Latvian security police to investigate paranormal cult

The Latvian Justice Ministry asked the country's security police on March 5 to investigate Latvia's Media Center and its spiritual leader, Janis Stoknis, after the mother of a 16-year-old Jelgava girl complained he had actively recruited minors to join the group.

"I got a complaint from a woman who said that Stoknis was calling her 16-year-old daughter every night against her and her husband's wishes," said Ringolds Balodis, director of the ministry's religious affairs department.

Stoknis, who goes by the pseudonym Janis Kalns, denied the allegations. "We don't recruit minors," he said. "They come to us."

One expert has called the group a cult.

"She brought her daughter to see me," said Stoknis, referring to the woman who filed the complaint against him. "Her daughter was having trouble speaking to others, and she took her to see various people, myself included. After I helped get the girl to speak, though, her mother didn't like what she had to say."

Inese, the girl from Jelgava, backed up Stoknis' comments. Looking to Stoknis before answering, she said that her mother was unhappy with her being part of the group because she "has psychological problems and other things, like psychological influences, that she is under and she's not running her own life."

It is not against the law in Latvia for a grown man to call someone under the age of 18. "But we wanted to speak with Mr. Stoknis because of the complaints that we received from the girl's mother and from other sources," said Balodis.

Balodis says that his office has also received a letter of complaint about the group from the state-run Children's Rights Protection Center. He was also concerned about reports that a man who was allegedly a part of the group recently committed suicide.

According to Balodis, the man was found with various Latvia's Media Center paraphernalia in his car.

Stranger

Latvia's Media Center is registered as a business in Liepaja, but the company's headquarters are in Riga. The company manufactures Stoknis' book "Dvesele" ("Soul"), which outlines his beliefs and, according to him, "contains codes that will unlock (the reader's) soul."

The company also manufactures a pink windshield-wiper fluid. This is because Stoknis believes that "the stuff everyone is using now to clean their windshields is poisonous - first it harms your eyesight and then it causes cancer in the respiratory system."

According to Stoknis, the department of religious affairs asked the security police to investigate him because of his understanding of how the mind works.

"I'm the first person who has figured out how the human psyche works, which is why the (Russian security service) FSB is happy about the book and they want people to read it. This is why the Latvian secret police is scared - because my book will show everybody what they've been up to."

Stoknis asserts that by reading his book and unlocking the soul, the reader will attain heightened abilities, such as the power to read other people's minds.

"That is why Balodis and the police are scared of us - because we can train people to read minds and enable them to see that the government is just using them."

Didzis Smitins, Latvia's security police chief, had no comment.

"It's like a bad joke," said Balodis. "The ideas that come out of his head would be funny if there weren't minors and a suicide involved."

Mind control

Igor Kudryavtsev, a therapist and a doctoral student in public relations and social psychology, has worked with evaluating religious sects and cults for seven years. He has counseled a woman who was part of Stoknis' group and decided to leave. According to Kudryavtsev, Latvia's Media Center is a cult.

"I think that they are dangerous because I see some of the tools of mind-control," he said. "Stoknis is the leader and people are afraid to think outside of the ideology, or, rather, they are not afraid, they don't want to think outside of the ideology."

Kudryavtsev said that when the woman that he counseled left the group, the remaining group members wrote disparaging letters to her.

Stoknis says that there are about 55 dedicated students who attend his bi-monthly lectures.

"There are hundreds of people around Latvia who are very interested in what my organization teaches, and thousands more now that the book has been published," he said.

The lectures are free, but students must buy the book, which Stoknis produced with money that he borrowed from his students.

Stoknis does not believe that his group is a religious group at all. He says he shuns organized religions. According to Stoknis, "Balodis is the chief criminal in Latvia because he allows (organized religions) to operate here in Latvia, and these are meant to block people's minds."

Balodis laughed at Stoknis' barb, saying that "The freedom of religion is guaranteed according to Article 99 of the Latvian Constitution."