EVER wondered what it would be like to meet your ultimate soulmate?
That’s the dream members of the Twin Flames Universe are sold when they sign up to the online community – which reportedly charges thousands for a full subscription.
It’s run by founders Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, who claim to have a direct connection to God which they use to match their 40,000 members with their “eternal partner” – with whom they’ll enjoy mind-blowing sex.
But a new documentary – Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Twin Flames Universe – accuses the organisation of cult-like behaviour, with claims the couple have even encouraged members to change their gender in their quest to find love.
Jeff and Shaleia vehemently deny any allegations of wrongdoing and deny they coerce people into changing gender, claiming the “attacks” are part of a conspiracy theory to “destroy” the Twin Flames Universe.
The couple – who have gone from sleeping on friends’ couches to living in their own five-bedroom $850,000 lakefront property with a pool in Michigan and driving expensive cars in just five years – founded Twin Flames Universe in 2015.
In a 2017 YouTube video, Jeff explains that a twin flame is “your best friend in the entire universe” who was “designed for you by God, and you were designed for this person by God, to be your eternal companion”.
They claim sex with your Twin Flame is “richer than just physical pleasure” – it is a “sacred act of ascension”.
They offer one-on-one therapies and access to Google Hangout “classes” as well as a subscription service to their library of classes for $200 (£165) a month.
Members have access to a Facebook group, while Jeff and Shaleia also produce free YouTube videos.
The titles for these include ‘Is Your Twin Flame Dating Someone Else? Do THIS And They Will Choose You’ and ‘Why Your Twin Flame Runs To Another and How To Get Them Back’.
Vanity Fair reported in 2020 that “subscriptions to the full run of this therapeutic reality show, and its offshoots, currently cost $4,444”.
Jeff – who has previously referred to himself as ‘Father Christ’ and Shaleia as ‘Mother Christ’ – works with a team of coaches to help guide their members towards their Twin Flame, who could sometimes live in a different city or country.
Sometimes members are matched with people they already know.
Some have been known to “aggressively pursue” their Twin Flames, even when they are already in relationships.
One member was jailed for a month after her Twin Flame filed a restraining order against her, yet she still persisted.
Most of the time Jeff and Shaleia claim their members’ Twin Flames are fellow members of the community – which is 95 per cent women.
These matches are always between one “divine masculine” and one “divine feminine”.
Jeff and Shaleia claim their close connection with God means they can confirm a person’s true “divine gender” – even if it is not one they identify with.
The couple insist members who discover a new divine gender are not pressured to change their physical appearance, but the documentary suggests otherwise.
Married couple Ann and Catrina met in real life before discovering Twin Flames, and say they were encouraged to leave their husbands for each other by Jeff and Shaleia.
They were one of the first pairings to be a success for the group and became a poster couple, eventually training other members on how to find their own Twin Flame.
But in October 2018, it’s claimed Jeff and Shaleia urged Ann to change her name to Dan, due to the fact she was a “masculine flame”.
In a video Jeff asks Ann: “Why would you keep a name that’s so obviously feminine? What about Dan? What doesn’t feel good about the name Dan… Jesus Christ, you’re playing an avoidance game, and if the avoidance game stops you from moving forward here, just let the name be.”
Speaking in the documentary, Catrina says: “He just kept on and on until the very end and I think we just broke and just agreed. Like, ‘Fine, we’ll do it.’ I just wanted it to be over.
“He needed Ann to agree to that to say to what was a 95 per cent female community, ‘Ok, now you’re the guy and you’re the girl and that’s your Twin Flame and now you’re all pairs.’”
When Ann didn’t change her name immediately, she says Jeff began texting them incessantly.
One read: “Change Anne’s name immediately. It’s time. He’s a guy.
“Take a guy’s name and put a guy’s pronoun or I will need to put someone else in charge of sales who does respect my work. Thank you. One week.
“Not sure why you and your man have not decided to handle the gender identity issues. There is literally no logical reason not to do so immediately.”
Catrina recalls: “He had so much power over the group and so much power over our well-being as well, because who knew what was going to happen if she didn’t agree?”
Ann adds: “I was very stressed by it, doubly stressed because our whole business and livelihood was tied to them.”
Catrina says: “Ann had no intention of ever transitioning genders in any capacity but he just kept pressing in.”
In another video, Jeff asks: “Do you believe me when I say you’re a man inside? This isn’t political, how do you feel? Do you believe me or not? … I know a p****d off man when I see one and it’s you.”
In further texts he rants: “You guys look dumb as f*** hiding behind the lie still. Because you haven’t changed your name yet, everyone either thinks you’re weak, unable to change or in stark disagreement with me.”
When they didn’t submit, they claim Jeff accused them of abusing members and told people to ask for full refunds from the couple and their coaching, before blocking them from the group.
Catrina says: “There was a really big display of power there… it was very tactical. It was very abusive.
“We were the one couple who they needed to be all in, so that was a real threat for them, for the community to witness Jeff being unsuccessful at control.
“We’d done all this work and all this personal growth and mustered up all this courage to be out as lesbian women and they cut us out of the group.
“We shut our business down overnight… All I was left with was this terror of being really disconnected of who I am and not knowing how to move forward.
“It makes me sick just to think about how it felt, people deserve better than that.”
Ann adds: “They are still doing the same thing they did to me to other people.
“They were encouraging me to change genders because of how masculine I was.
“They kept pushing and pushing and I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to be a man’.”
One person who has said he realised he was a transgender man thanks to Twin Flames Universe is Gabe Green, a Twin Flames coach living in California.
After nearly two years without finding his match, two community members reached out, claiming they’d been speaking with Jeff and Shaleia, and had determined he was a “divine masculine”.
In a 2020 blog post called ‘Suddenly Always Being A Man’, Gabe explained he was “guided perfectly through pointed, logical questions and meditation to the truth”.
“Literally a week ago I would have sworn to you, and did to several of you, that I was 100 per cent a woman,” he wrote.
“As soon as I chose to surrender and claim that energy, there was an immediate shift. I felt more peace and calm than I ever had in my entire life.”
One of Gabe’s coaches told him his Twin Flame was a woman called Briana Blake.
When she was told this, Briana fought it at first, explaining she was straight and had already been told her Twin Flame was someone else.
But three days later she flew to Michigan to meet Gabe and stay with Jeff and Shaleia.
Briana’s mum claims she took on more stereotypically feminine roles of cooking and cleaning, while Gabe learned “how to be more masculine”.
Briana’s mum said she continued to communicate with her daughter but didn’t get any response until February 2021.
She recalled: “I got a call from her saying she was very unhappy. She wanted to come home. I was shocked.
“Briana said, ‘I don’t want my partner to know, I just want to come home. I’m bringing my puppy, I’m not doing well’.”
Briana – who doesn’t speak in the documentary – got on the first flight home, and her mum claimed she was in the worst state of mind she’d ever seen her in.
Her mum says she’s now seeing flickers of the old Briana, and she’s “very hopeful she’s going to get out of it”.
“I know she’s starting to think for herself. I see little sparks here and there,” she says.
“It won’t be easy, because how do you get someone out of an organisation like that, that’s controlling your mind, and you’re allowing them to do it?
“I pray for justice and the truth to be revealed and people will be aware of what’s happening within the Twin Flames organisation.”
Responding to an investigation by Vice, Jeff and Shaleia denied they are running a cult.
Jeff said: “A cult is a (sic) organization of abuse that systematically takes from and harms its members to enrich its founder.
“We created an organization of love and harmony which heals and enriches everyone in it and everyone who is connected to anyone in it.”
Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Twin Flames Universe is streaming on Prime Video from 6th October.
