=== Falun Gong
1. Scores Detained in Falun Gong Anniversary Protests
2. Falun Gong mass arrest
3. Falun Gong Members Detained While Commemorating Protest Anniversary
4. Beijing 'losing propaganda war on sect'
5. Rise and Fall
6. Falun Gong defiant in HK
7. Falun Gong Calls for Talks With Chinese Government
8. Falun Gong Withstands Challenge

=== Aum Shinrikyo
9. Raid on AUM companies nets only 40,000 yen
10. Aum-linked firms nailed for taxes

=== Ho-no-ha-na Sanpogyo
11. Police grill high-ranked Ho-no-Hana members

=== Unification Church
12. Moonies pay out in carrot-juice fiasco

=== Waco / Branch Davidians
13. Expert report backs FBI on Waco video
14. Judge: No Firearm Flashes at Waco
15. Simulation report shifts focus of the Davidians' suit against U.S.
16. High court reviews Davidians' sentences
17. Lawyer: Davidian Penalty Not Proper
18. 'Skeptical patriot' still following Davidian court actions
19. Court Asked to Find U.S. Altered Waco Evidence

=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
20. Kibweteere Mass Grave In Kampala
21. New mass grave fears in Uganda

=== Mormonism
22. For Mormons, Easter celebrations mostly low-key
23. Lack of Depth Weakens Guide to Moral Living
24. Original Mormon chapel reopens

=== Witchcraft / Paganism
25. A dangerous spell of toil and trouble is being cast

=== Attleboro Cult
26. Religious Group Probed in Child's Disappearance

=== Other News
27. Umtata cult locks up for judgment day
28. Church Leaders In Trouble Over Murder
29. Togo Gov't To Investigate Noise-Making Sects
30. The Shadowy World Of
31. Oregon town is bracing for showdown
32. Mock Chemical Attacks to Strike Three Cities
33. Natural Law hopeful cites spirituality, politics
34. Is Honeymoon Over for Bigamy?
35. Second image at 'miracle' church
36. Local mystics unite in Tel Aviv

=== Noted
37. Healing Pilgrimage
38. Filmmaker plays Indiana Jones to find lost tribes
39. Cults And Their Followers


=== Falun Gong

1. Scores Detained in Falun Gong Anniversary Protests
AOL/Reuters, Apr. 25, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004250953832096
BEIJING (Reuters) - Scores of defiant members of the Falun Gong spiritual
movement were detained in Tiananmen Square Tuesday for protests on the
anniversary of a mass sit-in that triggered a crackdown on the group by
China's Communist rulers.

Falun Gong's latest demonstrations underlined the resilience of a small group
of adherents, with the support of overseas followers, despite a year of
persecution and current uncertainty over the whereabouts of their U.S.-based
leader Li Hongzhi.
(...)

The protests, apparently coordinated because small groups popped up in
different parts of the square, lasted the whole day.
(...)

The movement has said consistently that it poses no threat to the Communist
Party.
(...)

It called for a dialogue with the authorities.

''A peaceful resolution would benefit not only practitioners, but also the
entire people of China and their government,'' said the statement issued from
New York, where founder Li moved after leaving China in 1996.

However, the statement was not signed by Li and his current whereabouts were
unknown.

His last personal statement on the official Falun Gong Web site is dated July
23, 1999, and the most recent picture of him, sitting serenely in the lotus
position on a mountainside in the United States, was also taken last July.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. Falun Gong mass arrest
BBC, Apr. 25, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/
world/asia-pacific/newsid_724000/724793.stm
(...) Groups of followers mingled with tourists, evading a massive security operation before sitting on the ground to observe rituals such as meditation.
(...)

A BBC correspondent in Beijing says the rituals and the arrests have become
an almost daily routine. However, the authorities had sought to avoid any public protests by Falun Gong followers on the anniversary.
(...)

Surveillance of those known to be members of the movement - said to have tens of millions of followers - has increased in recent days.
(...)

Falun Gong says 35,000 of its 70 to 100 million followers have been arrested since July.
(...)

The group said 5,000 members were sent without trial to labour camps, while others had been tortured, held in psychiatric institutions and forcibly given anti-psychotic drugs.

Some had also lost their jobs or been refused permission to attend school.

Officials have also made intensive efforts to root out members from state organisations, schools and factories.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. Falun Gong Members Detained While Commemorating Protest Anniversary
New York Times, Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/00/04/25/late/25cnd-china.html
(...) Many small groups of followers, including some children, straggled onto the square in downtown Beijing over the course of the morning. Most were simply dressed middle-aged Chinese attempting to unfurl yellow banners, chant slogans or strike meditative poses in the brief moments before their arrest.

All were nearly instantaneously arrested and hustled into vans by the hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police who crisscrossed the vast square in pairs throughout the day, doggedly trying to pick out the small number of Falun Gong members from the look-alike throngs of Chinese tourists.

Most of the protesters went peacefully, although observers said that several police kicked and punched several of them.

Such Falun Gong protests have become nearly daily events in Tiananmen Square ever since the government banned the group last summer, branding it an ''evil cult'' that spread superstition. But today there were more than the usual number of protesters -- and police -- because of the anniversary.
(...)

Faced with the government's furious warnings and threats, most of the millions of Chinese who once practiced Falun Gong in China's parks each morning have today moved on to other forms of recreation, although sometimes with considerable bitterness.

But the relatively few who continue to practice, mostly in private, seem unphased and uncowed, reflecting both their fierce devotion to the program and an increasing willingness of Chinese people to defy their government when they believe they have been wronged.
(...)

Today's protesters clearly knew they faced certain detention, and a number of Falun Gong members have chosen to remain in prison rather than renounce the movement. In detention, some members have staged hunger strikes to the point of starving themselves to death.
(...)

The Falun Gong movement, whose Chinese-born leader Li Hongzhi moved to the United States several years ago, organized activities in New York and Hong Kong to commemorate the anniversary of the protest on April 25, 1999.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Beijing 'losing propaganda war on sect'
South China Morning Post, Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.scmp.com/News/China/Article/
FullText_asp_ArticleID-20000425051547998.asp
Beijing's international propaganda war against the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement is failing, a diplomatic source said yesterday.

A Western diplomat in Beijing said: ''A measure of the domestic effectiveness of the campaign is whether there is an end in sight to the campaign. That is not the case at the moment,'' he said.

''The campaign has stopped the further growth of Falun Gong but it has led to the formation of a hard core of believers who are proving hard to deal with.''

He also said the campaign had failed as a number of Western governments had criticised the crackdown as a human rights violation.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. Rise and Fall
South China Morning Post, Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.scmp.com/News/China/Article/
FullText_asp_ArticleID-20000425052618578.asp
1992: Li Hongzhi, 47, a former security staff member in a grain company in Changchun, northeastern Jilin province, founds the Falun Gong group.
April 19, 1999: Physicist He Zuoxiu publishes an article in the port city of Tianjin denouncing Falun Gong as superstitious, sparking off demonstrations.

April 20-24: Demonstrations in Tianjin, some leaders arrested.

April 25: More than 10,000 adherents rounded up at Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing, the residence of Chinese top leaders.

May 3: Li Hongzhi calls on Beijing to start dialogue with the movement.

June 6: Police round up busloads of members at a stadium in western Beijing after 100 members stage a protest. .

July 22: Beijing outlaws Falun Gong and brands it a cult. Thousands of followers rounded up throughout the country.

July 27: US State Department calls on Beijing to exercise restraint.

July 29: Beijing issues an arrest warrant for US-based Li Hongzhi, accusing him of seeking to overturn the regime. Interpol refuses to help with the warrant.

October 30: Anti-cult law passed, branding Falun Gong as an ''evil cult'', sparking a week of protests in Tiananmen Square.

November 12: First Falun Gong ''show trials'' end with four followers sentenced to between two and 12 years' prison. Hundreds of others sent to ''re-education through labour'' camps for three years.

December 26: Four senior figures in the group sentenced by a Beijing court to prison terms of seven to 18 years.

February 5, 2000: More than 1,000 followers protest in Tiananmen Square during the Lunar New Year.

February-March: Deaths in custody of 15 members disclosed. Dozens of detained members stage hunger strike.

April 19: Crackdown intensifies, State Council spokesman says a total of 84 Falun Gong supporters have been given jail terms.
[...entire item...]


6. Falun Gong defiant in HK
South China Morning Post, Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.scmp.com/News/Front/Article/
FullText_asp_ArticleID-20000425194733948.asp
A group of radical Falun Gong practitioners held a press conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday to commemorate the first anniversary of Beijing's crackdown on the cult. They vowed not to renounce their beliefs or give up public activities.

Speaking at the only event in Hong Kong to commemorate the anniversary, sect member Belinda Pang said it had lost many followers, but refused to disclose details.

''Number is not a problem, it is a test to us. It shows who is really devoted to Buddha law and who only joins us because they want to make themselves healthy,''she explained.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. Falun Gong Calls for Talks With Chinese Government
AOL/Reuters, Apr. 24, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004240524802842
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Spiritual movement Falun Gong on Monday called for a
''peaceful dialogue'' with the Chinese government even as Beijing prepared for the first anniversary of a mass protest that sparked its crackdown on the group.
(...)

''We reiterate our call for a peaceful dialogue with the Chinese Government, and ask for the support of all good people and institutions around the world,'' the movement, a synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism and meditation, said in an e-mail to the media.

''A peaceful resolution would benefit not only practitioners, but also the entire people of China and their government,'' the statement said.
(...)

Falun Gong reiterated its stance that it is apolitical.

''Falun Gong practitioners have no political interests whatsoever. They merely strive to cultivate 'Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance' in daily life, while their qigong exercises give them desired health,'' the statement said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Falun Gong Withstands Challenge
AOL/AP, Apr. 23, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004231247766074
BEIJING (AP) - A year ago, Wang Kai was Falun Gong's man on the inside, a convert and a well-placed official who championed the spiritual movement within China's communist government.

Since Falun Gong shocked Chinese leaders with a mass protest last April 25 and precipitated a relentless crackdown, Wang has fallen from grace.
(...)

Through the unbending faith of Wang and thousands of others, Falun Gong has withstood China's broadest political witch-hunt in a decade. It has countered with the most sustained public challenge to communist rule ever, weathering a ban, a media smear campaign, mass arrests and beatings.
(...)

According to Wang, and others in the party and government who asked not to be quoted by name, Falun Gong counts more than 150 top-level bureaucrats among its followers. They include Propaganda Ministry functionaries, aides to the Cabinet, two staff members to the national legislature, even an assistant to Wei Jianxing, No. 6 in the ruling inner circle in charge of enforcing party discipline, the sources said.
(...)

For a decade, Wang helped the government monitor the many health and exercise groups that fall under the rubric of ''qi gong'' (pronounced chee-gong). Long an avid practitioner of tai chi, the traditional slow-motion exercises that aid meditation, Wang took up Falun Gong four years ago.

He was smitten by its discipline, its demands for moral living, honesty and spiritual cultivation. Soon, he began urging that the officially atheistic government do more to promote Falun Gong, despite a growing wariness among lower-level officials about the group's soaring popularity.
(...)

On the net:
from the Chinese government: http://ppflg.china.com.cn/indexE.html
from Falun Gong: http://minghui.org/eng.html
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Aum Shinrikyo

9. Raid on AUM companies nets only 40,000 yen
Mainichi Daily News (Japen), Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/
archive/200004/25/news04.html
The National Tax Administration Agency got tough on tax-dodging AUM Shinrikyo-affiliated computer companies and seized their assets - a paltry sum of 40,000 yen, sources said Monday.
(...)

Tax authorities had recently seized the bank account of Poseidon, only to find that the company had only 40,000 yen in deposits.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Aum-linked firms nailed for taxes
Asahi News, Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0424/asahi042407.html
Two companies affiliated with Aum Shinrikyo have been given an earlier deadline to pay 900 million yen in taxes, sources close to Tokyo tax authorities said.

The edict automatically means that the companies are in a state of delinquency, and thus, tax authorities can seize their assets without notice.

Once this happens, tax authorities would try to prove that the companies had been underwriting Aum's activities. That would actually hinder the process of paying compensation to victims of the cults crimes, such as the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo.

For the record, Tax Authority officials insist that they have not discriminated against the companies because of their affiliation with the cult. Nevertheless, with help from the Tokyo National Tax Bureau, the National Tax Agency has led the charge in dealing with the two firms.
(...)

The focus of the bureau's investigations will be to uncover evidence showing that money from the two companies was used to fund Aum. This would be the pretext for taking a closer look at assets still held by Aum Shinrikyo.

''If the taxes assessed are justified, then many of our followers will feel we are obligated to pay,'' said Aum spokesman Fumihiro Joyu.

Tax authorities have been unable to find hidden taxable assets and the cult is drowning in debt as it struggles to pay compensation to victims.

On April 14, the cult said it would appeal the bureau's move.
(...)

The cult is 5 billion yen in the red. It so far has paid 960 million yen in compensation.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Ho-no-ha-na Sanpogyo

11. Police grill high-ranked Ho-no-Hana members
Daily Yomiuri (Japan), Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/0426cr06.htm
Police began questioning top members of the Ho-no-Hana Sanpogyo religious group, formerly led by 55-year-old Hogen Fukunaga, on Tuesday in connection with a case in which the group is suspected of swindling three persons out of 22 million yen.

Police are likely to question Fukunaga himself and believe they have adequate proof of fraud involving more than 10 members of the group.

Fukunaga and the others are alleged to have duped the persons out of the money by providing ''training sessions'' after examining the victims' feet.
(...)

As those questioned by police Tuesday were deeply involved in Ho-no-Hana's financial management, police were believed to have questioned them about sources of funding and expenditure.

Fukunaga has held press conference on eight occasions since the police raids in December. He has denied the allegations entirely, saying that heaven never told him to commit fraud and there were no victims.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Unification Church

12. Moonies pay out in carrot-juice fiasco
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Apr. 25, 2000
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/
archive/200004/25/news09.html
The controversial Unification Church religious group was ordered Monday to pay hefty damages by the courts for luring a wealthy elderly woman to buy expensive items, including bottles of carrot juice, saying that a miserable fate awaited her if she did not.
(...)

Takada said that the Moonies, named after their guru Sun Myung Moon, illegally lured the woman into purchasing the juice and other lucky charms after studying her financial situation in detail.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Waco / Branch Davidians

13. Expert report backs FBI on Waco video
Dallas Morning News, Apr. 25, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/waco/69113_WACO25.html
WACO - Federal court-hired experts believe that flashes on an infrared videotape made at the end of the Branch Davidian siege were not from gunfire, a federal judge told both sides in a wrongful death lawsuit Monday.

U.S. District Judge Walter Smith cautioned that the oral report he received last week from Vector Data Systems of Great Britain is not the final word on the gunfire issue.

But government lawyers in Waco and FBI officials in Washington said the report supported their long-held position that government agents didn't fire a shot on the last day of the 1993 standoff near Waco.
(...)

The lead lawyer representing plaintiffs in the wrongful death lawsuit arising from the 1993 incident said the announcement was ''a disappointment'' but neither silenced the gunfire question nor hindered their overall case.
(...)

The judge also issued an order Monday denying a bid by government lawyers to dismiss almost every other issue in the wrongful death case. The three-page order, setting the final size and scope of a trial set to begin in mid-June, also reinstated all but a few plaintiffs who had been dismissed from the lawsuit last year.

But the judge's order rejected the plaintiffs' request to reinstate as defendants the two FBI agents who led the federal government's efforts during the siege - former Agent Jeffrey Jamar and former hostage rescue team commander Richard Rodgers.

That decision precludes the sect's bid to have its case heard by a jury. Federal law requires a bench trial for the sole remaining defendant - the U.S. government.
(...)

The judge cautioned, however, that he will not consider Vector's analysis ''conclusive evidence.'' ''That is evidence from an expert,'' he told lawyers
for both sides. ''The expert's opinion may be controverted, and you have the right to do that.''

One lawyer representing families of Branch Davidians said he and other government critics are trying to raise funds to mount their own, private field test to do just that.

James Brannon of Houston said he was skeptical about the British experts even before Judge Smith announced their conclusions because they are owned by an American-based defense firm contracting extensively with the U.S. government.
(...)

Mr. Caddell told reporters that he has already complained in writing about technical flaws in Vector's March 19 test, including a failure to meet minimum temperatures and maximum distances from the objects being filmed.
(...)

Mr. Caddell accused the government of ''a pattern of gamesmanship'' in its failure to meet court deadlines for turning over requested documents and refusal to respond to some repeated requests for information.

Noting that the nine lawyers for the government went to Monday's hearing, he said, ''I think somebody could be delegated to respond.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. Judge: No Firearm Flashes at Waco
Excite/AP, Apr. 24, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/
000424/14/news-waco-lawsuit
(...) The judge told the lawyers that the review of the infrared videotape detected about 57 ''thermal events,'' defined as flashes of light signifying heat. There ''were no muzzle blasts either from Branch Davidians or government agents,'' Smith told attorneys.
(...)

Smith cautioned that he does not consider the report to be incontrovertible evidence.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]



15. Simulation report shifts focus of the Davidians' suit against U.S.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 23, 2000
http://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID
/925160284998A563862568CA0044E7B6?OpenDocument
Five weeks ago, the Branch Davidians' main claim of government wrongdoing in the siege at Waco, Texas, in 1993 was that FBI agents had fired guns at the occupied complex and then denied the shooting.

Today that charge is evaporating, and the Branch Davidians' lawyers are stressing other claims.

Five months ago, congressional investigators talked about high-profile hearings on Waco, where the siege of the Branch Davidians' compound ended in a fire that led to the deaths of about 80 people. Now, hearings are unlikely, and the Justice Department has been told that congressional investigations will probably end with reports that criticize the government but find no illegal acts.

What has changed? The main difference is the findings of a Waco simulation performed at Fort Hood, Texas, on March 19. The Post-Dispatch reported Saturday that a British firm that conducted the simulation has issued a report to U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. that supports the government's denial of gunfire.

There is quite an irony in this result. Justice Department lawyers and FBI officials privately were exasperated with Special Counsel John C. Danforth for suggesting the simulation. The Branch Davidians' lawyers and experts had been ecstatic, confidently predicting the test would prove their allegations.
(...)

Mike Caddell, the main lawyer for the Branch Davidians, said Friday that regardless of what Vector finally concludes, he will have a strong case against the government. He still plans to present his experts to say the flashes were gunfire. But he will stress other elements of his case.
(...)

The wild card in the Branch Davidian case is Danforth's investigation. Lawyers and investigators outside Danforth's office say that the special counsel appears to be going down what one described as ''every rabbit trail'' so that he can tell the American people that he has not left any allegation uninvestigated.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. High court reviews Davidians' sentences
Dallas Morning News, Apr. 25, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/69137_RULING25.html
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday questioned the way a judge sentenced Branch Davidians who are seeking to cut 25 years from their prison terms for the deadly 1993 raid near Waco.

The justices will decide whether the judge or jury should have decided whether machine guns were involved in the deaths of four agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

U.S. District Judge Walter Smith included that finding in sentencing four defendants to a total of 40 years in prison and a fifth to 20 years. The offenses included voluntary manslaughter and use of a machine gun during a violent crime.

In appealing to the Supreme Court, a defense attorney said the jury never got the chance to decide whether machine guns were used.
(...)

The Supreme Court will decide the case by early July.

If the justices side with the defendants, all five would be eligible for release in 2008; otherwise, four would serve until 2033 and a fifth until 2013.

''More than that, it has to do with a very important part of the Bill of Rights, and that's the right to a jury trial,'' Mr. Halbrook said.
(...)

A jury acquitted the Branch Davidian defendants of the major charges: conspiracy to murder federal agents or aiding and abetting the murder of federal agents.

Mr. Halbrook said prosecutors urged the judge to make machine guns part of the sentencing to ''jack up'' punishment for the lesser convictions.

''It was never really part of the case until it came around on sentencing,'' Mr. Halbrook said.

Sarah Bain, the jury forewoman during the 1994 trial, flew to Washington for the Supreme Court hearing as a show of support for the defendants.

''We were absolutely shocked with the severity of the judge's augmentation,'' Ms. Bain said after the hearing. ''We thought it would be a slap-on-the-wrist sentence.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. Lawyer: Davidian Penalty Not Proper
AOL/AP, Apr. 24, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004240527802932
WASHINGTON (AP) - The 30-year prison sentences given to four Branch Davidians who survived the 1993 Waco siege should be struck down because a judge improperly applied a firearms law to enhance the penalty, their lawyer told the Supreme Court Monday.
(...)

Five Davidians were convicted in 1994 of voluntary manslaughter in the slayings of four federal agents during a botched Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid on the sect's compound outside Waco, Texas. The raid led to a 51-day standoff that ended when flames swept through the sect's retreat. Davidian leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died during the inferno, some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds.

Each of the five Davidians was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The presiding judge tacked 30 years more onto the sentences of four men - Renos Avraam, Brad Branch, Jaime Castillo and Kevin Whitecliff - after finding they had carried firearms during commission of a violent crime.

A fifth Davidian, Graeme Craddock, was sentenced to 10 years for using a grenade and was handed a consecutive 10-year term for using a machine gun.

The jury never was asked to decide what type of firearm was used. U.S. District Judge Walter Smith did not determine whether the defendants had used machine guns during the Feb. 28, 1993, gun battle but said the weapons had been available to them.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. 'Skeptical patriot' still following Davidian court actions
Waco Tribune-Herald, Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/auto/feed/news/
local/2000/04/24/956634997.16994.0447.0026.html
WASHINGTON — It has been six years since the Branch Davidian criminal trial in San Antonio, but Sarah Bain can’t seem to get it out of her system.

The self-styled “skeptical patriot” served as presiding juror at the 1994 trial of 11 Branch Davidians charged with killing federal agents during a shootout at Mount Carmel outside Waco on Feb. 28, 1993.

Bain has been openly critical of U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. for sentencing six of the sect members to 40-year prison terms, even after the jury found them not guilty of murder conspiracy charges. One defendant is not appealing his sentence.

Bain disagreed with the lengthy sentences and said it was not the jury’s intent to see the Branch Davidians in prison for so long. She has strong feelings about the sentences, which she said “absolutely shocked” her, and does not hesitate to share those thoughts with anyone.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. Court Asked to Find U.S. Altered Waco Evidence
AOL/Reuters, Apr. 24, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004241026809165
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - Branch Davidians urged a federal judge on Monday to rule that the U.S. government tampered with evidence from the 1993 Waco siege, but expert witnesses dealt the sect a blow by rejecting a key claim in the lawsuit over the fiery confrontation that left about 80 dead.

Lawyers for surviving Branch Davidians grilled two FBI agents and a government-appointed expert during a hearing on the sect's claims that the government has withheld or altered evidence critical to the wrongful death civil lawsuit. The sect's lawyers contend there are gaps in surveillance videos, photographs and wiretap tapes from the last day of the siege.
(...)

But on cross examination by U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford, the pilot said the inexperienced FLIR operator could have forgotten to start the audio recording.

The Davidians' motion also alleges that there are inexplicable gaps in time between rolls of film shot by an FBI photographer from another plane during the assault and that audio tapes from bugging devices inside the compound are copies and not the originals the government claims.

After the hearing, Waco U.S. District Court Judge Walter Smith said he would make a decision soon on whether evidence was tampered with and, if so, whether to impose sanctions on the government.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

20. Kibweteere Mass Grave In Kampala
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 23, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/
20000423/20000423_feat6.html
Kampala - A mass grave suspected of belonging to the Kanungu cult leaders has
been discovered at Mawanga zone, Bunga near Kampala. The site is located behind a garage of a bungalow formerly rented by Fr. Dominic Kataribabo, one of the ring leaders behind the now de-registered Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments who are now being pursued for murdering over 1000 people.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


21. New mass grave fears in Uganda
BBC, Apr. 23, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/
world/africa/newsid_723000/723965.stm
Ugandan police have found what they believe is another mass grave under a house used by one of the leaders of the doomsday cult thought to have murdered hundreds of their followers.

Police Inspector-General John Kisembo told the AFP news agency: ''We suspect there is a grave, but we cannot tell for certain at the moment. As soon as we know, we will be ready to exhume.''
(...)

Moses Ssengendo, the landlord at the house, told the newspaper that his workers became suspicious after heavy rain on Monday caused the garage floor to sink. They alerted police after a strong stench began to come from there.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mormonism

22. For Mormons, Easter celebrations mostly low-key
Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 22, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/2000/apr/04222000/utah/43361.htm
(...) While many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
will hear talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter, they will not share in the usual Christian rituals.
(...)

Any special attention paid to Christ on Easter is left to local congregations to plan, Purdy acknowledges, as there are no directives from church headquarters.
That leaves some Mormons hungering for the ritual-laden celebrations of other faiths.
(...)

The absence of special Easter commemorations also contributes to the view in some quarters that Mormons do not really worship Jesus Christ.
(...)

''No wonder our fellow Christians don't think we are Christian,'' DiPadova said.
That perception is so troubling to LDS leaders that they have worked strenuously in the past decade to tell the world that Jesus Christ is at the center of Mormon worship.

The church enlarged the words ''Jesus Christ'' on its logo and added the subtitle, ''Another Testament of Jesus Christ'' to the Book of Mormon.

And recently, the church's Twelve Apostles distributed a joint proclamation on the Internet and to all church members that emphasizes their faith in Christ.

But these efforts could be magnified dramatically if the LDS Church found a uniquely Mormon way to express joy at Easter, said Gordon Bowen, who has worked in advertising in Salt Lake City and New York.

''If you had 25,000 Mormons creating the world's largest Messiah sing-along on Easter morning or telecast 100,000 Mormons singing 'Hallelujah' from the foothills of Salt Lake City, that would brand us as a Christian church more powerfully than any advertising campaign,'' Bowen said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Mormons are not Christians. A Christian is someone who follows Jesus
Christ as revealed in the Bible. The Mormon Jesus is one of their own
making. Just like slapping the Rolex brand name on a counterfeit watch does
not make it a genuine Rolex, using the name of Jesus does not make Mormonism
Christian. See this comparison of the Biblical Jesus and the Jesus of Mormonism


23. Lack of Depth Weakens Guide to Moral Living
Los Angeles Times, Apr. 22, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20000422/t000037965.html
Whatever the qualms over its spiritual authenticity, the Book of Mormon offers one of the more compelling explanations for the fall of man and, thus, the existence of evil: ''Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.''

Here we have, in one spare statement, the essence of Mormonism, which since its founding in the 1820s has attempted to reinvent American Protestantism in a way that redeems a sense of optimism from the lake of guilt and sin. And although you won't see it put so plainly, that seems to be the thrust of ''Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes,'' by Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The curious thing is how far Hinckley goes to avoid mentioning his church's unique scriptures, beliefs or internal workings. Declaring himself a ''churchman''--not the prophet, seer and revelator for 10.3 million ''saints''--he offers a book that could be mistaken for a work by evangelist Billy Graham. Of some 80 verses quoted, all are from the Bible, for instance, and none from Mormon scriptures.

Which is exactly the idea. As the founding father of the church's public relations apparatus, Hinckley knows the power of spin. His rhetoric is sanitized of any Mormon references so that it can resonate with a wider audience, including fundamentalist Christians who regard Salt Lake City as Cult Central.
(...)

One wants to know more about such personal struggles, because sometimes distinguishing right from wrong is not a black-and-white decision. One wants to know the dilemmas, but that would require knowing more about Hinckley's world. He expresses concern for prejudice yet is strangely silent about coming to terms with his own church's history of discriminating against blacks in the priesthood (Hinckley, in a 1998 Times story, defended his church's equal rights opportunities but felt no need to repudiate former teachings that blacks were cursed by God).

The same reader interest applies to the idea of marriage and the nuclear family today. It is one thing to make its preservation a theological cornerstone, as in Hinckley's church, but how to deal with the inevitable divorces among his flock? In the book, he condemns divorce as ''selfishness,'' but that's not enough. It happens. The walking wounded need to salvage some joy after the nightmare. Instead, Hinckley offers Reaganisms like ''right is right and wrong is wrong'' in a book one wishes had gone deeper into the things for which he stands.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Original Mormon chapel reopens
The Times (England), Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/
tim/2000/04/24/x-timnwsnws01008.html
The world's first Mormon chapel, built in a village near Gloucester in 1836, reopened last night as a museum of Mormon history in Britain.

Erected by the United Brethren, a fundamentalist Christian group, and given to the Mormons in 1840, the chapel was used as a cattle-shed after it was sold in the 19th century to pay for poorer Mormon converts to emigrate to America.
(...)

Members say the Mormon church, correctly titled The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was not founded but was ''restored'' in New York in 1830. Under the leadership of Brigham Young, who is recorded as having preached at Gadfield Elm, the church migrated to Salt Lake City, Utah.

About 170,000 of the 9.4 million Mormons worldwide live in Britain, where the first temple was dedicated at Lingfield, Surrey, in 1958. Missionaries were sent to Britain in 1837, where they founded the oldest continuous branch in the world at Preston, Lancashire.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Witchcraft / Paganism

25. A dangerous spell of toil and trouble is being cast
Sunday Independent (Ireland), Apr. 23, 2000 (Opinion)
http://www.independent.ie/2000/113/e12c.shtml
THERE is a schoolteacher in England who has a strange calling. He is working
on the intense pitching of two ancient businesses, paganism and witchcraft. Ralph Morse, a 44-year-old ''witch'' from Colchester, Essex, and member of the local Silver Wheel Coven, has been appointed as a youth manager for the Pagan Federation of England.

Personally, I feel aspirin-white with fear just thinking about Ralph, who is currently bouncing off an information pack on sacrifices and seances for enquiring youngsters. Yet why should a raddled old cynic like myself be alarmed?
(...)

Ralph's appointment has caused outrage among Christian groups which describe his role as ''dangerous''.
(...)

Doug Harris, a spokesman for the Reach Out Trust in England, an organisation which helps people who got involved with the occult, told an Independent reporter that ''paganism opens you up to the supernatural power that cannot be controlled. It is dangerous to encourage young people.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Attleboro Cult

26. Religious Group Probed in Child's Disappearance
APBnews, Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/
2000/04/24/masskids0424_01.html
[''Attleboro cult''}
(...) Robidoux's disciples and detractors are now at the center of a criminal investigation that stretches from Massachusetts to Maine and pits the Old Testament against the modern-day canons of law, in a case that has investigators probing a cult whose members allegedly refuse to answer to anyone but their God.

Witnesses began appearing in front of a Bristol County grand jury last week with prosecutors hoping to prove that Robidoux's extended following refused to nourish 18-month-old Samuel Robidoux before he died, and buried the boy alongside his stillborn cousin, Jeremiah Corneau, during an October vigil to Maine.

The Christian fundamentalist sect has been labeled a cult by investigators, who have interviewed many of its 23 members, including young children who can recall seeing elders cry at Samuel's deathbed, and were told his body was stored inside a bulkhead before the group traveled to Baxter State Park in Maine to bury him.
(...)

Acting as his own attorney, 26-year-old Jacques Robidoux appeared as recently as Thursday in court, telling Judge Kenneth Nasif: ''Regardless of what the state believes, I have to do what's right between me and God.''

The boy's mother, Karen, has invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the case. Jacques Robidoux has argued that Samuel is a member of a 'sovereign nation,' without a U.S. Social Security number and, therefore, cannot be investigated by the state.
(...)

Robidoux's followers apparently grew more militant in recent years, shunning the outside world, schooling their children at home and restricting members from having contact with doctors, relatives and friends outside the group, police said.

One journal entry contained in court records reads: ''Of 4 1/2 billion inhabitants presently breathing, only a handful, a remnant are being trained. The rest are tools of Satan to try and destroy God's anointed.''
(...)

The Massachusetts Department of Social Services had removed 11 children from the two homes occupied by group members in Attleboro and Seekonk, where many members once shared Mingo's sprawling yellow farmhouse.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Other News

27. Umtata cult locks up for judgment day
Indepent Online/Sapa (South Africa), Apr. 23, 2000
http://www.iol.co.za/news/newsview.php3?
click_id=0&set_id=1&art_id=qw956517301703B243
About a hundred worshippers shut themselves in a church in Mandela Squatter Camp in Umtata awaiting the imminent arrival of judgment day in a manner reminiscent of the cult that committed mass suicide in Uganda recently, SABC radio news reported on Sunday.
(...)

The leader of the sect, Nokulunga Fiphaza, said her church had no name as the church belonged to God.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Church Leaders In Trouble Over Murder
P.M. News/Africa News Online (Nigeria), Apr. 19, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/education/stories/
20000419/20000419_feat3.html
Lagos - Some leaders of Christ Apostolic Church in Ifo, Abeokuta, Ogun State are now chatting with the police at the State CID over the death of a middle- aged woman.

The church leaders including the pastor were picked up last weekend along Bungolun Street, Abeokuta by detectives while they were holding a church service.

P.M. News investigations revealed that their arrest was sequel to a shock find at the premises of the church last weekend. Police sources revealed that the corpse of an unknown midde-aged woman was found lying in the premises of the church.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


29. Togo Gov't To Investigate Noise-Making Sects
Ghanaian Chronicle/Africa News Online (Ghana), Apr. 19, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/west/togo/stories/
20000419/20000419_feat2.html
Accra - The Togolese authorities have set up an inter-ministerial commission to investigate the activities of all religious sects in the country whose unorthodox mode of worship threatens to imperil the orderly well being of the Togolese society.

A statement issued after a Ministerial Council meeting in Lome on Wednesday last week, chaired by President Eyadema expressed the Government's concern about the unorthodox methods of worship by some sects which beat cymbals and drums that make noise at night to disturb the public peace.

The resultant pandemonium imperils the physical security, and well being of individuals with whom they live in their respective communities as neighbours.

Such modes of worship, observed the government statement, carried out under the guise of healing the sick and disabled rather tend to offend decency, and the moral fabric upon which the Togolese society is built.

Consequently the inter-ministerial council is expected to investigate them and submit recommendations with a view to streamlining aspects of their activities which constitute a social canker and menace which must be eradicated with appropriate measures.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. The Shadowy World Of
The Nation/Africa News Online (Kenya), Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/kenya/
stories/20000424/20000424_feat8.html
(...) disciples claim it is a ''homegrown'' religious organisation committed to upholding the traditional ''African way of worship, culture and lifestyle,'' according to its national coordinator, Mr. Ndura Waruinge.

Its members, he believes, are genuine citizens disillusioned with perceived misrule and now crusade for a meaningful change in the running of the country's affairs.

's genesis is as clouded as the sect's cause. But reports indicate this shadowy group, whose members wear dreadlocks, emerged in 1985.
(...)

's tenets centre on chastity and African values. It professes female circumcision and the traditional Kikuyu way of worship - praying facing Mt Kenya. It also believes in oathing and sacrifices.

But this is just what its disciples claim. 's propensity for violence is what has placed the sect in sharp focus. To an extent, has become a by-word for thuggery.
(...)

A recent report by an international news station drew parallels between and the Mau Mau, the pre-independence movement that arguably forced out colonialists of Kenya in the 1950s.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


31. Oregon town is bracing for showdown
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.seattle-pi.com/local/ante24.shtml
(...) The atmosphere is reminiscent of turmoil stirred up here by a different group of strangers in the 1980s -- 4,000 followers of cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

The chanting, purple-clad Rajneeshees left 15 years ago, after their leaders tried to poison food in nearby towns and hatched a plot to kill a federal prosecutor. But trouble has once again come to Antelope.

Tomorrow, Antelope will vote on whether to recall all but one of the five City Council members -- a campaign started by one of the newcomers, Allen Yow.

Yow has succeeded in drawing a lot of attention to himself -- and in the process has aroused suspicions among the locals.

Outside his home, a filthy, tattered American flag flaps in the breeze. This battered Old Glory, Yow said, represents the depths to which this nation has fallen -- the ''sin of immoral living.''

Above that flag is one that is pristine and white, with a blue corner that harbors a red cross. This is a ''Christian flag'' popular among Christian fundamentalists such as himself, Yow said.

John Silvertooth, a city councilman who is among the targets of Yow's recall, said he has seen the white flag on the home page of the white supremacist group Aryan Nation.

As it turns out, however, the flag has no connection with extremist groups.
(...)

The locals whisper concerns of links to radical-right groups such as the Montana-based Freemen and the Aryan Nation. Yow denies any extremist connection.
(...)

The FBI has entered the picture. Wilson said an FBI agent interviewed him for five hours, but he won't say what about.
(...)

After the Rajneeshees, suspicions come easily. Rajneesh, a self-styled ''rich man's guru,'' and thousands of his followers moved into a former ranch on Antelope's outskirts in the early 1980s.

They took over the city council in a 1984 election and set up their own Rajneesh Peace Force to patrol Antelope.

Cult members once sickened 700 residents of The Dalles after lacing restaurant salad bars with salmonella. Cult members were also accused of plotting to kill a U.S. attorney.

The cult moved out of Antelope in 1985 and fell apart.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


32. Mock Chemical Attacks to Strike Three Cities
APBnews/AP, Apr. 20, 2000
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/
2000/04/20/drill0420_01.html
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- Authorities in three U.S. cities will fall victim to simulated chemical, biological or radiological terrorist attacks next month, in which emergency responders will be tested and trained on how to handle the real deal.

The date, time and some details of the exercises are secret. The only publicized aspects of the terror drills are the locations: Denver, Washington and Portsmouth, N.H.
(...)

The United States has never been the site of a deliberate, deadly attack using chemical, biological or nuclear agents -- known as weapons of mass destruction or WMDs. The best-known WMD terrorist incident took place in Tokyo in 1995, when members of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult placed open containers of sarin nerve gas on subway cars.
(...)

But one notable biological attack did occur in the United States. In 1984, followers of an Indian religious cult in Oregon put salmonella in restaurant salad bars in The Dalles, Ore. The subsequent outbreak sickened more than 700 people.

Several cult members were convicted in connection with the attack, and the leader of the cult, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, was eventually deported from the United States.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


33. Natural Law hopeful cites spirituality, politics
Star-Telegram, Apr. 25, 2000
[URL removed because it currently refers to inappropriate content]/news/doc/1047/
1:HOMEPAGE6/1:HOMEPAGE60425100.html
RICHARDSON -- About 500 people filled a conference room at the Richardson Civic Center Monday night to discuss ways of transforming the normally turbulent world of politics into a process that is in harmony with Mother Earth.

They came in new Lincolns and old Chevrolets, each paying a $10 or $12 admission fee, if they could afford it, to hear motivational speakers and John Hagelin, the Natural Law Party's presidential candidate.
(...)

Hagelin, 45, is director of doctoral programs of physics at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, and a co-founder of the Natural Law Party. He is also seeking the presidential nomination of the Reform Party, which he hopes can form a coalition with his group.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


34. Is Honeymoon Over for Bigamy?
Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 23, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/04232000/utah/43681.htm
It could be the case that launched a thousand prosecutions -- or maybe just as many regrets. Thomas Arthur Green, a peacock of a polygamist and, by most accounts, a loving father and husband to five women, was charged with four counts of bigamy Monday for cohabitating with four women while legally married to a fifth.

Under the Utah's bigamy statute, it does not matter that the relationships were consensual. Yet winning a conviction under the state's prohibition against bigamy --the act of marrying one person while still being married to another -- may prove just as problematic in Utah as a conviction for polygamy, the practice of having more than one spouse.
(...)

A successful prosecution could focus legal scrutiny on any number of otherwise law-abiding polygamous families throughout the state, says Owen Allred, a polygamist and leader of United Apostolic Brethren. He fears that families will be torn apart if prosecutors start applying bigamy statutes to the estimated 30,000 members of such families in the Intermountain West.
(...)

The case against Green differs from recent high-profile prosecutions of polygamists John Daniel Kingston and David Ortell Kingston. The Kingston cases were primarily about unlawful sex and child abuse, not polygamy.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


35. Second image at 'miracle' church
Sunday Mail (Australia), Apr. 23, 2000
http://sundaymail.com.au/common/story_page/
0,2294,603684%255E2746,00.html
A new apparition depicting the form of a bearded man - believed by some to be St Joseph - has appeared alongside the image of the Virgin Mary and child on the wall in a world-famous Yankalilla church.

The discovery of the new form above the altar has heightened speculation by the Christ Church's congregation that the tiny town may have been chosen as the place Our Lady will appear with a message for the world in the future.
(...)

The church became the focus of national and international interest in 1996 when the Virgin Mary with the child Christ image was first made public.

Since then, the church has become a place of worship for pilgrims from around Australia and the world, with an adjoining school house being converted into accommodation for travellers.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


36. Local mystics unite in Tel Aviv
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 24, 2000
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/04/24/News/News.5825.html
What do tarot cards, dance, dreams, and olive oil have in common? They all are tools that can be used to achieve greater self-awareness, according to participants in the Mysticism 2000 festival taking place in the Tel Aviv Port.
(...)

Dana Sharon, who organized the three-day event, explained that the public seems to be increasingly interested in mysticism and spiritualism and that she wanted to bring together the many different ways it is exploring it under one roof.

Sharon put together an eclectic collection. Rosh Yehudi, which offers courses and books on gaining self awareness by studying the works of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, took a booth next to the Scientology Center. Further down, a woman was reading people's fortunes in olive oil, a man was giving a lecture on palm reading, an astrologer explained how she maps babies' charts to help guide their parents through childrearing, and several booths were selling crystals and essential oils.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Noted

37. Healing Pilgrimage
Dallas Morning News, Apr. 23, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/68372_PILGRIM23.html
(...) All three joined an estimated 65,000 pilgrims expected this Easter weekend at the Santuario de Chimayo, a small church in northern New Mexico known for its healing powers and holy dirt.

The faithful stream to the tiny village all weekend, arriving by plane, by car, on foot, and even on hands and knees. Thousands travel for hours and days, some walking hundreds of miles from as far away as Las Cruces and Gallup to reach the shrine by Good Friday.
(...)

Located 33 miles north of Santa Fe, the church receives 300,000 visitors each year, most of them during Holy Week.
(...)

As legend tells it, the site for the Santuario at the base of the Sangre do Cristo Mountains was chosen by a miracle. Don Bernardo Abeyta, a local man, in 1810 found a glowing crucifix in the dirt. He took the icon and placed it in a church in Guatemala, but the crucifix reappeared soon after in the spot where it was found.

After several failed attempts to place the crucifix elsewhere, the residents of the area decided to build a chapel on the spot where the icon appeared.

Today, the small adobe church, which was made a national landmark in 1970, is decorated with sculptures and paintings of saints. In the back of the church is a room with a hole in the floor, where devotees dig holy dirt into small plastic bags - about 20 tons a year, say church officials.

The dirt is replenished from the nearby arroyo. Another room is filled with crutches, braces, even dog tags, someone's breathing tube, and testimonials from people who say they have been healed.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


38. Filmmaker plays Indiana Jones to find lost tribes
AOL/Reuters, Apr. 25, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=0106&id=0004251012833465
TORONTO (Reuters) - Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici says not even Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones showed the audacity he did in going to search for the lost tribes of Israel.
(...)

The investigative journalist went to Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Uzbekistan, China, the Middle East and the Island of Djerba in Tunisia seeking descendants of the lost tribes for his latest documentary, ''Quest For The Lost Tribes of Israel.''

Proof of the tribes' continuing existence is important to Jews and Christians alike. Christians believe the return of the tribes to Israel will prepare the way for the second coming of Christ while for Orthodox Jews the return will signal messianic times. Some believe it will mean Armageddon is at hand.
(...)

Jacobovici already has some experience with lost tribes. His first film, ''Falasha: Exile of the Black Jews'' (1983), focused on Ethiopian Jews thought by some to be the lost tribe of Dan.

''Talking about Jews in Africa back then was like talking about Jews from the planet Mars. It did not fit people's stereotypes so no one believed it. Then, in 1985, the Mossad airlifted the Falashas into Israel, which made the front pages everywhere with 'Lost Tribe Returns Home.'''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


39. Cults And Their Followers
The Nation/Africa News Online (Kenya), Apr. 22, 2000 (Editorial)
http://www.africanews.org/atlarge/stories/
20000422/20000422_feat4.html
Nairobi - What is it that attracts people to religious cults and other unconventional modes of worship?
(...)

Why would a human being succumb to the manipulations of an individual and commit suicide using some of the most painful methods? In all instances, religious cults have been behind such bizarre acts. According to the book, ''Leaders and Followers...A Psychiatric Perspective on Religious Cults'', a cult is a group that follows a dominant leader who claims to be divine, and who is regarded by his or her followers as divine.
(...)

The book ''Followers and Leaders'' outlines the characteristics of cults: they have authoritarian leadership and organisation, they practise excessive self denial, they claim to possess exclusive truth, they have an attitude of moral superiority, they use manipulative techniques of mind control, they exploit members' labour and finances, and usually hold ceremonies in secluded places.

According to Prof Joseph Nyasani, a lecturer of Philosophy at the University of Nairobi, for a cult to be born, there must be willing followers and an immoral, evil-minded charismatic leader. Followers usually possess pathological fears about death and are highly uncertain about the future. Their fear, Prof Nyasani explains, generates a crisis within them. ''The follower's mind is then surrendered to the whims of cult leaders who can manipulate the impoverished persona of the subject,'' he says.
(...)

Experts agree that most followers are genuine in their quest for God - only they have misplaced their trust. Says a professional who seeks anonymity: ''The followers are sheep without a shepherd.'' The churches have the potential to evolve into established denominations or religions - or into fully-fledged cults.

Do these evangelical revivals then pose any danger to society? Do they harbour cult-like convictions, and are we likely to witness in Kenya what was witnessed in Uganda recently? As with cults, the emerging religious sects vary widely in their practices, membership and ideologies. While some may harbour suspect individuals, others are nothing but institutions created merely to enrich the entrepreneurs-of- sorts who establish them. It is, however, difficult to clearly predict the future of these groups because both the environment in which they operate and their followers are changing. ''We should not expect miracles from them,'' says an expert. ''Many have promised radical improvements but all we see is increasing crime and evil?''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]