Nov 29, 2016

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/29/2016

cult news


"The library was opened about five years after thousands of dollars’ worth of books was removed from a schoolhouse in the community, leaving people without books for a library. The removal of the books, some of which were found burned, led to a major rift in the community between members of the polygamous group and non-followers."



"Jane Blackmore said she felt like she'd been 'sucker-punched' after being told to marry Winston Blackmore when she was just over eighteen years old.

Blackmore, a former wife of the polygamous leader of Bountiful, testified in Cranbrook Supreme Court during the trial of James Oler, Brandon Blackmore and Emily Blackmore, who are facing alleged unlawful removal of child from Canada charges."




"Everyone is surprised to see how brand Patanjali is giving a tough competition to other FMCG companies in India. It may look like an overnight success, but it’s not.

Why Patanjali brand is so successful? Is it because of its swadeshi brand or organic products? Evenbrands like Dabur and Himalayas were around for so many years selling Ayurvedic and Indian products. But, what is so special about Patanjali brand?"



"Leah Remini has reportedly demanded the Church of Scientology pay her US$1.5 million after it lobbied a TV network to get her new show shut down.

A lawyer acting for the Scientologists tried to get the show, which threatens to reveal details about the church, pulled before it airs on cable channel The Arts & Entertainment Network."



'You have to leave your doubts at the door to follow the story of Aaron Paul’s Eddie, a member of the green smoothie-drinking Meyerist sect who is suffering a crisis of faith.

What is it? A mildly questionable but engrossing tale of religious cult members starring Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul."



"Fusion looks at the tensions between a pacifist religious sect and local North Dakota officials over an abandoned Cold War anti-missile complex that looks like something out of Illuminati conspiracies. The Hutterites won the auction for the giant pyramid on the prairie to the chagrin of local officials, who unsuccessfully tried to buy the decommissioned military facility."



"Following the development, ARY News anchor Iqrar-ul-Hassan, who leads the show which does such sting operations, invited religious scholars and learned Sufis to shed light on the issue of fake faith-healing."



"Calls to reform Quebec's Civil Code are mounting in response to the death of Éloïse Dupuis, a 26-year-old Jehovah's Witness woman, six days after she gave birth in October."



"Destiny Church will be under the Charities Services microscope after a complaint about its tax-free status."




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Polygamist church leader says underage marriages were God’s will


EVA UGUEN-CSENGE
THE CANADIAN PRESS
NOVEMBER 28, 2016

The leader of a fundamentalist church that practises polygamy was aware that asking members in southeastern British Columbia to take their daughters across the U.S. border to be married could attract the attention of authorities, but he believed he was acting under instructions from God, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision.

The ruling was released Friday as part of the ongoing trial of three members of the community of Bountiful, B.C., accused of taking two teenaged girls out of Canada to marry elders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, including leader Warren Jeffs, who is now in prison. A judge ruled that documents from the church could be presented at trial.

Brandon James Blackmore and Emily Blackmore are accused of taking their 13-year-old daughter across the border to be married, while James Oler, a local church leader, is charged with doing the same with his 15-year-old daughter.

Priesthood records show that Mr. Jeffs married the 13-year-old girl in 2004, according to the court judgment. Those records also contain a list of marriages performed by Mr. Jeffs, including an entry for the marriage of Mr. Oler's 15-year-old daughter to James Leroy Johnson.

The church documents include transcripts of dictations by Mr. Jeffs, which, the court ruling notes, show the church leader was aware of taking part in illegal activities. For instance, a 2004 transcript has Mr. Jeffs recalling a telephone conversation with Mr. Blackmore in which Mr. Jeffs acknowledges that asking him to take his daughter to the United States to be married would "hasten the persecutions against me and this people as the apostates in Canada will inform the authorities."

In another section of the transcript, Mr. Jeffs says: "The Lord had revealed that Brandon Blackmore's 13-year-old daughter … belongs to me."

The Crown will seek to prove that both girls, whose names are protected under a publication ban, were removed from Canada at Mr. Jeffs' request and that the three accused were witnesses at their marriages to Mr. Jeffs and Mr. Johnson. Mr. Jeffs, now 60, was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls and sentenced to life in prison in 2011.

Mr. Blackmore's lawyer, John Gustafson, argued that the documents are prejudicial because they are not ordinary business records but rather the personal records of Mr. Jeffs and have not been subject to crosschecking. He also argued that because Mr. Jeffs has not been called upon to testify in the trial, the defence is unable to cross-examine the author of the records.

Justice Paul Pearlman stated in his written decision that copies of the documents are reliable enough to be presented in court. Usually these records would be considered hearsay and therefore inadmissible, but the Crown attorney argued for them to be admitted under the business records exception. This allows records kept in the ordinary course of business to be presented as evidence. The church's doctrine requires members to keep detailed records of its everyday activities because "what is not recorded on Earth shall not be recorded in heaven."

Justice Pearlman ruled that Mr. Jeffs would have had no motive to fabricate documents in which he implicates himself in criminal activity. While he did not admit all the priesthood records as evidence, he made an exception to the hearsay rule for documents relating to Mr. Jeffs' communications with Mr. Blackmore and Mr. Oler.

The trial is one of two criminal cases connected to the community. Mr. Oler and Winston Blackmore, who each lead divided factions within Bountiful, will stand trial on polygamy charges at a later date.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/priesthood-records-on-teen-marriages-can-be-used-in-bc-polygamy-trial-judge/article33070900/

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Jewish communities discouraged survivors from reporting child abuse, commission finds


Royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Report finds those who reported abuse at Yeshiva Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne were often met with disapproval or treated as outcasts.

Christopher Knaus
The Guardian
29 November 2016

A strict adherence to Jewish law led two ultra-Orthodox communities to treat child abuse survivors as outcasts and discouraged them from contacting secular authorities, the royal commission has found.

On Tuesday the commission released its report on Yeshiva Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne, two communities belonging to the Chabad-Lubavitch orthodox movement of Judaism.

Chabad communities imposed on their members a strict adherence to orthodox practices and laws, encouraging modesty and gender segregation, while discouraging contact with non-Jews or any discussion of sex, the commission found.

Rabbis were found to have discouraged members from coming forward about abuse and a number resigned during last year’s commission hearing.

The royal commission examined how both communities responded to abuse complaints against David Cyprys, David Kramer and Aron Kestecher in Melbourne, and Daniel Hayman in Bondi.

Chabad-Lubavitch communities required disputes to be handled internally according to Jewish law rather than secular Australian law, the commission found.

Members were prohibited from informing on one another to secular authorities and discouraged from speaking negatively about others in the community, even if what they said was true, the report found.

The royal commission found that these practices greatly affected the handling of child abuse complaints.

“The evidence strongly suggests that, because of the way those concepts were applied, some members of those communities were discouraged from reporting child sexual abuse,” the commission found. “We heard evidence that some members of the communities believed that those who were understood to have communicated about child sexual abuse were acting outside the bounds of acceptable halachic conduct (that is, they were sinning).”

Those who reported abuse were often met with disapproval or treated as outcasts once they had reported their experiences, the commission said.

Reporting abuse would hurt the marriage prospects of children and publicly calling for people or institutions to be held to account for failings was considered a sin. Sinners would then be shunned socially, economically or religiously.

The royal commission heard from four survivors, including those who were abused in synagogues and ritual bathhouses.

One survivor, Manny Waks, was abused by two adults in the Melbourne community for years, including his martial arts teacher Cyprys, who was eventually convicted in 2013.

Waks was bullied and tormented when he first told a fellow student of his abuse and later, as a teenager, rejected his religion, struggled with feelings of helplessness and despair, and turned to alcohol.

Years later, Waks told his father and they went to Victoria police, who investigated his complaints but did not lay charges.

He said during the hearings he also told Yeshivah Melbourne’s rabbi, David Groner, who allegedly instructed him to “do nothing” because Cyprys was being dealt with. Waks went public about his treatment 15 years later, the first time anyone had spoken out about abuse within the community.

Yeshivah Melbourne has since apologised for “any historical wrongs that may have occurred” in a 2012 letter. It has encouraged its members to report any allegation of child abuse to authorities.

Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, the leader of Yeshiva Bondi, has also apologised to children that the community had failed.

At the commission’s public hearing last year, Feldman vowed “to do everything in our power both to protect the children in our care and to support those who have suffered”.

“I would like to now publicly state as not just a position of Jewish law but the official policy of the Chabad movement in New South Wales: the reporting of cases of abuse to the authorities is not just ‘permitted’ but an ‘obligation’, a holy obligation that will keep our children safer and our communities healthier,” he said.

The royal commission found the Melbourne community has taken significant steps to improve its child protection policies and procedures but said evidence of the response in Bondi was less clear.

Waks issued a statement on Tuesday evening welcoming the commission’s findings, describing them as complete vindication for him and other survivors.

The commission’s report made clear the “abhorrent, hypocritical, and irreligious” treatment of victims, their families and supporters, Waks said.

He called for an unequivocal personal apology to his family, who the royal commission found had been made secondary victims through their treatment.

“Until all of this occurs, any statements of regret or promises of change on behalf of Yeshivah do not reflect the reality on the ground,” he said. “I thank the royal commission for completely vindicating the actions of myself and other victims and holding Yeshivah and its leadership to account.”

Both communities will be examined again in a second inquiry in March next year.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/29/jewish-communities-discouraged-survivors-from-reporting-child-abuse-commission-finds

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Polygamist church leader says underage marriages were God's will


The Globe and Mail

EVA UGUEN-CSENGE

The Canadian Press

 Monday, Nov. 28, 2016

 

The leader of a fundamentalist church that practises polygamy was aware that asking members in southeastern British Columbia to take their daughters across the U.S. border to be married could attract the attention of authorities, but he believed he was acting under instructions from God, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision.

The ruling was released Friday as part of the ongoing trial of three members of the community of Bountiful, B.C., accused of taking two teenaged girls out of Canada to marry elders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, including leader Warren Jeffs, who is now in prison. A judge ruled that documents from the church could be presented at trial.

Brandon James Blackmore and Emily Blackmore are accused of taking their 13-year-old daughter across the border to be married, while James Oler, a local church leader, is charged with doing the same with his 15-year-old daughter.

Priesthood records show that Mr. Jeffs married the 13-year-old girl in 2004, according to the court judgment. Those records also contain a list of marriages performed by Mr. Jeffs, including an entry for the marriage of Mr. Oler’s 15-year-old daughter to James Leroy Johnson.

The church documents include transcripts of dictations by Mr. Jeffs, which, the court ruling notes, show the church leader was aware of taking part in illegal activities. For instance, a 2004 transcript has Mr. Jeffs recalling a telephone conversation with Mr. Blackmore in which Mr. Jeffs acknowledges that asking him to take his daughter to the United States to be married would “hasten the persecutions against me and this people as the apostates in Canada will inform the authorities.”

In another section of the transcript, Mr. Jeffs says: “The Lord had revealed that Brandon Blackmore’s 13-year-old daughter … belongs to me.”

The Crown will seek to prove that both girls, whose names are protected under a publication ban, were removed from Canada at Mr. Jeffs’ request and that the three accused were witnesses at their marriages to Mr. Jeffs and Mr. Johnson. Mr. Jeffs, now 60, was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls and sentenced to life in prison in 2011.

Mr. Blackmore’s lawyer, John Gustafson, argued that the documents are prejudicial because they are not ordinary business records but rather the personal records of Mr. Jeffs and have not been subject to crosschecking. He also argued that because Mr. Jeffs has not been called upon to testify in the trial, the defence is unable to cross-examine the author of the records.

Justice Paul Pearlman stated in his written decision that copies of the documents are reliable enough to be presented in court. Usually these records would be considered hearsay and therefore inadmissible, but the Crown attorney argued for them to be admitted under the business records exception. This allows records kept in the ordinary course of business to be presented as evidence. The church’s doctrine requires members to keep detailed records of its everyday activities because “what is not recorded on Earth shall not be recorded in heaven.”

Justice Pearlman ruled that Mr. Jeffs would have had no motive to fabricate documents in which he implicates himself in criminal activity. While he did not admit all the priesthood records as evidence, he made an exception to the hearsay rule for documents relating to Mr. Jeffs’ communications with Mr. Blackmore and Mr. Oler.

The trial is one of two criminal cases connected to the community. Mr. Oler and Winston Blackmore, who each lead divided factions within Bountiful, will stand trial on polygamy charges at a later date.

With files from The Canadian Press

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/priesthood-records-on-teen-marriages-can-be-used-in-bc-polygamy-trial-judge/article33070900/

 

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Leah Remini Takes Her Scientology Battle to Primetime: This 'Cult' Must Be Stopped

A look inside the first episode of the A&E docuseries ‘Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,’ which premieres Nov. 29th.

                       

Daily Beast

JEN YAMATO

11.29.16

On Tuesday night, King of Queens star Leah Remini will launch the latest volley in her ongoing crusade against the Church of Scientology, from which she publicly split in 2013 after spending 35 years as a devoted member. And this time, Scientology’s most high-profile celebrity defector brought the battle to her home turf—television—with reinforcements.

Joined onscreen by former Scientology exec Mike Rinder and more high-profile ex-Scientologists, Remini premiered the first of her eight-part A&E limited docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath amid attempts by lawyers for the Church of Scientology to discredit their allegations. Included in the hourlong program are snippets of letters from the Church dated as recently as September and November featuring some variation of the same legalese denials: “The Church disputes many of the statements made by those appearing in this program.”

Remini’s objective, she explains in the first episode, is to show the outside world all the damage that Scientology has wrought upon the lives of its members in order to stop the organization from abusing others.

“Somebody needs to do something about this cult,” Remini declares. 

Once upon a time, Remini was one of Scientology’s most loyal young Hollywood devotees. She recalls how she drank the Kool-Aid for nearly four decades, crediting Scientology’s self-help programs for her career and blaming herself, as the Church taught her to, for not being devoted enough when she failed. Flashing back to a red carpet interview she gave long ago, we see a young Remini eagerly proselytizing to the masses: “We are the most ethical group you’re ever going to find.”

A year ago, the actress, host, author, and comedian told all in her bestselling memoir Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, which detailed how being invited to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ dream wedding in Italy—a Scientology production—was the beginning of the end for Remini. She shared more shocking secrets from her time in the Church, as well as the troubling events leading up to her defection, in a widely-viewed 20/20 interview last October.

But in Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, the outspoken Remini recounts her own past with the Church while visiting with other ex-Scientologists to hear their heartbreaking stories of alleged physical and emotional abuse and exploitation at the hands of the very organization they dedicated their lives to.

There’s Rinder, a Scientologist for 46 years who once served as the organization’s international spokesperson-slash-fixer and explains that his job was to discredit anyone who dared to speak out against the Church. Future episodes will feature familiar anti-Scientology figures previously seen in Alex Gibney’s Going Clear or Louis Theroux’s upcoming 2017 documentary My Scientology Movie, like Tom DeVocht and Marc Headley, who’ve both claimed that they were physically abused by Miscavige.

Remini, whose mother also appears in the series, explains more about that Cruise-Holmes wedding day that landed her in hot water with the Church. Her growing TV sitcom cache earned her an invitation to the big day. But after bringing J. Lo to Italy at the Church’s behest (“I can only assume because they wanted to make Jennifer a Scientologist,” Remini told People) the trouble began when Remini couldn’t find Shelly Miscavige, the wife of Scientology head David Miscavige, who hasn’t been seen publicly since 2007, and started asking questions.

“Their reaction was, ‘You really shouldn’t be asking about that,’” says Remini, who, years later, would file a missing person’s report on Shelly Miscavige with the LAPD. After the Cruise wedding, Remini criticized Cruise and Miscavige in a “knowledge report” she has said sparked an internal investigation into her and her family. Her own personal war against Scientology led to Remini quitting the Church in 2013.

The majority of Remini’s revelations are still jarring but nothing new. The stronger focus of the first episode is on the different kind of violence that Remini & Co. argue their Church committed against its own: Destroying families in order to protect Scientology.

Amy Scobee, like Remini, was a teenage convert who joined the Church of Scientology in the 1970s when her mother brought her in. Like Remini, she quickly rose in the ranks. She trusted so much in the Church and was so thoroughly conditioned to distrust the outside world that she says she stayed even after a 35-year-old fellow Scientologist raped her at 14. She claims the Church kept it secret from the police and her parents “because it would be bad PR for Scientology.” Two years later, she became a member of the Church’s elite Sea Org, signing a contract for one billion years.

Like Rinder, Scobee was a high-ranking Scientologist who worked closely with Miscavige for years, and a well-known face in Scientology-watching circles. She ran the Church’s valuable Celebrity Centre in Hollywood, tasked with recruiting famous and influential celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, who is seen in archival footage waxing ecstatic about the Church at a 2003 Scientology gala. And she only left the Church after being sent to the prison-like RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force), leaving in 2005 with her husband.

She recalls working under Shelly Miscavige with a cadre of Sea Org members to make sure every need of their star parishioner, Tom Cruise, was taken care of—often, she claims, tantamount to slave labor. “They wanted him to be in Scientology one-hundred percent,” says Scobee. She describes witnessing David Miscavige, the Church’s notoriously elusive and reportedly volatile leader, punching or choking other male subordinates “on at least a dozen occasions.”

“He’s a very angry man,” says Scobee. “I saw abuse and punchings and wrestling around and I would internalize it all.” 

Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath is more like Scientology 101 for Beginners, here to explain terms like “disconnecting,” in which all ties to a former member deemed hostile to the Church are forcibly severed, and “suppressive person,” the name Scientologists give to said enemies of the organization. But the story of how Scobee left the Church—and lost her relationship with her mother, Bonny Elliott, who chose to remain with her husband—underscores the emotional cost at risk to anyone who dared to question, or leave, Scientology.

Eventually Scobee reunited with her mother, who passed away after sitting for an interview with Remini. But almost every high-profile Scientology defector reports similar retribution—that their own families were used against them and in some cases like Remini’s, she says, punished in order to punish them.

Disconnection, Scobee remarks, “is the Church’s biggest weapon.”

Money and public exposure might be Remini’s: In response to several letters issued from the Church of Scientology to A&E discrediting Remini, Rinder, and Scobee, and published online by journalist Tony Ortega, Remini’s own attorney hit back demanding the Church pay her $500,000 for defaming her to the network “as at least partial compensation for the past, present and ongoing reputational, emotional and economic injuries and damages she has suffered, and continues to suffer, as a result of this malicious conduct.” When the Church responded by calling Remini “a failed ‘celebrity’ seeking to make a buck off of her former religion,” she upped her demand to $1.5 million.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/29/leah-remini-takes-her-scientology-battle-to-primetime-this-cult-must-be-stopped.html

 

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The Men Who Claim to Be Africa’s ‘Miracle Workers’


Ghana Star

Nov 27, 2016

 

The revelation that a South African pastor has been spraying insecticide on his church members in a healing ritual has shocked many but he is not the only self-styled pastor in Africa to resort to highly questionable practices.

Cities and towns across the continent are plastered with signs and posters advertising churches, usually with apocalyptic names, promising instant cures and salvation from every intractable situation or sickness.

The churches are usually led by charismatic pastors, who set up their own churches rather than joining an established institution, and often claim to have miraculous powers.

However, the miracles are however tied to worshippers "planting a seed" – or giving money to the preachers.

Here are some of Africa's more controversial preachers:

'Turning petrol into pineapple juice'

Pastor Lesego Daniel heads the Rabboni Ministries based in South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

He famously instructed members of his congregation to drink petrol, claiming that he had turned it into pineapple juice.

A video shared online shows a worshipper pouring the petrol into a pan and then lighting it to prove that it is combustible.

He then sips from the bottle and declares that "he feels fine and does not have any side effects" when the pastor enquires about the taste.

A woman then rushes to the pulpit to have a sip of the drink and then declares it is "sweet" – an enticing assessment that gets a group of women rushing to the pulpit to have a taste.

However, the video shared on the church's YouTube account did have a warning message:

"The level of anointing is not the same. If you cannot turn water into wine, do not try this at home."

'Snake pastor'

Penuel Mnguni is only 25 yet has been running the End Times Disciples Ministries church since 2014.

He is a protege of Lesego Daniel, the South African pastor who used pesticide in his healing rituals.

In the same year he opened his church, pictures of worshippers eating grass and flowers on his orders were shared on Facebook and on the church's website.

Other images showed the self-proclaimed prophet feeding his members stones which he claimed to have turned into bread.

He earned his nickname "snake pastor" last year after pictures emerged of him feeding his followers snakes and rats, which he claimed had been turned into chocolate.

Locals later chased him out of Soshanguve, a township north of Pretoria where his church was located.

'Healing erectile dysfunction'

In Ghana, Bishop Daniel Obinim of International Godsway Ministries has an expansive list of rituals which he uses in various cases.

In one incident, which was widely shared he was shown stepping on the abdomen of a woman, who was reportedly pregnant, to exorcise her from being possessed by evil spirits.

In another case in June, he is seen grabbing men's crotches, saying this would heal their erectile dysfunction.

The men obediently stand in line, with their arms raised in their air, waiting for their turn to be touched by the preacher.

This seems to be the restrained version of his prayer said to cure men suffering from impotence.

In another video shared online last year he is seen praying over a man whose penis is exposed.

More recently, he was seen flogging a young woman and man during a service for allegedly having extra-marital sex.

One of the preacher's aides is shown holding the woman as she attempts to run away.

The pastor is then seen lashing out at the woman repeatedly with a belt, while the church members remain seated.

Media reports say that a court in the capital Accra has issued a warrant of arrest for the pastor and two of his associates for allegedly "flogging the two teenagers in church".

'Blood in water'

An investigation by Kenya's KTN TV station in November 2014 exposed the tricks Victor Kanyari, a famous televangelist, was allegedly using to fool worshippers at his Salvation Healing Ministry church.

He used potassium permanganate, a chemical compound that easily dissolves in water to give a reddish solution, to wash the feet of his members and then claim that blood was oozing from their feet as a sign of healing.

One of his former aides demonstrated how the preacher performed the trick.

Another video shows him putting his hand under a woman's dress to touch her breast, saying this would cure her from breast cancer.

The woman is seen turning away from the camera but the preacher forces her to turn around to face the congregation as he exposes her breast for all to see.

He then calls for a church worker to anoint the "diseased" breast with oil.

The investigation said Kanyari was the son of "Prophetess" Lucy Nduta, another controversial pastor who was convicted in 2009 for "defrauding vulnerable people" claiming she could cure them from Aids.

Shortly afterwards, he appeared on another TV programme, saying his "tribulations" were the work of his enemies.

Kanyari is still preaching.

 

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More details come out in B.C. trial of parents accused of forcing daughters into polygamous marriages


VANCOUVER SUN

Daphne Bramham

November 28, 2016

CRANBROOK – The trial of three parents from the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful charged with taking their daughters aged 13 and 15 to the United States in 2004 to be child brides lurched into its second week Monday.

James Oler and Emily Gail Blackmore, who have elected not to have legal counsel, maintained their silence, while lawyers argued whether their neither agreeing nor opposing documentary evidence from a closed-door hearing going into evidence could be construed as consent.

The pair have said nothing at either the two-week voir dire nor at the trial that is now in its second week. Even though they face up to 10 years in jail if they are found guilty of removing their daughters from Canada for sexual purposes, they haven’t questioned witnesses, raised objections or even appeared to be paying much attention to the proceedings.

Brandon James Blackmore – Gail’s husband – is also charged. He wasn’t in court Monday. His lawyer, John Gustafson, told the judge that his client is in hospital in Creston.

Eventually, Justice Paul Pearlman ruled that all of it would be rolled into the trial and not re-heard.

Some of the evidence – particularly the diaries of Warren Jeffs, the convicted pedophile prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – is stunning and chilling.

“I called Jim Oler last night and told him to bring his daughter . . . for her to get married, that Jim Oler would receive a wife, that Brandon Blackmore and his son Zane should come and receive training and that Brandon’s daughter . . . should come and be married that they should wait in Cedar City, Friday morning until I called,” Jeffs’s diary for March 2004.

After Jeffs, then 49, had married the Blackmores’ 13-year-old daughter, his diary records: “I then discussed the marriage of his [Blackmore’s] young daughter to me, that it was the will of the Lord. I asked him to bring his wife and daughter at 1 p.m. He gave full submission and determination to me and to the Lord to submit and do the Lord’s will.”

The diary entry goes on: “I counseled with James Oler, he counseled with me after that wedding [Brandon Seth’s] in private and I told him I gave Brandon Blackmore a partial training on the places of refuge [where the fugitive Jeffs was hiding from U.S. authorities] and we discussed the log lathe he was building out of a metal lathe, that it would be ready. “

Despite his involvement in the March marriages, Oler is charged with taking his 15-year-old daughter to Mesquite, Nev. in June 2004.

Eighteen marriages were performed in one day. Apparently that call was made because the next day, Jeffs’s diary includes a list of 18 marriages performed in back-to-back ceremonies every 20 minutes or so.

At 1:23 p.m., Oler’s 15-year-old daughter was married to a much-married, much older James Leroy Johnson. At 1:34 p.m., James Oler, then 40, married a 15-year-old American girl – his second wife in six months.

At 1:45 p.m., Oler witnessed a second, teenaged daughter marry 67-year-old Frederick Merril Jessop.

The trial continues with the cross-examination of Crown witness Esther Palmer, who was married at 16. The midwife was ex-communicated by Jeffs in 2012 and forced out of Bountiful.

Forced out, she now only has contact with two of her nine children. One of her daughters who remains with the FLDS was in the courtroom Monday wearing the distinctive pioneer-styled dress and a swoop hairdo.

dbramham@postmedia.com

twitter.com/daphnebramham

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/more-details-come-out-in-b-c-trial-of-parents-accused-of-forcing-daughters-into-polygamous-marriages

 

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Nov 28, 2016

Anthill 7: On belief

A podcast from The Conversation UK
Anthill 7: On belief
November 28, 2016

LISTEN

In this episode of The Anthill, a podcast from The Conversation, we’re taking a critical look at the idea of belief. You might not consider yourself to be religious or have a particularly clear cut belief system. But, make no mistake, belief permeates everything we do.

For most, the simple belief that the sun will rise every day means not living in fear of the apocalypse. Yet this isn’t the case for everyone. History is replete with doomsday cults, predicting or ushering in the end of the world. To find out why these cults and others are so effective at sucking people in, we speak to psychologists Linda and Rod Dubrow-Marshall who have spent years investigating their popularity.

Similarly, for some people conspiracy theories can be easier to believe than the truth. Was 9/11 an inside job? Did the British government run Princess Diana off the road? Is climate change a Chinese invention, geared toward making US manufacturing less competitive? Stephan Lewandowsky shares his thoughts on the logic employed by conspiracy theorists – and the prospect of having one in the White House.

If there’s one thing that we would not consider to be driven by belief, it’s science. As our science editor, Miriam Frankel, finds out, however, even scientific discovery has been shaped by certain ways of seeing the world. David Papineau, a professor of the philosophy of science, explains how religious ideas have driven scientific discoveries throughout history and neuroscientist Gina Rippon ponders the pervasive effect of gender biases in her field today.

From embedded beliefs shaping scientific research, we switch to attempts by scientists to change what people believe. Our society editor, Gemma Ware, speaks to Colin Holbrook about his experiment using a technology called transcranial magnetic stimulation, which he suggests can temporarily shift people’s attitudes toward the afterlife and immigrants. But ethicist Nathan Emmerich says we shouldn’t be too worried yet about this technique being used on mass to control our minds.

And finally we hear from a researcher who’s investigated the effects of trauma on people’s belief systems. Karen O'Donnell, who has researched post-traumatic stress disorder, explains how belief is both rocked by trauma and plays a fundamental role in recovery.

Click here to listen again to any of The Anthill podcasts – which each take a theme and ask academics from a variety of disciplines to talk about their research. Listen to some of our previous episodes, such as Into the darkness, Rebooting, Fuel and Underdogs. Subscribe via iTunes or Soundcloud.

The Anthill theme music is by Alex Grey for Melody Loops. The music for the conspiracy theories section is called channeling (johnny ripper remix), by sun mix. Music in the segment on the way that belief shapes scientific discovery is Waltz For Django by Wall Matthews. Music in the segment on transcranial magnetic stimulation is called Philae, by Simon Matthewson and music. All were found on the Free Music Archive. The earthquake sound effect in the segment on trauma and belief is by uagadugu and the choral music by Capella Dulcis, recorded by klankbeeld.

A big thank you to City University London’s Department of Journalism for the use of their studios.

http://theconversation.com/anthill-7-on-belief-69448?hootPostID=926d3a05e8ef0db2ca8f3fcfbf22cfb4
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Producers cancel concert by black metal band Graveland

Montreal Gazette
PRESSE CANADIENNENovember 28, 2016

The concert scheduled for Saturday evening by the extreme right-wing metal band Graveland at the Théâtre Plaza on Plaza St-Hubert, was cancelled about one hour before the show, the producers announced on their Facebook page.

The organizers of the sixth Messe des Morts (Mass of the Dead) festival said they have made the decision “for security reasons.” They added the theatre administration and producers had “done everything in their power to come up with a solution.”

They invited the fans of the group to “go home peacefully and to make a good impression as (they) have demonstrated since the beginning of the festival.”

The concert by this group, whose members have expressed racist and anti-Semitic remarks in interviews, had sowed controversy. Several groups had demanded the cancellation of the concert organized as part of a rock metal music festival.

A few hours before the show, about 30 people had assembled in front of the Beaubien métro station, located near the theatre, to protest against the arrival of the group.



http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/concert-by-black-metal-band-graveland-cancelled
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Jehovah's Witnesses 'demonstrated a serious failure' to protect children: Royal Commission

The Sydney Morning Herald
Rachel Browne
November 28, 2016

The Jehovah's Witness Church in Australia failed to protect children in its care from sexual predators, a report has found.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its report into the organisation on Monday.

It stated that: "Children are not adequately protected from the risk of child sexual abuse in the Jehovah's Witness organisation and [the commission] does not believe the organisation responds adequately to allegations of child sexual abuse."

Survivors of sexual abuse within the church and senior church members appeared before a public hearing last year.

The inquiry heard the church received allegations of child sexual abuse involving more than 1000 of its members over a 60-year period but did not report a single claim to police.

In its report on the inquiry, the royal commission found that the organisation's general practice of "not reporting serious instances of child sexual abuse to police or authorities, demonstrated a serious failure on its part to provide for the safety and protection of children."

The royal commission determined that the church's response to allegations of child sexual abuse were outdated, including a rule that there must be two witnesses to an incident, which "showed a serious lack of understanding of the nature of child sexual abuse".

"It noted the rule, which the Jehovah's Witness organisation relies on, and applies inflexibly even in the context of child sexual abuse, was devised more than 2000 years ago," the report found.

The Jehovah's Witnesses approach to handling claims internally was not appropriate for children or survivors of sexual abuse, the report found.

"Survivors are offered little or no choice in how their complaint is addressed, sanctions are weak with little regard to the risk of the perpetrator re-offending."

The head of the Jehovah's Witness community's service desk, Rodney Spinks, said the church is taking the royal commission's work seriously.

"We want to benefit from the process; everybody does," he said.

The Jehovah's Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia are scheduled to appear before the commission again in March when a public hearing will examine current child protection policies and procedures.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/jehovahs-witnesses-demonstrated-a-serious-failure-to-protect-children-royal-commission-20161128-gsyxcp.html
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CHILDREN NOT PROTECTED BY JEHOVAH'S: RC

NOVEMBER 28, 2016
News.com.auA
Australian Associated Press

Children are not adequately protected from the risk of sexual abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses, a royal commission has found.

The child abuse royal commission also said it does not consider the Jehovah's Witnesses to be an organisation that responds adequately to child sexual abuse.

The organisation relies on outdated policies and practices, including the two-witness rule that was devised more than 2000 years ago, the commission's report released on Monday said.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/children-not-protected-by-jehovahs-rc/news-story/5e84e2d542419856e8e2cf3c6a2843a0

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