Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 78
moreover, objected to the marriage. Prominent FLDS members James Allred and Mica
Barlow have been jailed for contempt of court for failing to respond to a subpoena ordering
them to appear before a federal grand jury in Phoenix that is investigating Jeffs‘
whereabouts. Barlow is a deputy town marshal for the FLDS communities of Colorado City,
AZ, and Hildale, UT, while Allred is the postmaster. FLDS followers believe that ―to betray
leadership is an extreme sin‖ that could cost them their salvation. Jeffs‘ brother Seth has
pleaded guilty to providing the means for his brother to remain in hiding last year.
Gentle Wind Project
The Kittery, ME-based Gentle Wind Project has filed a new defamation suit against a Blue
Hill couple who run a website that accuses the ―healing‖ organization of controlling their
lives, taking tens of thousands of dollars from them, and sexually abusing them during their
17-year membership. The group‘s federal racketeering and defamation suit against the
couple was recently dismissed. The racketeering allegation was based on the fact that other
websites communicated with the couple and published their material.
Grigory Grabovoi
Grigory Grabovoi, the cult leader who promised to resurrect children killed in the Beslan
hostage tragedy, has been charged in Moscow with defrauding people who believed he had
special powers.
Hare Krishna (International Society for Krishna Consciousness)
Ten British MPs have joined Hindus around the world to protest Moscow City Hall‘s
withdrawal of a permit for the [Hare] Krishna to build a temple behind a supermarket in
the northern part of the city. Russian Orthodox authorities are hostile to the group, fearing
attempts to convert young people a letter to authorities from an archbishop described the
Hindu god Krishna as an ―evil demon.‖
A Moscow court has refused an appeal by the Hare Krishna movement to build in a ―prime‖
section of the city, a decision a Krishna representative said was politically motivated and
violated both the rights of ownership and religious freedom. A representative of the city
government said it was looking for another plot of land for the Krishna ―because everybody
understands that we cannot throw out the religious community on the street.‖ ...
Authorities in Almaty, Kazakhstan, accusing the Hare Krishna of illegally acquiring land
outside the capital, say they want to destroy several summer houses put up by the group
and possibly even expel it, said Krishna spokesman Maxim Varfolomeyev. The government
says the group simply failed to follow land regulation procedures, but Varfolomeyev accused
the government of religious persecution. The head of the Almaty Helsinki Committee [a
representative of the international human rights organization] agreed with Varfolomeyev
that the Krishna were targeted because the land in question was prime real estate. Largely
Muslim Kazakhstan has a tradition of religious tolerance, but lately has tightened laws on
religious organizations, fearing extremism. ...The New York State Supreme Court has
agreed with a zoning board ruling that a Hare Krishna couple cannot keep ―holy cows‖ in the
village of Angelica, not even if they conceive of the animals as pets and integral to the
practice of their religion. ...The Hare Krishna temple in New Vrindaban, WV, fallen into
decay thanks to internal schisms and scandal of the past, and down to only 100 residents,
was the site of a gathering of Indian devotees resident in the U.S. who appear to be the
mainstays today of an organization that drew counter-culture Americans into its fold in the
1960s and 1970s. It is uncertain how long New Vrindaban will survive, especially since it is
now devoting half its budget to pay its share of a large Krishna settlement with victims of
sexual abuse suffered at the movement‘s schools and communes.

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International Communion of Charismatic Churches
Earl Paulk, archbishop of the International Association of Charismatic Churches
(ICCC) has been forced to resign after a member of his local church — the 6,000-member
Cathedral at Chapel Hill, in Decatur, GA — charged him in a lawsuit with using his position
for many years to manipulate women to have sex with him as well as with members of his
family, and others, including visiting pastors. One of the litigants says Paulk persuaded her
that sex with him was her only route to salvation. The new ICCC presiding bishop said, ―It
appears Earl Paulk had become an entity unto himself. He answered to no one, and there
was no accountability for him, for other members of his family, or for his church staff.‖
Pastors of 13 independent charismatic churches in the Atlanta area stated, ―We offer a
deep-felt apology for tolerating this type of behavior and heretical teaching among those
who say they represent God.‖
Independence Party
New York‘s Independence Party has declared a ―zero tolerance‖ policy aimed at members
who make racist and anti-Semitic statements. The move comes after major candidates
seeking high office — U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and State Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer — said they would distance themselves from the Independence Party and reject its
support if it did not adopt such a policy. They were reacting to allegedly anti-Semitic
statements made in 2000 by Lenora Fulani, an Independence Party leader who was
removed from its executive committee last September.
Jehovah‟s Witnesses
A New York judge has ruled that the Jehovah‟s Witnesses must pay a former member
$400 per week in workman‘s compensation dating from an injury incurred in 1998 as she
was running to catch a bus at a church compound. The judge found that the woman, who
worked as a chiropractor for the group, was not a ―religious volunteer,‖ but ―engaged in a
number of work-like activities.‖ If the decision stands, religious organizations potentially
face millions of dollars in workers‘ compensation claims.
In her new book on her experience growing up among the Jehovah‟s Witnesses, ―Out of
the Cocoon: A Young Woman‘s Courageous Flight from the Grip of a Religious Cult,‖ Golden,
CO, resident Brenda Lee says writing it was a harrowing but therapeutic process. ―It really is
a destructive organization ...You‘re taught to hate the world, to see everybody else as
being led by Satan, that we are the only right religion, and to question or defy that is
turning your back on God,‖ she said.
A judge in Calgary has ruled that Lawrence Hughes can proceed with part of his wrongful
death suit against the Jehovah‟s Witnesses. His daughter Bethany died at 17 after
refusing on religious grounds to accept conventional treatment involving blood transfusions,
which the Witnesses oppose. The suit will be allowed to go forward not against the religious
group but against two lawyers who represented Bethany and her mother. The judge
dismissed a claim against the Watchtower Society (the corporate parent of the Jehovah‘s
Witnesses) because the suit did not question the sincerity of Bethany‘s belief, but rather
attacked the religious doctrine of the faith and the court, she said, could not be the arbiters
of religious dogma. ..The Witnesses are involved in an internal debate over apparent
contradictions in the organization‘s blood policy and over the issue of whether certain blood
‗fractions‘ — rather than blood‘s major components — are permitted in medical therapies.
Moscow police in April broke up a Jehovah‟s Witnesses prayer meeting at a rented hall. A
Witnesses spokesman said the police told him the worshippers were violating a 2004
Moscow ban on the group, deemed by authorities at that time to incite hatred or
intolerance.