Cults101.ORG Network

ICSA Annual Conference!

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 22:14:00 +0000

The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is conducting its 2022 Annual International Conference jointly with Info-Secte/Info-Cult of Montreal.

Conference Theme: Exploring the Needs of People who Leave Controlling Groups, Relationships, and Environments.

ICSA Annual Conference - Virtual: June 24-26, 2022

(11:00 am - 5:00 pm EST)

Conference Information
Agenda
Conference Registration

ICSA Virtual Summer Conference!

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 21:10:00 +0000

Many of you have seen the recent ICSA announcement about the Two-Day Virtual Summer Conference!

This two-day event will include a variety of presentations, panels, and workshops for former members of cultic groups, families and friends, professionals, and researchers.

Register

Day 1 -- Saturday Conference Sessions, July 11, 2020 (11 am - 4 pm US Eastern Time)

Day 2 -- Sunday Workshops, July 12, 2020

Please contact ICSA if you need financial assistance to attend this event. mail@icsamail.com

After registering, you will receive a conference packet which will be sent to your email soon with the detailed schedule, conference related materials, and meeting codes.

Thank you so much to all the volunteers, speakers, and ICSA staff members that helped make this event possible!

Saturday, July 11, 2020

11:00 AM - 11:05 AM

"Opening Session" (Steve Eichel)

11:05 AM - 11:50 AM

"MIND FIXERS: The History of Mass Therapy With its Roots in Mind Dynamics Institute, Misuse of Zen Insights, and Hyping the Positive Thinking of New Thought Religion." (Joseph Kelly, Joseph Szimhart, Patrick Ryan)

11:05 AM - 11:50 AM

"The Neurobiology of Sexual Abuse: Flashbacks, Triggers and Healing" (Doni Whitsett)

12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

"Coercive Control and Persuasion in Relationships and Groups– Intersections and Understandings" (Rod Dubrow-Marshall; Linda Dubrow-Marshall; Andrea Silverstone; Carrie McManus)

12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

"Unification Church (Moonie) SGAs: The Future is Unwritten" (Lisa Kohn; Teddy Hose; Jen Kiaba)

1:00 PM - 1:50 PM

"Lived Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Former Cult Members – Counseling Implications" (Cyndi Matthews; Stevie Powers)

1:00 PM - 1:50 PM

"How Female Former Cult Members Can Reclaim their Relationship with Knowledge and Self-Identity" (Jacqueline Johnson)

1:00 PM - 1:50 PM

"What cults and fervor can teach us about the evolution of religion."

(Yuval Laor)

2:00 PM - 2:50 PM

"Raised in a Cult: Psychological and Social Adjustment of Second- and Third-Generation Former Cult Members" (Sofia Klufas)

3:00 PM - 3:55 PM

"What Do I Tell People? Empowered Ways that Cult Survivors and their Families Can Tell their Stories. Cults, Recovery and Podcasts." (Rachel Bernstein)

3:00 PM - 3:55 PM

"Nxivm: the Reinventive Path to Success?" (Susan Raine, Stephen Kent)

3:55 PM - 4:00 PM

"Closing Session" (Steve Eichel)

Sunday, July 12, 2020

11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

"Research Workshop"

11:00 AM - 2:00 PM

"Mental Health Workshop"

1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

"Former Member Workshop"

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

"Family Workshop"

Register

Event: Building Bridges - Leaving and Recovering from Cultic Groups and Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Speakers: Joseph Kelly, Patrick Ryan

Topics discussed include: assessing a family’s unique situation; understanding why people join and leave groups; considering the nature of psychological manipulation and abuse; being accurate, objective, and up-to-date; looking at ethical issues; learning how to assess your situation; formulating a helping strategy; learning how to communicate more effectively with your loved one; learning new ways of coping.

This event will be part of the NY Monthly Meeting.

When: September 27, 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm.

Where: Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew (United Methodist), 263 W. 86th St., New York City - Social Hall (Subway stop: #1 train at 86th St. and Broadway)

https://www.icsahome.com/events/icsa-conversations

Cult Recovery Readings

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sun, 11 Feb 2018 23:13:00 +0000

From CultRecovery101.com

Cult Recovery Readings

CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/3-4/2018 Weekend Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 03:05:00 +0000

Faith Healing, Legal, Shinto, Japan, Scientology, Ireland, Neo-Nazi, Wolfpack, Turpin's, Quiverfulls, Duggars

KTVB7: LAWMAKER TACKLES FAITH HEALING FROM ANOTHER ANGLE

"The battle over Idaho's faith healing laws is starting to churn at the Statehouse."

"But now, one lawmaker is taking a new angle on the battle."

"In Idaho, parents are allowed by law to shield their children from medical care, even when faced with potentially life-threatening illnesses or injuries, in lieu of prayer or faith-healing."

Gannon's bill looks to simply remove the section of the law that allows parents to cite faith healing.

Japan Times: On the adulteration of Japan’s oldest religion

"Primitive Shinto is one of the loveliest religions in the world. It’s beautiful in its simplicity — defenseless too, as it proved, against the nativists and nationalists who warped it into 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century xenophobia."

"Rudimentary, vague, undefined, undefinable, Shinto for centuries didn’t even have a name. It didn’t need one; there was nothing to distinguish it from, nothing it was not. One good sentence can say everything there is to say about it — this one, for example, by historian Takeshi Matsumae: “In some rural areas even today (1993), elderly villagers face the rising sun each morning, clap their hands together, and hail the appearance of the sun over the peaks of the nearby mountain as ‘the coming of the kami.'”"

"That’s Shinto — the way (“to”) of the kami (“shin”). As to the kami — who might they be? “Gods,” we say in English, the language offering nothing better, but it’s too freighted a word, too suggestive of power rather than innocence, of something specific as opposed to anything, one knows not what."

Irish Central: Police investigate assault of 14-year-old at new Dublin Scientology site

"Irish police are investigating the alleged assault of a 14-year-old at the new Church of Scientology center in Dublin."

"A woman is claiming her son was attacked at the €6 million facility in Firhouse, south Dublin, and suffered a fractured wrist, cuts and bruising, The Irish Sun reports."

"Local Sinn Fein TD Sean Crowe said: “I would have huge concerns about the allegation a minor has been assaulted at this facility."

“A lot of paranoia surrounds this group and there are also a lot of concerns in the local community about what their aims and objectives are."

Reveal: The Hate Report: The Nazis are coming for your children

Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin admits that he’s trying to target – and brainwash – “pubescents” into believing his views; what happens when racists find out they’re not white; and some good news from Kansas.

“My site is mainly designed to target children – 11 through teenage years, through high school. Middle school through high school.”

ABC: 'Wolfpack' family who spent years locked in apartment react to 13 captive siblings

"When she heard the news story of the 13 siblings allegedly held captive in their California home by their parents, Susanne Reisenbichler’s said her first reaction was, “Oh no. Somebody else.”"

"Reisenbichler and her sons Govinda Angulo and Josef Reisenbichler said hearing the reports on the Turpin siblings brought back memories of what they experienced while being confined to a cramped New York City apartment until just a few years ago."

LA Times: Op-Ed The Turpin child abuse story fits a widespread and disturbing homeschooling pattern

"In a 2014 study of child torture, Barbara Knox, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin, found that 47% of school-age victims had been withdrawn from school for homeschooling and an additional 29% had never been enrolled."

"We keep a database of homeschool abuse cases and have found disturbing details repeated over and over. More than 40% of severe and fatal cases involve some form of imprisonment. The Turpin children were found chained to their beds. So was Calista Springer, a 13-year-old Michigan girl who died in a house fire in 2009 when she was unable to free herself. Christian Choate of Indiana was kept naked in a cage; he died in 2009, at age 13, but his death was not discovered until two years later. In Arizona, a 14-year-old girl was locked in a bedroom for more than a year and routinely raped by her father; she escaped by kicking down the door when the rest of the family was away and running two miles across town to the home of a friend from when she attended school."

InTouch: There’s a Connection Between the Horrific Turpin Family and the Duggars

"...[The]Turpins are also Quiverfulls, the sect of Christianity that strongly values a patriarchal, conversative culture. With the Duggars fronting as the group’s most visible members, the movement has been met with countless criticisms in the years since we met the reality TV family and stars of 19 Kids and Counting."

"In a piece for AlterNet, a woman who spent 16 years being raised in a Quiverfull church detailed what the abuse was like — detailing how “spiritual abuse” in the forms of physical, emotional, and mental abuse was especially detrimental."

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/22/2018

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 17:24:00 +0000

Ultra-Orthodox, Israel, University Bible Fellowship (UBF), Patricia Hearst, Gaslighting, China, Religious Discrimination, MSM, Canada, Legal, Transcendental Meditation

RNS: More Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews buck tradition and head for the army, higher ed

"Moshe Lifshitz says he always felt motivated to serve in the Israeli army even though, as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, he was entitled to a military exemption."

“I don’t know where my desire to serve in the IDF came from, but I’ve always felt it,” said Lifshitz, who spent three years in a combat unit and still performs yearly reserve duty.

“My father didn’t serve and neither did my nearly 100 cousins, not that I hold it against them.”

Lifshitz is one of a growing number of ultra-Orthodox — also known as haredi — men who have defied expectations and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces. They join despite often intense pressure from other haredim to study sacred texts full time and avoid the military.

Link: University Bible Fellowship (UBF): Press Releases of ex-members

A list compilation of press releases of UBF ex-members and press articles.

The Cut: Patty Hearst Is Not Happy About the New Projects on Her

"Patricia Hearst has spoken out against two new projects about her high-profile kidnapping and ordeal with a guerrilla group, Deadline reports."

"The heiress was abducted from her apartment in 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Over a year and half later, she was arrested with other members after participating in some of their crimes. Hearst served time in prison, though she maintains she was brainwashed by the group (she was eventually pardoned in 2001)."

"Her case is the subject of an upcoming CNN docuseries – The Radical Story of Patty Hearst – and an unnamed Fox 2000 film starring Elle Fanning, based on Jeffrey Toobin’s recent unauthorized book, American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial ."

BBC: Cheating and manipulation: Confessions of a gaslighter

"Greg, a Canadian lawyer, is 28 but he's already had 11 serious relationships. He says each of those relationships ended with infidelity, on his part, and severe self-doubt on the part of the women. He is a self-confessed "gaslighter"."

NY Times: Chinese Police Dynamite Christian Megachurch

"Chinese police officers demolished one of the country’s largest evangelical churches this week, using heavy machinery and dynamite to raze the building where more than 50,000 Christians worshiped."

"The Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi Province was one of at least two Christian churches demolished by the authorities in recent weeks, part of what critics describe as a national effort to regulate spiritual life in China."

"Under President Xi Jinping, the government has destroyed churches or removed their steeples and crosses as part of a campaign that reflects the Communist Party’s longstanding fear that Christianity, viewed as a Western philosophy, is a threat to the party’s authority."

CBC News: Sale of controversial 'miracle' tonic results in dozens of charges

A B.C. man and an Alberta woman face dozens of Food and Drug Act charges related to the promotion of a so-called miracle tonic touted as capable of curing everything from AIDS to autism.

"The charges against Stanley and Sara Nowak follow years of Health Canada warnings about the sale of sodium chlorite, a bleach that a global community of believers is convinced can eliminate pathogens and poisons from the body when diluted with water."

Transcendental Meditation Initiation Puja

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi recalls visiting Kerala in 1955 and instituting the puja ceremony in order to teach meditation:-

'And now I remember when I begin to look into the past, what I, what happened. the first such thing happened somewhere in Kerala, where I went from Uttar Kashi to Kerala, dakshina [Hindi for 'south'] .. South India, and people wanted to learn this practice of meditation.

I thought: "What to do, what to do, what to do?" then I thought, "I should teach them all in the name of Guru Dev. I should design a system, a system of puja to Guru Dev."

And in that puja the reality came out, the reality of Guru Dev, the totality of Guru Dev and what it was:

"Gurur Brahma", the Creator, "Gurur Vishnur", the Maintainer

"Gurur Brahma", the Creator, "Gurur Vishnur", the Maintainer, the Administrator,

"Guruh Sakshat Param Brahma", totality of knowledge, totality of enlightenment.

"Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnur, Gurur Devo Maheshvarah", silence, "Shiva",

"Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnur, Gurur Devo Maheshvarah", "Shiva", silence, eternal Purusha.

"Guruh Sakshat, Param Brahma", transcendental "Brahma".

Totality of all, infinite diversity, that is the guru - "na guror adhikam*", "na guror adhikam" - "there is no one greater than guru", guru is everything, Creator, Maintainer, Sustainer, everything is the guru, the guru, the guru.

I formulated the puja to Guru Dev, I started through that instrumentality to transfer Guru Dev’s reality to the one who wanted to teach meditation [Maharishi himeself]. So what flowed was, totality of Guru Dev, flowed through the puja.'

- transcript of Maharishi speaking on 21st October 2007

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/15/2018

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 20:30:00 +0000

Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, Waco, David Koresh

Daily Caller: EXCLUSIVE: Joy Villa On Her Possible Congressional Run And Scientology Membership [VIDEO]

"Joy Villa, an outspoken Scientologist who most notably revealed her MAGA dress after the elections during last year’s Grammy Awards, discussed her possible run for Congress in 2018 as well as her past political affiliations, her recent allegations against former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and her association with Scientology."

Dr. Phil: "My Husband’s Religious Beliefs are Ruining Our Family and Now CPS Has Our Children. Can We Get Them Back?"

"For nine years, Tatiana was a member of a strict religious group.She claims she wasn’t allowed to celebrate holidays or birthdays, or get an education, and felt isolated from family and friends."

"Tatiana says she wasn’t born religious but claims her husband, Robert, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, used her innocence about the religion to pressure her into becoming a member. But four months ago, she left the religion and now wants her husband to leave, too."

Video: Do Jehovah's Witnesses Subcontract Thinking to the Governing Body

"In this video, JT is interviewed by Daniel in an in depth discussion about whether or not Jehovah's Witnesses do their own critical thinking or actually subcontract it out to the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses."

"Lady Cee and JT then discuss the interview and share their own personal experiences on the topic."

Reveal: New documents about Jehovah's Witnesses' sex abuse begin to leak out

Dozens of confidential documents apparently leaked from Jehovah’s Witnesses archives appeared online Tuesday, providing a rare window into how the religion’s child abuse policies favor accused sexual predators at the expense of the victims.

FaithLeaks, a group pushing for more transparency in religious organizations, posted the documents in tandem with a story published by Gizmodo.

The documents detail the accusations of two sisters who say they were sexually assaulted by their father when they were growing up in the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion. One says her father tied her down and molested her. The other says her father raped her repeatedly over a period of years.

Most of the 33 documents are letters between local leaders and the religion’s global headquarters in New York — The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. They show how the alleged perpetrator was able to attend a congregation with one of his alleged victims, in violation of a restraining order, while leaders admonished a member for reporting the violation to police.

Stuff: Sexual selection, isolation and physical abuse: Kiwi woman's time at Waco cult

"Adams said Koresh told them they had to have sex with him in order to go to heaven. He targeted girls as young as 12, she claimed. Some of whom became pregnant."

"I was so frightened … that this thing may happen that I started to flip out, I guess."

"To get it over with, she went to his room at 3am one day."

"But Koresh was enraged, telling her God made his sexual selections for him."

"He woke up all members of the cult and began yelling at her – before deciding she had to be isolated, she claimed."

"She spent four months locked in a 3 by 2.4-metre room, fed from a bowl."

"Adams said the experience "messed up" her mind."

CultNEWS101: CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/19/2016

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sat, 19 Nov 2016 18:30:00 +0000

Royal Commission announces final hearings in child sexual #abuse investigation

"The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Childh Sexual Abuse has announced its final schedule of public hearings including a three week examination of Catholic Church authorities which have been the subject of past case studies."

http://www.christiantoday.com.au/article/royal.commission.announces.final.hearings.in.child.sexual.abuse.investigation/23115.htm

Religious cult and 'Choi gate'

"Korea is famously referred to as a “department store of religions” and for a good reason too. For many Koreans, shamanism is not a foreign concept and I have come by quite a lot of people who call themselves Christians yet also make frequent visits to shamans’ homes. Also, different religious beliefs can be pursued even among family members. The reaction and attitude towards shamanism is definitely different from that of Westerners, and this is to be expected."

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/religious-cult-and-gate.html

The Scientology Public Information Center Hosts Holiday Reception During “Rudolph’s Miracle on Cleveland Street”

http://www.econotimes.com/The-Scientology-Public-Information-Center-Hosts%C2%A0Holiday-Reception-During-%E2%80%9CRudolphs-Miracle-on-Cleveland-Street%E2%80%9D-407122

The Campaign Recruiting Former Extremists to Stop Girls from Joining ISIS

"One to One works by tracking people in the U.S. and U.K. who are at a particularly high risk of online indoctrination into extremism, then having former radicals like Amira reach out to these vulnerable individuals. Alongside nine other people recruited from the Against Violent Extremism network, a group of 309 former extremists from all over the world, Amira sends anonymous Facebook messages to women who appear to be supporting ISIS, and tries to deter them."

http://www.vice.com/en_id/read/the-campaign-recruiting-former-extremists-to-stop-girls-from-joining-isis

Canada mother calls for ban of indigenous ceremonies in schools

"British Columbia parent says spiritual smudging ceremony violated religious freedom and asks supreme court to ban expressions of religion in public schools"

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/canada-mother-calls-for-ban-of.html

Documenting Scientology – too tough a nut to crack?

https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/documenting-scientology-too-tough-nut-crack

Plea deal for sex-offender rabbi - report

"Rabbi Eliezer Berland, founder of the Shuvu Bonim religious group, was extradited to Israel earlier in the year after three years on the run that took him between Zimbabwe, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and South Africa, accompanied by a group of devout followers numbering around 40 families."

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/plea-deal-for-sex-offender-rabbi-report_17.html

The Rise of "Zombie Religious Hospitals"

"Why are so many secular hospitals imposing religious restrictions on medical care?"

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/the-rise-of-zombie-religious-hospitals.html

Jonestown Massacre takes the lives of hundreds in 1978

"Hundreds of bodies are strewn across the Jonestown Commune in Jonestown, Guyana where more than 900 members of the People's Temple committed suicide in November 1978."

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/jonestown-massacre-takes-lives-of.html

World Orphans Day Celebrated at Scientology Volunteer Ministers’ Open House

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/11/17/891102/0/en/World-Orphans-Day-Celebrated-at-Scientology-Volunteer-Ministers-Open-House.html

New film focuses on African-American women in Jonestown deaths

"In the film, Wyatt plays Ernestine Markham, whom she describes as deeply devoted to Jones. Markham is based on Peoples Temple member Christine Miller, who, recordings of the temple’s last hours show, stood up to Jones as others died around her. She perished in the jungle, too.

“My character was that voice that said, ‘We don’t have to do this,'” Wyatt said.""

http://religionnews.com/2016/11/17/new-film-focuses-on-african-american-women-in-jonestown-deaths/

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Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to CultNEWS101.com.

Thanks

CultNEWS101: CultNEWS101 Articles (11/17) (15)

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 22:52:00 +0000

If the U.S. had 100 people: Charting Americans’ religious affiliations
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/14/if-the-u-s-had-100-people-charting-americans-religious-affiliations/

Ramdev’s Patanjali wants to drive “injurious to health” Coke and Pepsi out of India?
http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/companies/baba-ramdevs-patanjali-wants-to-drive-injurious-to-health-coke-and-pepsi-out-of-india/446181/

Germany launches raids across 60 cities, bans radical Islamist group
http://www.the-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=/20161115/AP/311159941

New idol group formed by cult Happy Science wants to “protect your happiness”
http://aramajapan.com/news/music/new-idol-group-formed-by-cult-happy-science-wants-to-protect-your-happiness/66939/

Minn. judge calls for rehab to aide one-time ISIS recruit
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/minn-judge-calls-rehab-aide-one-time-isis-recruit-article-1.2872983

Benton Harbor remembers cult destroyed by sex scandal
http://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/john-carlisle/2016/11/13/house-of-david-benton-harbor/93069448/

Troubles Overcome Are Good To Tell - Part I
http://openmindsfoundation.org/real-life-stories/troubles-overcome-are-good-to-tell-part-i

The use and abuse of spooking and phobia

https://thealienationexperience.org.uk/2016/11/14/the-use-and-abuse-of-spooking-and-phobias/

Australian Royal Commission puts Watchtower back under microscope. | JWsurvey
http://jwsurvey.org/child-abuse-2/australian-royal-commission-puts-watchtower-back-under-microscope

The Catholic Church has a plan to compensate sexual-abuse victims, but many will get nothing
http://www.businessinsider.com/catholic-church-sexual-abuse-victims-compensation-fund-2016-11

Judge rejects FLDS members' religious freedom claims in food stamp fraud case
http://fox13now.com/2016/11/15/judge-rejects-flds-members-religious-freedom-claims-in-food-stamp-fraud-case/

An Ohio lawyer hypnotized six female clients and then molested them. Now he’s going to prison.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/15/ohio-lawyer-hypnotized-six-female-clients-then-he-molested-them/

'The Dead Inside' Details One Woman's Struggle To Survive In A Cult-Like, Abusive Treatment Center For Teens
"Maybe you've heard stories about the notorious Straight, Inc., a drug treatment facility for teens that became the subject of numerous abuse allegations during its 17 years in business. Maybe you've heard the horror stories, but Cyndy Etler lived them. In her young adult memoir, The Dead Inside, out April 1, 2017, Etler details the 16 months she spent behind locked doors at Straight, Inc. — a treatment program called "a concentration camp for throwaway kids" by an official for the American Civil Liberties Union."
https://www.bustle.com/articles/195228-the-dead-inside-details-one-womans-struggle-to-survive-in-a-cult-like-abusive-treatment-center-for

How the offshoot of an ancient Hindu practice popularized by the Beatles made its way to Wall Street
http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/how-offshoot-of-ancient-hindu-practice.html?m=0

Report: North Korea continues to persecute citizens for practicing
"In its annual white paper on North Korea's record on religious freedom, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights said those caught practicing religions not sanctioned by the state face imprisonment and even death, according to local news service Christian Today."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/11/09/Report-North-Korea-continues-to-persecute-citizens-for-practicing-religion/2841478716723/

This Documentary About a Kailua Cult is Causing a Commotion in the Community
"Adocumentary titled Holy Hell: 25 Years Inside a Modern Cultis creating an uproar among Windward O‘ahu residents who learned from the film that the group’s Speedo-wearing leader has been based in Lanikai for several years."
http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/November-2016/This-Documentary-about-a-Kailua-Cult-is-Causing-a-Commotion-in-the-Community/

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Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.
Please forward articles that you think we should add to CultNEWS101.com.
Thanks

CultNEWS101: CultNEWS101: 239 articles added in February 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 20:08:00 +0000

CultNEWS101: CultNEWS101: 239 articles added in February 2016:

CultNEWS101: 239 articles added in February 2016

Articles List

CultNEWS101: MIND CONTROL: How people become trapped in Cults

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 23:38:00 +0000

CultNEWS101: MIND CONTROL: How people become trapped in Cults:

How normal people like you and I can easily become gradually duped over a period of time into becoming deceived by a destructive cult!

This video also reveals another frightening scenario: how a handful of corrupt people in positions of authority in the military could issue unjust unconstitutional orders to their subordinates to carry out acts of violence against their fellow countrymen, citizens who are guilty of nothing more than exercising their God-given Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms and protect their lands and their homes and the lives of themselves and their families!

CultNEWS101: Theater Review (NYC): ‘So Amazing!’ by Diana Brown...

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 22:17:00 +0000

CultNEWS101: Theater Review (NYC): ‘So Amazing!’ by Diana Brown...:

Let’s face it, cults are fascinating. How do people get sucked in? What techniques are at play, what psychological weaknesses? We can’t help seeing ourselves in cult victims and wondering: What got them? Could it get me too? And if they escaped, how did they do it? Diana Brown digs into the matter in her entertaining and thoughtful, if unpolished and not entirely satisfying, autobiographical solo show So Amazing!

CultNEWS101: Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcende...

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 18:52:00 +0000

Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/02/greetings-from-utopia-park-surviving.html

11 times the world was supposed to end and didn't

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 14:18:00 +0000

11 times the world was supposed to end and didn't:

11 times the world was supposed to end and didn't

DINA SPECTOR

Business Insider
October 7, 2015

It’s October 7, 2015.

This is the day the world will come to an end, according to a Christian group based in Philadelphia.

It looks like we’re all still here, though it’s probably not the last time we’ll be warned about earth’s annihilation.

Doomsday theorists and religious sects have been predicting The End for thousands of years.

Fortunately, all of these dates have come and gone uneventfully.

To maintain your faith that you’ll live to see October 8, we’ve compiled 11 other dates when the world was supposed to end and didn’t.

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: Search continues for Indian 'guru' who abused chil...

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 15:44:00 +0000

Search continues for Indian 'guru' who abused chil...: International Business Times UK Jayalakshmi K August 7, 2015 If you've seen Prakashanand Saraswati , please call 1-866-THE-HUNT ...

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: CultNEWS101

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 19:01:00 +0000

CultNEWS101 is available on:

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: Article list

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 02:18:00 +0000

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: Article list

Man Gets Prison For Inventing His Own Church, And ...

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Thu, 28 May 2015 18:38:00 +0000

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: Man Gets Prison For Inventing His Own Church, And ...: Forbes May 28, 2015 Robert W. Wood A Utah man has been sentenced to two years in prison over a church the feds say was a tax avoidance ...

Transcendental Meditation Resources and Links

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 16:23:00 +0000

Resources

The Transcendental Meditation Techniques - Complete, basic summary of the TM, advanced TM, TM-Sidhi and Primordial Sound techniques, collected together in one place. Includes all the TM mantras. Provided for historical and research purposes only, NOT for instruction in meditation of any form. Read the disclaimer.

Negative and Inconclusive Research on the Transcendental Meditation Programcompiled from various sources.

Other Documents concerning the Transcendental Meditation program

TM-EX Newsletters, 1990 - 1994 - Newsletters of the Transcendental Meditation Ex-Members Support Group

MINet Audio - five old radio programs featuring Transcendental Meditation movement leaders, produced for a campus radio station in 1979-1980

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: Cults101: News, Intervention, Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 14:35:00 +0000

CultNews101 cult news, books, video's: Cults101: News, Intervention, Recovery: News, Intervention, Recovery Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, politic...

Bishop Accountability

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 20:11:00 +0000

Bishop Accountability: BishopAccountability.org "Dedicated to the victims and their families and loved ones by d ocumenting the abuse Crisis in the Roman C...

Intervention 101: Kurdish boys tell of Isis brainwashin...

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 17:09:00 +0000

Intervention 101: cult intervention, cult mediation, and relationship-building resources.: CultNews101: Kurdish boys tell of Isis brainwashin...: Cult News101: Kurdish boys tell of Isis brainwashing : Ruth Sherlock NZ Herald Nov 8, 2014 By the time the boys were returned to their p...

Madness and Evil—A Review of The Sullivanian Institute/Fourth Wall Community: The Relationship of Radical Individualism and Authoritarianism

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:44:00 +0000

Amy B. Siskind
Reviewed by Daniel Shaw,
Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006
Praeger: Westport, Connecticut, 2003. 170 pages. $62.95

Purchase

I recently played, for a psychoanalytic study group of which I am a member, a comedy sketch, recorded ages ago, in which Elaine May and Mike Nichols portray a psychoanalyst and her patient. Having had a good laugh each of the numerous times I have listened to this sketch over the years, I gleefully, and as I now know naively, imagined my typically serious and scholarly group uncharacteristically doubled over, wiping tears of laughter from their eyes, enjoying a good joke on us all. In the sketch, the patient (Nichols) informs May, his analyst, that in the following week he will have to miss the last of his five sessions per week, since it is Christmas Eve and he plans to be with his family that day. Instantly shattered by the news of her patient’s plan to desert her, May attempts to maintain her analytic stance and mask her spiraling self-fragmentation by demanding that her patient explore, be curious about, reflect on and associate to his need to miss his session. In the face of his insistence that he just wants to be with his family on Christmas Eve, the analyst begins to weep quietly, then to sob in despair, then to scream with rage. Unable to help her recompensate, the patient quietly retreats, wishing her a Merry Christmas, as the analyst continues to unravel. When I turned off the recording, I faced a silent group, with some members finally confessing to a sense of excruciating anxiety while listening. There was little further discussion. We moved on quickly to the material we had planned to discuss. In showbiz parlance, I had bombed. Though unable to articulate at the time why the sketch repeatedly cracks me up, I can now say that for me, it helps to laugh about the ever present, always not fully analyzed narcissism of the psychoanalyst—that is, to laugh at it, but not to laugh it off.

Narcissism is a problem for our patients, but it is just as much a problem for the profession of psychoanalysis and for every psychoanalyst. It is a problem that has shadowed our profession from the beginning, and it is a problem that our profession still struggles to address adequately. Freud formulated his conceptualization of narcissism in 1914, and proceeded to enact some of its more problematic aspects: he deemed himself the only analyst not in need of an analysis by another analyst; he set up a book of rules for the analytic process, which he exempted himself from following; and he marginalized innovative followers and favored those whom he could more easily control. Authoritarian control and suppression of dissent may have seemed, at the time, like necessary means to the crucial end of establishing psychoanalysis as a profession, but in the long run these methods have not proven effective. To the contrary, Balint’s (1968) portrayal of the banishment of Ferenczi from the analytic community as a trauma to the profession remains relevant still, decades after he made it. Although it is increasingly more likely in our professional publications and conferences to see rival psychoanalytic schools seeking common ground, years of rampant factionalism and internecine power struggles, along with authoritarian, incestuous training systems (see Levine and Reed, 2004), have substantially contributed, I believe, to the embarrassing fact that the majority of the public no longer has a clue as to what we mean when we say “psychoanalysis.”

The worst potential of narcissism, for which we reserve the term “malignant,” was fortunately not realized by Freud, whose work, in spite of his imperial tendencies and many serious mistakes, has nevertheless been profoundly generative. But because the psychotherapist is a potent transference figure—not quite a parent, not quite an Oracle, not quite God Almighty, but, for many patients, something like all three—it is within our power, if our power goes unchecked, to gain almost total control over our patients, or a group of patients, and, in the name of psychotherapy and with the power invested in us, to abuse, exploit, and enslave them in every conceivable way. That is precisely what happened when, in 1957, Saul Newton and Jane Pearce began training therapists in what they called the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis, later described in their book, written primarily by Pearce, The Conditions of Human Growth (1963). Aside from a New York magazine article (Black, 1975) and a Village Voice article (Conason & McGarrahan, 1986), little has been written of the Sullivanians, until recently.

Amy B. Siskind, raised within the Sullivanian community and now a sociologist, has adapted her Ph.D. dissertation into the first published book about the Sullivan Institute. Siskind does not provide a tell-all personal account of her own experience as the child of a Sullivanian patient, nor does she provide a psychological analysis of the dynamics of the group, its leaders and followers. What she does present is a thorough sociological-historical account of the group, its leaders, and its practices, as well as excerpts of accounts of the experiences of former members. The publication of Siskind’s book presents the psychoanalytic community with an opportunity (although the opportunity has been there for quite some time) to confront and try to make sense of some of the most egregious professional violations and abuses ever to have occurred in the name of psychoanalysis. This review of Siskind’s book is a preliminary effort in that direction.

As Siskind tells the story, Jane Pearce, a psychiatrist who studied with Harry Stack Sullivan in the late ‘40s, met Saul Newton in the early ‘50s at the William Alanson White Institute, where he worked in the bursar’s office. Newton had no degree and no formal training. He was a charismatic confabulator, who convinced people who knew him that he had fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Revolution. In fact, he had not been a soldier at all, but a payroll clerk. Newton and Pearce married, and together they sought to extend and elaborate Sullivan’s ideas. They were particularly disappointed that Sullivan’s critique of society and family norms hadn’t gone far enough. Dissatisfied with the White Institute and seeking full control of an institute of their own, they permanently severed their ties to White. Like many others swept up in the counterculture revolution of the ‘60s, Newton and Pearce sought to create a community, like a Puritan city on a hill, whose members would disdain decadent bourgeois conformity and convention, and reach superior psychological status (and, by implication, superior moral status) through radical processes of regression, corrective experience, and personality restructuring. The hidden problem with many of these kinds of personal growth and self-realization projects is that they can often degenerate into an attempt, for leaders and followers, to gain power so as to compensate for a sense of impotence. Things go very wrong in these groups when narcissism runs amok, and when omnipotence, as opposed to power, becomes the unconscious goal. In such cases, these groups develop delusions of superiority accompanied by self-righteous justifications for scapegoating, dominating, and controlling others.

Before cataloging some of the practices of the Sullivanian community, I want to emphasize, for those who may not know, that these things did not happen, for example, in a fundamentalist, apocalyptic, UFO, or other cultic group in the deep south or the remote west of the United States, far from the reach of progressive contemporary cultural and intellectual influence, and from the culture of psychoanalysis. This story took place on the Upper West Side of New York City, involving a population of middle class, liberal, college-educated artists, professionals, academics, and intellectuals—many of whom were notable in their professions, and several quite famous. At the group’s peak in the 1970's and ‘80's, Siskind describes how hundreds of patients lived communally in large apartments and saw their therapists several times a week. The second-tier therapists were current and former patients of Newton’s and the other founding leaders. The patients saw the senior and junior therapists not just for therapy, but also at meetings, classes, legendary parties in the Hamptons with plenty of drugs and alcohol, and in bed. Patients were told to spend as little time as possible with anyone not in the group and to carefully schedule every minute of their time to be with other group members. They were encouraged to never sleep alone, to experiment and sleep with anyone and everyone in the group. They were taught that families, and especially mothers, are toxic. Pressured to cut off contact with families of origin, they were told that if they did not, they would likely become hopelessly mentally ill and end in suicide. Patients were discouraged from marriage, and some mothers in the group were persuaded to have their children raised by others in the group. In the 70s, parents were expected to send their children to boarding school as soon as they could afford to, so as to have as little contact with their own children as possible, and thus not poison their child’s development.

Much of the above was justified on the theoretical premise, derived from Sullivan’s work, that infants react to their mother’s anxiety, viewed as being cultural in origin, by restricting their own development, by splitting up the self into good me, bad me, and not me parts. Children raised by unconscious, overly anxious parents, according to Newton and Pearce, contributed to the endless perpetuation of a sick society, a culture of convention and malaise. Up to this point, many of us might, to some extent, agree. What made Newton and Pearce’s execution of their theory particularly destructive was the quality of disavowed hatred and contempt in their scapegoating of parents, which they insisted their patients share, and which they effectively disguised, even from themselves, as zeal for therapeutic transformation and social reform. Disavowing their hatred and rage, they were blinded by it, dissociatively unaware of the obvious: that planning to reform and liberate society at large by psychologically enslaving a group of people, calling them patients, exploiting them financially, emotionally, and sexually, and controlling and directing every move they make, is sheer madness, plain and simple.

As the group grew in size, Siskind chronicles how it became ever more paranoid and coercive. A former actress named Joan Harvey became Newton’s wife after he divorced Pearce, and Harvey created a political theater group called the Fourth Wall, which became the chief activity of the group in its latter years. Now community members not only had to support the therapists, but to support a theater as well, and demands on members for contributing money and participating in group activities increased to the point that members barely had four hours a night for sleep. The Three Mile Island nuclear reactor crisis, and then the advent of AIDS, became flash points for further panic, demands, and restrictions. Siskind’s portrayal of the group’s reactions to these events is particularly chilling, as she describes how the typical dynamics of an apocalyptic cult came into play. As with apocalyptic groups in general, the failure of Newton’s and Harvey’s dire predictions about nuclear devastation and germ warfare triggered a deepening of their paranoia and the florescence of their underlying psychosis. By the time it all started winding down for the Sullivanians, Newton was alleged to have attempted to seduce several children, including his own daughters. Splits among the leaders, now numbering even more ex-husbands and ex-wives, and finally Newton’s death, were the last nails in the group’s coffin.

In the space permitted, I have been able only to scratch the surface in describing the innumerable abuses perpetrated on the followers of this group. Siskind’s book is valuable not just for clarifying the nature of these abuses, but for many reasons, not the least of which is that the accounts of followers whom she quotes puts a human face on the suffering caused by these abuses. Their testimony should be heard. As is often the case, it is all too easy for a victim of abuse to remain silent, rather than deal with the shaming, blaming and doubting that often greets them when they find the courage to make public their abuse. The Cult Clinic of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services in New York helped counsel traumatized members who left the group, and helped divorced spouses and family members of Sullivanian patients organize support groups. Beyond that, the professional mental health community was silent. The absence of any serious psychoanalytic writing on the Sullivanians suggests that there has been a dismissal, a turning away from the stories these former members tell. It may be that, for the psychoanalytic community, for those who knew what was happening, it was easier to minimize, doubt and dismiss the testimony of the members of the group than it would have been to confront and acknowledge how seriously deranged Pearce, Newton and Harvey, and their trainees, actually became. Pearce was, after all, a highly respected student of H. S. Sullivan’s before she severed her ties to the White Institute. While sexual violations in psychotherapy have been well studied by psychoanalysts (e.g., Celenza, 1995; Celenza and Gabbard, 2003), therapy cults have not. Perhaps the concreteness of sexual violation makes it easier to grasp and repudiate than the dynamics of sadistic control and domination between therapist and patient, which can be enacted more subtly and be therefore less obviously transgressive.

In considering the Sullivanians, it may be tempting for us to focus on the analysis of the pathology of the followers, whom we might identify as the patient in this kind of story. While further study in this area would certainly be beneficial (see Shaw, 2003), we should not allow a focus on pathology in followers to obscure the more pressing issue for our profession: to understand the psychology of the therapist who exerts abusive, totalitarian control over a patient, or a group of patients. I present the following as an initial foray into this area, in the hope of generating further interest in this subject.

Siskind quotes accounts from former followers of Newton and Harvey indicating they lived in constant fear that the psychological illness diagnosed by their therapists would never end unless they gave themselves over completely and allowed their therapists total control of their lives. Why would a therapist need or want to put a patient in this position? Although Siskind provides a sociological perspective on the Sullivanians, I believe this book can be particularly valuable for the psychoanalytic profession as a resource for the study of the destructive effects of pathological narcissism in our work, which is the lens through which I think these issues can best be perceived and comprehended. Based on theoretical formulations from my own work over the last ten years with former members of cultic groups, including the study of cult leaders (Shaw, 2003), I have suggested that malignant narcissists who promote a cult around themselves succeed in enslaving their followers through seduction, intimidation, and humiliation. Their narcissism compels them to deny and expel their own self-loathing, fear and shame, which is the result of their own traumatic upbringing. They typically rewrite their histories, creating heroic, triumphant pasts, reversing the impotence and humiliation they actually experienced. Desperate to evacuate his shame, the malignant narcissist contrives to elicit and reinforce self-loathing, fear, and shame in another, or many others, thereby “passing the hot potato,” insuring that these despicable defects and weaknesses are located and kept under control in an external other. The narcissist then obsessively corrects and punishes the other as a means of assuring himself that the shameful defects are taken on by the other, and thereby kept externalized. For the malignant narcissist to claim these defects as his own would mean unbearable mortification, which must be avoided at any cost. By making followers highly anxious about their status at all times, the narcissistic group leader is able to keep them dependent and afraid to leave. The followers accept endless shaming, belittling, intimidation, and scapegoating as the price of remaining in the leader’s good graces on the road to purification and enlightenment. In so doing, the leader effectively conceals, as Elaine May was unable to do in the comedy sketch, the desperation and shame connected to his own underlying pathological dependency. Instead of conveying the message of May’s analyst to their patients—“don’t leave me, or I’ll die” —Sullivanian therapists, in a manic reversal, literally said, “Don’t leave me, or you’ll die.” Thus, Sullivanian/Fourth Wall followers were repeatedly bullied into believing their only hope for redemption was to allow therapists to control them completely, and therapists were able to sadistically leverage their power, keeping patients tied to them at the juncture where madness and evil intersect. The cruel therapy practiced in the Sullivanian/Fourth Wall community amounted to nothing less than mental torture.

The malignant narcissist’s project of domination and control often begins with fervor and idealism, but degenerates because of the narcissist’s instability. Soon, the narcissist’s perpetration of cruelty on others is justified as the necessary means to what he defines as a righteous end. Pathological narcissists create totalitarian systems in which their fear, rage, and hate, defended against with delusional omnipotence, merge to shape a contemptuous agenda to enslave and control others, a project they passionately defend as morally justified, for the good of the other. The narcissist is convinced that his selfish, cruel agenda is in fact a generous, compassionate offer of enlightenment and liberation, conducted under his superior auspices for the benefit of the rest of the inferior world. With malignant narcissism, all is self-righteousness and sanctimony, but nothing is sacred, no boundaries are respected.

The story of the Sullivanians, shameful as it may be, is a story that all of us interested in the postmodern problematization of the analyst’s influence and authority should know. But our interest should not be merely academic. We psychoanalysts once believed that our theories could have a powerful effect on society, and during the time of Erich Fromm and Erik Erikson, that was the case. The Sullivanian project was one of the last gasps of that hope. The scope of our professional aims seems to have become a great deal more modest, a trend directly influenced by the crash-and-burn grandiosity and destructiveness of groups like the Sullivanians and other self-realization cults of the 70s. It may be that the most valuable knowledge we as a profession can offer the world at this point is our understanding of the malignant narcissist. Perhaps such people would not be granted so much power if malignant narcissism were better understood. Of course, we can only bring this information to others to the extent that we understand it ourselves, and we can start by acknowledging and understanding its existence within our own profession.

Siskind’s history of the Sullivanians might be a useful starting point, but the opportunity for psychoanalytic historians to analyze and study what went wrong remains wide open. It is my hope that the whole story, told by those still left within our profession who were there and who know what happened, and by more former patients willing to speak out about their experience, can be told. The extreme of malignant narcissistic pathology in therapists may seem far from the experience of most of us, but I believe it takes a great deal of consciousness and vigilance to do good enough psychoanalytic work that is free enough from the destructive potentials of our narcissism. Whether we realize it or not, much of our therapeutic effort takes place on the proverbial razor’s edge. Knowing more about the Sullivanians could, at the very least, help remind us just how thin the line between influence and domination, surrender and submission, can be.

Siskind is to be thanked for using her experience of being raised in this group, and all that she has learned from leaving it, to bring thoughtful and thorough scholarship to bear on the history of the Sullivanians. Though not intended specifically for this purpose, Siskind’s study will be instructive to all of us who seek, not naïvely, but with eyes wide open, to preserve, nurture, and grow that which we believe to be good and true in psychoanalytic theory and practice.

References

Balint, M. (1968). The Basic Fault. Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. London: Tavistock Publications.

Black, D. (1975). “Totalitarian therapy on the upper west side.” New York, Dec. 15th, 1975.

Celenza, A. (1995). “Love and hate in the countertransference: supervisory concerns.” Psychotherapy. 32(2):301-307.

Celenza, A. and Gabbard, G. (2003). “Analysts who commit sexual boundary violations: a lost cause?” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 51(2):617-636.

Conason, J. and McGarrahan, E. (1986). “Escape from Utopia.” The Village Voice, April 22, 1986.

Levine, H. and Reed, G., eds. (2003). “Problems of power in psychoanalytic institutions.” Psychoanalytic Inquiry, (24)1:1-139.

Lifton, R. J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It. Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. New York: Henry Holt and Co., LLC.

Pearce, J. and Newton, S. (1965). The Conditions of Human Growth. New York: Citadel Press.

Shaw, D. (2003). “Traumatic abuse in cults: a psychoanalytic perspective.” Cultic Studies Review (2)2:101-129.

Book: Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 16:56:00 +0000

Buy Now.

Vaccination is still fraught with controversy. Latter-day anti-vaccination activists echo many of the concerns, as well as the tactics, of their nineteenth-century antecedents. Certain spiritual and religious communities object to it as part of an overall rejection of medical treatment in favor of the healing powers of prayer and faith. Such groups include everyone from faith healers in Philadelphia (among whom a 1990-1991 measles outbreak lead to the death of 9 children) to the followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Fairfield, Iowa, where a 2006 outbreak required the quarantine of roughly 1,000 people, as described by Arthur Allen in his book Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver.

Cult News101- cults and related topics.: How many people of different faiths do you know?

noreply@blogger.com (Cult Intervention) — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 05:05:00 +0000

Cult News101- cults and related topics.: How many people of different faiths do you know?: July 17, 2014 Michael Lipka Given the wide variety of faith groups in the United States, it would seem natural that most Americans kn...