Dozens of Canadians included in lawsuit over alleged abuse by NXIVM sex-cult leadership

U.S. suit includes claims against founders of cult and heiresses of Seagram's liquor empire

Jason Proctor

CBC News
February 11, 2020

A Vancouver woman who went public with allegations of sex slavery inside a cult-like self-empowerment group is among more than three dozen Canadians who are part of a lawsuit against the organization's inner circle.

Sarah Edmondson is suing the leaders of NXIVM — along with two heiresses of the Seagram's liquor fortune — for emotional and financial harm the actress claims to have suffered as a result of being intimidated and harassed as well as being branded with the initials of group leader Keith Raniere.

Edmondson and her husband are among a handful of named plaintiffs in a lawsuit together with 80 anonymous claimants — including 28 Canadian women and 13 Canadian men.

The lawsuit, filed at the end of January in the Eastern District of New York, claims Rainiere and others created and led a "Ponzi scheme and coercive community" designed to financially and emotionally abuse followers.

The suit claims millionaire sisters Clare and Sara Bronfman served in leadership positions in NXIVM, investing their vast wealth "to fund the operations and obstruct the ability of others to uncover the misconduct."

Raniere convicted of sex trafficking

The nearly 200-page court document provides new details about the extent to which Canadians were allegedly involved in NXIVM (pronounced Nexium) and its offshoots — claiming the group filed reports with Vancouver police to silence opponents.

Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking in New York last summer. The 58-year-old, known as Vanguard to his followers, is awaiting sentencing.

TV actress Allison Mack, best known for her role in the series Smallville, is also named in the suit. She pleaded guilty to racketeering in relation to NXIVM last year and is also awaiting sentencing.

Clare Bronfman admitted to harbouring someone living illegally in the U.S. and committing credit card charges on behalf of Reniere as part of a plea deal. She has yet to be sentenced.

Sara Bronfman has never faced any criminal charges.

At its height, NXIVM had thousands of members in New York, Vancouver and Los Angeles.

Edmondson, who belonged to the organization for 12 years, was a co-founder of the Vancouver chapter.

But she was also the first to go public about her recruitment and initiation into a secretive inner circle of female members described by prosecutors as "slaves" to Raniere.

'Collateral' included nude photos

As part of their initiation, the members of the group — known as DOS — gave secrets that could be used as damaging collateral should they fail to comply. Some were also branded in the pubic region with a symbol that appeared to be Raniere's initials.

In the lawsuit, Edmondson claims the defendants provided an edited video of her being branded that was aired in Mexico during the criminal trial, triggering panic attacks, psychological breakdowns and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Another Canadian actress — known as Jane Doe 8 — claims she was recruited into DOS by the Battlestar Galactica actress Nicki Clyne, who is also orginally from B.C.

According to the lawsuit, Clyne, who was married to Mack, now lives in Brooklyn.

Jane Doe 8 claims she was told to provide nude photographs and ordered to "provide additional collateral in the form of letters describing a false sexual attack by an actor."

Two other Canadian women — Jane Does 9 and 10 — also claim they were recruited into DOS.

Both claim they were told to provide collateral and each ultimately left the NXIVM community, remaining silent for fear of being sued or having their embarrassing secrets released.
'Human fright experiments'

The lawsuit also describes "human fright experiments" allegedly conducted on NXIVM followers.

One Canadian woman — Jane Doe 19 — claims she was asked to participate in a study in which she was connected to electrodes and shown "a video depicting the actual dismemberment of five women and movie scenes showing a gang rape and a racially motivated murder."

"Following the study, she was unable to sleep for 12 days," the lawsuit reads.

After Jane Doe 19 left NXIVM, she claims the group filed a report with the Vancouver police falsely accusing her of illegally accessing files.

She claims the VPD closed the investigation after learning the affected clients had left NXIVM.

According to the lawsuit, another Canadian woman — Jane Doe 28 — was selected to lead One Asian, a group for women of "East Asian heritage" tailored to produce "perfect humans" secretly considered by Raniere as "potentially suitable sexual partners."

Jane Doe 28 claims she was frequently summoned to NXIVM headquarters in Albany, N.Y., to wait for Raniere, who "would greet her with kisses on the lips and would try to hold her hand during business meetings."

A 'Society of Protectors'

The U.S. lawsuit does not detail the involvement of the Canadian male plaintiffs, beyond saying that they were allegedly emotionally and financially harmed by NXIVM.

But the court documents provide a general overview of a program called the Society of Protectors, founded by Raniere, that promoted men and masculinity.

Members called Raniere "Big Dog" and the men's group was allegedly framed as "NXIVM's equivalent to joining the military" complete with "doing penances, disciplines and readiness drills that would build character."

None of the defendants have filed responses to the lawsuit.

Lawyers for Sara and Clare Bronfman did not respond to emailed questions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Proctor
@proctor_jason

Jason Proctor is a reporter in British Columbia for CBC News and has covered the B.C. courts and mental health issues in the justice system extensively.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/nxivm-lawsuit-sex-cult-1.5458522?cmp=rss

Lawrence Ray: US student's dad charged for sex trafficking

Lawrence Ray faces charges including forced labour, extortion and sex trafficking

BBC
February 12, 2020

A man accused of abusing his daughter's university roommates has been arrested in the US and charged with extortion, sex trafficking and forced labour.

Prosecutors say Lawrence "Larry" Ray extorted some $1m (£771,000) from students at New York's Sarah Lawrence College, abusing them "emotionally, physically, and sexually".

The charges were prompted by a story in New York magazine, which detailed the alleged workings of Mr Ray's "cult".

Mr Ray, 60, has denied the allegations.

He was arrested on Tuesday in the state of New Jersey.

"For the better part of the last decade, we allege there was no limit to the abuse Ray's victims received, and there is no way of knowing the amount of damage he may have caused them in the years to come," said FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney.

What are the accusations?
According to New York magazine, the abuse started when Mr Ray showed up at his daughter's university in 2010, after being released from prison, where he had been serving time on charges related to a custody dispute.

He moved into his daughter's dormitory, where prosecutors say he presented himself as a father-figure and began conducting "therapy" sessions.

During the sessions, he allegedly learned intimate details about the students' private lives and mental health struggles. He alienated several of them from their parents, persuading some to move into a Manhattan apartment and convincing them that they were "broken" and needed his help.

After gaining their trust, prosecutors say Mr Ray subjected his victims to interrogation sessions in which he falsely accused them of harming him by attempting to poison him or damage his property. He allegedly demanded confessions, using tactics including sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and physical violence.

On one occasion, after accusing a male victim of damaging his property, Mr Ray brandished a knife and threatened to dismember the victim with it, forcing a false confession, the indictment says.

'Why I joined a cult - and how I left'
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He is accused of using the false confessions to extort money, which the victims attempted to pay by draining their parents' savings and opening credit lines, among other means. Authorities say he collected more than $500,000 from one woman after forcing her into prostitution, while several were forced to perform unpaid labour.

In total, he is accused of extorting about $1m from at least five victims.

Authorities say he laundered the proceeds of his crimes through an internet domain business.

Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said: "College is supposed to be a time of self-discovery and new-found independence. But as alleged, Lawrence Ray exploited that vulnerable time in his victims' lives through a course of conduct that shocks the conscience".

Mr Ray has denied the charges, claiming they are the result of a conspiracy against him.

In a statement reported by US media, Sarah Lawrence College described the charges as "serious, wide-ranging, disturbing, and upsetting".

It said it launched an internal investigation after the New York magazine story was published, which it said "did not substantiate those specific claims".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51481390

Why Extremists Need Therapy

Britain’s prisons struggle to deradicalize alienated young men. Those failures have wider lessons. 

Helen Lewis

The Atlantic

February 2020

How do you unmake a terrorist? It’s an urgent question, particularly for Britain. About 220 people are in prison for terror offenses in the country, the majority of whom are Islamists. Until recently, 20-year-old Sudesh Amman was one of them. He was released in January after serving half of a three-year sentence for possessing extremist material. Ten days later, he was shot dead by police after stabbing two people in South London.

It was the second such attack in just over two months. At the end of November, 28-year-old Usman Khan killed two people near London Bridge, also in a stabbing attack, and was also shot dead by police. He had completed two deradicalization programs as part of his 16-year sentence, of which he had also served half. His victims were fellow attendees at a conference on prisoner rehabilitation.

The political debate in Britain since the latest attack has focused heavily on why Amman was freed. He had qualified for automatic early release from prison, yet was considered enough of a threat to be given police surveillance. The government now wants to change the law so terror sympathizers serve longer sentences, and are subject to more stringent assessment before release. But that won’t entirely solve the problem. “If you’re not rehabilitating prisoners, whether you let them out in two or four years isn’t very important,” said Arthur Snell, the former head of the British government’s anti-extremist Prevent program at the Foreign Office who now runs a business -intelligence firm.

The courses Khan attended have not been fully evaluated, so their effectiveness is unknown. “I think we have to be very careful about saying someone has totally changed or has been cured,” the designer of one of them, Christopher Dean, said after the attack. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s view on deradicalization is perhaps too bleak—he told reporters after last weekend’s stabbings that “the instances of success are really very few”—but the programs are resource-intensive, and Britain’s poorly funded prisons are badly equipped to provide them.

The standard program involves multiple counseling sessions that encourage offenders to rethink their identity. The aim is not simply to provide inmates with an alternative, nonviolent version of their religion—Snell, who interviewed suspected terrorist detainees in Iraq, told me it was remarkable “how little your average Islamist knows about Islam.” The men, who had come from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, talked more like students taking a gap year than religious fanatics. “They almost universally were young men without much sense of direction or status, and by joining the insurgency in Iraq, they felt for the first time in their lives that they mattered, that they were doing something important, almost heroic,” he said. “So basically, it’s a mental health issue.”

The first part of deradicalization, then, is understanding individuals’ psychological state, previous trauma, and personal circumstances—not just their political and religious beliefs. “We used to work with a group who worked in U.K. prisons,” Moustafa Ayad, a deputy director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an international think tank, told me. “The way they described it was ‘deconstructing the terrorist and rebuilding the human.’ It’s not anything that’s set and planned.”

One of the hallmarks of a terrorist worldview is its rigidity: us and them, the righteous and the unbelievers. Cracking that is key to deradicalization, according to Rashad Ali, a former member of Hizb al-Tahrir, an Islamist group that Britain has repeatedly considered banning. Ali, now a senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told me that creating a “cognitive opening” to allow people to reevaluate their beliefs was vital.

In the context of the penal system, this is difficult. Muslims are overrepresented in British prisons compared with the population at large, which a government report found “could chime with the radicalisers’ message of the victimisation of Muslims.” Following the July 7, 2005 bombings in London, the scope of terror offenses was widened to include “glorifying” and advocating terrorism. Those jailed for such offenses—overwhelmingly men—are prime targets for further radicalization in prison, to move them from glorification to action. As well as training prison imams in counter-extremism, the report recommended isolation for the most extreme prisoners.

The recommendation to segregate extremists hints at one of the fundamental problems of tackling Islamist radicalization in prison: These are closed systems that can develop strong hierarchies. There have been reports of sharia councils in British jails, and of high-ranking terrorists appointing themselves as “emirs.” Hamas and other banned organizations have compiled manuals on surviving prison, Ayad said, and these “handbooks” include advice on how to fool deradicalization programs. The Hamas guide warns that “easy prey falls for the hunter’s rope” and tells prisoners not to engage with guards or admit guilt, while other documents give advice on staging what Ayad calls “a fabricated play co-ordinated with your brothers.” In other words, how to make false confessions. He adds, “Everybody running a ‘derad’ program needs to know that these strategies exist. We should never take people at face value.”

In fact, Ali said, confusion and uncertainty are often better signs that deradicalization is working than strong pledges that a person has changed. “You’re talking about people with black-and-white views on ethics; all their answers are put on a plate for them; they have strong identities and membership of a group,” he told me. “If someone breaks that black-and-white view—moral ennui, that’s what they’re going to face. It’s like leaving a cult. There’s a sense of having no community, an identity crisis, a morality crisis, maybe even becoming more isolated.” The question then, Ali said, was “how do we reconnect them, create a sense of belonging, help them re-find themselves?”

One place offering an answer is Saudi Arabia. The country is a world leader in deradicalization. (Of course, you could also argue that the kingdom, the original home of Osama bin Laden, is also a world leader in radicalization.) The Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care, as the name suggests, adopts a very different approach from Britain’si incarceration of extremists in overstretched prisons. The center has a swimming pool, art-therapy classes, and intensive counseling. More than 3,000 men have passed through it since it opened, and they are offered housing and other support—including help finding a wife—when they leave. It claims an 80 percent success rate.

Even if you take the Saudi program’s advertized success at face value, the lessons that democratic, liberal countries can learn from Saudi Arabia are inevitably limited—“If we were giving cars to former terrorists, we’d look really stupid,” Ayad said—but its investment in therapy, and focus on post-incarceration support, do highlight the issues with the British approach. In the U.K., prison deradicalization programs are voluntary, and short sentences offer no time to complete them anyway. Those sentences are themselves a problem: Several experts said they did not just fail to deradicalize extremists, but in many cases made the situation worse by increasing their sense of persecution and grievance. On release, British prisoners are given a £46 ($60) discharge grant and, if they are lucky, a place at a bail hostel. They are then expected to rebuild their life and find work largely on their own, except now they bear the stigma associated with a terror conviction.

Clearly, deradicalization can work—several academics currently working in the field are former extremists, and for more than a decade, one of Britain’s leading counter-extremism programs was run by a former al-Qaeda sympathizer who had traveled to Afghanistan. Was there any obvious difference between those who were successfully deradicalized and the others, I asked Snell. “A lot of them are very bright,” he said. They got interested in new ideas, learned new information—and their stark worldview began to crumble. Others, though, were unable to understand the moral choices they had made or the effects of their actions. “Not every individual can be changed,” Ali said. “Just like we can’t stop every terrorist attack … and that’s the conflict. We want to maintain that open society. There will always be individuals we can’t reach.”

Perhaps the best way to think of it is that every terrorist sympathizer who reaches prison already represents a failure—a demonstration of society’s inability to stop extremist ideas from flourishing. Snell acknowledges that the Prevent program, which was designed to tackle extremism, instead left many British Muslims feeling that their whole community was being stigmatized. It also initially failed to address the growing threat of far-right terrorism, and it tried to recruit unrelated public-sector workers, such as teachers, to spot potential extremists. But, Snell said, it did force the government to recognize the root causes—the isolation, the lack of role models, the foreign-policy narratives—that contribute to extremism.

Amman’s journey to that street in Streatham, South London, was a long path, strewed with failures. As the government responds to the most obvious—the fact that he was released when probation staff still believed he was a threat—it should not forget others. Could he have been deradicalized? Unlike many of the Islamist fighters Snell encountered, Amman had a strong knowledge of the Koran, according to his father. But in other respects he fit a common pattern of would-be terrorists: minor criminal convictions for possessing cannabis and an offensive weapon, a controlling relationship with his girlfriend, feelings of grievance and alienation. The year and a half he spent in prison appears to have driven him deeper into an extremist mindset, rather than breaking it down.

“Punishment is in political vogue,” Snell told me. But punishment alone doesn’t unmake terrorists. No one in Britain would argue that extremists should be given an apartment, much less a spouse, but they do need a new life purpose to replace a perceived feeling of an existential struggle. They also need all the things that the British prison system struggles to give any inmate: mental-health support, education, training, and a future.HELEN LEWIS is a London-based staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/02/britain-london-terrorism-deradicalization/606376/

Quebec knew about religious schools in Hasidic community for decades, trial hears

Lawyer for ex-Hasidic couple questions Education Ministry officials over government inaction

Benjamin Shingler

CBC News
February 11. 2020

For decades, the Quebec government was aware that schools in the Hasidic community of Tash, north of Montreal, were operating without a permit and failing to provide children with an adequate secular education, a courtroom heard Tuesday.

Bruce Johnston, a lawyer for 42-year-old Yohanan Lowen and his wife Shifra, 41, questioned an Education Ministry bureaucrat about the government's years of inaction on the second day of a trial pitting the former Hasidic Jewish couple against the province and the community they grew up in.

The Lowens, now married and living in Montreal, say they missed out on learning the basics, including French and English, math and geography, leaving them ill-prepared for life in the outside world.

They are seeking a declaratory judgment that would force the province to ensure children who attend private religious schools are taught the provincial curriculum.

In court, Johnston acknowledged that the province faces "complex" challenges in tracking the education of children in a religious community such as Tash, which was founded in 1962.

But he asked Maryse Malenfant, a former director at the Education Ministry whose job was to oversee private schools, to explain why nothing had been done, despite a 1995 report showing religious schools had been operating in the community since 1980.

Johnston pointed to a letter sent to parents in 2007, asking her to explain why there had been no communication with families prior to that point.

"I can't," Malenfant told the court. "As far as I know this was the first time."

Malenfant recounted how, in the ensuing years, the Education Ministry more closely monitored students and the schools.

But she acknowledged there were still problems when the province's youth protection agency conducted an assessment of students at those schools in 2014 and 2015.

Those assessments found that boys, in particular, showed a lack of understanding of secular subjects, the court heard Monday.
Home-schooling now in place

One of the key questions in the trial is to what extent the situation has improved since those assessments were done.

In 2017, the former Liberal government reached a compromise with several religious schools, permitting children to study the provincial curriculum at home with their parents or a tutor under the supervision of a local school board.

The Coalition Avenir Québec government tightened those rules further to ensure students learn a subject in the same year as their peers in public school and take part in mandated provincial exams.

Caroline Kelly, the Education Ministry director overseeing home-schooling, told the court that roughly 830 students from Tash take part in the program, with the oversight of the Sir Wilfred Laurier School Board, and it has been successful.

She said all home-schooled children in the province are required to follow the same rules.

A December 2019 report prepared by the Sir Wilfed Laurier board and presented in court Tuesday noted parents in Tash often have difficulty teaching their children the curriculum, given they aren't familiar with the material themselves.

The school board said it had prepared a "master document" to help parents track their children's learning.

The trial continues Wednesday and is expected to last two weeks.

The Lowens, whose legal names are Yochonon Lowen and Clara Wasserstein, are among those expected to testify.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/yohanen-lowen-hasidic-quebec-lawsuit-day-2-1.5459628

Sarah Lawrence Parent Accused of Sex Trafficking and Abusing Students

Lawrence Ray was charged with moving into his daughter’s dormitory and targeting her friends for exploitation.


By Benjamin Weiser
The New York Times
February 11, 2020

Lawrence V. Ray showed up at his daughter’s elite college, in a New York City suburb, in late 2010, shortly after being released from prison, and moved into her dormitory. Soon, he started doing “therapy sessions” with her roommates, convincing them he could help with their problems.

Over time, using threats and coercion, he persuaded the young adults he first met at the school, Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, N.Y., to confess to crimes they had not committed and then extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from them, prosecutors said.

He eventually compelled some of them to work without pay on his family property in North Carolina, and he threatened others with knives. He forced one young woman into prostitution, taking nearly everything she made from selling sex to strangers, the prosecutors said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Ray, 60, was charged in a federal indictment in Manhattan with conspiracy, extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor and related charges. For eight years, through 2018, the indictment said, Mr. Ray “subjected his victims to sexual and psychological manipulation and physical abuse.”

“For the better part of the last ten years, Ray has continued to mentally and physically torture his victims,” William F. Sweeney Jr., the head of the F.B.I. office in New York, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The charges depict Mr. Ray as a man who exploited his victims, initially college sophomores, like a cult leader, learning intimate details of their private lives and their mental health struggles under the pretense of helping them.

He alienated several of the young adults from their parents, convincing them that they were “‘broken’ and in need of fixing” by him, the indictment said.

“For so many of us and our children, college is supposed to be a time of self-discovery and newfound independence, a chance to explore and learn, all within the safety of a college community,” Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said at the news conference announcing the charges.

Mr. Ray “exploited that vulnerable time in these victims’ lives through a course of conduct that shocks the conscience,” Mr. Berman said.

Mr. Ray’s extortion scheme relied on false confessions that he extracted from his victims, using tactics like sleep deprivation, psychological and sexual humiliation, verbal abuse, physical violence and threats of legal action, the indictment charged. He got them to falsely confess to damaging property, stealing from him and in some cases to trying to poison him, then used those confessions as leverage, the indictment said.

Mr. Ray was also accused of laundering about $1 million he obtained from his victims, the indictment said. He was arrested on Tuesday morning at his home in Piscataway, N.J.

The investigation that led to the charges against Mr. Ray was prompted by an article in New York magazine in April titled “The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence,” a law enforcement official said.

Mr. Ray played a central role in the state and federal prosecutions of the disgraced former police commissioner of New York, Bernard B. Kerik, and previously acted as an informant for the F.B.I., law enforcement officials said.

Mr. Ray was best man at Mr. Kerik’s wedding and paid for much of the event, according to news reports.

Weeks later, Mr. Kerik recommended Mr. Ray for a $100,000-a-year job with a New Jersey-based construction firm with tens of millions of dollars in city contracts, law enforcement officials said.

In the New York magazine article, Mr. Kerik was quoted as saying: “Larry Ray is a psychotic con man who has victimized every friend he’s ever had. It’s been close to 20 years since I last heard from him, yet his reign of terror continues.”

Sarah Lawrence said in a statement that the school had just learned of Mr. Ray’s indictment, and called the charges “serious, wide-ranging, disturbing and upsetting.” The school said it would cooperate with investigators if asked.

“As always, the safety and well-being of our students and alumni is a priority for the college,” the statement said.

The school also said that after the New York magazine article was published last year, the school undertook an investigation into the accusations of Mr. Ray’s activities on the campus in 2011, but “did not substantiate those specific claims.”

In 2000, Mr. Ray was indicted with 18 other defendants in what federal prosecutors called a stock fraud scheme run by members of organized crime. He pleaded guilty in 2003 and was sentenced to probation.

He later served time in a New Jersey state prison on charges stemming from a child custody dispute. It was after his release in New Jersey that Mr. Ray moved in with his daughter in student housing at Sarah Lawrence.

During the months he spent living at the school, Mr. Ray “laid the groundwork for psychological conditioning that would eventually lead these young adults to become unwitting victims of sexual exploitation, verbal and physical abuse, extortion, forced labor and prostitution,” Mr. Sweeney said.

In the summer of 2011, the indictment said, some of the Sarah Lawrence students moved with Mr. Ray into a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he continued to exploit them.

The indictment also charged that Mr. Ray subjected his daughter’s friends to interrogation sessions that often lasted hours at a time and escalated into verbal and physical abuse. He would falsely accuse them of damaging his apartment and property and of lying about him and his family, the indictment said.

Around 2013, the indictment said, Mr. Ray took some of his victims to Pinehurst, N.C., where he forced them to perform manual labor on his family’s property, including the installation of an irrigation system, purportedly to repay money he claimed they owed him.

He forced one woman to work as a prostitute from 2014 to 2018, and took more than $500,000 from the money she earned, the authorities said. Mr. Ray was also physically violent with her, and once tied her to a chair, placed a plastic bag over her head and nearly suffocated her, the indictment charged.

The indictment also said that Mr. Ray extorted $1 million from five of his victims, which he shared with two unidentified associates who helped him collect the money. “Some victims drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from their parents’ savings accounts at Ray’s direction,” Mr. Berman said.

On the college campus on Tuesday, a number of students said they had been aware of the New York magazine article and felt relief at Mr. Ray’s arrest. But they expressed concern his actions had evaded the attention of the authorities for so long.

“It’s pretty shocking that it’s taken 10 years to get this guy charged,” said Wyatt Button, 20, a sophomore who is studying film.

Audrey McGonagle, 18, a freshman studying dance, said that although Mr. Ray’s stay on campus was some years ago, she felt uncomfortable when she visited the dorm, Slomin 9, where Mr. Ray had installed himself with his daughter and her friends.

“It’s just creepy,” Ms. McGonagle said.

William K. Rashbaum, Ashley Southall, Sean Piccoli and Laura Dimon contributed reporting.

Correction: Feb. 11, 2020

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this story misstated the year when students and Lawrence V. Ray moved to Manhattan apartment. It was 2011, not 2010.

Benjamin Weiser is a reporter covering the Manhattan federal courts. He has long covered criminal justice, both as a beat and investigative reporter. Before joining The Times in 1997, he worked at The Washington Post. @BenWeiserNYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/nyregion/larry-ray-sarah-lawrence-sex.html

Creditors closing in on ‘hot yoga’ guru Bikram Choudhury’s cars

Noah Manskar

NY Post

February 9, 2020

Authorities have seized nearly two dozen vintage automobiles owned by the disgraced yoga master, capping a three-year pursuit by creditors including women who have sued him for sexual harassment, The Post has learned.

Bikram ChoudhuryGetty Images

Half of Bikram Choudhury’s luxury car collection has finally been chased down — and it’s ready for the auction block.

Authorities have seized nearly two dozen vintage automobiles owned by the disgraced yoga master, capping a three-year pursuit by creditors including women who have sued him for sexual harassment, The Post has learned.

The pervy guru — who lured stars like Madonna, George Clooney and David Beckham to his “hot yoga” classes, only to flee the country amid a slew of rape and sexual assault allegations from former students — had stashed the 22 cars in a Miami warehouse in 2016 to keep them out of at least one of his alleged victims’ hands, court documents say.

But in December, Miami police quietly seized Choudhury’s fleet, law-enforcement officials confirmed to The Post. Among the pricey rides are a 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III — the same model that appeared in the 1964 James Bond flick “Goldfinger,” and that was used by its namesake villain to smuggle gold.

The eye-popping collection boasts a dozen Rolls-Royces in all, as well as five Bentleys, a 1966 Jaguar M10, a 1971 Pontiac Lemans, a 1969 Murano, a specially constructed Ford GT40 and a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1, court records show.

The rest of the collection, which includes three Ferraris and six Mercedes-Benzes, is allegedly still at large.

The seized vehicles — whose “hypothetical” sales value could range from $800,000 to $1.5 million — are set to be auctioned off March 20 and March 21 at Palm Beach International Raceway, paving the way for some of Choudhury’s alleged victims to get paid, court records show.

Nevertheless, the women — including Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, an Oxford-educated lawyer who won $6.6 million from a wrongful termination suit against Choudhury — are only likely to get a small fraction of what they’re owed.

“The projected revenue generated from the car sales will nowhere be enough to satisfy the creditors,” Robbin Itkin, the trustee appointed to handle Choudhury’s corporate bankruptcy, said in a November complaint against him.

That’s partly because the bankrupt yogi has bent over backwards to hide the extensive car collection from creditors, according to court papers. The cars went missing after a Los Angeles jury ruled that Choudhury had illegally fired Jafa-Bodden after she started investigating his alleged sexual misconduct.

A few months after the verdict, Choudhury in December 2016 enlisted the help of a businessman known as “Elo” in spiriting at least 23 of his rides from Las Vegas to the Miami warehouse, court documents allege.

Less than a year later in November 2017 — facing some $16 million in legal judgments, mostly for his accusers — Choudhury filed for bankruptcy protection. Itkin was appointed as trustee the next year at the behest of the Justice Department, which cited Choudhury’s “gross mismanagement” of his own companies.

Itkin snapped up 22 of Choudhury’s cars at a Jan. 22 sheriff’s sale in Miami, a step that she said allowed her to avoid lengthy litigation to get them back. They’re now technically the property of Choudhury’s estates, but Itkin plans to sell them at auction.

Anything is better than nothing,” Itkin told The Post. “Anything we can do to try to give something back to the people who are owed money is better than the situation where we are now.”

A lawyer for Choudhury did not provide comment for this story.

Choudhury found international fame and fortune through his signature routine of 26 yoga poses performed over 90 minutes in stifling 105-degree heat. But his cult of personality also gave Bikram Yoga a seedy underbelly of sexual predation, his former staffers and students have alleged.

Jafa-Bodden and at least eight other women have accused Choudhury since 2013 of rape, sexual assault or harassment, allegations that got renewed attention last year with the release of the Netflix documentary “Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator.”

Choudhury has denied the accusations, saying he would not need to force himself on anyone because women line up to sleep with him. He has not faced criminal charges.

“Why I have to harass women? People spend $1 million for one drop of my sperm,” Choudhury said in a 2016 interview with HBO’s “Real Sports.”

One of Choudhury’s alleged sexual exploits even took place in a car. Petra Starke, a former Obama administration staffer who went to work for Choudhury in 2013, said in a lawsuit that she saw Choudhury demand a 23-year-old yoga instructor give him oral sex in a limousine from New York to Atlantic City.

It’s unclear from the complaint whether he owned that limo.

https://nypost.com/2020/02/09/half-of-disgraced-yoga-master-bikram-choudhurys-car-collection-seized/

Why I Left the Transcendental Meditation Movement ~ ex TM teacher PATRICK RYAN

Talk Beliefs
February 2, 2020

"At age 17, Patrick Ryan joined the Transcendental Meditation ('TM') movement, following the teachings of master Maharishi. He rose through the ranks, promoting and teaching TM - which included highly-secretive courses on how to levitate and become invisible.

Patrick became disillusioned with his life in TM when he began to see inconsistencies and lies within the sect. Now he speaks out and helps others who have been inside - or who are still inside - cults.

MARK from Talk Beliefs continues his interview with Patrick, hearing the fascinating and often highly-bizarre tale of exiting the group and beginning a new life.


WATCH PART ONE: Why I Joined the Transcendental Meditation Movement ~ ex TM teacher PATRICK RYAN: http://bit.ly/395Uiop


PATRICK RYAN is the founder and former head of TM-EX, the organization of ex-members of Transcendental Meditation.  He established ICSA’s online resource (1995-2013), was the editor of AFF News, a news publication for former cult members (1995-1998),is co-author of “Ethical Standards for Thought Reform Consultants,” and writes for the CULTS101 newsletter."

LINKS FOR PATRICK RYAN:

• http://cultmediation.com/
• https://www.intervention101.com/ - how to effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
• http://cultrecovery101.com/ - renewing individual choice.
• http://www.cults101.org - news, links, resources.
• http://www.cultnews101.com - up-to-the-minute news on today's cult activity.

TM Free Blog: https://tmfree.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultnews101/

Twitter: @cultNEWS101

Why I Joined the Transcendental Meditation Movement~ ex TM teacher PATRICK RYAN

Talk Beliefs
February 1, 2020

"At age 17, Patrick Ryan joined the Transcendental Meditation ('TM') movement, following the teachings of master Maharishi. He rose through the ranks, promoting and teaching TM - which included highly-secretive courses on how to levitate and become invisible."

"Patrick became disillusioned with his life in TM when he began to see inconsistencies and lies within the sect. Now he speaks out and helps others who have been inside - or who are still inside - cults.

MARK from Talk Beliefs speaks with Patrick from his home in Philadelphia, hearing how a skeptical High School newspaper reporter became entranced with mystical teachings that promised him he could fly...

PATRICK RYAN is the founder and former head of TM-EX, the organization of ex-members of Transcendental Meditation.  He established ICSA’s online resource (1995-2013), was the editor of AFF News, a news publication for former cult members (1995-1998), is co-author of “Ethical Standards for Thought Reform Consultants,” and writes for the Cult News 101 newsletter."

Look for the conclusion of Patrick's amazing story: Why I Left the Transcendental Meditation Movement https://youtu.be/9VXldA-3A3Q


LINKS FOR PATRICK RYAN:

• http://cultmediation.com/
• https://www.intervention101.com/ - how to effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
• http://cultrecovery101.com/ - renewing individual choice.
• http://www.cults101.org - news, links, resources.
• http://www.cultnews101.com - up-to-the-minute news on today's cult activity.

TM Free Blog: https://tmfree.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultnews101/

Twitter: @cultNEWS101

THE YOGI AND THE INVENTOR: THE FRIENDSHIP OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA AND NIKOLA TESLA

FEBRUARY 26, 2018 BY 

FAENA ALEPH

Awaken

One day, science encountered wisdom in a chance meeting between Tesla and the yogi Swami Vivekananda.

In an incredible moment of lucidity, it’s just possible that in the India of the Vedas everything concerning the nature of the world and reality had already been discovered. Consequently, everything said since then is but a commentary on the wisdom contained within those sacred texts. Does this hypothesis seem extravagant?

In 1896, actress Sarah Bernhardt starred in a play called Iziel. In the words of one attendee, it was a “French reading of the life of the Buddha.” Roughly speaking, the play was developed around a courtesan, Iziel, who attempted to seduce the Buddha while he meditated at the foot of the legendary fig tree where he achieved enlightenment. The Buddha took advantage of Iziel’s advances to preach about the world’s vanity. The play was one of the many Western expressions of interest in the doctrines of the East and specifically for the Vedanta, one of the six Hindu schools of philosophy based on the Vedas.

At least that’s how Swami Vivekananda understood it. One night in February of the same year he went to see a performance of Iziel. Vivekananda was already a yogi recognized for his knowledge of the sacred texts and especially for his having been the favorite student of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, one of the 19th-century’s most remarkable yogis. Ramakrishna had several mystical experiences and was considered an incarnation of the Supreme Brahman. Within this context, Vivekananda was a decisive link between his teacher and the West. Although he’d been born and trained in Calcutta, since his youth, his knowledge of Western culture was as vast as his interest in Vedantic doctrine. That combination, along with Ramakrishna’s tutelage, made Vivekananda an enthusiastic promoter of Vedantic wisdom outside of India.

Sarah Bernhardt knew all of this, or at least, she knew who Swami Vivekananda was. On seeing him among the audience in the theater that night, she immediately arranged a meeting with him at the end of the performance.

Everything seemed to happen by chance. But sometimes, coincidences themselves are suspended within the universe, and for just a moment, they altogether cease to exist.

The meeting after the play was also to include Nikola Tesla. At 39 years old, he’d already invented the AC motor and developed and patented other electrical inventions, and thus received the income necessary to found the Nikola Tesla Company. At this extremely fertile time in his own life, Tesla was excited not only by what he’d achieved but by the new fields of research that his own discoveries had opened up.

During the evening, Vivekananda and Tesla met and began to speak. To the surprise of both of them, the conversation turned to topics of mutual interest. For Vivekananda, because they covered the very substance of life, and for Tesla, because he unexpectedly found inspiration and confirmation of some of the ideas he could then only barely perceive.

Among other things, Vivekananda and Tesla discussed the notions of prâna, âkâsha, and kalpas, three elementary concepts of the Vedantic doctrine. Respectively, these can be understood as vital energy, the ether, and the idea of ​​the aeon. Prâna might be understood as a unit of energy, âkâsha as matter, and kalpas as time. According to Vivekananda, on that very night, Tesla assured him that ideas of such a long tradition in Hinduism could find an echo in modern Western science. On the other hand, Tesla considered himself capable of mathematically demonstrating that force and material could both be expressed in terms of energy. This notion is, in turn, very close to Hindu religious thought. “In that case,” Swami Vivekananda later wrote in a letter outlining the meeting, “the Vedantic cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations.”

1-22-1

This was also the beginning of the friendship between the yogi and the inventor. Each found an interlocutor who, from his own position, nevertheless had a possibility of proximity to the other. Tesla continued to pursue his interest in the doctrine of the Vedas. Some years later, he didn’t hesitate to use some of its terms (precisely the ideas of ​​prâna and âkâsha) to describe the physical phenomena he’d been researching.

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration,” wrote the inventor. One might wonder if, at the moment he realized this universal maxim, he hadn’t been experiencing the rapture of a yogi, or a mystic.

https://www.awaken.com/2020/01/the-yogi-and-the-inventor-the-friendship-of-swami-vivekananda-and-nikola-tesla/

This YouTube School Promised True Love. Students Say They Got Exploited Instead

Former students of Twin Flames Universe say they were manipulated by a YouTuber couple claiming a special connection with God.

Sarah Berman
Vice
February 5, 2020

Lenae Burchell was all set to fly from Texas to Toronto in July 2019 to meet a couple who she credited with changing her life, and starting her down a healing path.

Since January 2019 Burchell had been a devoted member of an online spirituality school called Twin Flames Universe, led by two glassy-eyed Michigan YouTubers calling themselves Jeff and Shaleia. Burchell, a 30-year-old single mom, had bought tickets for a two-day “ascension workshop” in Canada the weekend of July 27 and 28. Marketing materials for the event promised participants would “experience heaven on Earth.” For Burchell, it was supposed to be a rare opportunity to meet the Twin Flames Universe founders for the first time.

Jeff and Shaleia, who previously went by the names Ender Ayanethos and Megan Plante, have released hundreds of online videos over the last five years about relationships, finding purpose, and fringe New Age concepts. The couple, who claim to share a special spiritual connection with God and each other, charge upwards of $4,000 for access to more exclusive videos, workshops, and one-on-one “mind alignment” therapies. Their videos and accompanying social media forums cater to viewers who feel lost and alone, and who want to find acceptance and true love.

Twin Flames Universe, also called Twin Flame Ascension School and LifePurposeClass.com, trades in a specific kind of true love that requires a belief in souls and reincarnation. The school claims to help students find their “twin flame,” a more intense version of a soul mate. “A twin flame is your best friend in the entire universe,” Jeff told YouTube viewers in 2017. “This person was designed for you by God, and you were designed for this person by God, to be your eternal companion… for all of eternity.”

Burchell says she quickly became one of the most committed Twin Flames students in the community, posting in the Facebook group regularly, watching new videos, and calling in to weekly group sessions on Google Hangouts. She spent as much as 30 hours a week, outside of her full-time government job and single-parenting duties, keeping up with coursework, building lists of potential new students, and making sales calls—all time she volunteered for no compensation. Burchell grew obsessed with attracting her suggested “twin flame”—a married man Burchell met at her gym. After repeated spiritual exercises that seemed to encourage fixation, she said she showed up at his work uninvited to prove her “alignment” with love and God. Burchell counts herself lucky that she was never arrested or subject to a restraining order—unlike other members of the group.

Burchell did not end up getting on a plane to Toronto. A week before her trip, she decided to leave Twin Flames Universe, disconnect from everyone on social media, and never look back—a decision sparked by a blowout fight with her family. Now Burchell is joining a growing group of ex-members speaking out against the couple who they say built a cult empire by exploiting their students.

VICE spoke to a half dozen ex-students of Twin Flames Universe, as well as three parents of current members. Former students say they were gaslit and manipulated into volunteering hundreds of hours of free labour, exploited for thousands of dollars, discouraged from seeking professional mental healthcare, and cut off from their families. Parents say their kids are pressured to cut off all family contact unless they send money.

Some students faced arrest and involuntary psychiatric treatment in the wake of their involvement with Twin Flames Universe, ex-members said. VICE has also reviewed group messages between Twin Flames’ highest ranks discussing how to handle a student’s death by suicide.

In Facebook posts the couple leading Twin Flames Universe openly call themselves “the Master Christ,” and their associates are now attempting to start a tax-exempt church based on their teachings, according to Jeff.

Janja Lalich, a cult expert and professor emeritus at California State University, Chico, told VICE that Twin Flames Universe fits into a constellation of self-help and wellness cults that sell sweeping answers to life’s biggest problems, and disguise thought reform and manipulation practices as therapy. “It’s part of this whole movement,” she said. “Part of this kind of fix-it-quick culture we have in America.”

When asked for comment, Jeff and Shaleia denied they are running a cult. “A cult is a (sic) organization of abuse that systematically takes from and harms its members to enrich its founder,” Jeff wrote in one of several emails to VICE. “We created an organization of love and harmony which heals and enriches everyone in it and everyone who is connected to anyone in it.”

Jeff acknowledged that he and Shaleia have referred to themselves as “The Master Christ, eternal ruler of all Creation by God's loving hand" online, but countered that they believe everyone else is Christ, too. “To call someone ‘Christ’ is to reference their natural and harmonious relationship with their Divine Creator,” he wrote.

Cult or not, what’s clear is Jeff and Shaleia seem to be doing well for themselves. In videos the couple claim to drive a Corvette, lease a Porsche, and afford other expensive luxuries as a result of their spiritual business. “Shaleia and I have become wealthy from sharing the blessing of our work with the world. This is the American Dream, to come from nothing and make something of yourself,” Jeff wrote. But he also denied being motivated by money: “What we do has never been driven by money, but by a desire to heal suffering in the world.”

Burchell says she didn’t know any of this when she stumbled on to the group while googling soulmate and twin flame theories in January 2019. What she found was a tight-knit online community of open-minded people from all over the world, who accepted her obsession and heartbreak over her unrequited feelings for a married man. Members shared their struggles and triumphs, and credited Jeff and Shaleia with guiding their spiritual process.

Burchell said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2012, several years before she found Twin Flames Universe. She had tried psychotherapy and was looking for more ways to deal with her trauma, which she said left her prone to blaming herself for the actions of others. At first Twin Flames gave her an online space to talk about her emotional triggers with an assigned coach, but over time the group grew more demanding.

In an email to VICE, Jeff echoed mental health claims pulled from their “mind alignment process” website. The company claims their “healing modality” dramatically reduces symptoms of PTSD and resolves childhood trauma. “We have been able to help others achieve miraculous results in their lives without harming themselves or others in any way,” he told VICE. If Jeff’s use of “miraculous” isn’t troubling enough, he also made claims about curing cancer via one extremely vague anecdote. “I once had a client with stage four terminal breast cancer,” he wrote in an email to VICE. “During the time I worked with her, her medical reports indicated decreased signs of cancer and the tumor in her breast decreased in size. These findings were from her doctors… I believe physical diseases have spiritual roots.”

Burchell was not alone in joining the group in the middle of heartbreak and trauma, nor was she the only one to find a sense of meaning and purpose at first. Burchell says the inner circle told her that God had chosen her to join the company and their spiritual mission. She paid hundreds a month for coaching and workshops, and started coaching others.


Over time students like Burchell, who showed obedience and contributed lots of hours, were promoted to positions of power over others. Burchell says she’s a natural leader, and was selected by the inner circle to work on recruitment and launching a new branch of the company. Conversely, ex-members say students who asked too many questions or tried to establish boundaries were demoted and punished.

Twin Flames students paid $2,222 for unlimited access to relationship videos, $1,899 for unlimited life purpose videos, and about $200 per session for one-on-one work with a coach. If members sold a lifetime membership worth $2,222, they were eligible for a 10 percent commission—a milestone Burchell never reached during her six months of work. Another ex-student VICE spoke to said she quit her job at a top medical school to do social media, coaching and outreach for the group full-time.

Twin Flames Universe conflates romance and enlightenment in disturbing ways, ex-members say. Achieving “harmonious union” with a twin flame was promoted as a cure-all for life problems, while sickness or romantic failure was often attributed to not “aligning” with God or the group. Through repeated “mind alignment” exercises that reinforced these beliefs, ex-students say they learned to fear leaving the group, or going against Jeff and Shaleia’s orders.

Instead of encouraging Burchell to move on from the man she met at the gym, she says the group affirmed that he was her “twin flame,” and said that any rejection was a result of her own failure to do spiritual work.

Like other students, Burchell said she was encouraged to constantly think about her twin flame. “I was a crazy person to him. He would tell me things like ‘I don’t want to see you, we’ll never be together,’” Burchell told VICE. “Normal Lanae would be like ‘Yeah, I’m going to respect this person’s boundaries.’”

Burchell says that her thought process was far from normal. Through group pressure and concentrated bullying tactics, she grew dependent on direction from Twin Flames Universe. She says she was coached into escalating contact, including showing up at his work and gym. “You get to the point where you think, I’ve done so much healing work on this. I know I can show up,” she said.

Burchell said any criticism about the group’s coaching and decision making was shot down and turned around on her. “I was told I was just upset about something,” she said. Burchell’s “upset” was characterized as a product of not loving herself enough, or not aligning herself with God, she said.

Some students who resisted coaching were berated and shamed by the group. “Welcome to the real world folks, where scumbags will rape you until you die,” reads one Facebook post signed by “Jeff on Shaleia’s phone” on March 18, 2019, which blames students for not selling enough courses. “Jeff was not being a mean old ass. He was showing you reality. A reality you absolutely refused to see, even when it has been happening to you for weeks while you watch all that you love choke and die.”

Though Jeff maintains the “strong language” in the post is part of his own “blunt, unabashedly human” writing style, ex-students now call it a form of gaslighting and manipulation.

“People with trauma already blame themselves for nine out of 10 things,” Burchell said. “They’re easy to be targeted. They’ll easily accept OK yes this is me—there’s something wrong and I’m the problem.”

Burchell discovered through inner circle group chats that a student had died by suicide in April 2019, which ultimately contributed to her decision to leave. In messages viewed by VICE, one member of the Twin Flames “executive board” said the woman declined one-on-one “mind alignment” therapy sessions with Jeff shortly before her suicide. In the chat, group members offered each other support, but decided not to recognize or remember the student in the larger Facebook group.

The website and Facebook page for Twin Flames’ “mind alignment” process now include a disclaimer encouraging students experiencing suicidal thoughts to contact a suicide prevention hotline. The disclaimer echoes one posted by another spirituality influencer named Teal Swan, who sells a similarly named “completion” process. Both groups borrow from other traditional and pseudoscientific therapies, according to ex members who have studied cognitive behavioural therapy and internal family systems therapy.

Another ex-member, who has asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said she joined Twin Flames in the aftermath of a serious health scare and a breakup with an abusive partner. She told VICE that she was also coached to ignore rejection and escalate contact with her so-called twin flame, even after he filed a restraining order. She says the group encouraged her to violate that court order, resulting in an arrest and ongoing legal issues.

Parents of current Twin Flames Universe students told VICE their kids have been coached not to speak to their families, unless they support the group or send money. Louise Cole, whose daughter joined the group in 2018, said her 28-year-old daughter blocked her from calling and contacting her on social media in early 2019.

Cole describes her daughter as a “go-getter” who has worked in the Peace Corps and taught English overseas. At first Cole said she thought her daughter was taking classes on Chinese medicine, not sinking cash into a New Age YouTube channel.

“I didn’t connect all the dots,” she said. “She’d always been responsible, level-headed, smart with money.” Cole estimates she put as much as $5,000 toward Twin Flames-related travel, classes, and accommodations before her daughter cut off the whole family.

Two other parents VICE spoke to shared similar stories of scarce contact dictated by the group. One mom said she only heard back after sending thousands of dollars. She asked to remain anonymous out of a fear that speaking out against Twin Flames could prolong excommunication.

Lalich told VICE that family separation is a common tactic used in cults. “It keeps the person isolated, it keeps them from having outside sources that can give them feedback or raise questions,” Lalich said.

When asked about family separations, Jeff and Sheleia told VICE they’ve never pressured anyone to do anything, and that all their members are adults.

Gregory Abbey was a 29-year-old music producer living in Belgium when he first came across Jeff and Shaleia’s life purpose classes in 2015. He was following a handful of other spirituality and self-help YouTubers when their videos popped up in his feed.

“I was just searching for someone I can relate to,” he said. “Someone I can talk to about the cosmos, science, art—everything.”

Like Burchell, Abbey says he has a history of mental health issues, including complex post-traumatic stress disorder that stems from his childhood. He suggests his experience with trauma and a lack of boundaries growing up might have made it more difficult for him to recognize red flags.

Abbey didn’t invest as much time and money as other members he knew—he says he mostly stuck to the free videos and the public Facebook discussion. When he did pay for exclusive classes, he noticed inconsistencies between the glowing testimonials in free YouTube posts, and the emotional pain and financial struggles students expressed in private workshops.

About a year into Abbey’s membership with Twin Flames Universe, he was encouraged to romantically pursue a woman who was already part of the group. His discomfort eventually led him to come out as asexual. “All my life I’ve sort of known this, but I’m asexual,” Abbey said. “I never understood it. I always felt alone and odd, this weird artsy dude with no sexual attraction toward anyone.”

Abbey left the group in 2017 after Jeff allegedly scammed him into creating an album’s worth of music for no compensation. “I put a lot of work into it, I didn’t get credited, mentioned, or paid,” he said. “Jeff just tricked me.” (Jeff did not address VICE’s questions about unpaid labour.)

Though ex-members like Abbey and Burchell have been shunned and blocked by their former social circle, they have since found each other and banded together to warn others. One woman VICE spoke to said her sister encouraged her to write a Reddit post about her experience, which has become a landing page for excommunicated members and families looking for support.

Parents of current students say they’ve called Michigan police in hopes that more will be done to hold the couple accountable. Others say they plan to file a civil lawsuit against Twin Flames Universe.

Twin Flames Universe founders Jeff and Shaleia told VICE they are aware of ex-members’ legal complaints, but attributed much of the backlash to “consistent, brutal attack” by one former student.

“We have heard of some people contacting police and threatening to pursue legal action, but nothing ever transpired because we are doing nothing even remotely illegal,” Jeff wrote. “We are aware of what is right and wrong and we consciously and diligently ensure that everything we do is legal and moral.”

The local police department in Farmington Hills, Michigan, where parents say they filed complaints, would not confirm they’ve received reports or whether an investigation is ongoing.

Despite everything that happened to him and others, Abbey says he didn’t think the group was a cult until many years after he “instinctively” blocked everyone on social media.

“If I look back on everything I experienced, it’s a pool of toxicity,” Abbey said. “I thought I was perfectly fine until I was out of it.”

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/v747x4/this-youtube-school-promised-true-love-students-say-they-got-exploited-instead

Book reveals new details about NC’s infamous Word of Faith Fellowship ‘cult’

Raleigh News & Observer

BY BROOKE CAIN

FEBRUARY 05, 2020  

Former members of the Word of Faith Fellowship claim to the Associated Press that they were victims of years of abuse from the church. BY MCCLATCHY

Two award-winning journalists have written a book revealing new details about an infamous North Carolina church — often characterized as a cult — that has been at the center of federal criminal investigations and the subject of numerous news reports and true crime documentaries.

"Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America's Most Dangerous Cults" by Associated Press investigative reporters Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr takes a close look at the Spindale church and its head, Jane Whaley, and paints a chilling portrait of life inside the secretive organization.

Word of Faith Fellowship, near Rutherfordton, has been the center of attention for decades, after former members reported allegations of disturbing mental and physical abuse of children (and babies), intimidation and separation of children from parents and forced labor. In 2018, four congregants faced federal charges connected to an unemployment benefits scheme.

The church was the subject of a damning six-part A&E documentary series that was supposed to air in November 2018 — a series that never ran because it was blocked by Word of Faith attorneys.

Word of Faith Fellowship, which has thousands of congregants across three continents, has denied wrongdoing, but there are disturbing accounts by those who have "escaped" the cult that indicate otherwise.

CANCELED 'WORD OF FAITH' DOCUSERIES

In November 2018, on the day the much-anticipated "The Devil Next Door" documentary series was set to premiere, it was suddenly pulled from the A&E lineup.

At the time, A&E released a statement saying that the postponement was due to the need for additional reporting.

But Josh Farmer, an attorney and spokesman for Word of Faith, told The News & Observer via email at the time: "The postponement occurred after we discovered some serious ethical problems with paying participants." Farmer noted that the network canceled another documentary series, "Escaping the KKK," two years earlier over the same issues.

While A&E described the broadcast disruption as a "postponement," the series never aired.

But in July 2019, the Investigation Discovery program "People Magazine Investigates: Cults" devoted one episode to the church. The program described the episode in this way: "Lost souls flock to North Carolina where they're promised deliverance from demons by Pastor Jane Whaley at the Word of Faith Fellowship. However, deliverance comes at a price, including beatings, medical horrors and psychological abuse."

The book by Weiss and Mohr reveals that the Word of Faith Fellowship hired a law firm with ties to the Church of Scientology to block the A&E broadcast.

'BROKEN FAITH' REVEALS NEW INFORMATION

The Associated Press, led by the reporting of Weiss and Mohr, has covered the happenings at Word of Faith for many years.

But "Broken Faith," published by HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press, touts new revelations.

Among the new information in the book:

▪ a murder-for-hire plot meant to silence a public official.

▪ a senior member of the church told followers that he had access to sodium cyanide (the poison used in the Jonestown massacre).

▪ Jane Whaley paid off law enforcement to cover up abuse and rape by church members.

▪ a former church member was beaten by congregants in an effort to expel "homosexual demons."

▪ an international gem heist was orchestrated to fund a new sanctuary.

The book also discloses that a church member currently serves as a faith leadership outreach leader under President Trump.

The reporting by Weiss and Mohr is the result of interviews with more than 100 former members of the church, their relatives, advocates, law enforcement officials and others. The two reviewed more than 100 hours of video and audio recordings secretly taped by former members, legal documents and a sworn deposition from 2017 by Whaley.

They also worked from a 315-page report from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation chronicling allegations of abuse — a report never publicly released.

The release date for the book is Feb. 18.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article239990763.html

The problem is bogus courses, not colleges, says Dept of Education

The Department of Higher Education and Training says the main problem are accredited private colleges offering unaccredited courses.

Thabiso Goba

Berea News

January 30, 2020

The Department of Higher Education and Training set up their tent right on the busy intersection on Joe Slovo and Anton Lembede Street. DHET was warning prospective students to guard against bogus colleges and unaccredited courses.

WITH the academic calendar set to start, there are many private college campuses ramping up their advertising budgets to try and enroll students at their institutions.

The specter of bogus private colleges has long plagued Durban prompting the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) to set up an information tent on the busy intersection of Joe Slovo and Anton Lembede Street in Durban last week.

Their mission was to crackdown on bogus institutions in the city and help prospective students not fall prey to them.

Sibusiso Ndebele, 19, visited the DHET tent to find out if the private college he was planning to register for was properly accredited.

Ndebele was one of many students who got “scammed” by Sandton Technical College (Durban branch), when he was studying for a National Diploma in Policing, an unaccredited course.

“Those people played with us but I learned my lesson, so now I want to do things the right way,” he said.

Shaheeda Essack, Director of Registration of Private Higher Education Institute at DHET, said the main problem was that a lot of colleges were accredited but offered unaccredited courses.

“Some colleges (also) have accreditation for some programmes and not others,” she said.

Essack gave an example of Durban City Campus, a legitimately registered private institution that was accredited to offer Human Resources Management but not Home Based Care as it had advertised.

Berea Mail visited the Durban City Campus where the management team indicated they would issue a statement in due time to address the matter.

In total, DHET visited 15 private institutions in Durban, and only three were found to be problematic; Durban City Campus, Maharishi Invincibility Institute and Crane International Academy FET College.

Maharishi Institute is an American based private university that was founded in 1973 by Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

It has two campuses in SA, in Johannesburg and Durban and its flagship programme is a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree which is not accredited by DHET.

Nkosinathi Nkosi, Marketing manager at Maharishi Institute, confirmed their course is not accredited in SA but it is in the USA.

“The course is not offered by us (here in SA), we are basically a study centre. Our students are registered in the USA institution. We are always clear about this fact and our students are well aware of it,” he said.

However, Essack said this was illegal and that the department had warned Maharishi several times about this practice.

Crane International offers an unaccredited National Diploma in Policing which Essack said is very popular among private colleges.

“Some colleges they enter into MOU’s (memorandum of understanding) with each other to offer each other’s programmes and that’s not allowed,” she said.

Crane was approached for comment but no response was received.

Both the South African Police Service and Metro Police say this course is not a gateway to entering the police force.

Requirements to join the SAPS or Metro are a matric certificate and passing a physical and psychological evaluation test.

To check if a course or private institution is registered visit www.dhet.gov.za/resources/Registers or alternatively call DHET’s toll-free number: 080087 2222.

https://bereamail.co.za/185794/the-problem-is-bogus-courses-not-colleges-says-dhet/