CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/21/2025
Patrick Ryan
" ... The conference included a Jonestown survivor, members of the Love House One Movement, and Sawyer, who was in Heaven’s Gate.
“We’re going to be hearing their perspectives and just a litt11le bit about their lives and what they experienced. It’s neat cause most people just want to hear, again, about people’s personal experiences, and that’s kinda what this is, an objective learning experience,” said Manon.
The event aimed to provide firsthand accounts.
“There’s so many different kinds of cults and there have been since the beginning of time really but we wanted to get an inside look at these different groups that we found interesting, and part of what we wanted to bring to attention was like, there’s some misconceptions maybe to debunk and there are some things that were maybe in media that weren’t accurate to what people actually experienced day to day,” said Manon.
'We just wanted to give the people who were actually a part of these movements and these groups an opportunity to share their stories of their lives as opposed to relying on what’s been told already.'"
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Twenty documentaries showcase the haunting, heartbreaking, and powerful stories of individuals who fought to break free from the emotional and manipulative chains imposed on them by cults, whether through daring getaways or a long journey to freedom.
Scoop: Selling And Scamming Meditation
" ... The author begins with a section entitled “Why you should trust me.” Whenever someone lists reasons you should trust him, you can be certain that you can’t.
Hilariously, the author’s main reason is: “I was trained in 2016 in Transcendental Meditation by a certified instructor, and have been practicing this style of meditation daily ever since.”
Transcendental meditation, or “TM,” was the original meditation con-job from India. Imported to the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1959, it was the technique the Beatles used during their spiritual stint on the subcontinent in 1968.
Entering college in 1970 as a green-behind-the-gills 17-year-old freshman, a friend and I signed up for a TM course and paid the $35 fee. (It’s now between $500-1000 USD, depending on income.)
We were ushered into a darkened room with Indian motifs, one by one, and given our own personal mantra. There was a brief instruction on how to repeat the sound for 20 minutes twice a day, and we were told that this was our special mantra, chosen after careful personal evaluation. We solemnly promised never to disclose it to anyone, under pain of TM excommunication.
For some months, my friend dutifully followed the meditation technique, and for a while it did produce greater calm and focus. But as the effects waned, we grew skeptical, and one day we shared our secret mantras. They were the same… “i-ing,” with the last syllable accented and drawn out.
The scam was exposed, and we dropped TM. We realised that repeating ‘Coca-Cola’ produced the same mildly hypnotic effect.
So, after over 50 years to learn, this scam is still running, and a “certified TM instructor” propagating the same silly technique to the gullible is very dismaying."
Key Points:
- "Behind Blue Eyes" was inspired by a spiritual guru's teachings.
- The song was originally for a rock opera, sung by its villain, Jumbo.
- It became one of The Who's most-streamed and beloved songs
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