Escaping Twin Flames is a three-part Netflix docuseries, directed by Cecilia Peck, where former members of Twin Flames Universe discuss how Jeff and Shaleia Ayan (aka Jeff and Shaleia Devine) convinced them that they have met their “Twin Flame” and that they should pursue that person at all costs.
Opening Shot: Someone watching a YouTube video of Jeff Ayan of Twin Flames Universe showing his fans his $100,000 Porsche.
The Gist: This is the second docuseries involving Twin Flames Universe, after Marina Zenovich’s Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe came out on Prime Video last month. This docuseries speaks to a number of different former TFU members, and one or two parents and siblings of members who are still there but have estranged themselves from their families.
Most of the people Peck spoke with ended up working for TFU or its offshoot company MAP as either coaches, salespeople, web designers or social media specialists. In almost all the cases, the people had already met someone they thought they had a strong connection with but their feelings weren’t reciprocated. Seeking out answers, they found Jeff and Shaleia and took TFU’s Ascension classes.
One of them is Keely, who provided the filmmakers the video footage of the TFU classes via a hard drive where hundreds of videos were stored. She actually pursued her Twin Flame after he broke up with her and they ended up married. But her sister Marlee didn’t have one, but was encouraged to pursue a man who messengered her on Facebook as her Twin Flame; he turned out to have a criminal record and mental health issues, and when Marlee tried to get him help, she was discouraged from doing so by Jeff, thinking a good partner was all he needed.
The filmmakers also talk to Paula, whose twin sister Stephanie is still in TFU. She and her mother Louise haven’t heard from Stephanie since at least 2020, as it seems the efforts of Jeff and Shaleia have turned her against her family. It seems that the only former member who overlaps between the two docuseries is Arcelia, a trans woman who was one of the people told to pursue a Twin Flame at all costs; she disassociated from TFU when the Ayans started talking about the “divine” masculine and feminine in each Twin Flames couple, an upshot of the fact that most of the members of TFU were women.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We already mentioned Desperately Seeking Soulmate, but there are also shades of Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult, which is from the same filmmaking team as Escaping Twin Flames.
Our Take: While both docuseries about Twin Flames Universe cover much of the same ground, Escaping Twin Flames goes directly into just how Jeff and Shaleia recruited members, got them to spend thousands of dollars on classes, then roped them in as coaches (who made their own incomes) and people who worked for the organization (who were mostly volunteering their time in exchange for free classes). These are people who could barely afford these classes, but they wanted to explore the spirituality behind the connections they had recently made, even if the feelings they had for those people weren’t reciprocated.
This docuseries is much clearer than Desperately Seeking Soulmate about just who these people’s Twin Flames actually were, and it made the Ayans’ encouragement to have their members pursue these people no matter what make more sense. In the case of Elle, a DNA researcher, she actually had a restraining order filed against her by her ex, who was “certified” by the Ayans as her Twin Flame, and she was encouraged to ignore the order and keep the lines of communication open. When she happened to be at the same nightclub he was, he had her arrested.
It seems like much of the information here is based on the reporting of Sarah Berman, who wrote about TFU for Vice; unlike Alice Hines, whose reporting was the centerpiece of the last docuseries, Berman didn’t meet the Ayans in person. But it seems that the sources she had were in Jeff and Shaleia’s inner circle, and they have put together a much more cohesive picture of just what the Ayans would do to keep people in TFU, from changing rules in order to keep people from being discouraged that their methods don’t work, to publicly shaming them in classes, to the oft-cited “mirroring method” that made members turn all of their external difficulties onto themselves.
There’s less biographical information about Jeff and Shaleia in this docuseries, and that might have been a frustration if this one came out first, but there is a tremendous volume of fascinating information about just how Jeff and Shaleia have turned TFU into a church-like organization with profit centers under its non-profit umbrella, and moved to encouraging people who are cisgender to move to the side of “divine” masculine or feminine. It certainly didn’t make us want to find out more about the personal lives of these two people who, for all intents and purposes, feel like two people who are at the very least selling something that it’s impossible for them to deliver.
Sex and Skin: Nothing.
Parting Shot: Elle talks about sitting in a jail cell and hearing her last coaching session with Jeff in her head, where he uses the mirroring exercise on her, and then dismisses her notion that he’s trying to hurt her.
Sleeper Star: Here, the MVP is certainly Keely, who provided most of the meeting footage for the docuseries, and also showed that, even with a real relationship with whom she thought was her Twin Flame, Jeff and Shaleia’s methods don’t actually work.
Most Pilot-y Line: Given that Arcelia seemed to be the only interviewee who overlaps the two docuseries, we wonder if she told each set of filmmakers that she was talking to the other set of filmmakers. And if she did, did either set of filmmakers care, given how dynamic Arcelia’s interviews are in both docuseries?
Our Call: STREAM IT. There feels like there’s more substance to Escaping Twin Flames than Desperately Seeking Soulmate, or at the very least more testimonials to what Twin Flames Universe was all about and exactly what Jeff and Shaleia Ayan’s grift really was. But it’s worth watching both to get the complete picture of who the Ayans are and just who would join TFU and listen to everything this couple told them to do.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
