Saturday 29 November 2014

The Destonian Sovereign Citizen


[Update June 2017: Ken Cousens and Andrea Teale are no longer associated with Desteni. The following article serves as a record of events.]

Several hour-long YouTube videos entitled Walking The World System, which are of talks given by Desteni / Equal Life Foundation champion, Ken Cousens, and hosted by Anna Brix Thomsen and Marlen Del Razo, were recently posted at the Desteni leadership forum along with detailed notes. They are supposed to be unlisted but currently are listed.

Cousens is the author of the Desteni Equal Life Foundation Bill of Rights and has written other articles for the group such as 'The Starting Point'.

In these videos, Ken Cousens discusses money, the law, history, the 'hidden elite', esotericism, mythology, 'the mind', arcane symbols found in corporate logos and the Bible, 'interdimensional reality' etc.; his own brand of New Age conspiracism. But the main part of his discussion consists of a repetition of the typical pseudo-legal arguments of the Sovereign Citizen Movement.

Cousens has often been a guest on Morning Liberty radio with right wing broadcaster, Robert A. Hender Jr. He appears in videos posted in 2011 as Chief Jury Foreman of the Republic for the united States of America (RuSA), which is the largest organisation in the world of 'sovereign citizens'. 

Civil rights law firm, Southern Poverty Law reports:

The strange subculture of the sovereign citizens movement, whose adherents hold truly bizarre, complex antigovernment beliefs, has been growing at a fast pace since the late 2000s. Sovereigns believe that they — not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials — get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don't think they should have to pay taxes.

The RuSA has been plagued by violence and criminality and its former leader, James Timothy Turner was sentenced to 18 years in federal custody in July 2013 for tax fraud.

The FBI regards the Sovereign Citizen Movement as a form of terrorism.

It has been widely reported that the 'sovereign citizen movement' is run by con artists who engage in scams and frauds by charging money to coach people in how to eliminate debts or mortgage fees, create fake currency, drivers plates or licenses, dodge taxes, etc.

Cousens has written a so-called Affidavit of Truth which gives some background on his involvement with the RuSA in relation to his company, PanTerra PCA.

He previously wrote a pseudo-historical 'esoteric' narrative (before Desteni, in which he suggests Andrea Teale who is now a Destonian 'channeled' Maitreya for eight years): Holographic History and the End of a Great Cycle.

His name appears in connection with a company called 'Universal Legal Network' (which has offered help with foreclosures as have many 'Sovereign Citizen' gurus) at compaintsboard.com, at pissedconsumer.com, in connection with another group called Divine Province, and at Ripoff Report he replies to certain accusations. 

Cousens' videos for Desteni / Equal Life Foundation show that he is a strong proponent of beliefs of the Sovereign Citizen Movement, and although the movement is mainly based in the USA and Canada, he now takes a more global perspective.

In the Walking the World System videos Cousens formally extends an invitation to the Destonians to join his companies, Panterra PCA and Gemstone University, the websites for which are made up of pseudo-historical and pseudo-legal notions, grand conspiracy theories, New Age word salad and sovereign citizen beliefs.

Sunette Spies and the core Desteni / Equal Life Foundation group in South Africa appear to have given Ken Cousens the official go ahead to coach Destonians in how to apply his version of sovereign citizen ideology in whichever country they happen to live.

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