were very relieved. For the first time in their life, they had done something right.”

Mr. Lee, who has lived in Canada since 2006, says China’s economic power has made it difficult for his previous work to be distributed. “Many distributors and businesses in this industry rely on China now because it is such a large market, so many people have told me in private that they love the film, but can’t distribute it.”

Despite this obstacle, Mr. Lee hopes Letter from Masanjia is widely viewed and that its message provokes further action.

“Sun Yi wrote about 20 letters; this is the only one that came out. If Julie just gave up or didn’t really care, then nothing would happen. Tens of thousands of people … might still be locked up in labour camps all over China. I guess what I’m trying to [express] in the film is if an ordinary woman through her small action can do this, what if more people stand up and do something?” he says.

“Hopefully, after learning about Sun Yi’s incredible story, people will feel inspired and encouraged to do something about the injustice they see. Quite often people are thinking how [can I] make a difference? It’s such a complex problem, whatever it is, and being one person, what can I do? Now, from this story we know that everybody can do something and you never know what this might lead to.”

Letter from Masanjia screens at Hot Docs in Toronto April 27 and 29 and May 4 (hotdocs.ca), and at DOXA in Vancouver on May 5 (doxafestival.ca).

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/article-documentary-reveals-the-man-behind-the-sos-letter-from-chinas/