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Keyword: cults

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  • Marianne Williamson: ‘I am not a cult leader’

    07/25/2019 9:10:37 AM PDT · by simpson96 · 24 replies
    New York Post ^ | 7/24/2019 | Ben Feuerherd
    Spiritual guru and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson clarified on Twitter Tuesday that she is not “a cult leader” and claimed she does not question vaccine science. The 66-year-old self-help book author made the statement about a month after she first had to clarify her stance on vaccinations in the US. “I am not a cult leader. I am not anti-science (that one is almost funny, given how much I quote Einstein). And I am not an anti-vaxxer” Williamson wrote in her tweet Tuesday. “Hoping that if I repeat it 3 to 4 times a day I might penetrate...
  • Lawsuit Against Church of Scientology Alleges Human Trafficking, Intimidation

    06/20/2019 4:36:58 PM PDT · by Windflier · 38 replies
    Law.com ^ | June 19, 2019 | P.J. D'Annunzio
    The action claims the church engaged in human trafficking, child abuse, forced labor, exploitative commercial practices and intimidation campaigns aimed at anyone who spoke out against the church or its leader. A group of lawyers representing a former member of the Church of Scientology who worked directly with its leader David Miscavige has filed a lawsuit alleging the organization is responsible for decades of human trafficking and intimidation, among other abuses. More at Tony Ortega's blog: Church of Scientology and David Miscavige sued for abuse by major legal players "Attorneys representing Jane Doe filed the first of multiple lawsuits to...
  • Her Evangelical Megachurch Was Her World. Then Her Daughter Said She Was Molested by a Minister.

    06/10/2019 8:35:08 AM PDT · by Morgana · 111 replies
    NY TIMES ^ | June 9, 2019 | Elizabeth Dias
    FULL TITLE: Her Evangelical Megachurch Was Her World. Then Her Daughter Said She Was Molested by a Minister. HURST, Tex. — Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed: “We see you.” Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out. Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband,...
  • Allison Mack allegedly starved ‘Dynasty’ star Catherine Oxenberg’s daughter India (Nxivm trial)

    06/08/2019 10:41:31 AM PDT · by simpson96 · 20 replies
    New York Post ^ | 6/7/2019
    The daughter of “Dynasty” actress Catherine Oxenberg spent a year on a 500-calorie-a-day diet while in Nxivm’s secret sex cult, a former slave testified Friday. Ex-member “Nicole” testified that “Smallville” actress and alleged slave master Allison Mack was so manipulative, she’d threaten to starve Oxenberg’s daughter India even further to ensure that Nicole remained obedient. ”When India and I became close, they would use her to make me behave,” Nicole explained during the sex-trafficking trial of accused Nxivm leader Keith Raniere. “Alison was trying to have [Oxenberg] get down to a certain weight, and they decided that goal weight was...
  • Nxivm benefactor funneled illegal donations to win Clinton’s favor: ex-cult member

    05/15/2019 10:39:05 AM PDT · by rintintin · 16 replies
    NY Post ^ | May 13 2019 | By Emily Saul and Max Jaeger
    Seagram’s heiress and accused Nxivm benefactor Clare Bronfman tried to buy influence for the alleged sex cult by illegally raising money for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, a former group member testified in court Monday. Bronfman funneled thousands of dollars into Clinton’s campaign coffers — far in excess of legal limits to contributions — to “curry favor” with the powerhouse political family, according to Mark Vicente, a documentary filmmaker and former member of the Nxivm group that is accused of keeping women as sex slaves.
  • The Cult-like Psychology of the Progressive Movement

    03/04/2019 2:24:28 PM PST · by jazusamo · 26 replies
    Townhall.com ^ | March 4, 2019 | Sheriff David Clarke (Ret.)
    The non-stop push by the American left to dismantle existing American time-honored and time-tested institutions is how they will force socialism and central control on the American people. They’ll continue to destroy the bedrock institutions of Western culture, such as religion, schools, family, capitalism, businesses, law and order, the Constitution including the First and Second Amendment, and the rule of law. When those pushing back surrender at the ballot box, the scales will tip, and the left will achieve their ultimate plan to destroy America. Has anybody noticed the ideology of the Progressive movement has significant similarities to the psychology...
  • The sad, shocking story behind the Jonestown massacre, 40 years later

    11/20/2018 4:14:03 AM PST · by a fool in paradise · 76 replies
    Yahoo TV/Entertainment ^ | November 16, 2018 | Ethan Alter Senior Writer, Yahoo Entertainment
    ...author Jeff Guinn, who wrote the 2017 book The Road to Jonestown. ...Guinn expressed some regret that the Jonestown massacre has become such a ubiquitous reference point, inspiring such oft-heard phrases as, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” “First of all, it wasn’t Kool-Aid,” he notes. “And second, let’s face what the connotation is; it’s used to mean, ‘Don’t be a mindless zombie who just automatically follows orders from an obviously demented leader.’... ...We spoke with Guinn about the details that are often left out when Jonestown is discussed, and what parallels he sees between Jim Jones and a leader like Donald...
  • Jonestown Revisited: Jackie Speier, a 40-Year-Old Audio, Heroism and Difficult Memories

    11/18/2018 5:41:27 PM PST · by SMGFan · 40 replies
    rollcall ^ | November 118 2018
    Long-lost audio tape shows Rep. Ryan planned to rescue willing residents (Editor’s Note: Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of a still-shocking mass-killing that left more than 900 people dead in “Jonestown,” a remote settlement in Guyana founded by cult leader Jim Jones. Most were poisoned with a cyanide-laced drink. Leo J. Ryan, a Democratic lawmaker from San Francisco, had traveled to Jonestown to investigate reports of people being held against their will in Jonestown. Ryan and four others were fatally shot at a nearby airstrip. Rep Jackie Speier, D-Calif., then a Ryan staffer, was among several more who were shot...
  • [Catholic Caucus] Jesuits Against Focolarini. The Beatification of Chiara Lubich in Doubt

    11/08/2018 3:13:27 PM PST · by ebb tide · 3 replies
    L'Espresso ^ | November 8, 2018 | Sandro Magister
    Jesuits Against Focolarini. The Beatification of Chiara Lubich in Doubt Ever since the head of the Vatican congregation for the causes of saints has been Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, a focolarino from way back,  the opinion has been growing that the beatification of Chiara Lubich, who was the founder of the Focolare movement and its head until her death in 2008, will soon become a reality.Or maybe not. Because the opponents of her beatification are not to be underestimated. And they have in the Society of Jesus, the same one to which Pope Francis belongs, their leading personalities, among them...
  • The Left’s Religious War Against America - Greenfield

    10/15/2018 12:56:17 PM PDT · by Louis Foxwell · 6 replies
    FrontPageMag ^ | October 15, 2018 | Daniel Greenfield
    The Left’s Religious War Against America What’s really driving leftist anger and hatred. October 12, 2018 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. 69% of progressives are ashamed to be Americans, but 63% are proud of their political ideology instead. The majority don’t attend religious services, but 73% list politics as their preoccupation. Religiously unaffiliated voters are the most excited about attending political rallies and marches. Numbers from one poll showed that, "religiously unaffiliated Democrats were more than twice as likely...
  • Like the fringe conspiracy theory Qanon? There's plenty of merch for sale on Amazon

    07/24/2018 2:06:58 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 46 replies
    NBC News ^ | July 17, 2018 | Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins
    Devotees of Qanon — a far-right conspiracy theory about President Donald Trump’s secret war against Hillary Clinton, the so-called deep state and a fictitious global child sex cabal — are showing their devotion to the cause by buying merchandise, including T-shirts, hats, and jewelry, on Amazon.com. Shoppers are presented with over 1,000 results when they search Amazon for the term “Qanon,” a baseless and convoluted theory that mirrors 2016’s “pizzagate” conspiracy, which claimed Clinton was running a child sex trafficking ring out of a Washington pizza shop’s basement and led to a shooting at that restaurant by a pizzagate-believer in...
  • Q Anon: (6/3/18) FRiendly Freeper Collaboration

    06/03/2018 3:38:27 PM PDT · by ransomnote · 1,496 replies
    qanon.pub ^ | June 3, 2018 | FReepers, vanity
    This thread is a friendly collaborative place for FReepers to analyze information and share opinons. FReepers have a wide variety of reasons for investigating Q Anon content; this is not the appropriate place to criticize or badger those who choose to use some of their time in this manner. If you are new to Q Anon, the three links below provide overviews to help answer the questions, "Who is Q?" and "Why read Q drops?". Is Trump Staging a Counter-Coup? [Q explained?]> Note: The above thread has been locked for disruptive comments, but post #1 includes a strong, concise...
  • The ‘Sex Cult’ That Preached Empowerment

    06/01/2018 1:03:31 PM PDT · by detective · 18 replies
    The New York Times ^ | May 30, 2018 | Vanessa Grigoriadis
    One winter morning in a conventional suburb outside Albany, N.Y., Nancy Salzman, the 63-year-old president of a self-improvement company named Nxivm, sat on a mahogany-colored stool in her kitchen. Her tasteful home was surrounded by other Nxivm members’ modest townhouses or capacious stone mansions that seemed to spring up out of nowhere, like mushrooms, on the suburban streets. In Salzman’s den, a photo of her with her two adult daughters hung on a wall, the three of them wearing smiles as wide as ancient Greek masks of comedy; the same happy photo served as the wallpaper on Salzman’s laptop. A...
  • 'I am Not a Bigot': Pastor Robert Jeffress Responds to Mitt Romney's Twitter Attack

    05/16/2018 7:22:53 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 90 replies
    Christian Post ^ | 05/16/2018 | Michael Gryboski
    First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress has denounced former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's accusation that he's a "religious bigot." "Robert Jeffress says 'you can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.' He's said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem," Romney tweeted on Sunday. In an interview with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs Monday night, Jeffress said he took issue with Romney's claims and asserted, "I am not a bigot." "Many of those comments [in...
  • Mitt Romney Calls Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress a "Religious Bigot"

    05/14/2018 7:25:45 AM PDT · by Zakeet · 97 replies
    Todd Starnes ^ | May 13, 2016 | Todd Starnes
    Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a vicious statement condemning Dr. Robert Jeffress, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical ministers and a spiritual adviser to President Trump. [Snip] "Robert Jeffress says 'you can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,'" Romney wrote on Twitter. "He's said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem." [Snip] Jeffress, who is a regular guest on my nationally-syndicated radio show, was stunned by Romney's ugly remarks. "Historical Christianity has taught...
  • Jerusalem embassy to be opened by 'religious bigot,' Romney says (Pastor Jeffress)

    05/14/2018 7:30:42 AM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 30 replies
    MSN ^ | May 14, 2018 | F. Brinley Bruton and Vaughn Hillyard, NBC News
    Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney lashed out at the decision to have a controversial evangelical leader give a blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Monday, calling him a "religious bigot." The Senate candidate from Utah criticized the inclusion of the Rev. Robert Jeffress — the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas who is also an an adviser to President Donald Trump. The president recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year. "Robert Jeffress says, 'You can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,'" Romney wrote in...
  • Branch Davidian tragedy sparked government suspicion that still haunts us 25 years later

    04/19/2018 10:00:35 AM PDT · by BBell · 62 replies
    https://www.dallasnews.com/ ^ | 4/19/18 | Lee Hancock
    WACO — The fire rose above the Texas prairie like a portent, an inferno consuming David Koresh and more than 70 of his followers in the Branch Davidian compound. Koresh's personal apocalypse was televised live worldwide just after noon on April 19, 1993. Questions about what went wrong began to mount before the ashes were cool. How could a 33-year-old ninth-grade dropout convince so many people that he was the Lamb and God had willed this terrible end - nurses and teachers, a postman and a Harvard-educated lawyer, Australians and Brits, New Zealanders and an Argentinian-born Israeli Jew? Above all,...
  • The Troubling Connections between Scientology and the Nation of Islam

    04/02/2018 9:03:51 AM PDT · by C19fan · 7 replies
    National Review ^ | April 2, 2018 | Bethany Mandel
    Scientology is commonly known as the religion of the stars. Its reach inside Hollywood is deep, and celebrity recruitment is a huge component of the group’s marketing strategy. It sounds strange to describe the proselytizing efforts of a religion as a marketing strategy, but Scientology is unlike any other American religion. It operates as a business at best and as a cult at worst. In Los Angeles, Scientology’s most expensive outpost is the Celebrity Center. At a 1999 fundraiser for the Center, actress Leah Remini said, “Celebrity Center is my second home, and there is not a person here that...
  • New Age Oprah Mocks God and Jesus on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert

    03/19/2018 2:58:38 PM PDT · by Roman_War_Criminal · 30 replies
    Christian Journal ^ | 3/15/18 | Emily
    The Late Show with Stephen Colbert hosted a blasphemous segment with New Age Oprah that they called, “‘Oprah Winfrey gets some career advice from a slightly less famous figure: the Lord.” During the show, they openly mocked God and Jesus. As the show opens, Steven Colbert begins to introduce Oprah, but she interrupts before he can say her name. “We’re here with” Colbert begins, then Oprah blurts out, “God.” Colbert continues, “Miss Oprah Winfrey.” Being that there was a skit planned with a character “god” later in the segment, many would wipe this off, but with all the hype around...
  • 'We are being targeted': Voodoo believers fear a backlash

    02/15/2018 12:58:45 PM PST · by Morgana · 10 replies
    miami herald ^ | Feb 11, 2018 | By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and PHILIP MARCELO
    BOSTON Two separate crimes against children in recent days have one haunting similarity: authorities have pointed to Voodoo rituals as a possible motive. But practitioners of Haitian Vodou, which adherents spell differently to distinguish it from other variants, say the religion does not sanction violence and fear the crimes will spark a backlash against their community. "We are being targeted," said Maude Evans, a Haitian native and Vodou priestess in Boston's Mattapan neighborhood. "I'm really concerned that that's how it's going to be from now on. They will do things and blame it on Vodou." Two sisters in East Bridgewater...