This is a summary of information collected on UM.
Universal Medicine is an organization marketing so called complementary medicine. It offers Esoteric healing services including Esoteric Breast Massage and Esoteric Chakra-Puncture (a bastardized form of acupuncture). UM runs a lucrative Esoteric healing training racket, including healing workshops and courses advertised to lead to 'accreditation' as an Esoteric healing practitioner. UM is not a registered training organization.
Based in Goonellabah (Lismore, Byron Bay area), NSW, Australia, it has major bases/clinics in Brisbane, Australia; London and Frome, Somerset UK.
Esoteric healing practitioners and meditation groups are also found in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, Australia; Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, USA and New Zealand. A list of names and locations of Esoteric healers and meditation groups is here [
universalmedicineaccountability.wordpress.com]
News reports including links to television reports can be found at this link: [
universalmedicineaccountability.wordpress.com]
Universal Medicine is headed by 49 year old Serge Benhayon, an ex bankrupt junior tennis coach turned self styled healer. Benhayon claims to have received a divine calling in 1999, in the form of ‘sweet and beautiful voices’ he heard while sitting on the toilet. He has also claimed to be the reincarnation of Leonardo Da Vinci, Pythagoras, Imhotep, St John and theosophist, Alice Bailey.
Benhayon has four adult children in their twenties working as Esoteric healing practitioners and trainers. None have formal therapy qualifications. The eldest, Simone, a swimming teacher, runs UM operations in the UK.
Serge Benhayon met his current wife, Miranda, when she was his 13 year old tennis student. She moved into his family home at that age when he persuaded her parents he could coach her to Wimbledon. She is now 32 and practices Esoteric counselling and performs vocals on the cult’s music label – Glorious Music. Benhayon’s ex wife, Deborah works for the firm in an administrative role. Benhayon regularly has adolescent girls, usually the daughters of cult members, as houseguests for weeks at a time.
Recruitment Gateways
Universal Medicine students are introduced via Esoteric healing practitioners who invite them to the workshops. Esoteric Womens Health practices such as Esoteric Breast Massage are marketed to women with gynaecological problems. Esoteric healers also target cancer patients, sexual abuse survivors, people recovering from addictions, and people with weight problems or eating disorders.
Musician,
Chris James is also a major recruiter through his international touring of voice and singing workshops.
Chris James’ touring circuit matches the locations of Esoteric healing clinics and meditation groups.
Cult ConversionRecruits are attracted by UM’s claims to be able to assist gynaecological disorders, detoxification and the effects of chemotherapy etc. UM markets healthy lifestyle options via diet, gentle breath meditation, gentle exercise and self-loving choices.
During Esoteric healing sessions and workshops recruits are told that ‘everything is energy’, including magical thinking notions that the energy of certain thoughts, behaviours or emotions, or the energy from negative actions or incidents in past lives causes health problems and negative experiences in this life.
Illness and misfortune is thought to arise due to prana (Sanskrit - life energy) as opposed to ‘fiery’ energy. Being alive in a carnal body, emotions, intellect/critical thinking and a range of otherwise nutritious foods, such as root vegetables, grains and dairy products are thought to be excessively ‘pranic’. The consumption of pranic foods is said to cause disease as well as natural disasters and global warming. The Esoteric diet has no nutritional basis and is unnecessarily restrictive to the point that it impairs physical and cognitive function – making followers more susceptible to indoctrination.
UM workshops and lectures are preceded by meditation sessions which increase susceptibility to thought reform. Many followers listen to one hour lectures by Serge Benhayon via podcasts at least once a day, as well as obsessively reading his writings and compulsively attending Esoteric healings and events. The hands on healing techniques during private healing sessions and workshops also help to induce trance states that facilitate thought reform/brainwashing.
Students who don’t reject the outlandish teachings increasingly frequent Esoteric healing sessions and workshops hoping to clear themselves of pranic energy that has accrued due to non Esoteric lifestyle choices or traumas over countless previous lifetimes. There are no reported cases of successful ‘clearing’, but some members of the Benhayon family are said to be Ascended Masters of the Hierarchy. Serge Benhayon declares himself as the only fifth level initiate alive in the Universe. Benhayon teaches that sixth level initiates and higher are discarnate bodies of light. The Dalai Lama is regarded as fourth level initiate.
Dependency
As commitment to the ‘Esoteric Livingness’ increases as does indoctrination with world, life and body negative programming. Music is deemed as evil and poisonous, apart from music produced by the cult. Sport is also evil and vigorous physical activity is discouraged. Cult members are taught that emotions are the cause of all disease and are kept in states of dissociation by being taught to distrust thoughts and only to trust feelings, on the condition those feelings are devoid of emotion. Loved ones of cult members report drastic personality changes including trance like states, passive aggression and neurotic behaviour. Dramatic declines in physical health, and particularly disorders associated with malnutrition are commonly reported.
Destruction of relationships and families
Serge Benhayon capitalizes on negative gender stereotypes to divide relationships. He teaches male energy causes gynaecological and breast disorders, including cancer, and that maleness is aggressive, animalistic, sex crazed and intellectual, while ‘femaleness’ is soft, passive, gentle and ‘yummy’. Benhayon teaches that men only have sex to relieve themselves and women only have sex to please men. Women have regular sessions of Esoteric Breast Massage in order to clear the offending energy left from male objectification that is said to lead to disease.
Parents are taught that loving their children emotionally is destructive and that women can pass negative emotional energy to their babies via breastfeeding. Mothers, especially, are told they do too much for their families at the expense of self nurturing.
Followers are also taught to reject those that don't subscribe to the Livingness as 'loveless' and 'in pain'. They will often issue ultimatums to non cult follower loved ones that the continuation of the relationship is contingent on surrender to the Esoteric way.
Universal Law solicitors of Mullumbimby represent cult members in divorce, separation and custody proceedings, and handle bequests to Universal Medicine’s charities and building funds. Cult followers are also encouraged to take out Apprehended Violence Orders (restraining orders) against non abusive spouses as a way of discrediting them in future court proceedings. Followers are known to donate large portions of property settlements to the cult. Universal Law has a conflict of interest in that it has represented Benhayon in cease and desist and bogus DMCA takedown notices aimed to shut down blogs critical of UM.The cult has not attempted defamation action against bloggers.
Glorification of death and reincarnationAlthough UM is marketed as a Complementary Medicine organization, its practices have zero or negative health benefits. Rather, Serge Benhayon regards carnal existence as an aberration and that the Esoteric goal is to ascend into a discarnate existence as a ‘fiery’ body of light and ‘true love’. His writings state that humanity living on the planet is ‘rot’, that anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the Esoteric Livingness death drive is part of the ‘Astral Cult’ and we are wasting our time maintaining a physical body we will not need. He has stated that ‘death is always a healing, not part of the failure’.
Inappropriate touchingSerge Benhayon has performed cold readings on clients he calls ‘ovarian readings’ where he fishes for information on their sexual history or incidences of trauma, which he then uses as a basis for marketing more extensive or invasive ‘healing’.
Photographic images from Esoteric healing workshop manuals show Benhayon with his hand on a woman’s genitals and calling it a ‘healing’ for rape recovery. He has taught hundreds of Esoteric students to perform such techniques of inappropriate touching on each other at workshops and to touch the genitals and breasts and other erogenous areas of sexual abuse survivors as ‘healing’ for sexual abuse. So far Australian regulators have not acted on this evidence.
Endorsement by medical professionals
Benhayon’s teachings and practices are endorsed and promoted by six medical doctors. Surgeon, Eunice Minford of Northern Ireland, endorses Benhayon on her blog, including in a post on
assisted suicide where she states that death isn’t the end, it’s a reuniting with God.
The cult also includes psychologists and allied health professionals among it’s hierarchy.
Charity Activity and Front GroupsUniversal Medicine’s UK charity arm is the Sound Foundation, housed at the Lighthouse in Frome. So far the Sound Foundation has spent nothing on charitable works but appears to be a building fund for a conference facility from which the Benhayon’s can run their UK events.
In Australia the Universal Medicine College, was set up for ‘educational purposes’ in 2011 and is also in the construction phase – converting a large facility on acreage.
Real Media Real Change is an anti-free speech front group which also promotes Esoteric Womens Health Pty Ltd. UM cult members participate in internet outrage over sexual abuse and rape statistics and make exhibitionist disclosures of their own experiences of abuse whilst
denying UM has victims - in spite of clear photographic evidence to the contrary, and in spite of the fact the abuse deniers participated in workshops where inappropriate touching took place.
Damage and Accountability
Very few victims have made official complaints about the group, possibly due to fear of Benhayon’s purported supernatural powers or fear of repercussions from zealous followers/bullies. Survivors also experience a high degree of psychological damage that may leave them too burnt out to come forward – with difficulty shaking off fears that minor infringements of the extremely puritanical ‘Livingness’ behaviours, including thinking Esoterically incorrect thoughts or associating with non Esoteric individuals will damn them for countless future incarnations.
A number of official complaints and notifications have been made to law enforcement and regulatory bodies, as well as public representatives, but not much can be done if victims don't come forward.
More detailed information can be found on the 3 blogs Herbert listed:
Universal Medicine AccountabilityThe Facts About Universal MedicineUniversal Medicine CultMore information is always appreciated so please join the discussions here or on the blogs.