Living Income Guaranteed: Nonsense Politics of the Destonians Equal Life Foundation

An online platform

The Living Income Guaranteed (LIG) is presented by the Equal Life Foundation (ELF) as an initiative towards global equality, political and economic stability and a decent standard of living for all. Its Facebook page has over 27,000 'likes' but few details about the LIG are on Facebook, so let's have a closer look...

The South Africa-based ELF is a 'non-profit' company that runs a recruitment scheme for an income plan and an affiliate sales programme selling online products and courses for a group of people 'exploring oneness and equality principles' called 'Desteni'. The ELF states its focus is 'human rights'. It owns copyright of material produced by the Desteni group, including the Equal Money System and audio files of 'self-perfection interviews' with reptilians and dead people.

Publicity for both the ELF and the LIG often omits to mention Desteni, but the LIG is only ever promoted by less than about 100 people affiliated with the group who call themselves 'Destonians'. Their support for the LIG could possibly give the impression that the Destonians are activists but they say that activism has never achieved anything and they are 'practivists'.

The LIG could appear to be a variation of the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) but is a very different concept altogether. Its policies are completely unrelated to the BIG.

The main LIG document wrongly asserts, 'There has never been a plan that would consider how to live harmoniously on this planet so far'. It states 'we don't need leaders' while its supporters take part in a leadership forum.

The LIG document is described as a 'draft proposal' for global political and economic change. Since its inception over a year ago, the LIG does not appear to have been proposed to any politicians, legislators, political groups or organisations, journalists from mainstream or alternative media, governments, state departments, universities, etc. Despite their repeated use of the phrase, 'best for all' to refer to the LIG as all things to all people, there have been no public meetings on the subject and the LIG has only ever been proposed as a topic of discussion amongst the Destonians and at their own web pages. 

The Destonians say the LIG 'solution' is towards Perfecting Capitalism. It is described as an 'economic model' for a 'living income' welfare 'net' to cover basic necessities and equalling half the 'minimum wage', which would be double what it is now. The LIG would not be universally guaranteed, as it would only be available to those who are 'eligible'. Children might be deemed 'eligible' but the unemployed would first have to pass an unspecified 'means test'.

The term, 'nationalization', is used incorrectly by the Destonians to suggest that in a 'LIG system' each citizen of a nation would be obliged to operate as both owner and shareholder of all major corporations and resources. There would be a very limited role for government but somehow the LIG 'solution' would mean prices would adjust to wages and vice versa, personal tax would be abolished and corporate profits and the redirection of military funds would finance public services and the LIG.

Destonians seem to view the erosion of civil liberties as beneficial to society, and a purely digital economy a way of significantly reducing illegal trade. They recommend automation, digital ID cards, digital money / banking and no privacy, and claim all this will deter 'illicit financial transactions', protests, and what they call social dissidence.

In a LIG system teachers would not protest?

Teachers' salaries in a LIG system would be at half the minimum wage. This would be to stop people from entering the teaching profession simply to make money, but why the same rule should not also apply to other fields of work is unclear.

The LIG includes policies to make PR and advertising agencies focus 'on educating the consumer and/or population in a factual manner' and a 'Bureau of Standards' to ensure products and services are always of the highest possible quality. It seems that the regulations pertaining to the service, manufacturing and advertising industries would be far more strict and complex than at present.

Apparently, the LIG 'solution' would be 'implemented' by 'the people', who would make collective decisions about a nation, its businesses, natural resources and banks through 'direct democracy' facilitated via 'online platforms for political participation'. Creation or management of these platforms is not explained, but a LIG supporter represented as economist (with no credentials) suggests that the 'like' buttons on Facebook prove it can be done, and 'coming together' does not have to be a 'physical event'.

The Destonians' articles on the LIG indicate that they are of the view that political change begins on a subjective level and can be engineered from within, for which they usually imply the ELF 'Desteni I Process' courses and 'Eqafe' products provide the necessary guidance to facilitate 'self-responsibility'.

These are most of the main points covered by the LIG, but the Destonians have failed to communicate any actual ideas. The very few reasonable statements they make are about things which are already being dealt with in far more articulate and effective ways by numerous other more well-established and respected groups and individuals (such as the Basic Income Earth Network). 

The Destonians' 'plan' lacks any coherent understanding or awareness of economics, politics or political theory. The LIG is made up of misconceived, vague, half-baked, irrational notions, pseudo-political slogans, empty clichés and sub-New Age psychobabble. It does not provide any 'practical solution' and offers no strategies or actions to help bring about social equality or political or economic change. In short, the LIG is inconsequential drivel. 

The reason why the LIG is such nonsense is because it is a vain attempt to resemble a political movement in order to try to solve the problem of how to guarantee income and recruit for a quasi-religious cult business which has been doomed from the start, exposed for what it is many times over, and is finally going down the drain. 

It is curious to note that although there are over 27,000 'likes' for the LIG on Facebook, the number of Destonians remains the same as it was circa 2010: about 100-150 world-wide.

Related posts:

Equal Life Foundation Trojan Horse: Living Income Guaranteed (LIG)

Equal Life Foundation: NPO for Equal Rights -- or Money & Food for Destonians?

Equal Money System: spreading the FAQ?

Desteni Doomed - 1

Equal Life Foundation Trojan Horse: Living Income Guaranteed (LIG)

Ivan Rauscher

On October 17th 2013, the Basic Income News website posted an article, Cult-Debunker Accuses Equal Life Foundation of Deceptively Using the Term 'Basic Income Guaranteed' which is a report on the YouTube video by scam-buster and critic of cults, Robert W. Lester, Desteni Basic Income – Scam? and related matters.

A link to it was posted at the Cult News Network, the Skeptic Wars blog, and at the Basic Income News Facebook page where one commentator remarked that 'some time ago I tried to draw attention to this fact on fb – they are in many big groups and sites and use basic income as a trojan horse'.

The Equal Life Foundation (ELF) company is indeed using the Basic Income as a Trojan horse in the form of its so-called 'Living Income Guaranteed (LIG)'. The ELF is attempting to participate in the same arena of activism as the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) by seeming to support a version of the Basic Income but with the intention of soliciting donations, selling merchandise and online courses and recruiting for Desteni, which as described by many people including another scam-buster, Ethan Vanderbuilt, is essentially a cult that deals in brainwashing.

US BIG Network Facebook post for the article, Cult-Debunker
Accuses Equal Life Foundation of Deceptively Using the Term
'Basic Income Guaranteed'

A commentator on the US Basic Income Guarantee Network Facebook page wrote about ELF: 'Currently I am doing a thesis on a basic income grant, but their proposal for a basic income grant is deceptive. Many of the staff who I work with have also heard of this group, and in turn, turning away from the idea of a basic income grant due to ELF proposal of a BIG'.

It could seem as if some individuals campaigning for the BIG are affiliated with Desteni/ELF. The LIG website features links to news items pertaining to the BIG campaign, as if this has something to do with their LIG. A third commentator at the US BIG Network FB page remarked, 'They have embedded video and used quotes that make it look like people are members of ELF who are not.' However, the same commentator also pointed out that 'This is a very small group that makes itself look bigger on the internet. I don't think they will have lasting harm'.

There are thousands of 'likes' on ELF or LIG Facebook pages but anyone who researches the ELF or LIG finds out that these projects are integral to the Desteni group as founded by recently deceased Bernard Poolman. It involves around 100 people called 'Destonians', and while they claim to stand for equality their basic position is sectarian and totalistic. The LIG is supposed to be towards a global state run according to a Desteni/ELF 'Equal Money System' that is seen by Destonians as the only true 'system' that can and will provide for and police every aspect of human beings' lives. 

All the ideas of Desteni/ELF -- which include imaginary communications with aliens and fictional dead people, public confessions of self-forgiveness, the eradication of consciousness and the mind, microchip tagging, no rights to privacy, a ban on porn and alcohol, Holocaust revisionism, quack cures for cancer, a Techno Tutor to 'accelerate vocabulary', made-up stories about human history, ingestion of hydrogen peroxide, Homeopathy as the primary form of medicine, the revival of eugenics, and 'psychological interventions' for dissenters -- are unmitigated rubbish.

The Destonians' LIG 'proposal' utilises information pertaining to, and could seem to be part of the real BIG campaign, which has, for instance, succeeded in ensuring a National Referendum on Basic Income in Switzerland and in the US the BIG is included in the Occupy Strategy Group's Top 10 recommended strategic objectives. It could look like the Destonians support the BIG, but they don't. The article by Basic Income Earth Network member, Robin Ketelaars, You can also abuse the term Basic Income for personal gain, describes how the LIG version of a Basic Income is not the same as the BIG.  

The Destonians simply copied the BIG proposal and manufactured their own modified imitation of it after their 'Equal Money System' was dismissed as a scam at Quora.com. At first they called it 'Basic Income Guaranteed (BIG)' but after the criticism levelled at their scheme at the Cult Education Forum, in Lester's video, Ketelaars' article and this blog, they changed the name to LIG.    

To lig means to gatecrash an event as a freeloader. The LIG exists to try to guarantee income for Desteni/ELF by being presented as if it is part of a bigger social movement for equality. It is not unlike a charity scam where for its own personal gain a group impersonates a charity or pretends to be part of a charity, except in this case the group is pretending to be part of a political campaign. It should be called the Desteni Income Guaranteed (DIG).

Again, anyone who investigates Desteni/ELF soon learns that its activities are mostly limited to the internet and a ranch in South Africa, and that since 2007, Desteni/ELF has failed to formulate or carry out any reasonable initiatives or actions for equality, human rights, politics or anything else, but beginning with the Desteni Portal idiot test, has attempted one preposterous scam after another and already been thoroughly discredited.

The LIG 'proposal' is far less likely to cause harm to the BIG campaign than it is to Desteni/ELF, as it has been shown many times before that the more Desteni AKA the 'Equal Life Foundation' draws attention to itself the more there are consequences.  

Desteni/ELF is an intriguing example of the phenomenon of groupthink, and how an extremely silly cult can be formed through the delusions and blatant deception and exploitation of a few people who are fooled by certain aspects of spirituality, New Age self-help psychology, conspiracy theories and occultism and/or have social or mental health issues. Apart from that, however, Desteni/ELF and its LIG are irrelevant. 

Related posts:

Equal Life Foundation & Living Income Guaranteed

Equal Life Foundation: NPO for Equal Rights -- or Money & Food for Destonians?

Desteni Doomed - 7: Public Consequences
Equal Money Journey to Lies
Desteni Discussions

New Age Occultism of Desteni Equal Money System

Ivan Rauscher

The New Age Ain't What It's Cracked Up To Be

Since 2007, after having published thousands of videos, articles and numerous websites, the Desteni group of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa have persuaded only about 100-150 superstitious New Agers and paranoid conspiracy theorists to take part in their 'process'. After entering the Desteni 'process' these persons replace their previous, more typical New Age or conspiracy theories and beliefs with re-worked versions of the same deceptive theories and beliefs.

Much of the Desteni material is made up of an apparent critique of New Age religion. For example, all their recent responses to a video used to promote the laughable New Age 'channeling' cult of Abraham-Hicks (such as The BIGGEST Missing Piece - Response to Abraham Hicks), where it is clear they are trying to recruit disillusioned Abraham-Hicks and 'Law of Attraction' followers. This is also why they label so many Desteni videos '2012' to appeal to believers in the 2012 hoax.

It seems that Bernard Poolman and the Desteni group are under the impression that New Age religion is the most dominant, all-pervasive influence in society. Therefore it has to be re-assessed and corrected in order for society to change. It is as though they are stuck in a time-loop after reading the likes of Shirley MacLaine's Out On A Limb and imagining that it's all very cutting edge have on reflection come to the conclusion that maybe the New Age scene is not quite what it's all cracked up to be. So to improve matters they re-configure already existing New Age ideas, change the terminology a bit and give some different emphases, like 'equality' instead of 'spirituality', thereby contriving just another New Agey philosophy, albeit mostly subliterate and even more irrational and demented than the original material they try to critique.

Bernard Poolman has invented stories to the effect that due to his efforts 'heaven' has been purified and 'the dimensions' or 'White Light', ascended masters, reincarnation etc no longer exist, as if these things ever did exist other than as fictions and myths of New Age religion.  

According to Desteni, humans were designed by reptilians

Like the fans of New Age conspiracy creator, David Icke, Destonians accept as fact the spurious notion that human beings were designed by Anunnaki reptilians, but they take that one step further into delusion and madness and also believe there are 'mind consciousness systems' of Anunnaki reptilian gods, aliens, dead people, animals and inanimate objects which communicate important messages for all humankind via Sunette Spies of Desteni, whom they see as an interdimensional portal to 'heaven' or 'the dimensions'.

Yet the founder of the morbid Desteni Reptilian Channeling Cult, Bernard Poolman, has stated: Understand that the message from Desteni is not really the message from the portal. The portal is a demonstration of what is possible in the physical. The message is actually from me.  

In The History and Purpose of Channeling, Poolman writes that the masters that were channeling told him all channels were preprogrammed according to the instructions of the White Light and the Annunaki.

The assumed veracity of that statement and almost all of Poolman's statements rests on its theoretical premise as stereotypical, clichéd New Age doctrine posing as objective fact merely on the basis of it being a re-worked version of previous well-worn fantasies and dogma of New Age religion. 


Cross-Referencing Fact & Fiction

Stories about Anunnaki reptilians are also at the Xee-A Twelve website where Amitakh Stanford relays paranoid schizophrenic sci-fi conspiracy theories. Like all New Age conspiracists, Stanford is critical of the New Age scene yet her ideas are derived entirely from mythologies of occultism. Many New Age conspiracists have this contradictory point of view, probably because they have been influenced by right-wing Christian fundamentalist conspiracy theories which label occultism and the New Age movement as 'evil' tools of the nefarious Illuminati secret society.

Around 2008-9, Darryl W. Thomas of Desteni publicly acknowledged and praised the striking similarities between the works of Amitakh Stanford and the Desteni material at the previous, now deleted Desteni forum.

Another version of the fantastical Annunaki theories are part of the Nuwaubian Movement as created by Dr Malachi Z. York AKA Dwight York, author of 'The Holy Tablets', which is jam-packed full of New Age occultism. YouTube channel, ONEMNOOPOOH presents Nuwaubian videos as complementary to Desteni, and another New Age conspiracist Internet phenomenon known as WingMakers.

Again, strong similarities between 'the message' of WingMakers and the Desteni materials were noted by Desteni members some years ago on their previous, now deleted forum as well as at the WingMakers forum. More recently, the issue was raised by a poster asking, WINGMAKERS SAME MESSAGE THAN DESTENI? WingMakers also peddles idiotic fairy tales about Anunnaki reptoids. The strap-line for the WingMakers' Sovereign Integral project is ‘Here in breath... every breath. No mind to refract reality’, which is another cliché of New Age religion and fits exactly the Desteni outlook.

The Desteni process involves key figures in the group represented as having special abilities to access 'the dimensions'. One of Poolman’s closest collaborators, Esteni de Wet, acts as clairvoyant oracle and talks about levers, tentacles, rods, stars, dust or daggers which she claims she can see on or around the bodies of Destonians. She and other 'Desteni I Process' trainers conjure up such imagery to attempt to symbolise the psychological or 'interdimensional' state of some of the rank and file Destonians.

The Desteni material, in particular their 'History of Man' series, has many parallels with L. Ron Hubbard’s sci-fi pseudo-religion of Scientology, in which it is said that 'demons', 'bypass circuits in the mind' or 'engrams' recorded as image pictures of experiences created by 'the reactive mind' can be made 'clear'. The state of 'clear' in Scientology would equate with being 'birthed as equal as one in the physical' in Desteni. Although touted as a religion or 'science of the mind', it is well-known that the pernicious cult of Scientology is founded on occultism.

At the top of the Desteni recommended reading list, which has mysteriously been removed from public view, was Baird T Spalding's 'Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East'. In Poolman’s article, The History and Purpose of Channeling he references Spalding’s work as if it were factual, when it has been proven to be fictional. 

Rosicrucian 'Mastery of Self' circa 1947

New Age religion and occultism follow the Doctrine of Correspondences of the ancient Hermetic philosophers as exemplified by the saying, 'As above, so below' ('as within, so without') which Poolman is very fond of reciting (e.g.: As Above, So Below - That which is Immortal in Heaven, Shall be Immortal on Earth). The Doctrine of Correspondences is also the defining principle of homoeopathy where it is called the Doctrine of Signatures. In The Future of Homeopathy in an Equal Money System Poolman stupidly says that homoeopathy will in the future become the primary medicinal health support world-wide.

Historically, occultism is the progenitor of the contemporary consumer marketing phenomenon that is New Age religion. New Age religion does include some insights about the human condition and some intriguing imaginative concepts but is almost entirely over-run by plagiarists, frauds, self-appointed visionaries and gurus, charlatans, fake psychics and mediums, philosophical fiction writers selling bogus money-making books and courses on 'self-mastery' or 'self-realisation'.

The philosophy of occultism that underpins New Age religion presents fabulous tales, fantastic cosmologies and seemingly wondrous philosophical and psychological theories and symbols. It adopts and adapts religious and scientific terminologies but is 'heretical' or subversive in relation to religion and always pseudo-scientific. Occultism is generally regarded as a discredited, superstitious and archaic philosophy but continues to evolve in a variety of ever-changing guises. Politically, occultism very often presents its mythologies and practices as a blueprint for a future paradisical Utopian society, hence the term, 'new age'. This takes shape in Desteni in the form of their 'equal' money system cult scam.


Spam, Scams & Commercially Deceptive Content

Destonians have constructed endless promo videos and spam blogs in which they repeat vacuous slogans about 'equal money' being a 'system' that will transform human behaviour and bring about 'heaven on earth' when enough people 'join Desteni', become 'self-realised' or 'birthed as the physical' (as opposed to 'enlightened') and eventually form an 'Equal Life Party'. All of it is purely in order to solicit donations and advertise and enroll recruits into sleazy capitalist ventures such as the Desteni I Process courses in so-called 'self-mastery' and the sale of the Desteni-branded 'self-perfection' merchandise.

Last year, YouTube terminated the BernardPoolman, DesteniProductions and other Desteni-run channels because of their violation of YouTube policies against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content, and complaints made against their videos on Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler. Immediately afterwards, Desteni attempted to migrate to the Vimeo video site but were promptly banned from there as well. The Desteni I Process is a Multi-Level Marketing scam, hence illegal on Vimeo.

Afterwards, Destonians claimed that they had been banned for talking about equality. It seems they have even managed to deceive themselves into imagining that it is somehow controversial or taboo to talk about equality. 

Articles on Desteni were published by South African newspaper, Sontag. An ex-member of the cult was reported as describing Bernard Poolman as into group sex, gambling and drugs (See: The Phantom of Okahandja and the CultEducation Forum).


Self-Forgiveness Via Nazi Mysticism

In a bid to avoid further risk of adverse publicity, the 'Desteni' group voluntarily removed from their website a so-called 'book' called 'I Am Hitler' by Bernard Poolman; a diatribe against all humankind (as is practically all Poolman's output) in which Adolf Hitler is portrayed as a supremely powerful demonic entity that Poolman is supposed to have communicated with in 'demon dimensions'.

The text can still be found at the Wayback Machine and the inane videos of Sunette Spies supposedly 'channeling' or 'portalling' Hitler can still be found on one or another of their numerous other YouTube channels that survived the culling (sometimes she uses an alternative fake name given to Hitler by Poolman: MyKey). 

Without providing any explanation, Destonians claimed they had again been misunderstood. It is rather more that they have misunderstood. Poolman's portrayal of the Nazi Führer as Christ-like interdimensional super-demon showing the way to 'self-forgiveness' is the same as the Esoteric Hitlerism AKA Nazi Mysticism or Occult Fascism as described by scholars such as recently deceased Nicholas Goodrich-Clarke.  

One of the main proponents of Esoteric Hitlerism, Miguel Serrano, described its central Drama as the apparition on this earth of the Person Adolf Hitler, the last Avatar, who came to produce this enormous storm, or catastrophe, in order to awaken all those who are asleep, and to commence the New Age, which will come after the Deluge.

That is exactly how Hitler is described by Poolman, as emerging newly redeemed from 'demon dimensions' by virtue of Poolman's instructions to usher in the new age of Equal Money System through self-forgiveness:

Hitler is presenting this experience as a help, as a gift. Unwrap yourself, forgive yourself. Ask Hitler questions. Ask Jesus, as God as yourself to guide you. Not the God of words and believes. Look at creation. Who are you in creation? Do you have any power but in yourself? Abuse will stop. In the years to come there will come, there will be a weeping and a gnashing of teeth. Hear Hitler. He has been here on earth. He has been a demon. He forgave himself. He saw and sees who you really are. (Bernard Poolman- Hitler and Forgiveness)

Donald Herman, a South African New Ager who visited the Desteni farm in 2007, described Poolman as a 'follower and disciple of Hitler' with a 'background of intense contact with Adolph Hitler' and this was discussed in another post here, Bernard Poolman, Satanic Cult Leader?

The Destonians quite seriously put forward the nonsensical idea that everyone thinks Hitler is the ultimate evil but no-one recognises that poverty and starvation are worse. They seem to imagine that Poolman has gifted human beings with a sublime allegory in which Hitler expresses 'self-forgiveness' and so now everyone should forgive themselves, 'join Desteni', talk in psychobabble and become a wannabe amateur con-artist and promote all the spam, scams, deceptive content and crappy merchandise concocted by the Desteni gang by making personal self-confessional self-forgiveness blogs. 

At least one Destonian now admits that participating in the Desteni 'process', contrary to previous claims, may not after all, help them get into politics in seven or twenty years' time. Although, she does add, it doesn't matter because 'the process' remains the same.

Related posts:

Bernard Poolman, Satanic Cult Leader?

The Cult of Self-Forgiveness

Equal Money System Reptilian Channeling Cult

Desteni Portal Idiot Test

Desteni’s New Age Guru

TechnoTutor: A Front for Desteni?

[see also:  Techno Tutor & Desteni, June, 2013] 

In a recent post at the Muertos Blog, investigation and research on Desteni business venture, Eqafe, shows how it functions as affiliate marketing... Muertos writes:

The first of Desteni’s new ventures is a website called eqafe.com. This is an online “bookstore” where the Destonians are selling “Self-Perfection Books, Audio & Music.” The site looks like sort of a half-assed Amazon or Barnes & Noble, where you click on and see “book” covers featuring serious-looking faces of “authors” hawking their titles. The titles are things like Journey Into the Afterlife and The One System that Rules us All. There are also a lot of titles about reptilians. One of the first things I noticed about Desteni was that most of them believe in conspiracy theories involving reptilians, similar to (though not exactly like) the anti-Semitic cosmology promoted by British conspiracy loon David Icke.

However, once you begin to click on these titles, the Eqafe.com business model becomes more suspect. For instance, click on a title at random—let’s say, Reptilians—The Relationship Between Sex, Intelligence and Religion. First of all, no author is given for this work. A tiny little icon in the upper right corner tells you that this is not actually a book, but an MP3. The price? €9.99. At today’s exchange rate that’s $12.53. Seems a little pricey for an audio file, doesn’t it?

It gets worse. The summary page, which contains a lot of Desteni psychobabble, lists no fewer than 57 other titles in the “Reptilians” series! And they’re all €9.99. Thus, if you wanted to investigate the depth and breadth of the “Reptilians” series, all 58 of them, it would cost you €579, or about $726. That’s right—over $700 for a bunch of MP3s about how imaginary reptilians have supposedly manipulated human history.

Information recently surfaced at the Cult Education Forum on another of the latest Desteni ventures called TechnoTutor. It's a software programme originally available at Desteni-Universe for free in 2008 and now sold by Cameron Cope and other Destonians affiliated with a company named Perfect Mind Technologies for €2,490. Muertos continues:

Where did I find this information on Techno Tutor? On this site, New Earth Publishing, a European website selling various things…including Techno Tutor. How much does this product cost? €2,490. At today’s exchange rate, that’s $3,123.

I want to stress that this is a circumstantial case that Techno Tutor may be a Desteni front, not a conclusive case. I could be wrong. If I am wrong, correct me. Let’s hear what Techno Tutor really is and really does, in the form of verifiable testimonials from parents—not affiliated in any way with Desteni—who purchased this product for $3100+ and feel satisfied that it directly improved their child’s school performance. I would also like to hear about whether Techno Tutor is in fact the “Vocabulary Builder” or “Vocabulary Purifier” allegedly invented by Ferdi Poolman, and if his issues regarding ownership and representation of the software have been resolved to his satisfaction. I believe, given the issues that have been raised about Desteni and its leader Bernard Poolman, it’s entirely justifiable to ask reasonable questions about the relationship of this Techno Tutor program to Desteni and why high-commitment Desteni cult members are the driving forces behind its marketing.

Read more: Techno Tutor & Desteni

Equal Money System, political agenda of a cult

Ivan Rauscher

 [note: Since July 2013, Desteni's Equal Money System has been superseded by Living Income Guaranteed.]

Desteni video descriptions state ‘The Equal Money system will be a first step in the political agenda of the Equal Life Party worldwide once we start participating in democratic elections.’

There is no Equal Life Party. Apparently to get the ‘equal money system’ (EMS) started, unpaid volunteers make promotional webpages, but avoid publicising EMS any further afield. Except for Facebook and YouTube, they refuse to spread their message via the mainstream or alternative media, and they do not hold public meetings. 

Donations are solicited on the Desteni website to help them ‘get into politics and government’, yet they denounce charity as evil. They are opposed to capitalism but run a Multi-Level-Marketing scheme. They call EMS radical freedom but say freedom of expression leads to abuse. EMS is envisaged as coming into being after the Basic Income Grant (BIG) campaign has been proven successful world-wide, yet Desteni are not involved in the BIG campaign. They say they want to get into government by democratic means because they don't trust humanity.

Blogs and videos using the EMS slogan reiterate the well-known idea that inequality, crime, poverty and starvation are often related to the divide between rich and poor. They depict an imaginary society where equality is re-defined by Desteni. The global administration of the EMS is said to be able to provide a life-long guaranteed income for each citizen. It is supposed to micro-chip and monitor humans against abuse, negate all forms of trade and the need for individuals to have to work for more than four years.  

It is said EMS will be the result of at least 50% of citizens voting for ‘Equal Life Party’ in global democratic elections that will miraculously take place after the collapse of capitalism. How supporters of EMS, called the Destonians know this is not explained, but it is in keeping with a view they have of themselves as possessing all-knowing power and knowledge, as displayed on their Equalitee t-shirts where they name themselves after super-hero comic book characters, the Guardians of the Universe.

To the Destonians, the rest of the population are all poor unfortunate brainwashed victims of consumer capitalism and need to be told what is ‘best for all’. They depict non-Destonians as afraid of equality and ‘protecting the current system of abuse’. The Destonians have no conception of political or social ideas beyond the EMS but want to dictate how the whole world should be policed as one all-encompassing authoritarian system. As bizarre as it seems, they describe global implementation of their EMS as not only the inevitable future of the world, but run by the people for the people in strict accordance with information published by the Desteni group of South Africa.

No independent source has ever cited EMS as a worthwhile political idea. The reputation it has is that it is a scam. Almost everyone who's heard of it can see it's a scam, except for some reason the Destonians. But that's the way of cults. Desteni is widely regarded as a potentially destructive cult with anti-democratic policies, a ridiculous, nonsensical philosophy and a very amateur mode of presentation.

Their Faceworldfaceoff campaign, said to ‘actually have an Effect in the World that will have an Economic Effect on the Corpus of the Economic Structure of the World’ and with the purpose of convincing at least 100 million people to shave their heads ‘for equality’ has fizzled out. And despite having released several 1000s of videos and reams of written material since 2007, Desteni still has no more than around 100 active participants world-wide. 

The group is described as exploring principles of equality and oneness but is blatantly sectarian. EMS is against free choice, privacy, freedom of speech and information, and opposed to trade and commerce. EMS would be a one-party rule, which would mean no democracy. It is as though the Destonians are nationalists defending the purity of the virtual totalitarian nation-state of Destonia. 

They say critics of EMS have not ‘done the research’, even when it is clear they have researched EMS and Desteni, and even if they state they do not support capitalism. The Destonians claim if someone disagrees with EMS then it is because EMS is a ‘threat to the current system’. There is no evidence of EMS having threatened anyone's financial or personal security, or any corporate consumer interests whatsoever. 

Despite the fact that equality as a principle is meant to be applied without pre-conditions as a basic democratic human right, the Destonians say the only way anyone can prove themselves worthy of equality is by utilising ‘the tools’ of Desteni-branded media. Yet the principle of equality is an established part of developing ongoing social, legal and political situations and everyone is supposed to be worthy of it regardless. That is the whole idea of equality. 

But the Destonians regard all human beings as evil and possessed by ‘mind demons’. In discussing what would be the outcome if you do not support EMS, they suggest that to avoid having to go through the hassle of an intervention by psychology professionals to have you rehabilitated for not co-operating with EMS in the future, then for your own sake you should investigate EMS now. When the Destonians recommend people ‘investigate EMS’ what they mean is: read the material, watch the videos and join Desteni.

The actual premise for EMS in the first place is Bernard Poolman's stories about how he encountered demons, famous dead people and other entities in dimensions of ‘mind consciousness systems’ designed by ‘a race of beings called the Annunaki’ that also happened to have designed human beings. With the help of Poolman's chosen Portal, heaven was purified, so it is now time to bring the purified heaven to earth with EMS and make everyone a millionaire.

The stated aim of all Desteni-oriented activities is to dedicate one's life to deleting ‘the mind’ through ‘self-forgiveness’. That is what they say will bring about world equality and the ‘heaven on earth’ of EMS. The implementation of the political agenda of the Desteni group ‘as it currently exist’ involves selling holidays and the online promotion and sale of products inspired by Bernard Poolman’s demented fantasies.