159 report being sexually abused as Jehovah's Witnesses

AMANE SHIMAZAKI

Asahi Shimbun

November 9, 2023

 

Current and former Jehovah’s Witnesses reported 159 cases of sexual abuse by followers, many at the hands of those in positions of authority, according to a survey conducted by an apostate group.

The group of former second-generation followers, called “JW child abuse damage archive,” released the findings to relevant government ministries and agencies on Nov. 7.

It plans to hold a news conference on Nov. 28. 

Members of the group said they hope that the problem will be investigated as a social issue and serve as a wake-up call for human rights violations that can occur in other religions as well.

In the survey, the group solicited responses online in July and received 159 valid responses.

Thirty-five respondents said they had been sexually abused by followers when they were minors.

The sexual abuse they suffered included 24 cases of “being touched on the body over clothing or directly,” 11 of “being viewed or photographed in underwear or naked,” nine of “having lips, tongue or other parts of the body applied to the body” and four of “being forced to have sex.”

The respondents were allowed to choose multiple responses.

Nineteen respondents said the perpetrator was a member in a position of authority, such as an “elder,” who is a regional leader, and a “ministerial servant,” who assists elders. 

When they were sexually abused, seven respondents were preschoolers, 19 were elementary school pupils and the remaining nine were junior high school students or older.

Separately, 139 respondents said they had been shown publications including sexually explicit materials inappropriate for their age or had been told stories including sexually explicit materials.

These acts are considered sexual abuse under welfare ministry guidelines released at the end of last year.

In addition, 42 respondents said they had been forced to discuss with elders and others about their sexual experiences before an official committee hearing.

The international Christian denomination, which was founded in the United States in the 1870s, preaches that premarital sex is condemned in the Bible. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses told The Asahi Shimbun, “We do not tolerate child abuse in any form. In particular, sexual abuse of children is an extremely evil act, and we abhor such acts.”

According to the Jehovah's Witnesses website, there are currently about 8.7 million members in 239 countries worldwide, with about 214,000 baptized members in Japan. 

In an interview, a 38-year-old respondent said she had been sexually abused by a senior follower more than 100 times between the ages 9 and 12.

The former follower said she felt depressed every time a Jehovah’s Witness ministerial servant came to her house. Her parents were members.

The man, who was about 25 at the time, played with her and she thought of him almost as an older brother.

When she stopped attending school and was staying at home alone during the day, the man started bringing her sweets two to three times a week.

One day, the man rubbed her stomach over her clothing, asking, “Are you OK?”

He gradually began to put his hands under her clothes. He touched her breasts, licked her face and neck and even kissed her.

When she was around 12, he touched her between the legs.

She felt sick and scared, but she could not tell him to stop.

Considering his position in the local congregation, she felt that she might be in danger if word got out.

The woman long remained reclusive and drifted from job to job. She has been plagued with shaky hands and has had difficulties sleeping.

She has been on leave for about two years after she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

“Sexual abuse against children should not be allowed in society regardless of religion,” the woman said. “I want to ask the church how it will protect children when there is sexual abuse within the congregation.”

Miyako Shirakawa, a psychiatrist who treats sexual abuse victims, said the survey finding is probably only the tip of the iceberg, but it has great social significance as a first step toward understanding the actual scope of the problem.

“I was surprised that so many people have been able to speak out,” she said.

Shirakawa has encountered sexual abuse cases committed by Christian clergy members, either Catholic or Protestant and including Jehovah’s Witnesses, and by Buddhist priests.

“Even if victims report abuse, they are often not believed when the perpetrator is in a position of authority,” she said. “Sometimes, religious beliefs, such as that speaking out about abuse is considered an act of blasphemy and betrayal of the church and God, also hinder disclosure.”

Shirakawa said the central government or a third-party organization should ascertain the status of sexual violence in religious communities.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15052469

 

Growing Up As One of Jehovah's Transsexuals

Link to Amazon 

Laura Engram

As Samantha embarks on a frantic road trip to see her father, who has recently sustained a serious and potentially fatal head injury, her recollections come unbidden. The emotional journey that follows her as she drives is one of transformation and self-discovery, marked by the pursuit of authenticity despite overwhelming odds. The inner dialog captures the complexity of human existence, filled with both horrors and moments of profound insight.

Raised in the confines of the Jehovah's Witness faith, Samantha’s childhood was marked by the suffocating grip of a cult, a narcissistic mother, and an emotionally estranged father. To survive, she must delve into the darkness of her upbringing, trying to understand herself while following the rigid paths set forth for her.

Driving and retracing these difficult roads, Samantha shares brutally honest accounts of abuse, violence, and self-harm. Yet, amidst the chaos, she weaves a thread of resilience, self-acceptance, and empathy that binds her narrative together.

Based on her own life experiences, Laura Engram’s "Growing Up as One of Jehovah's Transsexuals" is a raw and unapologetic memoir that defies convention. Laura takes readers on a tumultuous journey, decisively maneuvering through time, memory, and her quest for identity. More than an autobiography, it's a cultural critique, a social parody, and an analytical exploration of life's most profound questions. A testament to the enduring power of self-worth, no matter the obstacles in the way; it is a rollercoaster ride through the highs and lows of life, ultimately revealing the strength that lies within us all.

God Was a Livestreamer

Zoe Guy

VULTURE

November 8, 2023

Watch Trailer

How does one go from McDonald’s manager to mummified corpse found in a sleeping bag wrapped in Christmas lights? First, get radicalized on mid-aughts-era blogs and start touting New Age spirituality beliefs and posting endlessly about them online. Eventually, you might find yourself in a Colorado commune playing “Mother God,” a 19-billion-year-old deity who birthed all creation and who was once reincarnated as Jesus Christ and Marilyn Monroe. That’s what happened to the late Amy Carlson after she went down the aforementioned rabbit hole, falling into a heady, and eventually Q-Anon-laced, wonderland called Love Has Won, a religious online community and cult based in Colorado. In their version of reality, Carlson was the 534th incarnation of the divine, fated to lead exactly 144,000 believers into a fifth-dimensional plane, freed from the bounds of our unsatisfactory 3-D world. She was also a YouTube livestreamer. It’s the era of parasocial, and often money-seeking, self-promotion after all. A three-part, Safdie Brothers–produced HBO docuseries, airing weekly beginning Monday, November 13, attempts to unravel the whole story.

Director Hannah Olson thinks a deadly combination of the hollow American dream, increasingly toxic internet micro-cultures, and a rise in conspiracy-obsessed, right-wing thinking is behind the irrationality she documented. Olson latched onto people who haven’t yet been “deprogrammed” to tell the docuseries’ complicated narrative in a way other cult docs aren’t able to do. “It was rare to see this kind of story told from the inside out,” Olson tells Vulture over Zoom. “What I used to construct the film is interviews with people who are still followers, still believe that Amy Carlson was God, and the 2,700 YouTube videos they left behind.” We get a first look at the footage Olson selected and testimonies from the group in the first trailer for the series, above.

Olson began the project three weeks after Carlson’s body was found in April 2021. “I grew up in Minnesota, and after 2016, I became really interested in the rise in conspiratorial thinking embodied by Donald Trump, people who follow him, and the people in this series,” she says. “The subjects fell through the cracks of our social system in a way that is really familiar to me growing up in the Midwest: no access to health care, no access to mental-health care. People looking to make sense of a reality that just doesn’t work for a lot of America anymore.” Olson emphasizes that white disgruntlement is by no means an excuse for the “dangerous and hateful conspiracy theories” espoused by Love Has Won, and she has no interest in platforming their often racist and antisemitic beliefs, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a contributing factor worth analysis.

“I was especially interested in the relationship between the beliefs that [Carlson] espoused and the cause of her death,” Olson explains. “I chose to focus on the ideology that underpinned Amy’s mission, which was that she could heal the world by taking on humanity’s pain.” People like the docuseries subject Sarah, who “had half a million dollars of medical debt and nowhere to go,” got mixed up in the group after internet research on cheap cures opened a can of worms. Olson calls the group’s syncretic faith a kind of “conspirituality,” or a blending of early internet New Age spiritual ideas peddled online with fabulous disinformation. Love Has Won might have even adopted Q-Anon and other conspiracies in vogue to cynically drive livestream traffic, recruit members, and make a buck off donations. Devotees were “looking for a reason for why their lives didn’t end up the way they thought they would,” Olson guesses. “The ideology that [Carlson] espoused took on a life of its own. Her followers so were intent on her being God that they neglected her humanity.” The alleged cult leader died due to complications from alcohol abuse, anorexia, and chronic colloidal silver ingestion, taken as a miracle “cure” to avoid COVID-19. HBO’s Love Has Won “ends up being about a race to get her medical attention” and the consequences of embracing fringe notions.

Carlson is “patient zero of the series” as someone “miserable in her own reality.” Not only an embodiment of “Mother God,” but a blueprint for how someone’s structure of reality can collapse very quickly if the algorithm catches on. “One of my favorite lines in the series is this guy named Andrew who was addicted to opioids,” Olson remembers. “And he says that being on the internet is a lot like dreaming because you lose control over it. It’s like a boat floating downstream and that stream takes you where it’s going to go.” The internet provides.

https://www.vulture.com/2023/11/love-has-won-trailer-release-date.html

Christian student will receive $150K in suit alleging school meditation program included Hindu ritual

Debra Cassens Weiss

ABA Journal

November 7, 2023

According to a lawsuit, a former public school student was told that she had to participate in a “Quiet Time” meditation program because it counted toward her grades, which determined her eligibility to play basketball. Image from Shutterstock.

A former public school student who alleged that she was coerced to participate in a school meditation ritual that violated her Christian religious beliefs has accepted a $150,000 offer of judgment from the Chicago Board of Education and the foundation that developed the program.

Plaintiff Mariyah Green will receive $75,000 each from the school board and the David Lynch Foundation, according to the Oct. 23 judgment in the case. The amount includes attorney fees and costs. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

A 2020 graduate of Bogan Computer Technical High School in Chicago, Green alleged in a February suit that the “Quiet Time” meditation program violated her First Amendment rights under the establishment and free exercise clauses. She also alleged violation of the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Illinois Constitution, but U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly tossed those claims for being filed too late in a June 30 opinion and order.

According to the suit, Green was told that she had to participate in the program because it counted toward her grades, which determined her eligibility to play basketball.

Green said she claimed that she had a knee injury to avoid having to kneel before an image of a man “who looked like Buddha.”

The meditation program consisted of two 15-minute sessions on school property during every school day. The program began with a “Puja” initiation ceremony. which is defined in the dictionary as a Hindu act of worship. It involved “various bowls, food items and symbolic items” that were arranged around a picture of Guru Dev, one of the founders of Transcendental Meditation, according to the suit.

Instructors chanted Sanskrit words during the ceremony that recognized the power by various Hindu deities, according to the suit. Students were assigned mantras that they should silently repeat that are drawn from a pool of Sanskrit words that reference specific Hindu deities, the complaint alleged.

In a press release, Green’s lawyer, John Mauck of Mauck & Baker, called the meditation program “an egregious abuse of Mariyah’s religious rights.”

The Chicago Sun-Times and WGN 9 covered the award and published statements by the defendants.

A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that it removed the Quiet Time program from schools in 2020, but the district still maintains that it did not violate students’ constitutional rights.

“There has not been any finding of liability in this case by a judge or a jury,” the statement said.

The David Lynch Foundation said in a statement the settlement “has no precedential legal effect, contains no findings based upon any evidence presented, and involves no finding of liability by the court against or by any party. The purpose of the offer was to compromise a dispute without any admission of wrongdoing and to control costs and expenses associated with protracted litigation.”

The statement said the Bogan students “voluntarily chose to learn the meditation technique with their parent’s consent and were free to opt out of the program at any time with no negative consequences.”

https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/christian-student-to-receive-150k-in-suit-alleging-school-meditation-program-included-hindu-rituals

Where are Jeff and Shaleia Ayan now? Escaping Twin Flames subjects today

Here's everything you need to know about Twin Flames Universe co-founders Jeff and Shaleia, including where they are now.

Radio Times

Grace Henry

November 8, 2023

Netflix is looking into online community Twin Flames Universe in its brand new docuseries, Escaping Twin Flames, from the Emmy-nominated filmmaking team behind Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult.

Twin Flames Universe is an active online spiritual community run by Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, who claim to have special, spiritual powers that can help members find their "twin flames" – an intense personal connection between two people. They operate Twin Flames Universe from their home in Michigan.

Including interviews from former members and family of those involved, the filmmakers told Netflix's TUDUM: "Escaping Twin Flames is the result of a three-year investigation into the sophisticated recruitment and indoctrination techniques employed by the leaders of this online group.

"We are grateful to those who courageously entrusted us with their firsthand accounts and evidence. We made this series for them and for everyone who has been manipulated or coerced without knowing it."

But, where are Jeff and Shaleia now?

As the documentary comes to Netflix, here's everything you need to know.

Who are Jeff and Shaleia Ayan?

Also known as Jeff and Shaleia Divine, the couple are the founders of Twin Flames Universe, a spiritual group that promises to illuminate “the path home to eternal love”.

The community is centred around the idea that everyone has a soulmate, aka their "twin flame".

The community promotes the idea of finding a "twin flame union", which is a "spiritual state" where both twin flames are connected and have agreed to be committed to each other.

There isn't a lot of information out there about the couple, but according to Vice and the documentary, Jeff previously went by name Ender Ayanethos.

Jeff met his wife, Shaleia, in 2012 through a mutual friend, and they got married in 2016, per the couple's online bio.

Shaleia reportedly went by another name as well. According to the documentary, she was originally known as Megan Plante.

When she met Jeff, she was living in Arizona, but the couple later moved to Hawaii and then Michigan.

Where are Jeff and Shaleia Ayan now?

Jeff and Shaleia are still running Twin Flames Universe and continue to grow the site.

Their website offers Twin Flames Ascension Coaching, various books and courses for sale, and a members-only protected area.

As of 2023, their Facebook group has 14,000 members, while their Instagram has 39.3k followers.

On their page, the couple share videos on how to attract your "twin flame".

In a recent video, Shaleia says: "It's important to give up and surrender our beliefs of limitations and these feelings of lack for thrival and for abundance, and for great love in our lives and great romance in our loves, and saying 'Yes' to our Twin Flame in any moment of our life on whatever part of the journey you are on with your Twin Flame."

The couple have also strongly denied any claims of wrongdoing.

In response to a Vice investigation into Twin Flames Universe, Jeff said: "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.

"We are aware of what is right and wrong and we consciously and diligently ensure that everything we do is legal and moral."

 

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documentaries/jeff-shaleia-ayan-where-now-escaping-twin-flames-netflix/

 

Is a ‘twin flame’ a soulmate? The meaning of the term, and why it’s controversial

Two new documentary series explore how an online group pressured members into taking extreme measures to find "harmonious twin flame union."

Alex Portée

Today 

November 7, 2023

Have you found your twin flame? 

The concept, and the hunt for finding it in real life, takes center stage in two new documentaries: “Escaping Twin Flames“ on Netflix and “Desperately Seeking Soulmate” on Amazon Prime Video.

Both documentaries center on Twin Flames Universe, a group founded by Jeff and Shaleia Ayan with the intention of coaching members into finding a “harmonious union” with their true loves, or “twin flames.” The Twin Flames Universe Facebook group currently has about 66,000 members.

Former group members and family members of current group members express concern in the documentary about the tactics Twin Flames Universe espouses, like encouraging stalking of crushes and manipulation. For example, leaders Jeff and Shaleia Ayan told members, in video footage shown in the Netflix documentary, to overrule objection from the objects of their affection, and pursue them, to the point that members would be served with restraining orders. Members were also pressured to couple up among themselves. Former members state group pressured them into changing their gender identities to enter twin flame unions with other members, as the documentaries detail.

Twin Flames Universe responded to TODAY.com’s request for comment with a lengthy rebuttal, saying, in part, “We take seriously recent allegations implying we wield inappropriate control over our community members. After a careful review of both media coverage and recent productions, we are saddened that so much effort has gone into taking swipes at an organization and community founded on love and mutual respect. The allegations levied against Twin Flames Universe not only distort our true aims, methods, and curriculums but also misrepresent the autonomy of our community members, who are free to engage with our resources as they see fit. We are committed to confronting these allegations in an open and accountable manner.”

The concept predates the Ayans’ prominent group, which has been the focus of exposes and podcasts as well. Read on to learn more about the concept of twin flames and how it affects real people.

What is a twin flame?

Kindred spirit. Soulmate. One true love.

All of these are synonyms for twin flame, a concept that suggests both a deep sense of kinship with another person, and a sense of your connection being fated.

Licensed psychologist Shauna H. Springer, who has written and researched extensively about love and relationships, clarifies that “twin flame” is not a clinical term.

“People use ‘twin flame’ describe this concept of finding somebody that you are sort of destined to meet,” Springer explains. “(Someone) with whom you are supposed to stimulate mutual growth over the course of a lifelong love partnership.”

What is the origin of ‘twin flames‘?

The actual term twin flame appears to have been popularized by the controversial American spiritual leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who wrote “Soul Mates And Twin Flames: The Spiritual Dimension of Love and Relationships” in 1999.

But twin flames are a different kind of connection than soul mates, especially within the mythology of the Twin Flames Universe.

Rachel Bernstein, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in cult intervention and re-acclimation, says the concept underlying “twin flames“ goes back to Plato’s “Symposium.”

In “Symposium,” a fictional version of the Greek playwright Aristophanes weaves a tale saying people once had four arms, four legs, and two heads, and were then cut in half by an angry Zeus, leaving them forever searching.

“A twin flame is the ‘other half’ of you,” Bernstein adds. “It is (based on the idea that) before you were born, there were these two parts of you that got separated.”

Paula Hardy, whose twin sister Stephanie Zimmerman is a current member in the Twin Flames Universe and is married to her "twin flame," explains the concept in her words to TODAY.com.

“At the core of the Twin Flames Universe’s ideology is that God created two parts of us to have basically one soul,” Hardy, who is featured in the Netflix documentary, explains. “And those two parts that were created at the exact same time are mirror images of one another.”

This is distinct from soulmates, which Springer defines as “(people) with qualities that make them feel like home to you the instant you meet them.”

Should you be looking for a twin flame?

Think twice before adding “seeking twin flame” to your dating app, psychologists say.

Both the concept of soulmates and twin flames are inadequate for “people that actually want lifelong love,” Springer says.

Springer describes the first stage of nearly every relationship as the “cocaine rush phase,” since it lights up the same neural pathways as using a drug.

“There’s a feeling that you’ve found this person — the soulmate or twin flame that you were always destined to meet — is problematic in the sense that everybody feels it. More than half the time, people are wrong. Abusive relationships also start out with this intense physical chemistry and attraction. If we use that as kind of the hallmark of having found something really special, that’s actually a pretty dangerous way to think,” Springer says.

Bernstein, who has worked former members of cults and former members of Twin Flames Universe, finds the notion of “other half” also misleading.

“I think a person is a fully formed being and should not be given the impression that they’re not whole without another human being,” Bernstein says. “I think that’s robbing someone of the feeling they have a whole self.”

Bernstein also disagrees with the notion that there is only one person out there for a single person.

“If that were true, then people who went through the loss of love or the death of a loved one would be relegated to always being alone,” she explains. “And we know that that’s not the case.”

That said, Bernstein says that she would tell anyone not to judge themselves for believing in the idea of a soulmate or a twin flame.

“It means that you’re a human being looking to connect, looking to have a meaningful relationship, looking to pierce isolation,” she says.

As Bernstein points out, we live in a time when people are more isolated and are searching for human contact.

“(People) don’t want to have to keep going through the rollercoaster of finding a person who turns out to not be the right person,”she adds. “These are all very normal and human desires. The only problem is, there are some people out there like the leaders of groups like (Twin Flames) who will take advantage of that hurt and worried part of people’s hearts and that is the unconscionable part.”

https://www.today.com/life/twin-flames-meaning-rcna123046

Judge rejects NXIVM leader Keith Raniere's claim FBI framed him

Deems appeal "frivolous" in latest legal setback for man once known as "Vanguard"

Times Union

By Mike Goodwin

November 7, 2023

NEW YORK — A federal judge denied NXIVM leader Keith Raniere's bid for a new trial, rejecting his argument that FBI agents planted evidence to frame him for possession of child pornography.

In a decision issued Monday, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis said Raniere's lawyers had cited no relevant prior cases in their argument that they should be allowed to examine the metadata embedded in photographs federal agents seized in the raid on a townhouse on Hale Drive in Halfmoon on March 27, 2018.

"A review of the record and the case law provided by the defendant makes it clear that defendant's motion is frivolous," Garaufis wrote.

Raniere wanted the judge to vacate his conviction. His lawyers argued the photographs' metadata had been changed to make it appear the images had been taken when the girl depicted was underage. Raniere's attorney, Joseph Tully, wanted the judge to allow a hearing where experts could examine the evidence.

The FBI seized the pornographic materials during the 2018 search of Raniere’s so-called executive library at 8 Hale Drive in the Knox Woods townhouse complex, where according to the woman Raniere had sex with her when she was underage. In February 2019, prosecutors revealed that they had discovered 13 photos of the victim, including nine classified as child pornography, on a Western Digital hard drive found in the townhouse. 

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have consistently called the allegations of tampering frivolous. The victim whose images appeared in the child pornography spoke at Raniere's sentencing in October 2020. The woman, now in her 30s, said Raniere began grooming her at age 13, and started a sexual relationship with her at 15.

In the defense motion, Raniere’s attorneys included sworn statements from former FBI special agent J. Richard Kiper and others identified as digital experts alleging that the government “manufactured child pornography and planted it on a computer hard drive to tie it" to Raniere, then manipulated evidence to convict him.

But the U.S. Attorney's office countered Kiper’s findings with an affidavit from FBI senior computer scientist David Loveall II, who determined that Kiper’s findings were incorrect and misleading. The prosecutor also said the information in Raniere’s so-called newly discovered evidence was known to his defense at the time of the trial.

The judge found the government's argument convincing. "Mr. Raniere therefore does not raise a reasonable probability that testing the evidence would demonstrate he did not commit the offense," Garaufis wrote.

Raniere, 63, known in NXIVM as "Vanguard," led NXIVM and its Executive Success Programs in Colonie for 20 years. He's serving a 120-year sentence in federal prison in Arizona for sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering charged that included underlying acts of extortion, identity theft and possession of child pornography. A jury convicted him of the charges in June 2019.

The ruling is Raniere's latest legal setback. In January, a tribunal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected Raniere's request to have Garaufis, the trial judge, removed from handling his appeal. Raniere's lawyers argued the judge was biased against him.

The previous month, the same court upheld his conviction, ruling Raniere was not denied a fair trial.

By Mike Goodwin

Mike Goodwin has been a stock broker, garbage man, and a house painter. He has been a journalist since 1995 and the Times Union has been his home since 2002. As a city desk editor, he's on the front lines of newsgathering for the Capital Region’s newspaper. Think you have an interesting story? Contact him at mgoodwin@timesunion.com or 518-454-5465.

 

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/judge-rejects-nxivm-s-leader-keith-raniere-s-18475355.php

 

Worldwide Church of God dissolves, leaving replica splinter groups in its wake

Volume 38 No. 12

Religion Watch

While the Worldwide Church of God no longer exists after the schisms and scandals this new religious movement experienced in the 1980s and ’90s, its offshoots continue to preserve important features of the movement and show some growth, writes J. Gordon Melton in the Journal of CESNUR (September/October), published by the Center on New Religions in Italy. Once considered a “cult,” largely because of its heterodox teachings (such as denying the trinity) and connections to the British Israelite movement (which claims that the direct descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel are in the UK), the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) experienced a downward trajectory starting in the 1980s, mainly related to scandals involving its leader Garner Ted Armstrong. The WCG’s successor subsequently downplayed the church’s distinctive teachings, resulting in more schisms and defections, according to Melton. Moving the WCG in an evangelical Christian direction, most of its followers and leaders reacted by deserting the church for splinter groups that tried to preserve the original WCG teachings.

Tracking down offshoots like the Philadelphia Church of God, United Church of God, Church of God AWA, and Grace Communion International, Melton finds that they have each tried to recreate the WCG, even publishing large circulation magazines modeled after the movement’s original publication, The Plain Truth. Some of these groups, such as the Philadelphia Church of God, have sought to reissue founder Herbert W. Armstong’s book after it was rejected by the WCG, kicking off a huge legal battle. Among the splinter groups, the most liberal has been the Living Church, which is moving closer to mainstream evangelicalism. But the main life of the WCG is now carried by the four large splinter groups cited above, with each establishing a college for ministerial training, a large Internet presence, and issuing full-color magazines; the Philadelphia Church has even established a cultural foundation in the U.S. and an archeological institute in Israel. Melton concludes that each of the four groups started with a relatively small membership (in the 5,000 to 20,000 range) and that they have collectively grown to more than 100,000. While earlier dreams of rivaling such groups as the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses had to be shelved, the “substance of the pre-disruption era has been reconstituted and the churches that are still being nourished by Herbert W. Armstrong’s life and work appear to be more than able to carry its founder’s vision forward.”

(The Journal of CESNUR, https://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/tjoc_7_5_full_issue.pdf)

https://www.religionwatch.com/worldwide-church-of-god-dissolves-leaving-replica-splinter-groups-in-its-wake/

 

 

 

‘I don’t kneel’: Student sues Chicago schools over candlelit rituals during class

 

Black Chroicle News Service- November 5, 2023

Mariyah Green was a junior when she transferred during the 2018-19 school year from a charter school to Bogan High School, where she played volleyball and basketball. Green had no idea when she transferred to Chicago Public Schools that she would end up suing the school, alleging violations against her First Amendment rights.

She told Chalkboard that students were made to participate in the district’s Quiet Time program, where instructors encouraged students to participate in transcendental meditation, including initiation rites conducted in a darkened classroom. She was recently awarded $75,000 for damages and legal fees in a judgement.

Students were told not to tell their parents about their “mantra” words, according to Green.

Green said students were expected to meditate for 15 minutes during two class periods every school day as part of the Quiet Time program during class in the place of instructional time, which targeted high-needs schools.

A 2016 Smithsonian Magazine article shows how the David Lynch Foundation wanted to spread transcendental meditation to urban schools in Chicago and New York and study the results on 6,800 “subjects.”

“The Quiet Time program serves urban schools that have high rates of youth behavior challenges, teacher turnover, and academic achievement gaps,” reads a Quiet Time brochure about the program’s implementation at the San Franciso Unified School District.

“By introducing meditation to the entire school community – students, teachers, and principals alike – this innovative program has effectively restored a positive culture of academics and well-being in high-need school communities,” the brochure reads.

But in practice, the Quiet Time program included pushing religion on students violating the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, according to Green and her attorneys.

Mariyah said when she started at Bogan, a transcendental meditation instructor would pull 3-5 students at a time out of class and take them to a darkened classroom to purportedly teach them how to meditate “the proper way” over the course of several days.

“As I go into the classroom, the setting was very uncomfortable for me,” Green told Chalkboard News in an interview. “The lights were off in the classroom. There was a picture of a man, and at the moment, I didn’t know from what religion it was, i just knew it wasn’t my religion, and I’m a Christian.”

Green said there were candles and chairs in the room and a woman with a headdress gave students a mantra that they were not supposed to repeat to parents, coaches or peers.

“That gave me a red flag,” Green said. “I’m not comfortable not being able to share this with my parents. They never gave me a consent to give to my parents. I was a minor at the time. I never signed anything to give them permission to put this religion on me.”

Green said that as students were meditating in the darkened classroom, the instructor told them they could kneel down to the picture of the man, that was set up like an altar.

“Oh no, I’m not kneeling down. That’s against my religion,” Green said. “I don’t kneel down for idols and pictures and things of that sort.”

Green said she told the instructor that her knee was injured from a sport.

After the school day, Green told her mom about what had happened and they researched what has happening during the ritual. Green said over the next two days, she had to hide during the last 15 minutes of class.

Green said whether she meditated in class was linked to a participation grade. If her grades were too low, she could not participate in sports. She filed a lawsuit in February this year alleging her rights were violated.

Specifically, the meditation required students to attend “Puja” initiation ceremonies, according to the lawsuit. Instructors did not share the meaning of Sanskrit words used during the ceremony, which included descriptions of bowing to a guru.

The lawsuit claimed students “were coerced to engage in Hindu religious practices and rituals in violation of their rights under both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.”

Green was not the only student to file suit against CPS over allegations it violated their religious freedom, according to her lawyers at Mauck & Baker. Several others have brought suits against the school, including a Christian and Muslim student.

The district ended the program in 2020 and maintains that it hasn’t done anything wrong.

“Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is committed to the safety and well-being of our students, and works with external partners to implement various programs and strategies to promote student mental health and ensure social and emotional well-being,” a spokesperson said.

“One of the programs CPS used was Quiet Time – a meditation-based social-emotional learning tool designed by the David Lynch Foundation, which develops programs to serve populations dealing with violence and trauma,” the spokesperson said.

Because the district entered into judgment, the case did not go before a jury. The option is similar to a settlement.

“The District has always denied, and continues to deny, any liability as a result of Quiet Time, and there has not been any finding of liability in this case by a judge or a jury,” the spokesperson added.

John Mauck, a partner at Mauck & Baker, characterized it differently. He said the district entering judgment is “effectively admitting they did wrong” regarding the claims in the complaint.

“They’re not contesting the truth of those,” Mauck said. “But they’re admitting the ultimate liability and Mariyah chose to accept that.”

“We feel this is an opportunity to let others know what’s going on with this unconstitutional establishment of religion, basically,” Mauck said.

Green said she is happy that her case against CPS is closed and feels that justice has been served. She said that it’s important to create awareness about what happened so other schools will not do something similar.

“I feel good because it’s bringing attention to what they tried to force on me and make me do as a minor in school,” Green said. “Everything happens for a reason.”

https://blackchronicle.com/education/i-dont-kneel-student-sues-chicago-schools-over-candlelit-rituals-during-class/

Former CPS student is awarded $150,000 in religious freedom suit over ‘Hinduistic’ meditation program

As a Christian, Mariyah Green felt “alone and angry” when her opinions about a meditation program weren’t respected and she was not given a choice about whether to participate, the lawsuit states.

Emmanuel Camarillo   

Chicago Sun-Times

November 2, 2023

A federal judge has awarded $150,000 in damages and legal fees to a former Chicago Public Schools student who said she was forced to participate in “Hinduistic rituals” that violated her constitutional religious rights.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled last week in favor of Mariyah Green, who had filed a lawsuit alleging she felt coerced to participate in the Quiet Time meditation program at Bogan High School in Ashburn despite her Christian beliefs.

In a statement, John Mauck, Green’s attorney, described the program as “a thinly veiled Hinduistic religious program” that asked participants “to make obeisance various ways to a member of the Hindu deities.”

“Mariyah Green’s Christian faith and her dedication to Jesus Christ makes worship of others, such as these idols, unthinkable,” her attorney said.

Green believed she had to participate in the program because she was told cooperation would count toward her grades, and she did not want to be kicked off the basketball team for poor academics, Mauck said. She had transferred to the school specifically for its basketball program.

In an email statement, a CPS spokesperson said the district removed the program from its schools in 2020 “but maintains that Quiet Time did not violate any student’s constitutional rights.”

The judge’s decision was the result of a “voluntary resolution between the parties akin to a settlement,” the spokesperson said in the statement. “The District has always denied, and continues to deny, any liability as a result of Quiet Time, and there has not been any finding of liability in this case by a judge or a jury.”

Both the Chicago Board of Education and the David Lynch Foundation, which developed the program, were named in the lawsuit. CPS is responsible for paying $75,000, and so is the foundation, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.

The foundation’s website states the meditation program is intended to reduce “toxic levels of stress” in the lives of young people, and that it can lead to an increase in graduation rates and a reduction in schoolwide suspensions.

In the lawsuit, Green alleges the “Transcendental Meditation” program was held during school hours, and students were required to participate in an initiation ceremony called a “Puja” — an “expression of gratitude” to the dead founders of the practice.

During the “Puja,” instructors chanted words in Sanskrit containing “statements recognizing the power possessed by various Hindu deities and invitations to those same Hindu deities to channel their powers” without telling students what they meant, the suit states.

Green learned of the “hidden religious nature” of the program and shared the information with other CPS students and teachers at Bogan. When teachers reminded her to meditate, she told them it “was not normal” and asked why students weren’t learning, the suit alleges.

Green, who graduated from Bogan in 2020, felt “alone and angry” when her opinions on the program weren’t respected and she was not given a choice about whether to participate. Mauck said the program “was an egregious abuse of Mariyah’s religious right.”

He said: “We thank the court for the recognition of the critical Constitutional issues at stake here. Mariyah Green’s concerns have been justified, her voice has been heard, and the offending parties have been held accountable.”

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/11/2/23944366/former-cps-student-awarded-150k-religious-freedom-suit-over-hinduistic-meditation-program

Christian student paid $150K settlement over school’s 'demonic' Transcendental Meditation program

Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter

November 07, 2023

A former student at a public high school in Chicago was awarded $150,000 in a settlement last month after she sued over a Transcendental Meditation program that she alleged violated her constitutional rights.

Mariyah Green, 21, sued the Chicago Board of Education in February over a Quiet Time program that was implemented in some urban public schools with the help of the University of Chicago and the David Lynch Foundation, which were also named in the lawsuit.

The Chicago Board of Education and the David Lynch Foundation will each pay $75,000, according to the judgment issued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Oct. 23, her lawyers announced last week.

Green, a Christian, told The Christian Post that she had transferred from a charter school to Bogan Public High School during the 2018-2019 school year to play basketball and volleyball.

Before long, she said she found herself expected to participate in the Quiet Time program that implemented Transcendental Meditation and other practices that she believed violated her faith.

Transcendental Meditation, also known as "TM," was founded in India during the 1950s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Hindu whose program has been variously described as both religious and non-religious. The movement exploded in worldwide popularity in the 1960s and 1970s after being endorsed by celebrities such as The Beatles.

In 2015, the University of Chicago's Crime Lab rolled out a multiyear study of Quiet Time, the David Lynch Foundation’s school program that implemented Transcendental Meditation, according to a 2016 article from Smithsonian Magazine. One of the largest randomized studies on meditation and children, the project involved 6,800 subjects in Chicago and New York and looked into the practice's effects on crime and violence, the magazine reported.

Green and her lawyers alleged to CP that the Quiet Time program expected students to chant a mantra and pay homage to Hindu deities in a "Puja" ceremony, which they claim was fundamentally "demonic" in its character, as well as a violation of Green's Christian beliefs and rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Green, who was a minor at the time, told CP that an instructor would take students four or five at a time into a darkened room she characterized as "spooky." She remembered that the presence of candles and an image of a guru in front of an altar indicated to her "a weird scenario" that made her uncomfortable.

"It looked like a picture of some type of idol that I knew not to worship," she remembered.

Green said she never learned the meaning of the mantra she was given but noted that she was told not to tell others what it was, including her parents. She said the experience made her feel her "religion was being attacked," which pushed her to "go into prayer mode" and to seek members of her church to pray over her for spiritual protection.

"You just never know what the whole purpose was of the meditation, the way they wanted me to do it," she said.

John Mauck, an attorney who represented Green, maintained to CP that one of the practices in the Quiet Time consisted of "a three- or four-minute Sanskrit chant which is, in our opinion, a demonic conjuring of the Hindu deities."

He said other religious clients sued over Quiet Time for similar reasons because they were asked to "give some type of obeisance" to the image of the guru, such as kneeling before it or offering it an orange.

Green said that she was told kneeling before the image would improve her meditation experience, but that she avoided having to do so by saying she had an injury.

Green also claimed she was threatened with losing points off her participation grade if she declined to partake in the meditation program, which she noted threatened to impinge upon her ability to play the sports she transferred to the school for in the first place.

She further claimed that she was never given parental consent forms and that her family did not approve of what she was being expected to do when she told them about it.

Bill Goldstein, an attorney who represented the David Lynch Foundation in the lawsuit, stressed to CP that the settlement in Green's favor does not prove any of her allegations and that the settlement should not be "construed as an admission of liability, or that any damages were actually suffered by her."

"Those are unproven allegations," Goldstein told CP. "And those have been denied, and the court has never made any findings that they were accurate. The settlement was entered into in the interests of judicial economy and to put an end to this without everyone spending a lot of time and money in litigation."

Goldstein denied Green's claims that she was forced to participate in the program or suffer academic and athletic retaliation and claimed that she received parental consent to participate.

CPS, which ended the Quiet Time program in 2020, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CP, but said in a statement to Chalkboard News that the district "is committed to the safety and well-being of our students, and works with external partners to implement various programs and strategies to promote student mental health and ensure social and emotional well-being."

“One of the programs CPS used was Quiet Time – a meditation-based social-emotional learning tool designed by the David Lynch Foundation, which develops programs to serve populations dealing with violence and trauma,” the CPS spokesperson continued.

“The District has always denied, and continues to deny, any liability as a result of Quiet Time, and there has not been any finding of liability in this case by a judge or a jury,” the spokesperson added.

Green, who is now training to be a police officer in Chicago, told CP that she "stayed prayed up" through the situation at her school, and that she hopes God will continue to use her to "spread the Gospel and also to help people."

"The weapons could form but they can't prosper. There is no way — even though the devil did have the intent to put something in my spirit with a mantra, or whatever the case was," she said. "But you know, we serve a different type of God, and He uses me all the time."

Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com

https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-student-paid-150k-settlement-after-suing-over-tm.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic%2Fmeditation

Russia Hands Jehovah's Witness Follower 7-Year Jail Term for 'Extremism'

 

The Moscow Times

November 7, 2023

A court in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region has sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness follower to seven years in prison on charges of “extremism,” the religious organization’s Russian branch said Tuesday. 

Yevgeny Bushev had been under house arrest since September 2022 on allegations of “organizing actions to continue the illegal activities of a banned religious organization,” the religious group said on its website. 

Russia’s Supreme Court in 2017 declared the Jehovah’s Witness movement to be “extremist,” banning its estimated 400 branches across the country.

Chelyabinsk’s Kalininsky District Court found Bushev guilty and handed him a seven-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors had requested a six-year prison sentence for the worshiper. 

The Jehovah’s Witness movement's Russian branch said Bushev was arrested due to his participation in meetings and discussions with local worshippers. 

The independent news website Mediazona reported that the prosecution’s witness was an employee of Russia's National Guard (Rosgvardia) who had “shown interest in the Bible” during conversations with Bushev and other worshippers. 

A linguistic examination concluded that Bushev had “tempted” the Rosgvardia employee to accept the Jehovah’s Witness faith when responding to questions about religion. 

The banned religious group said that Bushev is the 15th Jehovah’s Witness follower from the Chelyabinsk region to be prosecuted for “extremism.”

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said in June 2022 that Russia had violated over 1,400 followers' right to religious freedom when it declared the Christian organization an “extremist” group.

International human rights NGOs have condemned Russia’s crackdown on Jehovah’s Witness followers in the years since the ban. 

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/07/russia-hands-jehovahs-witness-follower-7-year-jail-term-for-extremism-a83025

Survivors of Cults Speak Out

Aisha Sultan

PARENTS TALK BACK

UExpress

NOVEMBER 6TH, 2023

Shelly Snow Pordea grew up in a fundamentalist religious sect.

When she was a child, her parents moved from her birthplace of St. Louis to Hammond, Indiana, to be near the First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) megachurch then run by Jack Hyles.

Pordea, now 48, remembers her early life tightly revolving around this church.

The outside world, she was taught, was a threatening and scary place. Her parents subscribed to Hyles’ child-rearing methods, which promoted hitting children into submission -- spanking babies as young as 6 months old. Pordea said her parents later told her that they kept rubber bands on her wrists when she was 2 years old, which they would snap against her skin to keep her in line. It wasn’t until Pordea was 14 and listening to a talk about promiscuous women during an IFB youth camp that she realized she had been sexually abused as a 4-year-old by a church member.

After the lecture, she confided the abuse to a camp counselor.

“I was told I was tainted and not clean anymore,” Pordea said. And she had been conditioned to believe it.

As a teenager, she tried to keep the peace in her family, especially after her brother ran away from home at 17. She attended the unaccredited Hyles-Anderson College, where she took classes that taught her it was a woman’s fault if a man strayed from his marriage.

Pordea got some physical distance from the church when she got married and moved overseas with her husband, although she was still deeply invested in it emotionally and mentally. Through the internet, Pordea discovered the accusations against Hyles of sexual scandals and financial misappropriation. She began connecting with former IFB members on social media, who shared their own stories of abuse.

Over time, the indoctrination began to unravel. By age 30, Pordea began to believe she had been raised in a cult. In 2013, the church leader Jack Schaap, Hyles’ son-in-law, was convicted of taking a 16-year-old across state lines to have sex with her. He was sent to federal prison.

“That was a point of no return,” Pordea said.

Pordea, who now lives in St. Peters, Missouri, joined forces with others in the cult survivor world to host a first-ever, live storytelling event last month in St. Louis. She wants to raise awareness of how some organizations use coercion, manipulation and undue influence in order to abuse and control people.

The movement began during the pandemic with the #IGotOut hashtag on social media, with people sharing their own experiences in cultic groups. A number of documentaries, podcasts and TV shows have brought awareness to the diverse range of such organizations. Some are political, religious or spiritual, while others revolve around doomsday prophesies, sex, self-help and even multilevel marketing.

Gerette Buglion, an author and executive director of IGotOut.org, was a teacher for 19 years before she became involved with a self-help group that eventually took over her life. She was introduced to the group leader by fellow teachers who were getting dream therapy sessions from him. Buglion began sessions as well, and the leader used the personal information she shared during therapy to slowly manipulate her and create dependence on him.

For 18 years, Buglion remained under the mind control of a charismatic fraud.

Almost 10 years ago, another woman in the organization described how the leader would yell at her for hours at a time for her perceived infractions. Because this information came from a person within the cult whom Buglion trusted and cared about, it created a big crack in her perception of the leader.

That was the opening she needed to get out.

Buglion, who has now heard hundreds of stories from survivors and their loved ones, said it is critical to try to maintain some kind of connection with a person you fear is being indoctrinated. She has since published the book “An Everyday Cult.” In it, she shows how anyone can be susceptible to narcissistic leaders and groups that claim to know the truth. They use natural human vulnerabilities and group dynamics to slowly take over a person’s critical thinking skills.

“The level of shame is very high for people coming out of cultic organizations,” she said. She was plagued with questions about how she, an educated person, could have let it get so bad and stayed for so long.

In recent years, many survivors have found connection through social media. Those connections, plus the pandemic lockdown and a boom in media programs about cults, have prompted many to reexamine their relationships with their tight-knit groups and leaders.

Pordea recalls watching Leah Remini’s documentary, “Scientology and the Aftermath,” with her husband, who hadn't fully accepted the truth about his and Pordea's upbringing.

Watching Remini's story, the parallels to his own life finally hit him.

He looked at Pordea, stunned.

“Oh my God, it was a cult,” he said.

https://www.uexpress.com/parenting/parents-talk-back/2023/11/06

Senior Agila, other Socorro 'cult' members arrested for alleged illegal activities

CNNPhilippines Staff

November 7, 2023

 

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) — Alleged cult leader Jey Rence Quilario. also known as "Senior Aguila," and other officers of the Socorro Bayanihan Services Inc. (SBSI) were arrested on Tuesday for committing various illegal activities that harmed over a thousand children.

During a Senate inquiry before the arrest, Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty said a Surigao del Norte regional trial court issued warrants of arrest against 13 respondents.

He said the respondents are facing 21 violations, including nine counts of qualified trafficking, eight counts of child abuse and facilitation of child marriage.

Testimonies in the Senate hearings revealed that minors in the SBSI were forced to marry an adult and were locked in a room until they engaged in sexual intercourse. Fifteen-year-old "Chloe" confirmed the incident during Tuesday's hearing.

Sen. Riza Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate Committee on Women and Children, lifted the move of contempt against Quilario and three members of the SBSI.

Quilario, Mamerto Galanida, Janeth Ajoc and Karren Sanico Jr. were cited in contempt for allegedly lying during the probe on crimes linked to the group.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla earlier said the case should be tried in Manila so that justice will not be influenced by people who may want to intervene in the process.

https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2023/11/7/warrants-of-arrests-socorro-cult-leaders.html

The Matchmaking 'Cult' That Coerced Women Into Gender Transitioning

ANYTHING FOR LOVE?

The Netflix docuseries “Escaping Twin Flames” explores the controversial online community that targeted lonely people looking for their soulmates.

 

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

November 07, 2023 

If a guru forces you to watch HBO’s The Vow in order to prove that he’s not a cult leader, he most definitely is—one of many lessons that can be gleaned from Escaping Twin Flames, a three-part docuseries about the online self-help outfit that promises to provide the lonely with their one true love. Arriving mere weeks after Prime Video’s own non-fiction exposé Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe, Cecilia Peck’s Netflix investigation damningly dissects the ugliness perpetrated by Jeff and Shaleia Divine, two online hucksters following a standard-issue cult playbook—save, that is, for their business’s modern twists, the most galling of which is its practice of coercing women into gender transitioning.

Confirming that there’s no shortage of people looking for mystical mentors who’ll afford answers to life’s problems, as well as exploitative phonies willing to assume those roles, Escaping Twin Flames (Nov. 8) is a brutal takedown of Jeff and Shaleia, who’ve made a mint by guaranteeing to pair individuals with their Twin Flames (i.e. soulmates). By paying for Twin Flames Universe (TFU) classes, coaching sessions, and other instructional materials (most of which revolve around a self-recrimination technique known as “The Mirror Exercise”), members are told that they’ll meet their divinely chosen partner and enter into a Harmonious Union. How will this come about? Initially, Jeff and Shaleia said that acolytes would recognize their True Flames courtesy of an instant, irresistible attraction. Before long, though, they were proclaiming that, because of their own “magical” union, they had the unique power to identify a person’s True Flame—and thus their word was to be unquestionably followed.

This is, of course, pure, unadulterated New Age-y nonsense, and the fact that anyone would buy it speaks to the way in which desperate unhappiness and lack of fulfillment breeds susceptibility to mumbo jumbo. Escaping Twin Flames features interviews with a collection of former members, including Keely, who became the first True Flame success story thanks to her whirlwind romance with, and marriage to, Colby. Keely was so all-in that she convinced her sister Marlee to join the organization and to accept Jeff’s proclamation that some older Utah rando named Joshua (who’d sent her a song via TFU’s Facebook page) was her True Flame. In no time at all, Marlee was moving to Utah to be with Joshua, despite the fact that he was a convicted felon with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Unsurprisingly, this did not beget a happily ever after.

Also not shocking is the revelation that Jeff and Shaleia preached that members should cut off anyone interfering with their search for a Harmonious Union, including family members. Peck’s docuseries concentrates on a few mothers struggling to reconnect with their children, most notably Louise, whose daughter Stephanie severed all ties with her clan, including her twin sister Paula. As sociology professor Dr. Janja Lalich explains, this is a bedrock cult tactic, as was Jeff’s pronouncement—heard in some of the cringey TFU videos—that he’s the second coming of Jesus Christ. That Jeff is nasty, controlling, and creepy in those online posts is far from stunning, although his habit of overtly articulating his base financial motives (and flaunting the wealth he’s accumulated from member contributions) is eye-opening in its brazenness.

Escaping Twin Flames reveals that Jeff began his charlatan career by claiming he could cure cancer for a price, and he got his brilliant TFU idea after meeting kindred fraud Shaleia (real name: Megan). Jeff and Shaleia eventually sought to transform TFU into an outright religion because, as they admit on camera, that would let them avoid paying employees. They ran into a problem, however, when they discovered that compelling members to aggressively chase after their True Flames resulted in stalker-ish behavior and law enforcement trouble. With True Flame unions failing to materialize in accordance with their guarantee, Jeff and Shaleia pivoted to another strategy: pushing the dogma that humans were classifiable as either “Divine Masculine” or “Divine Feminine.” If their mostly female members couldn’t find a man, it was because they themselves were “Divine Masculine” in nature—and therefore should begin a gender transition.

In a bold move, Jeff and Shaleia paired off their members and told them whether they were men or women, and numerous individuals went along with these commands to the point of undergoing top surgeries. Escaping Twin Flames rightfully posits this as insanity and, moreover, antithetical to trans people’s desire to determine their own identities, and it proved a make-or-break moment for many of those who appear in Escaping Twin Flames. Their heartfelt testimonials are wracked with not just anger and hurt, but shame and guilt for the wrongs they committed on behalf of Jeff and Shaleia. With Dr. Lalich’s commentary, the docuseries astutely notes that cults are horrific precisely because they turn everyone into a perpetrator—something that Keely, as a former de facto spokesperson for TFU, is forced to reckon with after leaving the group in 2021.

Escaping Twin Flames paints Jeff and Shaleia as routine cultists defined by their 21st-century means of dominating (and bilking) adherents through gender-identity manipulations. Simultaneously, it compassionately considers the plights of both ex-members and the moms fighting to extricate their kids from the duo’s pseudo-spiritual clutches. Like other cult-related streaming affairs, what’s missing from Peck’s series is a larger discussion about how and why some people are predisposed to embrace systems that are so obviously counterfeit; one look at Jeff is enough to recognize him as a two-bit con man with no expertise in relationship or mental health counseling, and even less connection to God. There’s no judgment here, only empathy, but greater inquiry into Jeff and Shaleia’s victims—particularly, what made them vulnerable to these promises—would have expanded the show’s purview.

Still, given that Jeff and Shaleia continue to peddle their TFU wares online, Escaping Twin Flames serves its purpose as a withering warning call about a cult that’s yet to cease its corrosive operations.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/escaping-twin-flames-review-netflix-docuseries-explores-love-cult

 

The Leader of the World's Most Bizarre Cult

Vice: The Leader of the World's Most Bizarre Cult

https://youtu.be/HTXmmSPlyTs?si=aTK0SZTN_s04oRMl