When she first found the Twin Flames Universe, Rai was within the midst of a time-honored custom: the post-breakup therapeutic journey. “I used to be on the lookout for assist and tips about getting over somebody,” she tells POPSUGAR. “I used to be having plenty of bother.”

She wound up getting much more than she bargained for. Twin Flames Universe, a company based by self-proclaimed religious gurus Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, manufacturers itself as a bunch that may assist members discover real love and religious transformation. Utilizing Fb teams, video programs, and training applications, Jeff and Shaleia promise that each Twin Flames Universe member will obtain what they themselves declare they’ve: a divinely ordained, transcendent love that spans lifetimes. Nonetheless, former members say in any other case.

Twin Flames Universe is the topic of the Prime Video documentary “Desperately Searching for Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe,” which explores the group’s origins in addition to the allegedly manipulative instruments it makes use of to coerce members into performing free labor, paying massive sums for programs, present process gender transitions, and even crossing oceans in an effort to stalk ex-partners. Jeff and Shaleia didn’t reply to the documentary producers’ repeated requests for remark. Additionally they didn’t reply to POPSUGAR’s request for remark.

Rai, who requested to be recognized by a nickname in an effort to shield her privateness, had by no means even heard of the idea of dual flames earlier than she joined the group. She would shortly be taught that the idea of dual flames relies on the concept everybody has one other half of their soul strolling the earth. In accordance with generic twin flame dogma, connections with these different halves can typically be unstable and painful; twin flames can act as mirrors, reflecting and amplifying one’s vulnerabilities and fears. In a typical twin flame union, there is a “runner” and a “chaser,” and web boards are stuffed with posts about twin flames that sound extra like rationalizations of poisonous and one-sided relationships than love tales. But the idea has taken off in recent times, partially because of {couples} like Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly, who’ve repeatedly spoken (and sung) about being twin flames — and, after all, the Twin Flames Universe.

Jeff and Shaleia, who say they’re twin flames, launched Twin Flames Universe within the mid-2010s and shortly scaled their enterprise. At this time, the still-active group expenses as a lot as $8,888 for entry to teaching, movies, and coaching applications that permit members to develop into coaches themselves. Rai did not be a part of the Twin Flames Universe as a result of she needed to search out the opposite half of her soul and even as a result of she was on the lookout for love, although. “They had been speaking about self-development, which is de facto what drew me in,” she recollects, saying she was notably drawn to the group’s emphasis on self-love.

Rai’s first introduction to the group was a gathering with an “Ascension Coach,” who appeared “so glad, so peaceable” and gave her “examples of how Jeff and Lee’s program had actually modified her life.” Self-love, private progress, and massive guarantees are sometimes preliminary promoting factors for cults like NXIVM and Scientology, which frequently lure members in with generic rational ideas and solely later reveal their extra excessive teachings.

Rai was additionally drawn to the group as a result of it provided entry to a neighborhood. The second she joined the Twin Flames Universe’s personal Fb group, Rai says she was flooded with a whole lot of supportive and loving messages. She shortly started partaking in discussions and meet-ups, the place members would principally focus on their religious journeys. A religious seeker herself, Rai valued the chance to speak about god and philosophy with like-minded individuals. As for the entire twin flame side, “I did not suppose very deeply about it, I will be trustworthy,” she says. “I used to be simply curious.”

And but even at the moment, there have been delicate crimson flags she solely seen in hindsight. “Individuals would strategy me day-after-day, at each level, asking, ‘Have you considered becoming a member of the Ascension Teaching program? Have you considered doing this?'” Rai says. She would later notice that these individuals had been apparently underneath stress from Jeff and Shaleia to recruit new paying prospects and coaches.

Rai ultimately paid for a month of entry to Twin Flames Ascension Faculty. After her first month, she says she was requested to develop into an Ascension Coach to coach different individuals within the artwork of working in direction of “harmonious twin flame union” — Jeff and Shaleia’s final promise. Rai noticed the job as simply one other type of life teaching, and she or he signed up for the group’s Ascension Teaching coaching program, which at present prices $4,999.

Throughout trial classes with potential shoppers, Rai started to know the truth of the demographic that Twin Flames Universe was focusing on. “They both lived alone, had no buddies, or had gone by some kind of traumatic scenario that meant that they both indifferent themselves or disassociated from regardless of the actuality of their life was on the time,” Rai says. Typically, she needed to inform folks that what they actually wanted to do was go exterior and join with others in the true world. However within the more and more insular and all-consuming world of the Twin Flames Universe, there was no cause to enterprise off display screen.

“Should you make investments your entire self into it, it turns into a world inside itself,” she notes. “Should you be a part of the Ascension Teaching program, that is your job, and that takes care of your life objective. Your Twin Flames neighborhood turns into your mates, in order that takes care of your social life.” And naturally, there was the holy grail: discovering one’s twin.

Early on in her involvement with the group, Rai, nonetheless recovering from her breakup, posted a photograph of herself and her ex within the Twin Flames Universe Fb group. Rai says Jeff, who had by no means engaged straight together with her earlier than on the time, advised her that her ex was certainly her twin flame. Rai additionally claims that Jeff mentioned she was “heading in the right direction,” however had “plenty of blocks” and “a protracted method to go.” “I used to be very confused as to how he might make that judgment so shortly — that I used to be nonetheless spiritually blocked or no matter he known as it,” Rai explains. “That created a right away nervousness in me.”

Nonetheless, she reached out to her ex and advised him in regards to the Twin Flames Universe and what Jeff had mentioned, and the pair reconnected. Nonetheless, “it obtained sort of bizarre for me after they began inserting themselves in my life like that,” Rai says. “I assumed it was simply a web-based course that you possibly can swap on and off.”

However the Twin Flames Universe was by no means supposed to simply be a web-based course. Along with her coaching program, Rai started operating a few of the Twin Flames Universe social media accounts — at no cost, after all. She was additionally working with an Ascension Coach of her personal, and day-after-day, her coach would message her asking if she’d texted her designated twin flame or in any other case labored in direction of their union. The stress to pursue her twin flame was changing into aggressive, however because it was all shrouded in a lot love and light-weight, it was laborious to see. “It was delicate. . . . They wrapped it up in plenty of love and care,” Rai says of the group’s techniques. “They simply love-bombed me into accepting these items by telling me how proficient I used to be and that I ought to be doing this, and that that is my calling.”

Questioning Jeff’s preliminary judgment name about her ex, in her view, was by no means an possibility. “If I rejected it, it could develop into my fault,” she says. Doubt led to catch-22 questions like, “Why are you not experiencing your good?” and “Do you not suppose you need to be cherished?” As a result of Rai’s foremost objective in becoming a member of the Twin Flames Universe had at all times been to work on her self-love, being advised that she wasn’t loving herself sufficient as a result of she was rejecting her twin flame was notably painful. There was, she claims, “plenty of psychological manipulation.”

Throughout her time in Twin Flames Universe, Rai additionally occurred to fulfill somebody new. She says Twin Flames Universe discouraged her from pursuing that relationship, although, saying she wanted to be together with her twin flame it doesn’t matter what. Nonetheless, Rai’s doubts had been rising. “‘I do know Jeff confirmed it, however I do not suppose that is the man,'” Rai recollects considering. She needed to finish issues as soon as and for all together with her ex and give attention to herself and her life. However in Twin Flames Universe, she says that wasn’t an possibility.

“I discovered it actually uncomfortable that he was preaching that he was this religious, loving particular person. There have been simply too many bizarre indicators and bizarre recommendation that he was giving.”

Fortuitously, not like so lots of the group’s deeply remoted members, Rai wasn’t alone. Family and friends had been beginning to inform her that it appeared like she could be in a cult. As soon as she started investigating Twin Flames Universe from a extra skeptical perspective, she began noticing warning indicators. Jeff, particularly, was beginning to unnerve her. He appeared like “a really indignant particular person” who would take out his anger on others, she mentioned. He additionally appeared fixated on cash, typically displaying off his automobile and home and citing them as proof that he had spiritually ascended ultimately. “I discovered it actually uncomfortable that he was preaching that he was this religious, loving particular person,” Rai says. “There have been simply too many bizarre indicators and bizarre recommendation that he was giving.” Shaleia was additionally unnervingly quiet and appeared subservient to Jeff, although she reportedly was the one who developed most of Twin Flames Universe’s religious teachings within the first place, in accordance with a 2020 Vainness Honest exposé.

In accordance with Rai, she was typically instructed to make use of a follow known as the “mirror train,” which concerned wanting within the mirror and directing any indignant or unfavourable sentiments you had been feeling in direction of another person at your self. Should you had been indignant at another person, you had been supposed to appreciate that your anger was really in direction of your self. Jeff and Shaleia claimed that the train would make members conscious that they had been the supply of their very own issues and points, nevertheless it’s straightforward to think about how shortly that reframe might put on down any semblance of real anger or doubt. “Morally, that felt incorrect,” Rai says. “At that time, that is after I simply felt like, ‘I do not need to do that anymore.'”

A breaking level got here when Jeff requested her to attend an in-person occasion in Canada alongside together with her designated twin flame. She virtually ended up going till her ex identified simply how absurd the entire thing was. Rai started reflecting on simply how deep she’d been sucked into the group and finally determined it was time to depart Twin Flames Universe. “As quickly as I left the group and requested for my a refund, Jeff was very aggressive in direction of me in texts,” Rai alleges, saying he repeatedly requested her why she was operating away from love and god, particularly when she was so near reaching harmonious twin flame union. Nonetheless, she by no means went again.

Rai’s story is without doubt one of the much less stunning tales to return out of Twin Flames Universe. Journalist Alice Hines, who wrote an exposé of the alleged cult for Vainness Honest in 2020 and can also be centrally featured in “Desperately Searching for Soulmate,” interviewed a member who had spent a month in jail after being inspired to stalk a twin flame who had filed a restraining order. Different members say Jeff and Shaleia inspired them to pursue their exes irrespective of the associated fee. Moreover, quite a few queer {couples} — a lot of them arrange within the first place by Jeff and Shaleia — have mentioned that they had been pressured to endure gender transitions whereas in Twin Flames Universe. In accordance with Jeff and Shaleia, all twin flame unions have a divine masculine and a divine female side, and “Desperately Searching for Soulmate” explores a number of instances the place Jeff seemingly tried to coerce feminine members into transitioning in an effort to match into their divine masculine roles. Jeff and Shaleia denied all the above allegations within the 2020 Vainness Honest article.

At this time, over three years after the Vainness Honest exposé, Twin Flames Universe may be very a lot nonetheless lively. Rai says that in any case, she nonetheless thinks the bigger Twin Flames Universe neighborhood is a constructive and loving place, and she or he actually feels for the individuals who’ve been sucked in deep whereas in search of neighborhood, which means, and love in an typically lonely world. She additionally understands that individuals are interested in Twin Flames Universe for a similar causes they’re typically interested in any faith or group that guarantees solutions and salvation or redemption of any form.

However she worries, she says, that Jeff and Shaleia are inflicting lasting injury to “individuals which might be clearly very susceptible and wish validation that the world is a loving place.” Twin Flames Universe attracts individuals “which might be on the lookout for some sort of happiness someplace on the earth, they usually’re provided that,” she says. However on the finish of the day, “they’re nonetheless advised they don’t seem to be ok as a result of they do not have a boyfriend.”