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The Anticult
Anyone know how many people are at Destenitown?

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The Anticult
So they force people to commit to 4 years? (or is that what they want to do?)

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For many students, however, leaving Andrew is traumatic. This is due to a combination of factors. Some of these factors are psychological and entrained by Andrew. Students are told repeatedly that leaving Andrew and his community is the greatest betrayal. They are taught that it is tantamount to admitting that they do not "want to be free" and to giving up any chance of spiritual enlightenment. Andrew's close students have witnessed numerous times the way Andrew denigrates and demonizes those who leave him. Andrew frequently complains about a conspiracy of former students who only want to undermine him. Students are repeatedly told that if they leave they should have no contact with other students who left the community. This means that it is likely they will be alone and without emotional support if they leave Andrew and IEF. Close students have generally devoted years of their lives to Andrew, have derived their whole sense of meaning from the community, and have lost touch with other friends, interests and support systems. The prospect of facing a huge void in their lives makes the idea of leaving Andrew very intimidating. But sometimes leaving Andrew is difficult for another reason-Andrew and his community sometimes make it almost impossible to do.

It is generally not possible to openly talk about leaving the IEF community if one has been a close student. If one does leave, one is often hounded by the community. There have been many instances of this. Marvin, a student who left on the pretext of visiting family, was called repeatedly by community members, and asked to come back. He finally agreed to return briefly to discuss the matter. When challenged for leaving without telling anyone, he made the memorable comment, "Leaving is not a formal student topic." Many other students were hounded after they left. Jeff, the student who left after Andrew had Michelle, a physician student, pretend she was going to surgically remove his finger for failing in a writing project (See "Shame, Guilt and The Guru's Blood") was sent a series of e-mails, each with symbolic pictures of the cover of the video "The Picture of Dorian Gray," with the images becoming progressively more distorted and ugly.

Many students have run from the community during the night. A couple of examples of this follow. The female student who made the $60,000 contribution and pledged her future inheritance, whose story was told above, did so after secretly escaping Foxhollow one night. Before she left, Andrew knew she was in a delicate condition and there was a danger she might leave. She had left once before. One night after receiving serious "feed-back", Andrew's wife Alka came to her room, and asked her for her driver's license, passport, and credit cards. She said she could not find her passport, but handed over what she claimed was her only credit card and her driver's license. She had previously hidden, however, another copy of her license and another credit card. She took them, along with her passport, "borrowed" the community car, and drove to a car rental office in Lenox. There she rented a car, left a voicemail message at Foxhollow about the community car's whereabouts, and drove off into the night. She didn't know where she wanted to go, just that she wanted to get far away. Eventually, she drove the thousands of miles from Massachusetts to New Orleans. She figured no one would find her there. A few days after she arrived and got a room, she went to return the rented car. There, to her shock, she found Debbie, an IEF community member, waiting for her. Debbie had waited at the car rental's Lenox office until she overheard a phone conversation from which she learned the student would be returning her rented car in New Orleans. She flew there and waited in the New Orleans rental office until the escaped student showed up. Debbie eventually persuaded her to return.

One Dutch student, who was close to Andrew and who had been a leader in his communities in Europe, fell into disfavor. He was put in a community home in London, where Steve Brett was told to keep an eye on him and prevent him from leaving. Steve slept just outside the Dutch student's room, so that he could not leave in the night without being noticed. But one night Steve failed to do this. The Dutch student packed a bag and threw it out his bedroom window to the ground below. Then he sneaked silently out of the house. He retrieved his bag, and found a pay telephone a block or two away, from which he called a cab.

A couple of weeks before this, Rob, a close community member and an old friend of the Dutch student, had warned him against leaving. Rob was highly trained in martial arts, having been a member of a special division of the Dutch military, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Navy Seals or Special Forces. Rob had told his friend that if he ever left, he would find him and break every bone in his body. After the student escaped, he chose to go as far away as he could imagine, settling in Costa Rica. A few weeks after getting there, he got an e-mail from Rob. All it said was, "I'm coming." Andrew himself had instructed Rob to send this e-mail.

[whatenlightenment.blogspot.com]

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Stoic
I don't find the attempts to get members to enter politics to be at all worrisome. Poolman has big ideas but the reality of politics is a savage business the world over and any Desteni member who has what it takes to succeed in that political world would be distancing themselves from Poolman and Desteni very quickly.
Its just more grandiosity to pump up his profile amongst the faithful.

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Investigating the Equality Equation – part 1

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Matti Freeman At the Desteni Farm in South Africa, Equality Research is being taken through to real Living Application – speaking specifically here with regards to research that is being done in relation to the Equal Money System – the World’s first practical, workable solution to all the World’s major economic, social, political, environmental and religious problems.

The Desteni Farm is home to a kibbutz currently in development as a working model of one of the many types of kibbutz’s that will be created within the implementation of a new, global kibbutz system that will facilitate the production of food, technology and various other items and necessities that form the basic foundation of what each and every Human Being on Earth requires to not only fulfill our basic survival needs, but to become educated, effective beings with access to all the components of an enhanced life experience here on Earth.

The principle that is applied within the current research and development taking place at the Desteni Farm, and by those Desteni participants currently living and working in other countries around the world – is the principle of Equality and Oneness – more specifically, the Equality Equation within the principle of Equality and Oneness.
The Equality Equation is simple – and is the most practical way to see what is the best action for anyone to take within the context of this reality / this world / this Earth that we are all sharing.
All it takes is the consideration of all that is Here on Earth currently – Humans, Animals, Nature – and to see that we are all in essence Equal and One Here on Earth. Within this, one then applies the Equality Equation as 1+1=2 – - wherein one evaluates ones starting point within all that one accepts oneself to be, stand for, give permission for, believe in, want, etc – within all that one participates in within this world, day to day within ones life – within ones daily participations / interactions / thoughts / actions.
One looks at ones actions – ones physical participation in ones world – which is the same world shared by All as One as Equal – and within this ones starting point of ‘who one is’ which determines the actions one takes within ones life, and asks oneself: Am I equating what is best for All Here within my starting point of who I am and therefore within the actions I take? Will my actions always accumulate to what is best for all, within always equating what is best for all?

When ‘1’ as ‘The consideration of what is best for all parts of the Whole within equating each part of the Whole as All as One as Equal as Life as Myself within the context of what is Here’ is equal to ‘1’ as ‘My starting point of Who I am as a part of the whole, and the actions I take and will take based on my starting point’, then the outcome is ‘2’ as ‘Who I am / my actions will always accumulate to what is best for all, will always be Equal to what is Best for All, standing absolute / into infinity’

To identify where I am still existing / considering within self interest / separation, I simply apply the Equality Equation – to see if ‘who I am’ within for instance, how I am ‘living my life’ and ‘participating in my world’, is equating All as One as Equal as Myself (1+1+1+1+1, etc, equating all beings in existence), or is only equating ‘Me’ as ‘I’ as ‘1’(one) within separation as ‘Me+Me= Me only’ – or ‘1+1=1’.

To further explain — one takes all that are here and equates all parts as 1+1+1+1+1+1+1…etc – all parts as Equal as the Whole, and stands AS all parts AS the Whole AS Self and within this is able to for instance, look at our world as it currently exists and see that the current world system / economic systems are NOT based on the Equality Equation of Equating what is best for all. It becomes obvious that the current world system / economic systems are based in Inequality – based on the disregard of parts of the Whole, where the system only serves and supports the interests of but a select few who hold the ‘power’ and ‘influence’ within the world system / economic systems, and those who are born into ‘fortunate’ circumstances, while the majority exist in lack, exploitation, starvation, poverty, enslavement – and this includes Animals and Nature as Equal Parts of the Whole – both of which are extensively abused, neglected, ignored, exploited within how the current world system / economic systems exist – which is actually how WE exist – because, common sense is that the system = us. We keep the system ‘alive’ through our participation, through continuously keeping the blood of the system as Money, flowing through continuously participating in the system from the starting point of total acceptance and allowance of the system, within believing that ‘it is just the way things are’, and ‘we are not responsible’.

When one as the individual in fact recognizes the principle that All are in essence Equal as the Whole and that thus ‘who I really am’ is actually here as everyone / everything as All as One as Equal as Myself, one then sees the extent of the abuse and limitation that currently exists ‘Within me, within myself as All as One as Equal as the Whole’. Within this, one is then able to begin applying the Equality Equation to oneself – to all that self currently exists as within the starting point of ‘who I am’ within thought, word and deed (action), within this world I find myself in.

Within this, Humbleness and Self Honesty is required – humbleness being ones capacity to remove / let go of / look past all self importance and ‘self knowledge’ and embrace unconditionality of consideration – Equality of consideration – to stand Equal as another – to place oneself in the shoes of another being and experience what that being is experiencing, and to within this consider what is here, how we exist here currently – to consider how that being’s circumstance / experience has come to exist / be created – to stand Equal with the abused, the suffering – and the abuser, the inflictor of suffering – and to within this remove all polarity / judgments / opinions one may have previously directed towards either the Abused or the Abuser – and to Stand Equal and One As Both the Abused and the Abuser – within realizing that each is part of the 1+1 of the Equality Equation – each is part of the Whole that I as All as One as Equal stand As – each is myself.

Part 2 to follow.