In Malta a Valletta court kept a 15-year-old from Bari, in southern Italy, in detention over a school bomb alert and alleged links to 764, an international network of violent extremism and cyberbullying. The next hearing is on 30 September.

In Germany police searched properties in five states over Artgemeinschaft, a banned völkisch cult built on a racially defined German folk. SRF reported that Paul Baumann of Methernitha, a Swiss Christian-fundamentalist cult, abused girls on the day of his 1976 conviction and after he left prison.

An RTL team went undercover in German Waldorf schools, the Steiner-inspired independent schools. In Scotland, Groupwork staged When Prophecy Fails at the Edinburgh International Festival, a dance work on a 1950s American doomsday cult.

Malta court lists the Bari teenager for 30 September

In Malta a Valletta court on 26 August kept a 15-year-old from Bari, in southern Italy, in detention over a school bomb alert, Corriere del Mezzogiorno reported. Freedom Times reported the 19 August adjournment, when a police inspector told the court that computer files pointed to 764, which the paper described as an international network of violent extremism and cyberbullying. The boy has been held in Malta since 25 May.

The judge set the next hearing for 30 September, to hear the prosecution’s last key witness, and deferred a decision on bail. This was the fourth hearing to take evidence before any trial.

The court heard a police inspector, a psychologist from the detention centre, and a schoolmate accompanied by his father. The schoolmate’s testimony was taken behind closed doors in a separate room.

The judge ordered a court-appointed expert report on why the boy is still held in strict isolation, apart from other detainees. Police have yet to finish examining his seized phone.

Police search five German states over banned Artgemeinschaft

In Germany police searched properties in five of the country’s 16 states on 27 August on suspicion that Artgemeinschaft was still operating despite the ban, Stern reported. The group is völkisch: a far-right creed organised around a racially defined German folk. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Halle, in eastern Germany, told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) that 15 people are accused of supporting it.

The searches began that morning in Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. In North Rhine-Westphalia, in the west, they included Lippstadt. In Brandenburg, the state around Berlin, they included an address in Potsdam and another in Zossen, south of the capital.

The federal interior ministry outlawed the group in 2023. Germany’s Federal Administrative Court, which hears challenges to government bans, confirmed that order in April. The then interior minister, Nancy Faeser, had called it:

„sektenartige, zutiefst rassistische und antisemitische Vereinigung“

Baumann’s abuse continued after the Methernitha verdict

In Switzerland, SRF reported that on the day a court in Thun, near Bern, sentenced Paul Baumann to seven years in 1976, he abused a group of girls in a carpet warehouse, claiming he wanted to say goodbye to his family. The account is in Marina Klauser’s documentary Der Engelmacher. Freedom Times covered the film.

Baumann, known inside the group as “Vatti”, was spiritual head of Methernitha, a Christian-fundamentalist cult at Linden in the Bernese Emmental. From the 1950s he gathered about 300 followers. He attracted them with the Testatika, a machine said to take energy from nothing and shown only to those who joined. He died in 2011.

After his release, an ex-member said, he went first to the house where the girls lived. About ten girls and women were abused after he returned, more than before. One woman, speaking anonymously, said:

«Der Missbrauch lief weiter und weiter, bis Baumann körperlich und alters halber keine Bedürfnisse mehr hatte»

The 1976 court had ordered that he be supervised after release. Former members say officials then looked away for decades.

Klauser asked the Linden municipal council and Methernitha, which still exists, to appear in the film. Both declined.

Undercover in German Waldorf schools

In Germany an RTL reporter worked undercover at two Waldorf schools, the Steiner-inspired independent schools, and at a teacher-training seminar in Dresden. About 90,000 children now attend Waldorf schools in Germany, more than ever. The state supports them with more than €647 million a year, RTL said after asking the education ministry in each of the 16 states.

The reporter, Antonia, herself a former Waldorf pupil, filmed in Saxony, in the east, and Rhineland-Palatinate, in the west. Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, the esoteric system he founded, is still taught. In Saxony a teacher sorted pupils by Steiner’s “temperaments”.

André Sebastiani, of a German sceptics’ group, called the temperament theory a purely esoteric world-view with no scientific foundation. In the Dresden seminar, trainees spoke magic formulas by temperament, danced through the room, and said “Abrakadabra” together.

Some teachers, many of whom had come from other jobs, told her their training was inadequate. Pupils described gaps in ordinary subjects. Judith Lürmann, a Waldorf teacher, said:

„Es bedeutet, der Lehrer ist die einzige Ressource der Wahrheit“

In Rhineland-Palatinate she recorded children left unsupervised in potentially dangerous situations: one day two pupils were handling a hammer and a pickaxe, the next a boy was climbing out of a second-floor window. Both schools said their staff met legal requirements and pointed to exam results at or above the state average.

The film is on RTL+.

When Prophecy Fails at the Edinburgh Festival

In Scotland, Groupwork staged When Prophecy Fails at the Edinburgh International Festival, a dance work on a 1950s American doomsday cult. The piece takes its title from When Prophecy Fails (1956), by the social psychologists Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter. Kelly Apter reviewed it in The Scotsman.

The book follows a Chicago-area group later known as the Seekers, led by Dorothy Martin, whom the authors called Marian Keech. They believed a flood would destroy the world on 21 December 1954, and that spacemen would lift the faithful away in flying saucers. When the flood did not come, members who had left jobs and given away money did not simply walk away. Many explained the failure as a test, or as proof that their faith had saved the Earth, and some became more committed than before.

Festinger later named that pattern cognitive dissonance: the strain of holding a belief after events have contradicted it, and the urge to ease the strain by recruiting others or rewriting the prophecy rather than dropping it. The study remains the classic field account of how a failed doomsday can strengthen a cult instead of ending it.

Five performers play both the Seekers and the researchers who joined them. On a 1950s set of desks, sofas, telephones and typewriters they wait for the flood the messages had promised. Much of the story is told in dance, by the choreographer Vicki Manderson. One woman, in a recorded voiceover, says she left her job and spent all her money, so the world really had better end.

Beyond Europe

Seoul court jails Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja

In South Korea a Seoul court on 31 August sentenced Han Hak-ja, the 83-year-old leader of the Unification Church, to two years in prison for bribery and offences over political funding, the BBC and Reuters reported. Han is the widow of Sun Myung Moon, who founded the church in South Korea in the 1950s as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and proclaimed himself the messiah.

The Seoul Central District Court found that her church gave Kim Keon Hee, wife of ousted president Yoon Suk Yeol, two Chanel bags and a diamond necklace worth 80 million won (£42,500). Kim was sentenced earlier this year to 20 months for taking bribes from the church. Han was given one year for violating South Korea’s law on political donations, including 100 million won provided to a then ruling-party lawmaker ahead of the 2022 presidential election, and a further year for the luxury gifts.

Prosecutors said it was the first time authorities had confirmed the church’s attempt to buy political influence, and released photographs of $19 million in cash found in Han’s personal safe. The judge said:

“The crimes were committed to use the Unification Church’s financial power to support a favourable candidate in the 20th presidential election, seen as an important opportunity to expand the church’s influence, and, when that candidate was elected, to obtain support for church policies and continuously secure political influence.”

Han, who was brought into court in a wheelchair, had called the allegations “false”. She denied any interest in politics and said subordinates had acted without her knowledge.

The Family Federation said it would appeal. A court order that had kept her out of prison on health grounds expires on Wednesday 2 September.

The Unification Church is a cult. Lawyers have accused it of coercing devotees to donate large sums. Japan has ordered it to dissolve.

Icac hears the Reformers’ recordings and invoices

In Australia, the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales, the state around Sydney, this week heard that Charles Perrottet, younger brother of former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet, shared “dirt”, including a secret recording of a minister made from a pocket. The Liberals are the state’s centre-right party. Icac, the anti-corruption watchdog, is examining whether Liberal figures, including Charles, took donations from fugitive developer Jean Nassif and his company Toplace, and whether payments to a group of young conservatives known as the Reformers were illegal political donations.

Freedom Times reported David Elliott’s evidence, when he said a cult had taken over the party and named a faction around Dominic Perrottet linked to Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic organisation.

Former MP and ministerial chief of staff Chris Spence told the inquiry on 24 August that Charles had sent him two audio files in 2021. One, from May, allegedly recorded Nassif discussing an occupation certificate, official permission to occupy a finished building, in exchange for a large sum.

The second, from October, was recorded from a phone in a pocket and purportedly caught former minister David Elliott criticising Dominic Perrottet, then about to become premier. Spence said that, on reflection, the files looked like an effort to advance Nassif’s interests.

Anita Perrottet, Charles’s wife, told Icac on 26 August that hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to her were for “strategic and marketing advice”. Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, the barrister assisting the inquiry, told her that $661,000, matching her husband’s alleged share, had been paid through her, and asked whether she was lying under oath to cover for him.

“I reject that. I’m not lying.”

On 27 August former building commissioner David Chandler told Icac that Nassif had warned him by phone in 2021:

“Don’t you harm my project, and if you harm my project, I’ll harm you.”

A few days earlier Chandler had refused to let residents move into Skyview, a Toplace apartment block in Castle Hill, a Sydney suburb. The inquiry is investigating whether about $2 million paid to Jeremy Greenwood, Christian Ellis and Charles Perrottet was intended to have Chandler removed.

Chandler is not under investigation. Nassif, who fled to Lebanon in 2022, is expected to appear by video next week.

Arizona court adds 24 years for Samuel Bateman

In the United States, a state court in Flagstaff, northern Arizona, on 25 August added 24 years to the prison term of Samuel Bateman, 50, a polygamous cult leader already serving 50 years in federal prison, the Associated Press reported. That term will run only after the federal sentence ends. The convictions were for child abuse after three girls, aged 11 to 14, were found in an unventilated trailer during an August 2022 traffic stop.

The trailer had a makeshift toilet, a sofa and camping chairs, and no air conditioning or seat belts. A passer-by had seen children’s fingers through gaps in the trailer doors.

Bateman’s group was an offshoot of the polygamous cult once led by Warren Jeffs, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The federal sentence was for coercing girls as young as nine into sex acts and for a plot to kidnap girls from state care, later the subject of the Netflix series Trust Me: The False Prophet.

Judge Joshua Steinlage cited an “insane danger” to the girls in the trailer and ordered the state term to run after the federal sentence. Bateman, who represented himself, did not ask for leniency.

“I love these dear people with all my heart, and I had no intention in the entire world to harm them.”

A victim who was 14 at the traffic stop said Bateman had taken advantage of her sexually when she was 12, and that he “stole my childhood”. Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet, had claimed more than 20 “spiritual wives”, including ten girls under 18. Ammon Barker, the county prosecutor, said the sentence meant Bateman would never again be in a position to harm a child.

Missouri’s missing six and the University of Cosmic Intelligence

In the United States, six people, two of them children, vanished from Berkeley, a suburb of St Louis in Missouri, three years ago this month, FOX 2 in St Louis reported.

Police and relatives are asking for fresh attention to the case. Berkeley Police Major Steve Runge, who has had the file from the start, said they were followers of a group police call a cult, the University of Cosmic Intelligence.

They were last known at a rental house on Graham Lane, where neighbours said some sat naked on the roof. They later stayed briefly at a Quality Inn in Florissant, another St Louis suburb. Runge said the cult told them to leave ordinary life, cut off family and friends, and treat the soul as belonging to the universe.

Lukeitta Williams said her son Naaman left while she was at work. Cartisha Morgan is looking for her 28-year-old daughter Ma’Kayla and five-year-old granddaughter Malaiyah.

“We’ll never stop searching. We’ll never forget them. And we are just going to pray for their safe return home.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the Berkeley Police Department on 314-524-3311.

Source citations

Corriere del Mezzogiorno (Italy): “Malta, 15enne barese in carcere da tre mesi resta ancora detenuto: il processo slitta al 30 settembre. Disposta la perizia sul rigido isolamento”, 26 Aug 2026.

Stern (Germany): “Rechtsextreme Artgemeinschaft: Razzien gegen mutmaßliche Unterstützer”, 27 Aug 2026.

SRF (Switzerland): “Verurteilter Sektenführer Vatti missbrauchte Mädchen auch nach seiner Verurteilung”, 26 Aug 2026.

RTL (Germany): “#wallraffen undercover an Waldorfschulen: RTL-Recherche wirft Fragen zum System der Ersatzschulen auf”, 24 Aug 2026.

n-tv (Germany): “90.000 Schüler landesweit: ‘Team Wallraff’ blickt hinter die Kulissen der Waldorfschulen”, 24 Aug 2026.

The Scotsman (UK): “When Prophecy Fails, EIF dance and physical theatre review: ‘beautifully choreographed’”, 28 Aug 2026.

BBC (UK): “Unification Church: ‘Moonies’ church leader jailed for two years over bribery offences”, 31 Aug 2026.

Reuters: “South Korea court sentences Unification Church leader to jail in political influence case”, 31 Aug 2026.

The Guardian (UK): “Dominic Perrottet’s brother allegedly shared ‘dirt’ including secret phone recording of minister, Icac hears”, 24 Aug 2026.

The Guardian (UK): “Dominic Perrottet’s sister-in-law denies lying under oath to protect husband over allegedly illegal donations, Icac hears”, 26 Aug 2026.

The Guardian (UK): “‘If you harm my project, I’ll harm you’: former NSW official tells Icac about fugitive developer’s call”, 27 Aug 2026.

Prescott eNews (US): “Polygamous sect leader gets 24 years in prison for child abuse after girls found in trailer - Associated”, 25 Aug 2026.

ABC4 (US): “‘He got what he deserved’: ‘Trust Me: The False Prophet’ star reacts to polygamous sect leader’s additional 24-year sentencing”, 28 Aug 2026.

Associated Press (US): “Polygamous sect leader gets 24 years in prison for child abuse after girls found in trailer”, 25 Aug 2026.

FOX 2 (US): “Missing Missouri group with cult ties remains mystery three years later”, 28 Aug 2026.

FOX 2 St. Louis (YouTube): “Missing Missouri group with cult ties remains mystery three years later”, 28 Aug 2026 [03:13].