Sunday 16 September 2012

The Cult of Self-Forgiveness

Ivan Rauscher

Occasionally, posts appear at the Equal Money Forum where non-Destonians ask reasonable questions, such as what would happen to those persons who do not comply with the global communo-fascist totalitarian police state that would be the Desteni 'Equal Money System' (EMS)?

In one of these posts called Connections, trees and documentaries a forum member called Ant writes:

I read your link on what will happen to the ones that resist and honestly I didn't see a clear concise answer. I understand that we can support those that resist to help them realise that equality is "best for all". However, as the old saying goes, "you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink." So what happens when the horse doesn't want to drink the equality water. If they do not accept and resist physically, do we use force to put them in rehabilitation support places? And if we have to use force how does that makes us any different from a dictatorship? I'm really curious to know how this would work because this is an issue that arises with many other well intentioned systems of governance out there.

The response supplied refers to a blog (discussed in The Desteni tools: Destonians) by one of the most fanatical Destonians there is, Lindsay Lee Craver, but it explains nothing about how EMS would function as a system, and nothing about how anyone resisting it would be rehabilitated.

Nazi eugenics poster

Apart from suggesting that dissenters will receive 'psychological support' to help them towards 'self-forgiveness' so they can be rehabilitated into EMS', another 'solution' to the perceived problem of those who will not co-operate with the 'system' is their wish to revive the pseudo-science of eugenics and thereby exterminate and/or sterilise disabled people and 'certain races'.

Desteni is based on Bernard Poolman's own peculiarly nihilistic re-interpretations of New Age philosophies, occultism and conspiracy theories. Destonians claim they are opposed to everything the New Age stands for but all their ideas and practices are just re-worked versions of New Age / occult philosophies.

Poolman and his fans, the Destonians, make a poor show of passing it all off as relevant to political or social issues by trying to criticise 'god', 'spirituality', 'enlightenment' etc as used in the New Age or occultism but at the same time substituting or confusing such words or concepts with slogans based around the word, 'equality', and preaching that the only way to release the world from the grip of the conspiracy of a reptilian capitalist elite is 'self-forgiveness' and 'equal money' -- that is, money for Desteni.

Destonians imagine their hero, Bernard Poolman is 'self-realised' and not at all how he appears to others: an amateur con man who has deliberately set out to form his own cult.

Destonians have fallen for the outright lie that Desteni represents equality and have become internet scammers on Poolman's behalf. They pay to work for his company and by promoting EMS, attempt to lure in more suckers to buy Desteni products, many of which are recordings of Sunette Spies pretending to be an 'interdimensional portal', which is the Desteni version of a New Age channeller. They take up the practice of 'self-forgiveness' and promote it and EMS as the key to 'heaven on earth'.

One of many New Age books on self-forgiveness

Techniques for self-forgiveness and forgiveness are abundant throughout New Age self-help literature. They appear in the form of sayings such as 'I, (name), forgive myself for... '. 


Desteni recommend ‘writing yourself to freedom’ which means typing out endless affirmations beginning with, 'I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to…'. 
Desteni material centering on this practice is a perverse re-interpretation of forgiveness or self-forgiveness as described in mass-market paperbacks by, for example, the queen of New Age self-help pop psychology, Louise Hay, which were on the Desteni recommended reading list, which has been removed from public view, as well as the 1975 so-called 'channelled' work, A Course in Miracles, and 'Conversations with God' by Neale Donald Walsch, both of which Bernard Poolman has also commented on in some detail and has admitted he was at one time immersed in.

While 'self-forgiveness' in New Age religion is supposed to be towards healing, well-being or 'self-development', and would most often be a private matter, in Desteni those who practice 'self-forgiveness' are given the illusion of self-realisation (another Eastern mystical and New Age religious concept) through writing all about themselves in detail and sharing the information with buddies in the 'Destonians' network and in public on the Internet. 

The practice functions by inducing feelings of guilt as regards starvation or poverty in order to convince people they should give money to Desteni who claim they can solve poverty and starvation. Destonians have been told by Poolman that 'self-forgiveness' will 'delete the mind' and therefore somehow help bring about 'equality for all'. It seems they imagine that when they criticise themselves and reveal their perceived faults or subjective or social experiences or thoughts in public it is 'best for all' humankind and will change the world forever.

This enables the Desteni core group to ensure that recruits identify themselves with the Desteni brand name and endorse and promote it using their own intimate, personal information as testimony. The 'buddy system' enables them to monitor each other, and helps the core group to screen potential visitors to their farm, as well as to find out exactly what makes any of them tick and what makes them useful or not within the group dynamic.
In terms of cult behaviour, 'self-forgiveness' as used by Desteni is a form of confession. This is described in Robert Jay Lifton's Eight Criteria of Thought Reform as:

Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' 'sins,' 'attitudes,' and 'faults' are discussed and exploited by the leaders.

Almost all sects, cults or new religious movements utilise forms of confession as modes of control, and it is common knowledge that many of them also operate front organisations and exploit loopholes for cash by setting up 'non-profit' companies.

Desteni's Equal Life Foundation is such a company...

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