Latest news with #brainwashing
The Sun
28-06-2025
- The Sun
Sex cult brainwashed me into being a ‘bride' for a rapist… I thought he was God & was sucked in with love-bomb tactics
LIZ Cameron, 32, is a health sector project manager and author. she lives in Canberra, Australia. 'As I walked out of the bookshop, a smiling woman approached. 4 She was a foreign student studying Australian culture, she explained, and asked if I'd mind completing a survey. It was January 2011 and I was a shy, insecure 18 year old just starting my gap year. I had no idea she was from a cult – and that I'd get sucked in. I took the pen from the girl, who said her name was Yujun. The questions were easy, from what I liked about Australia to my religion, so I gave my answers then said goodbye, thinking no more of it. A week later, Yujun emailed more questions about my faith, as I'd said I was Christian. She told me my answers showed I was 'beautiful', which made me feel good. The next week, I went to her home for tea with her and her housemates. That was the start of the love-bombing – the hugs when I arrived for meals, their joy at me joining Bible sessions. Seeing how happy they were made me want to feel that way, too, so within a few months, I was getting up at 5am to pray, followed by a 6am service at their house and hours of Bible reading. Inside a 'mind-controlling' CULT which 'forced mum and daughter to hit each other' and chose Fiji as the 'promised land' My mum started to worry, but I reassured her I was fine. As the brainwashing took hold, the girls told me they belonged to Sarang Church and that its founder, Pastor Joshua, had been falsely imprisoned in South Korea because of his faith. Searching for information on him or the church was forbidden, though. I accepted this without question, even taking part in a 'heavenly bride' fashion show organised by the church. In September 2011, they revealed Pastor Joshua – also called Jung Myung-seok or SSN – was the Messiah. I was ecstatic when SSN wrote to me from prison to say he loved me, and I dreamed of being chosen to be a 'Faith Star' – one of his brides on Earth. I moved out of my parents' house that November to live with the group. I no longer saw any of my old friends, as the church had become my life. When my mum tried to show me research on the church in January 2012, I ran away, terrified – I'd been taught that even looking at it would be 'spiritual suicide'. 4 4 Another time, when my dad came to the house to see me, my housemate hid me in the back of a car and drove away, because nothing was more important than being spiritually pure. A few weeks later, a group of us flew to South Korea to meet SSN and, waiting in the prison, I was so nervous. Suddenly, there he was. He said how happy he was to see us, while I said in stilted Korean: 'I love you.' Deep down, I didn't actually feel any love during our meeting, but I blamed myself and prayed harder. Back home, I received letters from SSN, which had become sexual. I told myself he was the Messiah and everything he did was holy. One wrong thought could taint me, and to be saved I had to sleep less, pray more, eat little and exercise. Losing a dangerous amount of weight caused my organs to atrophy and, in January 2012, I ended up in hospital with an eating disorder. 'DEEPLY DECIEVED' Mum saved me by convincing the clinic to discharge me to her instead of the church, then by bringing me to a cult de-programmer. After two days of them talking to me about the tactics cults use, it hit me – Jung Myung-seok was in prison for raping and sexually assaulting three women, and I'd spent 18 months in his cult. Months of grief followed as I realised how deeply I'd been deceived. I began slowly rebuilding my life, meeting other cult survivors, making new friends and forging a career for myself. In 2023, Jung Myung-seok was convicted of further sexual assaults, including rape, and sentenced to an extra 23 years in prison. Leaving a cult isn't easy, but sharing my story helps.
Irish Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Serve: My Lost Years at the Heart of Ireland's Opus Dei: ‘Catholicism on cocaine'
Serve: My Lost Years at the Heart of Ireland's Opus Dei Author : Anne Marie Allen ISBN-13 : 978-1804582862 Publisher : Gill Books Guideline Price : €18.99 Young Anne Marie Allen thought Robert Redford was 'a fine bit of stuff altogether'. She inadvertently swore while watching her native Cork lose the 1982 All-Ireland hurling final on television. She wondered aloud why no money could be found to replace her only pair of shoes when the soles started flapping off. For all these 'mortal sins', Allen's strikingly angry memoir recalls, the Opus Dei members who had made her their unpaid skivvy warned that she and her family were on a one-way road to hell. Opus Dei has often been depicted as a sinister cult, most notoriously in Dan Brown's thriller The Da Vinci Code, which accuses its murderous leaders of suppressing Jesus Christ's marriage to Mary Magdalene. Serve's key message, however, is that the global Catholic organisation's brainwashing techniques can also damage lives on a much more mundane level. In plain, forceful prose, Allen explains how a modest village childhood in 1970s Ballyvourney left her ripe for exploitation. The headstrong 15-year-old hotel worker and her friend were seduced by an alluring newspaper advert: 'Cookery school, Galway, no fee, job guaranteed.' At Ballyglunin Park, she soon discovered that her new reality involved constantly preparing meals and washing clothes for Opus Dei's lofty 'numeraries' while receiving zero education or wages. READ MORE Allen's anguished account suggests she suffered a severe case of Stockholm syndrome. 'You have a vocation as big as a house,' she was repeatedly told, persuading her to adopt a drab, lonely regime she wryly calls 'Catholicism on cocaine'. She describes a litany of physical and psychological abuse, including being ordered to self-flagellate with a cilice (a spiked wire) that bit into her thigh for up to two hours a day. The story ends relatively happily with Allen leaving after six torrid years to forge a successful career in the Irish Prison Service, but she accepts that the mental scars from her own captivity may 'never fully heal'. Serve has some limitations. Allen often reconstructs decades-old conversations word-for-word, a technique that adds immediacy but feels deeply artificial. Today she is pioneering an international campaign of ex-Opus Dei domestic servants who want redress from the Vatican, but there is disappointingly little detail about that here. Allen's unvarnished testimony still makes for an urgent, powerful memoir – and a timely reminder that Pope Leo (who reportedly views Opus Dei benignly) has inherited a church with many sins left to confess.
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Americans accuse Peppa Pig of 'brainwashing' their children after US kids start using British slang
American parents have accused the popular children's TV show Peppa Pig of ' brainwashing' their children and changing their accents. As news of the birth of Mummy Pig's third child continues to fill media slots, British fans, parents and children alike, have expressed their joy in welcoming baby Evie to the world. But overseas, it seems not everyone is so doted on the newborn, with Americans taking to social media to lament their frustrations at the show, blaming it for having changed their children's accents. Writing on Reddit, one American parent blamed Peppa Pig for 'brainwashing my kid', saying their daughter had started imitating the cartoon character and had picked up on an English-style of speaking. Submitting their complaint on the forum page, the parent wrote: 'Last week my daughter kept calling her swimsuit her 'swimming costume.'' Horrified at the British utterance, the parent quickly corrected them on the Americanised version. 'I told her that we are American and in this country we say swimsuit,' they asserted. Asking the forum if they had shared similar experiences, they wrote: 'Anyone else notice their kids using British or Australian English terms because of Peppa Pig and Bluey?' Commenters shared the concern, with several others citing incidents of their brood imitating the cartoon pig, with others repeating anecdotes of children referring to 'swimming costumes'. 'Yes, we use swimming costume, 'the garden' instead of yard, and last year we grew tomatoes and she pronounced it with an accent. She doesn't really even watch Peppa much but those stuck,' one wrote. The impact was so felt viscerally by one parent that they 'banned' the show in their house, adding that they 'truly hate the little brother (George) so much'. Another frustrated parent complained: 'My daughter developed a habit of speaking out of the side of her mouth like the characters do in the show and that's when I put an end to it.' Though other parents looked on the linguistic changes more fondly. 'My kids picked up 'Holiday' instead of 'Vacation' and 'ready, steady, go!' instead of 'ready, set, go!',' shared one, while a another chimed in: 'My kid calls the backyard 'the garden' and I honestly think it's adorable.' 'One of my kids started saying petrol for gas, satnav for the GPS, holiday for vacation, and says zeb-ra instead of zee-bra!,' another explained. One Redditor shared: 'My kids call pants trousers now thanks to British kids shows, and they call each other cheeky monkeys.' 'Yes she mixes a lot of English/Australian accents which is mostly cute but ones that aren't cute are when she mimics 'STOPPPPP' or 'this is boring.' All from Peppa,' another complained. Despite the stern post, the Reddit poster maintained that they found the use of British terminology 'utterly charming'. They wrote: 'Just to be clear, I'm being snarky/cheeky with the title of this post. I thought it was utterly charming my kid used the British term. Other parents noted the impact of similar, extremely popular children's TV shows on their fledglings evolving accents, with some pointing to Bluey for instilling Australian style-speak. 'My 3 year old daughter likes to tell me I'm 'taking ages' during whatever task I'm doing so... Thanks Bluey.' Meanwhile, American youngsters have picked up on countless English-style words, including 'biscuits', 'Satnav', and describing 'the garden' as opposed to 'the yard'. It's not the first time that American parents have complained about the impact of Peppa Pig on their youngsters. Last year, countless parents furiously branded the cartoon a 'brat' and said she had taught their children 'rudeness and impatience.' Parents also reported their kids have become so obsessed with the cheeky cartoon they have adopted British accents and mannerisms. Kayla Tychen, a mother from Houston, said: 'Peppa is rude and impatient, and the show teaches kids that this is who she is and that it's OK. Another mother, Armita Asgari, 41, told The Wall Street Journal that 'Peppa is a brat' after she noticed a change in the way her five-year-old son Luca acts compared to a few months ago. The mother recalled that her son approached their neighbor and said: 'Look, David's got a big Tummy!' 'That was when I realized he had picked up all these behaviors from Peppa Pig.' The birth of Evie Pig was announced on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday. Welcoming the newest addition to their family at the Lindo Wing in London - the same location where Kate Middleton gave birth to all three of her children - a town crier has now officially announced the piglet's birth. Addressing the public from outside the hospital the town crier declared: 'Lend me your ears for news of the birth of a daughter to Mummy and Daddy Pig. Peppa and George have a baby sister and her name is Evie. 'Long live Evie Pig!'
