Desteni, UFOs and Illuminati Conspiracies

flying saucer

No Destonian has ever appeared on video talking to a non-member of the group about Desteni. Until now...

TechnoTutor UK director and long-time Destonian, Marley Dawkins, appeared May 4^th, in a video discussing Desteni at the YouTube channel of the Bases Project, run by 'UFO researcher', Miles Johnston.

Dawkins repeats the fantasies of Desteni's 'History of Mankind' and the idiotic 'interdimensional portal'. He recommends the group's crude self-help techniques.

Time is running out for the human species, says Dawkins, but by pooling their money the members of Desteni will be able to save the planet from destruction.

The video is the second in a series of three featuring Dawkins and hosted by Johnston.

In the first, Dawkins claims his grandfather worked for the British electronics, defence and telecommunications company, Plessey, and other un-named companies, and was a scientist, an occultist and supporter of the Nazis.

Dawkins says his grandfather told him all about the building of UFOs, underground species, Nazi occult myths, the creation of giant spiders like in Marvel comics, and how 'Non Human Cyborg Units' were developed by the military in World War II.

Dawkins' third video with Johnston concerns Donald Marshall, who posted on Facebook in 2011 stating that he'd been cloned, tortured and abused by the Illuminati, which some believe is an elite group that rules the world.

Marshall has gained notoriety for this and other outlandish claims, such as that using a special technology that can record thoughts he composed songs for famous music artists such as Beyonce and Megadeth.

Dawkins states that everything Marshall talks about is factual.

He was friends with Marshall for some years, but now believes that he has become erratic and abusive.

Johnston appears to agree.

Johnston was a founder of what the Daily Mirror newspaper called Britain's Weirdest Support Group, featured in a Channel 4 TV show called 'Confessions of an Alien Abductee' which according to the Guardian 'exploited its unfortunate subjects'. 

Johnston has been criticised for signing up with the company that made the TV show for Channel 4, Plum Pictures.

UFO researcher, Richard D. Hall, is of the view that Miles Johnston 'promotes fantasists and people who are delusional'.

The membership count of the Desteni group at present remains as it was in 2010: at around 100 people, not all of whom are active participants.

Related posts:
Desteni Portal Idiot Test

Bernard Poolman, Satanic Cult Leader?

TechnoTutor and Kevin Trudeau's Global Information Network Scam

Equal Money System Reptilian Channeling Cult

School of Ultimate Living: Redefining the Word, Desteni

Ivan Rauscher

Redefining words with L. Ron Hubbard

Redefining words is a strategy employed by almost all cults. One of the most famous cults in the world, the Church of Scientology, which was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, is notorious for redefining words and even has its own dictionaries.

The founder of Desteni, Bernard Poolman, was described in the Vice magazine article, Meet the Struggling South African Cult That Tried to Kill Demon Hitler, as 'South Africa's own L. Ron Hubbard'. 

Like Hubbard, one of Poolman's main ideas was all about redefining words. Redefining words is a central concept and practice in Desteni. 

Peculiar words and phrases used by the group like, 'living words', 'Destonian', 'assistance and support', 'practivism', 'walking my process', 'self-honesty', 'accepted and allowed', 'self-forgiveness' or 'best for all life as equal as one' are all examples of loaded language.

The convoluted talks and writings of Desteni amount to an elaborate exercise in psychobabble. Destonians.com shows the extent of the manipulation and loss of reason amongst members. 

Dr. Robert J. Lifton described loaded language in Eight Criteria for Thought Reform: 'The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.'

And as Q5 of The Cult Test, Cult-Speak, puts it: 'The cult invents new terminology or euphemisms for many things. The cult may also redefine many common words to mean something quite different.'

Another typical strategy of cults is to set up front groups which help to mask the cult's agenda and counter or avoid public criticism.

Before launching Desteni in 2007, Bernard Poolman sold software called PowerEducation which eventually became known as the present day 'vocabulary development technology' named TechnoTutor.

The publicity for TechnoTutor, which is run by members of Desteni, almost never mentions the word, Desteni.

Other Desteni projects such as the fake political campaigns, Living Income Guaranteed and Democracy Against War Now, and the 'non-profit' company called the Equal Life Foundation, which sells affiliate marketing schemes for Desteni I Process courses and eqafe.com products, yet poses as a human rights group, also never mention Desteni.

These projects essentially serve as front groups. Cult front groups are ways of making money and gaining recruits and recognition by creating the false impression that they are legitimate businesses or altruistic endeavours which exist independently of the cult. 

Scientology, for example, runs numerous front groups, and as clinical psychologist and cult expert, Margaret Singer, wrote in Cults in Our Midst: 'Most cults have front groups, sometimes a variety of them, set up specifically to appeal to a range of interests'.

'Living' words

Desteni front-woman, Sunette Spies, recently took some time off from pretending to speak on behalf of dead people and interdimensional reptilians to launch a new front group for the cult of Desteni called the 'School of Ultimate Living'.

In her video, Introducing School Of Ultimate Living, Spies states that she will provide background history and information on research in relation to the 'school', then over 40+ minutes proceeds to give no specifics whatsoever about her background, experience or research.

Her only relevant experience is with Bernard Poolman and Desteni, but she doesn't mention them.

The rest of the 'team' behind the School of Ultimate Living are all long-standing Desteni recruiters, but nowhere on the 'school''s website is the word, Desteni, used. Bernard Poolman or the Equal Life Foundation are also not mentioned in the videos or on the website.

With the strap-line, 'life creation through words', School of Ultimate Living represents the standard Desteni practice of 'redefining words' or 'living words'.

As noted at the International Cultic Studies Association, there is 'the consistent practice by cults to redefine commonly used words and to create new ones'.

Sunette Spies and the team at the School of Ultimate Living may be reluctant to really 'live' the word, 'Desteni', because of the group's reputation as a cult and a scam. Perhaps they are afraid that Desteni is going down the drain and feel they must recreate or redefine the group and its methods with yet another front group with a different name.

Or maybe it is just that after a '7 Year Journey to Life' the 'Destonians' have now been 'birthed from the physical' and are ready for a fresh start in giving 'assistance and support' to recruit others into 'walking the process' towards 'redefining words' and 'creating a world that is best for all life'.

Either way, the methods they use in trying to redefine their aims with 'School of Ultimate Living' only show that the 'best they can be' is the same as usual: a deceptive and manipulative cult.

Related posts:
The Equal Life Foundation & the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Vice Reports on the Struggling South African Cult of Desteni

Desteni Portal Idiot Test

Public Consequences - Desteni Doomed - 7 
Desteni Discussions

TechnoTutor and PowereDucation: Building a Brick Wall

PowerEducation Powered by MindTechnology™ 

[Note Aug 2017: Desteni is no longer affiliated with the US-based TechnoTutor company. The following article serves as a record of events.]

The TechnoTutor 'Vocabulary Development Technology' business is owned, managed and marketed almost exclusively by members of Desteni. 

Yet Desteni claims that it 'does not own any part of TechnoTutor'.

While Desteni has officially endorsed TechnoTutor none of the TechnoTutor websites or salespersons ever mention that the origins and development of the 'educational software' company are inextricably linked to Desteni, and in turn the 'non-profit' behind it, the Equal Life Foundation.

Back in 2007, the group's founder, Bernard Poolman, introduced his ideas about 'Living Words' or 'redefining words' for 'self-forgiveness' with the help of 'educational software'. 

Poolman's ideas about vocabulary and 'living words' were later expanded upon in a series of blog posts entitled, Redefining Words, by his co-founder in Desteni, Esteni De Wet. Such ideas are integral to the Desteni I Process and references to 'vocabulary' and 'living words' can be found throughout material produced by Destonians.  

Prior to the launch of Desteni in 2007, De Wet ran an 'educational software' business with Poolman named PowerEducation by MindTechnology. 

A review in 2004 by a student whose masters project was 'to find means for deploying networks and computers in schools in South Africa' stated that the PowerEducation website was full of 'lots of rubbish about how their packages will improve your life... in fact they reckon that people who are illiterate usually land up killing themselves due to depression and they are making products that will prevent this'.

It stated that the PowerEducation sales pitch contained 'so much emotive speech and "propaganda" that you want to vomit', and that the software was way overpriced.

This year's VICE magazine article, Meet the Struggling South African Cult That Tried to Kill Demon Hitler, quoted an ex-PowerEducation employee who said the software was sold to parents who were 'manipulated' into believing it was worth R12,000 [$1,030] when it was only worth R400 [$35]. 

Poolman's 2005 PowerEducation website stated: 'building effective information processing skills is like building a brick wall'.

Circa 2007-09, Poolman made his 'educational software' available through desteni.co.za under the name, 'Desteni Vocabulary Builder' or 'Purifier'. 

As listed under 'Other Cults' on a Scientology wiki and numerous other sites, the original desteni.co.za website was registered to Esteni at powereducation.co.za.

By 2010, the 'Desteni Vocabulary Builder' was no longer provided via desteni.co.za, but a member of the group, Cameron Cope of Texas, began selling 'educational software' through another company called Desteni Education.

Cope posted several times at the Cult Education Forum in an attempt to deflect criticism that suggested he was using the sale of the software to recruit children and parents into the cult of Desteni.

In one of his posts, he stated that he originally wanted to call the company, 'Techno Tutor', but the name at the time was unavailable.

The sales pitch for Desteni Education was worded in almost exactly the same way as Poolman's PowerEducation and was about 'building a brick wall'. 

In 2010, Ferdi Poolman of South Africa alleged that his brother, Bernard, had stolen the 'reading and language' programme from his educational software company, Readers are Leaders. 

After that, Cope began using different company names, including PerfectMind Tutoring, AConduitMarketing and Techno Tutor. In 2013, the same year Bernard Poolman died, TechnoTutor LLC was formed by Cope and other Destonians.

Esteni De Wet is currently a UK director of TechnoTutor. 

VICE magazine also reported that De Wet's parents were involved in the early days of Desteni, which were said to have been fuelled by the drug, Ecstasy. 

Frans De Wet was listed as a member of PowerEducation's Club 25 in 2005, and Francois De Wet is currently a TechnoTutor South Africa director. 

Bernard Poolman's daughter owns technotutor.co.za as well as desteni.org. 

In a recent interview with the Student Operated Press, Cope delivered a sales pitch for TechnoTutor in which he repeated Poolman's hokey metaphor about 'building a brick wall'.

PowereDucation Powered by MindTechnology™

VICE magazine reported this year that Cope was initially open to an interview, but after he was asked about the connection between PowerEducation and TechnoTutor, gave no reply.

The TechnoTutor websites do not state its price or the cost of distribution rights.

There is no record of tests or reviews of TechnoTutor by any independent experts, and there has been no peer-reviewed study of it published in any educational technology journal.

An ex-customer of the product described it as 'way overpriced overhyped and subpar', set up a webpage to warn people, posted at the Cult Education Forum, and said he was offered a refund if he removed his posts, but he didn't. 

A Destonian recently asked for donations to help 'solve the education crisis' and wrote about joining the TechnoTutor team at GoFundMe: 'To be a part of this team and fulfill my vision, I am asked for a significant investment of $60,000'. Yet she failed to provide a budget and raised only $620.

In 2012 TechnoTutor was reportedly sold at €2,490 [$3,123]. At the Cult Education Forum in 2014 it was said that distribution rights were being sold at $24,000. 

There are testimonials for TechnoTutor from people who are almost all known members of Desteni, and one from Dr. Roland Estrabillo, a dentist who said he used TechnoTutor to pass a certification exam. 

He was found guilty in 2011 by The Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario of 'disgraceful, dishonourable, and unethical conduct including charging excessive fees and providing unnecessary dental services'. 

Estrabillo, along with Cope and several other Destonian TechnoTutor salespersons, is a member of the Global Information Network, a Multi-Level Marketing scam started by fraudster and convicted criminal, Kevin Trudeau. 

Related posts:

TechnoTutor
Techno Tutor: A Front for Desteni?
Vice Reports on the Struggling South African Cult of Desteni
Bernard Poolman, Satanic Cult Leader?

Vice Reports on the Struggling South African Cult of Desteni

Illustration by Matt Panuska -- Clockwise from left: Rick Ross (no relation), cult deprogrammer; Zena Swanepoel, Poolman's former assistant; Anu, alien overlord and creator of Mankind; Jesus Christ; Hitler, king of the demon dimension; Esteni de Wet, Poolman's girlfriend; Sunette Spies, the interdimensional portal; Cameron Cope, Texan Desteni member and head of TechnoTutor; Andrea Rossouw, early Desteni follower; and Bernard Poolman, Desteni's mastermind.

Back in October 2013, a journalist from Vice magazine, River Donaghey, made a request to visit the Desteni farm but was turned down. (See Desteni 'Going Down the Drain'). He later wrote an extensive article about the group anyway and it was published by Vice on August 4th this year.

It includes a revealing interview with the ex-personal assistant of Desteni founder, Bernard Poolman, as well as some marvellous illustrations.

The article highlights the fact that the Desteni group (AKA the Equal Life Foundation) runs on blind belief in the ridiculous fantasies of Poolman and Sunette Spies' 'batshit-insane demon-channeling'.

It re-confirms that the TechnoTutor software currently sold by Destonians out of Texas and elsewhere is most likely an updated version of Poolman's earlier 'educational software', PowerEducation, which involved a scam to 'manipulate parents' into buying something that was 'worth 400 rand [$35] for 12,000 [$1,030].'

The article is also notable for pointing out the highly influential role of Poolman's girlfriend, Esteni de Wet, as well as the use of the drug, Ecstasy, in the founding of the cult.

Read: Meet the Struggling South African Cult That Tried to Kill Demon Hitler

The Equal Life Foundation is a Scam

Reptilian overlords

The Equal Life Foundation (ELF) states that it stands for equality, human rights and 'self-responsibility'. Yet the organisation has only ever run online marketing schemes: a 'life coaching' income plan for recruiters, the Desteni I Process (or Structural Resonance Alignment), the Eqafe.com store, which sells 'interviews' with imaginary dead people and reptilian overlords via an affiliate marketing scheme, the Self & Living store for 'practical lifestyle' videos – as well as working holidays at the Desteni farm in South Africa and associated businesses such as Techno Tutor.

Its deceased founder, Bernard Poolman said, Desteni provides Life Coaching as a Way to Personal Wealth. Less of a get-rich-quick scheme and more a change-the-world scam, customers are led to believe that Desteni / ELF has political clout when all it has is sales schemes for sub-New Age superstitions.

According to a 'Destonian', Anna Brix Thomsen, all that happens at the Equal Life Foundation's headquarters (a farm in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) is looking after horses, doing chores, writing blogs, and watching Sunette Spies pretending to be an 'interdimensional portal'.

It is not as though Desteni / ELF is helping to protect the human rights of its poverty-stricken neighbours in South Africa -- or anywhere else. It is not practically involved in any political reform, civil action or equal rights advocacy. Desteni / ELF only ever promotes its own capitalist business interests on the internet, sometimes using political topics, but mostly, the customers publish testimonial adverts as 'Journey to Life' blogs in which they often state that Desteni / ELF courses have helped them take 'self-responsibility'.

These courses have no quantifiable benefit. Anyone can take self-responsibility by themselves, naturally, or deal with self-esteem issues or give up addictions without depending on taking part in courses with Desteni / ELF or any other group. Although, it would not necessarily make a person part of a world-changing social movement for equality – not like the Equal Life Foundation's Living Income Guaranteed (LIG) is supposed to be.

In September 2014, the Destonian-run business, Techno Tutor was given airtime on the YouTube channel of Donald Trump Jr., who in his spare time enjoys slaughtering exotic animals in South Africa. Versions of Techno Tutor Vocabulary Development Technology have been sold by Desteni / ELF since at least 2008 (often to people who've already been scammed by well-known fraudster and convicted criminal, Kevin Trudeau), but as someone on Godlike Productions remarked, the LIG 'proposal' is like something a 12 year-old would write.

Whenever the Equal Life Foundation discusses the LIG, human rights or equality, it is always with the suggestion that Desteni / ELF and/or the LIG have the 'best for all' 'solution' to every single problem in the whole wide world and that you should 'investigate'; which just means signing up for products and courses. It was the same with the group's previous Equal Money System... Supporting 'equal money' or the LIG equals trying to help sell Desteni / ELF products and courses.

A Destonian wrote: 'I think the main reason why Living Income Guaranteed is not gaining in popularity is because people are conditioned to become obsessed with what they want, their self interest, and compete for it. The fact that people don’t search for an answer to the temperamental economic system is evidence that people have come to accept a system of inequality. In consideration of what is here though, the main reason for Living Income Guaranteed’s obscurity is because there is no money to make it known to the public.'

The ELF does not make the LIG a topic of discussion at any social justice or political forums, or anywhere else except Destonian sites. That's why it's obscure.

Desteni fanatic, Marlen Vargas Del Razo interviews some non-Destonians at the LIG YouTube channel and provides a platform for their ideas, but she does not discuss Desteni / ELF or the details of the LIG with them. If she did, then Del Razo would be obliged to explain how recruiting for online sales schemes for idiotic channelings of interdimensional reptilians and dead people from the afterlife can possibly be of any relevance to ensuring a living income for all.

The LIG is just a thinly-veiled advertisement for Desteni / ELF products and courses. It conveys some political commentary but political commentary on the web does not equal a political movement or proposal. The LIG uses political and human rights topics as a way of making the group seem important, but like so many other cults, Desteni / ELF is mainly concerned with absurd spiritualistic beliefs about other dimensions, 'the self', 'stopping the mind', and sales schemes.

The Desteni / ELF version of 'human rights' was written by a former prominent member of the sovereign citizen movement, which is founded on false conspiracy theories, racism and anti-Semitism, and is run by right wing libertarian scammers who charge money for fake financial schemes and legal advice which get people thrown in jail.

The Desteni / ELF 'interdimensional portal' AKA Sunette Spies' recent 'Self & Living' store videos are branded with the ELF name, but nothing Spies discusses is about human rights or equality. It is 'self-help' advice with corny titles like 'Less Stress More Success!', 'Building Your Relationship with Yourself' and 'Enrich Yourself, Don't Break Yourself'. As for the content, you'd get more useful 'practical lifestyle' tips reading one random article at Lifehacker.com. Oddly enough, although her background is solely as protege of Bernard Poolman, at her 'Self & Living store' no information is given about Spies, and neither Poolman or Desteni are mentioned.

The Interview Requests for the 'portal' at the Desteni forum suggest that customers are keen to hear more animal impersonations and communications from beyond the grave, but that's not going to bring about equality or protect anyone's human rights either.

One former Desteni / ELF customer recently published a video in which he states he's leaving the group because he cannot 'verify the material'. In another video called My view on Desteni he suggests that although Desteni presents itself as having all the answers to everything it is not possible to get all the answers from one source, not even oneself. He states that the group may be attractive to some gullible people looking for 'the truth' but the Desteni material is not unique or original in any way.

A Destonian remarks that the 'paranormal community' has shown very little interest in the Desteni Demonology website and yet another that the 'I Process' is not fitting into his schedule and should allow for more 'individuality' or different approaches to 'walking this process'.

If Desteni / ELF is going down the drain then it is because its claims that it stands for equality, human rights and self-responsibility are false. This statement issued by Desteni / ELF: 'The Equal Life Foundation's focus is in the arena of Basic Human Rights with an emphasis on how these Rights must be practically applied' is misleading, if not an outright lie.

Desteni / ELF uses a limited discussion of 'human rights' which make it seem like it could be a humanitarian cause when it is an online commercial business venture. There is no evidence that the group has any influence or involvement in any genuine human rights or political activities whatsoever. The ELF's focus is on the manufacture, promotion and sale of Desteni / ELF products, courses and sales schemes which are an incoherent mish-mash of rudimentary self-help techniques and redundant delusions of New Age occultism and related material.

For how much longer can Desteni / ELF keep up the pretense? It is a very obvious scam, yet intriguing if only for the reason that some people let themselves be fooled by it.

Related posts:

Bernard Poolman, Satanic Cult Leader?

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

TechnoTutor: A Front for Desteni?

Equal Money System Cult Scam

Desteni Portal Idiot Test

Desteni 'Going Down the Drain'

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