Controversial networks (considered by some to be "cults") mumsnet readers need to be aware of

[hoodathunkit]

This is going to be a very long thread and posting it is very overdue

The word "cult" is quite loaded and obviously one person's religious movement or psychotherapy / life coaching / wellness organisation is another person's cult.

Sometimes cultic dynamics arise in family and extended family groups also, so the word "cult" can be a loaded and problematic one.

There is a lot I need to share here, this is made more urgent by the fact that, while I train hard and am fairly healthy, I do have underlying health problems that mean there is a chance I may not survive the comming storm.

I am somewhat dyslexic and have always struggled with spelling. I am pushed for time and do not trust spelling / grammar apps on my computer so I hope readers will forgive my occasional typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

I will be doing this in small, digestible posts for ease of reading.

I would say "enjoy!" but what I am about to share is not remotely enjoyable. This is going to be a thread of horrifying, dark, twisty rabbit holes with many network links to material other posters here have shared.

More to follow shortly

Thanks for this information, I will study it later. Let's hope the thread isn't pulled.

How fascinating that some people react to the posting in such negative terms.

Why is that I wonder?
it just makes it all the more intriguing.

.. it just makes it all the more intriguing...

Agree.

Never heard of any of these people or groups before.

Louis Theroux territory.

I will read more but tbh I have always seen Miss Martindale (or whatever she calls herself these days) as a kinkster with some odd beliefs. I've never taken her or any of her societies seriously.

I will have a read though and check out some of the links.

Thanks for posting OP - truly fascinating - and the way you have presented the timeline is clear - I have learnt quite a bit about a weird niche history so Thankyou - as someone upthread has said - this was a slightly odd (at best) group of fetish kinksters - which is fine as no one is being abused - n current times they will have got significant posts in major bodies - political parties charities or lobby groups

The OP says, in their OP, that they are unwell. They have offered us some content, for free, which we can choose to read, or not.
OP, get well soon. I liked your posting style.

thanks for your kind post, much appreciated :)

Just to clarify

I am an older poster with heart and lung conditions on top of a virus outbreak. There is no proper contact tracing or testing here so I do not know if I am infected.

I am not ill other than with asthma and a rare medical condition that I would rather not post about as it is outing

I exercise very seriously to stay well and so I hope that this storm will pass me by but I cannot be 100% confident until the storm has passed.

Things will get bad for me if I cannot get outside to exercise. I can and will exercise indoors but it will be very difficult.

If I do become unwell or die I will have over 10 years worth of research into sinister, child abusing, misogynist cults and psychotherapy quacks that may fall into the wrong hands or go to waste.

I was planning to make some films and podcasts but I am feeling the pressure of time as I do not want my work to go to waste

I am a trafficking survivor and have experienced trauma and mental health problems. I would never deny that part of my experience

One of my more painful, recent experiences relates to being gaslighted over money and bullying by various people, including family members, who were able to dismiss me as deluded as I have a history of mental health problems.

I would invite readers here to check out my links themselves and, if something does not make sense, just ask me and I will do my best to explain or clarify, as I always do.

Anyone calling me out in the disgusting, gaslighting manner that some posters have here, should feel free to post details of their mental health qualifications and their reasons for concluding that I am sufficiently mentally unwell to be taken seriously.

I am not under lock down yet but may be soon, simply because of my proximity to very elderly people whose vulnerabilities are more significant than my own and my proximity to an outbreak.

I hope that clarifies things :)

More to follow on this cult soon, however I must get this deep clean done in case I become ill and cannot do it later

Her later interview as a child psychologist is interesting though. No matter what her odd past is she always came across as very intelligent and able to look at different things with a sometimes bizarre approach.

Perhaps she has grown as a person and is now able to put all that past to bed.

Thanks for posting OP - truly fascinating - and the way you have presented the timeline is clear - I have learnt quite a bit about a weird niche history so Thankyou - as someone upthread has said - this was a slightly odd (at best) group of fetish kinksters - which is fine as no one is being abused - n current times they will have got significant posts in major bodies - political parties charities or lobby groups

You are very welcome

Thank you for your post :)

Some of the extremely concerning things about Miss Martindale or whatever she calls herself now is that

a) she works as a child psychotherapist
b) she is delivering LGBTQ training to social workers and MH professionals that is accredited with CPD credits
c) she is running women's empowerment circles

there is more, but the cleaning awaits

Perhaps she has grown as a person and is now able to put all that past to bed.

Of course people grow and change over time

However this woman is behind a diverse range of dubious websites that indicate that she has not changed at all

Sorry really have to go for now but please check the links in my earlier posts

Is she still behind the websites though (as in maintaining them)?
Or are they just old archived sites which still have her name (whatever it really is) on them.

I remember Hood from previous posts. She has extensive understanding and research around cults.

I completely understand her desire to ensure her work isn't lost before she can present it properly.

Her urgency to share means that her posts are a bit terse and incoherent, but her message is important and worth persevering with.

Thank you for posting this. I'm another one who doesn't understand the reaction of some people to your post.

Look after yourself

Hope you are okay hood as it sounds like you have a lot of worry with regards to this virus.

Your deep clean is a good idea. At the very least a nice clean home for isolation which is always good.

Am disappearing down the rabbit hole now about this woman. Weird....I always associated her with an 80s kink thing. Hadn’t realised she was still going.

Am cursing you now lol....I have so much to do and I am down a rabbit hole.

Anyway you probably know about this but here’s a flyer about a one woman show she did. From madness to sanity in which she explores her own mental health and talks a little bit about a damaged adolescence.

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4476685

Thank you for the kind and validating posts picklemewalnuts and Coyoacan

I very much appreciate it

DuckWillow

one rabbit hole leads to another, this is a gold mind of superficially amusing "oh Matron!" style carryon weirdness. Under the surface I think that there are serious abuses occurring.

The page you linked to is intersting however I would strongly suggest that readers check any websites related to this network via the archive or wayback machine

Just enter the url into archive.org or archive.is and link to that :)

I would like to share some very delicate and important information about this network. Anyone checking out the rabbit holes will find all kinds of fascinating and alarming things

This issue is something that has cropped up with a variety of Russian and Ukrainian cults that also have similar bizarre views about sex and gender.

The issue is the promotion of "Amazon women", often associated with theories about Atlantis and not infrequently with covert far right associations

Here is one of the many links re this subject promoted by this network

Atlantis the lost Empire
Schizomorphic Tellurian History is not our main concern: but since Atlantis plays a vital role in the very first activities of the militant Amazons (that is, the confederation of intemorphic feminine peoples with schizomorphic feminine-led peoples who fought against the early patriarchal revolution) and what we believe to be the first intervention of the Motherland in Tellurian affairs, it is necessary briefly to acquaint our readers with the history of Atlantis the lost empire.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110910153606/allgirlworlds.com/atlantis-the-lost-empire/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20110910153606/allgirlworlds.com/atlantis-the-lost-empire/

more to follow in a moment, I am alternating between cleaning and posting but have been getting up at 3-4 am to shop in the local 24 hour supermarket to avoid the coughing masses and am quite tired

A different controversial women's empowerment group from Ukraine, looks good on the surface but scratch the surface and it's all a bit stepford wives

more later

Ah, as soon as you uncover the link to the far right it all starts to make more sense. (Or about as much sense as many of these types of groups ever will to non believers.)
Many of the culty/groomy/get-heavily-invested type groups have their foundation in the far right. The far right has as many tentacles as an octopus, an interest in creating groups that control many people, and a vested interest in breaking up non far right controlled groups.

Hope you're okay, OP. Frightening times.

I will have a look at all these later, thanks for posting. The thing about cults is that people tend to think they are rarities - whereas cult-like behaviour and thinking is incredibly common. I suppose human vulnerabilities and behaviour must lend itself to the forming of - well, if not outright cults then certainly many groups with similar characteristics.

Also, while deep cleaning sounds sensible, please make sure you get enough rest, too!

I will have a look at all these later, thanks for posting. The thing about cults is that people tend to think they are rarities - whereas cult-like behaviour and thinking is incredibly common. I suppose human vulnerabilities and behaviour must lend itself to the forming of - well, if not outright cults then certainly many groups with similar characteristics.

Thank you for your post and I agree 100% about cults. They are all around us and can start up anywhere where power dynamics get out of hand, people in power ignore or encourage abuses and where dissent and concerns are swept under the carpet.

Very often they are able to thrive because they either threaten or reward those who could stop their activities.

This absolutely horrific news story is of great interest to me as it resonates in many ways and shares many themes with the cults I am interested in

It makes for extremely disturbing reading and reader caution / discretion is advised

www.thecut.com/2020/02/larry-ray-sarah-lawrence-students.html#_ga=2.96650075.538906204.1581534365-1417565073.1564944428

the story is now almost a year old and has resulted in a huge investigation and charges of rape and sex trafficking that can be easily found via google

Thank you for the concern also. I had to lie down as was exhausted. Not much cleaning done today but I needed to rest and to post here.

Some on lockdown will be bored out of their minds, this will not be a problem for me. I worry more that I might not have enough time, but will do the best I can to make the best use of my time

Ah, as soon as you uncover the link to the far right it all starts to make more sense. (Or about as much sense as many of these types of groups ever will to non believers.)

Many of the culty/groomy/get-heavily-invested type groups have their foundation in the far right. The far right has as many tentacles as an octopus, an interest in creating groups that control many people, and a vested interest in breaking up non far right controlled groups.

I honestly have to say that, while the promotion of a far right ideology is central to many of these groups, they also infiltrate the far left and environmental movements.

The force behind them seems to be simply to create chaos and disorder via a divide and conquer policy.

Everything is taken to extremes and we can see that very clearly via the astroturfing of LGB groups in the 70s and 80s and early 90s (and probably beyond) by sinster actors linked to the PIE.

Any good cause taken to extremes can become dangerous.

I met an "extreme green" activist fairly recently who is likely beside himself with joy about the coronavirus. He was actually praying for something like this to happen so as to reduce human presence all over the planet.

This is why it is so very important that we can hold the centre, preserve thinking and cognitive capacity and treaure debate and sharing of opposing views.

I am goint to take a bit of a rest now but thanks again for the posts, I have been through hell, quite literally, recently and I very much appreciate any kindness. I have been struggling in a very isolated place and I am dismayed that the isolation is going to deepen before there is any chance of it getting better

Cult dynamics are very much key to the ground level operation of a lot of what is occuring.
I'm not sure I've quite cottoned on to why they would be able to effect such root and branch institutional capture, and I suspect there may be other dynamics in play there.

FloralBunting

I have been studying cult dynamics from a distance and up close and personal for many years

I have so much to share about this. I just hope that I have time

One very important issue is the advent of the www and the ability to harvest data via online petitions and quizzes as well as to hack into people's purchasing banking and other private habits.

The advent of online pornography, apart from anything else, has facilitated the ability of malicious / criminal networks to harvest sensitive data that allows them to create psychological profiles of consumers at a deep level

Another central causal factor was the arrival of a terrifying, previously unknown illness in the 1980s. AIDS. I worked in sexual health, health promotion and HIV prevention in the midst of the "Don't die of ignorance" campaign.

The effect of AIDS cannot be underestimated. I will start another thread on this when I have a moment

bye for now, as I'm taking a little break to indulge in some brain bleach :)

Take good care, hood. Several of us here happy to help if you want to chat, I'm sure.

I'm another one who doesn't understand the reaction of some people to your post.

I had read the early posts and fascinating links, then came across two posters who were astonishingly negative, one of whom tried to suggest you were out of your mind hooda.

I concluded very quickly that you might have hit on something important that people would prefer was not seen.

I can’t archive. I hope others will do so.

I get what you are saying too - I think some posters have been quite rude and not prepared to spend a minute or two considering your content. I didn't click on the videos, but I read one of the text links.

Cults are far more common than many people realise. Three of my friends/family members have had brushes with cult-like organisations or religious leaders displaying cult-like qualities. All occurring in young adulthood.

How unsurprising that one of the individuals wanting to hang around in an all-female, school-girl society turned out to be a man in disguise . It's certainly nothing new: medieval literature has plenty of bawdy jokes about nuns, men getting into the nunnery etc. Invading female space in disguise for sexual purposes.

Keep posting. You have just as much right to post here as anyone else.