Natasha Lakaev's Universal Knowledge course under court scrutiny
Examiner, Australia/October 2, 2023
By Benjamin Seeder
Former Universal Knowledge leader Natasha Lakaev denied course requirements like food, sleep deprivation and jumping into ponds naked was abuse. File photo
Participants of a self-development course offered by a new age organisation were asked to rub their genitals against each other, watch gay pornography and jump naked into a leech-infested pond, a court has heard.
Natasha Lakaev founded the new age Universal Knowledge organisation in the 1990s, and claims that it taught members meditation, zen philosophy and self-development.
But a former organisation member, Carli McConkey, claimed in her 2017 book 'The Cult Effect' that Ms Lakaev was the leader of a doomsday cult that prophesied the end of the world in 2011 and abused its members.
Ms Lakaev, who now resides in Geeveston, is suing Ms McConkey for defamation in the Supreme Court in Hobart.
On Friday morning, Ms Lakaev confirmed that participants in one course in 1996 or 1997 were driven from Sydney to an isolated property in NSW in a bus with blacked-out windows.
Ms McConkey, who is defending herself, asked whether participants were told not to discuss the course with anybody else.
"Yes we asked that, but it's not been adhered to, like what is happening now," Ms Lakaev said.
Ms McConkey then asked whether, after arriving at the property early in the morning, participants were told to do a "genital rub" with the people in front and behind them in the line.
Ms Lakaev said it was an exercise to wake people up after the long bus ride.
"Everyone was laughing and joking, it was a fun moment," Ms Lakaev said.
Ms McConkey: "On the final night of the course, I put it to you that you showed hard-core gay pornography?"
"No, it was soft-core pornography, at a time when there was discrimination about homosexuality and AIDS," Ms Lakaev answered.
"It was designed to break down barriers, to show that lovemaking between two men or two women can be just as gentle as straight couples."
Ms McConkey asked whether she knew that one of the participants was under the age of 18 at that time.
"I don't know anything about that minor detail," Ms Lakaev answered.
Earlier, Ms McConkey presented documents showing the goals of the various courses offered by the organisation.
One, the 'Survivors' Program' claimed to teach participants how to move between dimensions.
Another taught participants how to access memories from past lives.
Ms Lakaev denied this, claiming that Ms McConkey had twisted the narrative and invented the story that Lakaev had claimed to be the Queen of Atlantis in a past life.
"You've connected this Atlantean thing to numerous other things that haven't occurred ... to make me look like a fool, claiming I was saying I was the Atalntean Queen," Ms Lakaev said.
"This was a meditation course."
Ms McConkey asked whether course participants were required to jump naked into a leech-infected pond.
Ms Lakaev answered that they had the choice of doing it as part of the course challenges.
"In Tasmania, people in Kingston jump naked into the water every year," Ms Lakaev said.
The trial resumes on October 3.
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