-
9 votes
-
Two documentaries about Twin Flames Universe. Is the Michigan based group a new cult?
Prime has the documentary "Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe" while Netflix is running "Escaping Twin Flames" which were produced by different investigative reporters but...
Prime has the documentary "Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe" while Netflix is running "Escaping Twin Flames" which were produced by different investigative reporters but take a similar approach to exposing this new group. Both rely on the testimony of ex members of the group to expose the founders power and control and how things changed when the group wasn't working out as they planned.
Apparently the group has a strong presence on facebook and there is also an entire reddit sub for its adherents.
I watched both of these multi part documentaries and was fascinated by the origin and rise of this group. The founders, Jeff and Megan (who now goes by Shaleia) are preying on the desperation of mostly female followers who are desperately seeking their 'one and only true love', their "twin flame". Using a technique of turning all hurts and pains inward the pair asserts they will help heal people who will practice their 'mirroring' technique.
But it starts to get really strange. Shaleia appears to be the one who started with the 'spiritual' aspect of the enterprise and Jeff appears to be the one with a fervent entrepreneurial bent who has turned it into a money making proposition.
They were living in a run down apartment when they began, but now a few years later, have bought a large home with a lake view in Michigan, with Jeff boasting about his Corvette and Porsche in the driveway. Even stranger, they have people living and working in their house to keep their enterprise running. There are shades of other religious communities with a strong 'messianic' leader that have started this way with Waco being mentioned in the documentary. Jeff even suggests, very strongly, that he may be the Christ.
The adherents pay for private or group facetime sessions with Jeff and Shaleia and are encouraged to take their video courses, which can be anywhere from $100 to $8,888. And those who have taken on the role of being life coaches under them are also encouraged to find more life coaches - it seems to be a combination of multi level marketing, religion and some kind of mass delusional 'teaching' to desperate and gullible people.
Jeff and Shaleia encourage people in their group to cut off relationships with anyone who is not supportive of Twin Flames, a sure sign of a cult, and there are several testimonials from hurting parents who are desperate to be back in touch with their children.
And in probably the strangest twist, when very few people were finding their "twin flame" to be responding, Jeff proclaimed that their twin flame already was part of the group - but since most of the group were women, he insisted that several of the women pair up and that one of them was now a "divine male", to the point of asking some to change their clothes, hair and go by a new male name.
It's all quite fascinating, and I couldn't believe that in an age where information on cults and cult activity is so easy to find, that so many people would be sucked into Twin Flames Universe and not see the control and manipulation going on in their lives.
Both are well worth watching but if you only have time for one, I'd recommend Prime's documentary - seems to be a bit more professionally produced.
17 votes -
A Qanon cult set up a compound in a small town. The locals are fighting back.
81 votes -
The giant propaganda show that’s in almost every city
12 votes -
The Trump phenomenon (and many others) in one Casey & Andy comic strip
3 votes -
Leader of feces-eating cult arrested after eleven dead bodies discovered during raid
9 votes -
The cult in a boarding school
3 votes -
Former Cult Member Hears Music For The First Time (2020)
6 votes -
A cult leader known as ‘Mother God’ was found mummified
11 votes -
Inside the social media cult that convinces young people to give up everything
14 votes -
We need to speak honestly about the GOP’s evolution into a conspiracy cult
33 votes -
The prophecies of Q: American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase
6 votes -
The paranoid style in American politics: It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it (1964)
5 votes -
My teenage life after leaving a cult
5 votes -
The unlikeliest cult in history
11 votes -
Good faith: How queer BDSM and sex work helped me to refuse an inheritance of indoctrination
9 votes -
Swedish sect murder case set to feature in HBO documentary
7 votes -
Mankind, unite!
6 votes -
My childhood in a cult
6 votes -
'Before you know it, it's not a big deal to kill a man': Norwegian black metal's murderous past
9 votes -
Stepping into the uncanny, unsettling world of Shen Yun
25 votes -
Jonestown’s victims have a lesson to teach us, so I listened
10 votes -
Wild Wild Country: A Netflix documentary about the free love cult that took over an Oregon town in the 80s
9 votes -
After the Rev. Moon died in 2012, his church split apart. Two of his sons established a new congregation. Their followers are eagerly awaiting the end times. And they are armed.
5 votes