Cult News

The website Girlcomic.net decided to dedicate a section to religion recently, and everything from “Jewish Nerds” to Yoga was discussed and joked about.

One comic Kimmy Gatewood wrote about a fun-filled evening at Scientology headquarters in New York.

The apparently street-wise comic quipped that it was cheaper than a Broadway Show.

She took the “free personality test,” walked around and even saw a film short.

Gatewood says, “I fell out of my seat laughing.”

Besides the humor what can be readily be seen from her story is how smooth Scientology can be. First it’s free, then Gatewood is quoted only $25.00 for a handbook.

No doubt their come on would have escalated as courses and “auditing” would be suggested, which can get pretty pricey.

But like many groups called “cults,” Scientology comes on slow and escalates involvement in gradual increments.

It’s an effective sales approach. Actor Chris Reeve was taken in for awhile and he’s a Cornell graduate.

However, little Kimmy was not an easy mark. She concludes, “All in all, an evening well spent in my continual search to understand others. More important, a lesson well learned in celebrity-endorsed cults. You’ll never get me, Travolta!”

When President George Bush gave his State of the Union address Tuesday it was reported (“Bush Touts Religion-Based Drug Treatment,” Associated Press, January 29, 2003 by Laura Meckler) that Henry Lozano of Teen Challenge in California, was sitting with the first lady throughout the presentation.

Bush pushed the idea of funding faith-based drug rehab programs with federal money.

But would it be appropriate to include Teen Challenge within such a scheme?

According to Teen Challenge literature its entire approach can be summarized as “Basic Confrontational Evangelism.” And the organization has stated specifically, “The only cure for . . . drug abuse, is Jesus Christ.”

The Teen Challenge program is essentially religious training and indoctrination.

There is nothing wrong with including faith as a meaningful component when confronting drug abuse. And such approaches can be successful.

But should federal money be used to pay for a sectarian cure? This would certainly seem to set a troubling precedent.

Before televangelist Pat Robertson received $500,000 for a pet program through Bush faith-based funding, he pointedly objected to the president’s project.

Robertson previously said such grants would be like opening “Pandora’s Box.” And that once opened would not easily be shut.

How can the federal government decide which theologically based cures should be funded?

Would Scientology’s Narconon drug rehab receive federal money? What about Krishna? They might have a substance abuse solution based upon chanting? Maybe the Raelians have some special cure coming from outer space?

Will the government now be in the business of judging which religion works best?

Whatever happened to that old feel good extended weekend seminar known as “est,” which developed a “cult following” that included celebrities like Valerie Harper and John Denver?

Well it got bigger and better, at least from a business perspective.

Est is now called “Landmark Education,” and according to a press release on Yahoo, the private for-profit company now has “60 major offices in 21 countries,” affecting “100 cities” with ” 750 professionally trained course leaders worldwide.”

The PR spin gushes about Landmark’s recent deal with Sprint “to improve its communications infrastructure.”

The company’s “flagship” program is called the Forum, which can be seen as mass marathon training.

Landmark has a rocky history that includes serious complaints about abuses, subsequent lawsuits and more than a little bad press.

Its founder Werner Erhard (a.k.a. Jack Rosenberg) also went through some rough times. His bad patch included allegations of incest, spousal abuse and income tax problems.

Erhard eventually sold the company and licensed its “technology.” The specific details of that sale were never disclosed

But never mind all is well now.

Landmark is clearly pulling in more money than ever.

And Erhard? He resolved his personal problems and ended up a rich man relaxing on the beaches of the Cayman Islands. He lives in Georgetown with his girlfriend Hanukkah.

Landmark still generates lawsuits, complaints and bad press, but they seem to settle such matters quietly and weather whatever controversy arises comfortably.

His status as probably the world’s richest guru apparently wasn’t enough for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He created his own country and currency, which generated some attention.

Maharishi seems to like attention.

But maybe the attention this time is unwelcome. The Dutch Central Bank is investigating the old guru’s funny money called the raam, reports Yahoo.

In the sixties Maharishi hung out and/or hung onto the Beatles. They eventually ditched him.

Maybe the Dutch will make him ditch the raam?

Earl Krugel has now pleaded guilty regarding a conspiracy to bomb an American mosque.

The 60-year-old Jewish Defense League (JDL) member may ultimately end his life in prison based upon the terms of his plea agreement reports Associated Press and Fox News.

According to the deal negotiated with prosecutors Krugel will serve no less than ten years in prison for his involvement in the bomb plot.

The FBI arrested Krugel and his JDL leader Irv Rubin in December of 2001.

Rabbi Meir Kahane founded the JDL in 1968. A Moslem fanatic murdered him in 1990.

Kahane was not unlike other charismatic hate group leaders such as William Pierce and Osama bin Laden who largely defined their groups through the power of their individual personalities.

The hate-filled rhetoric of the radical rabbi was often described as extremist and incited violence. One man associated with an Israeli Kahane-connected organization murdered 29 Moslems at prayer in a Hebron mosque.

Fortunately it seems the FBI stopped Rubin and Krugel before they could wreak havoc and death on a mosque.

In 1994 the party Kahane founded in Israel was outlawed and later declared a foreign terrorist organization by the United States State Department.

Now perhaps the JDL’s reign of terror will end. Without Rubin or some other strong personality to fill its present void, perhaps the JDL will fade away.

A prison inmate claiming to be a “Hebrew Israelite” was refused kosher meals so he sued the prison system. But a federal judge has now rejected his claim, reports Associated Press.

For many years religious diets have been a part of prison life, within both federal and state correctional facilities, but this prisoner’s case may change all that.

Prison inmates often play “games,” which means they attempt to receive special treatment or get something through some sort of scheme. But it looks like this prisoner’s game backfired.

First the self-proclaimed “descendent of the biblical tribe of Judah” was interested in Protestantism, then he suddenly became a “Hebrew Israelite.”

Prison authorities apparently saw through all this and rejected his claims.

But what about the long-standing precedent of providing religious diets to those men and women in prison not running games?

Now it seems many legitimate religious people, such as Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Adventist prisoners might suffer needlessly because of one man’s scheme, which may have set a new legal precedent.

J. Gordon Melton in apparently now promoting the seventh edition of his book called the “Encyclopedia of American Religions.”

But don’t expect to see any meaningful critical analysis or fact-driven revelations within this tome. Instead the part-time teacher and library worker at the University of California in Santa Barbara, basically reiterates whatever religious groups tell him.

For example, you won’t read that space aliens from another planet are the actual basis for Scientology’s theology.

In a short study by Melton about Scientology he again fails to even mention the premise that forms the basis for its entire belief system.

Why?

Because Scientology didn’t tell Mr. Melton that and they don’t want this information discussed within his published work.

Is this beginning to sound a bit specious for a supposed scholar?

Melton’s encyclopedia retails for $310.00, which may partly explain its ranking on Amazon.com at well below 500,000.

However, Mr. Melton and his book got some good press recently in an article by Richard Ostling, carried by Associated Press.

What Ostling doesn’t mention is the more sordid side of the author’s work. Melton has often been called a “cult apologist.”

In fact Mr. Melton refuses to use the term “cult.” Instead he prefers to call groups like Scientology, “The Family” and Ramtha, “new religions” or “new religious movements” (NRMs).

Maybe this is because they pay him.

Melton often works for groups called “cults,” either through cult-funded “research projects,” books or as an expert witness.

J.Z. Knight, who leads the Ramtha group, hired him to write the book for her titled Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha’s School of Ancient Wisdom.

Scientology has recommended Melton as a resource. And after the Cult Awareness Network was bankrupted by that group’s litigation and its name was bought by a Scientologist, Gordon Melton became a “religious resource” recommended by the “new Cult Awareness Network.”

Mr. Melton seems eager to help “cults” whenever he can.

He once flew to Japan to defend the cult Aum, right after it released poison gas within Tokyo’s subway system. While thousands of victims were being rushed to hospitals Mr. Melton flew in, all of his expenses were paid for by the criminal cult.

For a “scholar” Gordon Melton often seems indifferent concerning historical facts.

Jim Jones was responsible for the cult mass murder-suicide of more than 900 people in Jonestown November 18, 1978. However, Mr. Melton said, “This wasn’t a cult. This was a respectable, mainline Christian group.”

Melton has earned a reputation for largely ignoring and/or discounting the testimony of former cult members.

Professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi of the University of Haifa noted, “In every single case since the Jonestown tragedy, statements by ex-members turned out to be more accurate than those of apologists and NRM researchers…It is indeed baffling…the strange, deafening, silence of [such scholars]…a thorny issue…like the dog that didn’t bark… should make us curious, if not outright suspicious.”

Is Gordon Melton such a silent scholar, or perhaps even a “silent partner”? After all he is often paid by cults.

Melton was prominently mentioned within a confidential memo written and distributed by Jeffery Hadden. This memo has been cited as a kind of “smoking gun,” regarding the tacit cooperation of like-minded “cult apologists.”

Within that memo the now deceased Hadden cited Melton’s importance and willingness to cooperate in an organized effort, which would hopefully be funded by “cults,” to essentially quell criticism about them.

Hadden said, “We recognize that Gordon Melton’s Institute is singularly the most important information resource in the US, and we feel that any new organization would need to work closely with him.”

Ostling’s article carried by the AP cites Melton’s “nonpartisan objectivity,” but can anyone who objectively reviews his actual professional history really conclude that J. Gordon Melton is nonpartisan?

Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie are deeply involved in a controversial group called the “Kabbalah Centre,” which some people say is a “cult.”

One of the most bizarre aspects reported about the group is its heavily promoted “Kabbalah Water.” It is hyped as “dynamic ‘living’ water” with “a highly organized structure, crystalline formations and a fractal design.”

Jeanette Walls at MSNBC reports it’s the water “Madonna swears by.”

But one street-wise New Yorker just told CultNews.com the following:

“I was walking down 48th Street past the Kabbalah Centre, when going in through the service entrance what do I see, but a delivery person bringing in the ‘holy water.’ The kicker is that each carton was clearly stamped ‘product of Canada’ and sported a popular brand name.”

So what’s up?

Does the Kabbalah Centre use two brands of water, or is there really just one with different labeling?

Maybe Madonna is buying less than she bargained for?

Has the “Material Girl” paid a big mark up for bottled water that she might have easily picked up at the corner store?

Yehuda Berg the son of the Kabbalah Centre’s founder claims, “We charge the water with positive energy, so that it has healing powers.”

But where do they “charge the water,” inside a bottling plant in Toronto?

An Oregon-based group called “Friends Landing” is apparently branching out from its insular compound, reports The Oakland Tribune.

A “holistic education center” called “Sea Touch” run by Peggy Vittoria in Hayward will soon be renamed “Spherical Reality Life Coaching Institute.”

Spherical Reality is the brainchild of WhiteWind Swan Fisher, previously known as Susan Kilborne Musumeci. She is the founder, “shaman” and leader of Friends Landing, located outside Springfield, Oregon.

Fisher has a troubled history of litigation, bad debts and bankruptcy. She was sued by a former counseling client for personal injury. And in Springfield Friends Landing has had zoning problems and been the subject of community hearings.

One family said WhiteWind “brainwashed” their son through her teachings and programs.

Now Ms. Vittoria is bringing Fisher’s teachings to Hayward.

She claims that classes in Spherical Reality will help people “figure out what they want in their life.”

Right.

Sounds like Hayward may have some potential problems brewing downtown.

President Bush has recently appointed David L. Caprara his new director of VISTA, reports The Washington Post.

Caprara’s previous job was heading an organization closely associated with Rev. Sun Myung Moon called the “American Family Coalition.” Just one of a myriad of front organizations ultimately controlled by the founder of the Unification Church.

A quick perusal of the American Family Coalition website reveals they heavily promote “faith based programs.”

Will Mr. Caprara become Rev. Moon’s mole at VISTA?

Caprara also did well during the last Bush administration. The first President Bush made him an official within the Housing and Urban Development Department.

The Bush family has longstanding ties to Rev. Moon, who has paid Bush Sr. millions of dollars to show up and speak at various venues, which ultimately promotes the public persona of Moon.

What’s up now with the second Bush White House?

Is the son following in his father’s footsteps and doing a little “Moon-walking”?

Bill Clinton was the best friend in the White House Scientology ever had.

Is the Bush family now picking its own special “cult” to be friendly with? Or is this all just a strange coincidence?