Showing posts with label Universal Medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universal Medicine. Show all posts
Dec 5, 2024
CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/5/2024 (Brahma Shree Narayana Guru, Jehovah's Witnesses, Multi Level Marketing, Universal Medicine, Book)
Brahma Shree Narayana Guru, Jehovah's Witnesses, Multi Level Marketing, Universal Medicine, Book
"Speaking at an interfaith gathering organized at the Shivagiri Math in Vatican City, Pope Francis remembered Brahma Shree Narayana Guru in his blessings. He remarked that Guru's teachings hold immense significance in an era marked by growing intolerance and hatred between nations and individuals. The interfaith conference, held earlier today (November 30) in Vatican City, saw the participation of representatives from over 15 countries, including Italy, Ireland, the UAE, Bahrain, Indonesia, England, and the United States."
A devoted Jehovah's Witness is forced to reconsider her beliefs during a judicial committee hearing led by three congregation elders.
The Illusion of Consent in Multilevel Marketing
" ... If you've never been targeted by a scammer or been in a toxic work environment or an abusive relationship, you might think that nothing could ever convince you to join a pyramid scheme cult. Nothing could allow you to spend upwards of a decade pouring your heart out for some phony cause. But, as NXIVM whistleblower Anthony "Nippy" Ames always says, 'If you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty—you're already prime recruitment material.'"
" ... Universal Predator is the incredible inside story of Esther Rockett's campaign to expose Serge Benhayon, the multimillionaire leader of Universal Medicine — a female-focused 'esoteric healing' enterprise marketing dubious services like Esoteric Breast Massage.
Esther recounts her creepy first encounters with the former tennis coach and self-styled guru that lead her to investigate and blog about his operations. Her efforts to uncover his lucrative industry of exploitation bring fierce retaliation from his fanatical followers — devotee doctors and lawyers among them — who go all out to shut her down.
When Benhayon sues her for defamation, she struggles with scarce resources to get her defence to trial.
Told in Esther's inimitably incisive style, Universal Predator is a David and Goliath tale for the internet age: a true account of one woman's battle against a patriarchal money-raking cult. A post-New Age MeToo story, it's also a riveting courtroom drama.
No one can predict what will happen when the slippery manipulator enters the witness box in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and faces questions from Esther's veteran criminal and defamation lawyer Tom Molomby SC."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.
Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.
The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.
Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.
Dec 2, 2024
Universal Predator
Order now for paperback copies from Amazon or ask for it at your local bookstore wherever you are! (It can take a couple of weeks to arrive.)
The eBook is an instant download from all the usual eBook retailers - worldwide!
Universal Predator is the incredible inside story of Esther Rockett's campaign to expose Serge Benhayon, the multimillionaire leader of Universal Medicine — a female-focused 'esoteric healing' enterprise marketing dubious services like Esoteric Breast Massage.
Esther recounts her creepy first encounters with the former tennis coach and self-styled guru that lead her to investigate and blog about his operations. Her efforts to uncover his lucrative industry of exploitation bring fierce retaliation from his fanatical followers — devotee doctors and lawyers among them — who go all out to shut her down.
When Benhayon sues her for defamation, she struggles with scarce resources to get her defence to trial.
Told in Esther's inimitably incisive style, Universal Predator is a David and Goliath tale for the internet age: a true account of one woman's battle against a patriarchal money-raking cult. A post-New Age MeToo story, it's also a riveting courtroom drama.
No one can predict what will happen when the slippery manipulator enters the witness box in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and faces questions from Esther’s veteran criminal and defamation lawyer Tom Molomby SC.
Jun 2, 2020
Cults and conspiracy theories offer the easy answer to hard reality
The Australian
The Times
May 28, 2020
May 28, 2020
Just when you thought there was nothing new to say about the Cummings affair, along comes a conspiracy theory. On Monday the British Labour MP and failed leadership candidate Clive Lewis tweeted “how interesting” about a quote from another tweeter, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray. It read: “On 12 April Dominic Cummings was seen in Barnard Castle. Two days later GlaxoSmithKline of Barnard Castle signed an agreement to develop and manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine with Sanofi of France. Of course that could be coincidence.”
@CraigMurrayOrg
I see now. Mea culpa.
I am a raving lunatic for suggesting Cummings may have gone to the major factory and research centre of uber corrupt GlaxoSmithKline in Barnard Castle, whereas actually he was driving 30 miles as an eye test. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/05/why-barnard-castle/ …
Why Barnard Castle
UPDATED Dominic Cummings specifically stated now in the press briefing that he had been eager to "get back to work to get vaccine deals through, move regulations aside" and that is why he drove to Bar
GSK does indeed have a factory in Barnard Castle, although its headquarters is in London. But Mr Murray failed to spell out, in his tweet or his lengthy blogposts, what possible connection there could be between the now-notorious outing and a vaccine deal with France. I can’t think of one but obviously Murray and Lewis can.
Within a day this nebulous nonsense was popping up in WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts all over the place.
Murray is a serial “just saying” conspiracy theorist. When the Russians poisoned the Skripals in 2018, for example, Murray pointed a finger at the Israelis and suggested a British government cover-up. At the moment his big issue is the conspiracy he alleges to “fit up” the former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond on sexual assault charges (Mr Salmond was acquitted). In the past he has accused me and other Jewish writers of being “Zionist propagandists” for the sake of “available riches”. Perhaps if Clive Lewis had done his homework on Murray he’d have been more judicious, but the temptation of the extra, hidden explanation, that banishes the possibility of accident and error and replaces it with something far darker and cleverer, is always powerful.
The week before Lewis’s tweet, I recorded a Stories of Our Times podcast with Rosie Kinchen of The Sunday Times. Rosie had been looking into the case of an Australian cult called Universal Medicine, which has been running its British operation from a very swish guesthouse in Somerset. The story contained some of the classic features of cult encounters: divided families, court cases, bizarre rituals and so on.
This one was also slightly different. UM’s founder and guru is a fifty-something former Australian tennis coach called Serge Benhayon. We learn on UM’s website that in 1999 he “found himself under the impress of a series of unfoldments that led to a reconnection, or, ‘union of old’. As a result, he initiated these impresses via the expression of Esoteric Healing using the forum of his sessions to present the teachings that not long after became his vast collection and volume of service to many thousands.”
Not a few of these thousands have been suitably grateful and have made unfoldments of their own, by opening their wallets and bank accounts, by making bequests and donations, or by booking courses and buying various elements of UM’s “vast collections”. Not only does Mr Benhayon draw what seems to be a substantial income from UM’s activities, but so do his wife, his ex-wife and his children.
In 2018, after a long legal process, an Australian court decided that UM was a “socially harmful cult”. And recently in the British Court of Appeal Lord Justice Peter Jackson ordered a woman to make a “definitive break” with the group or else risk losing custody of her daughter.
What’s really fascinating is not the cult, but its adherents. Not least because a friend told me that he knew several of the leading lay members of UM. They were wealthy, privately educated, holding down professional or creative jobs, and often living in nice houses in the countryside. No robes, no strange tattoos. No secret signs. But on the other hand strict dietary restrictions based on the most improbable analysis of the body’s functioning (did you know that you were made up of 45,000 nadis, or energy centres, and that when bad energy runs across the top of your nadis you get ill?). And ways of dealing with this bad (or pranic) energy include turning things counterclockwise, and going to bed at 9pm and getting up at 3am.
Given that Benhayon’s own “philosophical” musings are the most ridiculous jumble of phrases, that he claims to channel Leonardo da Vinci among others, and that he apparently had his first epiphany sitting on the loo, you might have thought that any rational person’s sense of the absurd would have warned them off him, long before they got to other bits. Instead they go on to endorse the Ageless Wisdom, the esoteric chakra-puncture, the idea that all history is a conspiracy, and the ovarian reading.
When you start looking at the online testimony of adherents you begin to understand why. There’s the middle-class woman who had an abortion at 16 and has felt guilty about it ever since. There’s the wife of a successful film director who, having just given birth, has been taught to see that she and the child possessed all the wisdom they required, and that “I need not look outside for the answers but know that they are already within”. Or, “I am a young and attractive woman who has chronic hormone imbalance and hair loss,” but “the EBM session today has given me an opportunity to go even deeper, and with TRUE LOVE.” It’s where religion meets new age health fad, where the anti-vaxxer meets the Livingness. And what does that mean? “It means Taking Care of You. And, more deeply it means You Loving You.”
Like Serge loves them. Like all the Benhayons love them. They are all beautiful. None of them are disappointing. They are all the carriers of inner wisdom. Not only that but this inner wisdom is so easily achieved! The hugely complex, impossible, often arbitrary world doesn’t need your intellect to grapple painfully with it, because it’s a delusion. Leave off wheat, rise at 3am, get the prana massaged away from your nadis and all will be well.
People often believe what they do not because they choose to, but because they need to. A middle-class under-achiever whose focus is very much on themselves needs to be told that they’re actually very special. A failed Labour politician needs to think he may be necessary after all because he has the key to a great scandal. Very few people are so cynical that they espouse preposterous theories that they don’t believe. Though, looking across the Atlantic, it does sometimes happen.
May 15, 2020
CultNEWS101 Articles: 5/14/2020
Maharishi, Trafficking, Universal Medicine, Saint Benedict Center
"There is a little known place near Fairfield, Iowa called Maharishi Vedic City, that officially incorporated in 2001. This little city, located right next to the Fairfield Municipal Airport, boasts its very own outdoor observatory, The Raj Ayurvedic Health Center, and a hotel located kitty-corner to the Maharishi Vedic Pandit Campus. The campus itself spans 80 acres, and consists of over 160 buildings designed according to the Maharishi Vastu Architecture, giving the appearance of army barracks. They accommodate 1,000+ male Pandits training to be world peace keepers. Pandits are students that train under the Maharishi's instruction, spending 8 hours a day in transcendental meditation and chanting to create an influence of world peace, and they do this for 2-3 years. They begin their training in India, at a very young age, before moving to Iowa, fully funded by Maharishi followers. These Pandits arrive from India, and in 2014, it is alleged that over 160 Pandits went missing – shortly after, a mob of Pandits attacked the sheriff. Astonishingly, between 2008-2014 there were 20 suicides in the small town of Fairfield, with a mere population of only 9,400-10,000 during those years."
Fight The New Drug: UPS Trains 97,000 Delivery Drivers To Spot Signs Of Human Trafficking
" ... At the end of January, UPS announced that it would begin training its delivery drivers to detect signs of sex trafficking. This policy would extend to both neighborhood and freight drivers, reaching a total of 97,000 drivers and supervisors nationwide."
"The UK Court of Appeal has published a landmark ruling to protect a child from the harmful effects of Universal Medicine, which include alienation from her father. Her mother, a UM follower, has been ordered to break from the cult to be able to retain shared custody. The decision has been reported in UK's Mirror and The Times."
" ... Saint Benedict Center was founded by Catherine Clarke in 1940 as a meeting place for Catholic college students in the Boston area. Within a few years, its popularity led to the installation of the renowned Jesuit priest, Leonard Feeney, as its full-time chaplain. By 1948, however, the center had dwindled to about 60 followers of Father Feeney, all of whom adhered to a strict interpretation of the Catholic doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus ("outside the church there is no salvation").As a child, my life was centered around the activities of the men and women who chose to follow Father Feeney, including my parents and an array of married couples and single men and women, all of whom became members of the unofficial religious order they established and called the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Within a few years, we had grown to nearly 100 because of the 39 children born to the married couples.As a child, my life was centered around the activities of the men and women who chose to follow Father Feeney.My earliest memories are filled with the sound of laughter, of being in the constant company of the energetic and intellectual men and women of the community. I did not know that they had come together in this joyous enclave because of a falling out with the local authorities of the Catholic Church and Rome. (Father Feeney was dismissed by the Jesuits and excommunicated in 1953 after refusing to reply to a summons to the Vatican.) Nor did I know that my father, a teacher at the Jesuit-run Boston College, had, along with two other professors, been fired in early 1949, when I was just 7 months old, because of their rigid theological views.Though I was only about 3 years old, I remember well when the members of the community gave up their "worldly" attire and began donning identical clothing: black suits for the men and long black pleated skirts, topped with a white blouse and a black jacket, for the women.When I was 4 years old, Father Feeney ordained that everyone change their "worldly" names and adopt new "religious" names. It did not matter to me that I was forbidden to call my parents "Mommy" and "Daddy" anymore but had to address them as Sister Elizabeth Ann and Brother James Aloysius. I knew they loved me, and I loved them back.But I was upset when, at 5 years old, Father Feeney changed my name from Mary Patricia to Anastasia. Young as I was, I knew then that Father (as we called him) and Sister Catherine wielded all the power at the center.At 5 years old, Father Feeney changed my name from Mary Patricia to Anastasia. Young as I was, I knew then that Father (as we called him) wielded all the power at the center.I did not mind when the big brothers (as all the men were called) built a stockade fence around the seven houses that served as our homes and shut out the rest of the world, as long as I still lived with my parents and three younger sisters and younger brother.But I was devastated when, at the age of 6, together with my 4-year-old sister and 3-year-old brother, we were separated from our parents and two youngest siblings. No longer part of a loving family, we were suddenly being raised by one of the big sisters, a stentorian woman who meted out corporal punishment on a regular basis. I watched in agony as my little sister, Mary Catherine, became a frail and frightened child, prone to going for days without eating. My only recourse was to assume, as best I could, the role of protector, which often meant surreptitiously eating her meals so that she would not be punished."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.
Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.
Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.
Oct 29, 2019
CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/29/2019
Kosmic Fusion, Podcast, Universal Medicine, Australia, Solar Temple, Netherlands, Yoga
"Followers of a woman living in suburban Auckland believe she is the reincarnation of an Indian deity, who can tune into people's souls through special frequencies. But two former volunteers for her group, Kosmic Fusion, have described a frightening experience where they were subjected to gruelling "confession" sessions. Steve Kilgallon and Tony Wall report on the implosion of a New Age cult.She's short, for a living God.Despite being, literally, five foot nothing, Kaveeta Bhavsaar is a far more imposing presence than her much taller, quieter husband, Sunil Kumar Porumamilla.But then he can't cure your ailments with a high-frequency light wave.In their rented Mission Bay villa, which combines views of Rangitoto with water stains on the ceiling, smells of incense waft through the house as Bhavsaar explains how Kosmic Fusion, a spiritual movement she started seven years ago, was sabotaged from within by "malignant narcissist snakes"."
"Universal Medicine teaches that entities known as The Four Lords of Form rule over 9-foot-tall spirits that are all around us, and that most people have lived at least 2,300 lives before.
Former student Matt Sutherland told Sunday Night journalist Matt Doran that he would describe Universal Medicine's founder Serge Benhayon as 'a human wrecking ball.'"
Toronto Sun: Solar Temple Massacre: Mystery endures 25 years later
"The cult members thought the baby boy was the anti-Christ.
Emmanuel Dutoit was three months old and this tragic child was stabbed repeatedly. His killers used a wooden stake.
That was October 1994.
In a matter of days it would become clear to cops in Quebec and Switzerland the slain baby was the first salvo in the war for control of the Order of the Solar Temple cult.
Several days later in two quiet Swiss villages, 13 cult members enjoyed a last supper, then killed themselves by poison.
By the time the carnage was finished, 53 cult members were dead by poison, bullets or smothering. Eleven of the dead were Canadians."
"A family who spent nine years in a basement "waiting for the end of time" have been discovered by police in the Netherlands after the eldest son turned up at a local pub, reports say.
A man, 58, and his six children - aged 16 to 25 - were living at a farm in the northern province of Drenthe.
They were found after the son ordered beer at a bar in the nearby village of Ruinerwold, and then told staff he needed help, broadcaster RTV reported.
Witnesses said the man looked confused.
STLtoday.com: Booze and cursing are at the center of a new yoga rage
"Yoga is about finding your center. There's a new trend to track down tranquility, but it's a more alternative twist to the usually peaceful exercise.Amanda Kauffman strolled into the back room at Cinder Block Brewery Monday night with a beer in one hand and a yoga mat in the other. She was there to teach the first ever rage yoga class in Kansas City."It's a little bit different than your traditional yoga," she said. "You have dim lights, you have soft music. This is the complete opposite. It's yoga with an attitude basically."She started practicing yoga seven years ago, but two years back, she came across a new technique she said is more her style."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.
Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.
Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.
Oct 16, 2019
Let's Talk About Sects: Universal Medicine
"Universal Medicine teaches that entities known as The Four Lords of Form rule over 9-foot-tall spirits that are all around us, and that most people have lived at least 2,300 lives before.
Former student Matt Sutherland told Sunday Night journalist Matt Doran that he would describe Universal Medicine’s founder Serge Benhayon as 'a human wrecking ball.'”
EPISODE DETAILS
Written, Researched and Hosted by Sarah Steel
Music by Joe Gould
October 16th, 2019
1 hr 17 mins 44 secsSeason 3
Sep 30, 2019
CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/25/2019
Jehovah's Witnesses, Legal, Universal Medicine, Australia, Resurrection Life Church and World Ministry Center, Micro Churches, Prosperity Gospel, Benny Hinn
"An attorney for the Jehovah's Witnesses asked the Montana Supreme Court on Friday to reverse a $35 million verdict against the church for not reporting a girl's sexual abuse to authorities.Last year, a jury awarded $4 million in compensatory damages and $31 million in punitive damages to a woman who said she was abused as a child in the mid-2000s by a member of the Thompson Falls Jehovah's Witness congregation.The abuse came after the congregation's elders disciplined the man over allegations of abusing two other family members in the 1990s and early 2000s, the woman's lawsuit said."
"A Brisbane multi-millionaire who donated $300,000 to a charity associated with a group later found in court to be a "exploitative cult" has said he gave the money freely as a reward for treating his chronic pain.But software business owner Stephen Ninnes got his cash back, after an Australian Tax Office (ATO) crackdown forced the College of Universal Medicine (COUM) to relinquish almost $600,000 in donations.The COUM promotes the teachings of Universal Medicine's (UM) multi-millionaire founder Serge Benhayon — a former bankrupt tennis coach who claims to be Leonardo Da Vinci reincarnated.Mr Ninnes said in hindsight, after damning findings by a New South Wales Supreme Court jury last year in a defamation case brought by Mr Benhayon, "without any shadow of a doubt, I would have nothing to do with it".
The COUM remains a registered charity, despite being stripped of tax-deductable gift registration by the ATO, which found it was not operating a "college" for tax purposes.
Other major donors to COUM include Neil Gamble, a prominent executive and former Sydney casino boss, who was once at the centre of the "cash-for-comment" scandal with radio broadcaster John Laws.
"A husband and wife team of pastors from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, are now facing tough questions after selling their longtime church to developers then splurging on a million dollar luxury lakefront home while telling their members that God now wants them to worship in "micro churches" held in their homes.Bill and Sharon Predovich, senior pastors of the Resurrection Life Church and World Ministry Center they founded 30 years ago, were not immediately available to discuss their new vision with The Christian Post on Monday, but insisted in an ABC 5 report that the real estate transactions were appropriate."" ... Real estate records cited by ABC 5 show that the pastors, who are both in their 70s, bought their luxury home located on Reitz Lake in Waconia with cash on Sept. 28, 2018. That same day, the Resurrection Life Church and World Ministry Center received $1 million from a developer who was buying the church's land."" ... Speaking to their former congregation in a message posted on the church's website in July, Sharon Predovich assured them that they weren't "quitting.""We're not quitting, we're repositioning. We'll no longer be your pastors, we'll be your apostles over smaller works," she said after explaining how they ended up without a church building."
Faith healer and televangelist Benny Hinn has been getting a lot of positive press for saying he has corrected his own theology and now thinks "it's an offense to the Lord… to say give $1,000." In other words, he will no longer be asking for "seed money" like so many televangelists do.As we pointed out, he's said this sort of thing before. He's always lied. There was no reason to believe him now.But in case you need a little more convincing, check this out. Hinn posted this video on his ministry's website yesterday — I repeat, yesterday — and it's virtually identical to his pre-revelation schtick:At the 26:30 mark, Hinn states very clearly:… Now you know what to do. You have to sow seed… There's a number on the screen. You call that now and sow your seed. And believe your miracle is on the way!So… either he forgot his own "revised" policy or he was just bullshitting his audience last week when he said he's a changed man.He's a televangelist. You know the right answer."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.
Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.
Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.
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