What is so remarkable about Jeff and Shaleia Divine, you might wonder? Why do strangers pay thousands for their guidance on finding a “forever partner”?

The answer is unsurprising. Nothing.

Jeff, who at one point claimed to be the second coming of Jesus, had plans of enrichment since his school days, a former friend recalled. Why use his business degree legitimately, when he can “attract wealth” by selling dreams to the desperate? Not much is known about Shaleia, apart from her interest in spirituality prior to meeting Jeff. Their vocabulary is limited; not impressive at all. The personal development shtick is simplistic and borrowed from other cults. They are as charismatic as a pickle.

In truth, this cult comes across as a caricature. Even then it’s the Temu version. Everything about it is so incredibly stupid.

Before TFU, Jeff had the magnificent idea of claiming he could cure diseases with his newfound spiritual gift, including cancer. The friend he and Shaleia lived with, whose mother had passed from cancer, was not amused and asked them to move out. After experimenting with online content, they set up Twin Flames Universe in 2017, supposedly to help single people find their “twin flame” – the partner the universe had created for them (not delusional in the slightest). Once they found said person, TFU would help the member remain in harmonious union with them (translation; the member would keep supporting the cult financially, although the main goal had been achieved).

For the past 8 years, they have been continuously expanding their money-making ventures – pardon me, spiritual mission. Along the way, they changed their last name from Ayan to Divine, to reflect their narcissism, and started a church, dubbed the Church of Union (no relation to the Unification Church and the Moonies, though there are some parallels, in terms of the Divines randomly pairing their followers up).

Courtesy of Copilot, these are their sources of revenue presently. Once again, consider that everything they sell is hot air, pulled straight out of their behinds:

Main revenue streams

  • Paid online courses and memberships
    Their largest and most visible income source is sales of structured programs, multi-level courses, subscriptions, and tiered membership access sold through Twin Flames Universe and related coaching tracks.
  • Personal and group coaching / certifications
    Fees for one-to-one coaching, group coaching intensives, and paid coach‑training or certification programs generate substantial recurring revenue.
  • Live events, workshops, and retreats
    Ticketed in‑person and virtual events, weekend retreats, and high‑ticket intensives are marketed to members and non‑members and typically carry premium pricing.
  • Branded products and merchandise
    Books, branded goods, digital downloads, and ancillary products sold to the community provide supplementary income.
  • Church receipts and donations
  • Donations, tithes, suggested offerings, and other payments routed through the religious entity they founded contribute to overall receipts and are sometimes tied to program access or services.
  • Real estate and property use
    Use of owned or controlled properties for headquarters, event venues, or member housing can create value either through direct rental income or by reducing operating costs for events and programs.
  • Ancillary services and upsells
    Assessment sessions, “alignment” or “healing” sessions, signature branded processes, and upsells inside programs are ongoing revenue drivers.

Businesses and organizations run by Jeff and Shaleia Divine

  • Twin Flames Universe (TFU) — the online organization and primary business they founded and operate; it offers paid courses, coaching, membership communities, and related programs.
  • Twin Flame Ascension Course / Twin Flames Ascension School — the flagship paid course program and coach-training pathway marketed under TFU.
  • Mind Alignment Process — a branded online “therapy/healing” program promoted and run through their organization.
  • Church of Union (also called Unionism) — a religious organization they established and publicly link to TFU; within the church they have adopted leadership titles and integrated TFU beliefs into its structure.
  • Merchandise and ancillary products — published items and paid products tied to TFU branding such as a cookbook and other monetized offerings sold to members.

To access their holy wisdom, one can pay from 10$ (for a book) up to 8.888$, for the “complete package” of “educational” material. If you’re not directly involved with them, that is. By training to be a coach, which involves courses and sessions, one can lose far more; a woman they scammed reported having paid them around 20000$ in total.

Like Landmark, TFU encouraged members to go into debt to pay for coaching sessions and other “services” or “products”. And like churches peddling the prosperity gospel, they claimed this would result in spiritual advancement, enabling members to attract more income into their lives, and was therefore an investment, not a money hole.

Intelligence or lack thereof

Having amassed a fortune and living in a mansion in Michigan, the pair appears to at least be smart in terms of scamming. Emphasis on the word appears. In a recorded conversation with a follower over Zoom, Jeff can clearly be heard proposing the establishment of a church for tax purposes, as well as using people’s labour for free, classing them as church volunteers, as opposed to employees. This way he wouldn’t have to pay them, he candidly said. This is fraudulent and can be used against them to change their tax status and reclaim money; it also violates labour laws.

Jeff can be seen in multiple videos flaunting his wealth, his expensive car and his mansion. There is a thingy called the IRS, which tends to take note of these issues.

Additionally, few months ago, the couple granted an interview to investigative journalist Avery Haines, against their better judgement. They sought to change the image prior documentaries, like the Netflix one, had created.

Like the criminals representing themselves in court in murder cases, with no legal background, cult leaders are extremely arrogant; the unquestioning obedience of their followers makes them think they can fool just anybody.

Upon being asked uncomfortable questions, Mr. Divine proved to have very thin skin and needed a few moments to compose himself. In a bit to simulate humility, he candidly admitted that he was engaging people in a journey of exploration, and nothing was set in stone – not even the twin flames concept itself.

Had his followers not been brainwashed, the admission would’ve been an absolute disaster. The Divines had amassed millions based on the twin flame concept alone; it was the raison d’etre of their establishment.

Finally, in July of this year, their mansion was raided and an investigation is still ongoing by the Michigan Attorney General’s office. No charges have been announced yet and there is still an appeal for witnesses and tips. Given how brilliantly smart and careful the Divines are, a solid case seems almost certain.

The “twin flame” concept infantilises members

The preoccupation with finding ideal love, as a side issue, is one of the criteria for diagnosing NPD. It’s a concept out of Disney productions and not compatible with real life. Rather, it’s a childhood or early adolescence dream.

Let’s examine a few of the reasons:

  • The main criterion for identifying one’s twin flame is a feeling. It’s completely subjective and cannot be tested to ensure accuracy; nor is it different from a crush. Emotions (attraction, affability etc.) are tricky business.
  • Relationships evolving too quickly, as these scammers suggest they should, are very often abusive. How would someone differentiate finding their twin flame from being love-bombed by a predator?
  • The concept of the universe preoccupying itself with the happiness of every human mammal is narcissistic as hell. We live on a planet that kills indiscriminately through natural phenomena and disease.
  • If somebody wants to study why people are attracted to each other, personality-wise, they can study psychology.
  • If someone can identify their twin flame through a feeling, what the hell do they need their courses for?

With regards to the idea that these two, Jeff (not all Jeffs, but somehow always a Jeff) and Shalala (sorry, I forgot her fake name) Divine being able to counsel anyone on having a good relationship or marriage in the first place, it falls apart at face value:

  • They started this enterprise when they were quite young, not long having been together. How much experience did they have on being a couple and why did anyone take them seriously? Most marriages fall apart within the first 5 years.
  • They had no background to speak of in helping people with relationship issues. They had no background in psychology or even the lousy claim of being life coaches.
  • Claiming that whatever worked for them must work for the entire planet, inhabited by 8 billion people with very different personalities and needs, was absurd.
  • Their financial motivation was glaring, and they didn’t even hide it.

Encouraging delusions and criminality

The start of the cult may not have involved as much coercion as it does now, but it led to terrible things happening to members. Initially, they were told their twin flame could be just anybody, identifiable by a strong feeling. It didn’t matter if the so-called twin flame was likely to reciprocate – or even knew they existed.

You can guess what happened next. Celebrity crushes being encouraged by Jeff and Shillelagh (sorry, I forgot again). Two restraining orders were issued, one against a woman who believed Ryan Gosling was her twin flame, sending him parcels and showing up at his house.

A woman named Elle, who took part in the Netflix documentary “Escaping Twin Flames” (well worth a watch) detailed how she spent a month in jail after being persuaded by these two to stalk her ex partner. Ironically, when she was arrested they had met by chance in a night club, but she had been pestering him for ages, being told by Jeff that she had to be like a honey badger and pursue what she wanted without caring. Her ex was reporting everything to the police in real time. This poor woman. She didn’t even leave the cult after her prison experience; she was ousted and shunned some time after.

Members were told that no norms and morals applicable in society mattered, such as pursuing a married person or someone who was in a relationship and had children with other people.

Some chased their ex partners, like Elle did. Imagine the stigma they must’ve acquired from their ex partners’ entire family and social circle, being forever known as stalkers. Hopefully awareness of the cult will earn them some grace, as they were under undue influence. Elle recalled lying on a bed in her jail cell, still doing the “mirror exercise”, a self-improvement technique created by the Divines. When she got out, she still didn’t leave the group. Once she started questioning them, she was quickly shunned, with the added insult of being called a criminal, based on doing what they had instructed her to do.

Imagine, out of these thousands of people following Jeff and Shaleia, if some had a draw to pursue a minor or a blood relative, in the belief that they had found their twin flame. It might’ve happened somewhere on this planet.

The mirror exercise

As a solution to someone’s every emotional problem, Jeff and Shalala borrowed a concept from Landmark (they don’t admit it of course, but it’s obvious). EST, which Landmark evolved out of, had borrowed it from Scientology. Hence, if not for Hubbard, people wouldn’t be referring to Jeff today as the divine father. Just kidding; Jeff would’ve found another way to scam people.

The mirror exercise is based on the claim that a person’s unhappiness arises exclusively from issues within themselves, that they need to identify and fix, as opposed to outside factors such as manipulation or mistreatment by their partner. An objective analysis of the partner’s behaviour is completely removed from the picture. For example, “I think my partner hates me” becomes “I actually hate myself”.

This has long been used by cults to make members insecure, in a perpetual quest to fix themselves and things out of their control. It has also been used to minimise abuse, making the member confused and docile in relation to cult leaders. “The dear leader just humiliated me” becomes “I humiliated myself”.

Unsurprisingly, the Divines also preach the law of attraction, similarly used to wash away trauma, through the claim that a person attracts whatever happens to them (even CSA, apparently). Landmark uses this hogwash to “complete” relationships (have victims reach out to their abusers in hope of reconciliation, so more people can be recruited into the cult).

Constant navel-gazing and putting oneself at the centre of everything is detrimental and separates the member from reality. It also puts them in danger.

Coerced gender transitions

The Divines go for the lowest hanging fruit (desperate people) and still take a machete to it, wielding a level of control over members that if not criminal, should be.

For their business to flourish, they needed exhibits, in the form of thriving couples they had helped establish.

The previous guidelines, stating one’s twin flame could be anybody (even Ryan Gosling), were now shaky, especially after the restraining orders. Plus, members needed to see success for themselves in order to not become discouraged, which could mean they would stop paying.

The couples formed under the TFU umbrella would be their ambassadors to the world; living proof of their methods functioning. They first got a lady named Keely to pursue an ex boyfriend, who became convinced the scam was real, married her quickly and joined her in recruiting new members, as well as controlling them. Keely was unhappy as Colby, her husband, did not respect her boundaries and she felt pressured into unwanted sex. The gurus shamed her for it, invalidating the notion of consent.

One day, they decided that members could no longer find their twin flames outside the group. Twin flames could only be found among existing members. People should’ve run off at that point. That’s some change of goal post.

Imagine selling a bold claim for a few years and suddenly changing the whole paradigm, tacitly admitting having given wrong advice to scores of paying members. If they were wrong about one bold revelation, why should the second one be trusted?

The next pronouncement was that the Divines would be the ones to make these matches, much like Moon back in the day, who would point the finger at random adherents and marry them.

They now had a problem: far too many women had joined the cult, men being outnumbered. Most were heterosexual, looking for a male partner. There was a lesbian couple they paraded for a while as well, as facilitated by them, if my memory is correct, even though the women had known each other for years, prior to joining, and their journey was a private one, likely to occur without the cult’s encouragement.

If they couldn’t get men to join, they would create them, Jeff and Shepoopi thought. Members were objects after all; they could be convinced to transform into anything their masters wanted. To adapt a famous conservative quote: we need an Adam for Eve, so we’ll turn Sue into Steve.

In my humble opinion, they should do time in prison for this. The women they targeted were so lonely and desperate they allowed themselves to be convinced to change their appearance, name and pronouns, then start hormone treatment, then undergo sex change operations, which are never fully reversible. This, without ever having experienced gender dysphoria before.

To justify this insane proposition, the gurus claimed that every person was either a divine masculine or a divine feminine. They used the existence of actual transgender people in the group to portray this as something natural, when it was the opposite.

If they rejected the proposition, members selected for gender reassignment were pressured and subjected to 24-hour-long coaching sessions, during which they were not allowed breaks, including to go to the bathroom. They were only allowed to end the session when they accepted that they were in fact men. Such is the power of brainwashing that they didn’t just give the middle finger and exit the conversation. They were being controlled remotely, while in their own homes.

Some women did leave at that point, as the absurdity became blatant. Some accepted slight changes of appearance, like haircuts, but stopped before it was too late and were ousted. Others, however, complied fully (I believe there were 19 cases). The callous disregard for these people’s lives, in order to keep extracting money from them, is criminal.

It’s disturbing that people did this. It’s also disturbing that they managed to convince medical professionals to perform operations and prescribe hormone treatments, without having established that the patients needed them. Were the women honest as to their reasons? Probably not, as I assume external influence, never mind pressure, would cause the treatments to be denied. Then again, such cases must be unheard of, and not likely something doctors would be wary of.

Lives have been irreparably damaged, just so these people could be financially milked by two scammers. I imagine the day they realise it was all a con. It’s chilling. I hope they can access appropriate support and find ways to recover when that happens.

Pushing members to enter and remain in dangerous situations

Keely’s sister, Marlee, was only 19 when she was recruited into the cult. Candidly, in a casual group conversation, she mentioned having received a message on Facebook from a stranger. The Divines, desperate to see as many happy couples as possible, convinced her that the man must be her twin flame.

He was more than a decade older, was on probation and suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She ended up moving states to be with him, suffering for two years in an abusive relationship, also trumpeted by the cult as a success. Every time she reached out for help, in distress, her disclosures were dismissed by the happiness factory. She had to fix it. Domestic abuse victims are often told that regardless of the abuse they suffer, they can always manage it better. It’s on them.

To think that this pair of fraudsters encouraged her to sacrifice years of her life to abuse by a clearly unstable stranger, just so they could have another prop to show off on their channel temporarily, makes me boil. People are objects to them.

Thankfully Marlee is a strong person and prevailed, but you can clearly see how this type of experience can mess someone up for life.

At face value this approach contradicts their so-called teachings: a member is supposed to have one twin flame on this planet, yet they were encouraging people to shack up with just anybody, as quickly as possible.

Golden children

A few years ago, Jeff and Shepoopi were divinely inspired to tell members that couples formed from twin flames should procreate, and their progeny would be golden children (I can’t remember the specifics, but these children would be spiritually superior). This is again evocative of the Moonies, as Moon had told followers that children resulting from marriages he had arranged would be free of original sin. “Arranged” is a big word here as Moon would just point his finger at random people in a crowd and marry them to each other.

The Divines’ own daughter was conceived through IVF, not out of fertility issues but out of choice – they wanted a girl. Before she was conceived, they had a narrative of a soul waiting to join them in their holy union, so they only selected female embryos for implantation. The first time Shaleia got pregnant, she announced her daughter’s soul had descended, or something similar. It was actually an ectopic pregnancy that had to be removed. The second time, she was successful, and no one questioned whether they were making up absolute bullshit regarding the spiritual phenomena they were seeing, such as a soul descending into an embryo that had no chance of life.

Later on, they would go on to claim that their daughter would be celibate for life, as a highly spiritual being. I almost never say this, but someone please get that poor kid away from these psychopaths, who instrumentalised her before she was even born.

Threats of litigation

With money comes the ability of known scumbags to threaten critics with litigation, in order to silence them. Cults are very fond of this practice; Scientology and Landmark are famous for their legal intimidation tactics.

Despite scores of former members reporting the same abuses, substantiated by recordings of Jeff and Shepoopi berating and manipulating followers, the two continue to claim they are being misrepresented. While they haven’t sued anyone to date, they have certainly threatened.

  • Jeff and Shaleia Divine have publicly threatened legal action against former members and critics, including sending cease-and-desist style letters warning of lawsuits, subpoenas, and other consequences.
  • There are widespread media investigations and allegations of abusive, high-control practices against the couple and their Twin Flames Universe organization, and these reports describe the couple using legal threats to intimidate critics and ex-members.
  • No widely reported court judgments or major lawsuits filed by or against them are cited in these sources, which focus on media investigations, ex-member accounts, and the couple’s threatening letters rather than confirmed filed lawsuits.

Source: Copilot

Serving the divine mother and father

At the time of the Avery Haines interview, the Divines claimed no one but themselves and their daughter lived in their mansion. They did have hired help to care for their daughter and clean. There was a time when TFU members could apply to live there temporarily as domestic helpers, which would enable them to progress spiritually and heal their traumas, through sheer proximity to the gurus. At least one person gathered evidence of the pair’s behaviour before leaving and made it public.

There was a four page instruction manual on how to care for their dog, if memory serves correctly, and Jeff would routinely text his complaints to his unpaid servants, such as the steak being tough to chew or his white trousers needing to be washed separately from other clothes.

Get this: not only were they not compensated for their labour; members paid a fee to be allowed to partake in the experience. It was a privilege! They were showered with tough love for their own good, by Jeff in particular. The little globin appears to have a penchant for bullying; he wasn’t satisfied with conning people into working for free.

A fake therapy service

It’s unsurprising in moral terms that someone who pretended he could cure cancer would also pretend to have a functional healing methodology for mental and emotional problems, much like Teal Swan and other self-improvement gurus focusing on healing trauma.

There is no record of a licenced psychologist working in this program. This is not illegal in Michigan, as practicing psychology refers to a strict list of services such as diagnosing, behaviour modification and hypnosis. One is free to call themselves a counsellor, therapist, life coach and whatnot, without breaking the law.

Legal or not, it is obviously deceptive, as part of a broader scam run by people who are not only unqualified, but clearly exploitative and malicious.

With regards to their actual behaviour towards those with pressing mental health issues, there is a stark example: a few years ago, a member started posting on their board that she was feeling suicidal. Her cry for help was ignored and she was directed to platitudes such as the mirror exercise. Her wellbeing was not of interest to anybody.

Moreover, the atmosphere on the board must be maintained positive at all times. Expressing negative feelings is highly discouraged (this is listed in the BITE Model, under emotional control). When the member sadly took her own life and TFU found out, some wanted to announce her passing to the broader group. They were forbidden from doing so. She was simply erased and never mentioned again. Her death was bad PR.

Had she sought help in a proper setting instead, with qualified and responsible staff, she might have been alive today. Joining a random online community for support while vulnerable is very dangerous.

The sheer absurdity of this parallel universe

Some of Jeffery’s best pearls (hilariously, I had misspelled best as beast, which is also valid) consist of claims he was the incarnation of Christ and defying him was like defying God. He was recorded berating members for their poor performance in recruiting for the cult, as his business depended on their efficiency, much like an MLM.

He was also recorded saying they allowed members personal freedom, but if it was abused, there would be consequences. One of the ways they could abuse their personal freedom was getting married outside the cult. Just writing this down is so bizarre.

This is relevant to the stark difference between what people thought they were joining (a safe community based on love and acceptance) and what they were later subjected to, namely constant pressure to produce more income for Jeff and Shaleia, while getting nothing out of this process. Their character was in question if they didn’t.

These two are cartoon villains. Caricatures. There needs to be broader awareness and change at some point, preventing such people from luring the unsuspecting and exploiting them. There should be rules on charging money for coaching; perhaps red tape should be in place to filter out would-be cult leaders before they even start. It shouldn’t take 8 years and dozens of victims, some damaged for life.

Fingers crossed, the Divines will be charged with offences in the near future, when the investigation is completed, and this will put an end to their multi-million dollar scam. It’s a long process, but worth the wait.