CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/12/2026
Patrick Ryan
KCRG: Iowa’s Maharishi Foundation sues former student, claiming unfair competition
"Fairfield’s Maharishi Foundation USA is suing a former student of transcendental meditation, claiming unfair competition and trademark infringement.
Maharishi University USA Inc. is suing Leif Bjelland of Missoula, Montana, and his company, Transcend Today, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.
The foundation and its predecessors and affiliates have been providing instruction in transcendental meditation for 60 years. The foundation claims the practice is a proprietary form of meditation that can only be taught by the foundation’s program and its licensees and that the phrase “transcendental meditation” has been trademarked.
According to the lawsuit, Bjelland was a student in the program around 2020, attending training and workshops offered by the foundation. As a student, Bjelland is alleged to have completed a form in which he agreed the transcendental meditation techniques he learned would be for his own personal use and that he would not “instruct or impart the transcendental meditation technique” until he was certified by the foundation to do so.
The lawsuit claims Bjelland subsequently applied for a “Transcend Today” trademark to sell hoodies, T-shirts, sleep masks, yoga tops, baseball caps and beach hats, while offering single- or multi-session workshops in what his Montana company calls “Heroic Breathwork.”
In its lawsuit, the foundation claims the name “Transcend Today” is “confusingly similar” to the foundation’s trademarked designs, and that it is being used to compete with the self-improvement, health and personal development services for which the foundation uses its trademarks.
The lawsuit alleges Transcend Today informs prospective clients and customers that the business operates “at your home over Zoom” and that it functions “over Zoom within the spaces you feel most comfortable.” As a result, the foundation claims, Transcend Today has caused its products to be sold in Iowa while infringing on the trademarks of the foundation."
John was an ex-gay, ex-drag queen and an evangelical Christian. He married an ex-lesbian, had three children and became the poster boy for “conversion therapy” for over 15 years, traveling across the world to preach the idea you can ‘pray away the gay’. John Paulk was living proof that they could change, that God would love them, and that they could live a “normal” heterosexual life. But John was living a lie: he was still gay. Now, he’s ready to tell his story.
"When Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the bathtub of her Houston home on June 20, 2001, she told investigators she was trying to save them from going to “hell.”
The tragedy quickly became headline news across the country and Yates was branded the most hated mother in America. Yates was a former nurse who had suffered for years from severe postpartum depression and psychosis. She was later found not guilty by reason of insanity in the deaths of Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary. The case became a grim touchstone in conversations about motherhood, mental illness, and the limits of criminal responsibility.
But a new documentary argues that the story most Americans think they know leaves out a critical and disturbing chapter.
At both of Yates’ trials, prosecutors and defense attorneys acknowledged that her already fragile mental state may have been exacerbated by the teachings of a fire-and-brimstone preacher named Michael Woroniecki.
Now, The Cult Behind the Killer: The Andrea Yates Story, a new three-part docuseries, revisits that influence – casting Woroniecki as a shadowy figure whose apocalyptic theology, former followers say, did not function like a typical ministry.
Woroniecki and his current followers have been described as having a cult-like influence throughout the media over the years."
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