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An Internet archive of information about cults, destructive cults, controversial groups and movements. The Rick A. Ross Institute of New Jersey (RI) is a nonprofit public resource with a vast archive that contains thousands of individual documents. RI on-line files include news stories, research papers, reports, court documents, book excerpts, personal testimonies and hundreds of links to additional relevant resources. This Internet archive is well-organized for easy access and reference.

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Amma the Hugging Saint: What Her PR Team Hopes You Never Find Out

What do stuffed dolls have to do with enlightenment?

Lots, if you’re into the cult of Amma, known also as Ammachi, Mata Amritanandamayi, and “the hugging saint.”

Amma’s devotees talk to dolls made in her image that are sold on Amma retreats. They tell the doll their problems, seek its comfort, and listen in their minds for its advice.

Amma calls the devotees her children, and clucks syllables like baby talk into their ears in her trademark ritual of lining people up, watching them kneel before her and then embracing them.

Amma tells them she is their mother and that she hears their prayers.

She says she’d no more charge them for her darshan (i.e. being in her presence) than a mother would charge an infant for breast milk.

Yet insiders have estimated Amma takes in more than three million dollars in a 7-week tour, through donations and sales of items like her toothbrush, fragments of a garment she has sat on, Amma dolls, Amma posters and books by devotees extolling her divinity.