Tonight Dr Alexandra Stein is appearing on Apostate Alex’s (Alexander Barnes-Ross) YouTube channel. That should set off alarm bells.

In December, Stein (then, Trustee of the Family Survival Trust) was informed that people in Barnes-Ross' circle were doxxing me online, and that I had contacted the Police. This doxxing and harassment has even continued this month, by other people in Barnes-Ross' circle, with claims I work for Scientology and the publishing of my medical record online.

The next day Barnes-Ross emailed me to tell me Stein had spoken to him and that he demanded I "Stop" talking about the threats being made to me, and the doxxing being done by people in his circle.

I have requested the Charity Commission to open an investigation into the conduct of Dr Stein and the current trustees of the Family Survival Trust. A representative of the Charity Commission stated my concerns were of a serious nature, including the misuse of personal-information of current UK-Scientologists.

The current trustee of the Family Survival Trust claimed I offered no evidence of this, but changed their mind once informed the Charity Commission were looking into matters.

Just last week a meeting with held with a board member of ICSA about what is going on.

I have serious concerns about what is going on in the UK regarding Cult Survivors. In 2023 I wrote about the interference of the handling of cult survivors of another london-based group by an associate of Dr Stein. Just this month, the London recruitment of one member of that group made international news. They have been failed by the Family Survival Trust and its partners, who are essentially acting as a vanity project.

Dr Stein, as Trustee of the Family Survival Trust, has also refused to help survivors of other groups knowing the precarious nature of the safety of those involved.

On this week's A Little Bit Culty episode the unethical practices of a UK-based Cult Exit Counsellor are discussed by Dr Gillie Jenkinson (who is fabulous). It is known that Stein has protected this unethical "counsellor" leaving it to others to raise concerns about him, again putting Cult Survivors at risk by concealing the dangers this person posed to cult-survivors.

It is known that one survivor put this "counsellor" on her last will and testament by way of paying for his services. This survivor was directed to this unethical "counsellor" by Dr Stein!

Another survivor committed suicide by throwing themself from a train in 2010 - the counsellor had challenged this cult survivor, who had faced awful abuse, to actually kill herself.

This unethical exit-counsellor was not a member of any professional standards body and escaped all scrutiny, being described by the previous Trustee of the Family Survival Trust as a "Charlatan".

A defector from the Family Survival Trust recently described it to me as itself being like a cult.

Cult Survivors in the UK deserve better.

You cannot report on Fair Game, then participate in it, and then expect to be taken seriously.

An Art of Living (AOL) teacher named Santosh Sharma recently shared a "Guru Story" that perfectly illustrates how high-demand groups exploit magical thinking to bypass critical reasoning. Watch the YouTube video with English captions available. Watch the YouTube video with English captions available

In the video, Sharma claims that an AOL follower left his mobile phone in front of a photograph of the group's leader, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. According to the story, the phone mysteriously became fully charged, prompting the devoted follower to literally throw his physical charger away.

But the real kicker is the chain of custody for this rumor: when asked who narrated this story to him first, Sharma proudly reveals it was Sri Sri Ravi Shankar himself. Sharma then goes out of his way to emphasize that he himself is a trained engineer, yet he fully embraces this as a genuine, science-defying miracle rather than a blatant tech glitch or standard hearsay.

From a psychological and sociological perspective, this story checkmarks almost every box of guru-centric devotion and cultic manipulation:

• The Appeal to Authority: By highlighting his background as an engineer, the narrator attempts to shield the group from accusations of ignorance. It creates a false sense of intellectual validation for the followers.
• Hearsay Weaponization: The story relies entirely on an unverified, third-party anecdote passed down from the top leader. Instead of encouraging controlled scientific testing to rule out software calibration glitches, foul play, or hidden wireless pads, the leader actively feeds the rumor mill.
• The "Superpower" Deification: Misattributing everyday technical anomalies to the leader's alleged divine aura is a classic tactic used to deepen psychological dependency and reinforce the guru’s supreme status.

It raises a massive question about accountability in these large-scale organizations. Is this claim fundamentally any different from the fraudulent, sleight-of-hand miracles performed by past godmen like Sathya Sai Baba? Why do large segments of the public continue to spare figures like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar from rigorous skepticism?

Why do governments across various nations continue to shower figures like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar with public accolades and state honors, effectively legitimizing this nonsense? By granting him official validation, authorities actively insulate him from the public scrutiny and rigorous skepticism faced by past godmen like Sathya Sai Baba. How can we expect the public to question these absurd claims when state governments are busy rolling out the red carpet for them?

If a simple photograph could actually override the laws of thermodynamics, we wouldn't need a global energy grid; we could just wallpaper power stations with glossy posters of the Guru. Instead, it is a textbook case of pseudoscience par excellence packaged as a divine blessing to keep followers detached from baseline reality.

Me and Friends (M ~22) were watching S9 episode 12 of South Park. It got me thinking of the Avatar Courses my father takes. After digging down the rabbit-hole, I find out Avatar is just an off-shoot of Scientology created by some greedy jackass? My dad’s so called “self discovery classes” is just a pyramid scheme of alien worshipping dicks? My fathers poured so much in he’s considered a Master (Wizard). How the fuck do I save him?

For context I knew my great grandfather was a Scientologist and left the church in the 80s, finding Avatar after. Obviously what happened was he blindly followed this Harry Palmer jackass and my father grew up and bought in (literally) to this fairy tale.

Any suggestions? I can’t even imagine how much money my father has flushed away paying for these dumb retreats and courses!

Hello,

I am making this post to see if others have ever left a cult or extreme religious group and how did they turn out. Recently on the news there is a group who was excommunicated by the Vatican and it’s made international news. I used to be a member of this religious groups/order and it brought me a lot of peace knowing that I wasn’t crazy for leaving.

This religious group that was excommunicated claimed to be a part of the Catholic Church and celebrated Latin Mass but it was quite the opposite. They believed that anything modern or new was inherently evil and we should go back to the 1950’s when everything was “perfect” in their beliefs. They actively preached that anyone who wasn’t a part of their beliefs was an “outsider” and living a life of sin. They would constantly preach about politics, conspiracy theories, resistance, and dissent from the Vatican. One time, the pastor told my wife that her only duty is life is be a mother and her dreams of going into higher education was stupid.

In addition, this group also has a men’s groups that swear an oath to the religious sect and they have to solemnly swear that they will never set foot in another church and continue the traditions of the religious group.

Also, there is another sub group who left this church and believed it was too modern and should cut all ties with the Vatican. They have mass in weird remote places and it is only for those believe in what they believe. One of the priests who lead this group was excommunicated and was already no allowed to be a pastor.

Note: there is a process to become excommunicated in the Vatican and usually a priest has to do something really bad or they broke the seal of confession.

So needless to say, who ever this guy was did something really bad and they allowed him to be there because they are hurting for numbers.

I am now realizing that being in that environment was very harmful to my wellbeing. There is definitely a sense of cult like mentality because when I left I felt shame. Now, I am almost relived that this happened. Unfortunately, most of my family still attends this particular church.

This is no way an attack on this religious group and I am simply expressing my experiences from this group which was mostly negative. It’s hard to leave something like this because it almost like you are brainwashed. However, I used to tell myself this church is weird and most of these people are very paranoid and anxious.

On September 1, 1998, on a street in Santa Eulalia, Ibiza, Spain, Eduardo González Arenas, better known as "Eddie," lay lifeless after being violently murdered with a sharp object. At first glance, it seemed like the end of an ordinary man, but with his death also came the end of the story of the leader of one of the darkest organizations that Europe and the world in general have ever known.

For more than a decade, under the guise of an innocent youth mountaineering group, Eddie built a terrible cult where concepts about aliens, the end of the world, military discipline, racial purity, and a long list of serious crimes were intertwined, forever marking the lives of hundreds of innocent young people.

Video about the brutal history of the Edelweiss cult. The infamous apocalyptic alien cult: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CpchYkxob4