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

The Equality Lie - Desteni Doomed - 6

Ivan Rauscher

(continued from Desteni Doomed - 1: The Voice of a Sane Organization? / 2: Cult Awareness / 3: Cultish Behaviour Patterns / 4: Related Material Elsewhere / 5: The Best Cult EVER?)

The various abuses of the word, 'equality' by the cult of Desteni are in order to make the group appear socially or politically relevant. In studies of cults it's what's known as loading the language, designed to deceive the public and control potential or actual cult members. 

The Desteni organisation is not a collective or co-operative that runs according to principles of equality. It is a small capitalist business that offers a multi-level marketing scheme. The customers don't just purchase or consume Desteni products. They work for no pay by marketing products on a daily basis. 'Destonians' do not own or manage resources of the organisation. They do not define its ideas, methods, practices or policies. Bernard Poolman decides on everything, along with Sunette Spies and the Desteni elite inner circle, all of whom are under the authoritarian dictatorship of Poolman. Rank and file Destonians just obey, copy and repeat.

Self-forgiveness = social engineering

'Self-forgiveness' is as Bernard Poolman suggests in his YouTube and Twitter account descriptions, a type of social engineering. One of the prime websites on the subject, social-engineer.org defines social engineering as:

the act of manipulating a person to accomplish goals that may or may not be in the “target’s” best interest. This may include obtaining information, gaining access, or getting the target to take certain action.  

Self-forgiveness as it is used within the context of Desteni is a cliché of religion: that being, you are inherently evil and must confess your sins to the church to redeem yourself, save the world and get to heaven.  

The Destonians confess personal concerns or problems in public on the Internet and privately via Skype, email etc to their assigned 'buddies' in the pseudo-religion, the church of Desteni. They make promotional blogs and videos, join the Desteni Income Process and become salespersons for the Desteni business.

With the so-called 'tools' of self-forgiveness and 'self-correction' Destonians' thoughts and behaviour are recorded. They are targeted, monitored and instructed by the more dominant higher ups in the Desteni hierarchy. 'Self-forgiveness' allows Desteni to keep tabs on Destonians, find out what makes them tick and oversee their indoctrination in detail. The real tools of Desteni are the Destonians. 

Equality entails diversity and inclusion but Destonians say diversity is a problem. They admit they are opposed to freedom of expression. They ban any outsider who dares to debate, criticise or question their ideas, which are that Bernard Poolman and Sunette Spies know the ultimate truth about everything.  

Desteni do not concern themselves with civil rights issues and take no stand against racism. There is not one black South African in the group. They have nothing to say at all on equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered people. Destonians' few remarks on equality of women contain less insight into sexism or feminism than an issue of 'Cosmopolitan' magazine.

Desteni show no support for disadvantaged social or ethnic groups, cultures or nations. In several statements made in texts and videos such as 'The Jew in Every Man is a Zionist' Mr Poolman has clearly shown himself to be anti-Jewish. He promotes the forgiveness of Adolf Hitler.

Eugenics propaganda (from Indiana Eugenics History & Legacy)

Destonians advocate a revival of the discredited eugenics movement. They see eugenics as 'Best for All'. Citing Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' as a reliable source, Destonian Marlen Vargas Del Razo calls for the sterilization of disabled people and 'certain races'.

Desteni run a farm, an online multi-level marketing scheme and a business selling over-priced software (Techno Tutor), but they are not involved in activities which have any practical or useful meaning in terms of equality, politics or society.

Destonians propose a future authoritarian technocracy, an over-arching, all-encompassing 'system' which is somehow to be 'implemented' by people 'joining Desteni' for 'equal money'. They do not practice alternative forms of ownership, production or finance but merely complain about social conditions or conventions and repeat catch phrases about their abstract, non-existent 'system' on the Internet.

In political terms, Desteni is a communo-fascist, totalitarian, sectarian organisation. Yet it does not present any challenge to the neoliberal corporate status quo. Destonians are statists. They recommend conforming to 'the system' in order to make money to give to Desteni in the vain hope that one day they will 'become the system' and the one world state power.

Destonians have almost nothing to say about the work of the many organisations or individuals around the world that actively support and work towards social and political equality. Although they claim to support the Basic Income no Destonian is involved in the real Basic Income campaign. They are opposed to both the Occupy Movement and Anonymous. 

Their 'equal money system' (EMS) is web-based media: subliterate texts and inarticulate YouTube videos. These serve as cheap adverts for Desteni 'Best for All' products and merchandise, and online courses in 'self-mastery'.

EMS is a scam designed to make it look like Desteni is running a social justice or political campaign for human rights when it is a private commercial business and has no involvement in equal rights, social justice or politics whatsoever.

Videos such as Constitutional Equality and Voting in and Equal Money System - Economist JTL or Politics in an Equal Money System – Introduction are made up of nonsensical statements and statements of the obvious; meaningless or sentimental sloganeering. They display complete ignorance of issues of equality, and a woefully misguided, warped idealism that bears no relation to the real world.

The Equal Money Wiki is comprised of crude descriptions of a fantasy about an ultra-efficient authoritarian world 'system' run according to Desteni dogma. It is full of wishy-washy platitudes and meaningless abstractions such as: 

Within an Equal Money System, the point of having ‘equal money’ is to assist with the psychological harmonization of the human into a harmonious character that no longer lives in fear of his own survival, but lives as Life, gives as Life and receives as Life – equally. ...and... our interaction with nature will change, where we are not just ‘enjoyers’ of nature, where we no longer merely sit back and ‘enjoy the view’ – but where we are active participants – identifying where nature is struggling to maintain itself and step in with rehabilitative programs and projects – and thus, become a part of the flows of give and receive.

The Desteni and Equal Money Newsletters do not provide news about the progress of a political or social justice movement as it impacts upon the wider society. It is made up of a list of links to Destonians' blogs with all the usual 'equal money' promotional slogans and verbiage, plus a few 'Shopping Recommendations'.

The Desteni Farm Visitors blog does not describe a community that operates an actual 'equal money system'. It does not say how they are helping to establish social equality for anyone. It presents testimonials to advertise the sale of working holidays at the Desteni farm in South Africa. The community there apparently exists entirely to serve its own interests, which are in isolation from any other communities and disengaged from practical issues of equality in any local or global political situations.

Desteni members have often said they are opposed to charity yet constantly make appeals to charitable emotion by requesting donations for EMS by stating it is the 'solution' to starvation and poverty. It is all under the heading of the Equal Life Foundation, an organisation registered as a 'non-profit company' but which is purely to make profit for the Desteni business.

After EMS was launched three or more years ago and promoted with hundreds if not thousands of videos, the Equal Money System forum has very few posts per week and almost no threads with any sustained discussion. There are currently only 263 members, very few of whom ever take part. 

There is such little interest in EMS undoubtedly because it is so obviously just an online money-making scam.

'Equal Money System' lures a few naive people in to imagining they can change the world for the better by giving all their money to Desteni while the money only ever goes towards maintaining the Desteni founders' lifestyle.

There is no evidence that any member of Desteni or any Destonian is even attempting to bring about equality.

Desteni and Destonians only make references to 'equality' to seem worthy or important, so that they can market and sell the absurd reptilian channeling New Age occult hocus pocus which is the core part of their business. This is shown in, for example, Sunette Spies' video, 2013 - The Future of Consciousness in which she rambles on in an affected manner about 'demon dimensions', reptilians, 'personality systems', 'mind demons' to try to sell more of the same useless drivel, none of which has the slightest relevance to any issue of equality, and is of no relevance to the matter of consciousness either. 

But as self-confessed leader of 'the best cult ever', Bernard Poolman admits, Desteni is a 'MONEY Cult'. As such it is based around the promotion and sale of Poolman and his followers' lunatic beliefs and opinions.

Poolman actively encourages his 'Destonians' to be suspicious of their friends and family and to regard anyone else not in Desteni as scapegoats for all the 'evil' in the world. In one of his many misanthropic lectures called How Does Self-Forgiveness Work, and How Do I Know When My Self-Forgiveness Is Effective? Poolman states:

Equal money is not there to help the human. The human is in essence really something that cannot be trusted and must be eradicated at all costs.

Needless to say, Desteni can't eradicate the human, and a world of equality with no poverty or starvation and a guaranteed income, food, shelter, clothing and education for all will never come about by making blogs or v-logs or taking holidays on a farm.

Equality is not about forgiving oneself for having thoughts, signing up for online courses in 'self-mastery' or trying to sell macabre recordings of a woman pretending to be 'interviewed' as a reptilian, an owl, a sheep or an inhabitant of the lost continent of Atlantis.

Equality in Desteni is a lie.

Desteni Doomed 7 - Public Consequences 

Related posts:
The Desteni Agenda
The Equality and Oneness of Desteni
Equality on this World
Desteni Preacher of Hate, Bernard Poolman
Desteni ENDGAME
Desteni equality: It’s a Kinda Magic!
Desteni anti-Matrix, Hitler’s Zion
Does Desteni Equality = Equality?
Equal Money System Final Solution: Eugenics

The Best Cult EVER? - Desteni Doomed - 5

Ivan Rauscher

(continued from Desteni Doomed - 1: The Voice of a Sane Organization? / 2: Cult Awareness / 3: Cultish Behaviour Patterns / 4: Related Material Elsewhere)

Since 2007, the 'group of people exploring Equality & Oneness principles' known as Desteni, based on a remote farm in South Africa, has usually been described as a cult. Although many of the 'Destonians' have denied that they belong to a cult.

Their leader has contradicted them.

In his blog post of 20th Nov 2012 entitled, The Greatest Cult in History, Bernard Poolman writes: 'We at Desteni claim and ASSERT that we Are the BEST CULT ever'. He claims and asserts that he is the world's greatest cult leader, second only to God or Jesus.  

According to Poolman, all groups are cults, which is like saying a cult is a book club or a bunch of people standing in line waiting for a bus.

In terms of so-called cult 'greatness', the Unification Church AKA the Moonies, the Latter Day Saint movement AKA the Mormons, the Church of Scientology and the Jehovah's Witnesses are amongst 'the greatest', running vast corporate empires.

Desteni is just one of hundreds of obscure crackpot cults most people have never heard of.

Cult leaders: David Koresh, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhaite, Shoko Asahara

If Desteni has a place in history then it can only be because it is in past. However, Poolman could be a 'great' or even 'the BEST' cult leader of recent times if he followed the example of the infamous leaders of Heaven's Gate, the Manson Family, the Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyo or the People's Temple, but we can only hope Destonians don't have it in them to take things that far.

Poolman claims Desteni is 'the BEST CULT ever' because according to him it is the only group in the world that stands for equality. But no actual cult can represent equality. By definition, any group that is a cult maintains inequality amongst its members and does not treat other people as equals. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a cult.

Poolman's claim that Desteni represents equality is false.

Desteni Doomed - 6: The Equality Lie

Related posts:
Desteni's New Age Guru
Desteni Preacher of Hate, Bernard Poolman
The New Beast of Revelation?

The Phantom of Okahandja

Bernard Poolman, Satanic Cult Leader?

Ex Desteni Members

XfinksX (from somewhere outside of the dimensions)

The struggle to oppose Desteni and their hypocrisy continues. As Desteni continues utilizing tactics of deception and trickery in an effort to expand their membership count, more and more people become aware of the true meaning of Desteni. The Anti Desteni Movement continues to grow. The abusive narcissist Bernard Poolman continues his delusional ranting and raving. This little man wishes to become rich and powerful while hiding under a guise of liberator and riding on the backs of those who support him. This Mouth of the Dimensions presents himself as a savior without calling himself as such. Whenever he is criticized, he vilifies and demonizes those who question him. He makes sweeping and untrue generalization of those outside of Desteni. And furthermore, he treats those who were once associated with Desteni with utter contempt and disregard.

In fact this is what I wish to address this evening. It has come to my attention that there exists people who were once considered members of Desteni. However, these individuals no longer wish to be associated with this vile organization which preys upon those who are seeking greater meaning in their lives. If you go to Desteni's website you will find a list of names under their community. Some of these people have removed their involvement with Desteni. However, Desteni continues to show these people as supporters when in fact the opposite is true. So my question to Desteni is this: Why do you continue showing these people as supporters? Do you wish to inflate your numbers for the sake of appearance? Are you hoping these people will return even after they uncover your abusive inner core? Or is it that you wish to antagonize and continue to intimidate these people on some level? These Ex Desteni Members are the Desteni Experts that Poolman was referring to! These people know you for what you are and have no wish to return. Therefore remove these people from your list of supporters. How can you in all honesty claim these people when it is simply untrue! Perhaps after you have removed their names you can practice some self forgiveness and breathing rituals to clear your minds of doubt and alter your memories. Perhaps you can make yourselves believe that these individuals were never members at all.