Top Cults Stories of 2023 by Frankie Tease
These cult stories topped the news this year [frankietease.substack.com]
updated 1/14/24 for punctuation.
This is my second year doing a top cult stories list for years' end, and by top cults I mean bottom. Those who made the list have done terrible things and should not be held in any esteem for it. Leaders who treat their members like banks and seek forced labor in exchange for false promises, as well as those with sexual abuses, are still in large number, getting away with things. Too much is moving online. Some got caught this year.
This cult kid wants to highlight some groups which were in the news. Here – in no particular order – is the top 2023 cult stories, which happen to number 13, and that was not a chosen occult number, I assure you.
Twin Flames Universe – Jeff and Shaleia Divine
The world of self-improvement is a universe of oversaturated sayings and promises. The obsession with developing the human potential became cemented in the United States during the 60’s and has continued. Now, it’s an economic playing field that takes in millions every day. Now, add to a self-improvement cult, dating. That’s what one couple did, and they were featured along with some of their ex-members, showing what a disaster listening to a guru can be.
Recruitment entices singles to join and find their twin flame. The pyramid scheme promotes couples who’ve found their twin flame to counsel perspective twin flames. I’ll make my statement here now, it’s a sex cult.
The game rules keep changing as shown well in the recent Netflix Documentary which features friend of the show Dr. Janja Lalich, (Socialogist Emerita UC Chico, CA), brilliantly dealing with the complex issues multi-level-marketing survivors have to endure, once trapped.
Leaders and married couple – Jeff and Shaleia (and other names) act as gurus on your twin flame journey. Rebranding love with new age terms and Jesus (they founded a church to get out paying taxes too) is their game. Harmonious Twin Flame Union (HTFU) is the promise.
Don’t have a twin flame in our group that suits you? Then you are probably gay. It gets extremely marketey there and it’s shocking how far they will go to say that they are a success, they being Jeff and Shaleia.
There seems to be no bottom to their morals. Their businesses are still going and they are still profiting by promising that only they can see who your twin flame is. That is a gift they have.
Their site is http://twinflamesuniverse.com
Scientology – Danny Masterson
During this year, there was a rape trial related to a high-profile Scientology member, Danny Masterson. In a September verdict, the actor was found guilty on two counts of rape in a retrial. Imagine what the accusers were going through having to do that again, having to wait.
According to ACB News’ Meredith Deliso, Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. A jury found Masterson guilty on two counts forcible rape during a retrial of a case involving three women. He will serve two 15 year sentences and have to register as a sex offender.
“The Church of Scientology previously told ABC News that there’s “no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists, or of anyone, to law enforcement. Church policy explicitly demands Scientologists abide by all laws of the land.”
It has been many years fighting for a conviction for these Jane Does. Congratulations. And, look how hard it was made for them to do what they did. It’s hard to see rape so accepted. But as more of us speak up, we perhaps can change the laws to give rights to sexual partners that do not normalize rape or prevent its discipline because of ridiculous statute of limitations
Carbon Nation - Eligio Bishop
In November 2023 according to 11alive.com a DeKalb County court denied bail again to Eligio Bishop and set a trial date for his case. Charges he faces are rape and false imprisonment related to his activities in his group called Carbon Nation.
The religious cult - let’s just say it, because it is - has travelled all over the world and been kicked out of several countries. Based in Georgia now, the other members are continuing the group during his incarceration, teaching black power, sexual education (they say) and other things that appear very extreme.
Nature Boy has changed his name to 3God and members say he is the reincarnation of Christ. Okay, not too much of this is new, but there are also two murders in play. Two people have died, one a member – very young 19 or so, and the mother of a member was killed. I have heard almost nothing in relation to that but a few social media channels covering bits and pieces.
I have been covering Carbon Nation / Eligio Bishop since May of 2022, and the group is a very dangerous sex cult. Women are not treated well, but neither are the men. There is abuse and there is video of much abuse. Bishop’s live streams to his followers preaching from his prison cell in DeKalb County go to his Youtube Channel @NaturboyTV , which is still up with a lot of newer videos about the case’s ongoing information.
The followers are claiming that their God is being falsely accused, that the revenge porn was in fact sex education videos which member volunteered to participate in.
So far, the whole thing has played out like a new age reality TV black power show. It is extreme, the leader is clearly unhinged and abusive, and I hope more light is shed on the danger of this cult.
Preparing a People Cult – Lori Vallow Daybell
Lori Vallow during 2023, was found guilty of the murder of two of her three children. The two youngest: Joshua Vallow (7) and Tylee Ryan (16). For some reason she did not hurt the third older male child.
Well, actually, her new husband Chad Daybell and Lori started a cult called: Preparing a People. The news has mostly dropped the cult name, but it was a Christ-based doomsday cult. Daybell said that her two children were possessed and needed to die to start their new life. He is awaiting trial, accused of killing his spouse, and her spouse, who also are dead.
It was a doomsday bloodbath. On May of 2023 Lori Vallow Daybell was found guilty in the murder of her two children according to ABC News. Prosecutors argued that it was a doomsday plot. She was also found guilty of conspiring to kill her children and her husband’s first wife, Tamara Daybell. She faces up to life in prison without parole.
Wood, the lead prosecutor said, “It does not matter what they believed, it matters what they did”.
Lori claimed she was “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020”. She didn’t want anything to do with her family because she had a more important mission to carry out.
Much more is to come on this story and it is indeed sad and heart-breaking.
La Luz Del Mundo – Naason Joaquin Garcia
During 2023, a new documentary came out about La Luz Del Mundo Church. Leader Naason Joaquin Garcia is currently serving a very light sentence in Los Angeles, where he was caught with child porn he had created live on his phone, while landing at the airport in his jet. All paid for by teeth gnashing devoted followers world-wide.
The Darkeness Within is streaming on Netflix, and is in a film not series format. The most shocking part of this documentary isn’t just the telling of how the trial of the Jane Does was recently mishandled, the telling of how, but the death of one of the accusers, which clearly took place during the filming of this documentary, by suicide.
“The world must listen to child victims” is all I want to scream. Adult children of cults are often sexually abused and living with the pain is almost worse than the moments while it was happening. Especially as society turns a blind eye. Please watch and learn about this story. It is very sad and generational abuse has been allowed all under the guise that he is the chosen Apostle of Jesus Christ, here on earth. I beg to differ.
Morningland / The Monastery – Gopi Saravati (CEO)
In its 50th year, this Long Beach Cult has been surviving by hiding in plain site. The format is new age religion. The two founders are deceased and three who they directly trained are now in charge. Most disturbing to me as someone who’s family was destroyed by this church, is their continued shape shifting, and now they are doing online, one – to – one coaching, or classes.
One place they recruit is https://ic.org/directory/morningland-monastery/, and it should be watched, perhaps people can report to that site who this group really is, and the harm they’ve done, some documented in articles by press over time. The Long Beach, California community certainly needs to understand who’s operating in their midst and near their children.
My reporting on this cult began in Feb. 2022, check out the Frankie Files Podcast / The Morningland Papers Playlist free on Spotify and Youtube.
Morningland renamed the Monastery, is attempting to live forever. That’d be fine if it were not based on the pain of every single person they have claimed to heal, separated from family, friends, husbands and wives. Please stay tuned for more on this story on my channels.

Profundity Yours – Linda Good McGillis
During 2023, Investigative Journalist Syran Warner really put his back into exposing one cult’s dangerous practices. The group is called Profundity Yours. Their leader is an extra-terrestrial walk-in which took over the body of Linda Goodman a while back. She’s been gathering strength online with her new age fantastical religious doctrine, including a prediction that the world was ending this year.
When it didn’t, she doubled - down on that the end is coming. Devotees must give up everything and move to their new Murietta, Texas million dollar ranch. Donated by a member of course. And it’s gotten weird over there, as the cult buys up two ranches and the town’s only restaurant. It’s a small town.
Thanks to Syran Warner for covering contemporary cults and exposing the dangerous thinking that goes with a doomsday script, in real time. Follow Syran on his Tik Tok where he drops or his website TheBodyIntl.com.
The Body – Chris Coombes
It’s about the children. This is a story that Syran Warner also broke. He started years ago on this, about six years, and they were still in Alaska. They have moved to Tonasket, Washington, and have land there now. Popping up in the news is previously arrested Chris Coombes, picked up on child molestation.
The video went viral of the police cam which Warner put on his Tik Tok. Coombes was calling his daughter property, to the Washington police officer. Cult thinking is dangerous, and almost always effects the children of the parents involved. That’s why we need to pay attention.
Add Dominick Bonny Reports Substack to keep updated on this story.
Love Has Won – Amy Carlson (deceased)
In the new HBO documentary Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, you will get a shocking and candid look at how they were living. Painting real consequences for flighty new age religion thinking, I urge you to let people know about this well-rounded documentary. It needs seeing.
A regular woman who dropped ecstasy and left three children without a word, Amy Carlson is a story I’ve been following since 2022. Her story arch is severe. As a seeker of other mental worlds based upon her mind experience on ecstasy, Amy Carlson was a manager at McDonalds. She met a man on Lightworkers.org – a website about new age metaphysical beliefs, and then moved to the country with a man at least twice her age, if not more.
She wanted more. She got that in online followers, then attracting new men which she leap-frogged into the fifth dimension. Each of her partners after her awakening were called Father God, and she was called Mother God.
New but old jargon was perpetrated. And the entire documentary reads like a murder suicide which many participated in. Between colloidal silver, anorexia, alcohol, Amy died.
Believing like Heaven’s Gate she’d join a galactic group aboard a spaceship over Mt. Shasta, it happened in California. After dying, some of the devotees drove her dead body unreported to any authority or her birth family, back to Crestone, CO, where they mummified and continued to worship her dead body with blue skin.
Please watch this documentary and have some tissue handy. It’s sad and shocking what could happen right under everyone’s nose. And religious groups are a hotbed of illegal activity. This was one of neglect to death, by all the members. Shocking still, they are actively continuing recruiting and making money off her ideas. 5d Full Disclosure is one of their channels, and this is why unhinged new age beliefs are dangerous. Even her death has not stopped them.
Twelve Tribes – New True Crime Podcast
In 2023 a new limited series podcast came out by an Australian Investigative Journalist Tim Elliott. The world-wide highly profitable cult and corporation entitled Twelve Tribes is recruiting and enslaving members. Care of their members is the least important, but the profit of the Yellow Deli vegetarian restaurants are instead the only thing which matters.
Putting their members in field work and horrific conditions, the podcast reveals the story of one couple – Mark & Rose who join the group and their 15 year ordeal. They lose a child who is buried on premise, and depart the group, barely getting away.
Tim Elliot of Sydney Morning Herald’s work it is revealed that babies are often buried when they die of malnutrition, on premise at the camps of Twelve Tribes. Shocking and revealing, the podcast is streaming now entitled Inside the Tribe.
One Taste – Nicole Daedone
Getting into a room and watching a woman be stroked to climax. That’s the basis of One Taste Orgasm Cult which was featured on a Netflix Documentary entitled Orgasm Inc. Aptly titled, the group was a corporation funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Sex indeed sells. It got weird.
The group had employees. When they needed to close the deal on a recruit, they might have suggested that a current employee sleep with them to coax that to happen. That’s sex trafficking though.
Nicole Daedone is now in federal custody for forced labor and I applaud that. Sex cults like this one operate in plain sight often. In this case the leader profited outright from the money of new members that the broker person slept with. Yeah we know that is the structure of prostitution.
I’ll be interested to see how this story goes. Offering to heal sexual issues, and then re-traumatizing members was also in play, but how does one articulate that in the law?
At least forced labor is clearly something they could prove, due to many employee testimonies.
Unification Church – Hak Ja Han
During 2022 there was a deadly shooting of Abe, a politician who has been fundamental in bringing the Unification Church to Japan from South Korea. The shooter was a young man whose family was financially ruined by the donations his mother made to the church. This brought quite a bit to light.
The church is a South Korea based Christian sex cult, mixed with an armed militia and was endorsed by the White House in a ceremony years ago. Scary stuff. In November - according to Reuters, Japan may wish to dissolve the Unification Church in its country.
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, The Unification Church, founded by now deceased Sun Myung Moon, which is why they are sometimes referred to as the Moonies. His wife, Hak Ja Han is now in charge.
The church may lose its legal status as a religious organization in Japan, and tax benefits related to that. Japan still remembers Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995, and they were the first group to be disband by the country.
Many are happy that this cult is in the spotlight. The uncounted damages of forced marriage, severe requirements of devotion in time and finance to the group is very hard on members and its practices should be stopped. Listen to the Falling Out Pod to hear the details of concern from an adult child of this cult. He is a baby born out of the leader’s demand of members to procreate new sinless members of the religion and has a lot to say.
Kenya Christian Starvation Cult – Pastor Paul MacKenzie
The religious sect in Kenya – a Christian starvation cult – has reached a death toll of 400 and counting because of Pastor Paul MacKenzie, according to usnews.com. The President of Kenya said what happened was “akin to terrorism” and vowed to crack down on “those using religion to advance their heinous acts”.
Malindi was the location. The Pastor told its members to get close to God by fasting. They did so. LA Times reports that the leader has been found guilty of illegal filming but no charges are yet named in the hundreds of deaths his words have incurred.
If you don’t understand yet, people carry out incredibly horrible acts in the name of God and Jesus. One way to get away from that is to tap out. We cannot prove a prophet hears God or another dead soul of any kind. In that way, we as humans are vulnerable to “believing” strange things.
In June ABC.net reported that many bodies revealed in autopsy missing organs. It started with the discovery of a mass grave near the Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi locals naming it the “Shakahola Forest Massacre”. ABC states Pastor MacKenzie ordered followers to starve to death to “meet Jesus”.
When it changes you fundamentally, or may cause injury or death, its safe to say that a religious leader must not be able to influence you using religion. Freedom of religion is still a slippery slope here in the United States too.
In this case, there has been so little action, and so late, that we can now attribute 400 more to the Jesus death toll which leaders use to abuse others. As this investigation unfolds, I’d be interested to see what the motive was for taking hundreds of people out of existence. Cult thinking is dangerous, and criminals love it.
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