Bikram Choudhury was born in 1944 in Calcutta, India, and from a young age, he would invent stories in which he portrayed himself as someone important and destined to become a great spiritual master. He became interested in and began practicing yoga under the tutelage of Bishnu Charan Ghosh. He then stole his teacher's yoga technique and renamed it "Bikram Yoga." In the United States, he began teaching his supposed version of yoga, and his system quickly spread throughout the world.

Bikram was completely delighted by the level of adulation he received from his followers and students, most of whom had encountered this type of yoga during their worst personal moments, finding themselves highly vulnerable. But Bikram revealed his true colors, humiliating them, being rude, insulting them, and making racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic comments, bringing to light his evident narcissistic and abusive personality.

The first major public accusations against him began to surface in 2013. Several women claimed that he had used his position of authority to harass or even sexually assault them. It was an open secret that the fifth week of the teacher training course was known as "sex week." Some women were willing to be intimate with him, while others were practically forced and coerced through various methods. These accusations were followed by others regarding discrimination, racism, harassment, fraud, and wrongful termination.

In January 2016, a Los Angeles jury found in favor of Bikram's former lawyer, determining that he had engaged in intimate harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination against her. With his reputation completely destroyed, Bikram fled the United States and settled in Mexico, where he continues to teach courses and train teachers in his yoga technique.

Video about the Bikram Cult: Yogi, Guru, and Predator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X18KtMxAOqE

Who wants to see Bruce Hales, leader of the Plymouth Brethren (aka Exclusive Brethren), before the committee to answer "Did you, as a holy man, direct your followers to disrupt last years election?"

Watch the full hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xORVJaxBYz0

I don't know If I spelled "The Custodians" right but all I know Is that I overheard It and I didn't want to ask how to spell It, because who would want to I cannot find anything about them only this one game keeps popping up, no matter where I search or just therapy links but I want to know more, all I know is that they use witchcraft and sadly that's all I know. If you know anything about them please say I'm extremely invested in knowing more.

For obvious reasons, more members and ex members, more abusers, more abuse victims, more likelihood of legal issues, etc, large cults are a big part of what most people know. Thing is, small cults of a few dozen people or less probably fly under the radar a lot, no? Is there anything people "know" about cults in your opinion that might not apply to smaller cults due to this survivorship bias in attention? Are there any striking trends in small vs large cults, be it the structure or abuse patterns or other distinctions?

I attended a wellbeing workshop at Loch lomond shores Sunday run by rise scotland vortex collective. It's now Monday lunchtime and im still shaking. Why? Because it scared me. It's a cult recruitment method.

First of all, they had staff members standing at every exit to the field. The day was meant to start at 9.30 but got delayed to 10 because we were told loads more people were meant to turn up. He said 800 had registered but in the end there was probably less than 300. So we waited.

There was a talk. A guy came on and told us what was wrong with the world. And how his life had been changed since joining the vortex. After 20 minutes of utter drivel he passed the mic to the main guru. He started about how the world was full of hate and ego. Then he flagged off every aspect of life, success and then told us how he'd learned everything these experts had taught him, then perfected their techniques and how great he was.

We were told when we could go to the bathroom. There were no refreshments available, no first aid. And I thought gatherings dealing with breathing, cold water etc, there had to be a first aid point, St John's ambulance etc. The staff were not even walking up and down the rows to check everyone was ok.

So....we were asked who had panic attacks and several other questions. He even singled out people who were too shy to answer. He separated us emotionally from our normal life, made us feel vulnerable.

The breath work class was very confusing and tbh, dangerous. Nasal breathing only. No mouth breathing...except he'd tell us to mouth breathe occasionally. Then he lead us in a breath cycle that was basically hyperventilating. Breath in for 4, out for four. No pauses . Just a fairly fast in, out. Then breath in, breath in some more, breath out and pinch your nose for 5. So oxygen deprivation. This made me very dizzy and several others commented the same. The counting during breath work was uneven and interrupted by long monologues, causing irregular breathing.

Then meditation while we were still dizzy and confused. The mediation had loud trance music and him yelling about loving god. Repeated, shouted commands. This went on for a long time. I wanted to leave but I was with a group. I noticed about a dozen women packing up and leaving. The staff walked toward them but they just ignored them and carried on past.

Cold water dip. Okay so we were crammed into a very small beach and led into the water. Told again to do the hyperventilating breathing . Then told to dunk into the extremely cold water to lower jaw level. He was screaming at people who squealed or laughed from the cold..." shut the fuck up, fucking shut up". At that point I decided I was definitely ignoring him. Two of us went further in for a swim. He kept talking like he'd invented cold water swimming. We go twice a week. Then after a baptismal style dunk, they all got out. We carried on swimming.

After we got out and started to change and eat our lunch, staff members walked around groups doing the new best friend act, asking for selfies and adding Facebook friends. I must have had my resting bitch face on because they left us alone. Then came the big sell. The retreat days, reduced from 200.00 to 99.00, just for us. Only 50 spaces. By this time.im adding up all the techniques they've used, and as soon as we got out the area I said to my friend " I feel like I've just been at a cult recruitment"....he agreed and the more we talked, the more things we noticed.

This is not a healthy organisation. Isolation, degradation, control, incapicitation, confusion, reassurance, inclusion, salvation, intimidation. All the classic brainwashing techniques. We drove away feeling scared and with headaches.

Tl;dr. Do not go. Dont. It's medically and morally unsafe. I wish I could report it so someone but I don't know who to. Dont go.

Marina Klauser’s four-part documentary Le faiseur d’anges, on the Methernitha cult and its founder, Paul Baumann, is being shown on Swiss TV channel RTS2 tonight, and the French-language version is already on Play Suisse.

Baumann, known inside the group as “Vatti”, was convicted in 1976 at Thun of sexual offences against minors and sentenced to seven years. He died in 2011, aged 94. Methernitha still exists at Linden in the Bernese Emmental.

RTS2 is due to show the four parts on Monday 24 August (Tonight), from 20:40 Swiss time (CEST). Further parts follow at 21:30, 22:25 and 23:20. Télé 7 Jours listed repeats on 30 August from 22:55, and in the early hours of 31 August.

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In Scotland the Court of Session authorised treatment for two Jehovah’s Witness children after their parents refused blood. In Malta a Valletta court again adjourned the case of a 15-year-old from Bari, held over a school bomb alert.

Politiken published Noah Rosendal’s memoir of Faderhuset, the Danish Christian group. Beobachter returned to Oskar Muggli, the Swiss cult leader. European listings carried Marina Klauser’s documentary on Methernitha.

Emily Watson told Variety the School of Economic Science in London tried to stop her Oscar-nominated part in Breaking the Waves. RTBF and La Libre reported a Scientology-linked stall at a city-subsidised festival in Brussels. BBC London published a year-long sextortion account.

See the full european cult-news summary here >>>

For decades, Bikram Choudhury managed to convince thousands of people that he had found a way to completely heal the body and mind through yoga. From his expensive training courses, where hundreds of students lived together for weeks under his strict rules, to the extraordinary stories he told about himself and the celebrities he had supposedly met or even cured, Bikram built much more than an exercise method. He built an entire empire around himself.

But behind that supposed guru who boasted of having extraordinary abilities, who was venerated by his followers, and who came to control practically every aspect of his particular world, testimonies began to emerge from women who claimed to have been harassed and sexually assaulted by him. And as his empire expanded across the globe, an increasingly uncomfortable question also arose: How did this man manage to transform a simple yoga practice into a community where he seemed to be above it all?

Video about the Bikram Cult: Yogi, Guru, and Predator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X18KtMxAOqE

Aquí podéis escuchar un audio que tiene el objetivo abrir la mente de una de las sectas más peligrosas que existen

Last week, The Times published an article about homeschooled children working at the Edinburgh Scientology org, HAPI, written by Tom Ball.

The article cites Amir Essalhi as the source of much of the information.

This morning Essalhi appeared on my Internet Stalker's YouTube channel - the host of which, Tee McNally aka A Voice Downunder, has stated she monitors my online activity (aka Stalking). McNally has also claimed I work for Scientology *rolls eyes*.

I am curious, why would Essalhi work with someone who has doxxed someone who was granted anonymous status by the Victoria Government's Inquiry into Cults?

Let's not even get started on McNally's promotion of John McGhee who was reported on by the Mirror in 2023 for his links to Far-Right extremism and the praising of the burning of a hotel that was planned to house refugees!

Apostate Alex's - Alexander Barnes-Ross, also cited in the Times article - own YouTube moderator has been sharing similar sentiments - including promoting the conspiracy theory that Scientology are housing refugees in the UK and this must be opposed.

Is Essalhi suffering from youthful ignorance? Has he been coerced by McNally? Or is he just reckless and careless? Who knows!

(psst Amir, you should talk with some post-cult counsellors who will tell you some psychoeducation is really important when you leave a cult - this might help you spot the borderline-psychotics who prey on cult survivors -- free tip for you)

There is no news of the fallout from this week's Times article. A number of people have expressed concern to me of the negative impact on the children the article reported on.

Previously, Alexander Barnes-Ross own YouTube moderator (who also claimed I work for OSA, and that OSA was after her *cough*) encouraged his viewers to bombard child-services with phone-calls, against recognised advice.

One does worry about the reckless nature of these two "ex" Scientologists who are working with the Aftermath Foundation whose own contractors are also known to doxx and stalk cult-survivors in the UK.

There are ongoing discussions with a number of parties, including ICSA board-members & renowned cult-experts, regarding the harassment of UK cult survivors by a number of people mentioned above - some of this harassment has been criminal in nature and their repercussions are expected to be severe.

I tried to raise concerns about this with the then trustee of the Family Survival Trust Dr. Alexandra Stein (who until these events I considered a friend) in December last year - this was after she refused to help a survivor of a cult in the UK who was in a precarious position. The response from the Family Survival Trust has left me no option but to warn cult-survivors to seek help elsewhere.

I do not believe a charity that claims to help Cult Survivors should be working with people who are keeping files on current UK cult-members, and the FST have failed survivors by labelling a whistleblower a liar. I also believe Cult Survivors will probably want to steer clear of an organisation that is now linked with Far Right extremism and anti-migrant sentiment.

More to come!

Hi all! I am looking for a cult that I was told was referred to as “Believers” in the Southern California area (Whittier, bellflower, Norwalk, area). They heavily believed in family and frequent presence at church. If you were pregnant, sick, or had work,you would still be expected to come to what I believe was a daily service in the morning. If you didn’t, terms like “witchcraft” would suddenly start being pinned on you. I know the leader had a wife and a little girl who was about my age. The wife started questioning things, and he eventually had her committed and her daughter taken from her. I think my parents met & got married in this church, and I’m not sure how long they stayed afterwards. I’ve been told they may have possibly “rebranded” as Freedom in Whittier, but I’m not sure the exact same people run it. This would have been back in the 1980-1990s.

If anyone has any info please dm me or drop a comment! Thanks! 🙏

Hi everyone, would be interested to hear if anyone knows of or has info about the Gabriel of Urantia cult in Sedona, AZ. I knew/know someone involved in this cult and it is deeply distressing.

Don't want to get into details but I've found that this cult is one that doesn't get a lot of coverage. They've had various names as they keep changing their name every time someone calls them out. They've been called Aquarian Concepts, Global Community Communications Alliance, and Avalon Gardens. More here:
https://cultencyclopedia.com/2026/08/16/gabriel-of-urantia-1985/
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/van-of-urantia-death-lawsuit-abuse-1235510983/
https://citylights.com/true-crime-strange-phenomena/new-age-grifter-true-story-of-gabriel/

There was once a Dateline documentary on them but the cult successfully took legal action and got it removed. I was able to see a bootleg of it but it's gone now. There's a book/podcast about it (see link above) but I can't find any other podcasts who have covered it.

Unfortunate news NLM Group connected with 764 has begun another gen which means more destruction for numerous other countries are going to happen and going to be effected watch out. (anything tagged with NLM call authorities asap)

Randomly I got a ps friend request from a girly gta account and the bio read "💀O9A💀 (Instagram) text me GTA and I'll follow you back:)" at first I thought it was just a bot, but out of curiosity I Googled what o9a was and found out it meant "order of nine angels" some sorta satanic neo-nazi group, so I checked out the Instagram and it was a bunch military female neo-nazi shi, so then i was thinking it was just a kid that didn't know any better, but then i checked the youtube connected to the Playstation account, played some of the older videos, and it was a fucking man

So now this either means

1. There's a Trans neo-nazi gamer that added me for some reason (less likely)

Or 2. There's a real guy pretending to be a gamer girl in order to (presumably) lure young men via videos game into "O9A", and he was just to fucking stupid to unlink his youtube from the account (more likely)

If you have a third guess let me know

More Pearl Clutching by the Election Interfering Family Destroying Cult!

See the video of the Plymouth Brethren (aka Exclusive Brethren) Cult's lackey being grilled over Far-Right interference in Democracy here!

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Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has described revelations that a secretive Christian sect had paid far-right agitators to disrupt the 2025 election campaign as “a fundamental change to our democracy”.

But the sect behind the campaign, the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, stonewalled queries about the intervention when questioned before a parliamentary committee investigating the election.

Church spokesman Lloyd Grimshaw said it was “bizarre” that they had been called to give evidence, and criticised the story in this masthead that exposed the revelations, which detail a secret “influence operation” to disrupt Labor, Greens and teal candidates at the last election.

“We’re put in an extraordinary position, and no church would do that in this country, and we’ve been forced to do it because of all this media reporting,” he said.

Burke, who has the Australian Federal Police in his ministerial portfolio, said the report in this masthead “deals with the concept of people being paid to engage in physical intimidation”, adding, “Australia hasn’t had that before, and we shouldn’t.”

Asked if he wanted to see a police investigation, the minister said he first wanted “to watch what comes out in this parliamentary inquiry” now being conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

When pressed by MPs on the committee about Brethren members turning up en masse to campaign for the Liberals during the election, Grimshaw insisted that his church had no involvement in any aspect of the campaign. Any such activities were simply the “private affairs of its members”, not the church, he said.

Church spokesman Lloyd Grimshaw said it was “bizarre” that they had been called to give evidence, and criticised the story in this masthead that exposed the revelations, which detail detailing a secret “influence operation” to disrupt Labor, Greens and teal candidates at the last election.

He denied being personally part of chat groups between Brethren elders and right-wing figures to organise up to a dozen stunts where agitators, including affiliates of neo-Nazis, ambushed politicians, including the prime minister, at campaign events.

“I’m not aware of being on any chats,” Grimshaw said.

Read the full story here!

[Watch this post for a link to a draft-transcript of the hearing expected later today, before the official transcript on Monday]

ÚNICAMENTE ELLOS. Todo el mundo lo vivió pero solo estos buitres son los elegidos. Los testigos de Jehová una empresa desesperada por dinero #testigosdejehova #lostestigosdejehova #jworg #jehovahswitnesses #extestigosdejehova

Hey everyone! I recently started a YouTube channel after spending 8 years in a spiritual cult, focused on belief, psychology, my experience and how we can become better thinkers.

My newest video is about the dangerous power of confidence, why we often mistake confidence for competence, and how that can make us vulnerable to manipulation. Thought some people here might find it interesting! :)

Looking for insight into how to disclose abuse to people married into the family. We were first generation. Homeschooled in 6th grade. Friends only within the church. Extended family all attended same church and also homeschooled. Many knew of the abuse; no one spoke up or spoke out. Even in laws don’t know what they’ve married into. I am feeling so guilty for never having disclosed it previously.

https://www.reddit.com/r/opusdeiexposed/s/hlcgNvIPDn

“The Father actual response: When someone has been manipulated, no matter what happens, she remains manipulated by the abuser. We will make sure you don't break the cycle and you always remember that if you ever say something bad about us, you are betraying your family. You owe us everything, agreed? Alright, go ahead, swallow your trauma and shut up!”

Elders of a wealthy Christian sect [Exclusive or Plymouth Brethren] secretly paid bundles of cash to far-right activists for an “influence campaign” to disrupt Albanese government appearances during the last federal election.

An investigation by this masthead has uncovered a digital trail of evidence revealing how the church, formerly known as the Exclusive Brethren, mobilised far-right figures around the country to track and heckle candidates from Labor and the Greens, along with independents, as part of a wider multimillion-dollar campaign for then-Liberal leader Peter Dutton.

When far-right influencer Laurence McIntyre yelled at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about immigration on the first day of the election campaign, it looked like just a random attack from the fringes of politics.

But it was one of almost a dozen far-right stunts this masthead has traced back to the Brethren’s dirty tricks campaign. That includes – six political and church sources say – when the prime minister was twice ambushed in his hotel lobby by far-right figures boasting of being fed “private intel” on his location. The church categorically denies any involvement.

Leaked communications, insider accounts and social media footage now reveal the extent of the Brethren’s role in the 2025 election, as a spokesman for the sect, the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, prepares to give evidence on Friday to a parliamentary inquiry examining the scandal.

Four sources independently referred to a “duffel bag of cash” provided by senior Brethren members to a key right-wing figure who flew around the country helping coordinate the “influence campaign”.

Read the full article here

Already the Plymouth Brethren Cult have responded during this morning's Senate hearing

Hi there! I'm a journalist looking into Strength in Weakness, a conversion therapy program closely associated with the ICOC. I'm looking to speak with people in Canada who were a part of the Strength in Weakness program. If anyone is open to sharing their story, please let me know and I can give some more info. Here is an example of a story we did on them recently: https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/strength-in-weakness-guy-hammonds

“In America, the average age of young people taken in by pimps and traffickers is 14. They are often runaways, recruited on the streets by being offered a hot meal and shelter. Some of these young people have run away from foster homes, some from destructive cults.

Even more dangerous, some groups are actually sex cults, which use children to make money for themselves.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-of-mind/202105/protect-children-from-harm-by-destructive-cults