CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/3/2025

[Patrick Ryan]

Kingdom of Canada, India,  Amritanandamayi,  La Luz del Mundo

Global News: Richmound mayor describes aftermath of cult raid

"Sewage water continues to seep into a large puddle near the entrance of a purple school-turned-compound that housed members of a cult in the southwest Saskatchewan village of Richmound for the last two years.

Although the “Kingdom of Canada” was driven out earlier this month after a police raid, Mayor Brad Miller says the sewage water — overflow from toilets and sinks inside the building — remains.

“If there’s wind, people probably 500 feet away can smell it,” says Miller, 64, in an interview.

“If you get it on your hands or whatever, you can smell it for hours. It stinks like you wouldn’t believe.”

Miller thinks daily about how to keep members of the group out if they return.

'I’m fed up. My family’s fed up. If you came out to the southwest, people are just fed up. It’s enough. It’s scary.'"

The Hindu: Madras High Court orders inspection of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham campus run by Mata Amritanandamayi Math

"The Madras High Court has directed the Forest Department officials to inspect the Mata Amritanandamayi Math-run Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, a deemed university campus at Ettimadai, located at the foothills of Bouluvampatty ranges of the Western Ghats in Coimbatore district, and find out whether it fully complies with the 17 conditions imposed before granting building permission.

A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy directed the jurisdictional District Forest Officer (DFO) to conduct the inspection along with amici curiae T. Mohan, Chevanan Mohan, Rahul Balaji, and M. Santhanaraman on a convenient date to all the parties concerned, and submit a detailed report before the court on or before September 12, 2025.

The orders were passed after senior counsel R. Sankaranarayanan, representing the Math, told the court that the institution was fully in compliance of the 17 conditions imposed by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force) on January 18, 2024, for converting 12.622 hectares of agricultural dry lands for educational purposes, and that it was also open to any inspection.

“If there are any defects, we will cure it immediately,” the senior counsel said after the High Court in July this year suo motu impleaded the Math as one of the respondents to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition related to the protection of forests and elephant corridors. The Math was impleaded following a complaint that it had erected a two-kilometre-long electric fence, disturbing free movement of elephants.

Filing an affidavit on behalf of the Math, its authorised signatory G. Gopakumar, 54, residing on the Ettimadai campus, said: “We have erected green solar smart fencing in the border areas of our patta (revenue document related to private land ownership) lands by complying with the technical specifications formulated by the Tamil Nadu Power Fences (Registration and Regulation) Rules, 2023.”

He pointed out that one of the 17 conditions imposed by the PCCF permits fencing around the lands in conformity with the 2023 Rules. He also asserted that the institution had provided a 150-metre vacant buffer zone between the lands belonging to the institution and the border of the forest areas in order to ensure free movement of all kinds of wild animals, including elephants.

“We have provided three troughs and supply water through pipelines for drinking by forest animals. We ensure the availability of water at all times. We also allow the existing natural stream running through our patta lands without any obstruction or alteration of direction. We mainly grow forest trees which do not attract forest animals,” the affidavit filed by Mr. Gopakumar read.

Stating that Mata Amritanandamayi, a spiritual leader fondly called Amma by her followers, firmly believes in showing compassion towards all living beings, the deponent of the affidavit said, she always promotes harmony in nature and insists on protecting plants and animals too. He also stated that the Math runs educational institutions because she believes that education would eradicate poverty."

El Pais: The secret guard of La Luz del Mundo: A training camp in Mexico reveals the church leader’s iron grip

"A security operation arrived at dawn at a plot of land in the municipality of Vista Hermosa, Michoacán, believing they would be facing a cartel. Residents had reported a training camp for organized crime, a specter that remains vivid in the minds of Mexicans after the discovery of the sinister ranch in Teuchitlán in Jalisco. The scene fit all the characteristics. Security forces arrested 38 men and seized what appeared to be high-powered firearms and tactical gear. What puzzled them was that the detainees did not identify themselves as cartel hitmen, but as members of the evangelical church La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World).

The men were training to be part of a special corps created to protect the church’s leader, Naasón Joaquín García, and his immediate family. This is the Jahzer Guard, which traces its origins back to another tactical group, the Jericho Guard, formed by Samuel Joaquín, Naasón’s father. Until the raid at the training camp in Michoacán, very little had surfaced about the praetorian guards of La Luz del Mundo. It represents a new thread in the enigmatic web of corruption surrounding the sect, which has already begun to unravel. In the United States, Joaquín has been sentenced in California for child sexual abuse and now faces a new indictment for organized crime and human trafficking in New York.

One of the survivors of the apostle’s abuse, Sharim Guzmán, told EL PAÍS that these guards serve to protect the church’s leaders and their families wherever they are, and to watch over their homes; they are also tasked with guarding temples and congregant neighborhoods, chiefly Hermosa Provincia, a district in Guadalajara (the capital of the state of Jalisco) created in the apostle’s own image — a sort of cultural and political power center of the church."

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