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It’s a secret society that claims its followers descended from a “master Aryan race” on Atlantis and that humans once lived on the moon. Homosexuality is banned, corporal punishment encouraged and members atone for bad karma in past lives. Young women, denied higher education, are often married off to older men in the group, former members say.

Some male devotees have undergone weapons training to prepare for the end of the world, which is coming soon. But this doomsday cult isn’t hidden away in some rural bunker — it operates out of a brownstone in Murray Hill.

Every Thursday evening, dozens of congregants line up on East 35th Street for the group’s weekly meeting. Their leader of the flock, Tom Baer, 73, preaches from the center of the room, reading from pieces of paper. Members don’t have religious texts to follow along and aren’t allowed to take notes. In official documents, the tax-exempt church is called Congregation for the Light. To members, it’s just “the Light.”

The group has about 200 members in New York, and there are congregations in Washington, DC, and Atlanta, Baer and ex-followers say.

“It’s the cult next door to every New Yorker, and no one even knows that it’s there,” said an exiled member.

The former worshiper, a Manhattan woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she fears retribution, joined the group in 2003 while dating a man who was raised in it. “I totally wanted to know what was going on,” she said, adding that her boyfriend assured her it was “nothing creepy .?.?. just the basic tenets of all religions.”

The deeper she got, the more skeptical she became. Baer spoke to her of battling evil people in lucid dreams and how cancer and other illnesses were the result of karma, not health habits, genetics or environment. She noted Baer’s repeated, odd mispronunciation of “awry” as “ow-ree.”

The Light dates back to at least the 1960s and has met in Murray Hill since the ’70s, though members are taught that the church dates to the 19th century. Much of what the group believes is shrouded in secrecy, though former members say it has a lot to do with karma, reincarnation and the end of the human race.

The former worshiper was shocked that attendance at weekly meetings was mandatory; absences for vacation or higher education were not excused. When she asked a fellow member if her teenage daughter would attend Harvard or Yale, the woman responded: “What are you talking about? She’ll go to a local community college. She has to attend Thursday night meetings.”

She was warned not to share the Light with others, and she kept her membership secret from her closest friends.

“Everything is ambiguous,” she said. “And if you ask, you’re told, ‘You just don’t remember. You’ll remember when you’re supposed to .?.?. Try to control your dreams, and tonight you’ll remember a symbol.’?”

But she wouldn’t stop asking questions.

During a meeting at the end of the year, everyone was handed a white envelope — except for her. The next day, she joined her boyfriend, who had since become her fiancé, and his parents for dinner.

The food wasn’t even served before her fiancé’s mother stood at the table and announced: “If you think you’re marrying him, you’re nuts. I remember you from 10,000 years ago, and you tried to bring down the Light. “We are launching a spiritual intervention to save his soul,” the would-be mother-in-law said.

Shattered, the young woman was driven home and told never to speak to her fiancé again. Two months later, he was married off to a fellow Light member. The white envelopes had been invitations to a special meeting to sabotage her engagement to the man who brought her into the Light in the first place. “I felt like I was in a movie,” she recalled. “I didn’t realize the kind of power Tom [Baer] had. That the Light had.”

Paul Arthur Miller was 18 when he found himself among a dozen young men in a secluded nook of the Adirondack Mountains. He had received instructions on what to pack for the three-day trip reserved only for elite members of the “Light Patrol.” The troop was led by two believers, ex-Army paratroopers who taught the youngsters how to track footprints, the basics of camping and other survival skills.

He didn’t realize the training would include firing M14 automatic rifles into an abandoned junk heap or training in hand-to-hand combat in preparation for the apocalypse. “The belief is that Planet Earth will be ending soon and we would have to defend our people and safeguard our food and supplies,” recalled Miller, now a 58-year-old West Village writer.

“They changed the doomsday date at least twice,” he said. “We were told it was imminent, weeks or months. People in the cult wouldn’t have dental work done because they thought, ‘Why bother?’?”

Miller was born into the group and worked 17 years for Baer’s furniture company in Harrison, Westchester County, which employed many Light members. “I felt like a prisoner,” Miller said. “I felt like an indentured slave.” He stayed through the tenures of two Light leaders across 30 years — each with his own agendas and “personal beliefs.”

Morris Kates, chairman during the 1960s and ’70s, taught Miller that once the world ended, people would be reincarnated on another planet called “Nay.” There, they would be one gender — and have no stomachs. Joseph Denton, Kates’ successor and a former Southern Baptist, tried banning the Internet and some TV.

Baer took the reins when Denton died in 2001. He had married into the Light in the 1960s after hitching a ride with a Westchester-bound follower and meeting his future wife.

Miller said the three leaders had one thing in common — they tried to erase his homosexuality, which they considered “a hangover from the Roman Empire.” He was ordered to date women in the Light. After one meeting, Kates cornered him and said, “Who is this guy who comes to stay with you on weekends? Is he a faggot?”

Miller was ordered to dump his boyfriend and to begin dating a woman in the Light. He saw her on and off for five years to keep up appearances Despite this, Miller said he was a favorite of Kates, who used to announce during weekly lectures, “Paul and I have been friends for thousands and thousands of lives.”

The meetings would begin in the brownstone’s ground-floor auditorium around 7?p.m., when Kates announced, “Greetings, friends.” The teachings are rooted in 19th-century England, ex-followers and Baer say, where a husband and wife — known only as “the Wyeths” — woke from the same dream and wrote down the karmic tenets and symbols they remembered.

“They don’t give you any sources. There’s no dogma you can reference. It’s just word of mouth,” an ex-member said. “You just believe what you’re told.” The Light chairman instructs followers to obsessively look for symbols in dreams and their everyday lives.

Ex-members told The Post they couldn’t even have artwork or bric-a-brac in their homes unless it contained one of the signs, which include an “owl,” or watcher protecting Light members, and a cross with an “X,” the group’s greeting sign.

“They’re brainwashed. They’re obsessed,” said Miller, who is writing a screenplay on his experience in the Light. Members aren’t allowed to associate with “know-nots,” the term for people who aren’t in the Light.

“You were always told if you leave the Light, you’re subjected to evil .?.?. because you don’t have protection,” Miller said.

Miller finally worked up the courage to leave the group in the 1990s. The last straw was a member spying on him as he dined with a male suitor. “How dare you be seen in a restaurant frequented by the Light with that blatant homosexual?” the member seethed.

Miller left a letter in Denton’s mailbox notifying him he was done. His parents left six months later. “My dad [later] apologized for getting us into this thing,” he said. He is estranged from his three sisters, who are still in the group. “I didn’t start living until I left the Light,” Miller said. “I want people to know it’s OK to leave, to reclaim their independence of thought and pursue their own life dreams.”

Another ex-follower, who requested anonymity, said he was booted from his home at age 15 because he questioned the teachings and refused to throw away his Black Sabbath records. “They believe in a master Aryan race .?.?. that lived on Atlantis,” he said, adding that black, red and yellow races existed, but a blue race was wiped out. “Once you get to a certain level, they start to tell you these things.

“They think they are otherworldly,” he added. “They carry themselves like they’re robotic .?.?. they’re not of this Earth, everything else is filth and [they] don’t want to associate.” He endured brutal beatings by his parents, who he believes were instructed by Kates. “I had this reputation of being a bad kid when I wasn’t,” said the ex-member. “I was an abused kid.”

His mother was told she was Kates’ daughter on Atlantis 10,000 years ago and believed she was a high priestess of the Light. “Everybody is brainwashed in this thing,” he said. “They’re conditioned to think and behave in a certain way, and it starts in childhood. Children are taught to fear.” The Light also teaches that children aren’t human until they reach the age of 13, he said.

The Light’s solution to his sister’s rebelliousness was to marry her off to a church bachelor in his 40s. “She was a gorgeous 19-year-old, and they married her off to this schlub,” the ex-member said. He said he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder because of his upbringing in the group.

“If they want to clear their name of suspicion, they need to start answering questions,” he said. “They should maybe have a sign out in front of their building if they’re listed as a church.”

Another ex-member said he and his mother were forced to put money in a wooden box by the entrance before they jumped ship in the late ’70s. He remembers Kates announcing the group would incorporate as a church to get tax breaks. Shortly after, the member was kicked out for marrying a Catholic woman who refused to join the Light.

“There was always so much turmoil when someone chose a partner from the outside world,” he said, adding that parents often married their children off to other members in the group. “It was not uncommon for girls as young as 18 marrying .?.?. men who were quite a bit older,” he said.

The exiled follower said it took many years for him to get over the experience and that he has never shared more than superficial details with his adult children. “It still stands out as the worst time of my entire life,” he said. “But I was — fortunate enough to have people still in my life that loved me and helped me through it.”

Baer, a charming and sharply dressed man who uses a cane and believes he was an Apache in a past life, denies the group is a “cult.” “We’re not a religion. We’re what a church should be,” said the Ohio native. “The principles are to have a decent, sane and healthy life and to be responsible for our own actions.

We’re not a religion. We’re what a church should be. “You can’t do that in one life,” he added. “It’s impossible.”

Baer denied that the group supports corporal punishment, but said, “If I want to spank my kids, it’s no one else’s business .?.?. Even Jesus said, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’ But it’s not what you do first.” The preacher said children aren’t indoctrinated until they are teens and that if a child dies before age 13, it’s because they committed suicide in a previous life.

Congregation for the Light runs a nonprofit named after Kates, who died in the late 1970s. The foundation’s address is at a Brooklyn auto shop. The group’s revenues were $116,860 in 2012 and $338,429 in 2011, tax forms show. The documents reveal a vague accounting of expenses, which include $84,000 for “totally physically and mentally disabled, total care, assistance for nurses’ aides.”

Baer, who lives on an upper floor of the Light’s brownstone, said the nonprofit gets 10 percent of its funds from donations and the rest from estates when members die. The group pays for members who are down on their luck and for their home care. “It’s not a cult. It’s not a scam,” Baer said. “You can come 3,000 times and you’re not going to have to pay a dime.”

When I finnished serving my country as many of us do (Thankyou to those who have and those who support). I joined the Police, as my father had been a policeman for many years and had recently retired to work on training his hunting dogs he breeds. My mother is a nurse who last year retired after 30+ years working. Only retiring a little early due to very serious health issues.

THIS WAS THE 1990's:
And I don't miss them one bit. Here are a couple of my fav. Incidents I remember very well. Hope you get a good laugh:

1/ Three Hoopie Pile Up in Brooklyn:
Early onSunday morning about 2-3am we get call out to a Three Car Pile up in Brooklyn. Great we need at least two cars and the dispatch sends my partner and I and another pair who were good friends with out to deal with the accident. We are told the caller who reported the accident sounded very stressed and was a witness to what had happened and she thought at least one person had passed on (to put it kindly).
On the way there we got as much information as we could . One of those old Ford Vans from the 1970's or so (a van Hoopie rust bucket). Had run a red light and t-boned a tiny jap crap sedan fast enough to push it aside and hit a big old Caddy that was trying to swerve to miss the whole mess and the van hit them head on. I shook my head thinking bet it was drunk drivers or stoned drivers.

Sure enough we get there and the other pair arrive right behind us . One of them goes to the witness who called it In to get details of what they saw etc and the other three of us go over to servey the scene . And call in we need at least 2 ambulances and a punch wagon (what we term a hearse) and for the coroner . I'm thinking oh this is gonna be a fun night .

I take the van just general look at my partner takes the little Japanese Import and the other ones partner goes over to talk to the couple standing next to the elderly ancient Caddy that didn't look like it had much injury at all.

At first I can only see the back from where I'm standing and no one is out of the car so im thinking someone maybe hurt or trapped in the front . As the third guy get around the van to the Caddy he calls to me to get myself over there in a hurry as he is suddenly moving toward the van away from the couple near the old Caddy. Thinking something is on fire or whatever I rush over and around to his side to see ..... The driver .... Laying across the bonnet of the Caddy . He had gone through the front window of the van having not worn a seat belt as well as running a red light.... No guessing what color the driver was .... A damned Nigger. Fucking wonderful . Sadly not to be outdone he had a mate in the front seat who also was allergic to seat belts who'd hit the Caddys bonnet and rolled off , he was laying dead on the ground with his head split open . The nigger on the bonnet was missing the top third of his head from the eyebrows up ( his scalp and brains were on the ground to his left). Two body bags we count and get things out of the car ready to go cover them when the ambulances show up and other police have by now shut off the roads around the intersection. The van that is held together by bits of rust holding hands is a write off ... And of course had ridiculous expensive rims on it that were worth 10x the van. Oh well two less Niggers there in the world no loss!!

The two deceased were both well over the limit drink wise and high as kites on speed when they hit the little Honda going threw the lights they probably didn't even see the car or the lights before they came to their end. Neither of them had identification on them so finger prints had to be checked. That's the only way we could find them...... Less surprising was the fact they both had warrents and all for drug and violence . No Nigger University for them .. They were 19 and 18 yrs old at the time. Both were fathers .... No suprise there. I'm just glad I wasn't their when their mammy's came to identify them. I heard all hell broke loose.

2/ NiGGER KNifE FIGHT:
7pm Friday Night we get a call to a well known Appartment building I won't name in the shitty nigyork suburbs . Mostly over run by niggers now sadly. Called to a knife fight . Two guys fighting over a woman and the baby ( who's woman she was and who was the baby daddy etc) . It got heated and flick knives were out and the enevitable happened. And what a mess.

One less Nigger in the world (DNA tests proved he wasn't the daddy and also proved neither was the other guy !! Also no suprise!!). The other Nigger was carted off to Nigger University where I believe he still resides. Along with killing this guy he had a stack of outstanding warrents ... More no suprise!! Oh well I'll be long retired before he sees light of day.
Poor woman who was living with the now deceased is back by herself till the next wannabe stepdaddy turns up at least... The kids got no chance nigger or not.

Glad I got into Helping with Old Cases work. We really do get some very interesting old ones from way back.