Once marketed as a progressive spiritual haven for finding eternal love, online spiritual ‘cult’ Twin Flames Universe has now revealed its true face. It is a community sliding toward authoritarian control through eugenics-flavored pronatalism and gender coercion.
The group’s disturbing plan to breed a new generation of followers inside a Michigan compound isn’t just a cult-like fantasy. It’s a mirror of the growing, tech-fueled pro-birth movement now sweeping conservative circles.
According to a recent documentary, the supposed spiritual empire was founded by Jeff and Shaleia Divine. The two lured thousands of mostly female followers with New Age language, promising divinely guided matchmaking. But after years of followers failing to find their so-called twin flames, the leaders pivoted. This pivot has exposed a staggering level of hypocrisy.
Former CEO Keely Griffin, who defected in 2021, says the shift came after Jeff and Shaleia realized they were “running out of men.” Faced with a crumbling business model, they concocted a new narrative: everyone’s true twin flame was already within the community.
“Gender, it’s just an identity role, meaning it’s not real—you can change it,” Jeff said, while simultaneously enforcing a binary doctrine that “every person is either 100% masculine or 100% feminine.”
In practice, this meant forcing people, often straight women, into rigid gender identities to match the community’s assigned romantic pairs. “They wanted me to cut my hair, wear men’s clothing, change my name,” said former member Angie McGee. “It wasn’t about me, it was about fitting their system.”
The rhetoric quickly veered into religious fundamentalism as Jeff declared himself Christ. The pair founded the Church of Union to cement control, equating disagreement with divine disobedience. “So when God tells you something, you need to respect it. If he says that’s your twin flame, respect it. If he says you are this, respect it,” Jeff preached.
But perhaps the most dystopian plan emerged through the so-called Golden Parent Initiative, a blueprint to handpick who could reproduce within the group. According to Griffin, “Jeff wants to control people. He likes to have every aspect of their lives controlled.”
The initiative called for a generation of “golden children” born from pairs selected by leadership and raised within the teachings of Twin Flames Universe. Couples who couldn’t conceive were told to use sperm donors, but only those approved by Jeff.
Sixteen members have already relocated to northern Michigan in anticipation of building a permanent compound. Griffin says she was pressured to secure farmland for this project. “They told us, like, you need to make this move now or you are completely out of alignment with your Guru, and like bad things are going to happen.”
Jeff and Shaleia now dismiss these plans as “just a thought,” but former members maintain it was a calculated blueprint for biological control. “They were planning for these kids to be born into the community and married off to each other,” Griffin says.
This obsession with reproduction and ideological purity reflects a broader movement gaining traction far outside the world of Twin Flames: pronatalism.
At NatalCon, a recent pronatalist gathering headlined by tech entrepreneurs, far-right influencers, and conservative family advocates, speakers called for radical solutions to declining birth rates.
“This is the war for civilization,” said provocateur Jack Posobiec. “And we are going to win it, one life at a time.” Attendees praised Elon Musk’s pro-birth messaging, with demographer Lyman Stone noting that online interest in pronatalism “gets Elon-ified.”
Though Twin Flames cloaked itself in spiritual language and progressive optics, it arrived at the same destination: reproductive obsession, rigid gender roles, and a disdain for personal autonomy.
It’s a contradiction that’s becoming harder to ignore. What began as a community promising self-empowerment now tells people who they must love, and when they must breed—all in the name of “alignment.”
This is precisely the kind of ideological contradiction now unfolding in broader society. Tech bros and tradwives, two groups that seem diametrically opposed, are uniting under the same pronatalist logic: the belief that civilizational collapse can be solved by controlled reproduction and gender conformity.
Yet experts warn that this kind of reproductive panic often leads to coercive policies and social harm. “No policy can increase the number of babies born yesterday,” wrote sociologist Philip N. Cohen in a rebuke of pronatalism. “People aren’t getting the life they want…but also, there are material consequences of falling fertility.” Still, forcing births through fear or ideology, he argues, misses the point.
In this way, Twin Flames Universe may be less of an outlier and more of a test case. The ‘cult’ acts as a warning of what happens when ideological systems, whether spiritual or secular, start viewing people as tools for demographic salvation rather than individuals with agency. For all its talk of awakening and spiritual truth, Twin Flames Universe ended up aligning with the same ideology that sees human reproduction not as a private choice, but a political imperative.
Twin Flames Universe is now facing mounting legal pressure following a multi-agency raid that marks a major escalation in the investigation into its operations. Led by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in coordination with state police and the U.S. Department of Labor, the raid targeted two residences tied to the group’s leadership.
Authorities are examining serious allegations, including coercive control, financial exploitation, and potential labor violations. Former members have alleged they were manipulated into unpaid labor under the guise of spiritual training, pressured to sever family ties, and even pushed toward gender transitions to align with the group’s rigid doctrine.
The Department of Labor’s involvement suggests potential violations of federal labor laws, while legal experts say charges like wire fraud and mail fraud could also be on the table. Cult expert Rick Ross has labeled TFU a “destructive cult,” pointing to its use of spiritual authority to dominate and exploit followers. Despite the group’s public denials and insistence on member autonomy, the legal scrutiny is only intensifying.