False Memories Can Be Planted and Then Reversed, Researchers Find

German study points to possible techniques for recognizing and correcting erroneous recollections

The new study confirms previous research on the malleability of memory. Some earlier findings suggest true memories tend to be stronger than false ones.

The new study confirms previous research on the malleability of memory. Some earlier findings suggest true memories tend to be stronger than false ones.

Brianna Abbott

WSJ

March 22, 2021

Researchers in Germany and the U.K. said they were able to plant false memories and then help study volunteers root them out, work that suggests potential remedies to ease the problem of erroneous recollections.

The scientists used interviews to convince some study subjects they had undergone childhood events that didn’t happen to them, such as getting lost or being in a car accident, according to a report published Monday in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Then the researchers said they used other interview techniques that prompted the volunteers to reassess the memories and help realize they might be false or misremembered.

The work confirms previous research on the malleability of memories while pointing to potential techniques for recognizing and rooting them out.

“What we can show in principle is that it’s possible to empower people to really identify what might be a false memory,” said Aileen Oeberst, the study’s lead author who now heads the Department of Media Psychology at the University of Hagen in Germany.

Scientists have long studied the fallibility of human memory. The findings confirm previous research, psychologists and cognitive scientists said, though they cautioned about its real-world potential since the study was conducted among a relatively small number of subjects in a lab over a few weeks, and its findings might be hard to apply to an individual person.

Some research suggests that true memories tend to be stronger for people than false ones, Nancy Dennis, a memory researcher and an associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University. Yet people can also have vivid false memories or weaker true memories, making them difficult to tease apart on an individual basis.

“The hard part is when you want to take someone on that witness stand or therapists’ office and want to figure out if that particular memory is true or false,” said Dr. Dennis, who wasn’t involved in the study.

False-memory research has been controversial. Cognitive scientists and psychologists often disagree on how easy it is to develop false memories and how often that occurs. It has also been controversial partly because police investigations and court proceedings rely on the quality of memories.

Some psychologists express concerns that people can be cajoled into confessing crimes they didn’t commit or into making incorrect accusations. Meantime, others say the bigger problem is that defendants often point to false memory research to discredit testimony from real victims or eyewitnesses and get allegations dismissed.

In the new study, researchers sought to prove what they said was a relatively unexplored area of research: how to undo false memories.

The study involved 52 people, averaging 22 years of age, at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, who were told they were enrolling in research on childhood memories, as well as their parents. Researchers asked both the subjects and their parents not to talk with each other about the study.

The study had two parts. In the first part, the researchers sought to plant false memories in the subjects. First, researchers sent a questionnaire to the parents of volunteers, asking them whether their child had undergone negative experiences like getting stung by a wasp or running away from home.

The investigators also asked the parents to suggest two events that definitely didn’t happen but could have taken place, as research suggests that false memories are more likely to be picked up if they are plausible to that person.

Interviewers spoke with study subjects over the course of three interviews to plant false memories. The interviewers didn’t know whether or not a recollection was real, and they weren’t aware they were being used to plant false memories.

In their conversations, the interviewers told the subjects that their parents had provided details about events in their childhoods. Then the interviewers introduced four “memories” that the interviewers said the parents had told them about—two real and two fabricated.

The interviewers pushed the participants to recall the events to varying degrees. For one true and one false event, the interviewers only lightly suggested that the event occurred over the course of three interviews. For the other two incidents, the interviewers pushed the subjects to recall the events and encouraged the subjects to think about the incidents between interviews.

Volunteers faced both more aggressive and less aggressive interview styles. At the end of the three interviews, volunteers said that they had some level of memory about the fake events 27% of the time after the interviewers mildly suggested an event. When interviewers were more aggressive, participants subscribed to the made-up events 56% of the time, the study said.

Volunteers described full or robust memories for 20% of the minimally suggested events and just under 45% of those aggressively suggested. Some people still outright rejected the fake events or said they had no memory of them.

In the second part of the study, researchers tried to see whether they could reverse the false memories over two additional interviews.

First, one interviewer told the volunteers that memories might not be based on their own experiences but rather on sources such as family stories or photographs, and they asked for the origin of each recollection. Then during a second session, a new interviewer said that repeatedly being asked to remember events could lead to the creation of false memories and asked the volunteers to think back and reflect on whether that applied to any of the incidents.

After those interviews, fewer study subjects subscribed to the fake memories, though a few people still described the false memories in detail, the study found.

Overall, volunteers had more confidence in their true memories and described them in fuller detail than the memories that were false, the study found. And while belief in the fake incidents decreased after the final two interviews, faith in the real memories remained relatively intact.

Write to Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott@wsj.com

https://www.wsj.com/articles/false-memories-can-be-planted-and-then-reduced-researchers-find-11616440361

COVID-19, cults, and the anti-vax movement

The Lancet
CORRESPONDENCE

VOLUME 397, ISSUE 10280, P1181, 

MARCH 27, 2021

Rochelle Burgess and colleagues eloquently described participatory community engagement as essential for successful COVID-19 vaccination, which involves appreciating the heterogeneous public and working with communities and their leaders to enable bottom-up approaches. They suggested that COVID-19 has drawn attention to the structural violence that is embedded within society, with the pandemic furthering the marginalisation of historically oppressed and excluded groups. Burgess and colleagues drew attention to how people who might have suffered disproportionate economic and health consequences from COVID-19 are now being asked “to trust the same structures” that failed to provide adequate resources and social protection during the pandemic. Failure to address these contextual dimensions can worsen mistrust, damaging vaccine uptake. However, Burgess and colleagues make a distinction between “people wholly opposed to vaccinations (anti-vaxxers) and…vaccine hesitancy”,  and imply participatory community engagement as a means to engage only people with vaccine hesitancy.

Lessons from studying cults (which are less pejoratively called new religious movements, describing movements that emerged in the late 20th century) can inform approaches to the anti-vax movement. A cult has come to mean a non-conforming ideology, or a religion that is disliked, with beliefs that are unacceptable to mainstream society. Just as cults are grouped together as sinister, bad, or wrong, the discourse surrounding anti-vaxxers in both academic and popular circles can be dismissive and derogatory. The pejorative label and negative attitudes towards cults promote an us-and-them viewpoint, creating martyrs and extending the length of time that members hold the new beliefs, thus encouraging further involvement in the movement and radicalisation.

Learning from these consequences, a more constructive perspective could view the anti-vax movement as a religious phenomenon, involving a whole spectrum of ideas, and focus on the essential need to understand the beliefs that are involved to avoid further marginalisation. Hence, implying that anti-vaxxers are beyond the reach of community engagement activities could result in increased anti-vax activities. We suggest a more inclusive approach, where the same inquisitive dialogue and contextual understanding that was suggested for vaccine hesitancy should be extended to members of the anti-vax movement.

SM declares funding by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Parkes Foundation towards the cost of her doctoral study. CH declares no competing interests.

*Sophie Mylan, Charlotte Hardman sophie.mylan@lshtm.ac.uk

Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London WC1H 9SH, UK (SM); National Health Service, London, UK (SM); Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, Durham, UK (CH) 

1 Burgess RA, Osborne RH, Yongabi KA, et al. The COVID-19 vaccine rush: participatory community engagement matters more than ever. Lancet 2021; 397: 8–10. 

2 van Twist A, van Eck D, Newcombe S. “Trust me, you can’t trust them”: stigmatised knowledge in cults and conspiracies. In: Dyrendal A, Robertson DG, Asprem E, eds. Handbook of conspiracy theory and contemporary religion. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2018: 152–79. 

3 Singler B. Big, bad pharma: the indigo child concept and biomedical conspiracy theories. Nova Relig 2015; 19: 17–29. 

4 Barker E. New religious movements: a practical introduction. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989.


https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2821%2900443-8

Marketplace attended a COVID-19 conspiracy boot camp to see how instructors are targeting vaccine skeptics

Online boot camp instructors discuss how to target vaccine hesitant, potential hacking of vaccine passports

Katie Pedersen, Eric Szeto, Asha Tomlinson ·
CBC News
March 26, 2021



While Canadian health authorities fight back against what Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam has called "an infodemic" — the spread of false information about the COVID-19 pandemic — others are working just as hard to target the public with conspiracy theories.

Marketplace journalists took part in a U.S. COVID-19 conspiracy "boot camp," where aspiring activists — including the leader of one of Canada's prominent misinformation campaigns — learn tactics of persuasion to sow seeds of doubt about information coming from public health authorities.

Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland, Ohio-based osteopath and self-proclaimed grandmother of the anti-vaccination movement in the U.S., runs the six-week online course. She has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and has appeared on popular far-right conspiracy podcasts, such as Infowars.

CBC journalists signed up for the $623 Mastering Vaccine Info Boot Camp to find out exactly what was being sold to her students.

"You're in our choir," Tenpenny told the class. It's those who are on the fence who need to hear the message, she said.

"My job is to teach the 400 of you in the class … so each one of you go out and teach 1,000," she said, encouraging students to "practise in front of a mirror."

"My job and your job and everybody else who does this, their job is to sow seeds," she said in a separate YouTube video promoting the boot camp.

"We're going to build an entire army to stand up and say not only, 'No,' but 'Hell, no.'"



A screen shot of a recent session of the Mastering Vaccine Info Boot Camp shows Sherri Tenpenny and comments from participants. (CBC)
'Manipulation and persuasion'

The boot camp's course material is primarily taught by Tenpenny herself, who explains her theories on the immune system, vaccines and COVID-19, often contradicting scientific consensus on the topics.

The communication tactics are taught primarily by Tenpenny's business partner, Matthew Hunt, who gives advice on how to ensure students connect with people on a personal level as a persuasion tactic.

"Understanding the subjective human experience and how each individual stores their VERSION of information is key to unlocking their mind and building trust … and successfully affecting change with them," his course material reads.



A worksheet included in the course work instructs students to examine a conversation and come up with a strategy to convince the subject of the anti-vaccination opinions. (CBC)

His lessons also encourage students to recognize what type of persuasion tactic is most effective for the individual based on the way the person talks. He slots them into four categories and presents different persuasion strategies for each.

"It is about manipulation and persuasion and convincing people of something to simply get them on their side," said Krishana Sankar, science communications lead with COVID-19 Resources Canada, a digital source for up-to-date scientific information on COVID-19.

She's part of a team that helps dispel misinformation during nightly Q&A video calls that are open to the public.

"It's extremely frustrating because we are constantly trying to educate people on what's real."

Sankar is a "science communicator," one of a growing field of experts whose aim is to explain complex scientific concepts in ways that are easy to understand without a science background.

Her work with COVID-19 Resources Canada includes hosting daily video calls where she and other experts, including physicians, pharmacists and scientists, can answer questions from the public directly.

She says she was very concerned to learn that misinformation campaigns like Tenpenny's are actively targeting people with questions about vaccines and the pandemic.

"This kind of rhetoric and this kind of misinformation can be extremely dangerous for people's health, especially when it's taken under advisement from people who have no expertise," she said.

"We need to have a large percentage of the population be vaccinated, and without that, we are unable to move forward from this pandemic."
Participants from Canada, India, Europe

Tenpenny told CBC in a statement that she stands behind the content of her boot camp and that she "won't apologize for earning a living."

The anti-vaccination movement was a lucrative industry before the pandemic, enabling some people to make money through speeches, conferences and donations from individuals who trust the organizers of such events. Now, COVID-19 conspiracists are taking a page out of the same playbook.

Organizers of the course attended by CBC journalists said that 400 people had signed up, which at $623 per student, adds up to almost $250,000 in course fees.

The course was the eighth of its kind since 2017, with the preceding ones focused on anti-vaccination information while the recent session was COVID-19-specific.

It included participants from Canada, Europe, India, the Philippines and, according to Tenpenny, 18 physicians from South Africa.

Tenpenny also has other ways of making money from her students, selling additional courses and even getting a referral commission from a private lab that gives her $10 for every $100 spent on vitamin-deficiency tests, a fact she mentions in one of her seminars.

Tenpenny falsely claims that the reason some people have more serious illness from COVID-19 is because they are vitamin-deficient. She also asserts that taking vitamins can be a cure for COVID-19-positive patients.

"They take some vitamin C, D and A, some herbal medicine, some homeopathy, and they're fine," she said in one of her YouTube videos. She told students she sells vitamins on her website during one of her seminars.

WATCH | Boot camp participants get trained in persuasion tactics:

Marketplace investigates COVID-19 conspiracies and finds hundreds of people are being trained in the tactics of persuasion to spread misinformation at ‘boot camps.’ 2:13
Message spreading in Canada

Marketplace journalists heard this claim repeated in an interview with one of Tenpenny's former students, Vladislav Sobolev.

Sobolev is the founder of Hugs Over Masks, a Facebook group with more than 10,000 members that's been behind some of the anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests that have taken place across Canada.

Sobolev partnered with Tenpenny last year to arrange a group of his Hugs Over Masks followers to take the training. He says he's now organizing "activist training" of his own.

"Rather than trying to convince [society] and bring them to your side, the best thing that we can do is plant the seed of doubt," said Sobolev.

He says the aim of the training is to spread the message and "defend our way of life."

"Nobody should be forced to wear the mask. Nobody should be forced to do a test, or ultimately, get a vaccine."

The core messages conveyed in the boot camp are that vaccines are dangerous and COVID-19 is not, with Tenpenny pointing to what she sees as a high survival rate for COVID-19 and equating the virus with the annual flu.

"Mortality's only one measure of danger," said Colin Furness, an epidemiologist with the University of Toronto.

"A lot of people who survived COVID do so with extensive brain damage, heart damage, lung damage, kidney damage."

Furness also noted that, "more people died of COVID in 10 months than died of influenza in Alberta in 10 years."
Hackers eyeing vaccine passports, instructor says

In one of the boot camp seminars, Hunt discussed conversations he has had with computer hackers who he says are sympathetic to the cause promoted in the boot camp and want to figure out how to hack digital vaccine passports that some countries might use so that unvaccinated people could circumvent vaccination requirements.

The passports don't exist in Canada yet, but the European Union Commission has already announced its proposal for what it is calling "digital green certificates," which would allow vaccinated individuals to travel between countries in the EU before the borders officially reopen post-pandemic.

"In the background, these are what the hacker-cracker folks that are really pissed about this are working on," Hunt said during one of the seminars, noting that he hopes they will succeed.

Hunt told CBC in a statement that he is not involved in any hacking or subversion of any systems himself, nor would he support it. However, he said he "can certainly understand why such groups would focus attention in that direction and why they discussed such workarounds."

The anti-vaccination community has circumvented rules before, sharing names of outlier doctors who are willing to be paid for vaccine-exemption notes, for example.

The fact that some members of that movement are now talking to hackers about vaccine passports concerns Furness, whose research expertise includes information technology and its effect on health behaviour change.

"That's engaging in what looks like possibly a criminal conspiracy to put people at risk," said Furness. "It's going to have an impact on vulnerable people who didn't sign up for this but who may get sick as a result."
Judge the expert before the information

Sankar, the science communicator, says that in order to avoid falling into a misinformation echo chamber, people should first consider whether the person sharing the information is qualified to do so.

"Do they have any kind of expertise? How long have they been in this area? Who are they affiliated with?" she said. "Those are really important pieces to understand and know about the person you're getting information from."

She also warns that people should be wary of absolute or overly definitive language, which scientists usually avoid.

Furness thinks it's important that those spreading COVID-19 conspiracies not be left to their own devices.

"In order to defeat COVID, we've all got to be rowing in the same direction," he said. "It's not enough to say, 'Everyone [can] choose what they want to think about COVID.'

"We really need to see it … as a problem that needs to be solved together."
Watch full episodes of Marketplace on CBC Gem, the CBC's streaming service.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/marketplace-covid-conspiracy-boot-camp-1.5963503

Teen Accused of Stabbing Student to Death Was Into Online Blood Rituals and Conspiracies

A month before a 17-year-old student was stabbed to death in Alberta, the accused shared online videos promoting conspiracy theories and participated in a YouTube blood ritual.

Kevin Maimann

Vice 

March 24 2021

The teen charged with murder after a 17-year-old student was stabbed to death in Alberta last week was engrossed in conspiracy theories and occult practices on YouTube in the days leading up to the killing.

Dylan Pountney, 19, shared content on social media promoting debunked theories about the Earth being flat, world leaders being reptilian shapeshifters, and the U.S. election being “stolen” from Donald Trump.

Police were called to Christ the King High School in Leduc on March 15 after 17-year-old Jennifer Winkler was stabbed by a fellow student. The suspect fled the school but police arrested him in a nearby neighbourhood more than two hours later. Pountney is facing one count of first-degree murder.

“I’m serious when I say this, the world is already ended,” Pountney said, shirtless and pensive, in a 20-minute video posted Feb. 25. “The world is in a state of upheaval. We’re trapped in our bodies; we’re trapped in an iron grid. If I were to start a war I would do it silently, just like the rulers did, by means of fluoridation, by means of chemtrails, by means of false food.”

Pountney also promoted more obscure conspiracy theories. One posits that most people on Earth are “human prison bars,” or inhuman beings existing to keep real humans in line. Another claims people are “gang stalked,” or surveilled, by demons.

Experts say ideas like these are dangerous and spreading quickly.

Marc-Andre Argentino, a PhD candidate at Concordia University who studies conspiracy theories and how extremist groups leverage technology, said conspiracies are also starting to gain younger followers.

“(The demographic) has gotten a lot younger with the pandemic, simply because of how a lot of the conspiracy-type disinformation had blended in together into the mainstream around COVID-19,” he said.

Argentino said it’s hard to make conclusions about the influence conspiracy theories might have on a person committing an act of violence. Some people might post to be “edgy,” while others might take the ideas more seriously.

On Christmas day in Nashville, a man who set off a bomb that killed himself and injured eight others had talked about a conspiracy of lizard people taking over the planet. In October, a Wisconsin pharmacist who believed in Flat Earth and other conspiracy theories destroyed more than 500 COVID-19 vaccine doses. In 2018, a man affiliated with Proud Boys and QAnon stabbed his brother because he believed he was a lizard posing as a human.

“Conspiracy theories alone don’t necessarily lead someone to violence, but they do create an environment that the right person with the right trigger could mobilize through violence,” Argentino said.

Pountney posted 37 videos on YouTube in the past four months, most of them in the month leading up to the killing. About half were unrelated to conspiracy theories. He uploaded more than 80 videos to Instagram in the same time frame, most showing him smoking cigarettes.

Janja Lalich, a sociology professor, researcher and educator specializing in cults and extremist groups, said the groups she studies recruit most successfully in times of societal turmoil.

“The last few years people have been really unsettled between Trump and all the protests and riots and then COVID and all of that,” Lalich said. “People are pecking around on the internet and they’re getting directed here, there, and everywhere and they’re taking the time to check things out, and they’re just going from one thing to the next.”

In one video posted to YouTube a week before the stabbing, the 19-year-old cuts his finger and bleeds onto a handwritten letter that reads, “I spill my blood to bring fourth (sic) heaven on earth for the benifit (sic) of all. Thank you Mr Satan.” At the end, he says, “Our movement is growing.” He posted seven similar videos over the last three months.

Dozens of people have made nearly identical videos on YouTube as part of a blood magic ritual called Blood Over Intent. In a separate video dated Feb. 15, Pountney mentions being on escitalopram for PTSD and said the pharmaceutical drug, along with Blood Over Intent, opened up a “flow of information” and pathway of memories.

Blood Over Intent appears to have been started by Mark Braun, better known by his YouTube alias Quasiluminous, who claims to be Satan incarnate. Braun says he opened the “book of life” in 2013 and he alone holds the power to bring 144,000 people to a paradise entered through a black hole in the centre of the flat, hollow Earth. The only way for followers to get into the book—thus gaining entrance to paradise—is to state their intent and spill their own blood in a YouTube video.

Two days after the killing, a YouTube user commented on Pountney’s blood ritual video, saying, “I worship you.”

None of the ideas Pountney espoused online explicitly encourage violence against others, but Ross said imagery of blood, death, and the apocalypse can push someone who is already mentally unstable over the edge.

After the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol Building that was largely organized on the internet by conspiracy-peddling groups like QAnon, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters, Ross worries that violence from online groups could become more common. He said YouTube should be looking more closely at people who use the platform for recruitment and indoctrination.

“All of us need to be involved, but that doesn’t negate the fact that YouTube also has a responsibility–as does Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,” he said.

YouTube deleted 30,000 videos in the past five months for spreading coronavirus misinformation, and has suspended Donald Trump’s YouTube channel since January citing a risk of violence.

YouTube reviewed the Quasiluminous channel and several Blood Over Intent videos and sent Vice World News an email saying its teams “determined they do not violate our harmful and dangerous policies. We also didn’t find any segments explicitly encouraging others to participate.”

Alberta RCMP would not say whether they are investigating Pountney’s online activity or his belief in conspiracy theories. A spokesperson sent Vice World News a statement saying police “continue to investigate all background information that may be of relevance to this homicide” and “it will be a lengthy process for the RCMP to accurately determine what the motivation was behind this crime.”

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/4adjqm/alberta-stabbing-death-dylan-pountney-conspiracy-theories

Charlie Hebdo office attacker ‘radicalised’

Agence France-Presse

March 24, 2021

A Pakistani man who attacked the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine last year was radicalised by videos of preachers in his home country and anti-France demonstrations at the time, Le Parisien newspaper reported.

Zaheer Hassan Mahmood spent the days leading up to the knife attack watching extremist preachers online, the newspaper reported. He said he did not realise the magazine had moved offices after the 2015 attack and presumed the two people he slashed were employees of the publication, the paper said.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/charlie-hebdo-office-attacker-radicalised/article34154185.ece/amp/

Australia Designates Neo-Nazi Sonnenkrieg Division A Terrorist Organization

Counter Extremism Project

(New York, N.Y.) – Australian government officials in Canberra on Monday designated the neo-Nazi group Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD) as a terrorist organization, making it the first far-right group to be banned in the country. Following the designation, Australian Minister for Home Affairs Mike Burgess stated, “SKD adheres to an abhorrent, violent ideology that encourages lone-wolf terrorist actors who would seek to cause significant harm to our way of life and our country.” According to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), far-right groups accounted for 40 percent of the country’s terrorism investigations in the past year.

SKD formed in 2018 as a British offshoot of the U.S.-based Atomwaffen Division (AWD), a neo-Nazi organization that sought the creation of a National Socialist government through a violent “white revolution,” and believed that a race war is inevitable. The United Kingdom banned SKD in February 2020. AWD disbanded later that year.

SKD follows a neo-Nazi ideology promoted by James Mason, a former American Nazi Party member and a follower of cult leader Charles Manson. During the 1980s, Mason wrote a series of pro-Manson and pro-Nazi newsletters that he called Siege and later compiled into a book of the same name. Users on the now-defunct fascist web forum IronMarch formed AWD after discovering Siege. They based AWD’s ideology on Mason’s ideas of autonomous terror cells fighting a guerilla war against “the system.”

SKD has not claimed credit for specific violent activities, but members have been linked to calls for violence. Private messages exchanged online by SKD group members in 2018 labeled the United Kingdom’s Prince Harry a “race traitor” for marrying a mixed-race woman and called for him to be shot. In other private online messages, alleged leader Andrew Dymock called for police officers to be raped and killed. Group members have also called for white women who date non-white men to be hanged.

https://www.counterextremism.com/

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION, ALTERED REALITY TESTING, AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGEA CASE REPORT

SINGLE CASE STUDY: PDF ONLY

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION, ALTERED REALITY TESTING, AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGE

A CASE REPORT

FRENCH, ALFRED P. M.D.1; SCHMID, ALBERT C. Ph.D.2; INGALLS, ELIZABETH MLS3

THE JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE: July 1975 - Volume 161 - Issue 1 - p 55-58

Abstract

This paper presents the case of a 39-year-old woman who, several weeks following initiation into transcendental meditation (TM), experienced altered reality testing and behavior. We discuss the course of this episode, present evidence for a causal relationship between her practice of TM and altered behavior, and discuss the appropriate treatment of such phenomena.

https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/1975/07000/TRANSCENDENTAL_MEDITATION,_ALTERED_REALITY.7.aspx

Accused Sarah Lawrence College sex cult leader declines COVID vaccine behind bars

STEPHEN REX BROWN

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

MARCH 22, 2021

The creep accused of leading a sex cult of Sarah Lawrence College students declined the COVID-19 vaccine despite being held in a Manhattan lockup that has been overrun with the virus.

Lawrence Ray’s decision to refuse the vaccine came up Monday during a hearing on his ability to prepare for trial while being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“The Government further understands that the defendant declined to receive the vaccination. This is corroborated by recent jail calls, in which the defendant described to others that he was not inclined to take the offered vaccine. If the defendant has declined the opportunity to reduce his risk exposure, his risk cannot then be wielded against the MCC to demand additional accommodations,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mollie Bracewell wrote in a Manhattan Federal Court letter.

Judge Lewis Liman denied Ray’s third bid for bail during the hearing, ruling that he remained a risk of flight and danger to the public. The difficulties Ray has viewing large amounts of video evidence and other materials with his attorneys at the jail did not change the judge’s calculus. Ray’s apparent unease with the COVID vaccine did not factor into Liman’s ruling.

“Different individuals may have different personal views about (the vaccine). I don’t think this is the forum for those issues to be debated,” Liman said.

MCC currently lists 18 staff and zero inmates as positive for coronavirus. The extent of the outbreak last year is widely believed to have been much more severe than numbers indicate due to a lack of testing.

Ray has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking, forced labor and other charges related to his alleged psychological and physical abuse of a small group of his own daughter’s college friends.

There is a hint of irony to Ray’s reluctance to be vaccinated against the virus that has killed 542,000 people nationwide. Prosecutors allege that Ray manipulated his followers in part through a bizarre obsession with his own health. He accused several people of poisoning him, including his own followers, prosecutors say.

In at least one episode he allegedly forced a follower to confess to the poisoning on video, creating material he could use should the follower consider leaving his orbit.

“This defendant has a history of fabricating illness,” prosecutor Danielle Sassoon wrote in filings last year.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-case-covid-vaccine-20210322-eg6yow4l3zgz5mlpnos6sha5ai-story.html

QAnon’s ‘collateral damage’: Families struggle to pull loved ones back from the brink

ANITA CHABRIA

Los Angeles Times

March 21, 2021

LOS ANGELES — Jenny Beltran was always close to her half sister — until her sibling moved to Florida with an alt-right boyfriend and started posting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and pedophilia.

The breaking point came last summer when Ms. Beltran attended a local Black Lives Matter rally not far from her Panorama City home, then received a text from her sister questioning why she was protesting in support of “animals.”

Ms. Beltran decided to cut off communication.

“When you cross a certain line, it’s hard for me … especially when it comes to race,” said Ms. Beltran, who is half-Mexican and was raised in part by a Black woman. “My boyfriend, my mom, they want me to talk to my sister again, but it’s heartbreaking for me.”

Once dismissed as a crackpot belief system undeserving of serious attention, QAnon has emerged as a national security priority in the wake of the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. The FBI has labeled it a domestic terror threat and it has been linked to more than a dozen potentially criminal acts across the country. Experts estimate that as many as 20 million Americans have at least partially embraced Q-inspired conspiracies.

Yet for people such as Ms. Beltran, the dangers of QAnon have been all too apparent, as family members have slid into angry extremism — proselytizing ideas that are often racist, anti-Semitic and untethered to reality. These include claims of lizard aliens intent on enslaving humans, plots for a mass depopulation of the planet and support of public executions. Many parents, spouses and siblings feel like a cult has ensnared one of their loved ones, and are unsure if they should intervene or focus on protecting their own mental health.

Lonely and often isolated, such family members have been seeking support wherever they can find it. In recent months, a Reddit group called QAnon Casualties for family and friends of believers has grown to 144,000 members.

“It’s been hard to find people to even understand what you are going through,” said Evelyn, who asked that her last name not be used. Her husband recently left her, calling her a “liberal baby killer” because she refused to believe the conspiracies that consumed his days.

“The more you tell [the conspiracy believer] to knock it off, the further they dig into it to prove that they are right,” she said.

Some family members interviewed by the Los Angeles Times declined to use their names for fear of pushing their QAnon-believing relatives further away, and none wanted to publicly identify their loved one — in one case, worried about violent retribution.

But all those interviewed said they were speaking out because, unchecked, QAnon continues to metastasize. Although Twitter, Facebook and other online forums purged some conspiracy content before and after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, believers have regrouped in more obscure forums like Telegram, or created workarounds on mainstream platforms to avoid censorship. Thousands still check in daily on new theories — including recent posts that Oprah Winfrey was wearing an ankle monitor during her royal interview, proof to some that she had been arrested for child sex trafficking.

A January poll by YouGov, conducted after the insurrection, found that 20% of those who voted for former President Donald Trump in the recent election had a somewhat or very favorable opinion of QAnon.

“This is not just a silly little thing,” said Sara Rogers, whose anti-vaccine daughter has embraced falsehoods about Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates during the pandemic. “This has seriously infiltrated our society on multiple levels.”

Before the pandemic, Ms. Rogers said her daughter questioned vaccines, ate organic and eschewed chemicals, even making her own detergent. But last spring after the coronavirus appeared and her boyfriend lost his job, Ms. Rogers said that clean-living ethos grew “more militant” and her daughter became angry at her for refusing to see the pandemic as a scam.

Her daughter wouldn’t take virus precautions, even after Ms. Rogers, who has severe asthma that has required hospitalization, said she felt unsafe visiting. By summer, her daughter delved into Q ideas of pedophilia and voter fraud, she said. After Ms. Rogers pushed back on her daughter’s claims, Ms. Rogers said her daughter cut off all communication.

In the fall, Ms. Rogers was diagnosed with breast cancer and reached out to her daughter for help. She never received a response, she said, and went through radiation and surgery alone.

“When your beliefs are more important than your only family having cancer, that’s like beyond comprehension,” said Ms. Rogers. “The emotional pain from this was much more painful than the cancer treatments. This still doesn’t make sense.”

Now, Ms. Rogers said she is uncertain if she can forgive her daughter, whom she considered the most important person in her life.

“She’s not a kid. She’s 33 years old. I don’t need to have to explain this to her, seriously,” Ms. Rogers said. “I was collateral damage in this whole thing.”

Evelyn, the Ohio wife, said she feels the same sense of betrayal from her husband.

Evelyn met him more than a decade ago when he was dropping his granddaughter off at the same day care where she brought her own child. She was impressed with how much the retired firefighter cared for his granddaughter, whom he is raising, and liked his musical side that led him to play in blues and rock bands. Three years ago, they were married in a country wedding, with a reception in a friend’s barn.

But after the lockdown last March, Evelyn’s husband was cut off from his bandmates, and spent more time on politics. After a while, Evelyn stopped turning on the morning news because he would “rant” when he saw stories criticizing Mr. Trump, she said. Soon, he was spending hours a day on the internet and would only talk about QAnon propaganda, including “kids being eaten underneath the White House.”

After George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May, her husband’s attention turned to civil unrest across the country, she said. At the time, many right-wing sites were depicting U.S. cities as being overtaking by lawlessness, and QAnon pages were blowing up with incendiary images. Evelyn, whose daughter is half Black, said her husband began using the N-word to describe protesters and became “defensive” when she confronted him about its effect on their children.

“I told him, ‘You don’t understand, she is hearing you,” she said, adding that her husband refused to back down. In the weeks ahead, her daughter “crumbled,” she said, going from an A student to one struggling in school.

“It really got to the point where he would be downstairs, I would be upstairs, the girls began hiding in their rooms when he came up because every conversation was about voter fraud or dead babies and gay people,” she said.

Evelyn said he moved out in January, saying he was filing for divorce. “Even if he does come back, it’s going to take a lot of repairing,” she said.

Ms. Beltran also wonders what it would take to get back to normal with her sister, whom she described as a best friend with similar political views and who “was always on the same side as me.”

Ms. Beltran believes that isolation and the influence of an extremist boyfriend contributed to her sister’s transformation, but also she’s troubled by her sibling’s increasing involvement.

“It’s like she’s grown her little QAnon wings and she’s flying on her own now,” Ms. Beltran said, adding that the experience left her overwhelmed. She deleted all of her own social media accounts, depressed to see how widespread the conspiracies were and how many people were involved.

“I am completely alienated in my life right now,” said Ms. Beltran. “I have completely pulled away.”

Cult experts and mental health professionals offer varying advice on how family members should respond. They say QAnon differs from traditional cults in that it doesn’t have a central charismatic leader, but rather a motivating belief system that constantly changes and expands.

Cult deprogramming expert Patrick Ryan said he believes most conspiracy theorists will eventually leave QAnon on their own. He said he’s been contacted by more than 100 families this year seeking advice, but has only recommended intervention in two cases. But for those who don’t leave willingly, he stresses that maintaining contact and offering a “dignified” way out that doesn’t shame the believer are important strategies.

But Steven Hassan, an expert on cults and mind control and the author of “The Cult of Trump,” said he believes QAnon “is structured like a psychological warfare operation” that is akin to brainwashing, and involves sophisticated manipulations. He stressed that “it is not stupid, ignorant, uneducated people who are involved,” but average people who often started out seeking information or answers during an uncertain time. Leaving can be difficult because the theories are providing stability and a sense of order.

Ms. Rogers, the mom, believes the solutions have to be larger than individuals, She is considering a class-action lawsuit against leaders in the anti-vaccination movement who have promoted and in some cases profited off vaccine falsehoods that are now fueling QAnon.

“You have to take down the cult leaders to take down the cult,” she said.

Evelyn, whose husband has been gone for two months, isn’t sure if anything can fix the past year for her family.

“Everyone just tells me I should change the locks on the house and file for divorce, and I am not willing to do that yet,” she said. “I keep praying he comes out of this somehow.”

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2021/03/21/QAnon-collateral-damage-conspiracy-families-struggle-pull-loved-ones-back-from-brink/stories/202103210198

Pa. court denies appeal of woman convicted of murder in boyfriend's cult-related death

Joy Howe

WFMZ

February 26, 2021

Barbara Rogers is staying in jail.

She was convicted two years ago for shooting and killing her boyfriend, 32-year-old Steven Mineo, in their Coolbaugh Township apartment in 2017.

At the time, the case went viral because of the unusual motive. The couple was part of an online cult founded by a woman named Sherry Shriner, who broadcast online, preaching to her followers about aliens and the end of the world.

Shriner, who the district attorney says has since died, was an author of several books, with titles that include "Interview with the Devil: My Conversation with Lucifer" and "Aliens on the Internet."

Rogers and Mineo reportedly became avid listeners of Shriner's podcast. But the relationship between the couple and the cult leader soon soured.

According to the Monroe County district attorney, Shriner became suspicious of Rogers, accusing her of being a reptilian witch and warned Mineo his life was in danger. When Mineo defended his girlfriend, he was ostracized.

In 2017, when a 911 call came in from Rogers, police found her over Mineo's body. She'd shot him point blank with a gun, and she told officers the stress of the cult feud became too much, and he'd wanted to die.

Rogers was convicted of homicide and sentenced to 15 to 40 years. She appealed, but this week, the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld the sentence. While the court said the circumstances were certainly unusual, the opinion was that she knew what she was doing.

https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/pa-court-denies-appeal-of-woman-convicted-of-murder-in-boyfriends-cult-related-death/article_01fe1676-77a0-11eb-8c49-97a3bc54edd8.html

Japan cults target lonely college students isolated by pandemic

Former Aum Shinrikyo groups exploit social media to recruit new members

SHIMPEI NAKAMURA 

Nikkei

March 21, 2021

TOKYO -- Cults and other dubious groups are approaching university students who feel lonely and isolated by the ongoing closure of classrooms as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into a second year.

These groups include Aleph, the main successor to the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, which staged the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway 26 years ago Saturday, killing 14 people and injuring more than 6,000.

Attempts to attract incoming college students via social media are especially visible. In the spring of 2020, a male student, just before enrolling in a university in Tokyo, ran across a tweet with a hashtag claiming to be from a student group at his university. The message read: "You're joining our university this spring. Would you like to hear from upperclassmen?" 

The university's orientation program for new students was canceled, with most classes held online due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Feeling anxious and deprived of opportunities to meet classmates and older students, he accepted the invitation.

A reply came from a person claiming to be an upperclassman at the university. The two began to converse by video and number of other "seniors" appeared, offering advice on how to sign up for courses and other topics. His interlocutors seemed reliable to the student, who began college life without going to campus.

But the first-year student began to feel uneasy around the summer of last year because all the people he talked to by video were middle-aged men, and they began to include what sounded like religious teachings in their conversations. When he asked the university for advice, administrators discovered that the Twitter account belonged to a religious group seeking to recruit new followers.

The coronavirus outbreak forced many universities to introduce remote learning in 2020. In the second semester of the current school year, only 20% of universities, higher vocational schools and other schools were offering full in-person instruction.

A Kyushu University survey in June last year found that 40% of students feel lonely or isolated because they have fewer opportunities to meet classmates and teachers. Cult groups are trying to capitalize on this loneliness.

The coronavirus crisis has prompted Aleph to shift its primary method of winning new adherents to social media and away from speaking to people in bookstores or on the street, according to Japan's Public Security Intelligence Agency (PSIA). More than 60 people, mostly in their 20s, joined Aleph in 2020. Recruitment activities by Aleph "target young people without direct knowledge of the sarin subway attack," a PSIA official said.

Universities are stepping up efforts to keep students from getting sucked into cults. In March, Sophia University in Tokyo warned incoming students on its website not to respond to unknown text messages following the discovery of an account opened by a group trying to recruit new members.

Chiba University has put up warnings around its campuses encouraging students to contact a consultation office it has set up if they are approached by cults.

Quite a few Japanese universities will hold orientation programs and classes online in the 2021 school year. "Many students try to connect with classmates and gather on-campus information via social media," said an official at the University of Tokyo. "They should be careful of solicitation that is designed to take advantage of their loneliness."

Cults capitalize on people's anxieties to recruit new members. Shoko Asahara (born Chizuo Matsumoto), the founder of Aum, who was executed in 2018 for orchestrating the deadly sarin attack, used his yoga school as a base of operations, expanding the cult's influence in the 1980s and '90s by predicting the end of the world, inflaming the fears of believers. The cult had some 1,400 live-in followers and more than 10,000 lay followers when it launched the sarin subway attack in March 1995.

"Cults approach people in a masterly fashion. But if you constantly are exposed to different values, you can recognize their fishiness," said Toshiyuki Tachikake, a professor of applied psychology at Osaka University. "It is important to deliberately increase one's communication with family members, as well as acquaintances and friends, even amid the coronavirus problem."

As Aleph and two other splinter groups of Aum, such as Hikari no Wa, maintain their influence, the PSIA extended its surveillance period for another three years in February under a law aimed at suppressing organizations that have committed indiscriminate mass killings. The three groups' combined membership numbers around 1,650, almost unchanged over the past several years.

Aleph had assets totaling 540 million yen ($4.97 million) at the end of January, according to a report submitted by the group to the intelligence agency as required by the law. Although its assets have dropped significantly from 1.29 billion yen in October 2019, Aleph has, since last February, refused to report assets generated through business activities such as sales of study materials and seminars, despite the agency's demand that it include these revenues in its reports.

Noting that the three groups retain their absolute faith in Asahara, the intelligence agency acknowledges that they continue to follow Aum's teachings and training methods. 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/Japan-cults-target-lonely-college-students-isolated-by-pandemic

Vicarious Liability: Court of Appeal dismisses appeal from religious organisation following sexual assault

Lexology

United Kingdom March 18 2021

Barry Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses v BXB [2021] EWCA Civ 356

The Court of Appeal has upheld a first instance decision that the worldwide governing body and a local congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, were vicariously liable for an indecent assault suffered by the Claimant. The assault was carried out by an elder, a member of the congregation who held special responsibilities.

This decision highlights that the second stage (the close connection test) of the two-stage vicarious liability test requires a tailored approach when considering instances of sexual abuse involving both children and adults. This tailored approach is required because sexual abuse cannot be regarded as something done while acting in the ordinary course of a person's employment.

Any such application needs to account for the differences between adults and children, and therefore each case would turn on its own facts. In this instance, the conferring of special responsibilities onto the abuser had “created a considerable risk of wrongdoing.” The Claimant “had been instructed that it was her religious duty” to help the elder in question, which had put her in the position of being at risk of abuse.

Introduction

The Claimant was baptised as a Jehovah's Witness in 1986. From this period and into the 1990s, the Claimant and her husband were friendly with another couple, Mark and Mary Sewell.

Mark Sewell was a 'ministerial servant', a member of the congregation with special responsibilities, and later became an 'elder', a spiritual leader of the congregation. Following a day of door-to-door evangelising, the two couples returned to the Sewells' home, where Mark Sewell then raped the Claimant. Despite a ‘judicial committee’ of elders finding the allegations unproven, Mr Sewell's offences were subsequently investigated by the police and he was convicted and sentenced to several years in prison.

At first instance, Mr Justice Chamberlain held that the worldwide governing body and the local congregation were vicariously liable for the sexual assault.

The local congregation (“the Defendant”) appealed. The worldwide governing body had already agreed it would satisfy any judgment against the local congregation.

Grounds of Appeal

The appeal considered both stages of the two-stage test to be applied to issues of vicarious liability namely:

• The relationship between the tortfeasor and the parties said to be vicariously liable to determine whether it is one that is capable of giving rise to vicarious liability (stage 1);
• The connection that links the relationship between those two parties and the act or omission of the tortfeasor (stage 2).

There were two grounds of appeal:

• In his application of stage 1, the judge erred in his conclusion that the activities undertaken by Mark Sewell were an integral part of the "business" activities carried on by the Defendant and that the commission of the rape was a risk created by the defendants assigning those activities to Mark Sewell;
• In his application of stage 2, the judge erred in his conclusion that the rape was sufficiently closely connected to Mark Sewell's position as an elder to justify the imposition of vicarious liability.

Appeal ground 1 - Was the position of elder akin to employment?

The Defendant had submitted that Mr Justice Chamberlain had oversimplified the analysis of the ‘akin to employment’ test, and that “the part-time volunteer activities of Mark Sewell are more akin to those of an independent contractor”. The Claimant argued that “elders are integral to the organisation…[are] directly controlled by the Jehovah's Witnesses organisation, [and] they are conferred with power by the organisation and its inherent structure.”

The Defendant’s appeal was dismissed.

The Court of Appeal held that the relationship was akin to employment. It was held that the judge did “carry out a searching enquiry into the role of elders”. Elders were the spiritual leaders of the congregation, and insofar the congregation acts a body, it acts through the elders. On this basis, Mr Justice Chamberlain rightly found that the role of an elder was integral to the business of the congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Regarding the question of whether the commission of the rape was a risk created by the Defendant in assigning the activities of an elder to Mark Sewell, Lady Justice Davies agreed with Mr Justice Chamberlain. He had found that literature issued by the worldwide organisation created “a risk that its adherents will mistakenly follow the instructions they are given by elders”. There was a risk as an “organisation which confers on its leaders power over others creates the risk that they will abuse it in that way”.

Lady Justice Davies concluded that the position was analogous to that described by Lord Philips in Christian Brothers. It was found that “the elders were the chief conduit of the guidance and teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, they were not carrying on business on their own account”.

Appeal ground 2 - Was the rape closely connected to the duties of the position?

At first instance, Mr Justice Chamberlain identified the relevant test for focusing on the relationship between the tort and the position of Mr Sewell as the essence of the test in Christian Brothers. In respect of claims involving religious duties, a tailored ‘close connection’ test is required, which is “more open, textured and requires an analysis of all aspects of the relationship between the tort and the abuser's status.”

The Defendant submitted that Mr Justice Chamberlain omitted “consideration of what Mr Sewell was authorised to do”. They argued that “it was no part of his spiritual duties to activate a friendship with [the Claimant]. It was in the context of close friendship that the rape occurred”.

The Claimant submitted that the High Court had applied the tailored version of the Stage 2 test correctly and made legitimate conclusions.

The Defendant’s appeal was dismissed.

The Court of Appeal held that “the tailored version of the test [in cases of sexual abuse] applies in cases in which adults are alleged to have been sexually abused as it does in such cases involving children because the rationale for the test is the same”.

For the purposes of the close connection test “what was relevant was the conferral of authority… coupled with the opportunity for physical proximity as between an elder and publishers in the congregation.”

It was held that had the Claimant felt able to end the friendship at an earlier time, she would not have felt compelled to tolerate the increasingly inappropriate behaviour of Mr Sewell.

Lord Justice Males added that in his judgment, that there was “a relationship of power which created a considerable risk of wrongdoing”, and that Mr Sewell “had a belief in his entitlement as an elder to exercise power over others and to act as he desired”. The rape was sufficiently connected with Mr Sewell’s role as an elder and was an abuse of the authority conferred on him by the Defendant.

What can we learn?

• In his brief judgment, Lord Justice Bean stated that “this appeal is the latest episode in the attempts of religious organisations to escape vicarious liability in claims for damages for sexual offences committed by those whom they have placed in positions of responsibility and moral authority”. The respective judgments in the Court of Appeal provided additional guidance on the consideration of vicarious liability in sexual abuse claims.
• There was reiteration that the use of a tailored ‘close connection’ test for the second stage of the vicarious liability was required in child abuse cases. Per Lord Reed in Wm Morrison, “the courts have emphasised the importance of criteria that are particularly relevant to that form of wrongdoing, such as the employer's conferral of authority on the employee over the victims, which he has abused”.
• This decision emphasised that such a tailored ‘close connection’ test should also be applicable to sexual abuse cases involving adults. Lord Justice Males highlighted that its application would need to account for the differences between adults and children, such as the ability to recognise inappropriate behaviours as an adult. However, “an adult may be susceptible to relationships which involve a risk of abuse, particularly in the context of those spiritual beliefs and doctrines which promote a culture of unquestioned obedience to religious leaders”.
• When considering such claims in the future, parties will have to consider whether the abuser was given status, power and/or authority over the victim, and whether the abuse was distinct and unconnected with the status granted by the religious organisation.

Clyde & Co LLP - Judith Martin and Graeme Watson

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d0a1ca63-2027-4702-9f6d-3c3da5fd9c5f

Breaking the Code of Silence

A Troubled Industry

Thousands of children are held within the Troubled Teen Industry each year.

Behavior Modification programs advertise themselves as premier rehabs, residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools and wilderness programs when really, they are for-profit, privately-run detention centers. Desperate parents are deceived and the children they claim to help, are subjected to abuse. Due to lack of government oversight, many programs are improperly regulated or operating fully unregulated. Children can be held for years without consent, due process and without true medical need.

The “treatment” these children receive is too often far from therapeutic. This fraudulent industry has thrived for decades despite constant allegations of Physical abuse, neglect, psychological harm, sexual abuse, pseudoscientific practices, and negligence resulting in death. Many of these programs have been shut down, only to rebrand, reopen, or have others take their place.

Widespread institutional child abuse has been accounted by many and well documented through survivor testimony. This experience can leave survivors with lifelong trauma, including Complex PTSD. Hundreds of children have even died in programs, or taken their own life in an attempt to escape the trauma. 

Without government intervention, thousands of children will continue to suffer in silence. 

https://www.breakingcodesilence.net/

Turn About Ranch abuse Dr. Phil

Bhad Bhabie

Breaking Code Silence

Turn About Ranch abuse Dr. Phil | Danielle Bregoli

"Dr. Phil, the teens you sent into abusive "tough love" programs are coming for you."

Secrets of the mind and free will — revealed by magic tricks

Alice Pailhès · Scientist, illusionist
Ted

Are you in control of your choices? Magic tricks might reveal otherwise, says scientist and illusionist Alice Pailhès. Watch closely as she performs magic tricks that unveil how your brain works, how you can be subtly influenced and what that means for free will and your day-to-day life. Did she guess your card right?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

https://www.ted.com/talks/alice_pailhes_secrets_of_the_mind_and_free_will_revealed_by_magic_tricks

Unmasked: man behind cult set to replace QAnon

The creator of the rapidly growing ‘Sabmyk Network’ is said to be a Berlin art dealer with a record of media manipulation

Mark Townsend

The Guardian

March 20, 2021

The mysterious individual behind a new and rapidly growing online disinformation network targeting followers of QAnon, the far-right cult, can be revealed as a Berlin-based artist with a history of social media manipulation, a prominent anti-racism group claims.

Since Donald Trump left the White House, QAnon’s vast online community has been in a state of flux as it comes to terms with the reality that its conspiracy theories – such as the former US president being destined to defeat a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles – amount to nothing.

That may explain why significant numbers have turned to a new far-right network, found mostly on the Telegram messaging app, that is growing quickly in the UK and globally and has amassed more than one million subscribers so far this year.

Called the Sabmyk Network, like QAnon it is a convoluted conspiracy theory that features fantastical elements and is headed by a mysterious messianic figure. Since its emergence there has been widespread speculation about who that figure might be. The person who first posted as “Q” has never been positively identified.

This week the British anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate will unmask Sabmyk’s leader, who it claims is 45-year-old German art dealer Sebastian Bieniek. It says Bieniek – who has not responded to questions from the Observer – has a history of creating online conspiracies and even wrote a book in 2011 called RealFake that detailed a campaign to deceptively promote his work.

But Hope Not Hate says the speed of Sabmyk’s growth serves as a warning of the opportunities for manipulation that exist on social media, particularly unregulated alt-tech platforms such as Telegram.

Gregory Davis of Hope Not Hate, which will publish its annual report into the far right on Monday, said: “His success in developing such a huge audience is a reminder that the QAnon template of anonymous online manipulation will continue to pose a threat in the years to come.”

Since 21 December last year, when Sabmyk was supposedly “awakened”, more than 136 channels in English, German, Japanese, Korean and Italian have sprung up, adding tens of thousands of followers on a daily basis.

Much of Sabmyk’s content is designed to appeal to QAnon followers; it features Covid mask scepticism, anti-vaccine conspiracies and false assertions that the 2020 US election was stolen from Trump.

Some is also designed to actively recruit Britons: one Sabmyk channel, the British Patriotic Party, uses the same branding as anti-Muslim group Britain First and posts about the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

Other channels are entitled London Post and Liverpool Times, as well as the Great Awakening UK, a reference to a well-known QAnon trope predicting a day of reckoning in which Trump would rise against his liberal enemies. Others include WWG1WGA, an acronym for the QAnon rallying call “where we go one, we go all.”

Among the clues used to identify Bieniek are posts saying that the messiah Sabmyk can be identified by specific marks on his body. One post claimed that Sabmyk would have “17 V-shaped scars” on his arm, the result of a “prophetic ceremony at the age of 24”.

What is QAnon and why is it so dangerous? – video explainer

Hope Not Hate has found a since-deleted section on Bieniek’s website recalling a 1999 art exhibit in which, aged 24, he cut V-shaped wounds into his arm for 16 days in a row.

Attempts to connect Sabmyk to Trump have been made, including a clip that splices together instances of the former president saying “17”, and a doctored image showing him with a Sabmyk pamphlet in his suit pocket.

Bieniek has created countless false identities, according to the Hope Not Hate investigation, to promote his career as an artist. The group also says his German Wikipedia page has been deleted at least four times, most recently in January.

A list of Bieniek’s accounts has been sent to platforms including Telegram with a call for them to be removed on the basis of “inauthentic and coordinated platform manipulation”. Telegram has been approached for comment.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/20/revealed-man-behind-fast-growing-cult-becoming-the-new-qanon-sabmyk-network

'I thought he loved us' | Roane Co. domestic violence survivor opens up about years of abuse to raise awareness

Amelia Young 

(WBIR)

March 19, 2021

 'I thought he loved us' | Roane Co. domestic violence survivor opens up about years of abuse to raise awareness 

Domestic abuse comes in all forms, and raising awareness about it could save lives.  

One Roane County woman is sharing her story after escaping her abuser, a cult and years of living in a shed away from society. She hopes it will help inform other people about domestic abuse and save more people from it. 

"Many people don't realize they are abused until they get out. I didn't," said Bella Hope Shiloh who spent a decade of her life in an abusive relationship. 

She uses an alias to protect her identity. She has also released a memoir about her experiences. 

"There's emotional, mental, financial, sexual, spiritual abuse," she said. "Because they're subtle, it's harder to put a label on it." 

She met her husband at a church she said was a religious cult with extreme beliefs. They lived in a shed with their children far away from the outside world for several years.  

"We didn't have water, electricity, phone, vehicle, shower, bathroom," she said. 

Because she was so isoalted, she wasn't able to understand the abuse. 

"I didn't even know my situation was considered domestic violence so I didn't have the verbiage to explain," she said.

Behind closed doors, she said her situation was terrifying.  

"Regardless how he suffocated our children, how he beat them or raped us … or kept us in a shed," Shiloh said. "We ate dandelions when we ran out of food. Regardless of all that ... I thought he loved us." 

She managed to find the courage to leave with her children, but the relationship continued for more than four years later until she came across an article.  

Shiloh said that it described her experience almost word-for-word, and was shocked that it was called abuse. She said she did not have a name for the experiences up until then. 

She's still trying to finalize the divorce more than four years later.  

"I had one judge tell me, he said, 'your story is the worst one I've heard in 44 years of law and 16 years as a judge,'" she said. "To me, I couldn't comprehend that because it was all normal to me." 

She's using her story to raise awareness for other survivors and victims through a new book, 'Prisoners in the Shed.' 

"There are always people who will hear your story, understand the dynamics of abuse, pick it out," Shiloh said. 

She's focusing on building a better future and leaving the past behind. She's currently studying at Roane State Community College to become an attorney.  

She'd like to press criminal charges for her experiences but doesn't have the legal resources.  

Her book, 'Prisoners in the Shed,' is available on amazon.

https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/i-thought-he-loved-us-roane-co-domestic-violence-survivor-opens-up-about-years-of-abuse-to-raise-awareness/51-782b526b-15ce-431f-a9d3-499960635caf

Prisoners In The Shed: The Harrowing True Journey From Captivity To Hope

Bella Hope Shiloh: Prisoners In The Shed: The Harrowing True Journey From Captivity To Hope 

"Prisoners in the Shed is the chilling, true story of Bella Hope Shiloh’s journey through the darkness of mind control and exploitation, which ultimately led to being captive in a shed in the woods for 2-1/2 years. Under his control, she struggles to survive a life barely sustainable — washing dishes in a snake-infested creek, foraging weeds for food, bathing in the rain — always praying for deliverance. 

 Her testimony provides a raw, uncensored glimpse into the tragic reality of domestic violence. It is also a triumphant story of a girl who, despite deprivation and terror, defied all odds and broke through to freedom with the only ally she had - hope." 

"“It is not the strongest who survive. It is the ones who have hope. Because you can break the human mind. You can break the human spirit. But those who have hope…you can’t break them. Their arsenal is far more powerful than you can ever imagine.” 

https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Shed-Harrowing-Journey-Captivity-ebook/dp/B08FLGHN38

7 ways to avoid becoming a misinformation superspreader

H. Colleen Sinclair
Associate Professor of Social Psychology, Mississippi State University
The Conversation

March 18, 2021

Disclosure statement
H. Colleen Sinclair receives funding from the Department of Defense.

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Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

The problem of misinformation isn’t going away. Internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken some steps to curb its spread and say they are working on doing more. But no method yet introduced has been completely successful at removing all misleading content from social media. The best defense, then, is self-defense.

Misleading or outright false information – broadly called “misinformation” – can come from websites pretending to be news outlets, political propaganda or “pseudo-profound” reports that seem meaningful but are not. Disinformation is a type of misinformation that is deliberately generated to maliciously mislead people. Disinformation is intentionally shared, knowing it is false, but misinformation can be shared by people who don’t know it’s not true, especially because people often share links online without thinking.

Emerging psychology research has revealed some tactics that can help protect our society from misinformation. Here are seven strategies you can use to avoid being misled, and to prevent yourself – and others – from spreading inaccuracies.

1. Educate yourself

The best inoculation against what the World Health Organization is calling the “infodemic” is to understand the tricks that agents of disinformation are using to try to manipulate you.

One strategy is called “prebunking” – a type of debunking that happens before you hear myths and lies. Research has shown that familiarizing yourself with the tricks of the disinformation trade can help you recognize false stories when you encounter them, making you less susceptible to those tricks.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed an online game called “Bad News,” which their studies have shown can improve players’ identification of falsehoods.

In addition to the game, you can also learn more about how internet and social media platforms work, so you better understand the tools available to people seeking to manipulate you. You can also learn more about scientific research and standards of evidence, which can help you be less susceptible to lies and misleading statements about health-related and scientific topics.

 

Badges identify ways misinformation exploits people's minds

Playing the ‘Bad News’ online game illustrates different ways information warriors can prey on people’s psychological vulnerabilities. Screenshot of Get Bad News

2. Recognize your vulnerabilities

The prebunking approach works for people across the political spectrum, but it turns out that people who underestimate their biases are actually more vulnerable to being misled than people who acknowledge their biases.

Research has found people are more susceptible to misinformation that aligns with their preexisting views. This is called “confirmation bias,” because a person is biased toward believing information that confirms what they already believe.

The lesson is to be particularly critical of information from groups or people with whom you agree or find yourself aligned – whether politically, religiously, or by ethnicity or nationality. Remind yourself to look for other points of view, and other sources with information on the same topic.

It is especially important to be honest with yourself about what your biases are. Many people assume others are biased, but believe they themselves are not – and imagine that others are more likely to share misinformation than they themselves are.

3. Consider the source

Media outlets have a range of biases. The Media Bias Chart describes which outlets are most and least partisan as well as how reliable they are at reporting facts.

You can play an online game called “Fakey” to see how susceptible you are to different ways news is presented online.

When consuming news, make sure you know how trustworthy the source is – or whether it’s not trustworthy at all. Double-check stories from other sources with low biases and high fact ratings to find out who – and what – you can actually trust, rather than just what your gut tells you.

Also, be aware that some disinformation agents make fake sites that look like real news sources – so make sure you’re conscious of which site you are actually visiting. Engaging in this level of thinking about your own thinking has been shown to improve your ability to tell fact from fiction.

4. Take a pause

When most people go online, especially on social media, they’re there for entertainment, connection or even distraction. Accuracy isn’t always high on the priority list. Yet few want to be a liar, and the costs of sharing misinformation can be high – to individuals, their relationships and society as a whole. Before you decide to share something, take a moment to remind yourself of the value you place on truth and accuracy.

Thinking “is what I am sharing true?” can help you stop the spread of misinformation and will encourage you to look beyond the headline and potentially fact-check before sharing.

Even if you don’t think specifically about accuracy, just taking a pause before sharing can give you a chance for your mind to catch up with your emotions. Ask yourself whether you really want to share it, and if so, why. Think about what the potential consequences of sharing it might be.

Research shows that most misinformation is shared quickly and without much thought. The impulse to share without thinking can even be more powerful than partisan sharing tendencies. Take your time. There is no hurry. You are not a breaking-news organization upon whom thousands depend for immediate information.

5. Be aware of your emotions

People often share things because of their gut reactions, rather than the conclusions of critical thinking. In a recent study, researchers found that people who viewed their social media feed while in an emotional mindset were significantly more likely to share misinformation than those who went in with a more rational state of mind.

Anger and anxiety, in particular, make people more vulnerable to falling for misinformation.

6. If you see something, say something

Stand up to misinformation publicly. It may feel uncomfortable to challenge your friends online, especially if you fear conflict. The person to whom you respond with a link to a Snopes post or other fact-checking site may not appreciate being called out.

But evidence shows that explicitly critiquing the specific reasoning in the post and providing counterevidence like a link about how it is fake is an effective technique.

Even short-format refutations – like “this isn’t true” – are more effective than saying nothing. Humor – though not ridicule of the person – can work, too. When actual people correct misinformation online, it can be as effective, if not more so, as when a social media company labels something as questionable.

People trust other humans more than algorithms and bots, especially those in our own social circles. That’s particularly true if you have expertise in the subject or are a close connection with the person who shared it.

An additional benefit is that public debunking notifies other viewers that they may want to look more closely before choosing to share it themselves. So even if you don’t discourage the original poster, you are discouraging others.

7. If you see someone else stand up, stand with them

If you see someone else has posted that a story is false, don’t say “well, they beat me to it so I don’t need to.” When more people chime in on a post as being false, it signals that sharing misinformation is frowned upon by the group more generally.

Stand with those who stand up. If you don’t and something gets shared over and over, that reinforces people’s beliefs that it is OK to share misinformation – because everyone else is doing it, and only a few, if any, are objecting.

Allowing misinformation to spread also makes it more likely that even more people will start to believe it – because people come to believe things they hear repeatedly, even if they know at first they’re not true.

There is no perfect solution. Some misinformation is harder to counter than others, and some countering tactics are more effective at different times or for different people. But you can go a long way toward protecting yourself and those in your social networks from confusion, deception and falsehood.

https://theconversation.com/7-ways-to-avoid-becoming-a-misinformation-superspreader-157099