Another odd thread on the Desteni forum...
"New and Jew"
[
desteni.co.za]
where someone who says they're Jewish asks about the Desteni fascination with Hitler and Poolman's anti-Jewish comments in his "The Jew in Every Man is a Zionist" video. Amazing to read the convoluted excuses for Poolman's bigotry, where his words are treated as arcane wisdom with layers and layers of profound meaning.
Poolman has recommended studying the economic policies of the Nazis in relation to "equal money" and has stated that Hitler did what he did out of "love for his people". He has talked about the "white race", a term most commonly used by fascists. Sunette Spies also "portalled" Hitler, supposedly to show how Hitler forgave himself after he died. I suppose the Desteni people are going to find some metaphorical, inner truth in all that as well.
A video by Desteni member, Matti Freeman called "Hitler was the world's greatest activist" was recently deleted. I wonder why.
How anyone could imagine that a piece of writing where a guy discusses how he met a famous person in the "afterlife", whether it's Hitler or anyone else, should possibly be taken seriously, is ridiculous. On that basis alone, there would be reason enough to dismiss it, but the fact that the dead person in question is Hitler, the work is titled "I Am Hitler", and the writer portrays Hitler as having redeemed himself, suggests that the writer, Bernard Poolman, is fixated on Adolf Hitler, and wants to see him recognized as a very great, but perhaps mistaken or misunderstood leader.
The notion that Poolman is showing how everyone has the awful potential to be like Hitler and need to "forgive" themselves is a little far-fetched, to say the least.
Generally speaking, Donald Herman might not be any more credible than Poolman and his chums, but that doesn't mean to say he doesn't have some valid points to make about Desteni, and he is coming from an informed perspective, having met Poolman.
Herman describes Poolman as being influenced by Osho, and that is obviously the case, but not only does he describe Poolman as a student of Hitler, he also states that Poolman has a background in Satanism. There is a crossover in contemporary fascism between Satanism and neo-Nazism. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Poolman was in the past a neo-Nazi Satanist.
Herman suggests Poolman's real agenda is "hidden behind masked, carefully planned usage (abuse) of spirituality", and it would be true to say that Poolman's strategy does involve a deliberate appropriation and misuse of ideas found in existing spiritual philosophies. However, these ideas are in Desteni never presented as they usually are, as being for "personal development" or anything of that sort, but to get people to fall in line with a strict code of conduct (first rule being"no opinions") which effectively turns them into automatons.