To find true love, Jessi Hersey was told she needed to cut her hair, use he/him pronouns, and dress as a man.
It was the last straw for the Californian and her relationship with Twin Flames Universe (TFU), an online group that promises to guide students to their love match, happiness, and riches.
By then, Hersey says the cult-like group had already got her to sever ties to her family, spend thousands of dollars on classes, and devote her free time to unpaid administrative work.
Meanwhile, its messianic founders, Jeff and Shaleia Divine, bragged about their success, thrilling sex lives, and luxury car collection at their plush mansion in Michigan.
Their multimillion-dollar matchmaking empire counts some 2,000 active members and nearly half a million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
But the wall of secrecy that’s shielded their bizarre love cult from scrutiny is crumbling.
Hersey is one of several members to defect from TFU and reveal how Jeff and Shaleia operate – showering newcomers with affection, but later humiliating them into subservience.
A string of damning media reports now casts doubt on whether the group has a future.
Jeff, Shaleia, and other TFU organizers reject those claims and say members are free to make their own choices about love, life, and their gender.
Hersey had been a ‘student’ for three years when, in early 2020, she says an official told her that her ‘twin flame’ had been identified.
The love match was a straight woman, and Hersey would have to become a man to manifest the spiritual union.
That was God’s plan, she was told.
‘It didn’t feel right,’ the 36-year-old told the Daily Mail.
‘It felt horrible being told I was a man in a woman’s body.’
Hersey was directed to cut her hair and fellow members ‘gaslit’ her with he/him pronouns, she said.
She’d always been ‘queer’ and attracted to women, she says, but never for a second did she identify as anything other than a woman.
When she objected, Hersey was told to ‘heal into your masculinity,’ she says.
Under TFU teachings, Hersey was suffering a ‘block’ on her journey that could be overcome with introspective ‘mirror exercises’.
But she was growing skeptical, and this was the ‘screaming, hard-to-avoid red flag’ that led her to cut ties with TFU, she explains.
One night that summer, she deleted all online connections to her ‘soul family’ and its leaders.
She’s been out for nearly five years now, she says, and has salvaged a relationship with her family, cleared her debts, and launched a small publishing business.
She calls Jeff and Shaleia ‘narcissistic master manipulators’ with a ‘smoke and mirror show’ that’s coming undone.
Newcomers sign up in the hopes of finding true love and spiritual fulfillment with their ‘twin flame’.
It’s a woo-woo but popular idea that exists beyond TFU.
According to lore, twin flames are two halves of the same soul who experience an intense and fated connection.
Actress Megan Fox famously described her former beau Machine Gun Kelly in these terms, unconnected to TFU.
Jeff, of Michigan, and Shaleia, of Ontario, Canada, turned the starry-eyed theory into a spiritual group and business in the mid-2010s.
They present themselves as Christ-like figures who can reveal to students their twin flame as determined by God.
The unions, it is claimed, bring fulfillment, wealth, happiness – and mind-blowing sex.
Love-seekers sign up online, and shop for books and expensive online courses, as well as in-person meet-ups to help them ‘heal and find love.’
The ‘everything package’ costs an eye-popping $8,888.
Some students say they found their eternal companion through TFU and are happy in their Twin Flame Harmonious Union – the community’s version of a marriage.
But others end up frustrated and looking for love in more traditional ways.
In the group’s early days, students were matched to a twin flame who had no connection to the group.
Students were urged to pursue them doggedly, like a ‘honey badger,’ a fearless and tenacious carnivore.
Some went too far, sending incessant texts and emails or showing up at people’s homes unannounced in a bid to win their love.
Some targets got scared and complained of harassment, and students have even been charged with stalking.
The actor Ryan Gosling in 2014 filed a restraining order against a fan who claimed to be his twin flame, according to Rolling Stone.
Former insiders say leaders had to change tactics and start matchmaking within the group.
That created a new problem, as TFU has many more romance-seeking women than men.
Leaders started pairing its women students with other women. That’s why some were directed to transition, according to Hersey and others.
More than a dozen female students have transitioned to men to suit their twin flame, reports say.
It’s not clear how many of them identified as transgender before they joined the group.
Members who go along with these bizarre teachings are rewarded with power and influence in the group.
Those who ask questions or try to set boundaries are said to be demoted, humiliated, or kicked out.
They’re instructed to heal by addressing all their failures to themselves while looking in the mirror.
These mirror exercises are in the toolkits of many self-help groups. They’re also used by cult leaders to control members.
Students are encouraged to rise up TFU’s ranks, train to be a coach, take extra courses and pay monthly certification fees.
In online posts, Jeff talks up how much money can be made in his divine matchmaking empire.
Some former members say they emptied their bank accounts to become a coach, and ended up broke.
Others quit their jobs to volunteer for the group, giving up their free time to help make Jeff and Shaleia wealthier, Hersey says.
In video posts, Jeff brags about having a Corvette, a Porsche, and other luxury cars in the garage of the couple’s $1.6 million five-bedroom mansion on the shores of Lake Michigan.
But the high life could be coming to an end for the influencer power couple.
They’ve been hit with a slew of damning exposes by Netflix, Amazon, Vanity Fair, Vice, Rolling Stone, and others.
Canada’s CTV News recently aired an interview with the couple, in which Jeff said he was under mounting pressure from a growing number of ‘hateful’ former students.
He also made admissions about his teachings, some of which he acknowledged were ‘silly’ ideas.
A TFU spokesperson told the Daily Mail that changing genders is not mandatory for students.
‘We don’t encourage, let alone force, anyone to transition genders or change any aspect of their personal identity beyond whatever they may determine for themselves of their own volition,’ the spokesperson said.
‘What we encourage, and have always provided, is a safe space for people to explore different emotions and feelings about themselves.’
In an online statement, the group says its leaders do not ‘wield inappropriate control over our community members.’
Former members say the group is struggling to lure new students amid the glut of bad publicity.
Newcomers are more interested in observing and are less likely to drop $3,333 on a class pass, Hersey says.
Nowadays, she lives in Colorado and is developing a publishing and online video business.
She’s abandoned Jeff and Shaleia’s ‘toxic’ version of finding love, but still believes there’s a special ‘one person’ out there for her.
For now, she’s happy enough living a normal life with family, friends, and work.
‘I’m not really focused on it. I’m more focused on just relationships, and having them,’ she says.
‘If it happens to me, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’