Since the 1970s, successive French governments have used, abused and exaggerated the danger posed by New Age groups to enforce an oppressive conformity of belief in the state itself on the French people. This simply supplants one destructive and manipulative cult ideology for another. As the preeminent anti-cult organisation in France, MIVILUDES, has stated: "State repression must take place when a certain number of elements are gathered [...] when one or several people start getting fond of ideas not commonly shared and agreed upon by society." That is to say, when ordinary people start to get fond of ideas that could, in a general way, threaten the control of the psychopaths in power over the masses of normal human beings.
The troubling state of affairs that we outline in the following paragraphs does not, however, concern only the French people. It is global in scope and has its roots in the 1960s and '70s and the efforts by Western 'intelligence agencies' and elements within Western governments to co-opt and discredit what was known as the 'Human Potential Movement' and the subsequent 'New Age' movement and enforce a conformity of thought and belief on hundreds of millions of people.
Initially the strategy involved the infiltration and co-opting of any group that was beginning to see (and speak about) the problems with big governments and big corporations dominating (and destroying) the world. It was, and is, about control of the population - mind, body and soul - of any given country. But the agenda was not limited to mere infiltration of such groups. After all, it would take a lot of effort and manpower to continually keep tabs on each new group and try to subvert them. What was needed was the ability to automatically demonise any group that 'deviated' from social norms or proposed ideas that were at odds with the agenda of big government and big corporations. Within the process of subverting such groups, the logical answer was found.
Once a group had been infiltrated (or created from scratch by an intelligence agency), they could, quite easily, be made to appear quite insane. Groups that have lost touch with reality ultimately resort to extreme measures, like suicide, or so the logic goes. What better way to demonise the very idea of 'alternative lifestyles' than to create some high-profile cases where such groups commit 'collective suicide'?
But people involved in such subterfuge are always on the lookout for an opportunity to maximise their gains with the least effort. Groups that have been targeted for transformation into a 'cult' are ultimately expendable, and expendable assets of intelligence agencies are traditionally used as cover for highly illegal activities on the part of government and corporate leaders.
If certain influential and well-connected individuals want to engage in illegal money-making activities, they organise themselves in secret and attempt to ensure a significant level of deniability. If they want to engage in some HIGHLY illegal activity (like weapons sales prohibited under international law, money laundering, overthrowing governments, phony terrorist attacks, pedophilia rings, etc.) they organise themselves under the cover of an organisation that can, if necessary, be denounced as a 'suicide cult'. After all, 'suicide cult' members tell no tales and few questions are asked about their motives because, clearly, they were just insane.
In addition, such 'cult suicides' very effectively establish the 'reality' of dangerous cults in the public mind and that 'reality' can then be used to defame, threaten and, if possible, destroy any group that threatens the status quo of psychopaths in power and the general population as their slaves.
The 'Jonestown' cult and 'collective suicide' (which was clearly a CIA operation) is an example of this very strategy, but there have been many other such operations, which together have produced the 'cult' meme in modern society. But it has been in France, where adherence to, and admiration for, 'normal' French cultural values is seen as the quintessence of sanity, that the 'cult' meme has been used to such great effect in the modern world.
Cult Hysteria
To say that there is a high level of schizoidal paranoia around the subject of 'cults' in France is a major understatement. For example, in most modern countries, while the phrase 'breathing and meditation' might elicit a little chiding from friends, it carries no negative connotation and is, on the contrary, generally perceived as something beneficial to human health. Indeed, many mainstream scientific studies have shown that proper breathing techniques and meditative practices are beneficial to human health. In France however, our own personal experience, and that of many groups offering courses in breathing and meditation, is that these two words are sufficient to not only provoke fear and concern in the average French citizen, but they can also bring the full force of state repression down upon one's head in the form of being labeled a 'cult'. People who practice meditation or breathing techniques are by no means the only ones to be targeted. Rather, it seems that any and all groups or individuals who deviate from what is considered 'normal' are marked for special repressive treatment by the French state and its 'cult-hunting' organisations. As we shall see, there is clear evidence of an ulterior motive in the manufacturing of the 'reality' of a 'dangerous cult' phenomenon in France. But first, let's look at how it all began.
A Little 'Cult' History
UNADFI
"What's that?" "A cult devoted to the goddess of public funds!"
"Since 1975, as a result of their presence and their work in the area of victims of cults, the ADFIs have progressively sensitized public opinion and the political powers to this major problem."Article 2 of UNADFI's statute:
"has the goal of preventing the operation of groups, movements and organisations with a cultic character and to defend and assist families and the individual victim of groups, movements or organisations possessing a cultic character, whatever their name, their form or modes of action."Check out UNADFI's list of similar 'partner' organisations in France; there are 20. Then check out their list of similar 'partner' organisations in the rest of the world; there are 28, which means that France, with less than 1% of the world's population, has 42% of the world's 'cult-hunting' organisations. One of UNADFI's 'partners' in the rest of the world is the Rick Ross institute. Rick Ross, the convicted kidnapper and 'independent consultant' at the WACO massacre. That's some nice company UNADFI is keeping.
While officially a private organisation, UNADFI is actually almost entirely funded by the French government. Local chapters of ADFIs are the 'eyes and ears on the ground' for more officially government agencies like MIVILUDES in Paris. Knowing that what they do contravenes international law and common decency, France's state 'cult-hunters' have arranged their methods of 'denunciations' in such a way that it will appear that their attacks come from 'grass-roots' organisations rather than state bodies like MIVILUDES.
It should be noted that, despite its claims to being a 'popular' organisation, UNADFI appears to have very little public support, perhaps as a result of a general French tendency towards apathy, or perhaps as a result of the extremely limited number of actual 'cults' in France. Whatever the reason, UNADFI is 97% funded by the state and receives few donations from the public or its members.
Next in line - CCMM
In 1981, CCMM - the Centre Contre les Manipulations Mentales ('Centre Against Mental Manipulation') - was founded by the Jewish French writer Roger Ikor (now deceased). Ikor's motivation for creating CCMM appears to have been the suicide of his son who practiced 'Zen macrobiotics', although Ikor is described as having 'hated' religions in general. For example, in a 1980 edition of Les Cahiers Rationalistes - a bi-monthly journal by the French Rationalist Union - he stated: "If we had our way, we'd put an end to all these idiocies, both those of cults and those of large religions."
While CCMM may have started out as a grass-roots organisation run by a few people who believed their family members had been snared by a 'cult', it wasn't long before the state intervened in the form of French politician Alain Vivien.
An advertisement produced by organisations like CCMM. Parents are warned about the dangers to children of "music, dance and design classes".
Vivien was mayor of Combs-la-Ville from 1977-1983 and 1989-1992. In 1983 he was elected to the French National Assembly for Seine-et-Marne as a PS candidate and was Secretary of State in 1991-1992. In 1978, Vivien was already a leading light in the French state's alleged fight against 'cults' and headed the first government investigation into 'cults' in that year. He delivered his report to the prime minister in 1983 entitled: The Vivien Report - Cults in France: expression of moral freedom or manipulative factors? Alarmist and contradictory, the Vivien report was widely criticised by journalists, institutions and representatives of major religions. Jacques Maury, president of the Protestant Federation of France, had this to say in October 1985 about the Vivien report:
"This country appears to have entered into a period of irrational, destructive and paralysing fear about all things different."The Vivien report recommended the creation of an official government 'cult-hunting' institution attached to the prime minister's office and advocated a new law to allow judges to order the effective kidnapping of purported 'cult members' in order to deprogram them. At the same time, the report stated that very few families in France were in danger from 'cults', but these families had nevertheless become extremely active and had created organisations to fight against 'cults' as a result of a lack of government response to their concerns.
By making this point, was Vivien signalling the need for government oversight (or infiltration) of such grass-roots groups? Whatever the case, by 1997 he had not only ensconced himself as president of CCMM, but had also insinuated his wife into the position of 'administrative director'. A year later, while still acting as 'adminstrator' at CCMM, Vivien assumed the presidency of MILS ('Mission Interministérielle de Lutte contre les Sectes'), the 'government institution' that he had requested be created in his 1983 report. Jean Pierre Bousquet took over as president of CCMM from Alain Vivien, but things quickly turned sour, mainly because Madame Vivien, whose only credentials appeared to be that her husband was Mr. Vivien, wielded more power in CCMM than the new president. Bousquet was soon thereafter unceremoniously evicted from his position at CCMM and a court case ensued.
Bousquet revealed some details of the circumstances surrounding his removal:
"All I can say is that [...] we had agreed that I would not look at the accounts, but according to the statutes, the president is responsible for authorizing any expenditure, so it is obvious that at some point I ended up wanting to have a closer look at the accounts and that's when it started, it is obvious, and Mr. Chanoir was completely complicit, [...] the only thing that could have set off alarm bells is that, at some point, Mr. Chanoir who was previously hardly present, had now frequent lunches with Mrs. Vivien and Mrs. Nedelec and in some cases he was clearly pissed off at me as if I was something, someone absolutely disreputable... "Around this time, Madame Vivien had successfully lobbied the prime minister to allocate 700,000 euros to renovate the CCMM premises. Coincidentally, as the work was being done, the Viviens decided to have extensive work done on their own house, by the same company. Bousquet reports:
"Yes... anyway I was a bit surprised to see the same firm, the same company that was contracted to do some works supposedly needed in the CCMM offices, since the arrival of Mrs. Vivien. I heard that on October 6th, Mr. Vivien was very much in a hurry to leave and told people who were there, "you understand, I must go back home quickly because I have to check the refurbishing of the structure," [...]. To say the least that's unfortunate for him because we cannot help but make a connection, that's normal... [...] I can tell you I've never seen the bills or even estimates for the works at the current headquarters of the CCMM. That would be interesting to see... "And:
"When I saw the brutality with which I was attacked, money had to be the cause."Another CCMM member, Max Bouderlique, denounced the Viviens' time at the helm of CCMM for its "obscurity of financial management".
While president of MILS, Alain Vivien reported a break-in at his house which he blamed on 'cult supporters'. As a result, the Viviens were given police protection in the form of two security officers and an official driver. Jean-Pierre Bousquet states:
"I know that Mrs. Vivien told me about this thing, that it was a faked burglary. They [the Viviens] allowed themselves such things, there was a reason for that, it was to get both security officers and the official driver. [...] and he actually got them. Then he [Vivien] will tell you, 'yes, but it was precisely to protect against the cults', but that would be assuming that cults are complete idiots."
Alain Vivien - cult-hunter and public fund abuser extraordinaire
While at CCMM and MILS, Vivien also went on numerous 'business trips' on the pretext of 'investigating cultic activity'. Auckland, Guyana, Rio de Janeiro, Guadeloupe, Tahiti, Martinique and China were but a few of his destinations. However, it was his trip to China (along with his wife) that caused most controversy.
Chinese Take Away
In February 1998, MILS released its annual report on the monitoring of cults. The activities of MILS and the background of its then head Alain Vivien, who would ultimately leave under a cloud after squandering over half of the MILS budget on foreign travel, occasioned criticism from several human rights organisations, such as the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights as well as from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. And for good reason. The Chinese government's track record of extreme brutality against groups like Falun Gong is well known, but apparently not sufficiently inhuman to prevent French authority figures from cozying up to them. For example, as president of MILS in 2000, Alain Vivien attended a symposium on 'cults' organised by Chinese authorities. Before regurgitating two pages of Chinese government anti-Falun Gong propaganda, a CCMM press release at the time boasted that:
"[In China], France is often cited as an example [to follow] because of its broad and forthright actions against the danger of 'cults'."In the anti-cult magazine Regard (Alain Vivien used to be its director), it was stated that: "The [French] representatives at the symposium received a warm welcome [by the Chinese] and were listened to with particular attention."
The 2000 Chinese symposium coincided with a new campaign of religious repression in China, with 1500 places of worship destroyed and three Catholic priests sentenced to three years of hard labour.
The 13 May 2000 edition of the Hong Kong Mail carried a report on a new Chinese law that would outlaw Falun Gong altogether and included the following comment:
"the text of the law that France is about to pass in June (the About-Picard law) will allow the government to outlaw any organisation where a 'branch' of that organisation has been labeled as a 'dangerous cult' in a foreign country. 'Mental manipulation' will also become a crime."As Denis Barthélémy, second in command at MILS to Alain Vivien, told UPI press agency:
"In Europe, we consider that fundamental liberties should have fixed and legal limits."In the early '70s, Alain Vivien was a close friend and confidant of Etienne Dailly, a French senator known as the chief lobbyist for the French military-industrial complex. Vivien has also been closely associated with General Audran (having gone with him on several missions to the near East), who was the chief coordinator for French government arms procurement and sales before he was shot dead in 1985, allegedly by the French militant group 'Action Directe'.
Francois de Grossouvre (right) with President Mitterand.
Vivien has also made many trips to Africa and was close to François de Grossouvre, the former adviser to President Mitterrand. In 1981 François de Grossouvre was tasked by President Mitterrand with overseeing national security and other 'sensitive matters', in particular those concerning Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Gabon, the Persian Gulf countries, Pakistan and the two Koreas. He was also in charge of the French branch of 'Operation Gladio', NATO's stay-behind, CIA-directed paramilitary secret armies that were responsible for terrorist attacks in Italy (and elsewhere) that were subsequently blamed on 'communists'. It should be noted that the activities of the above-mentioned 'Action Directe', ostensibly a libertarian communist group, fit squarely into the framework of 'Operation Gladio'. In fact, according to researcher Gaither Stewart, it was 'infiltrated' by European secret services during the '70s and '80s.
François de Grossouvre was found dead, with a bullet to the head, in his office in the Elysée palace on 7 April 1994. 'Suicide' was the official verdict, despite the fact that he was found seated in an armchair with a dislocated shoulder and bruising to his face. His murder came just a few hours after the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, which sparked the Rwandan genocide. Captain Paul Barril, a former officer in the French Gendarmerie Nationale, has claimed that de Grossouvre was murdered. Barril himself has been implicated in the assassination of President Habyarimana.
Vivien has also been the president of the 'Association for Better Awareness of Chad' since 2003.
Bousquet had this to say about Alain Vivien's connections with Africa:
"He has had a network in Africa and for a long time [...] by the way, [...] let's say that African countries are places where you can make some arrangements."Parliamentary Commissions, Intelligence Agencies and Psycho-Soldiers
The first French Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France was set up in 1994 in the aftermath the 'suicides' of members of the Order of the Solar Temple (more on that later). The Commission reported back in December 1995 with a list of 172 groups or organisations that it had decided were 'cults'. The list included large organisations like the Moonies and Scientology but also organic farmers and alternative therapists of all types. The list was produced largely as a result of the input of groups like UNADFI and CCMM, but also under the close supervision of French intelligence, the 'Direction Centrale des Renseignements Généraux' (Central Directorate of General Intelligence), which had apparently been monitoring such groups for a some time prior to that.
In compiling their report and 'the list', parliamentarians did not deem it necessary to consult any independent professionals in relevant fields like psychology or sociology. Instead, they opted for people like Jean-Pierre Morin, who was later named as a member of its 'Orientation Council' in several of MIVILUDES' reports to the French prime minister.
Morin is a General in the French Gendarmerie and closely associated with French intelligence groups. He was reportedly heavily involved in the creation of the parliamentary report and 'the list'. Morin had for several years collaborated with groups like UNADFI in their efforts to better define what precisely constituted a 'cult'. Coming across, for all the world, like a deranged Vietnam vet with PTSD, Morin declared that members of 'cults' were "victims of subjection". He had previously developed this thesis in a 1978 book entitled Psychic Rape. In this book, Morin presents himself as a specialist in "the psychology of conflict", and explains that human aggression was comparable to that of an animal defending its territory. War, Morin claimed, was "instinctive" and "therefore inevitable" and could "take the form of a plot by a homegrown enemy who resorted to 'psychic rape'". Morin ended his treatise by recommending a series of radical measures which include "forbidding charitable causes of any description from collecting money in the street or any public place".
Commandant Jean-Pierre Morin in 1982
In another book written by Morin entitled Sectarus, in reference to one of the many reports on 'cults' that were submitted to the French Parliament in the early 1980s, he states: "Until France experiences an event similar to that in Guyana [The Jonestown massacre of 1978] we can be sure that this text presented to Parliament will not be accepted by the Deputies and Senators."
General Morin appears to subscribe to the long-since discredited idea of 'brainwashing' via standard interrogation techniques (or techniques used by so-called 'cults'). The idea of 'brainwashing' was originally part of CIA propaganda to explain why so many US POWs in the Korean war had apparently been 'turned' by the Chinese. It wasn't that they were 'turned' - the POWs were made to publicly confess to engaging in biological warfare against the civilian population on behalf of the CIA. The term 'brainwashing' would later also be used by the CIA to demonise New Age groups and the Human Potential Movement. Of course, it is no secret that the CIA (and other US intelligence agencies) did become (and remain to this day) supremely interested in the possible uses of 'mind control' via various technologies.
At a 1992 conference organised by UNADFI, Morin declared that minority religious movements should be fought with techniques most often used by intelligence services. Anti-cult groups, he said, "should use the media to spread alarmist reports in order to create a climate of fear". This would, according to Morin, "help with the existing anti-cult measures".
In 1993, one year after the conference, Morin was appointed technical counselor to the Institute of High Studies for Internal Security, (IHESI) which worked out of the French Interior Ministry. IHESI was composed mainly of members of the National Police and French intelligence and was tasked in 1993 with producing a study on 'the phenomenon of cults'. No independent experts on religious minority movements were admitted.
IHESI's work was conducted in secret and only a limited number of their final report was printed. The final report was written up by French politician Jean Albouy and contained information on the sources that were used. Those sources were:
- The head of the French intelligence agency's 'cult' department
- The directors of UNADFI
- Representatives of CCMM
The preface of the report was written by none other than Alain Vivien.
This was, in effect, the source material and 'expertise' used by the 1995 Parliamentary Commission on Cults for their report and the list of 172 'cults' in France. The list and the report were ratified by just seven members of Parliament who took just 50 minutes in their deliberation.
The Commission requested and eventually received:
- The creation of an 'information program' of 'instruction' for judges and the police.
- School programs to 'inform' young people, in particular the inclusion of the 'study of cults' in the national school curriculum.
- The possibility for private groups to take civil action against groups they deem to be 'cults'.
- Advice to Public Prosecutors to "combat more effectively" the dangers of the cult phenomenon.
- A media campaign to better inform the public.
"in favor of the creation of a body of judges who would be specialized in the domain of cults in the same way we have judges specialized in the domain of terrorism."In 1998, Vice President of the 1995 Parliamentary Commission on Cults, Jean-Pierre Brard, proposed an amendment to the financial law for 1999 that would authorise the Fisc (like the US IRS) to use French social security numbers to identify each French citizen individually. Brard's suggestion was roundly denounced as a serious attack on liberty.
Another Parliamentary Commission was formed and when it reported in 1999, it singled out the Church of Scientology, Soka Gakkai, The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (Rosicrucians), Sukyo Mahikari, The New Apostolic Church, The Unification Church, Dianova, Association of the Triumphant Vajra (Mandarom) and Anthroposophy (Steiner schools), for the 'cult' treatment. When the report, including an updated list of 'cults', was widely published in the media, a legal complaint for defamation was filed against the President of the Parliamentary Commission Jacques Guyard by representatives of Anthroposophy. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs but excused Guyard on grounds of 'good faith' (whatever that means).
Janine Tavernier in 1992
The inclusion of Steiner schools in the 'cult' list created an interesting situation when it was revealed that the children of a high-profile member of UNADFI, Janine Tavernier, had attended Steiner schools. Tavernier resigned from UNADFI in 2001 and rebuked the association for having deviated from its duty of helping victims of cults and instead engaging in a 'witch-hunt'. In the preface to a 2006 book by Serge Toussaint, entitled Cult on demand: The Rosy Cross Testifies, Tavernier denounced:
"this vagueness, this imprecision, [that] today has plunged us into total confusion. In this state of affairs, certain individuals see cults everywhere. [...] Some use the cult phenomenon to make denunciations and create rumors. Basically, if one has issues with his neighbor, he accuses him of being a cult member."We find it very interesting that an insider from a French national cult-hunting organisation has perfectly described the circumstances under which Sott.net was denounced, by a French citizen, as a 'cult'. Then again, the French have a track record of capriciously denouncing innocent people to fascist authorities.
Petty disputes led to Nazi denunciation in WWII FranceTavernier also stated:
Up to a million French people denounced their neighbors to the Nazis during the Second World War, historians have revealed.
But more betrayals were over petty family and neighbour disputes than accusations of being French Jews.
"I have always been aware of the risk that UNADFI could make mistakes. [...] I was shocked one day when I heard a person involved in the fight against 'cults' say with total conviction : 'The idea of God must be eradicated.'"The aforementioned Dr. Jean-Marie Abgrall is a psychiatrist, criminologist and specialist in legal medicine, and designated 'expert' on the basis of his alleged knowledge of how 'cults' work. He has written several books on the topic of 'cults' and has focused in particular on Scientology and the Order of the Solar Temple. He also appears to have adopted and promoted Col. Morin's delusional ideas about 'brainwashing'.
During a 1995 television show, Abgrall declared:
"If someone from my family was taken in by a cult, I think I would react like Rambo: I would grab a machine gun and I would go to the cult, I'd grab my family member and take them with me and I'd kill anyone who tried to stop me."Abgrall has also stated:
"We should go ape-shit crazy in these dens of death that are cults. Blow up macrobiotic restaurants, Krishna centers and the rest. Then maybe the public powers would pay more attention."Abgrall allegedly ceased his 'cult-hunting' activities when it was revealed that he had been paid a large sum of money (€45,600) for a 2001 audit he conducted on the Landmark Foundation, which unfortunately for him had been listed as a 'cult'.
Jean-Marie Abgrall
About-Picard - 'Democratic' France's Fascist Law
On the back of the 1995 Parliamentary Commission (and the efforts of organisations like UNADFI, CCMM and people like Alain Vivien to terrorise the French psyche with the idea of 'dangerous cults everywhere'), the About-Picard law was passed in 2001.
Incredible though it may seem, France is the first country in Western Europe to successfully bypass human rights through the creation of a law where you can be imprisoned for having the wrong belief. After the About-Picard anti-cult law was passed in the National Assembly on 30 May 2001 (with only 3% of the National Assembly present), Catherine Picard (co-author of the bill) told the media that it is aimed at groups of a "spiritual, ethnic and philosophical" nature. In other words, minorities, whether racial, religious or philosophical, are directly targeted. Picard claimed that France was the "leader" in this field. Since then, modern French inquisitors like Picard have been trying to spread their intolerance all over Europe via an organisation called FECRIS (the European Federation for Information on Sects).
In an interview for CBN News, Picard put her pathology (and/or ignorance) on display for all to see when she stated:
"Proselytizing is not authorised by the French government. When religious groups speak of having the right to proselytize - such activities may be authorised at a local government level, but in reality, such practices are illegal."For a French politician, Madame Picard possesses a very poor grasp of basic French law, most notably the Fifth Constitution of the French Republic (1958), where it is declared:
"France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs."According to Article 2 of the law of 9 December 1905, separating Church and State, the French secular republic "neither recognises nor funds any religion". Article 1 of the same law ensures "freedom of conscience" and guarantees "the free exercise of religion". Of course, the paradox inherent in France's version of 'secularism' is that, if the French state is tasked with defending the freedom of French citizens, it must also protect their religious freedom, which includes what might be termed 'religious radicalism'. As French sociologist specialized in the sociology of religion, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, has pointed out in her book La religion en miettes ou la question des sectes:
"An individual must be able to choose freely to live in poverty, chastely and obediently, to give him or herself a spiritual master or to enter into an order for the greater glory of God without running the risk of being put in the care of a guardian on the grounds of feeble-mindedness and social maladjustment."
Catherine Picard - Fascist law-maker
Here's how it works: Groups like UNADFI can suggest to a prosecutor that he or she initiates a case to dissolve a group which they consider to be a 'cult'. In its analysis of this arrangement, the Centre for Studies on New Religions reports that the Section VI, article 22:
"is one of the most dangerous provisions in the bill, since it enables private anti-cult associations to become party to court cases against 'cults' on behalf of allegedly brainwashed 'victims' (even though the latter would not ever dream of entrusting their representation to these associations - but since they are considered to have been brainwashed, their opinion does not count) and to collect damages. The anti-cult MPs explained very clearly that the number of court cases against 'cults' in France, notwithstanding several years of propaganda, is quite low. Apparently public prosecutors are often unenthusiastic about the anti-cult campaigns. The remedy is to encourage anti-cult movements to take the lead themselves."In short, the French anti-cult law passed in 2001 did not define any new crimes associated with 'cultic movements' because any and all possible crimes that have been, or might be, committed by a 'cult' are already punishable by existing laws in France. The problem with About-Picard then is that it provides for the establishment of state-sponsored 'inquisition-like' groups tasked with 'preventing and repressing' so-called 'cultic movements', with the definition of a 'cultic-movement' being wide open to interpretation, and therefore abuse, by 'vested interests'.
The About-Picard law, therefore, is a law that targets 'cults' while admitting that one cannot define a 'cult' and makes the exceedingly vague notion of "preying upon weakness" a criminal offense.
Vested Interests? Enter MIVILUDES
Alain Vivien was dishonorably discharged from his position at MILS in 2002 and the organisation itself was disbanded only to be immediately replaced by MIVILUDES. Coincidentally (or not) MIVILUDES is headquartered at 66 rue de Bellechasse ('good hunt') in Paris.
MIVILUDES - Mission Interministérielle de Vigilance et de Lutte contre les Dérives Sectaires ("Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combatting Cultic Deviances") - originated in a presidential decree on 28 November 2002, and is a French government agency with a mandate to:
- observe and analyze movements perceived as constituting a threat to public order or which violate French law
- coordinate the appropriate response
- inform the public about potential risks
- help victims to receive aid
Thought Police
In its announcement of the formation of MIVILUDES, the French government acknowledged that MIVILUDES' predecessor, MILS (the 'Interministerial Mission in the Fight Against Cults'), which itself functioned from 7 October 1998 as the successor to the 'Observatoire interministériel sur les sectes' established on 9 May 1996, had received criticism from outside France for certain actions potentially interpretable as contrary to religious freedom. Apparently this was the main reason that MIVILUDES replaced MILS.
Despite its purported mandate, MIVILUDES (much like its predecessor) has already established a track record of targeting individuals and groups that, according to its criteria, hold and express 'wrong beliefs'. 'Wrong beliefs' are ill-defined by MIVILUDES and the About-Picard law on which it relies (so much the better!), but we can conclude that, in line with its mandate to "observe and analyze movements perceived as constituting a threat to public order", holding a 'wrong belief' in France is a threat to public order.
From the 2008 MIVILUDES report, we read that:
"State repression must take place when a certain number of elements are gathered [...] when one or several people start getting fond of ideas not commonly shared and agreed upon by society.""Fond of ideas not commonly shared and agreed upon by society" being a rather long euphemism for 'wrong belief'.
Until the creation of MIVILUDES, the existing criteria for 'cult' status was limited to:
- mental destabilization;
- exaggerated financial demands;
- separation from one's home environment;
- damage to physical integrity;
- indoctrination/abduction of children;
- importance of judicial involvements;
- possible diversion of traditional economic circuits;
- attempts to infiltrate public powers.
- Public order offenses
- destabilizing living conditions
- targeting of weak or ignorant people
- mental subjugation
- staying away from others and isolation within a group
- violation of foundational principles of the French Republic
- disrespect for international conventions ratified by the French Republic
"The parents or, as the case may be, the legal guardians of the child, have the right to organise life within the family in accordance with their religion or belief and bearing in mind the moral education in which they believe the child should be brought up."Ah geez! So the UN is too 'international'? OK then, what about the European Convention on Human Rights?
Now come on, everyone knows Article 2, Protocol 1!
"In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions."There are more, but we won't labor the point. But we would like to know if MIVILUDES, CCMM, FECRIS, UNADFI and the French government think that their claim to the right to abduct the children of Jehovah's Witnesses is a "violation of foundational principles of the French Republic", or if it "disrespects international conventions ratified by the France". Because if it is and does, then all these French cult-hunting clubs are, by their own definitions, possible cults! Talk about a bunch of psychopathic hypocrites!
Anyway, back to the task in hand.
Former President of MIVILUDES, Jean-Michel Roulet, career spook and cult-hunter combined.
The first president of MIVILUDES, Jean-Louis Langlais, retired in 2005 and was replaced by Jean-Michel Roulet. Roulet is a career 'spook', and has held many high-level positions within the French intelligence and Defense departments. While he has been heavily involved in France's investigation and suppression of 'cults' for several years, his appointment as the head of MIVILUDES, ostensibly an organisation dedicated to protecting against the excesses of minority religions and alternative health practitioners, seems bizarre until we realise that Roulet was the Secretary for Security and Internal Affairs at the time of the 'group suicide' associated with the Order of the Solar Temple in the Vercors region of France in 1995. More on that later.
Roulet told AFP that, as president of MIVILUDES, he wanted to help victims of 'cults' to denounce those who had victimized them. This marked a change in the orientation of the organisation which had until then focused on a more sociological approach to the alleged 'problem of cults'. In response, several MIVILUDES members resigned, including Nathalie Luca, a researcher from the Center for Interdisciplinary Religious Faith Studies (CNRS) at the School of Advanced Social Sciences Studies (EHESS). In handing in her resignation, Luca explained that she refused to be associated with "an apparent hardening of the position of MIVLIUDES". Another researcher at CNRS, Sébastien Fath, also refused to participate on the grounds that a single actual sociologist (himself) at MIVILUDES was merely a token gesture.
Sarko with Tom Cruise in 2004
Unsurprisingly, the co-author of the fascist About-Picard law and president of UNADFI, Catherine Picard, disagreed and, on the contrary, declared that MIVILUDES is too timid and is no longer fulfilling its role: "it contents itself with releasing a yearly report that 'everything is fine'" she said, and claimed that certain members of the government, in particular Nicolas Sarkozy, "were well-disposed to cults". Picard actually has a point. It was, after all, Nicolas Sarkozy who warmly greeted Scientology ambassador Tom Cruise in 2004. In 2009, with Sarkozy as president and Scientology in France the subject of a court case, the public prosecutor (who works for Sarkozy) requested that the case be dismissed. The court ignored the request, but a law passed (without debate) on 12 May 2009 repealed a previous law that had allowed for the dissolution of a corporation charged with fraud. In short, under Sarkozy, the Church of Scientology in France can relax and carry on its fraudulent activities. Alternative health practitioners, organic farmers and other groups that actually work for the public good, on the other hand, are still firmly in the sights of the 'cult-hunters'.
Jack-boots "Я" Us
It may or may not surprise you to know that MIVILUDES and the associated anti-cult groups and associations for 'the protection of the families' have at their disposal a police unit tasked exclusively with investigating what they call 'cultic deviances'. CAIMADES, which stands for 'Unit of Assistance and Intervention in Matters of Cultic Deviances', is the world's first 'anti-cult police' and was announced by Commandant Bernard Malfay, of the 'Central Office for the Repression of Violence against Persons' (OCRVP), at MIVILUDES' first seminar in Lyon on November 26, 2009.
CAIMADES comprises just six selected full-time high-level police and Gendarmerie officials, but with powers to marshal manpower and resources provided to them by the authorities in whichever jurisdiction their next target happens to live. Armed with a 'checklist' on the basis of which they determine which cases fall under their inherently vague mandate to track and trace 'brainwashing' ("l'emprise mentale"), CAIMADES has organised numerous dawn raids on behalf of MILIVUDES.
The author of the following contribution to the 2009 MIVILUDES report is Brice Hortefeux, who was Minister of the Interior at the time and is one of many charming characters we find in high places in France today. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Hortefeux is a friend and longstanding ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy. In June 2010, Hortefeux was fined 2,750 euros for racial insults against a party activist of Algerian descent. The incident went like this:
BBC 4 June 2010That's just a little background into one of the people leading France's modern-day militarized 'Department of morality and normality'. Here is Hortefeux, in an appendix to the 2009 MIVILUDES report, describing the organisation and role of CAIMADES, the 'anti-cult' special police unit created to give MIVILUDES some teeth:
Mr Hortefeux was joking with a small group of activists from the ruling UMP party in south-west France.
Immediately before Mr Hortefeux's controversial remark, one activist is heard saying: "Amin is a Catholic. He eats pork and drinks alcohol."
Mr Hortefeux then says: "Ah, well that won't do at all. He doesn't match the prototype."
A woman is then heard to say: "He is one of us... he is our little Arab."
The interior minister then says: "We always need one. It's when there are lots of them that there are problems."
The services of the DGPN [General Directorate of the National Police] (DSCP/SDIG [the Sub-directorate for General Intelligence]) produced a general study on new therapies (already sent to MIVILUDES). This same service has continued its work of collecting information and intelligence for operational purposes, notably of the investigative services, thanks to a network of support staff within each departmental service which reports on cultic activities. This work is ultimately destined to feed CAIMADES, a group specializing in this area and newly created within the 'Central Office for the Repression of Violence against Persons' (OCRCVP) at the DCPJ ['Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire'].To give you an example of what these people get up to, on February 22nd last year, on the initiative of MIVILUDES and on the ludicrous basis of "suspected potentially cultic activity", 70 policemen assisted by the CAIMADES raided the 'Centre for Teaching Biodynamism' in Nyons, interrupting a training programme for people lacking in self-confidence. Four people were arrested and placed in custody, including the director of the centre, a former 53-year old physiotherapist. But get this; the initial complaint was sent to Paris from the local branch of an anti-sect movement.
Operating within the DCPJ, the OCRCVP, created by the decree of 6 May 2006, was empowered to fight against cultic abuses constituting criminal offenses. Until 1 September 2009, one of the criminal investigative groups of this service was specifically charged with centralising information and processing court records related to this matter. The Minister of the Interior, in two memos circulated on 25 February 2008 and 23 January 2009, reminded officials of the new legal arsenal at their disposal for fighting against cultic abuses. He committed to a coordinated action on the matter, established specific guidelines in the fight and expressed a wish to bring new impetus to the activities of the various state services in this matter. [...]MIVILUDES can rely on scores of Gendarmerie to protect France's children from eeeevil 'cults'
The main objective of this unit is to ensure compliance with the provisions of the About-Picard law of 12 June 2001 relating to subjection to mental manipulation, facilitate meetings for characterizing these notions [of what constitutes "subjection" and "mental manipulation"] and the relevant elements of criminal offenses. To this end, CAIMADES is at the disposal of the territorial services of the police and gendarmerie to provide them with methodological (training, experience sharing, situational analysis) or operational assistance. These interventions can take the form of tips and expert advice in order to evaluate whether registered complaints or information received meet legal qualifications.
The unit is intended to facilitate the implementation of specific techniques in conducting investigations relating to acts that may constitute cultic abuses. It is capable of acting alone or in co-referral with those services initially involved during a criminal investigation. Experts assigned to the unit act in these proceedings under the guide of requisitions made by the prosecution or 'rogatory commissions' initiated by the investigating judge. It is certainly desirable that the cell intervenes alongside investigators from the beginning of inquiry, but its assistance can be obtained at any stage during the inquiry and especially during arrests and while in police custody. Such cooperation of experts, on the fringes of the investigation, is readily available and naturally enables better management of cult followers or minors as the situation requires. The implementation of CAIMADES as an entity of the OCRVP enables it to equally benefit from the operational capacities of the overall central and territorial services of judicial police.
France: Deviations of MIVILUDES: Raid of 70 policemen on a biodynamism centreCurrently, the state services within the geographical 'Départments' of France are 'encouraged' to 'invite' MIVILUDES to come down from Paris to pursue inquiries into suspicious persons or groups. Disappointed with the distinct lack of interest shown by regional authorities in the inquisitorial services MIVILUDES has to offer, Senator Alain Aziani recently published a position paper calling for an amendment to the law which would make ongoing reporting and regular meetings between local authorities and MIVILUDES compulsory, "even in Départments where the cultic phenomenon is very rare." Aziani is also lobbying for the MIVILUDES agency to be promoted to the same level as the National Ombudsman as part of this effort to ensure nationwide compliance with the new witch-hunting regime.
While the neighbors considered the people running the Center 'quiet and discreet', the secretary general of MIVILUDES, Hervé Mashi declared that according to information collected in 2009, the founder of the Center seemed to exert mental control on the trainees and to abuse their weakness.
Similar raids orchestrated by MIVILUDES and anti-sect movements are not new. In October 2009, the 'Moulin des Vallées', a peaceful ecumenical monastery in Ile-et-Vilaine, was also targeted and in January 2010, the Centre 'Terre du Ciel' (Heaven's Earth) in Chardenous (Saône-et-Loire) was searched by MIVILUDES' troops. No 'victims' of these groups could ever be identified and no evidence of violation of the law on the abuse of 'mental fragility' could be produced.
Knowing all too well that its recommendations violate religious freedoms enshrined in European and international law, MIVILUDES advises magistrates and officers overseeing cases involving children to hide that the reason for intervening is their parents' belonging to a 'movement':
MIVILUDES 2010 guideIt is for this reason that the French government, through MIVILUDES, has spent enormous efforts lobbying at the European and UN levels law to block avenues of appeal available to people persecuted for having beliefs contrary to those dictated 'normal' by the French state.
"Do not characterise the situation of a child, nor any related aspect, as cultic, nor quote the presence of a cult to justify social or administrative action. Using terms such as cult and cultic is irrelevant... it must in any case be cautious and measured to avoid hindering upcoming action and finding oneself in an uncomfortable position with the administration." [...]
"Even if what you say is well grounded, because it is known that some teachings are more exclusive and demanding than others about salvation, conversion and proselytising. It will be fought in case of appeal, as the European Court of Human Rights has already stated."
Even though it is legally a 'Non-Governmental Organisation', FECRIS is also almost entirely funded by the French government. Its successful lobbying efforts at the supranational level saw this sinister organisation granted 'advisory status' by the Council of Europe's Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly in March 2005. FECRIS was later granted 'ECOSOC Special Consultative Status' by the United Nations in 2009. And so, in typically psychopathic fashion, this organisation has insinuated itself into the EU and UN legislative structure with hysterical McCarthyite claims of 'cultists' infiltrating every organ of state in order to do precisely the very thing it accuses others of - manipulating legislation that was originally intended to protect people's human rights, in particular preventing the rights of people to freedom of thought, conscience and religious association.
A Disturbing Obsession with Children
The current president of MIVILUDES is Georges Fenech. Fenech was president of the French judges' trade union, 'Association Professionnelle des Magistrats' until 1998 when he was found guilty of a racist public insult against a Jewish magistrate. Turning his hand to politics, on 27 March 2008 the 'Conseil Constitutionnel' canceled his re-election as a Member of Parliament for Rhone when it was discovered that he broke campaign finance laws, which made him ineligible to run for one year. He was all set to launch an appeal when Sarkozy gifted him the position of Inquisitor-in-Chief of MIVILUDES.
Fenech was among the 250 high-level attendees at that first MIVILUDES seminar in Lyon on 26 November 2009 (when CAMIADES was formed). The attendees were reassured that the country's best expert psychologists would be called upon to assist them in their Sisyphean efforts to scour the land in search of 'cultic abuses' and to protect 'millions' of children in France from their parents' wrong beliefs.
Fenech (center) on the look out for 'cults' while living it up in Tahiti with other MIVILUDES members
Clearly energised by the creation of this novel 'anti-cult' police unit, the seminar ended on a bizarre but telling note with Jean-Marie Bockel, then Minister for Justice, comparing 'cultic abuses' to - and this is a direct quote - "mutant viruses which spread like insidious poison, manipulating human behaviour and minds against the dignity of people and fundamental freedoms." Bockel cited "new risks, including the use of the Internet" behind the growth of this "mutant virus" which he said was "to be construed as pathology of belief on the basis of singularity and irregularity of belief" and called for a "strengthening of European judicial cooperation because large organized cults know no borders."
"A mutant virus"? "Pathology of belief"? "Irregularity of belief"? Bockel's paramoralistic gibberish might have been better left without comment if it weren't for the important clue he left us with that line about the "risk" posed by "the use of the Internet." We've already seen that the threat posed to France - its children, its pets or anyone else - by 'cults' of any shape or form is - to put it nicely - extremely negligible. So how do we account for the vitriol in Bockel's choice of words, the pathological persistence of radical right-wingers like Fenech and the absurdly paranoid efforts put into creating hyper-compartmentalised Stasi-like state cells within cells to deal with a much-publicised 'problem' that does not actually exist?
Something we keep coming across in our current investigation is that the main justification used by the 'cult-hunters' for donning the jack-boots is that they are 'protecting the children'. Without the claim that large numbers of children are in danger, it would have been impossible for MIVILUDES to get to the point where they can stage dawn raids on groups of consenting adults doing their thing and harming no one. The 'children at risk' angle then is vital to the cult-hunters' raison d'etre. But even here they must vigorously massage (in a non-cultic way, of course) the figures.
Fenech has repeatedly claimed since his appointment that anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 French children are 'at risk' from cults. Now, we should point out that Fenech doesn't present those figures as a range of numbers. Instead, he throws around different figures on different occasions. The source of these alarmingly high figures is equally alarming. Emmanuel Jancovici is head of the anti-cult bureau at the French Health Ministry. In his testimony to the 2006 Parliamentary Commission on Cults, he stated that:
"According to our estimations, there are about 45,000 children (at the minimum) whose parents belong to the Jehovah Witnesses in France. (...) There must be several tens of thousands of children - let's say between 30 or 40 thousand - who belong to other groups; thus we are talking about at least 60 to 80 thousand children brought up under the influence of a cult today."Jancovic followed up this interesting piece of creative arithmetic with the admission that:
"The difficulty we have with all this cult business is that we have very few complaints."This last sentiment was echoed by members of various other French ministries tasked with dealing with abuse of children, all of whom have consistently found that the range of figures for children in danger from 'cults' is more like zero to "one or two". This fact however doesn't seem to dissuade Fenech from continuing his crusade:
So what really motivates Fenech and his cohorts then? If ministers in his own government are telling him that there is no tangible threat to children (or anyone else) in France from any 'sectarian deviances', we think it's safe to say that concern for the well-being of children can be ruled out. After all, if Fenech were a truly altruistic crusader for endangered children, rather than running around touting outlandish statistics to outlets like Radio Vatican and the French national TV broadcaster, surely he would be happy that so few French children are at risk from "mental manipulation" at the hands of spiritual minorities and organic farmers? Wouldn't it be normal for such an alleged defender of children to show a little interest in the numerous scandals where high government (or church) officials were implicated in child abuse and prostitution rings? Including even child-sex-snuff activities where the child is killed during the sex act to increase the enjoyment of the pervert? Such deliberations could also lead a person to consider a possible ulterior motive for state anti-cult groups putting children in 'care' in order to 'protect' them from the 'wrong beliefs' of their parents.
But let's stick to what we can prove, at least circumstantially, and ask the question: why have the French authorities taken, and allowed organisations like MIVILUDES, FECRIS, CCMM and UNADFI to take, such a militant approach to what is, in reality, the relatively non-existent problem of 'cults' in France?
"MIVILUDES is creating artificial emergencies to support the state-sponsored anti-cult movement. [...] MIVILUDES spends more time vilifying cults than actually researching them - obviously trying to justify its own existence."Big Agri-Business, Big Pharma, Arms Trafficking and Suicide Cults
Professor Susan Palmer Canadian Sociologist and Professor of Religious Studies, Concordia University Author of The New Heretics of France, Minority Religions, la République, and the Government-Sponsored 'War on Sects'
Among the so-called 'cultic movements' repeatedly targeted by MIVILUDES in their annual reports to the prime minister are many organic agriculturists and practitioners of alternative medical treatments. The reason for this is that MIVILUDES includes in its list of 'cult identifiers' the practice of alternative medicine and growing natural, chemical-free food. The inclusion of such benign and often beneficial practices appears bizarre until we realise that Fenech is also a founding member of Momagri, a 'think tank' established in France in 2005 as a "movement for a world agricultural organisation" which advocates for a global agricultural governance system. It also "conducts in-depth analyses of the state of global agriculture and presents strategic and concrete proposals to political decision-makers and experts". In short, Momagri is a Big Agri-business lobbying outfit, petitioning governments on behalf of multinational corporations to dissolve any remaining restrictions on GMO crops. And who constitute the biggest thorn in the side of GMO crop producers? Organic farmers and the increasing numbers of people who buy organic produce.
What is it that motivates men like George Fenech?
The president of Momagri is Pierre Pagesse. Pierre Pagesse is also the president of Limagrain, a French multinational agriculture company ('Europe's Monsanto', in fact) which happens to specialise in the production and promotion of GMO seeds.
Another founding member of Momagri was General Jean-Pichot Duclos (now deceased). A few of the high points of Duclos' life include:
- A stint at the 'International Defense Council', a French semi-state arms (sales) company, where he created the 'Economic Intelligence Service' (INTELCO).
- Contribution to a report entitled "Economic and Corporate Intelligence and Strategies", published by the 'Commissariat Général du Plan' (now renamed the 'Centre d'Analyse Stratégique'), a French state institution tasked with state economic planning.
- Founder of the 'School of Economic Warfare' in the French 'Free Superior School of Applied Commercial Sciences'.
- A prolific speech-giver, including one in 2003 entitled 'Le terrorisme islamique et la France' (you can translate that one yourself).
Another founding member of that GMO front organisation ,'Momagri', is Renaud Leblond. A journalist at the French magazine l'Express from 1988-1996, Leblond then joined the office of then Secretary of State for Research, François d'Aubert. Leblond also joined Limagrain in 1997 as head of Limagrain's biotechnologies mission. In 2009, Leblond wrote a book entitled Le pouvoir des sectes ('The Power of Cults'). Back in March 1996, Leblond had collaborated on another book about the Order of the Solar Temple, by Jean Vuarnet, whose wife and son were among the 16 people found shot and burned in the Vercors region of France in December 1995.
This little 'confluence of interests' was noticed by French Internet essayist Sylvie Simon when she commented on how Fenech's vested interests in Big Agribusiness and witch-hunting go hand in hand:
"Some were surprised to discover in the final report of the MIVILUDES the new battle-cry of the latter: the alleged danger of "nutritionists", a phenomenon which could result in "enormous numbers of victims." Even more dangerously [in MILIVUDES' eyes], these nutritionists are making progress with the help of small groups. We can better understand what's going on here when we consider that the president of MIVILUDES, Georges Fenech, already overworked by his many hats, is one of the founders of Momagri, a movement for the global organization of agriculture, an interest group private founded in 2005 by large agribusiness companies, seed producers, banks and labs. There is much talk at Momagri of a new global regulation, which implies a continued and effective direction of subsidies."Fenech's patent duplicity in his role of persecuting people seeking to eat healthy food, rather than the frankenfood his buddies in Big Agri-business organisations want everyone to eat, led another French Internet magazine to conclude:
"What is the greatest danger for agribusinesses such as Monsanto or Limagrain? All movements which promote healthy food, wellness, natural products that are GMO-free, alternative medicine or alternative lifestyles. So in short: healthy people become dangerous in the eyes of the food industry. Their solution was simple: get Fenech to label nutritionists or groups promoting well-being as dangerous gurus or cults, then get Renaud Leblond, who worked at Limagrain, to write a book on cults and then you have a highly orchestrated campaign by major industrial food groups, backed by media groups such as Lagardere (Paris-Match), where, once more, we inevitably find Renaud Leblond."Curiously enough, when questions about this were put to Fenech in 2010, his name was promptly removed as one of the founding members of Momagri on its website.
Yet another co-founder of Momagri with Fenech is Pierre Fabre, founder and president of Laboratoires Pierre Fabre, a multinational pharmaceutical company which boasts presence in over 130 countries and has its HQ in Castres, France (near Toulouse, funnily enough). Fenech's close ties with the former totalitarian Ben Ali regime in Tunisia smoothed the way for his Momagri compatriot to open facilities there in a joint venture with Siphat (Société des Industries Pharmaceutiques de Tunisie) in 2005. Fabre retained a 65% stake in the venture, while France's colony, sorry... the Tunisian government, held just 35%.
With MIVILUDES and Fenech and his friends in Big Agri-business and Big Pharma in control, you'll get your pill right there in your GMO food!
It didn't surprise us to learn at this stage that Fenech was also instrumental in forcing through an amendment in the French National Assembly in early 2007, against the advice of the head of the Judiciary Committee, which made vaccinations mandatory in France. Failure to comply with vaccination campaigns declared mandatory can today result in an automatic six month prison term and a 3,750 euro fine... thanks to Fenech's lobbying efforts.
Take a look at this info-sheet MIVILUDES have on their homepage:
© MIVILUDES
"BE VIGILANT!Translation: "Chemo therapy is the only solution because we say so! There is no other way - ignore the millions of testimonies to the contrary that you will hear from the unbelievers on the Internet."
...if someone denigrates conventional cancer treatments or advises you to stop them..."
"...if they promise you benefits which outperform the results of treatments proposed by your healthcare professional..."Well that's a no-brainer in France: natural healthcare professionals are thin on the ground here so the allopathic healthcare professional will invariably always outperform his or her wholistic counterpart. People seeking alternatives to the dangerous practices of chemo and radiation therapy must either look beyond the country's borders or pray they'll encounter a wise doctor who knows the score.
"...if they propose anything which acts on both the mental and the physical level..."Is the French government really so detached from reality that it doesn't understand that these are inseparable because they are really one and the same? OF COURSE medication works on both the mental and physical levels! I mean, is a cancer patient not happier when their cancer goes into remission?!
"...if they propose free sessions for trying out their method or, on the contrary, if they ask you to pay up front..."Well GEEZ! You're damned if you do and damned if you don't!
But of course, that is the idea - it's called thought control, and if that doesn't work, then entrapment will do.
"...if anyone tries to convince you with pseudo-scientific language or, on the contrary, if they make it out that they have discovered a very simple principle or technique..."Once again, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't! Granted, 'the devil is in the details', but people's discernment is so out of whack, how are they to know without testing something, or at least networking with others who have tested it and learned from it?
"...if they advise you to cut yourself off from your family, from your medication and from your circle of friends to aid your healing..."The first order of business for anyone seeking real healing is to research and, if necessary, cut themselves off from the lies told to them by their government. The rest will take care of itself. Our advice, if you care for some, is to question everything - whether it reaches you in the form of your cousin telling you what a great job the police do, whether it's your doctor telling you there's an amazing new drug on the market, whether it's your friend telling you for the umpteenth time that if you just lend him another two grand he really will pay you back this time, or whether it's your government warning you about the existential threat to humanity posed by nebulous groupings of cults who grow oversized vegetables and only come out to dance at night when the moon is full.
And you've gotta love MIVILUDES' closing statement:
"In case of doubt on any propositions made to you, speak with your specialized medical team or your attending physician."What if you have doubts about propositions made to you by your medical team or attending physician?? Who do you talk to?! What if you do some research and start to have serious suspicions that Big Pharma may be in bed with the government officials who wrote the above propaganda leaflet? If you contact your government-approved allopathic medical team about these concerns, there's a good chance they'll fix you right up with some of their anti-psychotic and antidepressant wonder drugs, and in no time at all you'll feel that everything is right with the world again. Soon the uncomfortable reality of incorporated drug pushers determined to keep you contributing to their gigantic profit margins and sound asleep from the impending global cataclysms will be a forgotten memory and you can carry on believing that you are free, and that France really is the land of liberty, equality and fraternity.
We don't ever expect MIVILUDES or the deviant-minded members of the French government to grok that simple fact. That alternative health and holistic life-style organisations exist at all is due to the culmination of layers upon layers of damage caused by past attempts at 'making people better' by the predecessors of today's RWAs. And still they try to 'make people better' based on completely flawed and outdated models of the workings of the human mind. The problem is compounded by the fact that psychopaths wishfully believe that they can 're-educate' normal people to think like they do. Lobaczewski explained in Political Ponerology that this is achievable only up to a certain point. For an organisation whose work is outwardly dedicated to correcting 'wrong beliefs', allegedly supported by modern psychology, MIVILUDES has amply demonstrated that it is clueless about how normal humans actually think and behave - except, one could say, in terms of how to apply specific psychological knowledge as a weapon to control people through fear. So tell us, who's running the real cult?
A few months ago, the above mentioned Brice Hortefeux, now a senior adviser to Sarkozy, was pulled in for questioning by police after he phoned another comrade of Sarkozy's, Thierry Gaubert, to warn him that the police were onto his role in collecting suitcases of cash from banks in Switzerland to finance Edouard Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential election campaign. Balladur's campaign spokesman? Nicolas Sarkozy. Dubbed 'Karachigate' by the French press, the Swiss cash was kickbacks from illegal arms sales to Pakistan in the 1990s. For Hortefeux to have been able to warn Gaubert - and therefore Sarkozy, we presume - he must have had inside knowledge of the advanced stage of the judicial investigation... being former Minister of the Interior probably helped. Just about everyone in Sarkozy's entourage has been implicated or officially charged in this latest major corruption scandal to hit France, including the president's best man, Nicolas Bazire, who was Balladur's campaign manager in 1995.
'hmmm... now where did I leave that suitcase of cash...' Brice Hortefeux
We say "latest major corruption scandal to hit France" because the current fallout from 'Karachigate' is practically a rerun of another kickbacks-for-arms scandal involving the country's top brass in the 1990s. 'Angolagate', aka the 'Mitterrand - Pasqua affair', saw just about everybody and his dog in the docks over the illicit sale of $790 million of Russian weapons and equipment to Angola from 1993 all the way up to the year 2000, fuelling a civil war that killed over half a million people, left the country in ruins and ensured that French companies, in league with dictator Dos Santos against the Unita rebels, could continue to plunder Angola's vast oil and diamond wealth. Despite a UN embargo blocking the sale of weapons to Angola, Pierre Falcone, a French businessman, arranged deals through his company Brenco with none other than the Israeli 'Lord of War' Arcady Gaydamak to ship enormous quantities of military hardware to the dictator - it remains the single largest racket of illegal arms trafficking ever (well, that we know of).
Of course, this couldn't be done without opening doors, so Falcone showered millions of dollars (in more suitcases of cash) upon power brokers in France. Guess who was named by Falcone as one of the more than 40 French politicians to win a lucky potluck suitcase? That's right... Georges Fenech, who was a magistrate in Lyons in 1997 at the time, soon to be made a judge, and was busy prosecuting his war on minorities. He denied everything of course and, like most of the French Mafia implicated in Angolagate, got away with it.
Remember what ousted member of CCMM, Jean Pierre Bousquet, said about one of the founding member of France's 'cult-hunting' policies - Alain Vivien? "He has had a network in Africa for a long time [...] by the way, [...] let's say that African countries are places where you can make some arrangements."
Strange Coincidences
France's obsession with 'cults' dates back to the early seventies and the proliferation of New Age movements out of the USA. As we have already noted, many of these organisations were either directly set up by US intelligence agencies or were soon infiltrated in an effort to co-opt the growing 'Human Potential Movement' and were later used to create the 'suicide cult' meme. Both the Jonestown massacre and the US government mass murder at WACO provided strong impetus for the 'anti-cult' movement in France. But it wasn't until France was given its own version of 'Jonestown' that France's modern-day witch-hunt began in earnest. And here we recall the words of the aforementioned General Morin from 1982:
"Until France experiences an event similar to that in Guyana [The Jonestown massacre of 1978] we can be sure that this text presented to Parliament will not be accepted by the Deputies and Senators."France's official (and arbitrary) list of 'cults' was drawn up, and the draconian About-Picard law passed, largely as a result of the October 1994 'mass suicides' of members of the Order of the Solar Temple (OST). In 1994, 54 people (including children and infants) in Switzerland and Quebec, Canada, were killed and their bodies burned. The aims of the Order of the Solar Temple included: establishing "correct notions of authority and power in the world"; an affirmation of the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal; assisting humanity through a great "transition"; preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus as a solar god-king; and furthering a unification of all Christian churches and Islam. Members were apparently induced to believe that through their deaths they would "move to Sirius".
It was over a year later, however, before France would have its own 'cult-suicide'.
During the night of 23 December 1995, 16 people were shot and their corpses burned in what was called a 'mass-suicide' in the Vercors region of Southeastern France. Authorities would ultimately claim that two people shot the others and then committed suicide "by firearm and immolation". The 'suicides' were said to be linked to the Order of the Solar Temple, despite taking place over one year after the main group of 54 'suicides' in Canada and Switzerland.
The Dec. 1995 scene where 16 people were found murdered and burned with military grade phosphorus and laid out in a star formation in a forest in the Vercors region of France
Among the dead in Vercors were the wife and son of former French ski champion Jean Vuarnet. Vuarnet has repeatedly called for a new official inquiry and, in 2003, the bodies of his wife and son were exhumed twice at the request of the family in order that further tests be conducted to determine the nature of the combustible material used to burn the bodies after they were shot. Contrary to the findings of the official report, experts determined the presence of large quantities of phosphorous at the site of the burning of the bodies which would explain why parts of 9 of the 16 bodies were completely incinerated. Both the Vuarnet family and other interested parties have claimed that the volatile and toxic nature of phosphorus strongly suggests the involvement of a third party in the killings and that all 16 were in fact assassinated or 'suicided'.
In addition to the 16 murders, some very strange and disturbing things were happening in France in the months of December 1995 and January 1996.
- On 11 July 1995, the French National Assembly set up its Parliamentary Commission on Cults following the events involving the members of the Order of the Solar Temple in late 1994 in Switzerland and Canada. The Commission reported back in December 1995.
- On 15 December 1995, a team of supposed French TV journalists visited an agrarian group/community that was growing 'giant' organic vegetables without pesticides etc. The journalists asked the group if they could make a short film about their activities, assuring them that the report would be 'friendly' and 'about organic farming'. When the farmers viewed the final edited report, as it would later be broadcast, they were horrified to realise that sentences had been cut and questions and answers had been deliberately mixed up in such a way that the group looked like total nutcases.
- One week later, on December 22nd, the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults presented its report to Parliament, and its list of 172 'cultic movements' was ratified unanimously and published. Out of a total of 577, how many MPs were present? Seven. Furthermore, the 172 alleged 'cultic movements' were examined in just 50 minutes, meaning that about 20 seconds was all it took to determine that each 'movement' was 'cultic'.
- One day later (December 23rd), those 16 corpses are discovered in the Vercors region. On the spot, before everyone else, conducting 54 interviews in 48 hours, 'directing the investigation' and categorically informing the French public that we were dealing with a mass suicide is the government-appointed 'anti-cult psychiatrist' Jean-Marie Abgrall, (the above-mentioned guy who said "we should go ape-shit crazy in these dens of death that are cults. Blow up macrobiotic restaurants, Krishna centers and the rest. Then maybe the public powers would pay more attention.").
- 12 days later (4 January 1996), a major national television station broadcast a prime time special program on cults. Two topics were dealt with: the manipulated report on the agrarian group, who were condemned as a 'cult' for growing large vegetables, and the so-called Vercors 'mass suicide' (allegedly associated with the previous year's Order of the Solar Temple suicides). Jean-Marie Abgrall appeared on the program as an 'anti-cult expert' and was given center stage. Strangely, however, Abgrall forgets to mention that each of the 16 corpses all had several bullets and were burnt with a flame-thrower. (That little detail would only be made public five years later.)
- On January 5th, capitalising on the 'dangerous cults' documentary aired the night before and drawing on 'the list' that was ratified two weeks earlier by seven parliamentarians in 50 minutes, the French gendarmerie and police staged dawn raids on numerous minority movements now classified as 'cults'.
The raids were conducted as a result of 'rogatory commissions' whereby the Ministry of Justice requests the Public Prosecutor's office to instruct local examining magistrates to provide the necessary warrants to the police or gendarmerie to carry out actions for which the PP's office has no obvious justification. In this case, the lack of justification is that no complaint of any kind has ever been made against any of the 'minority movements' about to be raided.
But here's the problem; the 'rogatory commission' process, involving communication back and forth between the Ministry of Justice, the Public Prosecutor's office, the local judges and the police and gendarmerie takes at least 3 weeks. Which means the Ministry of Justice's initial order to open an investigation was issued BEFORE the Vercors 'mass suicide', before the drawing up of 'the list' and before the recording of the TV programme. All three of which contributed greatly to the current hysteria in France over the threat from 'dangerous cults'.
A young Sarkozy with Charles Pasqua
Pasqua is a truly corrupt French politician who was Minister of the Interior under President Mitterand from 1986-88 and 1993-95. Indeed, Pasqua has been involved in several French political and financial scandals and has received suspended jail sentences twice. Two choice quotes by Pasqua sum up his attitude:
"The terrorists must be terrorized."...and:
"Democracy ends where the State's interests begin."In 2004, the state-appointed 'cult-expert' Jean-Marie Abgrall, appears to have had a change of heart when he was quoted by several newspapers as having said that the predecessor of the Order of the Solar Temple - The Renewed Order of the Temple - "had links with Operation Gladio." According to a Reuters dispatch, Alain Leclerc, the lawyer for family members of those murdered in Vercors (who have been lobbying for a new investigation) stated that "Jean-Marie Abgrall has revealed that the Order of the Solar Temple was created and controlled by French and foreign intelligence agencies."
In March 2004, Jean Vuarnet and his son Alain presented new proof to a court judge in Grenoble and once again demanded the re-opening of the inquiry into the events at Vercors. Vuarnet produced a copy of a letter from 21 April 1997 (a year and a half after the murders at Vercors) that was sent from a lawyer's office to a French bank. The letter gave the details of a transfer of almost 2.5 million euros (17 million francs) to the accounts of several French political parties as well as to the account of the Order of the Solar Temple and the Order of Rosicrucians. According to the lawyer for the Vuarnets, this was evidence that external parties, linked to the Order of the Solar Temple massacres, were still pulling strings and transferring money.
Furthermore, according to journalist for Reader's Digest, Joseph Harriss, a Swiss judge called the movement of funds through the Order of the Solar Temple accounts "colossal". Harriss states:
"Behind the pseudo-religious facade and mystical flimflam was a sophisticated operation for managing far-flung financial interests. Numerous companies and associations fronted for the cult, helping mask money flows of millions of dollars through dozens of bank accounts in several countries on three continents. So confusing are Solar Temple dealings that a secret Swiss investigation report called 'Helios', which Reader's Digest has obtained, concludes, "It is impossible for us to say how much money the Order handled."The Canadian police investigating the murders in Quebec (which, strangely enough, occurred at 'Morin Heights') said that they were investigating a money laundering and arms trafficking operation that used the Order of the Solar Temple as a cover. They claimed that the weapons would transit through a 'straw man', for example a General in the army of a third world country (like Angola, for example) and would then be sold on the black market. According to Radio Canada, some of the profits ended up in Australia and that Swiss financial police had asked a bank in Sydney to freeze two accounts containing $186 million. All of which reminds us of the aforementioned Brice Hortefeux and the collecting of suitcases of cash from banks in Switzerland in 1995, right around the time of the Vercors massacre.
Angola's killing fields: For psychopaths in power, no price is too high for the deaths of half a million people
Is there a phrase in French for 'conflict of interest'? Does it mean anything when it involves high-level politicians? More to the point, is there a law in France that prohibits state-sponsored persecution of innocent people in the service of personal, corporate and state interests? Or is Charles Pasqua correct when he proclaims that "democracy ends where the interests of the state begin"?
The salient point here is that the evidence strongly suggests that the entire 'cult' meme in France, along with organisations like MIVILUDES, have been deliberately manufactured, NOT to protect children from abusive cults (because they are extremely rare), but to protect the interests of Big Pharma and Big Agri-business in the form of defaming and attacking any organisations that threaten their monopoly on (often unhealthy) food and medicine. It is simply not in their interest to have healthy people connecting the dots and shining a light on their sordid little world. After all, how would they enrich themselves through arms trafficking and literally get away with murder without a 'suicide cult' as cover?
The truth of the matter is that the 'cult' allegation or suspicion that has been thrown at Sott.net, and has taken hold in many a feeble 'authoritarian follower' mind, has nothing to do with whether or not we're a 'cult', it's just an ad hominem attack - a slur - in an infantile (if potentially effective) effort to destroy our reputation and therefore our work in exposing the duplicity and mendacity of corporate big-wigs and corrupt politicians, not to mention our work in highlighting the very real threat, to the entire planet of 'Earth changes', or 'Climate change', if you prefer.
If what we have outlined in the above paragraph is a reasonably close assessment of the situation, then we have to admit to being utterly amazed at the fecklessness of these 'cult-hunters'. Did they really expect that their unjustified and abusive 'investigation' of us would result in us quietly admitting defeat? Were they really unable to think ahead a little and consider the very real possibility that their attack on us would simply encourage us (and our associates) to engage in a little counter-investigation, and in so doing, that we would inevitably end up exposing, for the English-speaking world, all their dirty little secrets that, until now, have only been available to a limited Francophone audience?
Most of the sources that we used for this report were in French, which made the writing of it a somewhat laborious process. We have to admit to being more than a little dismayed at the fact that no French person has been motivated to try and put these pieces together in the way we have. After all it is the French people's government that is implicated here, it is French society and values that are being corrupted. Then again, even in English there have been precious few people willing or able to look deep down the murky rabbit hole that is the machinations of the global pyschopathic elite. Gary Webb was one, and he was murdered for his efforts.
The bottom line, and the idea that you can definitely 'take to the bank' is that the only cults in this story are the Cult of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the Cult of the Plausible Lie and the Cult of Psychopaths in Power that have destroyed normal human society and created the conditions where charlatans and con artists can freely manipulate the spiritual aspirations of normal people. Today, people are forced to choose between the cult of the spiritual con artist, or the cult of the psychopath's twisted, dystopian version of human society. Based on our scientific analysis of the global situation, based on historical review, the world is, indeed, going to 'end' in 2012 - that is, a totalitarian New World Order is going to fall upon humanity helped along by state anti-cult organisations like MIVILUDES.
Recently we began the process of translating the 2010 MIVILUDES report to the prime minister into English. It is a startling piece of pseudo scientific propaganda that goes a long way to explaining how easily and insidiously fascistic ideals can be spread under the guise of protecting the population. You can read it here.
Only by closing our eyes and crossing our fingers are we able to maintain the illusion that we have any freedom.
Humanity can wail and weep but it because we closed our eyes and dropped our guard that we lost our rights and found slavery instead.