A reader brought EDUCO to our attention. EDUCO is founded by Tony Quinn.
EDUCO operates out of the Bahamas but has a USA presence. Mary Ann Malone, of St. Augustine Florida, an ‘Agent for EDUCO Enlightenment Seminars,” is the organizer of three EDUCO groups New York, Fort Lauderdale and Denver.
EDUCO has similarities to NXIVM.
- It uses a seminar MLM model, with recruitment agents who have a downline,
- it has a leader who claims exceptional mental skills
- Quinn had a change of course with his persona like Raniere — in Raniere’s case, he was super businessman and smartest man in the world then super mystic, scientist and smartest man in the world as guru of human potential company. In Quinn’s case he was Yogic master, healer and Jesus figure then greatest business guru in the world plus fitness and health and mystic healer and aura reader.
- Like Raniere’s, Quinn’s followers believe he is a prophet
- Quinn claimed that he commands the highest fees of any mind trainer in the world. Raniere’s followers made similar claims.
- There are claims of coercive-control
- Both men claimed to be the smartest or greatest thinker in the world
- Those who recruit encourage people to cut off contact with their friends and family
- Sexual-assaults by the leader, Quinn claims he was awakening the women’s kundalinis. Raniere claimed he was empowering them by giving them his semen.
- Pressure on members not to speak out.
- Ex-members known for being afraid to speak out about their experiences.
Quinn, 76, is from Dublin. A butcher and former body builder, he studied hypnotherapy, and gained fame in Ireland as a psychological trainer for Steve Collins before his title fight with Chris Eubank.
In his Jesus and yoga days, Quinn would touch devotees and, like the Holy Rollers, people would jump around, fall off chairs, flap on the floor or faint dead away. Some followers believed they were reincarnated with him from past lives at the time of Christ.
Quinn sometimes asked devotees to kiss his feet.
In the late 1970s, Quinn boasted that 94 per cent of sick people who came to him “including those of a serious nature,” show marked improvement and that he healed more than a third of the people who had cancer.
His leaflet, reportedly delivered to 100,000 homes, claimed: “Healing and Yoga Therapy sessions. Results speak for themselves, detailed records are kept, over 94%, including those of a serious nature, show marked improvement, while 35% have been completely cured. Among the complaints successfully treated are: Asthma, Psoriasis, Migraine, Cancer, Varicose veins, Arthritis, Dermatitis, Poor Eyesight, Infections, Ulcers, Jaundice, Bronchitis, Mental retardation, Congenital Deformities…
From Health to Money
Seminar reportedly cost about $20K – for a 10 day course. He reportedly charged €63,500 per head for in person mind-coaching seminars, to reprogram the “hard drive” of student’s minds.
Quinn also claimed he was the highest paid Human Potential speaker, in the world and claims to have charged $140K for one-to-one coaching.
Sometimes students work as EDUCO Seminar Agents and gain a downline with a payment of $2K for everyone they recruit to the next seminar, on condition that the EDUCO agent pay to attend at least one seminar per year.
Bookmaker John Boyle of Boylesports said Quinn’s mind-programming technique transformed his life. “I went on the seminar and now I am feeling awesome, happy and at my all-time best.”
Some who attend Quinn’s seminars advance to his “Mind Masters” course, where Quinn reads “auras” of his followers to reveal their destinies. The Mind Masters course reportedly cost more than $50,000.
A personal consultation with Quinn can reportedly cost more than $125,000.
Like NXIVM there are reports of people spending their life savings to attend repeated seminars, and quitting better paying jobs to work for him in his MLM .
We can learn more about Quinn’s claims from his sales promotional magazine here
Quinn has a surprisingly short Wikipedia page and without a single picture.
From it we learn that Quinn (born 1944) has been called a “yogi,” “fitness expert”, “health guru”, “business guru”, “mind trainer” and “mind coach.”
Quinn charged €18,500 to attend Educo Mind Power seminars and up to €63,500 for advanced seminars.
We also learn that he is [or was] the director and shareholder of the energy company International Natural Energy (INE) in Belize.
In 2010, his estimated worth was €50 million.
International Natural Energy
Quinn was once a director and shareholder of energy company International Natural Energy (INE) in Belize.[2] In 2011, his holdings in the company were worth approximately €18 million. He was reportedly given shares by the company’s directors after using his “mind technology” skills to assist them in finding oil.
INE, was founded by Susan Morrice and Sheila McCaffrey from Northern Ireland. 90% of the company’s investors were Irish attendees of Quinn’s Educo seminars. Over 300 investors bought between €40,000 and €200,000 of shares.
Educogym
Quinn established Educogym, a chain of gyms in Ireland, Belize, London, and Los Angeles. The Educogym programme involves a ketogenic diet, use of Quinn’s dietary supplements, and a “Time Machine” exercise device.
Celebrity clients have included singer Robbie Williams, soprano Cara O’Sullivan, and golfer Darren Clarke.
In 2015, Educogym was censured by the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) for advertising a programme to lose 14 pounds in 12 days. The ASAI upheld the complaint that the advertisement “was misleading, as it was unsafe to suggest this weight could be lost in such a short time”. The advertisement was withdrawn.
The Tony Quinn Centre in Dublin offers prayers to be said by Quinn or his associate Aideen Cowman for a subscription of €30 per month.
Personal life
Quinn moved to The Bahamas in the 1990s where he lives on Paradise Island with his girlfriend Amelie “Eve” Hattingh (born ca. 1986).
He also has a Martello tower house in Malahide, Dublin.
An article by a tabloid published photos taken in 2014 of the world’s guru-yogi with his girlfriend out in public, prompting some to suggest that they might be better off at a hotel.
***
Further reading:
Dialogue Ireland, has been documenting EDUCO since the 90s.
There is a subreddit dedicated to this group at r/educoworld
A summary of EDUCO is available here.
Quinn’s life is documented here.
Documentary by TV3’s 20/20 show
Documentary about a follower of Quinn, bankrolled by $1M of follower’s money who attempted to use NLP Imprinting to succeed in the music business. .
Rick Ross calls EDUCO a Human Potential Group, grouped with NXIVM and Heaven’s Gate.
This group was recruiting in London in 2020.
An account of an ex-member.
I have a friend who is consumed by this cult for years…she can’t hold down a job since she got involved with them….she has lost heaps of weight cos she’s swallowing whatever concoction this Educo people have sold her….she has not a penny as savings as she’s spent tens of thousands on his programs and now she’s constantly “at a friends” basically being isolated from her support network by the “friends” A.K.A “recruiters” I bet! She lost her job two months ago so I can just imagine how they swallowed her up immediately after to “fix”her….
I was informed in March 2021 that the Northampton (UK) Educo group run by Babu Shah ( https://educouk.com/babu-shah/ & http://babushah.com/ ) isolated members who had fallen out of favour with the leader. In attempting to highlight this to the family of someone I was told about I was met with hostility, but at least I did what I could. In fact, Manj Weerasekera ( https://manjweerasekera.com/ ) roped in his actress sister to make allegations to the Police to silence me.
I have been told of another lady who was “trafficked” to the seminar many years ago who was isolated from her family for years. I am glad to say she broke free eventually.
[…] Then a few months later, on Monday, June 21, 2021, Frank wrote, A ‘Cult’ Similar to NXIVM? –A Man Similar to Raniere — Meet Tony Quinn of EDUCO. […]
Hi Frank. I have tried to contact you by email on your Gmail account listed below. Can you check please. Tomas
Yes
[…] June 21, 2021, I wrote an article about Tony Quinn and […]
This cult has to be brought down so let’s make 2023 the year to do it. I want to hear from ALL who have experienced this mafia type behaviour I spoke about previously. People following you, tracking your every move, making your working environment miserable. Hacking your emails, phone and computers.
Where you actually start to question your own sanity. Shiela Mc Caffrey spoke about this also in one of her posts. Where people were following her constantly and she actually thought she was going mad. Sheila is the lady who was involved in the oil in Belize. The same lady Susan Morrice turned on and arranged to have drugs planted in her house because she refused to sign over a massive amount of shares in the oil company to Tony Quinn. So let’s start talking and gather our own group of people to bring down Aideen Cowman, Martin Forde and Susan Morrice and Co. 2023 is the year to do this. Remember how this works they gather people and pay them to follow people and totally mess with their heads.People you work with your family, neighbours etc. Very few people unfortunately can’t be bought. Remember this money is coming from Jersey into Ireland and the UK. Let’s start peeling back these layers and exposing these EVIL people for who they are and what they do. Please post your story and let’s start talking and taking action. Then thats where you come in Frank. Genuinely this is a massive story to crack and bring it to the attention of the law. Please post your experiences and let’s start to build our numbers. There is massive strength in numbers. There must be hundreds if not more of you out there. Frank I’m hoping you can be our centre point of contact?
These people named won’t admit to having anything to do with Educo in fact they may very well not even who is paying them. These are the so called recruits who Educo pay to either follow people or mess with people heads. Another person is Susan Hayes from Shannon Co clare. She went on seminar and the Educogym training and she is now receiving money from Educo to follow people and report back to them. This stuff sounds crazy but it actually goes on its like mafia stuff. They are doing this for years. Headed up by Aideen Cowman and Susan Morrice. Its actually a joke Aideen Cowman supposedly does ^absent healing’ on people. Where people send money and requests for her to work on. One look of this woman and anyone would know she comes from the other side. She is dark and scary looking.
I am finding these comments fascinating. I haven’t been aware much of what is going on in EDUCO’s homeland. I do have contacts there but since the court-cases 2012-2014 EDUCO has seemingly gone to ground. But I know they are still recruiting there: https://web.archive.org/web/20211204072013/https://declan-loy.lpages.co/inspireconferenceonline/
Because I worked with Babu Shah https://educouk.com/babu-shah/ , when he imported EDUCO into the UK and covertly recruited in my workplace, and on finding out Manj Weerasekera https://educouk.com/manj-weerasekera/ was exposed online in 2017 for covertly recruiting for EDUCO, I have been able to piece together some of what has been going on here in the UK.
A number of people involved in recruitment here in the UK are listed here: https://educouk.com/ . I was informed early-on in my discoveries, on finding out about EDUCO in 2020, that new recruits are groomed and often it is only after they have paid £5K that they are told it’s EDUCO & “Dr” Tony Quinn.
EDUCO hasn’t just recruited covertly though; as can be seen in this post from 2018: https://tinybuddha.com/reply/233299/ . I found a number of Meet-Up “Events” on the subject of “Enlightenment” (much like Mary Ann Malone’s groups above) what were attended by recruiter Alexandra Weerasekera: https://www.reddit.com/r/EducoWorld/comments/z9qcqp/educo_cult_recruitment_in_london_as_recent_as_2020/
I have been pulled into a London Police Station just this year (EDUCO members like calling the Police about me *sigh*) and told by one officer that EDUCO is “about wellness” which I find a ridiculous statement: https://www.reddit.com/r/cults/comments/xpilw2/today_an_officer_for_the_met_police_told_me_educo/ . I am not sure what it is with the Met Police and Cults!
I have been told of multiple serious sexual-assaults in EDUCO going back to the 1970s. A verified member of the communes in the 1970s told how a child who joined the commune when she was 4 was having sex with the commune-“Guru” Tony Quinn by the time she was 17. I have heard privately more disturbing details: https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/can-an-educo-follower-still-trust-tony-quinn-by-an-educo-fan/#comment-124162
I know some of these people. Some people will sell their souls for money. Pat & Mary Hehir and their family from Tiermaclane Ennis Clare, Leonard Ring ftom Bray, Lisa Nolan (hairdresser) & John Nolan from Crusheen Clare. To name a few. I will continue to name these people. These people have decided to take payments from this cult
These are names of members I’ve never heard of before. I know most members are wary of associating publicly with their group; some even conceal their association until their new recruit has paid thousands for the “Enlightenment Seminar” where they are assured they will become enlightened in 20 seconds! I am looking forward to learning more!
Those wanting a deep-dive into EDUCO beyond Frank’s article could do no worse than listen to last years Madness Madness episode on Educo (from 10min 30sec onwards): https://madnessmadness.buzzsprout.com/1573279/9208281?t=630
I went on a Tony Quinn seminar. The guy helping him run the seminars – Jim Fitzgerald was more interested in chatting up the women in the group. Tony Quinn has a group of people around him – like Aideen Cowman and her crowneys work like a cult. They recruit people and pay them to go after people who have have attended seminars but may have now gone in a different direction. They pay these people to follow and mess with their heads. Mafia like stuff. They planted drugs in a ladies house in Belize when she objected to handing over shares to Quinn in the oil company. Frank if you want to contact me for an interview I am available and I would appreciate the platform to warn people and stop what this cult is doing.
I’d be interested in hearing more from Tomas. I do hope Frank takes Tomas up on this offer! I’ve heard from others how EDUCO members are known to file false Police Reports in the UK and Ireland to silence those speaking out.
I will take Tomas up on his offer.
Hi Frank. How can I contact you? Tomas
My phone number is 305-783-7083
This article is now the 1st non-group controlled google search result for “dr tony quinn”. Just 3 months ago when this SEO term was used, the first-page of Google search results showed group-control results and spam (empty pages essentially that Google thought had content). In fact, a top result, on page-1, delivered a blank page from a football club here in the UK (football is more important than news here). I had to get in contact with the EFL here in England to fix their CloudFlair configuration for that club’s domain to remove that and hoist the first critical result onto page-1. Thank you, Frank; your article, along with Annie Brown of the Daily Record’s, from 2006, are now prominent. See here for more details of cleaning up these google search results: https://www.reddit.com/r/EducoWorld/comments/nh2dh1/efl_step_in_an_fix_a_misconfigured_domain_that/
This article now appears on Page 1 of Google results for “Dr Tony Quinn”. Thank you, Frank!
I tried to write a fair story
I think you are completely wrong. If you really want to learn about your mind, Tony Quinn is a really good teacher. It’s a pity you make people believe what he teaches does not work. To me, it made the difference between living a wonderful life or, without his teachings, a very depressing and depressed one!! And I’m not the most advantaged pupil…so I would encourage people to give it a go.
I think Monica you are taking this organisation at face value. Big mistake. Look into the background of Aideen Cowman Susan Morrice or Martin Forde. These people act like mafia. They channel money in from Jesery where Quinn has the head office of Educogym. They recruit people. Like I said mafia type organisation to protect Quinn. This is a massive story. It just takes 1 good journalist to do a bit of research.
Agreed. Without giving too much away, it can be said that members will do whatever they must to protect their messiah. The devotion many have to Quinn is off the scales to the point of them filing false-police reports against those who speak out and convincing your average-police-officer that all they are doing is offering wellness programmes. It’s not just in Ireland, but also here in the UK. And like many cults that operate over decades some members have tried to procure legitimacy through working for institutions such as broadcasters, universities and even mentoring-charities!
https://www.reddit.com/r/cults/comments/xpilw2/
Nancy’s sister, Carole Kass Loshin, and her husband, Steve Kass, of Tofutti used to spend a lot of time in Fort Lauderdale too…could they have a link to educo?
When will you cover Landmark and expose them?
Landmark is very similar to educo and Nxivm. But somehow Landmark has avoided prosecution. They must be in deep with bribes and blackmail. Nxivm was associated with many of the same people from what I hear.
[…] https://frankreport.com/2021/06/21/a-cult-similar-to-nxivm-a-man-similar-to-raniere-meet-tony-quinn-… […]
Frank. Have you read about these people in CO? “Love Has Won” cult makes these guys look like pikers .
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.refinery29.com/amp/en-us/2021/05/10463849/love-has-won-cult-amy-carlson-death-history-details
I’m in the states now but I remember Quinn from years back. He was doing yoga in Ireland in the 70s way before anyone. I suppose yoga is a ‘cult’ too eh, Frank? Far too many exaggerations
I had a brief conversation with a follower on Instagram recently who confirmed some of his followers do believe he is Jesus. This has been covered in depth over the years, first being revealed by the great June Levine. What are your criteria for judging if something is a cult or not? It has even been referred to as such in a court of law.
This guy makes a lot of sense. I think he can teach a lot a people a lot. Frank is always so off. He scoffs at good people and supports insane people. It’s sickness.
To lead a cult you need a beetroot face. Kieth had a beetroot face. Its a must.
Wake up people! Some MAN does not hold all the secrets to your happiness and success. Stop looking to other people to solve your problems or make you a success, that power lies within YOURSELF. Hard work, goals, perseverance and you can enjoy material success in life but is that truly success? Success is contentment. There’s is no such thing as perpetual happiness. There is contentment with sprinkles of joy along the way. There, I’ve just saved you tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’re welcome.
Does that dude live in the sun tanning bed?
God bless you, Frank!! Thank you!!! I remember you replied to one of my first emails when I found out about all this. You’re a good man! Thank you!
This cult is small potatoes, until it lures in some Smallville actresses.
It would be extremely interesting if frankreport dedicated his blog to unmasking the hundreds or thousands of sects that travel the world and destroy the lives of thousands of people. It would do humanity great good.
Dude is 76? So his cult is on a timer now unless he has a replacement waiting in the wings. One of the things worth trying to determine is if a cult has a path of succession. That will help identify what, if any, long term plans they made have.
NXIVM clearly didn’t. Keith started believing his own bull shit and probably thought he would live forever. Also didn’t want the competition since his focus shifted to sexual conquest rather than cult expansion.
Scientology had Miscavige who more or less pulled a coup, helped by the fact he was the person primarily responsible for building the cult’s wealth and infrastructure.
Who does this cult have in the wings? Can’t be a woman, that is practically rule #1 of 99% of cults – no woman as leaders, only subordinates, facilitators and recruiters (by any means necessary, you know what I mean). Does it have a succession plan?
This is a very good question. Someone in 2016 did suggest they knew who might follow in Qunn’s footsteps; I cannot comment. Someone wrote anonymously a blogpost in 2016 (which I’ve had confirmed by 3rd parties) that does make a suggestion who may follow on the Mucky Messiah’s demise. https://anticultukblog.wordpress.com/
The Tony Quinn Yoga Health Centre is a very good school to teach people the way their mind works and get the best out of it…Many people have being trained to keep teaching what Tony has started. So…there will be no one, there will be many….