Desteni’s New Age Guru

Ivan Rauscher 

In a thread entitled ‘Symbolic Representations of Self’ at the Desteni Subscription Forum, a post regarding Bernard Poolman’s witchdoctor monster avatar, and written by Darryl Thomas was leaked by a renegade Desteni member to the Cult Education Forum last year. In it, Mr. Thomas explains that the "Beast" is Bernard.

According to Mr. Thomas, Bernard has ‘gotten out’ of ‘the mind’. He ‘stands as’ and ‘speaks for’ beasts – ‘in fact’. It’s as though he has no way of thinking a thought any more, but something far more important: a unique magical connection with the animal kingdom, and that's why in the ‘totality of his being’ he’s The Beast God of the Tribe of Desteni.

Desteni try to distinguish themselves apart from, or opposed to, any New Age or spiritual group, but nearly all spiritual gurus or New Age leaders are depicted as having transcended or ‘gotten out’ of ‘the mind’. Many of these frauds who say they're from a shamanic tradition are also said to have a special relationship with animals.

In another post to the Desteni open forum by Mr. Thomas, called The Portal Placement (where thanks is given to martial artist, Bruce Lee and occultist, Alice Bailey) Poolman is again described in the same way as almost any so-called ‘enlightened’ New Age guru or spiritual master. 

That someone is ‘not an individual’ but ‘equal and one with existence’, ‘able to be in both ‘the dimensions’ and ‘the physical plane’ and is ‘self-realised as who we really are’ is exactly what New Age disciples, spiritual and cult devotees the world over say about their leaders, gurus or masters. 

It’s no different in Desteni. Poolman is their herald of a new age of ‘heaven on earth’. He’s the only one in the group allowed to symbolically represent himself with just a Halloween comic book picture and no real images or videos. He dictates to the rest of them what they should blog or v-log about. He’s the author and/or originator of the Desteni material, and to the members of his tribe, whatever he says cannot ever be questioned because he speaks as ‘equality’ itself. 

He makes a very direct dictator point when he says that Desteni is defined specifically by him and can only ever be whatever he says it is, or what his ‘portal’, his medium, Sunette Spies, says it is. Maybe the Desteni group ‘stand for’ being ‘equal and one’ with Poolman, but then he has stated that there is no such thing as anyone being equal to him.   

Everything Desteni ‘stand for’ is focussed on what Poolman stands for, and is merely to support his narcissistic notion that he’s ‘self-realised’ above and beyond anyone and anything else and has the monopoly on ‘equality’. 

In fact, he’s their new age guru and Desteni’s just the cult of Bernard Poolman.