Tag: cults

‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow is COMMITTED for psychiatric treatment after being declared mentally unfit to stand trial for murder of her two children

‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow has been committed to psychiatric treatment after she was declared mentally unfit to stand trial for the murders of her two children. 

The news comes just over a week after it was revealed that competency evaluation was made under seal to determine Lori’s fitness to proceed with the trial after it was called into question by her lawyers.  

An Idaho judge on Tuesday ordered Vallow to be remanded into the custody of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare ‘for care and treatment at an appropriate facility for a period not exceeding 90 days.’

After 90 days, if Vallow is determined to have recovered, court proceedings would resume as per normal.

But if she is still deemed to be incompetent to stand trial, the case would be delayed for six additional months during which time she would continue to receive treatment.

It is unclear which state facility will treat Vallow.

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The Finders: CIA Ties to Child Sex Cult Obscured as Coverage Goes from Sensationalism to Silence

In February 1987, an anonymous phone tip was called into the Tallahassee police department reporting that six children were dirty, hungry, and acting like animals in the custody of two well-dressed men in a Tallahassee, Florida park. That phone call would kick off the Finders scandal: a series of events and multiple investigations even more bizarre than the initial report.

The trail would ultimately lead to allegations of a cult involved in ritual abuse, an international child-trafficking ring, evidence of child abuse confirmed and later denied, and ties with the CIA, which was alleged to have interfered in the case. No one was ever prosecuted in the wake of the initial 1987 investigation or a 1993 inquiry into the allegations of CIA involvement: official denials were maintained, and authorities stated that no evidence of criminal activity was ever found. However, documents that have emerged over time beg significant questions as to the validity of the official narrative.

In contrast with other historical human trafficking rings covered in the independent press, including those I have previously discussed, the Finders scandal presents as something of a phantom. This is in consequence of the lack of adult victims who have come forward, an absence of hard evidence viewable to the public, and an absence of extensive trials or convictions. Further impeding the willingness of most journalists to cover such a story were claims of ritualistic abuse that were hyped by corporate media at the time of the incident, as well as allegations of a CIA-led coverup that were less widely recognized by the legacy press.

The story is further complicated by the fact that it takes place in three basic stages: the initial 1987 investigation spread across multiple states and law enforcement agencies; a subsequent 1993 inquiry into allegations of a CIA coverup and interference in the 1987 investigation; and the emergence of Customs Service documents detailing new aspects of initial searches of Finders properties which was followed by the publication of hundreds of documents from both investigations to the FBI vault in 2019.

By initially sensationalizing the issue via the framing of the Finders as a satanic cult, the media profited from immediate shock value while permitting this very sensationalism to become the premise for dismissing other aspects of the story and Finders ties to the CIA to remain unexplored.

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‘Jonestown 2.0, racism edition’: Radical anti-Semites crowdfund $65,000 for doomed city in Colorado mountains

A band of “anticolonial” and racist activists have “liberated” land high in the Colorado mountains to build a utopian city for minorities. Commenters are expecting a rerun of the Jonestown cult, but with more anti-Semitism.

Openly communist, overtly anti-white, and proudly anti-Semitic, the ‘Black Hammer’ organization isn’t afraid of a fight. The group’s Twitter account fires off hourly invectives against the “cave beast” white race it sees as “colonizers,” and against the Jewish people it accuses of funding the “pig departments and prison systems that mass incarcerate and kill us everyday.” Bizarrely, the group has taken a fix on Anne Frank, calling the Holocaust victim a “bleach demon,” whose death – to them – overshadowed the suffering of colonized people worldwide.

Black Hammer members have taken part in rallies and protests across the country, but the scant media reports on their activities don’t mention the racism and the apparently pathological fixation on Jews. Instead, they praise the “activist group” for holding vigils for coronavirus victims and handing out masks, food and clothing to their fellow people of color.

But while they’ve been pushing Farrakhan-style racism on Twitter and getting stuck into charity work on the streets, Black Hammer’s members have been stockpiling cash. A GoFundMe campaign organized by the group has pulled in nearly $65,000 since last July. The group wants $500,000 to build a city of their own, with free healthcare, free rent, and no cops. White people and Jews are presumably not welcome.

On Monday, the group announced that it had “successfully liberated 200 Acres of Land to build our City,” adding that their real-life Wakanda would be “FOR COLONIZED PEOPLE ONLY.” Presumably, “liberated” in this instance means “bought.”

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These Former Cult Members Now Help Others Escape

Cults can get super weird. They can be abusive, destructive and even life-threatening. They can also be endlessly fascinating. 

A social group characterised by their extreme belief or reverence towards a particular leading figure or object, cults aren’t by definition dangerous. But, history has taught us time and again that people who believe violence is an act of love, or that they’re the chosen one to lead the otherwise doomed humanity, or that their leader is actually an alien, probably have issues that need resolving. 

In a world full of distress and disease, getting sucked into a cult that offers peace and the promised land is surprisingly easier than it seems. What is not easy, though, is getting out and helping others get out too. We spoke with some cult interventionists and deprogrammers on how they help people break away after having broken away themselves—and the repercussions the work has on their lives.

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NXIVM Sex Cult Slaves Speak Out: ‘It Was New, It Was Edgy, and It Was Good’

The saga of the DOS sex cult founded by Keith Raniere, called NXIVM within the larger organization, continues as former members of the secret sorority have come to the defense of their master, as reported by Frank Parlato, who broke the story of the sex cult. Eight women who were part of the DOS secret club, which required blackmail material from their pledges and branded women near their genitals, have come out with a written statement of support for the ideology that sent Raniere and billionaire heiress Clare Bronfman to prison for trafficking women and girls. Allison Mack is awaiting sentencing and facing forty years. The women posted their defense online.

We were driven by curiosity, vision, and a desire to challenge social conventions in exchange for increased self-awareness and self-esteem. DOS, which stands for Dominus Obsequium Sororum (Master, Allegiance, Sisterhood), was an experiment in its infancy. It was new, it was edgy, and it was good.

The eight women in the “first line” of DOS (seven of whom were co-founders) were mentored, yes, by a man, but not by just any man, a man with whom these women had built a combined 100 years of trust, friendship and collaboration.

It is incorrect to believe that we, a group of educated, intelligent, and financially independent women were driven by fear and faulty assumptions, and it is even further absurd to believe we were manipulated by an abusive, power-hungry patriarch. Yet, this is the role society has cast for us: that of hapless, unwitting victims who need to be saved from our own choices. Alternatively, we are seen by the general public as “brainwashed” followers who can’t think for ourselves and who are complicit in heinous crimes. Neither of these views is accurate, but understanding the truth is neither simple nor easy.

The binary narrative of “victim/perpetrator” is uninformed and reductive, and offensive to all the adult women who chose to participate in DOS, even the ones who have retroactively withdrawn their consent. It is also disrespectful to victims of actual crimes like human trafficking, none of whom receive the type of fame and opportunities that the so-called “victims” of DOS have enjoyed. While everyone is entitled to feel how they want about an experience, past or present, we believe that objective reality is still significant, if not essential, when discussing events with such damaging repercussions.

Of course, these eight women appear to have been some of the founding members of this cult, which victimized many women, according to Sarah Edmondson, who says she was told she was getting a tattoo that turned out to be a brand instead. She also claims she had no idea the brand was Mack’s and Raniere’s initials and that no one knew that Raniere was the head of the group. Edmondson told her story to the New York Times and wrote a book on the subject.

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FBI Files on the Church of Scientology

Developed by L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, Mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being. Scientology addresses the spirit—not the body or mind—and believes that Man is far more than a product of his environment, or his genes.

Below, you will find FBI files related to Scientology, as released via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

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NXIVM Sex Cult Leader Keith Raniere Sentenced to Spend the Rest of His Days in Prison

The leader of a New York-based sex cult called NXIVM (nex-ee-um), which branded itself as a self-help group for elites, was sentenced in the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday to life in prison. Through his defense lawyers, Keith Raniere, 60, maintained until the end that he is not sorry for his conduct because he will one day show that he is not a sex-trafficker, abuser of women, possessor of child pornography, racketeer, extortionist, identity thief or obstructionist.

The NXIVM founder—known as “Vanguard,” “Master,” and “Grandmaster“—was found guilty in June 2019 on all criminal charges against him. Raniere and elite co-defendants like Seagram’s heiress Clare Bronfman (a NXIVM bankroller) or Smallville actress Allison Mack (a top recruiter) are all being punished for their roles in the conspiracy. 

Bronfman, Mack and others, unlike Raniere, entered guilty pleas and avoided sex crime charges; Bronfman was sentenced to nearly 7 years in prison, while Mack is still waiting to be sentenced. Raniere chose to fight the charges and lost. Now he’s been sentenced to 120 years in prison.

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