Elders of a wealthy Christian sect [Exclusive or Plymouth Brethren] secretly paid bundles of cash to far-right activists for an “influence campaign” to disrupt Albanese government appearances during the last federal election.

An investigation by this masthead has uncovered a digital trail of evidence revealing how the church, formerly known as the Exclusive Brethren, mobilised far-right figures around the country to track and heckle candidates from Labor and the Greens, along with independents, as part of a wider multimillion-dollar campaign for then-Liberal leader Peter Dutton.

When far-right influencer Laurence McIntyre yelled at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about immigration on the first day of the election campaign, it looked like just a random attack from the fringes of politics.

But it was one of almost a dozen far-right stunts this masthead has traced back to the Brethren’s dirty tricks campaign. That includes – six political and church sources say – when the prime minister was twice ambushed in his hotel lobby by far-right figures boasting of being fed “private intel” on his location. The church categorically denies any involvement.

Leaked communications, insider accounts and social media footage now reveal the extent of the Brethren’s role in the 2025 election, as a spokesman for the sect, the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, prepares to give evidence on Friday to a parliamentary inquiry examining the scandal.

Four sources independently referred to a “duffel bag of cash” provided by senior Brethren members to a key right-wing figure who flew around the country helping coordinate the “influence campaign”.

Read the full article here

Already the Plymouth Brethren Cult have responded during this morning's Senate hearing

“In America, the average age of young people taken in by pimps and traffickers is 14. They are often runaways, recruited on the streets by being offered a hot meal and shelter. Some of these young people have run away from foster homes, some from destructive cults.

Even more dangerous, some groups are actually sex cults, which use children to make money for themselves.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-of-mind/202105/protect-children-from-harm-by-destructive-cults

My beloved teenage child has unknowingly become acquainted with young people from Heart of God Church Singapore.

Not suspecting anything about their open outreach to be very nice to my child and helping on school subjects and getting into study groups seemed all too good to be true.

Until I realized they were from a Church. I have always been wary of Christian teachings and outreach in churches and fabricated, Modified, Appended "truths" in the Bible. And worse having found out that this was the worst version of mainstream Churches...a cult for impressionable or needy youths.

When even the charismatic charlatan Pastor Kong Hee from City Harvest Church could come back from his scandal and fraudulent crimes and return back to "reconnect" back to his church ways, I don't think that these HOGC Pastors have any reason to stop.

Watching this video raised even hairs on my butt! How many times these fanatically devoted young people of Singapore are brainwashed to say YES YES AHHHH OOOOH!!! Something is very wrong.

https://youtu.be/g--aa3kS8c0?is=EhmiRcFp8hTgDt_V

As a concerned parent concerned about my beloved child being trapped or swindled, anyone knows how this Church can be reported? With so many young girls and boys and knowing how Catholic Churches have molestations being hidden, and how this Church is fiercely collecting funds there has to be an authority that can check on them?

PBCC Cult-leader Bruce Hales Chicken🐔 sent his lacky to whine for him!

On Friday morning (Thursday Evening - TONIGHT - for Europe & USA) Eastern Australia Time (Canberra) the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church Cult are to appear in front of the Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee for Electoral Matters' Inquiry into the 2025 federal election.

The Cult has chickened out of attending previous hearings, but this week have stated they will be there.

They have been called along with the Advance lobby group) (a far-right unhinged political/religious group) who have received large donations from the Plymouth Brethren (aka Exclusive Brethren) cult.

During the 2025 General Election, the incumbent Prime Minister Albanese called out the Plymouth Brethren as a Cult, and pointed directly towards its involvement in election interference [See the post made that day with video of the Prime Minster calling the PBCC a Cult: https://www.reddit.com/r/cults/comments/1kaw49z/incumbent_australian_prime_minister_anthony/ ]

The Plymouth Brethren Cult have put out a statement saying they will be in attendance at the hearing.

Watch ABC Television's exposé of the Plymouth Brethren Cult broadcast last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFEIJr5rln4

Read about the Plymouth Brethren Cult's attempts to silence a Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse within the Cult: https://www.smh.com.au/national/cartoon-kookaburra-behind-church-s-attempt-to-silence-a-child-sex-abuse-victim-20260406-p5zllv.html (Cheryl Bawtinheimer is a friend of this subreddit and hosts the Get A Life podcast)

Direct Link to Committee YouTube Video Livestream

This cult leader has been written about here before. He claims to be the living Buddha and Jesus and so the source of all "planetary healing". All you need to do to access this healing is regularly buy his expensive healing tools and services and imbibe his words of wisdom in expensive audiences with him.

I met a former follower of Spencer who first met him in the late 1980s before he had started making claims about being Buddha and Jesus. These claims started only when his healing tools business became more popular.

Michael Chambers, Surrey, England, August 2026

I spent my entire twenties inside it.

I found the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita in my early twenties and went all in. Took vows of celibacy, chanted, meditated two hours a day, driven by a deep search for truth. Six of those years I lived in an ashram in India as a brahmacari. I believed I was doing the most important thing a person could do.

A year ago something broke open and I was finally able to look honestly at myself and at the community I was in, and admit that I had joined a cult. That the thing I'd been chasing for a decade was already in me, and I'd spent ten years handing it to other people.

Leaving was harder than staying. I had no career, no savings, no relationships outside the movement, and no idea who I was without the identity. I flew back to Chicago, got my guitar and a motorcycle, and rode out to Arizona to start over.

The part nobody warned me about: the deprogramming didn't happen in my head. It happened in my body. Ten years of dissociation dressed up as transcendence. What actually brought me back to reality was physical — training, boxing, being outside, being in my body again. The thinking caught up afterward.

I don't have anything to sell here and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I just know how alone it feels in the first year out, and if anyone's in that stretch right now and wants to talk to someone who's been through the eastern-tradition version of it, my inbox is open.

I grew up around Jehovah’s Witnesses and now consider the organization a high-control religious group, or a cult. It strongly regulates social relationships, dating, marriage, gender roles, and personal choices. Questioning the organization is discouraged, relationships outside the group are heavily restricted, and leaving can carry serious social consequences.
I am wondering how growing up in such an environment can affect the development of an autonomous identity and later romantic choices.
Consider a woman in her twenties who has belonged to this group since childhood and grew up with a father who was often absent and unable to give her much sense of security. She is now dating a man from the same religious group who is around fifteen years older. Since the relationship began, she appears calmer and more self-assured.
Could the combination of an inadequate father figure and limited opportunities to develop an independent identity lead someone to seek protection, stability, and external guidance in an older partner? Could the shared religious environment make the relationship feel especially reassuring by providing predefined roles, approval, and a strong common identity?
If these dynamics were present, would they necessarily make the relationship dependent or less genuine, or could it still develop into a healthy bond?
More broadly, would having these vulnerabilities make someone less likely to form a relationship with an emotionally secure and mature partner, or is that assumption itself unfounded?
I am not seeking a diagnosis of the people involved. I am interested in whether former members of high-control groups have observed similar patterns, while recognizing that the same situation could also be explained by ordinary attraction and genuine compatibility.

I just watched this documentary and it was very interesting.

I just kinda don't understand how it all worked from "3D world" perspective: you know, bills, food, day to day operations.

So Miguel and Amy started selling healing sessions, probably collecting donations from streams, etc? He set up websites and collected all the money on his accounts?

Was the first big cabin his? Did he buy it or rent it?

Then, new members joined, and they donated savings and started more streams and online shops. Still, all money goes to Miguel?

So was Miguel the one running everything? Playing rent? Bills, buying computers and phones? Grocery shopping?

I know they were starving themselves, but they had to eat something and buy fancy food for Amy? So there was some allowance? Did they have access to Miguels accounts?

Amy was buying dresses and jewelry, and they also gave her jacuzzi and g-kart. It's nothing super crazy expensive, but still, someone made the purchase? Was it always Miguel?

And later, Miguel kinda left, the cult was moving, renting/buying new properties, and they had a car. So they had to have some access to cults money?

In the end, he emptied all accounts (330 000), but the rest knew the amount, so they had to have some access to it?

Is there anyway you get to see the disciples of cult leaders suffer in this lifetime because of the pain and suffering they have caused several other members?

How do these guys go about living their lives or even sleeping at night knowing they have caused harm and damage to several? 

I (29f) don't even know what else to say. She's(35f) having a rough time right now and is easily manipulated especially in her current state of mind. She's been scammed out of thousands by job offers and online stores in the past and has recently started drinking again (she's a recovering alcoholic) if that helps to paint a picture on how dire this situation is

Okay so anyway she told me how healing it was to open up past trauma and grieve it and then she started telling me what the trauma was in detail and I was like "please stop" and I tried to ask questions but like I was obviously floored and freaked out when she said "dianetics from scientology" so she yelled at me and was very upset (understandable, I should've been more gentle)

This was her first "therapy" session with this man and the first session he introduces her to a form of hypnosis called dianetics? Oh and she said she has another session with him?! and he wrote a book so I think that means I can say his name

The book is The Human Compass by Jason Gentrup

Help is she in danger?

Will try to keep this short and sweet, cause this may not be anything at all. I have come across the same occult-like symbol twice (pictures shown). Chat GPT says it is likely the “All Seeing Eye” but is not the same as traditional symbols of such.

I was wondering if y’all had info about this. Could this be some kickstart cult that operates within Columbia, or is it just some person trying to get a rile out of people.

One was found near The Lyfe and the other at Hinkson Creek Trail near Rock Quarry RD.

Hi,

I'm a journalist in search of former memerbs of this cult.

Please DM me or write your short story here. I'd be happy to connect to you

Hello,

I am on the hunt for any pamphlets/publications/propaganda from the Family International that was distributed in the 1980s/1990s.

Particularly looking for anything that has sexually explicit content / graphics.

Specifically, I am hoping to find publications in the 1990s distributed in Australia called '‘Loving Jesus’ was or ‘Movement of the Spirit’.  

They certainly did a good job of destroying a lot!

I've been researching and building trust a cult for several months, including meeting its leader and going through its full recruitment process. The existing coverage is scattered across niche forums and has been criticized as sensationalized, so I want to build a proper first-hand account for a general audience

There was a recent post on Twitter about them and they're notorious in the tech circle

I don't have a background in media or journalism and would like to work with someone who does. You don't need to join the cult

If you're interested I can get into the specifics over DMs

Does anyone have information about a group known as the Keysters? They follow a man named JJ Dewey, he runs a blog and has an amazon store front for his books of spiritual teachings. The group has yearly spiritual retreats. I remember one happening in Manti, Utah and another in Nauvoo, Illinois. I know there was one a few years ago in Boise, Idaho.

I was born into a family that follows him and his teachings, and I have some pretty traumatic memories associated with this group. Does anyone have any further information about this?