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

De$teni Fabrications

Twitter Outside the Dimensions @destenifab

De$teni Fabrications!

Life Coaching that Undermines your Destonation at de$teniEprocess dot com where online income is EQUAL MUMBO JUMBO... Stay in touch @ https://twitter.com/#!/destenifab

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.