It has been pointed out to me, that all caps may be considered shouting.
I didn't realize this, and certainly didn't intend to 'shout' at anyone reading
my post. Sorry.

I will try to find a way to differentiate between the desteni cult remarks and
my replies.

Concernedmom83,

Above the white message form where you write your post there is a bar of grey buttons that give options to bold, italicise, underline your text, to select a different colour or font size for a particular piece of text. Running the cursor over the buttons should bring up a box that explains what each button does.
If you highlight the piece of text you want to display differently and then use one of those buttons you should find a solution.

BTW, as you mentioned in your posts that you were capitalising your replies to differentiate them, I personally didn't find that a problem--but net convention is generally that all caps are regarded as 'shouting.'

Quote
Stoic
Concernedmom83,

Above the white message form where you write your post there is a bar of grey buttons that give options to bold, italicise, underline your text, to select a different colour or font size for a particular piece of text. Running the cursor over the buttons should bring up a box that explains what each button does.
If you highlight the piece of text you want to display differently and then use one of those buttons you should find a solution.

BTW, as you mentioned in your posts that you were capitalising your replies to differentiate them, I personally didn't find that a problem--but net convention is generally that all caps are regarded as 'shouting.'

Thank you very much Stoic. I will use that technique.

Today I was thinking of desteni and it's 'set-up'. It is very much like a 'self - ____' group. I can't use the word 'help' because desteni cult does the opposite. But that's how they are selling themselves. bernard has all the answers, so his followers believe, and follow and obey whatever his thought of the day is. 'anti-hate', self honesty vs. honesty, etc. I guess I could refer to desteni as a 'self-destruction' group'. You could go onto the desteni website with an interest in helping to save the world and get sucked in, completely changing your lifestyle, not realizing what's happening until it's too late. Member are encouraged to distance themselves from family and friends. So, you see why I refer to it as a self destruction group. Let's say it, it's just not a healthy way of living, particularly for younger people.

Everyone gives their own opinions. That's what it is: opinions, not truth necessarily, but opinions, formed by attending desteni's online meetings, studying their hate for just about everything in this world that we live in. I was researching the blogs and found it sickening at how members fore go all sense of belonging, to family, friends, co-workers, hobbies, likes, fun, and spontaneity . It justs breaks my heart and I'm sure it does for many of the members families and friends.

I have found it very sobering and disturbing, since the beginning of my connection with the desteni cult, through my desteni cult family member. I hear the same from our member's mouth, almost exact same words, as I have read in others blogs. As I read the blogs, I can't see how this group (cult) is going to go on and put any system into effect throughout the world, ie: equal money system. They seem to be doting so much on themselves when there are so many others that they could be helping. Helping, not a word that I have have read on the desteni cult forum, have you?

Speaking of the blogs, I have noticed so much disdain for family, religion, schooling systems, etc. I believe in God and I am not asking anyone here or anywhere to believe. But please don't insult me and try to act like I am some kind of puppet or moron. I'm not. That's your impression of it. May I have the right to believe? or is it bernard's and sunette's words or nothing?

Not a healthy way to live, both physically, mentally or emotionally. And don't fool yourselves, you cannot shut out any of the 3 before mentioned. Know that for the truth.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2011 09:34AM by concernedmom83.

Me again ....

I was again searching for the outlook of the desteni cult on the family and parents
in particular and came across this:

[www.youtube.com]



This is exactly what I am talking about. The fact the bernard thinks that my husband
and I are evil and he seems to know better than us of what's best for our child ...well
it just blows my mind. He goes on to say that if we (parents and family) try to talk
to our child or sibling about the desteni cult, then we are expecting she or he to be
evil.

What I took away from the video was that bernard again seems to feel that he knows
what is best for all. bernard, sorry to tell you this, but you surely don't. You are a very
frightening man. I read blogs of members with you talking to them about absolutely
NOTHING that has to do with equal money for all. NOTHING!! You should be ashamed of yourself, but I'm sure you're not.

It is my hope that family members will research the desteni cult members blogs, go back a bit and see how bernard and sunette are preparing our children for the great new world!

bernard, as I listened to you talk about evil, which YOU certainly seem to represent.
But just remember bernard, sunette, darryl, and the others who are sitting on top of
your new plan for the world... JUST REMEMBER, GOOD ALWAYS OVERCOMES EVIL. And I'm sorry to say that you and your cult are not 'the good' I am referring to.

Amongst all these Desteni "anti hate" YouTube videos is one from GianAntiHate [www.youtube.com] called "Warning YouTube and FaceBook users"... The description states: "Here at Desteni we have already successfully banned and blocked 2000 youtube users that abuse, calls names and break people down and spread false claims and promoting themselves as the new answer. These people stopped, but there are millions more."

The channel is run by Gian Robberts who lives on the Desteni farm. As if he were a different person, he comments favorably on his own video from two other channels he runs, GianRobberts01 and mindfr3er. He says that people criticising Desteni are "being mean and spiteful". "Spiteful" is a Desteni buzz word. He makes an emotive appeal to anyone who will listen that "haters" of Desteni must not be believed, "Desteni is not a cult", "do not mix with the haters of Desteni".

Strangely, he compares Desteni to McDonalds and explains that in the same way McDonalds creates unity between its employees with a uniform, brand identity etc and everyone working towards the same goal to provide customers with hamburgers in as short a time as possible, Desteni work as one to get the whole world towards equality and the "end of abuse" as fast as possible.

Well, just like McDonalds, Desteni exploits its workers and peddles junk that is bad for you.

Gian Robberts points out that those who can't follow Desteni rules or principles "have to go, because they are just abusing, they're just fighting, they're just creating conflict, they're just slowing us down" and ends by saying "the warning has been placed, so let's end the war and bring equality". Clearly, he is somewhat concerned.

Darryl Thomas continues to issue more rambling diatribes against critics [darrylthomas.wordpress.com] ... while Bernard Poolman goes on demonizing everyone and everything non-Desteni and advertises his cult as the only viable alternative because "humanity is evil by agreement".

But, guess what, Bernard, none of the people who disagree with political or economic abuse in whatever way, and are actively opposing it, will ever join your organization. Many of them will speak out against it, because contrary to your lies, Desteni is abusive.

Blogs such as [destenigossip.livejournal.com] [destenicult.blogspot.com] and [mariobrotha.blogspot.com] now have regular posts critiquing Desteni. They is a whole sub-forum at the Conspiracy Science forum [conspiracies.skepticproject.com] and an increasing number of critical videos on YouTube showing why it's a scam.

Gian Robberts is right when he says there are millions more people who will find Desteni hateful. Millions more than will ever find it reasonable or truthful, and that's one reason why Desteni is doomed.

Thanks Sandman for the breakdown of gian, darryl, and bernard's threats.
I would like to take gian's analogy to McDonald's and share my feelings.
Many people worldwide like McDonalds, they are very sucessful, these would
be three huge differences.

1. McDonalds is liked worldwide - desteni cult isn't and has no chance of it ever
2. McDonalds Is sucessful - desteni cult is not. desteni cults' mission is to have
every single
person on earth be equal in everything. desteni cult has made NO steps
forward in this, except to brainwash it's members to think that it will happen.
3. McDonalds does have many critics for a number of reasons. They do not go after
every critic. This is part of life. desteni cult is starting to realize that there are a
great number of people that are onto their game, and they feel that having this
'anti-hate (name)' campaign will I guess frighten us???

desteni cult is certainly abusive, to it's members, their families and friends.

To all reading this we are not going away
Meaning, we are getting better at showing desteni cult for what
it is, a CULT, making money for the top.

Let me give you a word of advice. If any of you mentioned in your blogs or videos ANYTHING decent that you have done for mankind (that would be the same mankind
that you are all dedicating your lives to), just one thing that I could find on your webpage
or videos that wasn't all about YOU! .. self forgive myself, abuse myself, everything is
about yourselves. And it's ok, just cut the reason for your cult being the ems, equal and oneness, etc. I guess the best way to put it is just be HONEST with people.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2011 10:04AM by concernedmom83.

An article called 'Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models' from Sociological Analysis 1979 by William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark describes


The Psychopathology Model of Cult Innovation

The psychopathology model has been used by many anthropologists and ethnopsychiatrists,
and it is related closely to deprivation theories of revolutions and social movements
(Smelser, 1962; Gurr, 1970). It describes cult innovation as the result of individual
psychopathology that finds successful social expression. Because of its popularity among
social scientists, this model exists in many variants, but the main ideas are the following.

1. Cults are novel cultural responses to personal and societal crisis.

2. New cults are invented by individuals suffering from certain forms of mental illness

3. These individuals typically achieve their novel visions during psychotic episodes.

4. During such an episode, the individual invents a new package of compensators to meet his
own needs.

5. The individual's illness commits him to to his new vision, either because his hallucinations
appear to demonstrate its truth, or because his compelling needs demand immediate satisfaction.

6. Afler the episode, the individual will be most likely to succeed in forming a cult around his
vision if the society contains many other persons suffering from problems similar to those
originally faced by the cult founder, to whose solution, therefore, they are likely to respond.

7. Therefore, such cults most often succeed during times of societal crisis, when large
numbers of persons suffer from similar unresolved problems.

8. If the cult does succeed in attracting many followers, the individual founder may achieve at
least a partial cure of his illness, because his self-generated compensators are legitimated by
other persons, and because he now receives true rewards from his followers.



The article goes on to say...

Classical paranoia and paranoid schizophrenia also have been blamed for producing
cults. A person who founds a cult asserts the arrogant claim that he (above all others) has
achieved a miraculous cultural breakthrough, a claim that outsiders may perceive as a
delusion of grandeur. For example, L. Ron Hubbard announced his invention of Dianetics
(later to become Scientology) by saying that "the creation of dianetics is a milestone for Man
comparable to his discovery of tire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch"
(Hubbard, 1950).

...
The 'psychopathology model' may be applied to the formation of the Desteni group. Bernard Poolman arranged for Sunette Spies to collude with communicating his deranged fantasies of demons, heaven, dead people etc to the public. Once she had done so, it appears Poolman partially recovered and no longer looked to the 'demons', 'systems' or 'designs' he once saw as real for guidance. He declared them -- and the realm from which they were supposed to have emanated, 'the dimensions' -- as 'deleted'. At the same time he had managed to bring together a small group of people who were, like him, disillusioned with New Age philosophies but still attached enough to them to put them to use in another form.

Poolman went on to incorporate his manufactured experience of 'The Portal' into his development of Desteni as a business selling a way of life, and a political movement. This would be a bid to evolve the group following the 'entrepeneur model' of cult formation discussed by Bainbridge and Stark.

The problem is, the Desteni way of life is still centered on Poolman's original episode as it coincided with Spies' crisis of bereavement. Their courses of study are focussed on the 'Portal' messages. These messages have no substance beyond that which can be found in the average popular self-help psychology book. The rest of the Desteni information is aberrant nonsense, very poorly presented and has no real cultural credibility or popular appeal, especially not for the hip young postmodern countercultural audience for which it sometimes pretends to have relevance.

Bernard Poolman shares L. Ron Hubbard's penchant for making grandiose statements, but Hubbard was an established pulp sci-fi writer and a capable public speaker when he invented Dianetics. He was able to write and publish books and market them for a general audience (even if by having Scientologists buy up his books en masse to get them on the bestsellers lists). He organized a fully operational business run like a military operation. Poolman on the other hand has none of these skills and he and Spies even refuse to travel and engage in public meetings.

So where do Desteni go from here? The group are stuck on the internet repeating Poolman's slogans and re-affirming his delusions on a seemingly endless loop, while he remains in the background trying to mobilize them... But to what end? Their circular arguments go nowhere and after four or more years they still have only about 100 active members. Will he perhaps go the way of some other cult leaders, and be forced to innovate a sensational new element of the Desteni mythology to try and draw the crowds? Or will the Desteni project simply collapse altogether?

Thats a very interesting and informative article--and the 'psychopathology model' leading to the 'entrepreneurial model' fits Desteni and most of the newer newage type cults perfectly.

The full text is here, for those interested:


[socrel.oxfordjournals.org]

concernedmom wrote

"I was researching the blogs and found it sickening at how members fore go all sense of belonging, to family, friends, co-workers, hobbies, likes, fun, and spontaneity . It justs breaks my heart and I'm sure it does for many of the members families and friends."

For families this is like having son or daughter who has been kidnapped or, to use a military analogy, missing in action (MIA).

It is a wounding thing to do, not only to the inmates of a group, but its a slap at the families who raised them, equipped them with the life skills that made them *worthwhile for recruitment in the first place.*

Think about it. Had their families not ensured that their sons and daughters learned to speak and communicate, learned potty training, learned basic manners, went to school long enough to become literate and somewhat socialized, would they be worth Poolman's time?

Suppose these same sons and daughters had no families. Suppose they'd be speaking some rude combination of words and noises, grabbed food without asking, went around pooping in their pants, due to lack of social training.

Would Pooleman want them as his disciples?

So in respect to the families who did the real work of making these young people worth recruiting into Destini, its an act of ungrateful cruelty to teach them to cut contact with their families, without whose care they'd not have been good human material for Destini to utilize.