Our Ladies of the Perpetual High

By CORRINE CIANI

Rolling Stone
DECEMBER 25, 2021

In the middle of California’s Central Valley, in a modest milky-blue home on one acre of farmland, lives a small group of nuns. They wear habits and abide by a set of vows, but as the door opens, it’s clear that the Sisters of the Valley, as they’re known, aren’t living in a traditional convent. Because as the scent wafts out, it’s unambiguous: It’s the earthy, pungent smell of weed.

When we visit, five women live in the home: Sister Kate, 62; Sister Sophia, 49; Sister Quinn, 25; and at the moment, Sister Luna and Sister Camilla, both 34, who are visiting from Mexico. Sister Kass, 29, lives off the property with her two children and her partner, Brother Rudy, the collective’s crop manager. On this sunny day, the Sisters of the Valley home is flooded with golden beams of light; a cream-colored piano stands against the wall with an ashtray and joint placed on top. Sister Kate picks it up, lights it, and thoughtfully inhales as she sits down to play “America the Beautiful.” She’s using a piano-learning app filled with Christian songs and national anthems — the two genres of music she dislikes the most. But there is an underlying motive: “The Christian kids nearby have contests, so if I do a lot of practicing in a month, then I can beat them,” she says with a raspy laugh. “There is some gratification in beating the Christian kids.”

The Sisters of the Valley are not a religious organization, but an enclave of self-proclaimed sisters who are in the business of spreading spirituality and selling healing cannabidiol products. “Look, the average age of a new Catholic nun in America is 78,” says Sister Kate, founder of the sect, which has 22 sisters and eight brothers worldwide. “Christianity is dying all around us. What are people going to do? They need spirituality in their life; we need it for meaning. We are very spiritual beings walking a physical path, and so for that reason we will find ways to connect. And we are just one example of that.”

Their property is a peaceful setting, with ashtrays everywhere. There’s a craft yurt, vegetable beds of kale and spinach, a trailer where Sister Quinn resides, and tall potted cannabis plants, which were cultivated in a shed and planted outside in preparation for the upcoming full-moon harvest. (All of these are hemp, from which they extract CBD, but they also grow marijuana for personal use.) A secondary home on the property, known as the abbey, is used for medicine-making. The scent of their lavender salve consumes this space. The walls are lined with photos of nuns and female religious figures, some with joints, some without. Sister Sophia smiles as she stirs a pot on the stove, heating up their CBD topical salve before packaging it into jars. When it comes to their products, it is always referred to as medicine, not cannabis, and all steps from planting, to trimming, to packaging are scheduled around the moon cycle.

Born into a traditional Catholic upbringing, Sister Kate spent a considerable amount of her youth surrounded by nuns. Prior to founding Sisters of the Valley, she was a consultant, traveling to assist clients who were opening telecommunications and internet businesses. But as a single mother, she gave up her career, which had required her to be away from home. With an undergrad in business, a half-completed MBA, and extensive experience working with deregulating businesses, she looked toward the cannabis industry as a new frontier. She moved to the Central Valley and started a nonprofit cannabis collective in 2009, where she provided medical marijuana to local terminal patients.

According to Sister Kate, her fall into nunhood began in 2011, when the Obama administration lost a fight to have the Department of Agriculture declassify pizza sauce as a serving of vegetables in school lunches. “I said, ‘Oh, my God, if pizza is a vegetable, then I am a nun,’” she explains. Soon after, when she was planning to go to an Occupy protest, her nephew reminded her of a nun costume she had in her closet, and suggested she wear it. “When I protested with the Occupy movement dressed as a nun, people wanted me to organize myself into a religion and I kept saying, ‘No, this is meant to be crazy. This is meant to be a thumb at the establishment, that everything is broken in this country.’”

During her years of protests against tuition hikes and budget cuts throughout California as a self-proclaimed nun, the question arose: What would a new order of nuns look like? “I thought everybody would think I was crazy because I was this single, self-declared sister, but really it sparked a debate about what a New Age order of nuns would look like if they were refounded today in this environment,” says Sister Kate. In August 2013, she was invited to a gathering of Native American tribes at the Tule River Reservation in the San Joaquin Valley. There, she talked to the women elders who held ancient knowledge of making medicine from plants. “When I came off of that mountain, I’m like, ‘Damn, I’m going to form my own sisterhood,’” she says.

Fifteen months later, she made a Weed Nuns Facebook page; she soon amassed 5,000 followers. In 2015, one of those adherents landed on her doorstep, declaring she would work for free. “I thought, ‘Huh, if four of us lived together and made medicine together, we could share our Netflix bill and I wouldn’t have to give up cable,’” Sister Kate says, so she went about starting a commune. “We didn’t want to be a religion. A religion forces you to be in the business of begging, and we know we can support ourselves. It had to be something that supported women ownership of businesses, and here we are. As it turns out, we end up looking like an ancient order called the Beguines.”

A now-defunct religious order, the Beguines date back to the Middle Ages. Due to a multitude of unmarried women and a desire for spirituality, all-female groups found a way to live in devotion without officially joining a religious order. These women, who lived communally and supported themselves by making cloth or caring for the sick, stressed living like Christ; they were spiritual, and some even delved into mysticism. “We are not trying to romanticize the past, but there are things we like about it,” says Sister Kate. “It’s the way that these women worked in harmony with nature that we are trying to emulate.”

Part of the Sisters of the Valley business plan involves devoting their work and life to the cycles of the moon, which they believe is what their ancient ancestors did. Their harvest ceremony, which takes place during a full moon, begins with a reading from the “Book of the Beguines,” a pamphlet written by the enclave. “There’s no such thing as a ‘Book of the Beguines,’” Sister Kate confesses. “They were all burned. We make our own readings. We have to imagine what our ancestors would have said, what they would’ve done, and how they would have reacted to local political forces. Our closing prayer is from Season Four of Game of Thrones,” she says, laughing.

By afternoon, the Central Valley sun fills the craft yurt. Sister Kate takes a seat under the skylight to explain the meaning of their vows, represented by the acronym SOLACE: Service, Obedience, Living Simply, Activism, Chastity, and Ecology. Service relates to their work making plant-based medicine — cannabis, and more recently, mushrooms. “Obedience is not to any order or person but to organize our lives by the cycles of the moon,” Sister Kate says. Living simply, as she puts it with a smirk, “means we can’t own a yacht — but you can, and can invite us all to join you.” The fourth is activism, meaning holding local officials accountable.

Chastity, Sister Kate says, is not to be confused with celibacy. “Some people think that means you can’t do anything intimate, we can’t ever have a relationship, but that’s not true,” says Sister Quinn. “Our interpretation is that we are privatizing that part of our lives.” Ecology is for their intention to decrease their environmental footprint. And then, of course, there’s the full nun’s habit; it’s required on the farm, Sister Kate says, and is worn as a meditation to be in touch with their ancient mothers, to protect their hair and skin from medicine-making, and as a sign of respect for the plant that has been disrespected for hundreds of years.

With tens of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, their message is spreading. Sister Quinn, their social-content creator, is aiming to make them more accessible. As an eco-feminist who studied business economics at University of California, Merced, she believes in microeconomies and sustainable communities. “I know that some things need to be on a bigger level, but I think that people living in small communities and sharing the work — the gardening and living together — I think that that’s a really positive direction that we should be going in society,” says Sister Quinn. In regard to the enclaves’ focus on feminism, she says, “it’s more about realizing that women and female entities are more connected with the Earth. We are the healers, portals for life; we create everything. We like to have a certain amount of harmony, a certain amount of balance. Everyone does their part.”

As for how local officials feel about the enclave, it’s taken the Sisters of the Valley years to get in the good graces of the sheriff’s department. The sisters are regulars at city hall and have emphasized building a relationship with local authorities — with good reason, since they have yet to receive a business permit to grow hemp for profit. “They haven’t given me a permit, and I don’t think they ever are going to give me a permit,” says Sister Kate. “We are in our seventh year of operations and to shut us down, I think, they would have to take us before a judge, and I don’t think a judge would shut us down when we have 10 people working on a one-acre farm.”

Jobs in the Central Valley are far and few, so Sister Kate is set on expanding their business and creating work and leadership opportunities for women. As a small business having been left rocked by Covid-19, the sect is saving what they can and searching for a farm to be able to manufacture hemp on a larger scale, furthering Sister Kate’s goal of hiring more of her local community and advancing her spiritually charged, cannabis-laced mission. “The idea is that the sisters set up their own business, set up their own commerce, have their own store,” she says. “[They] start out by earning either through wholesale or as an agent, but always plan to be making their own medicine and having their own little territory.… Everything about us is about female empowerment: women owning property, and women making the rules.”



https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/california-weed-cannabis-nun-sisters-valley-1272595/

Judge shields some records of Crystal Lake Jehovah’s Witnesses committee in child abuse probe

Sam Lounsberry

Shaw Local News

December 23, 2021

A judge on Thursday partially granted the request of two elders of a Crystal Lake congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses to shield some church records from prosecutors who have alleged they failed to report child abuse.

The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office sought records created and kept by a committee of Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders ahead of the trial of Michael Penkava, 72, and Colin Scott, 88, who each face a count of violating reporting provisions, a Class A misdemeanor.

Penkava previously wrote as a freelance columnist for the Northwest Herald.

The allegations stem from statements prosecutors said were made to the elders in 2006 about crimes committed by Arturo Hernandez-Pedraza, who a McHenry County jury found guilty of sexually assaulting and abusing a young girl for 13 years. He was sentenced in December 2019 to 45 years in prison.

The state’s attorney’s office claims Penkava and Scott should have disclosed the reports of child abuse they heard about Hernandez-Pedraza to law enforcement or child welfare officials.

But the elders and their defense attorneys said they were made aware of the child abuse through a spiritual confessional process that allows congregants to admit wrongdoing in confidence.

The defense, citing clergy-penitent privilege, sought to quash the prosecution’s subpoena for records from a judicial committee, which is a body of three elders the church forms as part of its confessional process in response to child abuse allegations, according to witness testimony last week.

Judge Mark Gerhardt granted that defense motion in part after reviewing the relevant records himself and deciding which were covered by the clergy-penitent privilege as described by Illinois law.

He did not grant the defense’s motion in full, however, meaning the prosecution was able to get some redacted documents as well as others it had requested that Gerhardt found were not subject to clergy-penitent privilege.

“We’re satisfied with the ruling,” McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said. “It’s too early to ultimately say what the significance of the documents [subject to the partially quashed subpoena] is, as we have yet to review them.”

Phil Prossnitz, Penkava’s defense attorney, told the Northwest Herald that he was pleased with the decision.

“I believe the judge has carefully listened to the evidence. I think he’s faithfully following the United States Constitutional, the First Amendment in particular,” Prossnitz said.

A question still remains about whether a congregant’s testimony will be admitted at trial.

Although Gerhardt said the statements the congregant made to the Jehovah’s Witnesses elders were not a confession, he also said those conversations were an important part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses confessional process, which would allow statements to be granted some confidentiality.

Scott’s defense attorney, Terry Ekl, said he felt Thursday’s ruling would have prohibited the congregant’s testimony about what was said to the church committee from being considered at trial. But the judge disagreed that the ruling extended to that issue for now and emphasized that he found the statements to the elders “are not a confession.”

Whether the congregant’s statements to the elders trigger the state’s requirements for clergy to report claims of child abuse to law enforcement is the crux of the prosecution’s case.

“We feel that if we were talking about a traditional penitent in a confessional box in a Catholic church and that had occurred, and we were following the privilege and the law on mandatory reporting, it would be clear that all of this would be excluded and this prosecution would not be proceeding,” Prossnitz said. “We have a different faith, and it’s a little bit more nuanced, but at the end of the day, that’s the analogy.”

Prosecutors intend to move forward with the case and have asked Gerhardt to make a ruling on the admissibility of the congregant’s testimony after a Jan. 28 hearing on the issue.

The court also set a trial date for Penkava and Scott. They will have a bench trial, meaning the judge will hear the case and make a decision on whether the elders are guilty instead of a jury, starting March 2.

https://www.shawlocal.com/northwest-herald/news/crime-and-courts/2021/12/23/judge-shields-some-records-of-crystal-lake-jehovahs-witnesses-committee-in-child-abuse-probe/

Ayodhya: Several Government Officials Bought Land Near Ram Temple Site After SC Verdict

In addition, an investigation by the Indian Express has found that relatives of officials bought land from a trust that is being probed for illegal transfer of land that was purchased from 12 Dalit families.



The Wire Staff
December 22, 2021

New Delhi: The Supreme Court ruling in favour of the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya sparked a gold rush for land near the temple’s location and several government officials – including an MLA – also joined in with the hopes of cashing in, according to an Indian Express report.

According to an investigation by the newspaper, several government officials – including local MLAs, close relatives of bureaucrats who have served or are serving in Ayodhya, and local revenue officials whose job is to authenticate land transactions – have bought land within a five-kilometre radius of the temple site – either in the months before the Supreme Court’s verdict in November 2019 or later.

The buyers who bought land in their own name include an MLA, mayor and a member of the state OBC Commission, the report said. Relatives of the divisional commissioner, sub-divisional magistrate, the deputy inspector general of police, the police circle officer, the state information commissioner also bought land, the newspaper has found.

The newspaper, in a separate report, said that one set of transactions – in the early 1990s – may have been in violation of norms. The Maharshi Ramayan Vidyapeeth Trust (MRVT), which was founded by Mahesh Yogi, is being probed for alleged irregularities in the purchase of land from villagers who belong to a Dalit community.

At least four buyers are closely related to officials probing the MRVT for buying the land in the early 1990s, raising questions of “propriety and conflict of interest”, the Indian Express said.

The MRVT had bought nearly 21 bighas (about 13 acres) of land from Dalits. These lands were bought in the Barhata Manjha village, less than 5 km away from the Ram temple site.

While the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code Rules bar acquisition of agricultural land (less than 3.5 bighas) belonging to Dalit persons by a non-Dalit unless cleared by the district magistrate, the MRVT bought land parcels from about a dozen villagers in 1992 by using Ronghai, an employee of the MRVT who is also from a Dalit community, as a “conduit” in the transaction, the daily reported.

Sale deeds were registered in the name of Ronghai, who in June 1996 signed an unregistered donation deed (daan-patra), and “donating” all the land to the MRVT, the newspaper added, citing records.

Mahadev, one of the people whose land was bought by Ronghai and “donated” to the MRVT, later complained to the Board of Revenue that his land had been “illegally transferred”. He was paid Rs 1.02 lakh for his 3 bighas, as per the records cited by the newspaper.

In fact, the entire land was bought by the MVRT for approximately Rs 6.38 lakh. It is currently worth Rs 3.90 crore to Rs 8.50 crore, according to IE.

Ronghai and his family continue to live far away from Ayodhya in Sahavpur village, about 25 km from Prayagraj. His wife Ghabrain told the daily that she was never told of such a deal and that Ronghai has not visited Ayodhya for several years.

The daily further reported that though the plots purchased by relatives of government officials don’t fall in the 21 bighas under dispute, the fact that the seller in all these cases is the MRVT raises questions of propriety.

The newspaper spoke to officials and buyers who bought land in Ayodhya.

The father-in-law and brother-in-law of M.P. Agrawal, the divisional commissioner of Ayodhya since November 2019, bought 2,530 square metres and 1,260 square metres for Rs 31 lakh and Rs 15.50 lakh, respectively, in Barhata Manjha. The lands were bought from the MRVT. As per records, the commissioner’s wife is a partner in her father’s firm. The father-in-law says Agarwal had no role in the deal.

A relative of Purushottam Das Gupta, the chief revenue officer of Ayodhya between July 20, 2018 and September 10, 2021, bought 1,130 square metres in Barhata Manjha on October 12, 2021 for Rs 21.88 lakh from the MRVT. Gupta is now the additional district magistrate (executive) in Gorakhpur.

Gupta said he had no role in the inquiry against MRVT. His relative told IE he bought the land because it was available at a cheaper rate and didn’t take Gupta’s help.

Indra Pratap Tiwari, the MLA of Gosaiganj in Ayodhya district, bought 2,593 square metres in Barhata Manjha on November 18, 2019, for Rs 30 lakh from the MRVT. On November 18, 2019, a trust linked to the MLA, the Maan Sharda Sewa Trust, bought 9,860 square metres in Barhata Manjha from the MRVT for Rs 73.95 lakh.

The sister-in-law of Deepak Kumar, the deputy inspector general of police between July 26, 2020 and March 30, 2021, bought 1,020 square metres in Barhata Manjha on September 1, 2021, for Rs 19.75 lakh from the MRVT. He is now the DIG of Aligarh.

Umadhar Dwivedi, a retired IAS officer of the UP cadre who now lives in Lucknow, bought 1,680 square metres in Barhata Manjha on October 23, 2021, for Rs 39.04 lakh from the MRVT. He told the newspaper that he is not aware of any case pending against the MRVT.

The daughter of Dinesh Ojha, a court official of Bhan Singh, who is an assistant record officer hearing the case against the MRVT, also bought land, the Indian Express reported. He bought 2,542 square metres in Tihura Manjha for Rs 5 lakh from Mahrajdeen on March 15, 2021. This village also falls under Bhan Singh’s purview, the newspaper said.

https://thewire.in/government/ayodhya-ram-temple-land-government-officials-indian-express

Dallas QAnon ‘Cult’ Is Now Drinking Terrifying Chemical Cocktail, Family Says

Justin Rohrlich

The Daily Beast 

December 20, 2021

QAnon acolytes in Dallas are now drinking toxic chemicals from a communal punch bowl, according to the family of a woman who joined the Texas “cult” that’s waiting for the supposed resurrection of President John F. Kennedy and his late son, JFK Jr.

Numerous members of the Leek family told the Dallas Observer that the woman, who reportedly abandoned her husband and children in Delaware last month to follow Trump-supporting QAnon leader Michael Brian Protzman to Dallas, has been quaffing a mixture containing chlorine dioxide—industrial bleach—which she apparently distributes among the group.

“She was proud to tell us that she was the one mixing it up and giving it to everybody,” one of her relatives told the outlet.

The woman got into the QAnon movement back in 2018, said her son, Sean Leek, who was unable to be reached by The Daily Beast on Monday. While the family didn’t specify why the group was drinking the potent chemical mixture, they said their relative is an ardent anti-vaxxer.

“She’s always been into, you know, natural remedies, getting aluminum out of deodorant, things like that,” Leek said in a Dec. 10 interview. “But that led to anti-vaxxing, and anti-vaxxing led to QAnon.”

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), chlorine dioxide has “not been shown to be safe and effective for any use, including COVID-19, but these products continue to be sold as a remedy for treating autism, cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and flu, among other conditions, despite their harmful effects.”

It is sold online under various names, including “Miracle Mineral Solution,” “Miracle Mineral Supplement,” “Master Mineral Solution,” and “Chlorine Dioxide Protocol.” Ingestion can lead to respiratory failure, potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms, life-threateningly low blood pressure, acute liver failure, and the rapid destruction of red blood cells. Members of a Florida family hawking chlorine dioxide through their Genesis II Church of Health and Healing in Bradenton were arrested by federal agents in 2020. They reportedly earned more than $1 million from sales of their “miracle” elixir.

One of QAnon’s core beliefs, which stem from a succession of online postings by a shadowy figure calling himself “Q,” contends that former President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a war against a cabal of “global elites,” made up of cannibalistic pedophiles in America’s Democratic Party, on Wall Street, and in Hollywood. None of Q’s predictions, such as the imminent second coming of JFK, have ever materialized.

Earlier this year, the FBI issued a bulletin stating that some QAnon adherents “likely will begin to believe they can no longer ‘trust the plan’ referenced in QAnon posts and that they have an obligation to change from serving as ‘digital soldiers’ towards engaging in real world violence.”

Prof. Christine Sarteschi, an extremism researcher at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, told The Daily Beast that certain political leaders bear a share of the responsibility for the rise of such behavior as drinking bleach.

“Unfortunately, there’s…a great deal of Republican support for not taking the vaccine and the belief that there’s no danger in Covid,” Sarteschi said in an email. “Any political party that turns away from science or logic endangers its followers.”

The actions taken by people like the Dallas group are “also likely the result of confirmation bias; the idea that people want to believe what they already believe,” explained Sarteschi. “News, opinions, and so forth are not judged on their own merits or their accuracy or reality. They are accepted if they confirm what they already believe and rejected if it goes against what they already believe, no matter how much evidence exists otherwise.”

The alleged bleach-drinkers in question are disciples of Protzman, a 58-year-old QAnon “influencer” and Holocaust denier who’s been accused of domestic violence and who previously owned a demolition company in the Seattle area.

Court records filed in King County, Washington Superior Court lay out a string of grim allegations made in July 2019 by Protzman’s then-wife, whose first name The Daily Beast is withholding to protect her privacy.“[A]t approximately seven in the evening, she arrived home and went inside her residence she shares with her husband of twenty five years, Michael Protzman,” states a charging document accusing Protzman of unlawful imprisonment. “They are currently in the process of getting divorced and Michael told her that if he couldn't have her, no one could. For the past two weeks, Michael has been acting differently, not showering or working and believing in government conspiracies. He physically held her down on the bed, using both of his hands to physically restrain her, using one of his legs to brace hers, rendering her unable to move. Michael held her in this position for approximately two to three minutes until she told him that she would agree to marriage counseling so he would let her up.”

When Protzman’s wife tried to walk away, Protzman, who calls himself “Negative48,” allegedly grabbed her and prevented her from leaving. She was “eventually able to get out of the house and walked barefoot to her neighbor’s house where she called 911,” according to the filing.

“[Protzman’s wife] stated she is scared of Michael because he has ‘blind rage’ and she believes he may hit her,” it continues. “Michael has assaulted her in the past; strangling her approximately six years ago.”Responding cops spotted Protzman walking out of the home, and after “attempting to physically overpower the officers,” was taken into custody.

The case was dismissed without prejudice on June 8, 2021, meaning it can be reopened at any time. Court records do not provide a precise reason for the dismissal, stating the case was dropped “in the interests of justice and upon discussion with the victim.”

Protzman did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His wife was unable to be reached.

Bleach-drinking enthusiasts got a boost last year when then-President Trump held a televised news conference during which he marveled at the possibility of using disinfectants to treat or prevent COVID-19.

“I see the disinfectant that knocks [COVID] out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx looked on, visibly uncomfortable. “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

Following a worrying increase in calls to poison control centers nationwide, the company that manufactures Lysol was sufficiently disturbed that it issued a statement warning Americans not to use its products as Trump had suggested.

In its own follow-up statement, the American Cleaning Institute, a trade group representing the U.S. cleaning products industry, announced, “Disinfectants are meant to kill germs or viruses on hard surfaces. Under no circumstances should they ever be used on one’s skin, ingested or injected internally.”

Justin Rohrlich

Reporter

@justinrohrlich

justin.rohrlich@thedailybeast.com

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dallas-qanon-cult-is-now-drinking-terrifying-chemical-cocktail-to-fight-covid-family-says

Cheetah House Care Team

Cheetah House​

Cheetah House Care Team

"Members of the Cheetah House Care Team have extensive experience with meditation-related challenges. Each member has attended over 20 support groups and individual consultations with Dr. Britton and completed a 9-month training that was informed and co-developed by individuals with lived experience of meditation-related difficulties and other relevant experts. The training contained modules on meditation-related adverse effects research, trauma-informed best practices, peer support models, group facilitation and safety.

Cheetah House is a community invested in the recovery from, and reduction of, adversities resulting from meditation practices. Most of us have experienced them and know firsthand how difficult it can be to find expertise, community, or basic validation. We are working to change that!

Mission, Vision, and Values

Mission: Cheetah House exists to provide sensitive support to those experiencing meditation-related difficulties and to empower people to make informed decisions about the role of meditation in their lives and organizations.

Vision: We envision an environment where communities and professionals are equipped with the knowledge and skills to prevent and mitigate adverse meditation experiences.

Values: Informed consent: We believe that individuals and organizations need access to the full range of evidence and information in order to make their best decisions.

Trauma-sensitive conduct: We acknowledge the unique experiences of each person and strive to approach our work with empathy, curiosity, and non-assumption.

Peer-Leadership: We believe the ongoing perspectives of those we serve are irreplaceable and that individuals are authorities in making sense of their own experience.

Self-empowerment: We work to maximize the autonomy of individuals in their relationship with Cheetah House and beyond.

Freedom from systems of influence: We strive to critically assess the workings of power within meditation communities, academia, healthcare, and Cheetah House itself.

https://www.cheetahhouse.org/about-us

Ex-Raniere jailmate accused of pulling NXIVM documentary scam

Robert Gavin
Times Union
December 17, 2021

NEW YORK – A former jailmate of NXIVM leader Keith Raniere, who duped investors into pouring millions of dollars into non-existent film projects, is facing more time behind bars after prosecutors said he tried to repeat the scam using a would-be documentary about NXIVM.

James David Williams, 60, a southern California fraudster who violated conditions of his supervised release in connection with his 2017 conviction on six counts in the Manhattan-based Southern District of New York, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood on Friday to 18 months in prison.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan highlighted Williams' connection to Raniere in a Dec. 14 pre-sentencing recommendation memo to the judge. The Miami Herald first reported the story on Williams, who had worked in the film industry and resided in Calabasas, Calif., a lavish Los Angeles suburb.

Raniere, 61, known by followers as "Vanguard," was convicted at trial in 2019 of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering charges that included underlying acts of possessing child pornography, extortion and identity theft. Raniere is serving 120 years in federal prison in Arizona.

For two decades, the former Halfmoon man commanded the cult-like NXIVM personal growth organization rooted in Colonie, where students paid thousands of dollars to take intensive courses in what critics and federal prosecutors later described as a pyramid scheme. Now, the prosecutors' sentencing memo made it appear that Williams used the subject of NXIVM -- and one of its remaining diehards -- as pawns to line his pockets.

In 2018, Williams and Raniere were both housed in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn between March and mid-December, according to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine Reilly and Noah Solowiejczyk. The prosecutors told Wood that in 2020, a Williams-controlled account received more than $500,000 from an account of a man identified as Eduardo Ramirez.

One of Raniere's most ardent supporters, NXIVM loyalist Eduardo Asunsolo, is also known as Eduardo Asunsolo Ramirez.

"Based on its investigation to date, the government believes that these transfers are related to the development and production of a documentary about the cult NXIVM," the prosecutors told Wood.

Neither Raniere nor Asunsolo were accused of any wrongdoing in the memo. Reached Thursday, Asunsolo did not immediately comment on the prosecution's Williams memo, which he planned to review. Raniere's attorney, Joseph Tully, declined comment.

Prosecutors asked Wood to sentence Williams to the 18 additional months of prison. Williams' attorney, Anthony Cecutti, who denied his client intentionally defrauded new victims, asked for 18 months’ supervision, one year of home detention and 500 hours of
community service. He did not identify Asunsolo, but said that in 2020, Williams received more than $500,000 from someone with whom he "shared a business relationship."

In 2016, Williams, movie producer Steven Brown and Gerald Seppala, a Minnesota film executive, were charged with duping investors to pump more than $12 million into movie and documentary projects that never were made. In September 2017, Williams pleaded guilty to six counts, including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft and money laundering conspiracy. Williams, who cooperated with prosecutors, remained free on bail. All three men eventually pleaded guilty.

Six months later -- after it emerged that Williams had not divulged all of his defrauding of film investors -- he pleaded guilty to wire fraud, bank fraud and making false statements to law enforcement officials. This time, the judge ordered Williams detained in the MDC where, at the time, Raniere was housed. Williams, who was there from March to mid-December, was later sentenced to time served.

In their memo to the judge, prosecutors said they learned that in the summer of 2019, Williams visited Hawaii. Williams claimed to his probation officer that it was for his new job working for “Universal Yacht Management,” a company supposedly based in Miami. But the documents Williams produced appeared similar to ones he had previously used in his frauds, the prosecutors said.

The prosecutors learned Williams had concocted the job, the company and his supposed supervisor in yet another scam to enrich himself. They said Williams, who claimed he was unable to pay restitution to his victims, was receiving more than $564,243 from Ansusolo and other companies associated with film production.

Williams spent more than $168,000 on boat and marina-related expenses, used $52,000 in cash, spent more than $50,000 to pay credit card and car payment bills in his wife’s name, spent nearly $18,000 for a luxury apartment in Tempe, Ariz., for his children to live and spent more than $11,500 in payments on a second car, the prosecutors said.

"And," the prosecutors added, "he paid the expenses of his everyday life—spending thousands of dollars at Costco, on airline tickets and hotels, and in tuition to his child’s private high school, among other things."

Robert Gavin covers state and federal courts, criminal justice issues and legal affairs for the Times Union. Contact him at rgavin@timesunion.com.



https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Ex-Raniere-jailmate-accused-of-pulling-NXIVM-16707708.php

Downtown development talks deepen between Clearwater and Scientology

After their first meeting, the dialogue continues between church leader David Miscavige and City Manager Jon Jennings.


Tracey McManus
Tampa Bay Times
December 18, 2021

CLEARWATER — An introductory meeting last month between new City Manager Jon Jennings and Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige has flowered into a series of discussions as the two contemplate the church’s potential involvement in downtown redevelopment.

Jennings said he has had four phone calls with Miscavige since an initial meeting on Nov. 29, which also was attended by City Attorney David Margolis and Mayor Frank Hibbard.

That 3½-hour sit-down included talk of a “partnership” between the city and the church but did not nail down any timeline for a deal, Jennings and Hibbard confirmed at the time.

The subsequent discussions suggest that the idea has quickly gained momentum. Any deal would require review and approval by the City Council. But in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Jennings said he is trying to negotiate a plan that would be “in the best interest of the city.”

Jennings said he suggested that Miscavige or the church’s consultants make a public presentation to the community in January outlining Scientology’s proposal to renovate four blocks of Cleveland Street, recruit retailers to empty storefronts and build an entertainment complex on vacant Myrtle Avenue land. He said Miscavige responded that “he’ll think about it.”

Clearwater City Manager Jon Jennings speaks during his first City Council meeting on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021. [ LUIS SANTANA | Times ]

“The discussions have really been how can we figure out a path forward on real estate,” Jennings said. “It has nothing to do with any church teachings or anything else, exclusively land they own that we would like them to activate.”

Jennings said he is negotiating terms for a land swap to be paired with Scientology’s retail proposal, where the city would receive certain church properties in exchange for a 1.4-acre vacant parcel on Pierce Street that the church has long coveted. Citing the ongoing negotiations, Jennings declined to identify the church properties he’d like the city to receive in a swap.

Jennings said he believes a real estate trade must be paired with a downtown renovation by Miscavige.

“We want our downtown to be vibrant and exciting and they own the vast majority of downtown (property),” Jennings said. “In my opinion it’s not just about a property swap, it’s an activation of those properties.”

Jennings said his goal is to overcome decades of mistrust between Scientology and the community in order to revitalize the long-stagnant downtown in the best interests of the public. A former scout for the Boston Celtics and advisor in the Clinton White House, Jennings said he is drawing on negotiating experience he has honed by dealing with professional athletes, politicians and other personalities.

Having begun work in Clearwater on Nov. 8 following the 20-year tenure of former City Manager Bill Horne, Jennings said he brings the advantage of a fresh face without the historical baggage that exists between the city and Scientology.

“I just hope people will give me the space and the time to work on this because what’s happened over the last 20 years isn’t working,” Jennings said.

In a statement to the Times, Scientology spokesman Ben Shaw said the church is willing to partner with the city as recommended by consultants from the Urban Land Institute, who were hired by the city to study downtown in 2014.

“The Church and Scientologists are as desirous of and committed to revitalization of downtown as any citizen or institution in Clearwater,” Shaw stated.

He declined to explain how recent Scientology-tied purchases of vast tracts of property downtown have proven the church to be a trustworthy partner.

Since 2017, limited liability companies managed or operated by Scientology parishioners have purchased at least 145 parcels in downtown and the nearby North Marina Area, spending more than $111 million in cash. But more than half of those parcels have sat empty and undeveloped for years while the city is trying to bring life to the area with its ongoing $84 million renovation of the downtown waterfront.

The Scientology-tied purchases are one reason why City Council member Mark Bunker said he does not believe Miscavige can be trusted.

“With the history that they’ve had here and the history of them stabbing us in our back every time we try to work with them, I just don’t see this panning out,” Bunker said.

Miscavige met with City Council members individually in March 2017 to present the same retail proposal for renovating Cleveland Street that he is now showing to Jennings.

He made clear at the time his offer depended on the city not interfering with the church’s attempt to purchase the 1.4-acre vacant lot on Pierce Street, which is adjacent to Scientology’s religious retreat and across the street from the former City Hall.

After the council voted in April 2017 to buy the lot from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium for the downtown waterfront revitalization plan, the limited liability companies tied to the church began buying vast tracts of downtown property and keeping them vacant.

“This is not a partner, this is a person who is at war with us,” Bunker said.

Jennings said he is looking at Scientology as a “real estate development partner” as he would any other large land owner or institution.

“I’m a person that doesn’t have the long 45-year baggage,” Jennings said, referencing Scientology’s arrival to Clearwater in 1975. “If this was Marriott Corporation we would have had a deal long ago.”

To help bring context to Scientology’s history and motivations, Bunker helped arrange a meeting next week between Jennings and Mike Rinder, a former longtime Scientology executive who worked as a top church spokesperson before defecting in 2007.

In a recent blog post, Rinder cited various policies written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that illuminate the way the church approaches dealings with governments.

“Peace is bought with an exchange of advantage, so make the advantage and then settle,” states a 1960 Hubbard policy. “Don’t ever defend. Always attack. Don’t ever do nothing. Unexpected attacks in the rear of the enemy’s front ranks work best.”



TRACEY MCMANUS
Clearwater and Scientology Reporter

https://www.tampabay.com/news/clearwater/2021/12/18/downtown-development-talks-deepen-between-clearwater-and-scientology/

Brigham Young's final resting place turns up new secrets these days - including additional graves

Vandals have been scarring the family cemetery, so the LDS Church wants to bolster the fencing, but historic preservationists have to sign off.


Tony Semerad

The Salt Lake Tribune
December 12, 2021

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

No stranger to controversy in his lifetime, early Latter-day Saint leader Brigham Young is generating a little more mystery and contention these days from his graveyard.

Church historians revealed over the summer that the 144-year-old Brigham Young Family Cemetery, 140 E. First Avenue, has been bedeviled during the past two years by a spate of trespassing, vandalism and littering, prompting stepped-up guard patrols and new lighting.

History then let slip several twists, including a disappearing fence and the discovery of dozens of unmarked graves.


Nighttime intruders have painted the word “racist” on Young’s grave plaque, church officials report, while others have dug holes, lit fires, stolen headstones and even toppled the site’s prominent bronze statue of Young, the powerful pioneer-prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, buried there since 1877.

Even with the added surveillance, trespassers and marauding dogs from the neighborhood were still leaping over lower sections of a historic perimeter fence where it dipped along the sides of the property, part of a worrisome uptick in intrusions at other historic places.

“Sad to say, this is a cemetery and these things are going on,” Gregory Green, a project manager overseeing the church-owned site, told the city’s Historic Landmark Commission in July. “Our ultimate goal is to protect this historical and sacred site.”

Like Temple Square and the granite-spired temple a block to the west, the third of an acre frontier cemetery is now being renovated. As part of that larger overhaul of its stone paths, walls and aging trees, historic preservationists with the church applied in April for city approval to increase the height of a decorative 32-inch wrought-iron fence around the cemetery, which is also known as the Mormon Pioneer Memorial Monument.

The Brigham Young Family Cemetery, though surrounded these days by houses and apartments, is designated a historic landmark and falls within the city’s Avenues Historic District. That gives the commission authority over proposed changes, including any alterations to the iron fence, which is itself historic, and to other key features.

The review at City Hall brought a second revelation.

Emily Utt, a curator and historic preservation expert for the church, told commission members that ground-penetrating radar imaging conducted at the cemetery in advance of renovation work had detected as many as “40-plus” graves, while only 11 previously were marked.

“We don’t want to hit anything,” Utt told city officials over the summer, “and we’re doing our best to avoid that.”

No public mention has been made of exploring the graves further and, as of last week, a small construction crew was at full pace remaking the cemetery. Much of the previous stonework was crumbled and piled to the sides before removal, and marked gravesites were cordoned off with orange fencing behind a 6-foot chain-link perimeter.

Utt and the church’s public affairs office did not respond to inquiries from The Salt Lake Tribune on what is known about the additional graves and whether the site’s plaques might be revised in light of the radar findings.
The ‘American Moses’

History notes the land once belonged to Young, who led the LDS Church for more than 30 years after founder Joseph Smith’s death and served as Utah’s territorial governor from 1850 to 1858.

Though now overshadowed by the Brigham Apartments on South Temple, the grassy spot once offered a commanding view of the Salt Lake Valley. The church leader, nicknamed the “American Moses” and the nation’s most famous polygamist, was said to be interred in a corner of the parcel a few feet from his strawberry patch.

The family cemetery is also the known burial site for at least four of Young’s 55 plural wives — including Mary Ann Angell, Lucy Ann Decker, Eliza R. Snow and Mary Van Cott — and two others as well as at least two of his 56 children, Joseph Angell Young and Alice Young Clawson, according to earlier church descriptions.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a retired Harvard University historian specializing in early Mormonism and the faith’s plural marriages, said it would be “highly unlikely” that the additional graves at the cemetery belong to Young’s other wives.

Many of those plural spouses lived long past Young’s death, married others and moved elsewhere, Ulrich noted, even though the Latter-day Saint leader’s large household survived him for many years.

“There’s reason to be a little suspect,” she said, “of the notion that they all would have ended up together in one place.”

The graves might instead be those of pioneer children or others who perished of frontier hardships and whose burial markers vanished over time, Ulrich said, noting that grave memorials for early settlers were often unstable.

“There are lots of ways to think about that site,” she said.

Researchers affiliated with church-owned Brigham Young University have conducted ground-penetrating radar scans at other sites important to Mormon history as well, including Kirtland in Ohio and Nauvoo in Illinois, primarily to locate old structures.

Utah State University announced in August it plans to apply the imaging technology to an 150-acre site around an Indigenous boarding school outside Panguitch, where Utah tribal leaders and history experts believe the bodies of Paiute children are likely buried.
Fretting over the fence

Documents indicate Latter-day Saints built the squat sandstone retaining wall that still surrounds the Brigham Young cemetery sometime in September 1877 in the weeks after his funeral.

In the 1880s, they added the decorative wrought-iron fencing atop the stone wall and a similar enclosure around Young’s grave, both designed and made by William J. Silver, a successful iron works operator in Salt Lake City.

The cemetery’s original landscaping of grass and small trees got revamped when the site was rededicated in 1974 as a monument to the Mormon pioneers who died making the trek westward to Salt Lake City. It was overhauled again in 1999 to restore grave markers and add several sandstone paths.

Earlier this year, the church drew city approval for most of its latest round of cemetery improvements, including fortifying the sandstone wall, repairing portions of the fence and replacing paving, light fixtures, a sprinkler system and some old trees.

Raising the iron fence, though, has all but tied the city and church officials in knots amid fears over the spikes in vandalism and shifting attitudes toward other memorials to controversial historic figures and events.

In late November, several monuments in San Diego’s Presidio Park depicting members of the Mormon Battalion were defaced with graffiti denouncing “colonizers” and “White supremacy.”

Historic Landmark Commission members in Salt Lake City also pointed to chronic attacks on Native American petroglyphs and pictographs in southern Utah, some of which are now protected by plexiglass.

“I don’t think aggression to this site is going to go away,” member Babs De Lay, also a Salt Lake City real estate agent, said of Young’s cemetery. “I want to help them protect this at all costs, but I don’t have any suggestions other than what they’re proposing right now.”

“It’s all of our history,” De Lay said.

The panel of historic preservationists has so far rejected two proposals for delicately raising the old iron pieces surrounding the graveyard between 5 and 9.5 feet, depending on the location, citing the wrought-iron original as a crucial feature of the site’s historic look and feel.

In July and again in September, members fretted over the competing interests of desperately wanting to protect the graveyard from further damage while also retaining its historic character.

“Which are we going to advocate for more fiercely?” then-commissioner Victoria Petro-Eschler, who has since been elected and named to the City Council, asked her colleagues at one point. “It feels like we’re being asked to cut the baby in half.”

Utt and other church officials aired two separate designs that would temporarily weld new wrought-iron bar stock of a similar look to the bottom the existing fence and then attach that taller structure to the stone wall.

That approach, Utt said, would improve security while also retaining the fence’s essential historic traits.

“Raising the fence is really the best option to keep those people out after hours that want to do damage to this property,” Utt told city officials. “If you have a better idea, I would love to hear it.”

The proposed changes met city code, Utt argued, and could also be easily undone and the original fence restored should a better way come along to stem the trespassing. She also referred to 6-foot fences the city has already permitted around the historic Salt Lake City Cemetery, also in the Avenues, and Mount Olivet, 1342 E. 500 South.
Unauthorized removal

But after throwing up their hands in July and tabling the request, commission members denied a second set of fence designs and other security upgrades in September, saying that adding height to the iron perimeter would have a negative impact on its historic integrity.

The alterations, according to a final report from city planners, “do not have any historical basis and could be interpreted as creating a false sense of history or architecture.”

Church officials filed a formal appeal to a city administrative judge, who denied it in late November.

Then, sometime around Thanksgiving, a construction crew working for the church removed the fence and the smaller enclosure around Young’s white grave marker from the cemetery site and took them to an undisclosed location, in violation of the city’s order.

City planner Amy Thompson said the move surprised city officials, who have since filed an enforcement action against the church that could carry fines if it isn’t remedied. Thompson said church officials reported they misunderstood the city’s approval for other work at the cemetery, even though its written order specifically barred the fence’s removal.

A church spokesperson issued a statement this past week acknowledging that its crews had gone ahead with repairing the cemetery’s historic stone wall, upgrading lighting and doing other maintenance work.

The historic wrought-iron fence around the cemetery “was carefully removed and is being temporarily stored off-site for safekeeping,” the statement said. “It will be restored and reinstalled as a part of the project.”

The church reportedly plans to file a new application for changes at the site soon, Thompson said, to begin another chapter for Brigham Young’s historic final resting place.

tsemerad@sltrib.com

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/12/12/brigham-youngs-final/

I Left QAnon in 2019. But I'm Still Not Free.

Some say the movement is losing its power. But I see the opposite.

JITARTH JADEJA, AS TOLD TO ANASTASIIA CARRIER
POLITICO
December 11, 20121

Since it became clear that the QAnon conspiracy theory was a driving force in the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Anastasiia Carrier has been interviewing former QAnon believers and hearing from them, in their own words, how they were drawn into that world and how they got out. Their stories reveal surprising political implications of a movement that is still thriving outside mainstream scrutiny. This is the second article in the series; you can read the first here. (This interview was done virtually over a series of video calls.)

I left QAnon back in 2019, but I don’t seem to be able to walk away. I talk about my experience a lot — to the Washington Post, CNN and Rolling Stone magazine among many others. I even apologized to Anderson Cooper on his show for having once thought that he ate babies.

I’m one of the few former followers willing to go on the record with their story, which means I’m a source for journalists and researchers and sometimes also a guide for former believers who want to talk to someone who understands what they went through. I’m also one of the senior moderators of the QAnonCasualties forum on Reddit, a message board for family members of QAnon believers. I might have left, but I still have a close look into how the conspiracy theory is spreading and affecting people.

These days, QAnon isn’t getting the headlines it was after Jan. 6. I guess most of the world doesn’t pay attention to QAnon anymore unless its followers do something especially bizarre, like the recent gathering in Dallas where hundreds met in hopes of seeing John F. Kennedy Jr. alive. But from where I stand I don’t see QAnon fading away — I see it getting stronger.

I was sucked into QAnon in the winter of 2017. At the time, I casually followed various conspiracies online and the internet led me to Q. I was living in Australia, where I still live, but I had been interested in American politics since spending six months in the U.S. a few years before. I had rooted for Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary and felt let down when he lost.

When I found QAnon, I didn’t just flirt with it — I fell deep. I internalized the idea that the world was run by the Cabal, a Satan-worshiping child-molesting group of liberal politicians, Hollywood moguls, billionaires and other influential elites. I believed that Donald Trump was leading the fight against the Cabal and that there was a plan in place to defeat them. I couldn’t wait for the coming of the Storm, QAnon’s version of judgment day that would herald the announcement of martial law and a wave of public executions. I was looking forward to the execution of Hillary Clinton, whom Q portrayed as a pedophile and a murderer. I would have cheered. QAnon showed me that I can be enthusiastic about violence, and it’s hard to forgive myself for that.

I understood QAnon was a lie on June 13, 2019. Just minutes after I wrote a post online laden with QAnon conspiracies, I watched a YouTube video that reviewed the times that Trump used the phrase “tippy top” throughout the years. Q said that when Trump said this phrase, he was signaling to Anons, “the patriots,” that everything was going according to the plan in the fight with the Deep State. But the video showed that Trump had always used this phrase a lot, long before he ever ran for the presidency and Q came to be. That’s when it clicked for me: This was all a lie.

I walked out onto the porch of my house in Sydney, Australia, smoked a cigarette and took in the idea that I had lost two years of my life to a vile conspiracy crafted by a psychopath. I had even introduced my dad to it. He is still a follower; I can’t get through to him.

Then I went inside, sat down and wrote a different post, this time on a Reddit forum devoted to debunking the conspiracy. I titled the post: You guys were right.

The pain and shame that came with the disillusionment were overwhelming. I couldn’t look people in the eyes. I felt like I had committed a violent crime and was running for my life. I was terrified that someone would find out my secret and my life would be ruined forever. I lived with this fear for a year. During that time, I didn’t speak about QAnon or read anything about American politics because it reminded of my time in Q’s thrall.

There was only one way I reexposed myself to QAnon during that time: I reread comments on the Reddit post I had written the hour I quit. The kind words of strangers saying that it wasn’t my fault and that I was brave for getting out made me feel better. It was through that post that a journalist found me in June 2020 and I got my first interview request. The only thing the journalist asked was for me to tell my story.

“The only thing?” I thought. There was no such thing as just telling my story. I asked everyone in my life who knew about my time with QAnon if I should talk to the reporter. Every single one of them tried to talk me out of it.

And yet, the general public was just becoming aware of QAnon and was underestimating the real-world danger the online conspiracy could cause. I thought people should know more. I also wanted to be able to reach those who were on the edge of falling for QAnon or leaving it. I thought that going public about my experience might provide them with the nudge that would help them escape the lie. I also didn’t see the point of doing it halfway — if I wanted Anons to take me seriously, I needed to put my name on the record.

I also felt physically safer speaking up in Australia than I would have if I lived in the U.S. I knew Anons could be violent (someone later posted my address and a photo of my house online) and I found comfort in knowing that most QAnon followers seem to live in the U.S. and that it would take an expensive plane ticket and a very long flight for anyone to get to me. Australia also has stricter gun laws, so I didn’t need to worry that someone could show up armed.

“Whatever. I’ll do it. Life is too short. Who cares?” I thought. And after ignoring the interview request for a month, I responded and said I’d do it.

I was very nervous during my first interview, but it felt great to get my experience out. Even before that story published, more interview requests came in, and I accepted them all. One after another, these interviews drained me of my shame. Now I tell all former QAnons to share their stories — it’s cathartic. For so long, my biggest fear had been that someone would find out I had followed Q. By telling the whole world about it, I removed all the power that shame had over me. I still feel guilty for my beliefs, but I’m not scared or ashamed anymore.

Over the past year, I’ve spoken with many journalists, researchers and family members of those who fell for QAnon. No one has told me that my story has helped them escape QAnon, but I do speak with current Anons surprisingly often. Usually, they reach out to mock or confront me, but I almost always manage to turn it into a real conversation. I know how to speak to them because I used to be one of them — I don’t demean them but neither do I let them get away with rambling and bogus reasoning. These conversations are very draining — they can last 12 hours and require writing long essays, addressing their arguments point by point. The trick is to not let them walk over you and to push back on their beliefs without insulting their intelligence. And if it’s someone you care for, you can try to ask them why being right is more important to them than having a functioning relationship with you.

A few months ago, I livestreamed a QAnon conference in Dallas. Attendees didn’t refer to their movement as QAnon, but all the elements were there — the ideas, the slogans and the current “celebrities” of the conspiracy movement. I wanted to be there to talk to them. Why? Going from a Bernie Sanders supporter to a Trump supporter to being politically homeless left me with a lot of unfinished emotional and intellectual business with both the right and the left. I’ve sorted through all my unfinished business with the left by talking with the media. I think most media leans left, but I also saw how journalism works and how carefully I was vetted before my story was considered credible. But I still feel angry and betrayed by the right. The intellectual right has a lot of great ideas but they abandoned them all to stand by Trump and his claims about election fraud. What went wrong? I would have talked to the Dallas attendees about that.


Even though I wasn’t there, one thing that surprised me about that Dallas conference was how polished and well put together it was on a professional level. It tells me that the movement’s infrastructure is improving and it is growing. I disagree with people who say that QAnon is fading away — I think its believers are growing as fast as the fandom of “Game of Thrones” when it came out. Their content might be banned from popular social media but I think they are still there, flourishing away from the eyes of polite society.

This worries me. I believe QAnon has a lot in common with doomsday cults and in the past, doomsday cults turned violent. I was not surprised when the FBI said that “digital soldiers” could turn to violence, nor was I surprised by the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. I think it’s inevitable that more real-world violence will occur in future. Eventually, Anons will get tired of waiting for the Storm. Then, they will take the bringing of the martial law into their own hands.

I don’t see a natural end point to this conspiracy now. It has survived Q’s disappearance and Trump’s 2020 loss, which, according to the theory, was never supposed to happen. The movement is changing, though. QAnon has always been a blanket conspiracy that allowed people to bring what conspiratorial beliefs they wanted into it. Now, without Trump in the White House and Q trying to directs its flow, this inclusiveness has become more pronounced. What is left is a more decentralized movement, with an ever growing range of beliefs, united by a shared culture of distrust toward institutions and a do-it-yourself approach to conspiracy theories.

My biggest dream now is seeing other former QAnon followers go on the record with their experience so I can fade away into obscurity and bum around. I had a life before this and I want to go back to it. But no one is willing to take these responsibilities from me. Once a reporter told me that maybe no one speaks up because I’m already doing it. Maybe so. But I don’t want to be doing this forever.



https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/11/q-anon-movement-former-believer-523972

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/17/2021 (Child Sexual Abuse, QAnon, Conspiracy Theories, Gen Z)

Child Sexual Abuse, QAnon, Conspiracy Theories, Gen Z

Independent: I grew up in a cult and was married at 12 — in Texas

"My mother was a liberal feminist; my father was a religious zealot who left the family to live by the cult leader.

Two months before I married, I had my first period. I still wore a training bra. I was 12 and had never kissed a boy, never fathomed marriage. "Repeat after me: I, Habiba, take you, Ali, to be my husband for the duration of 90 days," Ali*, my new husband, said.

Within seconds, I was married. In an Islamic Temporary Marriage, the marriage isn't nulled with a divorce, but rather a specific period is set — in our case, 90 days. No witnesses are needed, and unlike traditional Islamic marriages, the man doesn't need to support the woman. But if the girl or woman gets pregnant, the baby isn't considered illegitimate.

Two months before I married, I had my first period. I still wore a training bra. I was 12 and had never kissed a boy, never fathomed marriage. "Repeat after me: I, Habiba, take you, Ali, to be my husband for the duration of 90 days," Ali*, my new husband, said.

Within seconds, I was married. In an Islamic Temporary Marriage, the marriage isn't nulled with a divorce, but rather a specific period is set — in our case, 90 days. No witnesses are needed, and unlike traditional Islamic marriages, the man doesn't need to support the woman. But if the girl or woman gets pregnant, the baby isn't considered illegitimate.

After my parents divorced when I was five, I spent the school year in Tucson, Arizona with my Jewish mother, and summers and holidays with my Muslim father in a cult in Texas. The cult leader didn't live with the members but lived an hour away on a hill with his three wives and multiple children. Polygamy is allowable in Islam, and a man can marry up to four wives.

The summer after I completed seventh grade, I flew to my dad's as normal — but this was to be a different summer to all the others. The leader asked my father if I could live with him at his residence to help care for his four young children. No other person had been asked, so my father quickly agreed, thinking it was a wonderful opportunity for me to be close to the leader.

On the first night, the leader's adopted son Ali snuck into my room and violated me. By the third night, he feared he was behaving un-Islamically, so he married himself to me until the end of August when I'd return to my mother in Tucson for eighth grade."

Politico: I Left QAnon in 2019. But I'm Still Not Free.

Some say the movement is losing its power. But I see the opposite.

"I left QAnon back in 2019, but I don't seem to be able to walk away. I talk about my experience a lot — to the Washington Post, CNN and Rolling Stone magazine among many others. I even apologized to Anderson Cooper on his show for having once thought that he ate babies.

I'm one of the few former followers willing to go on the record with their story, which means I'm a source for journalists and researchers and sometimes also a guide for former believers who want to talk to someone who understands what they went through. I'm also one of the senior moderators of the QAnonCasualties forum on Reddit, a message board for family members of QAnon believers. I might have left, but I still have a close look into how the conspiracy theory is spreading and affecting people.

These days, QAnon isn't getting the headlines it was after Jan. 6. I guess most of the world doesn't pay attention to QAnon anymore unless its followers do something especially bizarre, like the recent gathering in Dallas where hundreds met in hopes of seeing John F. Kennedy Jr. alive. But from where I stand I don't see QAnon fading away — I see it getting stronger.

I was sucked into QAnon in the winter of 2017. At the time, I casually followed various conspiracies online and the internet led me to Q. I was living in Australia, where I still live, but I had been interested in American politics since spending six months in the U.S. a few years before. I had rooted for Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary and felt let down when he lost.

When I found QAnon, I didn't just flirt with it — I fell deep. I internalized the idea that the world was run by the Cabal, a Satan-worshiping child-molesting group of liberal politicians, Hollywood moguls, billionaires and other influential elites. I believed that Donald Trump was leading the fight against the Cabal and that there was a plan in place to defeat them. I couldn't wait for the coming of the Storm, QAnon's version of judgment day that would herald the announcement of martial law and a wave of public executions. I was looking forward to the execution of Hillary Clinton, whom Q portrayed as a pedophile and a murderer. I would have cheered. QAnon showed me that I can be enthusiastic about violence, and it's hard to forgive myself for that.

I understood QAnon was a lie on June 13, 2019. Just minutes after I wrote a post online laden with QAnon conspiracies, I watched a YouTube video that reviewed the times that Trump used the phrase "tippy top" throughout the years. Q said that when Trump said this phrase, he was signaling to Anons, "the patriots," that everything was going according to the plan in the fight with the Deep State. But the video showed that Trump had always used this phrase a lot, long before he ever ran for the presidency and Q came to be. That's when it clicked for me: This was all a lie."

Dazed: A brief explainer on Gen Z's Birds Aren't Real 'conspiracy theory'

Fighting misinformation with lunacy, the parody movement's followers pretend that the US government replaced birds with secret government drones sent to spy on humans.

"In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, "Birds Aren't Real."

On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren't Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral.

Last month, Birds Aren't Real adherents even protested outside Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.

The events were all connected by a Gen Z-fueled conspiracy theory, which posits that birds don't exist and are really drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans. Hundreds of thousands of young people have joined the movement, wearing Birds Aren't Real T-shirts, swarming rallies and spreading the slogan.

It might smack of QAnon, the conspiracy theory that the world is controlled by an elite cabal of child-trafficking Democrats. Except that the creator of Birds Aren't Real and the movement's followers are in on a joke: They know that birds are, in fact, real and that their theory is made up.

What Birds Aren't Real truly is, they say, is a parody social movement with a purpose. In a post-truth world dominated by online conspiracy theories, young people have coalesced around the effort to thumb their nose at, fight and poke fun at misinformation. It's Gen Z's attempt to upend the rabbit hole with absurdism."

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Ex-QAnon Believer Warns Movement 'Getting Stronger,' Compares It to 'Doomsday Cult'

JASON LEMON
Newsweek
December 11, 2021

A former believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory has warned that the movement appears to be "getting stronger," comparing the bizarre movement to a "doomsday cult."

QAnon adherents believe that former President Donald Trump is fighting against a Satanic cabal of Democratic elites who sexually exploit children in their quest for power and domination. In recent months, the QAnon movement appears to have increasingly become an umbrella for a range of other conspiracy theories as well.

In an interview with Politico published on Saturday, former QAnon believer Jitarth Jadeja outlined how he became involved with the conspiracy theory and eventually left the movement, realizing it was all a lie. He warned that he sees the movement as becoming more influential, not fading away.

"These days, QAnon isn't getting the headlines it was after January 6. I guess most of the world doesn't pay attention to QAnon anymore unless its followers do something especially bizarre, like the recent gathering in Dallas where hundreds met in hopes of seeing John F. Kennedy Jr. alive. But from where I stand I don't see QAnon fading away—I see it getting stronger," Jadeja said.

The QAnon movement drew substantial national attention in the wake of the January 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol carried out by Trump supporters. Many in the crowd of hundreds of Trump loyalists openly promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, waving flags and wearing clothing items promoting it.

As Jadeja pointed out, hundreds of QAnon followers gathered in Dallas, Texas in November—bizarrely believing that John F. Kennedy Jr. (the son of former President John F. Kennedy) would appear there. However, Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash back in 1999.

Despite their fantastical beliefs, hundreds gathered in Dallas in mid-November and then dozens again gathered there later in the month. They believed that Kennedy Jr. would reappear in the Texas city and declare Trump to be the rightful president.

"I disagree with people who say that QAnon is fading away—I think its believers are growing as fast as the fandom of Game of Thrones when it came out. Their content might be banned from popular social media but I think they are still there, flourishing away from the eyes of polite society," Jadeja said.

"This worries me. I believe QAnon has a lot in common with doomsday cults and in the past, doomsday cults turned violent. I was not surprised when the FBI said that 'digital soldiers' could turn to violence, nor was I surprised by the storming of the Capitol on January 6. I think it's inevitable that more real-world violence will occur in the future," he added.

An FBI report released in mid-June warned of the possibility that some QAnon adherents could commit acts of violence. The report cautioned that some believers could "begin to believe they can no longer 'trust the plan' referenced in QAnon posts and they have an obligation to change from serving as 'digital soldiers' toward engaging in real-world violence."

Although Trump has never fully embraced the QAnon movement, he has spoken favorably of its believers. "I don't know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate," Trump told reporters in April 2020 during a White House press conference.

In the wake of Trump's election loss, QAnon adherents have repeatedly rallied around a series of dates on which they believed the former president would be reinstated. Even as the dates have passed without Trump returning to the White House, many of the conspiracy theories have moved the goal post and set new deadlines. Some adherents also believe that Trump is still serving as the president, despite Biden's presence in the White House and on the world stage.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's press office for comment.

https://www.newsweek.com/ex-qanon-believer-warns-movement-getting-stronger-compares-it-doomsday-cult-1658500

Kenneth Copeland is the wealthiest pastor in America. So why does he live in a tax-free Texas mansion?

Jay Root, Staff writer
Houston Chronicle
December 15, 2021

FORT WORTH — At his 2015 Southwest Believers’ Convention in Fort Worth, wealthy Texas televangelist Kenneth Copeland explained how he wound up living in a mansion. It all started when God told him years earlier to build that dream home his wife Gloria had described to him.

“Minister this house to her,” he recalled the almighty saying. “It is part of your prosperity.”

Her vision was vast: Rising up three stories and sporting white columns in front, the six-bedroom, six-bath estate on the shores of an exclusive lake community outside of Fort Worth has enough room to fit nearly four basketball courts — more than 18,000 square feet of living space in all.

“You may think that house is too big,” Copeland told the believers’ convention. “You may think it's too grand. I don't care what you think. I heard from heaven. Glory to God, hallelujah!”

What he didn’t mention is that his heavenly plans are being underwritten by Texas taxpayers. Under a little-known statute that county appraisers say is too vague and permissive, the $7 million mansion owned by Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church is considered a parsonage — a clergy residence — qualifying for a 100 percent tax break.

That means Copeland’s church gets a pass on what would otherwise be an annual property tax bill exceeding $150,000 — money that other local taxpayers must backfill to cover the cost of schools, police and firefighters.

“You may think that house is too big,” Copeland told the believers’ convention. “You may think it's too grand. I don't care what you think. I heard from heaven. Glory to God, hallelujah!”

What he didn’t mention is that his heavenly plans are being underwritten by Texas taxpayers. Under a little-known statute that county appraisers say is too vague and permissive, the $7 million mansion owned by Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church is considered a parsonage — a clergy residence — qualifying for a 100 percent tax break.

That means Copeland’s church gets a pass on what would otherwise be an annual property tax bill exceeding $150,000 — money that other local taxpayers must backfill to cover the cost of schools, police and firefighters.
'Abides by biblical guidelines'

Texas began allowing religious organizations to exempt clergy residences from property taxes nearly a century ago. But the law limits the properties to 1 acre of land and, at least in theory, prohibits ministers from using the generosity of the tax code for “private gain.”

Evans said Copeland’s church easily found a way around both restrictions.

The luxurious 1-acre parsonage is surrounded by a 24-acre lakefront tract valued extraordinarily low – $125,000 – so Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church pays less than $3,000 a year in property taxes on it, records show. The district agreed to the value as part of a dispute resolution agreement with the church, Law said.

Real estate experts say that much waterfront property minutes from Fort Worth would sell for many multiples of that on the open market.

“Texas law states that the parsonage exemptions are limited to an acre,” Evans said. “Copeland's mansion is like a textbook example on how lawyers can get around the spirit of the law, using the letter of the law.”

Kenneth Copeland Ministries did not respond to the Chronicle’s request for an interview. But in a written statement spokesman Lawrence Swicegood criticized the “many unfounded claims, misreported facts or grossly exaggerated statements” by the media and others.

“Eagle Mountain International Church (Kenneth Copeland Ministries) always abides by biblical guidelines. Our church also adheres to the various federal, state, county and local codes, statutes and ordinances applicable to the church ministry,” Swicegood said. “Our Church, with a worldwide impact, is helping proclaim and teach Christians around the world how to apply the principles of faith found in God’s word.”
Drawing attention of Congress

Copeland doesn’t seem to be ashamed of his wealth. On the contrary, in the prosperity gospel he champions on the pulpit, wealth is an outward sign of God’s blessing. He routinely exhorts followers to give generously to his church in order to receive material blessings in their own lives.

His parsonage is the architectural embodiment of that blessing. Built in 1999, it “has a sweeping spiral staircase and a bridge that spans across the living room and connects the two sides of the house,” a report by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee found in 2011. “It also has crystal chandeliers and, according to Gloria Copeland, doors that came from a castle.” The report said the bedroom boasts a “huge drop-down ceiling projector and screen.”

Outside, a tennis court graces the grounds. The two garages together are bigger than most homes. A covered boat dock with three slips perches on the shores of Eagle Lake.

Copeland commands a fleet of tax-exempt planes and lives within walking distance of an airport — that would be Kenneth Copeland Airport — giving the octogenarian preacher a jet-setting lifestyle few of his congregants could ever dream of enjoying.

The Lubbock native also tops virtually every list of the wealthiest American pastors, including one compiled in 2018 by the religion lifestyle website Beliefnet, which pegged Copeland’s net worth at $760 million. Never mind that he declared himself a billionaire as far back as 2008.

“I’m a very wealthy man,” Copeland told Inside Edition’s Lisa Guerrero in a viral 2016 interview. He said his wealth derived not from “offerings alone.” He pointed to “a lot of natural gas on our property.” Copeland, who also owns property outside of Tarrant County, didn’t say where his royalties came from.

“When you go back to the Bible, it’s full of wealth,” he told Guerrero.

A protégé of the late Oklahoma televangelist Oral Roberts, Copeland, 85, is a teetotaling Pentecostal preacher who speaks in tongues and can look almost maniacal on stage — like when he’s laughing at the notion that Joe Biden won the presidency or blowing the “wind of God” straight into the camera to snuff out covid-19.

Copeland’s church empire and wealth have generated attention in the media and Congress. In 2007, WFAA-TV’s Brett Shipp reported that Copeland used church-owned aircraft to visit vacation spots. Church officials have said previously that any plane trips made for non-church business are reimbursed.

Comedian John Oliver also skewered him on his show "Last Week Tonight" for his life of luxury. And the U.S. Senate Finance Committee put Copeland in its crosshairs during a probe sparked by allegations of possible misuse of donations by six top televangelist ministries.

In Tarrant County alone, Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church has at least 1,400 acres worth of land, buildings and personal property that are valued at almost $60 million, a Chronicle tally of online appraisal district records show.

Besides the religious tax breaks, much of the land carries agriculture exemptions, which dramatically lower the amount owed. Other non-exempt tracts owned by Copeland’s church are valued far below what one might expect for such a sought-after location on Eagle Mountain Lake, a playground for Fort Worth’s well-to-do.

As a result, the church faced a property tax liability of only $23,000 or so this year on that $60 million in property, online tax records show. That’s about what the owner of a $1 million home might expect to pay in taxes in Houston.

Among the tax-free church property are several aircraft worth over $19 million. The church has argued to county appraisers — successfully — that the planes play a vital role in its religious mission.

Copeland’s church made a 2018 video requesting donor help to rig out and store one of his jets — a Gulfstream V he bought from Hollywood producer and actor Tyler Perry.

“Praise God!” he said after the plane arrived on the tarmac outside his tax-free hangar. “Isn’t that good?”
Fighting the county

Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church is no stranger to disputes with the Tarrant Appraisal District in Fort Worth — or getting its way.

After the appraisal district set the parsonage’s market value at $10.8 million in 2020, the church protested, and it was lowered back to $7 million this year, according to Law, the chief appraiser. That’s more than $1 million below its 2008 value when adjusted for inflation.

Having a total exemption means the church would pay zero in taxes regardless of the value affixed by county appraisers. So why did Copeland’s church fight the nearly $11 million parsonage value? The chief appraiser speculated the church wants to keep the value low in case it ever loses the exemption.

Evans, the Trinity Foundation activist who has tracked Copeland’s tax-free wealth for decades, has a different theory.

“It makes sense that they would want their tax appraised value to be low so their congregants don't think they're living too extravagantly,” Evans said.

It’s not the only time Copeland’s church has prevailed in a tangle with county appraisers.

In 2008, the district denied an exemption on the church’s Cessna 550 jet after it refused to comply with a routine request to provide a list of salaries, which appraisers wanted in order to ensure the compensation was “reasonable” as the tax code requires.

The church sued.

“Salary information is confidential and not subject to disclosure,” its lawsuit said.

Law recalled the dispute came just as U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, was bearing down hard on Copeland’s lavish living and possible misuse of donations. The chief appraiser said the church was vigorously fighting any disclosure of compensation details.

The most recent and publicly available salary information the appraisal district got for Eagle Mountain International Church dates back to 1995, when Copeland, his wife and family members had been paid $1.5 million. Grassley’s committee wanted more up-to-date figures, but the church balked.

“They knew that if they provided it to us, for exemption application purposes, that it would be public information,” Law said, “and Senator Grassley could get his hands on that information.”

Then, suddenly, Law said the state comptroller’s office in Austin changed its application and dropped language that instructs applicants to “attach a list of salaries and other compensation.” Soon thereafter the district settled the lawsuit after agreeing to accept an affidavit from the church’s CPA saying the salaries were reasonable, Law said.

Chris Bryan, spokesman for state Comptroller Glenn Hegar, said the decision to change the form, which was promulgated without the salary and compensation language in January 2011, preceded the current administration.

Law said his office no longer asks for salary information from religious groups.

One piece of information the appraisal district never bothered to ask Copeland’s church: what clergy member lives in the parsonage on the lake. Nor could the appraisal district provide any records showing Eagle Mountain International Church has ever been asked to reapply for the parsonage tax exemption it first got 21 years ago.

Other churches have faced far more scrutiny. Some have been asked periodically to reapply for their parsonage exemption. And in letter after letter to clergy residence applicants, the appraisal district in Fort Worth warns religious organizations they will lose their exemption unless they say who lives there and how they’re connected to the ministry.

“Give the name of the person who resides at this property. Where did this person live before moving to this location? Give the name and location of the church,” the Tarrant Appraisal District demanded in a letter to New Hallelujah Church in 2010. “Unless you furnish this information within thirty days … the exemption must be denied.” The church complied.

Asked how his office was able to determine the house was dedicated to “the exclusive use as a dwelling place for the ministry,” as the Texas Constitution requires, without asking the church to provide the names of clergy members living there, Law replied: “That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer.”

But more than two decades after the appraisal district first granted a parsonage exemption to Copeland’s church, Law said he will be asking the ministry to reapply.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/unfair-burden/article/kenneth-copeland-wealth-pastor-tax-free-mansion-16662283.php