Once McConkey converted to its aims, the group's leader, Natasha Lakaev, manipulated her, hit her, took hundreds of thousands of dollars from her, and worked her without pay for up to 22 hours a day, seven days a week...
...In person, Lakaev was sexy, powerful, charismatic. She told attendees to keep an open mind, to ''leave your logic at the door'', to avoid ''judgmentalism'' - a technique cults use to silence the internal voice of reason.
She introduced the group to a technique called ''accessing'' - beating a black mat and yelling frustrations at parents, friends, teachers. She told them they needed to cleanse their ''cellular memory'' of the impurities of this and past lives, and those of their ancestors...
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