Get ready to go on a wild ride with Amazon Prime’s newest documentary series. Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe takes a deep look at an online program that claims it will help you find your “perfect lover.” Founded by Jeff and Shaleia Divine, the “Twin Flames Universe” offers classes and community (for a fee) to make you your best self and find your twin flame. A twin flame is like a soulmate, only deeper and more spiritual.
Using former member testimony and videos from the program, the docuseries dives into the questionable cult-like behavior of the Twin Flames Universe. The supposed intensity of twin flame love has led to extremely toxic behavior by both the coaches and members. Jeff and Shaleia Divine began their program without any kind of training or experience as counselors. Their aim was just to bring spiritual love to people of the world, for a small profit of course. Their class and Facebook community cloistered members and exalted the founders. Members joined hoping to find love. Sometimes the program worked. Other times, there had to be some forcing of relationships.
This isn’t how love works
The Divines worked with members to find their twin flames, even if said twin flame didn’t want any part of it. The couple used messages from God to assist their students in finding love. However, they might misinterpret the twin flame and make a reassignment. After participating in the program for an extended period of time, many members said they were no closer to finding their twin flames than when they started. To solve this problem, Jeff and Shaleia suddenly realized there were many twin flames amongst their students. They assigned twin flame couples out of random students. But this posed a problem for some of their students. Over 90% of the Twin Flames Universe members were women, and most of them were straight. Now, they were being told that their other half was a woman they felt zero attraction to.
Jeff and Shaleia Divine assured the members that this was correct. They explained the twin flame phenomenon has a masculine twin and a feminine twin, so every relationship would have this dynamic. To enforce this, the couple began pressuring members to transition to a different gender. For some members, this may have been a way to express their gender. But for many others, it was controlling and disturbing. As the documentary put it, Jeff and Shaleia Divine found a new way to enforce conservative stereotypes. They believed all things must fall under either male or female.
What once felt like a safe space for LGBTQ students turned into something toxic. The Twin Flames Universe’s most famously successful couple were lesbian women. The two women had known each other for years but only took the leap to be together after finding Twin Flames Universe. When this new trend of male and female flames began, Jeff and Shaleia Divine pushed for one of the women to become a man. They began calling her a male name and using male pronouns, even though she made it very clear she was uncomfortable with that.
In one disgusting video clip, Jeff Divine asked this woman if she looked at him and wanted to be more masculine, like him. He encouraged women they picked to transition to spend time observing. Then they could see what being a man was like. Yes, I felt nauseous from that too. The Twin Flames Universe may have originally been created to help people. But Jeff and Shaleia Divine made huge amounts of money off of people’s loneliness. When their students began questioning the program, the couple started controlling those who trusted them just so they could keep turning a profit.
Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
(featured image: Prime Video)
