Cult News

In an ironic twist a newspaper run by Falun Gong, which has been described as a personality “cult,” reported about the life and criminal prosecution of “sex cult” leader Keith Raniere.

A “cult” reporting about a “cult”?

Raniere is the notorious founder of  NXIVM (pronounced nexium), a supposed self-improvement seminar selling company, which spawned criminal conspiracies, sex trafficking and racketeering.

Raniere was convicted of multiple felonies at his criminal trial in Brooklyn this month. And five women that followed him have plead guilty to criminal charges. They all are now awaiting sentencing beginning next month.

Keith Raniere (center) in court

Bowen Xiao, a reporter for The Epoch Times has written a series of articles about Keith Raniere and his crimes. The Epoch Times is run by Falun Gong practitioners who follow Chinese exile Li Hongzhi, known to his devotees as “Master Li.”

Li, like Raniere, has made preposterous self-aggrandizing claims concerning his intellect. Li also says he has supernatural powers.

The Epoch Times functions much like The Washington Times, run by the followers of Unification Church founder Rev. Moon, a self-proclaimed “messiah.” Both newspapers are propaganda tools used by purported “cults” to influence public opinion. See this article promoting Falun Gong written by Bowen Xiao recently published by The Epoch Times.

CultNews has received very serious complaints about Falun Gong, including accounts from families about loved ones that believe Falun Gong can cure diabetes and thus alleviate the need to take proper doses of insulin.

“Master Li”

Apparently, Mark Jackson, an Epoch Times writer, is the person that provided the leads to the newspaper regarding Raniere’s past. Jackson knew Raniere in the 5th grade. He “rode the school bus with him for four years.” 

Jackson said that Raniere had a “need to be special.” A female classmate said that Raniere was “arrogant” and liked to “show off.” Another observed that Raniere’s “ego was through the roof.” He was also a “loner.”

Interestingly, Jackson and Raniere attended a “Waldorf School” in upstate New York. Waldorf Schools are based on the writings of Austrian-born occultist Rudolf Steiner who died in 1925. Steiner’s controversial philosophy known as “anthroposophy”  includes a belief about a “hierarchy in races” and “reincarnation,” reported BBC. Steiner has been called a “racist” and the Waldorf Schools described as “cult” like.

A cult leader schooled by a “cult”?

One woman who knew Keith Raniere as a child told The Epoch Times, “He’s a sociopath, a narcissist. Everything was always about him. He was always bragging about how smart he was, how much better at math. He walked around like he was a miniature professor.”

Raniere was described as a master of manipulation during his criminal trial in Brooklyn. It seems that he began manipulating people at a very early age. A childhood acquaintance explained, “He knows how to find your weak spots and poke at them. He had a really gentle voice and gentle approach. It was deceptive, it could draw you in.”

One woman that Raniere often taunted told The Epoch Times that he could “isolate peoples’ weaknesses.”

Raniere also used “compromising information” he gleaned from someone to threaten them.  He told one girl, “You know, it’s like I have this little bottle of poison I can hold over your head” The girl recalled how Raniere terrorized her. She said, “He would call me sometimes and say, ‘Little bottles, little bottles.”

At the time Keith Raniere was reportedly “about 9 or 10 years old.”

“Some kids are born evil. Keith was born evil,” stated one woman who knew Raniere as a child.

Endnote: The quoted recollections about Keith Raniere come from an article written for The Epoch Times by Bowen Xiao, titled “Delving Into the Childhood of NXIVM’s Leader” published May 30, 2018.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon was often called a “cult” leader. His followers were labeled “Moonies” as they rampantly recruited at college campuses across America. Moon was a self-proclaimed “messiah” and the founder of the Unification Church.   He created spiritual empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars before dying in 2012 at the age of 92.

The purported cult leader’s legacy includes The Washington Times newspaper, which reportedly has lost more than $1 billion dollars and a seafood operation called “True World Group” with a fleet of boats, dozens of distribution centers across the US , which supply most American sushi restaurants.

Moon once said, “God is living in me and I am the incarnation of himself,” He further explained, “The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world.” Moon never achieved that goal, but he arguably conquered the sushi market of the United States. This was largely funded with cash collected by his followers and through the free labor they provided.

Rev. Moon and Mrs. Moon

Today Moon the “messiah” may be gone, but the substantial revenue of his sushi business and other substantial financial assets remain, such as the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. The Moon family is very rich. And they continue to use their accumulated wealth to feed their egos and fund their pursuit of political power.

Two examples recently popped up in the news. One reported by the  The Korea Times is the about the so-called “Global Peace Foundation (GPF)” run by Rev. Moon’s son Moon Hyun-jin. The GPF has apparently achieved official “consultative status” granted by the United Nations Council. According to the U.N. website, “nonprofit organizations that have been granted general and special status can attend meetings of the council and issue statements enabling them to engage with…its subsidiary bodies.”

Son of Moon

The stated goal of Moon Hyun-jin is “to realize the vision of ‘One Family under God.'” Does that mean his family and the supposed “incarnation” of God, which was his father?

Whenever the Moons talk about God it usually means that a Moon is explaining what God wants you to do for the Moons.

Meanwhile Yahoo News ran a PR Newswire release about Rev. Moon’s widow Hak Ja Han Moon, the self-proclaimed “Mother of Peace,” running an event in Las Vegas. Hak Ja Han’s hoedown included a “22-piece orchestra” and a program “starring Grammy award-winning Gospel star Hezekiah Walker, Grammy-winning Christian and Country favorite Jason Crabb, Grammy-nominated and Stellar Award-winning singer Kim Burrell, Stellar Award-winning singer Tasha Page Lockhart, Latina Gospel artist Joann Rosario Condrey and a 500-Voice Choir made up of local singers from across Nevada under the direction of Emmy award-winning producer A. Curtis Farrow.”

Wow!

That sushi money really goes a long way — from the UN in Manhattan to the glitzy Marquee Ballroom at the MGM Grand in “Sin City.” There was even an opening prayer given by a “prophet” from South Africa.

Mrs. Moon told the Vegas gathering, “America is in the position to create change. The time has come to welcome God as the true owner.”

“True owner”?

Could that be some kind of veiled cryptic reference to her dead husband the “incarnation”?  Mr. and Mrs. Moon were once called “True Parents” by their devoted followers.

Again, it seems that everything the Moons do is ultimately about the Moons and their sense of entitlement as true owners of so much.

Some scholars have attempted to consign groups like the “Moonies” called “cults” to the past, claiming that they were an apparition of the 1970s or the 1980s. However, with destructive cults persistently in the news this appears to be a failed thesis. And from what is reported about the Moons, it appears that even some of the old “cults,” are very much alive.

The Moons remain a shining example of how much money there is in the “cult” business.