Does anyone know anything about Halelujah Acres, which promotes the raw-food vegan Halelujah Diet? One of my friends is into this. He's frighteningly thin. From what I understand, this diet is closely tied to worship of Jesus, who supposedly handed down this diet, strictly controlling what foods you're allowed to eat. According to my friend, sticking to this diet (and praising Jesus constantly) will keep you forever young and you'll "get handsomer every year." Also, you'll never get sick -- if you do, you haven't followed the diet stricly enough. He berated himself last year when he did get sick, and he started hallucinating while I was with him. This diet doesn't give you enough B vitamins, so the founder has concocted his own expensive B vitamin supplement, which you must buy only from Halelujah Acres. Anyone else heard of this group? Any more info?

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glam
Also, you'll never get sick -- if you do, you haven't followed the diet stricly enough. He berated himself last year when he did get sick, and he started hallucinating while I was with him. This diet doesn't give you enough B vitamins, so the founder has concocted his own expensive B vitamin supplement, which you must buy only from Halelujah Acres. Anyone else heard of this group? Any more info?

Lots of info on Rev. George Malkmus and his Hallelujah Diet:

[www.quackwatch.org]

I haven't run across Malkmus specifically, but I am familiar with the work of one of his teachers, Ann Wigmore.

Looking over the Hallelujah website sure brings back memories. In the late 70s I worked in health food stores, much of what Malkmus sells and promotes through his site is just like what we promoted through the stores, without the overt God emphasis. Can be a good money making racket, the supplements and juicers needed are expensive. And if a customer says it isn't working, they are told to buy more, and think differently. They are to blame, not the products, not the fact that it is an inadequate dangerous diet.

[www.hacres.com]

[i:263813272c]You won't acquire health or maintain it by following the typical "death-style" of contemporary society. If this way that Hallelujah Acres promotes sounds strange or even radical, consider that if your lifestyle is not substantially different from others around you then your end result will also be much the same as theirs: disease, suffering, and death. On the other hand, tens of thousands of testimonies of health and healing received by this ministry over many years, along with independent scientific studies, confirm that God's ways are indeed superior to man's poor substitutes.[/i:263813272c]

This is very familiar language to me also, Leonard Orr of Rebirthing infamy speaks in a similiar fashion, as do others. It is an us and them device. They are death culture, we are Godly and pure.

Fasting, starving, limited inadequate diets.......compounded with extreme practices.....definitely a dangerous combo.
I would think any of info on the Rick Ross site for friends and family members would apply to your situation, worth reviewing. People immersed in these extreme health practices are most likely going to hear any disagreement as a test, as voice from the "death culture", and the like, so it's important to read up on how best to go about offering a helping hand. And if it gets to an emergency level, worth calling in authorities, if a person is starving and hallucinating, they are a danger to themselves.

Sarah

Thanks for the post. I really feel badly for the guy. He alienates most people with his constant preaching and odd beliefs. Since my other friend got involved in Landmark and I've done some research into coercive groups, I've come to realize that he might be even worse off than my Landmark friend. He keeps inviting me to potluck raw-foods dinners/prayer meetings, but I refuse. I'm wondering if their seminars are like Landmark's -- in the sense that they break down your personality and replace it with Hallelujah-think. It's taken me a while to realize this Hallelujah thing has cultlike aspects -- probably because he's been in it since before I met him, so I just kind of thought he was odd. I never saw the dramatic change in him that I did with my other friend, who I met before his Landmark involvement.

Once again, I'm amazed at the contradictions people are able to accept in these groups. How could God have insisted on a diet thousands of years ago that requires juicers, fruit and vegetable importation and refrigeration? How can the diet be so great if it requires expensive packaged supplements? How can people accept that the leader of this group was cured of cancer when he himself admits he doesn't know if he ever actually had cancer? Incredible.

In no way did Jesus Christ when He was on earth proclaim any kind of diet. The bible, (new testiment), shows that He ate grilled, (that's cooked, not raw), fish and unleaven bread and drank wine.

He also admonished those around him who observed the "law" strictly for its own sake while not "loving", (in a spiritual sense), their neighbour.

His message was one of peace, not creating a set of rules for their own sake or that of adorning or re-juvinating the body. There was no diet. Please point your friend to examples in the gospels that shows in no uncertain terms what He and his followers ate.

As SarahL has referred to Leonard Orr - he tries to convince people in his re-brithing scams that there are yogis in India who have lived over 600 years not eating anything, only consuming air through special breathing techniques extracted from yoga.
Here is a good thread on Leonard Orr and Re-birthing
[board.culteducation.com]


Reducing food intake and restricting the correct balance of nutrients staves the body and the brain making followers more susceptible to suggestion.

IT IS ALL WEIRD STUFF.

Oz