CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/5/2024

[Patrick Ryan]

Scientology, Sivananda Ashram, Transcendental Meditation, Yoga School

Scientology - Peeling the Onion: Rare Interview: Larry Wollersheim's Scientology Experience

"NOT ONE THIN DIME FOR WOLLERSHEIM!  That was the slogan dreamed up by David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology, after Larry Wollersheim had won a $30 million judgement against Scientology and their mental abuses in the mid 1980s.  The judgement was reduced by a judge, but after years of appeals to higher courts and over 20 years of battle, Scientology finally paid him over $9 million dollars.  That is alot of thin dimes!

In a rate interview, Larry joins Mark Fisher and Janis Gillham Grady to discuss how he got involved in Scientology, joined the Sea Organization, became one of the first completions on NED for OTs and then began experiencing psychological problems resulting in him leaving for good.  He then filed a lawsuit against Scientology and their mental abuses and was the target of Scientology attacks and Fair Game that went on for years.

Larry also discussed the healing that he has gone through over the years since leaving Scientology."

NewsNation: Missing in paradise: Woman vanishes from Bahamian yoga retreat | Banfield

"The Bahamas’ director general of tourism has offered her sympathies to the family of Taylor Casey, a 41-year-old Chicago woman who local authorities say has not been seen for six days. Casey disappeared from a yoga retreat on Paradise Island — five miles from Nassau — on June 19. An active police investigation is currently underway. NewsNation's senior national correspondent Brian Entin visits the retreat to get some answers."

NewsNation: Taylor Casey: Police expand search for missing woman in The Bahamas

"Police have expanded their search for missing Chicago woman Taylor Casey, searching the water, as well as using K-9s and drone technology. Brain Entin provided the latest updates on the situation live from Nassau, Bahamas."

Greypoint: Transcendental Meditation is a cult

Coffee Talk: Inside the Ashram of Maharishi with Susan Schumsky. The Beatles Guru had a “Love Vibration”

"Dr. Susan Shumsky is dedicated to helping people take command of their lives in highly effective, powerful, positive ways. A best-selling author of 20 books in English and 36 in foreign editions, she has won 40 prestigious book awards. For two decades, she studied with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation and guru of the Beatles."

Bitter Winter: Argentina: Buenos Aires Yoga School Wins Again in Court, “The New York Times” Ignores It*

"One of us (Introvigne) is the editor of a small online daily magazine, although quoted by some U.S. Department of State reports more often than “The New York Times” when it comes to coverage of religious liberty issues in China. He knows that articles are written in advance of their publication. Incidents can occur. One hit, precisely, “The New York Times” on June 8.

With great fanfare, it ran a sensationalist attack against the Buenos Aires Yoga School (BAYS) entitled “It Called Itself a Yoga School. Prosecutors Say It Was a Sex Cult.” Most unfortunately for the “Times,” the article was published just a few hours after Argentinian media announced that the Court of Cassation had confirmed the December 7, 2023, decision of the National Court of Appeals for Criminal and Correctional Matters that annulled the elevation to trial of the defendants, confirming that relevant evidence in their favor was ignored, including opinions by forensic experts. As Argentinian media noted, this is not the end of the case, since it returns to the judge of first instance, but is clearly a setback for the prosecutors. As one Argentinian journalist wisely commented, “In fact, despite the spectacular media coverage of the investigation, today no one is detained and the investigation is virtually paralyzed.”

We do not believe that “The New York Times” article was the devious way of the prosecutors to react to the last judicial defeats. That it was a mere incident is more believable.

However, “The New York Times” is not totally innocent either. It parrots the basic argument of the prosecutors, that “the organization exploited and drugged some of its female members, forcing them to sell their bodies.” But it fails to inform its readers that all the female members the prosecutors believe are “victims” and “prostitutes”—who are not young and marginal women but middle-aged professionals with jobs in fields ranging from real estate to music and design—vigorously deny being victims and having ever worked as prostitutes in their lives. The prosecutors’ argument is that they say so because they are under “brainwashing”—a discredited pseudo-scientific theory used by those hostile to “cults”—but the main reason the elevation to trial has been annulled is that it ignored the opinion by independent experts, including those of the Forensic Medical Corps of the Supreme Court, who examined the women and concluded that they are psychologically normal and believable. Faced with the fact that their denials were ignored by the prosecutors and the examining magistrate, the so-called “victims” organized themselves to intervene in the judicial file through a legal representative. This is new in Argentina, where the law provides that the alleged victim of human trafficking can only intervene as a plaintiff.

We are very curious to know what kind of fact-checking “The New York Times” performed on the sentence in the article, “During the investigation, some former members talked of being forced to work as ‘slaves’ and said the school promoted prostitution.” This statement is false, as the documents of the case clearly demonstrate. The only “former member” who testified against BAYS and made these accusations is anti-cultist Pablo Salum, which attended the activities of BAYS for a short time as a teenager decades ago. In fact, his complaint is a copy of another one he made in 1996, five years after leaving the institution, which was evaluated and dismissed in a previous case. The copy is so obvious that it involved as current “perpetrators” people who had died many years ago. All the other witnesses who were or are members of BAYS declared that slavery and prostitution only exist as figments of Salum’s wild imagination."

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