Episode 25: Bad Karma: The Cult of Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul, Pt. 1

Cults are fascinating. Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, Aum Shinrikyo,
NXIVM. So often, people end up in these groups because they’re
seekers, and they genuinely want to work toward a better world.
Contrary to popular belief, people who end up in cults are often
smart and well educated. Good people who march to a different
drumbeat and have only the best intentions. But unfortunately, when
a group dynamic forms around a charismatic and narcissistic leader,
and people start molding their own realities to fit theirs, utopian
visions can turn into dystopian realities. This is the bizarre
story of a vision gone horribly wrong.

Terri Hoffman didn't seem like a prophet, at first glance. She
looked more like somebody's grandma. But for decades, Hoffman ran a
cult called Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul--but many
of her followers ended up disenchanted with her. They couldn't help
but notice that she seemed to be enriching her bank account more
than she enriched people's lives. And it went deeper than that.
Before Conscious Development finally fizzled out, Terri and the
cult would be linked to sixteen murders, suicides, APPARENT
suicides and disappearances. Was Hoffman responsible? Was she a
prophet, or a predator?

Sources:

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/december/rise-and-fall-of-a-north-dallas-cult-conscious-development/

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2014/06/d-magazines-40-greatest-stories-death-in-a-north-dallas-cult/

https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/terri-hoffman/#:~:targetText=Murder%20of%20Jill%20Bounds,and%20became%20a%20popular%20psychologist.

https://unsolved.com/gallery/charles-southern/

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