Paris jails CVLT “guru” Rohan Rane; Médoc guru jailed: Europe cult news, 4–10 October 2026

In France a special criminal court in Paris jails Rohan Rane, the self-styled “guru” of an online group called CVLT, for 20 years for the sexual torture of teenage girls he coerced over Discord.

In Italy Bruno Antonio Malatesta, the “Maestro” of an Almese yoga community, denies all charges before a judge. In Toulouse a man known as the Médoc guru is jailed for 16 years for rape, corruption of minors and the illegal practice of medicine, and a Prague court continues the trial over the death of a member of the Kutná Hora healer’s group.

In the UK the Diocese of Sheffield confirms that its review of the Chris Brain case will now begin. A Leeds man who attended a Radical Faeries gathering is found dead in Sicily, and a London court jails the leader of an online “monkey hate” network.

German bishops call for spiritual abuse to be punishable under church law. Italian police officers in Novara are offered training on cults, and a Ligurian victims’ association receives a donation.

A former Caen detective publishes a novel drawn from the Lisieux group led by a self-proclaimed wife of God. A horror film, a touring play and a Swedish book take on cults.

Beyond Europe, Patricia Krenwinkel is again granted parole, the televangelist Jim Bakker dies at 86, a Korean court orders the Jesus Morning Star church to pay damages, a survivor of New Zealand’s “God Squad” speaks in Adelaide, and Nigerian police arrest more than 20 over cult killings in Bayelsa.

Paris jails the CVLT “guru” Rohan Rane for 20 years

A special criminal court in Paris on Friday 9 October sentenced Rohan Rane, 29, an Indian national, to 20 years in prison and banned him from French territory. Prosecutors had asked for 30 years. The court found him guilty of extortion preceded, accompanied or followed by torture or acts of barbarity on many minor victims.

Le Monde reported that the verdict covered 12 crimes and offences, among them torture or acts of barbarity on a minor under 15, possession of child sexual abuse images and corruption of a minor. Rane had already admitted part of the facts. The United States is seeking his extradition, 20 Minutes reported.

Rane ran a server on Discord called CVLT, read as “cult”. Libération reported that he always presented himself as the “gourou”, the guru, of a violent nihilist movement, and that he justified the sexual violence by a commitment to neo-Nazism and accelerationism, the belief that society should be pushed into collapse.

From Antibes, on the French Riviera, where he had gone to study, Rane and others picked out girls described as “vulnerable” on forums, extorted nude images from them and threatened to share them unless the girls harmed themselves live on camera. Le Monde reported that he forced them to carve his name and a swastika into their skin, a practice known as “cutsign”, and to drink urine or bleach. His victims were aged between 12 and 18, and he called them his “slaves”.

About 20 victims were identified in his case, most of them American. Six became civil parties. The wider investigation, opened in France in 2020 after a report from the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, identified around 100 victims in seven countries.

The trial ran from Monday 5 October behind closed doors. France 24, citing AFP, reported that this followed a US request, and that the court was told of threats against victims, witnesses and some US prosecutors.

Some of the American victims had asked for a public hearing. One travelled from the United States to give evidence.

His lawyer, Irina Kratz, had contested the extortion-with-torture charge, added after a first hearing in March 2025, which made a life sentence possible. US authorities have said they will seek his extradition once his French sentence is served.

Anna Rodriguez, spokeswoman for Ecpat 360, a child-protection group that was a civil party, told Libération:

On sait que ce procès fera jurisprudence. C’est le premier en France sur ce type de faits, mais on sait aussi que ce ne sera pas le dernier.

Ouest-France reported that 3018, France’s national helpline for young victims of online violence, received 138 reports about Discord between January and June 2026, against 44 in the whole of 2025. E-Enfance, the child-protection association that runs 3018, called the platform a “véritable terrain de chasse”, a real hunting ground.

Almese “Maestro” denies all charges before the judge

Bruno Antonio Malatesta, 59, the yoga teacher held since 1 October over a community he ran in Almese, in the lower Val di Susa west of Turin, was questioned in Turin prison on Monday 5 October. He is accused of reduction to slavery, mistreatment within the family, aggravated sexual violence and aggravated fraud against the state. Three associates, Paola Vit, Chiara Lisa and Giulio Gibello, are also under investigation.

In the order that jailed him, the preliminary investigations judge, Andrea Bonato, described him as a man of very high dangerousness, always in search of new victims:

persona dall’elevatissima pericolosità, un soggetto […] dalla grande capacità manipolatoria, abile ad approfittare della fragilità delle vittime per orientarne le scelte, fino a soggiogarle completamente e sottoporle appieno al proprio volere

In three hours of questioning Malatesta rejected all the charges, including the claims about his “cures”, La Stampa reported on 6 October. Its headline quoted him:

Non ho mai fatto male a nessuno

His lawyers, Giovanna Fontanelli and Antonella Primicerj, said he had answered every charge and that the alleged fraud against the state was not covered by the custody order, LaPresse reported.

On 4 October La Stampa reported that 23 properties were registered to the Fondazione Fiore della Pace, the foundation at the centre of the community, and that victims were persuaded to hand over houses and land and to buy the Maestro’s paintings. Crystals and salts were sold for “guarigioni”, healings, and even the sex the women had to submit to was paid for, the paper reported.

L’Agenda News, a Val di Susa paper, reported that girls brought into the community as small children with their mothers fell asleep at their school desks from exhaustion, and that some fell into serious depression at 15. Investigators say he called himself “il prescelto”, the chosen one, and talked of having the “prossimo Hitler”, the next Hitler, born. Some of the girls got out only thanks to their fathers, who rescued them after a decade.

A professional man had told the television programme Storie Italiane in 2018 about the abuse of his wife and two young daughters, and repeatedly reported it to police, Mowmag reported. The complaints went nowhere. On 7 October former followers spoke on Rai’s Chi l’ha visto? in a segment titled “La terapia nudi”, the naked therapy.

Freedom Times reported Malatesta’s arrest last week.

The Médoc guru jailed for 16 years in Toulouse

The criminal court of Haute-Garonne in Toulouse, south-west France, on Thursday 8 October sentenced Philippe Clément, 51, known as the “gourou du Médoc”, to 16 years in prison for rape, sexual assault, corruption of minors and the illegal practice of medicine, La Dépêche du Midireported.

The sentence followed what the avocat général, the prosecutor, Pierre Aurignac, had asked for. He had also sought several bans, including one on approaching minors. Clément was acquitted on some of the rapes.

Born Philippe Lamy, Clément is a magnétiseur, a self-styled healer by touch, and a former manager of swingers’ clubs, Actu Toulouse reported. He was accused of raping two victims, one of them a minor, and of making several children watch him have sex with their mothers.

He denied the charges at trial. The offences ran over 17 years, from 2006.

Le Parisien reported that he sold consultations and “soins spirituels”, spiritual care, to vulnerable women, some depressed and some with illnesses such as cancer, from Noé, south of Toulouse, where he passed himself off as a doctor. At an earlier hearing on his request for release, a magistrate reminded him that he had told a woman with cancer to stop her treatment and swallow shark-cartilage capsules.

On 7 October his former partner, Muriel, told the court of the hold he had over her from 2005, when he called himself Florenzo:

Je regrette le jour où j’ai rencontré Philippe. J’espère qu’il ne sortira jamais de prison.

In his closing speech Aurignac said:

Cet homme pervertit tous ceux qui l’approchent. Il est jugé pour des actes commis pendant dix-sept ans, un délai rare et extrêmement long.

In 2017 a court in Gironde sentenced him to four years for abuse of weakness of people in a state of psychological subjection, sexual assault and the illegal practice of medicine.

Prague court hears witnesses over the Kutná Hora group death

The Regional Court in Prague is hearing the case of six followers of the self-styled healer Richard Šiffer charged over the death of a fellow member, Jiří H., iROZHLAS, the news site of Czech Radio, reported on 5 October. Jiří H., a businessman, died in the summer of 2022 after weeks of violent rituals, naked, in the woods below Český Šternberk castle.

Two men allegedly beat him with a wooden pole on Šiffer’s orders, to make him confess to trying to rape another member. A forensic pathologist, Jan Krupička, told the court in April that he died of a fat embolism caused by the beating, and was already dead when the group drove him to a swimming stadium in Kutná Hora in the hope that Šiffer would help him.

Witnesses include a long-time member who cut off his little toes on Šiffer’s instruction, and Milan Vidlák, publisher of the conspiracy magazine Šifra, which members say was named after Šiffer. Vidlák did not respond to questions. He has previously denied that Šiffer shaped the magazine’s content. A court spokesman, Jiří Wažik, said:

Skončení věci se tak ještě nedá očekávat.

Šiffer himself was killed in early October 2022 by two of his most devoted followers, Magdalena, a dentist, and Irena, a retired teacher, on his orders. They told the court they believed his body would vanish into another dimension.

On 30 June Prague’s High Court reduced their sentences to 12 and nine years, ČT24 reported. In September the Supreme Court suspended the sentences while it considers their appeals, and Freedom Times reported their release.

Brain review to begin as the Sheffield diocese faces its record

The Bishop of Sheffield, Pete Wilcox, has confirmed that the independent Safeguarding Practice Review into how the Diocese of Sheffield responded to Chris Brain will now begin, after a retrial jury at Inner London Crown Court convicted Brain on 2 October of rape and four further indecent assaults. The diocese had delayed the review so as not to cut across the retrial, and says it is still appointing an independent chair and reviewer. Brain, 69, founder of the Nine O’Clock Service, is in custody awaiting sentence.

The Church Times reported Wilcox’s statement that the women had now given evidence twice: “It is unfortunate that that was necessary, and I am acutely conscious of the cost it has had for them.” He said his 2025 apology “stands in full”. Brain stands convicted of 22 offences, Christian Today reported.

On Friday 9 October Freedom Times published how Brain’s abuse stayed out of police hands for 25 years. It sets out how the Diocese of Sheffield was warned about Brain from 1990, and how in 1995 its helpline told callers that only rape was a police matter. The then archdeacon, Stephen Lowe, told Brain’s ordination tutor to stop voicing her concerns, and the then bishop, David Lunn, rebuked a priest who warned him.

When the abuse came out in 1995, one woman was told it was a church matter, not a police matter. South Yorkshire Police began receiving allegations only in 2020. The diocese runs a support page for those affected by the Nine O’Clock Service.

Leeds man found dead after a Radical Faeries gathering in Sicily

Benjamin Braithwaite, 35, from Leeds, was found dead on 13 September beside a bell tent at an abandoned farmhouse at Piano Milo, near Canicattini Bagni in Siracusa province, Sicily, The Telegraph reported on 5 October. He had attended a gathering of the Radical Faeries, an LGBTQ pagan collective. Eurofaeries, which lists its events, described the gathering as “a radically inclusive gathering of queer people coming together to celebrate the autumn equinox”.

His body was found naked beside a length of rope, with injuries including to his neck. Detectives found drugs at the scene.

The Carabinieri have declined to say whether he was killed, died in an accident or overdosed, and local media report that investigators do not believe he hanged himself. A post-mortem examination at a hospital in Augusta was still under way.

In encrypted chat rooms seen by the paper, members said Braithwaite had taken the names River and Wasp, and one wrote that Wasp had taken their own life. A former member who left the collective told The Telegraph that its “druidy” rituals were “a front for drugs and sexual and spiritual grooming”.

People often join the Faeries when they are at a low ebb and vulnerable, they don’t know where their life is going.

The paper said there is no suggestion that the organisers of Faeries events know of or support such activities. Metro reported that the group is due to hold an event next month at Featherstone Castle in Northumberland, England.

London court jails the leader of an online “monkey hate” network

Bartosz Poklek, 30, from Bexley in south-east London, was jailed at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday 9 October for three years and three months after admitting running a “large-scale monkey torture ring”, the Daily Mail reported. He led an online “cult” dedicated to the torture and killing of macaques in south-east Asia, and distributed videos that sold for up to £375. He also admitted publishing obscene videos for gain and possessing indecent images of children.

The Crown Prosecution Service said he was also made subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order, the first imposed for a wildlife-related crime.

The prosecutor, Alex Kettle-Williams, told the court that monkeys were sometimes dressed in bonnets and nappies, amid concern that users treat them as proxies for children. Judge Christopher Grout said the five-year maximum for animal cruelty was too low:

If ever there was a case that demonstrates that the statutory maximum for animal cruelty is too low, this is it.

In Poland, after knife attacks by teenagers in schools, Prime Minister Donald Tusk on 8 October denounced what he called a cult of violence among the young, fed by social media and video games, Romania’s Agerpres reported, citing AFP. He announced a greater police presence around schools.

German bishops call for spiritual abuse to be punishable under church law

The bishops of Münster and Osnabrück, Heiner Wilmer and Dominicus Meier, will press for spiritual abuse to become an offence under canon law, the Church’s own legal code, Kirche+Leben reported on 5 October. They were responding in Münster to a University of Münster study of spiritual abuse in two Catholic communities, Totus Tuus Neuevangelisierung (TTN) in Münster and the Christusgemeinschaft in Osnabrück.

The study, led by the theologian Judith Könemann and the historian Bernhard Frings, found pressure and arbitrary rule in both groups, enforced through shaming, humiliation, public exposure, withdrawal of affection and cutting off contact. It accused the diocesan leadership of failing to step in, or of acting inconsistently, when problems were raised.

Wilmer said mistakes had been made over TTN, which Münster recognised in 2004 and Bishop Felix Genn dissolved in 2021. Spiritual communities, he said:

dürfen kein komplett losgelöstes Eigenleben führen

The study criticised Auxiliary Bishop Christoph Hegge for holding several roles at once, including spiritual assistant to TTN from 2008 to 2017. Hegge wrote that he told Genn “immediately” when victims came to him in 2017. Genn rejected the study’s impression that he had followed the inquiry passively.

Sister Maria Cordis Reiker, head of the Thuine Franciscan Sisters, said her predecessors waited too long to remove a charismatic sister from work with young people. Seventy sisters later left the order.

The German Bishops’ Conference, through its secretary general Beate Gilles, announced a working group and a contact point.

Italy trains police on cults as Liguria’s victims’ group gets funding

Police officers in the province of Novara, Piedmont, are to be trained to recognise cults and handle complaints, La Stampa reported on 7 October. Giovanni Ristuccia, president of the association SOS Anti Plagio, organised two sessions with the province for local and provincial police, on Friday 16 October and Friday 6 November in the council chamber of Palazzo Natta.

Speakers include Bruno Zambon, a former officer in the Florence police anti-cult squad. Ristuccia said past complaints in the area, including over a group in Cerano that ran for decades, were not taken seriously:

Anche in passato ci furono molte denunce su questo territorio, come anche per il caso di Cerano andato avanti decenni, ma non vennero prese in considerazione perché non valutate nel giusto modo

In Genoa, the Fondazione Leo Pavan has made a donation to La Pulce nell’Orecchio, the association Rita Repetto founded to support families affected by mental manipulation and cults, GenovaToday reported on 8 October. The group, active in Liguria since 2023, is campaigning for an offence of mental manipulation to fill the gap left when the offence of plagio, psychological subjugation, was abolished in 1981.

Former Caen detective turns the Lisieux wife-of-God case into a novel

Yannick Le Roy, once number two of the judicial police in Caen, Normandy, has written Peccata Mundi, a novel drawn from his investigation of a group in Lisieux known as the Parc d’accueil, France 3 Normandie and Ouest-France reported. Between 2002 and 2007 a 58-year-old teacher who called herself “l’épouse de Dieu”, the wife of God, and “reine de l’amour”, queen of love, ran the group from a house in Lisieux and imposed group sex sessions she called “mêlées célestes”.

Police arrested members on 27 June 2007. In 2013 the leader was sentenced to five years for fraudulent abuse of weakness, under the About-Picard law against cult abuses, which France 3 said was then applied in court for the first time. Le Roy told the broadcaster:

Il faut comprendre qu’un gourou prend le contrôle de quelqu’un. Il décide des règles. Il les fait appliquer et il sanctionne les écarts. C’est un dictateur, un tyran qui règne sur son groupe.

France Télévisions’ magazine Hors cadre has also released an episode with Amoreena, who was born into a paedophile cult.

A nutrition writer on “food cults”

Mauro Proença, a nutrition graduate student at São Camilo University in São Paulo, Brazil, argued in the Genetic Literacy Project on 5 October that online diet communities can come to work like cults when an authority figure’s word overrides the evidence and questioning the group is treated as betrayal.

A horror film, a touring play and a Swedish book

Pendulum, a horror film written and directed by Mark Heyman, who wrote Black Swan, opens in US cinemas on 1 January 2027, Bloody Disgusting reported on 6 October. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Phoebe Dynevor play a couple who go to a new-age retreat in New Mexico after a trauma, where the wife falls under the spell of its leader, played by Jacki Weaver. Heyman said the film is “inspired by my family lore” and was shot in New Mexico, “where I grew up and the real events took place”.

Birdcatcher, a dark comedy by Laura Waldren about a teenage girl growing up inside a doomsday cult, tours to Tideswell Community Hall in Derbyshire, England, on 24 October, the Derbyshire Times reported. Pentabus Theatre Company stages it.

In Sweden the journalist Johan Erlandsson has published Maosekten, a history of the Rebellrörelsen, a Maoist group founded in Stockholm and Uppsala in 1968, Svensk Historia reported. Members shut themselves into flats they called cells, which became places of beatings and improvised people’s courts, and children were taken from their parents and placed in a cell of their own.

Beyond Europe

Patricia Krenwinkel granted parole again

California’s parole board on Tuesday 6 October found Patricia Krenwinkel, 78, suitable for release at her 18th suitability hearing, the New York Daily News reported, citing state prison records. Krenwinkel, a follower of Charles Manson, was convicted in 1971 of the murders of the actor Sharon Tate and six others in 1969, and is the longest-serving woman in California’s prisons. Governor Gavin Newsom reversed earlier grants in 2022 and 2025.

Her lawyer, Keith Wattley, said in a statement that she “fully accepts responsibility for her actions”. Sharon Tate’s sister, Debra Tate, opposes her release. In a petition quoted by Los Angeles Magazine, she wrote that Krenwinkel carved “WAR” into Leno LaBianca’s body:

She has admitted that was not a direct order from Charles Manson or anyone else- it was her own idea.

The parole board must now complete its review before Governor Gavin Newsom decides whether to let the grant stand, Fox News reported on 9 October.

Jim Bakker dies at 86

Jim Bakker, who built the PTL Club television empire with his first wife, Tammy Faye, died on Monday 5 October at 86, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said. He was forced to resign in 1987 after admitting a sexual encounter with a church clerk, Jessica Hahn, who alleged he sexually assaulted her, and was convicted of fraud in 1989, AP reported. In 2021 he settled a lawsuit over claims that a silver solution sold on his show could cure Covid-19.

Korean court orders JMS church and its leader to pay damages

A court in Daejeon, South Korea, on Thursday 8 October ordered the Jesus Morning Star (JMS) church, its leader Jeong Myung-seok and its No. 2 official, Kim Ji-seon, to pay about 370 million won ($277,000) to three female followers he sexually assaulted, the Korea Times reported, citing Yonhap. Jeong is serving 17 years for the assaults, committed between 2018 and 2021.

The largest award, 250 million won, goes to a Hong Kong woman identified as Maple, with 80 million won to an Australian identified as Amy and 40 million won to a South Korean woman, The Korea Herald reported.

A “God Squad” survivor in Adelaide

Serafina, who grew up in Camp David, the “God Squad” commune at Waipara, New Zealand, told InDaily in Adelaide, Australia, that its collapse in 1995 left her feeling her whole life had been a lie. The commune fell apart after the sexual abuse of women by its leader, Douglas Metcalf, and other pastors came to light.

You can’t grow up in a religious cult and turn out completely fine.

Police arrest more than 20 over cult killings in Bayelsa

Police in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, have arrested more than 20 suspects after renewed clashes between the Bobos and Greenlanders cult gangs in and around the state capital, Yenagoa, Daily Independent and Punch reported. Reports of the death toll vary, but at least four people were killed. The Commissioner of Police, Ajao Saka Adewale, ordered stepped-up operations.

Source citations

France 24 (France): “Paris court jails Indian man for leading sadist neo-Nazi cult that tortured girls”, 9 Oct 2026.

Libération (France, paywalled): “Extorsion et tortures sexuelles sur Discord : le «gourou» néonazi Rohan Rane condamné à 20 ans de réclusion”, 9 Oct 2026.

Le Monde (France, paywalled): “Rohan Rane, un étudiant nihiliste violent, condamné à 20 ans de réclusion criminelle pour avoir imposé des tortures sexuelles à des mineures sur Internet”, 9 Oct 2026.

Le Monde in English (France, paywalled): “Paris trial opens for Rohan Rane, ‘fascist’ and masculinist student accused of sexually torturing minors”, 5 Oct 2026.

Ouest-France (France, paywalled): “ENTRETIEN. Procès du masculiniste Rohan Rane : sur Discord, « il y a une explosion des violences extrêmes »”, 5 Oct 2026.

20 Minutes (France): “Un Indien condamné à vingt ans de réclusion pour des sévices sexuels imposés en ligne à des mineures”, 9 Oct 2026.

Torino Cronaca (Italy): “La “setta” di Almese, oggi l’interrogatorio del “guru”: «Se fosse libero cercherebbe nuove schiave»”, 5 Oct 2026. (Archived copy).

La Stampa (Italy, paywalled): “Setta di Almese, il guru Malatesta nega tutto: ‘Non ho mai fatto male a nessuno’”, 6 Oct 2026. (Paywall free).

LaPresse (Italy): “Torino, le legali di Malatesta: ‘Ha risposto a tutto e respinto le accuse’”, 5 Oct 2026.

La Stampa (Italy, paywalled): “‘Vittime persuase a dare case e terreni’: il business della setta di Almese, si pagava pure il sesso”, 4 Oct 2026. (Paywall free).

L’Agenda News (Italy): “Incubi in Val di Susa: il finto guru che plagiava le bambine nella setta di Almese”, 4 Oct 2026.

Mowmag (Italy): “Tutti sotto shock per la setta dell’orrore in Val di Susa? Il ‘santone abusatore’ arrestato è solo uno dei troppi (che stanno ovunque)”, 6 Oct 2026.

RaiPlay (Italy): “Chi l’ha visto? Setta di Almese: ‘La terapia nudi’, parlano ex seguaci del ‘Maestro’ arrestato”, 7 Oct 2026.

La Dépêche du Midi (France, paywalled): “Procès du gourou du Médoc : le magnétiseur Philippe Clément condamné à 16 ans de prison pour viols, corruption de mineurs et exercice illégal de la médecine”, 8 Oct 2026.

Actu Toulouse (France): “‘J’exauce les désirs des femmes’ : qui est le ‘Gourou du Médoc’, jugé à Toulouse pour plusieurs viols ?”, 6 Oct 2026.

Le Parisien (France, paywalled): “Dix ans plus tard, retour au tribunal pour le « gourou du Médoc » : Philippe Clément jugé pour « viols » et « exercice illégal de la médecine »”, 5 Oct 2026.

La Dépêche du Midi (France, paywalled): “Procès du gourou du Médoc, addict au sexe : ‘Il se prenait pour Dieu. Philippe pensait soigner les gens avec sa propre semence et du sang de poulet’, les victimes témoignent”, 7 Oct 2026.

iROZHLAS (Czech Republic): “Kutnohorská sekta: soud řeší smrt Jiřího H. Vyslechne i šéfredaktora konspiračního magazínu Šifra”, 5 Oct 2026.

ČT24 (Czech Republic): “Vražedkyním vůdce kutnohorské sekty snížil odvolací soud výši trestů”, 30 Jun 2026.

Church Times (UK): “Retrial finds Chris Brain guilty of additional charges of rape and indecent assault”, 9 Oct 2026.

Christian Today (UK): “Former priest Chris Brain convicted of rape as Church review set to begin”, 5 Oct 2026.

Freedom Times (UK): “‘A church matter’: how Chris Brain’s abuse stayed out of police hands for 25 years”, 9 Oct 2026.

Diocese of Sheffield (UK): “Additional Support Options”, updated 2 Oct 2026.

The Telegraph (UK, paywalled): “He called himself ‘Wasp’ and joined a faerie sex cult. His death has mystified police”, 5 Oct 2026. (Paywall free).

Metro (UK): “British man mysteriously dies in ‘faerie sex cult’ in Sicily”, 5 Oct 2026.

Daily Mail (UK): “Monkey torturer who ran online ‘cult’ that dressed animals as babies and fed them into blenders is jailed for less than four years”, 9 Oct 2026.

Crown Prosecution Service (UK): “Man who ran international monkey torture ring jailed”, 9 Oct 2026.

Agerpres (Romania): “Atacuri în școlile din Polonia/Tusk denunță un ‘cult al violenței’ alimentat de rețelele sociale și jocurile video”, 8 Oct 2026.

Kirche+Leben (Germany): “Geistlicher Missbrauch: Bischöfe fordern kirchenrechtliche Strafbarkeit”, 5 Oct 2026.

Kirche+Leben (Germany): “Geistlicher Missbrauch: Diese Konsequenzen zieht das Bistum Münster”, 5 Oct 2026.

La Stampa (Italy): “Sette, santoni, maghi: un corso per agenti permette di scovarli”, 7 Oct 2026.

GenovaToday (Italy): “‘Per non lasciare sole le famiglie’: una donazione dà forza alla battaglia ligure contro sette e manipolazione”, 8 Oct 2026.

France 3 Normandie (France): “Autoproclamée épouse de Dieu, la gourou organisait des séances de sexe collectif : un ex-policier devenu romancier raconte ‘la mécanique de l’emprise psychologique’ d’une secte”, 4 Oct 2026.

Ouest-France (France, paywalled): “L’affaire de la secte du Parc d’accueil à Lisieux au cœur du 3e polar de cet ancien policier caennais”, 8 Oct 2026.

Ouest-France Programme TV (France): “Hors cadre, Amoreena - elle est née dans une secte pédophile”, Oct 2026.

Genetic Literacy Project (US): “Viewpoint: Food cults — online nutrition communities can pose unique dangers”, 5 Oct 2026.

Bloody Disgusting (US): “‘Pendulum’ Poster Commands You To ‘Surrender Completely’ To Cult Horror Movie From ‘Black Swan’ Writer”, 6 Oct 2026.

Derbyshire Times (UK): “New dark comedy drama heading for Derbyshire village focuses on teenager’s life in religious cult”, 9 Oct 2026.

Svensk Historia (Sweden): “Maosekten – rebellrörelsen i Sverige”, 5 Oct 2026.

New York Daily News (US): “Patricia Krenwinkel, who helped kill seven people as part of the murderous ‘Manson family’ cult, is up for parole”, 8 Oct 2026.

Fox News (US): “Patricia Krenwinkel recommended for parole as Newsom could block release again”, 9 Oct 2026.

The Guardian (UK): “Patricia Krenwinkel, Manson follower, granted parole”, 7 Oct 2026.

Los Angeles Magazine (US): “Manson Killer Patricia Krenwinkel Granted Parole Again”, 7 Oct 2026.

AP (US): “Jim Bakker, who lost his ‘PTL Club’ televangelism empire in sex and money scandals, dies at 86”, 6 Oct 2026.

The Korea Times (South Korea): “Religious cult, leader ordered to pay $277,000 in damages to victims of sexual assault”, 8 Oct 2026.

The Korea Herald (South Korea): “Court orders JMS leader, religious group to compensate W370m to sexual assault victims”, 8 Oct 2026.

InDaily (Australia): “‘It saved me’: Adelaide ‘God Squad’ cult survivor tells all”, 8 Oct 2026.

Daily Independent (Nigeria): “Cult Killings: Police Clamps Down On Warring Groups, Arrest 20 Suspects In Bayelsa”, 9 Oct 2026.

Punch (Nigeria): “Police arrest 23 suspected cultists in Bayelsa”, 10 Oct 2026.