34 ICSA TODAY
The Australian Taxation Office says it
will increase its civil claims against
fugitive Agape Ministries leader
Rocco Leo, who has allegedly failed
to pay $1.7 million in income tax for
2010. According to the same court
documents, his associate, Joseph
Veneziano, owes $700,000 and Agape
Ministries itself owes $1.6 million.
Defendants’ lawyers say they want to
meet with the tax office to determine
whether the Ministry is a religious
institution and whether it must pay
taxes. (ABC News, 6/5/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Amish sect leader Sam Mullet
accuses Ohio prosecutors of trying to
prejudice the jury in his upcoming
trial by including in the indictment
descriptions of conduct not
mentioned in the charges against
him, which allege that he committed
hate crimes when he cut off beards
of fellow Amish. The descriptions to
which he objects refer to his sexual
practices—he sleeps with members’
wives to teach them how to be
sexually satisfied in marriage—
and to corporal punishment and
self-deprivation practiced in his
community. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
5/11/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Naoko Kikuchi, a former member of
Aum Shinrikyo who assisted in the
1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo
subway, was arrested in June after 17
years on the run. She said she’s
relieved because she doesn’t have to
hide her identity anymore. Nearly 200
Aum members have been convicted
of involvement in the gas attack and
other crimes, and only one remains at
large. (klfy.com, 6/4/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The whereabouts of Prakashanand
Saraswati, founder of the Barsana
Dham ashram and temple in Texas,
are still unknown a year after he
disappeared in the wake of his
conviction on 20 counts of “indecency
with a minor by sexual contact.”Texas
authorities continue to search for
him in Mexico. (Austin American-
Statesman, 3/5/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Wiley Brooks, founder of the
Breatharian Institute of America,
says that, under proper conditions, a
person can live without food, as he
claims to have done for 30 years. “If
food is so good for you, how come
the body keeps trying to get rid of it?
Eating is an acquired habit… all of
the constituents we need [in order to
live] are taken from the air we
breathe.” However, based on a
consultation with Brooks, for which
the minimum fee is $10,000, living
without food requires reaching a
certain spiritual level. (Montreal
Gazette, 7/2/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In Australia, Ellen Greve’s Cosmic
Internet Academy, which teaches
that “pranic nourishment” is the
answer to world hunger, charges
$2,000 for enlightening seminars on
eliminating all food—except, in
Greve’s case, tea and an occasional
bit of chocolate or ice cream, which
she eats when she needs what she
terms a “taste orgasm.” (Montreal
Gazette, 5/25/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Following the demise of Colonia
Dignidad in 1997, more than one
hundred of the cult’s survivors,
repatriated from Chile to their
ancestral roots near Duesseldorf,
are now pressing for a German
investigation into the activities of
Dr. Hartmut Haupt, who they say
sexually abused 25 children in the
cult before he fled to Krefeld,
Germany. They plan to sue the
Chilean and German states for failing
to protect them despite decades of
warnings about life in Colonia
Dignidad, detailed here in the
testimony of former residents who
suffered under the authoritarian
and sadistic rule of the late Paul
Schaeffer. Today, Colonia Dignidad,
renamed Villa Baviera, is a tourist
destination administered by the
Chilean government, which provides
compensation to the cult’s victims.
Aging survivors who still reside there
now relax and watch television,
which was forbidden in Schaeffer’s
time. (Reuters, 5/9/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Deepak Chopra’s writings on mind-
body medicine represent a belief in
faith healing, which modern science
for a very long time has discredited.
The key components of Chopra’s
philosophy [analyzed at length and
critiqued in this article] are two:
First, he views the body as a
quantum mechanical system, and
uses comparisons of quantum
reality with Eastern thought to
guide us away from our Western,
Newtonian-based paradigms. ...he
then sets out to convince us that
we can alter reality through our
perceptions, and admonishes us to
appreciate the unity of the
universe. If we allow ourselves to
fully grasp these lessons, ...we will
then understand the force of
intelligence permeating all of
existence—guiding us ever closer
to fulfillment.
(eSkeptic, 6/6/12)
Press Summaries
Joseph F. Kelly, News Desk Editor
The Australian Taxation Office says it
will increase its civil claims against
fugitive Agape Ministries leader
Rocco Leo, who has allegedly failed
to pay $1.7 million in income tax for
2010. According to the same court
documents, his associate, Joseph
Veneziano, owes $700,000 and Agape
Ministries itself owes $1.6 million.
Defendants’ lawyers say they want to
meet with the tax office to determine
whether the Ministry is a religious
institution and whether it must pay
taxes. (ABC News, 6/5/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Amish sect leader Sam Mullet
accuses Ohio prosecutors of trying to
prejudice the jury in his upcoming
trial by including in the indictment
descriptions of conduct not
mentioned in the charges against
him, which allege that he committed
hate crimes when he cut off beards
of fellow Amish. The descriptions to
which he objects refer to his sexual
practices—he sleeps with members’
wives to teach them how to be
sexually satisfied in marriage—
and to corporal punishment and
self-deprivation practiced in his
community. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
5/11/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Naoko Kikuchi, a former member of
Aum Shinrikyo who assisted in the
1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo
subway, was arrested in June after 17
years on the run. She said she’s
relieved because she doesn’t have to
hide her identity anymore. Nearly 200
Aum members have been convicted
of involvement in the gas attack and
other crimes, and only one remains at
large. (klfy.com, 6/4/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The whereabouts of Prakashanand
Saraswati, founder of the Barsana
Dham ashram and temple in Texas,
are still unknown a year after he
disappeared in the wake of his
conviction on 20 counts of “indecency
with a minor by sexual contact.”Texas
authorities continue to search for
him in Mexico. (Austin American-
Statesman, 3/5/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Wiley Brooks, founder of the
Breatharian Institute of America,
says that, under proper conditions, a
person can live without food, as he
claims to have done for 30 years. “If
food is so good for you, how come
the body keeps trying to get rid of it?
Eating is an acquired habit… all of
the constituents we need [in order to
live] are taken from the air we
breathe.” However, based on a
consultation with Brooks, for which
the minimum fee is $10,000, living
without food requires reaching a
certain spiritual level. (Montreal
Gazette, 7/2/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In Australia, Ellen Greve’s Cosmic
Internet Academy, which teaches
that “pranic nourishment” is the
answer to world hunger, charges
$2,000 for enlightening seminars on
eliminating all food—except, in
Greve’s case, tea and an occasional
bit of chocolate or ice cream, which
she eats when she needs what she
terms a “taste orgasm.” (Montreal
Gazette, 5/25/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Following the demise of Colonia
Dignidad in 1997, more than one
hundred of the cult’s survivors,
repatriated from Chile to their
ancestral roots near Duesseldorf,
are now pressing for a German
investigation into the activities of
Dr. Hartmut Haupt, who they say
sexually abused 25 children in the
cult before he fled to Krefeld,
Germany. They plan to sue the
Chilean and German states for failing
to protect them despite decades of
warnings about life in Colonia
Dignidad, detailed here in the
testimony of former residents who
suffered under the authoritarian
and sadistic rule of the late Paul
Schaeffer. Today, Colonia Dignidad,
renamed Villa Baviera, is a tourist
destination administered by the
Chilean government, which provides
compensation to the cult’s victims.
Aging survivors who still reside there
now relax and watch television,
which was forbidden in Schaeffer’s
time. (Reuters, 5/9/12)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Deepak Chopra’s writings on mind-
body medicine represent a belief in
faith healing, which modern science
for a very long time has discredited.
The key components of Chopra’s
philosophy [analyzed at length and
critiqued in this article] are two:
First, he views the body as a
quantum mechanical system, and
uses comparisons of quantum
reality with Eastern thought to
guide us away from our Western,
Newtonian-based paradigms. ...he
then sets out to convince us that
we can alter reality through our
perceptions, and admonishes us to
appreciate the unity of the
universe. If we allow ourselves to
fully grasp these lessons, ...we will
then understand the force of
intelligence permeating all of
existence—guiding us ever closer
to fulfillment.
(eSkeptic, 6/6/12)
Press Summaries
Joseph F. Kelly, News Desk Editor
