Cult News

In its apparent never-ending thirst for increased cash flow the so-called “Kabbalah Centre,” run by the Philip Berg family of California and favored by Madonna, has launched a new energy drink.

The “Kabbalah Energy Drink” is sold in a red; white and blue can and produced through the same company that puts out 7 Up.

It will be sold for an “average price of $1.99 per can,” whatever that means.

According to a press release at eMediaWire posted today “Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Ashton Kutcher, and Demi Moore…are drinking” this concoction.

A Kabbalah spokesperson says, “It’s infused with Kabbalah water, which is holy water” reported MSNBC.

“We’re going after the Red Bull market,” he also said.

But the bottom line with energy drinks isn’t “holy water” it’s caffeine content. And according to the product Web site this new drink doesn’t pack the punch of its most well known competitor Red Bull.

The Kabbalah Energy Drink ingredients list claims that the formula includes 100mg of caffeine per sixteen ounces, as compared to the 80mg contained within an eight ounce can of Red Bull.

Both energy formulas also include an amino acid Taurine and assorted vitamins.

But what the Bergs seem to be banking on is the buzz produced by the Kabbalah Centre’s celebrity devotees, not the caffeine contained in its new drink.

Of course the so-called “Kabbalists” will likely claim that the “power” in their new energy drink, not unlike that held within the “holy water” they consume, is somehow intangible.

How far will all this go?

Given the Berg family track record for milking an ever-increasing product line of supposed spiritual accessories, which includes everything from children’s books to red string amulets, this may become another cash cow.

In what looks like misleading advertising the Kabbalah Energy Drink Web site seemingly quotes MSNBC stating that this “…Kabbalah Energy Drink tastes better…”

However, this is actually the product spokesperson gushing within an article and not an outside review and/or endorsement. In fact, within that same article MSNBC reports that “the Kabbalah Center has been blasted as a shallow money-making operation and even called a cult.”

Get ready for Berg disciples like Madonna, Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher and maybe even Lindsay Lohan gulping down the new brew while conveniently posing for pictures before the paparazzi.

It should also come as no surprise when some celebrity’s face appears super-sized on a LA billboard slurping down the drink.

Jay Leno and David Letterman will have some fun with this one.

What’s not funny though is the crass commercialization of the centuries old Kabbalah tradition and it becoming yet another example of the dumbing down of religion in Hollywood. Seemingly just another glitzy guru group with a fatuous following of celebrities.

What’s next for the self-styled Kabbalah guru Philip Berg?

His “nonprofit” tax-exempted centers seem to be run more like a family business than a religious charity.

A Kabbalah Centre spokesperson said, “If [the energy drink is] successful. There will be more Kabbalah products.”

Note: France and Denmark have banned Red Bull. To better understand the concerns raised about such energy drinks click here.

CultNews would like to follow-up on the previous story about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) lecture at the “cult” compound of a controversial New Age guru in Yelm, Washington.

Last week JFK’s nephew dropped in at the “Ramtha School of Enlightenment” run by J.Z. Knight, where he addressed over 1,000 of her devoted followers (called “Ramsters” by residents of Yelm) literally camped out in the group’s “Great Hall.”

The school is largely based upon the rather bizarre belief that Knight can channel a 35,000-year-old spirit from the lost continent of Atlantis named “Ramtha.”

Kennedy appeared unfazed by questions raised about the lecture venue.

“Someone who doesn’t like you very much told me I was speaking at a cult,” Kennedy joked to his audience of Ramtha devotees reported The Olympian.

The Ramsters responded with laughter.

Needless to say cult members rarely acknowledge the reality of their circumstances and RFK did little to dissuade them. Instead, he was so focused on attacking President Bush, that he barely seemed to notice his surroundings.

Kennedy compared his appearance at the “cult” compound to a Bush speech given at another school infamous for racism.

“I guess it would be OK if I spoke at Bob Jones University,” he said.

But two wrongs don’t make a right and someone as supposedly sophisticated, as Kennedy should know that.

Based upon his strained rationalization maybe those opposed to Mr. Kennedy’s environmental policies should say, “Well, don’t other countries have polluted waters, what’s wrong with dumping a little toxic waste here”?

RFK Jr. not only lent his name to the “cult,” but dined with its mistress within her palatial French Chateau.

“(Kennedy) is a golden boy from a golden family,” Ms. Knight told the press, keenly aware of the promotional value that his appearance offered her school.

“I was really excited, because I just really wanted to see this place…You’re good people with good values, and all the values this country is supposed to stand for,” RFK Jr. gushed.

“Values”?

Who’s “channeling” what now?

The Ramtha School is essentially run like a dictatorship. And its authoritarian ruler J.Z. Knight has been accused of making “homophobic comments,” and exploiting her followers.

Would these be the “good values” RFK Jr. means to extoll?

Interestingly, at his lecture Kennedy derided George W. Bush by comparing him to Hitler and claimed that his governance “borders on fascism.”

Well, at least President Bush was elected, unlike Ms. Knight who seems to have more in common with a fascist regime than the White House.

But never mind the facts.

This Kennedy seems to have little of his father’s common sense, let alone the historical insights of his uncle JFK.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is scheduled as a featured speaker at a school that has been called a “cult.”

The son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), one-time Attorney General of the United States and brother of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) will soon be appearing in Yelm, Washington to lecture at the controversial “Ramtha School of Enlightenment.”

The school is led by former Tacoma housewife J.Z. Knight, who claims that she is the chosen channel for a 35,000 year old spirit and prehistoric general from the lost continent of Atlantis named “Ramtha.”

According to the school’s Web site Kennedy should be passing through for his presentation this Thursday.

The “Speaker Event” is restricted to “current students” during what is referred to as the group’s “Primary Retreat,” which costs $1,000.00

Those attending will pay an additional $30 to hear Kennedy, though there are discounts for children and seniors.

His topic will be “Crimes Against Nature,” which is a critique against the Bush administration’s environmental policy.

To enter the event you “MUST HAVE [A] CURRENT ID BADGE” (emphasis not added). The gates to the group’s “ranch” will open Thursday March 10th “at 4 PM and close PROMPTLY at 6.”

But what does Ramtha have to do with RFK Jr.? And why would the son of Bobby Kennedy want to speak within her gated compound?

Is this 50-something environmental activist and member of the famous Kennedy political clan somehow connected to a purported “cult,” or has he just been conned?

J.Z. Knight and her devoted followers (called “Ramsters” by Yelm residents) have been known to bag big names for promotional purposes.

A recent independent film produced by some of Ms. Knights students titled “What the Bleep” included comments from noted experts, one later said that he didn’t realize how his interview would be used.

“In the movie, my views are turned around 180 degrees,” Philosopher David Albert of Columbia University told Willamette Week in a subsequent interview about his participation in the project.

Likewise, Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin seems a bit embarrassed by her starring role in the film.

Has Robert Kennedy Jr. become the latest dupe of the Washington New Age guru?

Mr. Kennedy is the chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, an organization of fishermen, which is dedicated to “defending the Hudson [and] protecting…communities.” He also is a Clinical Professor and Supervising Attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University in White Plains, NY.

But does the chief prosecutor feel that a so-called “cult” community in the Pacific Northwest needs protection?

It doesn’t look like Ms. Knight needs any help from Mr. Kennedy. She has a multi-million dollar annual income through her company JZK Inc. and lives in a 12,000-square-foot French-style chateau with six bedrooms, seven fireplaces, a spiral staircase and an indoor pool.

Does RFK Jr. think that speaking to a roomful of Ramsters will somehow advance his cause?

Or is Mr. Kennedy launching a campaign to save the rivers of Washington, they do have quite a few, not to mention all those salmon and fishermen.

It looks like RFK Jr. may be swimming upstream this time, and arguably in polluted waters.

“What the Bleep” was he thinking when he signed up to speak at this venue?

CultNews tried to find out by calling Riverkeeper, but that organization had nothing to say other than referring inquiries to Mr. Kennedy’s offices at Pace. His executive assistant there Mary Beth Postman in turn passed the call on to Keppler Speakers, a speaker’s bureau in Arlington, Virginia that books his lectures.

According to his Web site subsection at Keppler Kennedy speaks on such topics as “Our Environmental Destiny,” “The Power of Law” and “A Contract with Our Future,” but J.Z. Knight apparently opted for US environmental policy.

Does this mean that the Ramtha School of Enlightenment has taken up the cause of environmental policy?

Perhaps the Ramsters think that the lost continent of Atlantis sunk due to toxic dumping or was washed away as a result of prehistoric global warming.

No.

It’s more likely that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is simply a name used to chum the water and promote the school’s “Primary Retreat”?

And it looks like JZK hooked RFK Jr. through his agent.

CultNews got a callback from John Truran the designated spokesperson for Keppler. He confirmed that Kennedy is booked to speak this week at the Ramtha School for a fee.

When asked if Robert Kennedy Jr. understood that he would be lecturing before a restricted audience composed of Ramtha students behind the closed gates of a compound Truran replied, “I don’t know.”

Chicago Judge Joan Lefkow returned to her home last night to find both her husband and mother shot dead. The federal judge had previously been targeted in a Neo-Nazi murder plot.

Judge Lifkow was an obsessive fixation for white supremacist Matthew Hale; the self-proclaimed “Pontifex Maximus” head of a hate group once called “World Church of the Creator,” later renamed “The Creativity Movement.”

The name Hale first chose for his group already belonged to a benign church, which didn’t appreciate the confusion he caused, so they sued.

Judge Lefkow eventually ordered Hale not to use that name and to purge it from all his group’s literature and its Web site.

Hale hated her for that and plotted revenge.

But the plan hatched by the former “Pontifex” from East Peoria failed and he was found guilty for “solicitation of murder.” Hale is now locked up in jail within the loop of downtown Chicago pending sentencing.

Ironically though, Judge Lifkow actually had first sided with Hale, supporting his right to use the contested name.

However, a higher court forced the Chicago jurist to amend her ruling and she then meted out the required restrictions.

Nevertheless in the twisted mind of Mattew Hale Judge Lefkow became his hated enemy and the font of perceived “persecution.”

Hale considers himself a “political prisoner” and remains both a hero and martyr to many within the dark subculture often called the hate movement.

One Internet site the “Vanguard News Network” has posts of praise for “Dr. Hale” under the heading “White Revolution.” He is portrayed as the victim of “persecution” perpetrated by the “Devil Jew.”

Reportedly another Internet site described Judge Lifkow as “a white woman married to a Jew with three mixed-race grandchildren,” while yet another Web site made public her home address.

Hale once said, “Some people go out and hunt deer…I think it’s a hell of a lot more sporting to hunt a Jew.”

But Hale’s hunting days are over and it is unlikely that he was able to order the murders from his jail cell, where his contact with the outside world is closely monitored.

Instead, it appears likely that those sympathetic with Hale and inspired by his rhetoric of hate may have finally fulfilled his hope for revenge by murdering the judge’s husband and mother.

If so, this would not be the first time Hale has inspired murder.

Benjamin Smith, a follower inspired by Hale, went on a shooting spree in 1999 killing two and injuring nine before taking his own life. This occurred after an adverse court ruling, which effectively ended his hero’s effort to become a practicing lawyer in Illinois.

“I strongly suspect that the denial of my law license set him off,” Hale told CNN.

Are the Lefkow family murders, yet another example of someone “set…off” by Hales circumstances?

All this can be seen within the context of a purported “Racial Holy War” called “Rahowa” against so-called “ZOG,” which one Web site explains is “an acronym for Zionist Occupation Government.” A term used to describe “the assortment of traitors and Zionist lackeys who control most of the White nations on this planet.”

Just such paranoid delusions may have formed the basis and/or rationalization for the recent murders in Chicago.

The National Alliance sells marching music for “Rahowa” on CD. This was the brainchild of deceased Neo-Nazi leader William Pierce, author of the notorious “Turner Diaries,” which inspired Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.

McVeigh executed his plan for revenge on the second anniversary of the fiery end of the Waco Davidian compound, April 19, 1995.

Is it only a fluke that the Chicago killings yesterday occurred on February 28th, which is the 12th anniversary of the ill-fated BATF raid on that same cult compound?

Waco has been a battle cry for anti-government extremists for more than a decade.

The FBI is now investigating the Lefkow murders and as they already know it only takes one deranged true believer to create mayhem and commit murder.

Judge Lefkow is under the protection of federal marshals.

Note: Bart Ross, another disgruntled litigant who lost before Judge Lefkow, later confessed to the murders in a suicide note. His DNA matched that found at the crime scene. Ross had no known connection to a hate group or Matthew Hale.

The “Battered Woman Syndrome” often cited in court and by helping professionals assisting those victimized within abusive and controlling relationships parallels many of the same features identified within destructive cults.

In this sense abusive and controlling relationships, though seemingly romantic, can be seen as a type of “cult” with a dictatorial leader, usually a man, dominating a single follower as his victim.

This has been called the “cultic relationship” and/or a “one-on-one cult.”

Over the years cult intervention professionals have been called upon to apply the same expertise developed to free cult victims as an approach to free those caught within the web of abusive controlling relationships.

The Ross Institute of New Jersey has recently released an educational DVD/video titled In the Name of Love: Abusive Controlling Relationships, which shares the body of knowledge developed around this subject in an easy to follow format.

This educational tool makes an otherwise often confusing situation more easily understood.

The DVD/video offers a synthesis of what is known about brainwashing and how this process directly applies to both the Battered Woman Syndrome and most specifically to the dynamics and personalities most often involved in abusive controlling relationships.

In the Name of Love also recounts personal stories, such as the experience of singer Tina Turner and the tragic circumstances that led up to the death of Nicole Brown Simpson. Such compelling examples are helpful to better understand the personal cost, internal turmoil and dangers of such relationships.

What are the warning signs?

What can someone concerned do?

What type of individual fits the profile of an abuser?

Why don’t those abused leave a bad relationship?

These and other important questions are answered within the DVD.

Darla Boughton the manager for a popular forum related to this subject says, “This DVD is a magnificent breakthrough–a must-have for every classroom, women’s shelter, and abuse Web sites everywhere.”

Much too often society blames the victim rather than attempting to understand the disturbing dynamics within abusive controlling relationships.

One third of American women reportedly have been abused under such circumstances, and millions more are potentially at risk.

Today US District Court Judge Gene Carter dismissed a lawsuit filed in Maine by the Gentle Wind Project (GWP) against Rick Ross and the Rick A. Ross Institute For The Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements (RI).

The judge also denied the plaintiff’s motion for any further discovery, effectively ending the litigation in Maine entirely regarding both this “cult watcher” and the nonprofit RI database.

Previously, Maine magistrate David Cohen recommended that the suit be dismissed and the presiding federal judge agreed, ruling swiftly.

Judge Carter also refused to hear any oral arguments on the matter.

GWP is a nonprofit charity run by John and Mary Miller of Kittery, Maine. The group holds seminars across the country and sells “healing instruments” for suggested donations reportedly ranging from $450 to upwards of $10,000. GWP claims that its instruments are based upon a healing technology that is supposedly channeled telepathically from “spirit world.”

Some time ago I called the group “rather odd” in a Flaming Website award, which was given after GWP published a rant about me at their Web site. That rant was prompted by a link posted at the RI Links page to a Web site launched by former members of the group James Bergin and his wife Judy Garvey, which is critical of the group.

The Garvey/Bergin Web site describes the healing tools as modern day “snake oil” and claims that the group manipulates its members. The couple left GWP about four years ago after a 17-year involvement.

GWP’s lawsuit initially included several defendants, now only two essentially remain, Ms. Garvey and Mr. Bergin.

One defendant Ian Mander of New Zealand did not respond to the legal action and has been declared in default. He continues to carry negative information about GWP with a link to the Garvey/Bergin site. Mander warns that GWP is an “extreme New Age group. Believed by many to be a…cult/scam.”

Other defendants in the lawsuit Steve Gamble and Ian Fraser negotiated a settlement, which restricted the content and meta tagging of their Web site, and included deleting their link to the Garvey/Bergin site. That settlement allows them to retain some information about GWP, but within certain guidelines.

One defendant dismissed from the suit through settlement, noted anti-cult professional Steven Hassan, has complied completely with GWP demands by deleting any and all information about the group from his Freedom of Mind Web site.

The remaining active defendants Bergin and Garvey also received good news today from the court; one of the primary counts against them was dismissed.

Since the filing of the lawsuit GWP has garnered increasing media attention, which has largely been critical of both the group and its products.

“Our concern is that they are scamming people by selling basically pieces of paper and plastic,” attorney Carl Starrett of the Special Investigations Agency of California told a San Diego news channel last year.

Starrett later said, “The whole thing is ludicrous. They’re bilking people.”

“It seems the Gentle Wind Project is selling what Health Canada considers ‘risk class 1′ devices, something the group is not allowed to do without a license” reported Now Magazine.

Robert Baratz, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud in the U.S. said that GWP’s scientific explanations of their instruments are “high-sounding phrases that mean nothing.”

While doing a story about the lawsuit a reporter for the Ellsworth American dug into the publicly accessible financial records of GWP.

The group’s latest IRS disclosure shows assets of $2,077,324 as of August 31, 2003, up from $1,918,205 the year before. Revenue for the 2002-03 fiscal year totaled $1,969,923, with expenses totaling $1,810,804.

Direct donations, accounted for $1,889,227 of revenues.

Expenses during the 2002-03 fiscal year included $1,015,899 for “program services.” The project spent $358,995 in compensation to officers and directors.

As president of the corporation, Mary Miller earned $71,799 during the 2002-03 fiscal year, the same salary as the corporation’s treasurer and clerk.

GWP also spent $379,845 for other salaries and wages. Expenses also included $43,474 for employee benefits and $176,072 for “supplies.”

The project’s books also show that gifts, grants and contributions collectively totaled $4,112,751 during the fiscal years that began in 1998 through 2001. Total revenue for that same period was $5,593,033.

One filing notes a $231,660 loan to a GWP employee who is the brother of a corporation officer. No purpose for the loan is listed.

The Attorney’s General office in Maine is reportedly “looking into” GWP.

According to court records GWP has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Prominent Massachusetts attorney Douglas Brooks who was generously assisted by local counsel William H. Leete Jr. of Portland, Maine represented the Ross Institute pro bono.

GWP’s current attorney Daniel Rosenthal seems unfazed by the group’s latest legal setbacks. “It streamlines things and creates a tighter focus,” he told the Portland Press Herald.

However, it seems like Gentle Wind has blown its situation badly through all its legal wrangling and would have been better off as a quiet breeze.

Jenna Elfman is concentrating much of her time these days on Scientology. The former star of “Dharma and Greg” is taking course after course and crowed about it in last month’s issue of Scientology’s magazine Celebrity.

A Scientologist since 1991 Ms. Elfman was first introduced to the religion, often called a “cult,” by her husband Bodhi.

“I’m on OT VII now,” she boasted.

There are eight so-called “OT” (“Operating Thetan”) levels in Scientology. Members of the group can essentially buy their way to the top through increasingly expensive courses and Elfman certainly has plenty of cash from her Dharma days, not to mention residual income paid out through reruns.

Scientology “is a complete understanding of what is happening on the planet right now…as you go up the OT levels, you learn a lot more specific details,” said the former Dharma and diehard Scientologist.

This can be seen as a somewhat cryptic allusion to Scientology’s secret theology based upon what sounds more like Sci-fi than religious doctrine.

When Scientologists reach “OT 3” they are told “specific details” about an incident that allegedly occurred some 75 million years ago. Back then a galactic ruler named “Xenu” purportedly paralyzed people and sent them to earth in space ships. They were then arranged around a volcano and murdered with H-bombs, but their souls are still supposedly hanging around haunting humanity.

These pesky little ghosts are called “Body Thetans” or “BTs.”

And if you have big bucks like Elfman it’s no problem paying Scientology to eventually “clear” you of their negative influence.

The sitcom star now says it’s her shared “duty to clear the planet.”

“I intend to make Scientology as accessible to as many people as I can. And that is my goal,” the TV actor turned missionary told Celebrity.

Then Elfman went on and on sounding more like one of those cartoon characters from her recent “Looney Tunes” movie instead of someone grounded in reality.

She warned readers “the more successful I became, the more suppression I bumped into…especially in the entertainment industry, which really is home to rabid suppression.”

Has Dharma gone Daffy Duck?

Or, is “rabid suppression” just some sort of religious rationalization used to explain away her growing list of movie flops?

Perhaps Elfman’s fellow Scientologist John Travolta was bitten by this same “rabid” bug, considering the string of dogs he has starred in the last few years.

Scientologists believe that “suppression” largely comes from so-called “Suppressive People” (“SPs”) that are out there posing a potential menace.

“You want to survive as an artist or a leader,” cautioned Elfman, “…know you are going to be under attack…you have to be able and willing to confront evil if you want to survive.”

And diehard Scientologist Dharma has apparently confronted this perceived “evil” quite literally by “cleaning house of those people, who were very good at convincing [her] that they were there to help, when they were absolutely not,” the star summarized.

Hopefully, she still has a good agent.

“I don’t have time as a leader, as an OT and as an artist to be suppressed,” Elfman explained.

Those nasty “SPs” don’t scare diehard Dharma either.

“An SP? Why would that be scary? They’re the biggest cowards that exist,” she said.

Elfman then appeared a bit fanatical expressing her religious enthusiasm.

“Bring it on. Please. Please just try and attack me. I welcome it. Now that I’m willing to confront them, they scurry away…They scurry, because I’m willing to confront them,” she taunted.

Has good old hippie-dippy Dharma gotten a bit paranoid since her show was cancelled?

Well don’t expect Elfman to see a psychiatrist.

“Dianetics is the modern science of mental health…psychiatry…that’s incorrect technology,” says the former sitcom star.

What is Ms. Elfman planning for her future?

To be “absolutely relentless and unreasonable about grasping [Scientology technology] and owning it,” she says. “That way, I can have complete KSW (Keeping Scientology Working)…[and] forge ahead with a very high speed of particle flow.”

Huh?

Her religious rant continued, “If we want to clear this planet, we’ve got to know and apply this tech. It’s just a rule. It just is…I can’t even emphasize it enough. It’s just truth. You can’t go beyond truth, it just is…if you want to Keep Scientology Working, you need to do the PTS/SP Course. Either that or you could be dead. You pick.”

For Jenna Elfman at least, it seems to be Scientology “do or die.”

Since the death of its leader Irv Rubin the so-called “Jewish Defense League” (JDL) has apparently split up into two rival camps, one led by Rubin’s widow and another by a Colorado attorney.

Bill Maniaci the “Director [of] Intelligence and Security” for the non-Rubin group told CutNews that he initially “took the reins as the Chairman” to form “a new and totally different organization.”

And they have their own Web site too.

Maniaci and his comrades had a convention last year during October in Nevada and voted in a new leader.

Attorney Matthew Fineberg of Boulder City, Colorado is the would-be Rubin replacement, but apparently Rubin’s widow Shelley isn’t buying it.

Maniaci says she “refused to attend the October 2004 conference and has since maintained an unauthorized and rogue chapter calling itself the Jewish Defense League.”

“Rogue chapter”?

But many people thought that the JDL was a “rogue” Jewish organization in the first place.

Maybe these dueling factions are attempting to redefine the term “fringe group”?

The “new JDL” appears impatient to dispense with the grieving widow. They “will soon be resolving [their] issues with Mrs. Rubin in court,” said Maniaci.

So much for her mourning period.

According to the “Director of Intelligence” for the repackaged JDL “Mrs. Rubin mistakenly believed that she should have inherited the organization after her Husband’s murder.”

“Murder”?

Irv Rubin died after he hung himself in a jail cell. A pitiful suicide after he was locked up over a bomb plot.

Well it looks like the so-called “new and totally different” JDL hasn’t lost one lasting Rubin legacy, a penchant for conspiracy theories.

J. Gordon Melton, a somewhat specious “scholar” of what he refers to as “new religious movements” received a rather questionable gift from a foundation linked to a purported “cult,” reports Moving On.org.

Moving On.org is a Web site created by and for young adults with parents who joined the notorious “Children of God” (COG).

The Web site recently made public a portion of a 2000 IRS disclosure document that lists a $10,000.00 gift given to the so-called “International Religious Directory,” which is a pet project of Mr. Melton.

The gift-giver is the Family Care Foundation, an organization founded by COG leaders.

Infamous sexual predator “Moses” David Berg who died in 1994 once defined COG as its absolute leader.

The group taught members to sexualize their minor children and encouraged its women to become “hookers for Christ.”

COG is now known as “The Family” and has been in the news lately due to a grizzly murder-suicide.

Ricky Rodriquez the son of its current leader Karen Zerby, Berg’s widow known as “Mama Maria” to her followers, committed suicide after murdering his former nanny Angela Smith. The young man who left COG about five years ago claimed she had molested him as a child.

Ms. Smith at the time of her death was listed as a director of the Family Care Foundation, which is reportedly “an arm of The Family.”

J. Gordon Melton has often been labeled a “cult apologist” because of his friendly relationships with such groups, but until now no one knew exactly how lucrative his COG connection was through the Family Care Foundation.

Mr. Melton seems to have made something of a career out of selling his scholarly services to various fringe groups, often called “cults.” His list of sponsors and/or clients has included JZ Knight or “Ramtha,” a new age guru that funded a Melton book project. And also Aum the terrorist Japanese cult, which paid the peripatetic apologist’s expenses to come to Tokyo after they gassed that city’s subways sending thousands to hospitals.

Mr. Melton’s motto seems to be, “have apologies will travel,” apparently that is when some substantial funding is made available.

Note: Supposedly objective academic papers by J. Gordon Melton and others often called “cult apologists” have recently been linked on-line through a Web site database. Many of the authors listed such as Dick Anthony & Thomas Robbins, David Bromley, Jeffrey Hadden, James Lewis, James T. Richardson and James Tabor have been recommended either by Scientology or the Scientology-linked “new Cult Awareness Network” as “resources.” Anson Shupe who is listed once worked for lawyers linked to Scientology. Another listed author Eileen Barker has received funding from Rev. Moon. Scholar Rocheford E. Burke cashed some checks from Krishna/ISCKON while Professor Susan Palmer worked closely with the Raelians. Cult apology appears to be a meaningful source of income for some within the academic community. The Web site CESNUR, which is home for many of the papers listed is run by Massimo Introvigne, a controversial man that works closely with many groups called “cults.”

This month’s issue of Scientology’s “Celebrity” magazine (issue 363) reports that a “Steven Buscemi” has completed the group’s religious ritual known as the “Purification Rundown.”

Might this be the actor Steve Buscemi?

That is, the Brooklyn born guy best known for his edgy character roles in cult films such as “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” and most recently for his turn as Tony Blundetto in “The Sopranos.”

Has Mr. Buscemi moved from “cult films” to a so-called “cult”?

No photo was run with the Scientology magazine article, but Jenna Elfmann was featured on the cover.

The so-called “Purification Rundown” apparently prescribed for “Steven Buscemi” is a process performed by Scientologists to supposedly purge them of toxins, largely accomplished through saunas and large doses of Niacin.

Tom Cruise swears by it.

And this practice is a central feature of the Scientology-linked drug rehab program called Narconon.

No independent peer-reviewed study or research has ever been published in a scientific journal to substantiate the effectiveness of the process objectively.

In fact the claim that toxins remain in the body for an extended period of time, which forms the basis of this treatment, has been dismissed by doctors.

If Steve Buscemi, known for his roles in independent films has been hooked by Scientology, it would be the first cool Hollywood type recruited by the group in quite some time.

Update: The NY Daily News later contacted Buscemi’s publicist who said, “I checked it out with him, and it’s 100% not true. It’s a different Steve Buscemi.” Scientology told the NY Daily News it is their “policy not to confirm or deny anything unless the celebrity goes public.”