How Doomsday Cult Leader Pretended to Be an Alien, Robbed Runway Stars, and Held Orgies While Waiting for the Apocalypse

Frederick von Mirers claimed he had come to Earth from the star system Arcturus, but what he truly understood was how to orchestrate a glamorous life for New York’s elite, Daily Mail reports.

In the 1980s, he threw parties almost every night. His apartment was packed with the most beautiful people in New York — models and wealthy socialites. However, von Mirers was exclusively interested in glamorous young professionals.

“Bring me only beauties. No girlfriends — only the finest beauties,” he would tell acquaintances, according to accounts of the polished, intelligent, and devilishly charming New Yorker.

He often took his young protégés — many of whom were barely 18 — to the legendary club Studio 54 to introduce them to Manhattan nightlife. The notoriously strict door policy let them in without hesitation. Inside the club, where cocaine was openly used at tables and sex on the dance floor was commonplace, his companions quickly lost themselves in the atmosphere.

They would then return to von Mirers’ luxurious apartment, decorated like an Eastern palace, where the real “work” began. Staring at wealthy young followers with piercing blue eyes, he used his magnetic charm, playing on their desire for spiritual enlightenment amid the materialism of Trump-era New York.

Thus, the “psychic and astrologer” drew them into a manipulative cult called Eternal Values. He drained their wealth by selling large “healing” gemstones that he claimed were prescribed after analyzing their natal charts.

“Beauty Is Truth,” and Hitler as Inspiration

Most of his followers were top models (mainly from the prestigious Ford Models agency). Insiders explain this not only by his obsession with physical beauty but also because he himself had once been a model and knew exactly how to manipulate young women judged primarily by appearance.

Although von Mirers insisted his teachings promoted love and combined the world’s best religions, in reality he was a misogynist who preached that Jews were “evil” and that Hitler had been “divinely inspired” to create a “master race.” He also planned to do the same — to seize global power after the apocalypse, which he predicted would come from a “magnetic pole shift” at the end of 1999.

The horrific story of the Eternal Values cult became the basis for a new documentary (Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult), featuring candid interviews with former members, including 1980s runway stars Hoyt Richards and Jackie Adams.

It is a story of extreme vulnerability, narcissism, and astonishing gullibility. Successful individuals, after working fashion shows or Wall Street jobs, would spend hours cleaning floors and doing laundry because von Mirers insisted they must “suppress their ego.”

In reality, he was a fraud. His “magical” stones cost pennies, but blinded by devotion, followers willingly paid fortunes. The guru claimed the minerals protected them from “dark satanic forces.”

His entire life was fake. He was not an orphan from a wealthy Manhattan dynasty connected to the British royal family. His real name was Fred Meyer, and he grew up in Brooklyn, the son of a dry-cleaning business owner. Before founding the cult, the fake aristocrat with a manufactured German accent made a living exploiting wealthy elderly New York widows after his modeling career collapsed.

The First Male Supermodel With No Money

Sensing the 1980s boom in yoga, meditation, and astrology, Fred created a perfect “bridge between yuppies and New Age spirituality,” as Hoyt Richards recalls in the film.

Hoyt was only 16 when von Mirers approached him on a Nantucket beach and began drawing yin-yang symbols in the sand. Soon, the guru was taking the impressionable teenager to Studio 54 and convincing him to enter modeling. With movie-star looks, Hoyt achieved massive success, working alongside Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell, becoming known as “the world’s first male supermodel.”

Almost all his earnings — millions of dollars — went to von Mirers. He moved into the cult’s communal Manhattan apartment the day after graduating from Princeton with a degree in economics. By day, members earned large sums at prestigious jobs; by night, they slept on futons on the floor. Hoyt was so indoctrinated that he believed his success was entirely due to the guru and brought many fellow models into the cult.

By the mid-1980s, von Mirers had built a core group of 100 followers. By then, they were willing to believe anything — even that his body had been taken over by an alien intelligence from Arcturus in 1978.

The cult made millions selling audio cassette lectures (“Cosmic People,” “Dark Forces”) and astrology consultations. Around 8,000 people paid for readings at $350 each, generating about $3 million (roughly $9 million today). With the money, the psychic bought real estate across the U.S., including a large lakeside estate in North Carolina, which he claimed would protect followers from a global flood — where a spaceship would supposedly pick them up.

Control Techniques and Abuse

The cult used classic manipulation techniques. The guru regularly held “whipping sessions,” publicly humiliating one member while others were forced to chant curses at the victim.

Elizabeth Arden Model vs. “Dark Forces”

Supermodel Jackie Adams, former face of Elizabeth Arden and frequent Vogue cover star, joined Eternal Values in 1987 at age 22.

At first, she found a “sense of home” there. But when she entered a relationship with a handsome cult member who was being groomed as von Mirers’ successor, the “alien” became furious. He declared Jackie an “embodiment of evil” that needed to be destroyed and ordered the group to harass her.

Still, she remained. Von Mirers forced her to pay for his apartment and pressured her into buying “spiritual healing stones,” the first costing $80,000.

“It's amazing how expensive spirituality was,” Jackie says today.

To maintain control, von Mirers later reversed his rule of celibacy and ordered members to have sex with each other and strangers brought in from outside. During the AIDS epidemic, he also engaged in sexual encounters multiple times a week under the guise of “astrological sessions.”

The Ending of a “Bad Movie”

When the orgies and drug use spiraled out of control, Jackie Adams and her partner John Andreadis attempted to escape. In response, they were met with a “wave of hatred.” Von Mirers physically attacked John, declared them “evil forces,” and sent audio recordings of curses to acquaintances.

Jackie ultimately helped bring down the cult. She went to the New York prosecutor with fraud allegations and gave a revealing interview to Vanity Fair. The article left no doubt: von Mirers was a manipulative fraud.

The cult leader died of AIDS just five days before the magazine’s publication. He was 44.

However, around ten loyal male followers, including Hoyt Richards, still moved to a remote estate in North Carolina to wait for the end of the world. They stayed there until 1999, armed heavily. Shortly before the supposed apocalypse, they brought women to the compound, deciding they should reproduce since the world was about to end.

“It was like a bad sci-fi movie,” former member and actor Dar Dixon recalls.

When Hoyt secretly started seeing a woman outside the group, the cult members forcibly shaved his head to ruin his modeling career. He eventually escaped and took refuge with fellow model Fabio Lanzoni. Richards later sued the group and recovered some money, and by 2002 the cult had fully dissolved.

The documentary does not give a clear answer as to why von Mirers was so obsessed with beautiful people. Perhaps the answer lies in an Indian proverb he often repeated: “When the flower blooms, the bees come on their own.” And in his case, he managed to attract especially trusting bees.