Friday 28 September 2012

'LIBOR Banksters' - The 'UK Financial Services Authority' strolls into (in)action


An apparently hard-hitting report, highlighting the many failings of the 'London Inter-Bank Offered Rate' ('LIBOR'), has now been made public. 




Martin Wheatley


The report's author, Martin Wheatley (the new Managing Director of the Consumer and Markets Business Unit of the Financial Services Authority in the UK) has made the following 'recommendations:'

The introduction of a new regulatory structure for LIBOR, to include criminal sanctions for those who attempt to manipulate it.

The removal of the LIBOR governance role from the British Bankers' Association (BBA).

The inviting of other groups to apply to take over the LIBOR governance role, and to conduct regular audits and propose a new code of conduct.

The encouragement of more banks to submit LIBOR rates to make it more representative.

A modification in some of the technical data upon which LIBOR has previously been fixed.

The holding back from public disclosure of some of LIBOR data for three months, to prevent manipulation.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/uk-britain-fsa-libor-idUKBRE88Q1X420120928

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19748613




At this point, readers of this Blog are reminded that Mr. Wheatley is talking about (what is almost universally-accepted to be) a fundamentally- corrupt system for making mountains of money that a bunch of previously- deaf, dumb and blind, UK financial regulators, and their political masters, have allowed to exist unchallenged for many years, in which a mysterious, variable figure, LIBOR (based on unverified and, therefore, potentially-false, 'estimated data' supplied by, a few previously-unaccountable junior bankers who had been offered substantial financial inducements, 'bonuses,' by a few previously-unaccountable senior bankers, to lie), has been decided each day in London by a few more previously- unaccountable senior bankers, and then used to rig the price of a whole range of ongoing financial transactions around the world. 




These international, LIBOR-polluted transactions total an estimated $US 800 000 000 000 000 dollars (i.e. eight hundred trillions United States dollars) and the LIBOR-rate is known to have been deliberately falsified on literally hundreds of separate occasions. No matter what they have recently steadfastly pretended to be reality, there is absolutely no way that the bosses of the various banks concerned could have been unaware that these monumental criminal acts were being committed by their subordinates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19199683


As ever, I am not at all surprised by the apparent incapacity of senior UK regulators, and their political masters, to grasp how major organized crime functions, because, legalistically, at the present time, no such crime as racketeering exists in Britain. 

That said, Mr. Wheatley worked for the London Stock Exchange for 18 years, 6 of which were spent on its board where he achieved the post of Deputy Chief Executive. During this period, he was closely involved with the controversial, failed merger of the London Stock Exchange and its German equivalent, Deutsche Borse.  Mr. Wheatley also sat on the Listing Authority Advisory Committee of the UK Financial Services Authority. However, he was made redundant in February 2004.
Mr. Wheatley then joined the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission as its Executive Director for Market Supervision. 
In 2006, Mr. Wheatley became Chief Executive Officer of the HKSFC, where he was noted for directing a rigorous campaign (including successful criminal prosecutions) against insider traders.  However, following the collapse of Lehmann Bros., the HKSFC accepted more than HK$6.5bn (US$835m) in investor compensation from 20 banks and brokers who were seeking to settle criminal allegations of mis-selling Lehman-related products. 
Mr. Wheatley announced his resignation from the HKSFC at the end of 2010. His total final payment in that capacity for 2010, was HK$9.09 millions (approximately US$1.2 millions). 
Almost immediately, the UK Financial Services Authority triumphantly announced the appointment of Mr. Wheatley as its new Managing Director of the Consumer and Markets Business Unit (effective from September 2011). On the same day, Her Majesty'sTreasury (the UK finance ministry) announced that Mr. Wheatly would become the CEO designate of the proposed Consumer Protection and Markets Authority (CPMA), one of the two new regulatory bodies to be created from the division of the existing FSA. The CPMA, now known as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is due to be established by the end of 2012. About 3,000 staff from the existing FSA, including virtually all the support functions, will go to the FCA.  Its stated mission is: to 'supervise markets, smaller brokers and advisers and watch how financial institutions of all sizes treat their customers.' 
Mr. Wheatley is also a member of the Financial Stability Board Standing Committee on Standards Implementation, as well as the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Technical Committee. 
Mr. Wheatley has chaired the IOSCO Technical Committee Task Force on Short Selling.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18908879

Meanwhile, various commentators continue to ask:

 What has been the point of having an agency of UK government known as the 'Serious Fraud Office?'



Three months ago, in a brief statement from the UK Serious Fraud Office, the current Director, David Green CB QC, said that he had decided formally to accept the LIBOR case for criminal investigation. The SFO was going to form a 'case team' of lawyers from its permanent staff of around 300, to pursue the investigation. Although it was admitted that this could take several years, an SFO spokesman observed that the remit of the investigation would not be confined to Barclays Bank. Indeed, he said: 

'We don't mention Barclays in our statement, just LIBOR.'

Who shall guard the guards?

The spokesman also failed to mention that SFO lawyers/investigators often have a severe conflict of interest; for no common-sense rule exists which prevents them from leaving law enforcement to take much-more highly-paid jobs in the private sector.  
 





It was also unofficially disclosed that the SFO abandoned its previously-secret plans to investigate the 'LIBOR rate-fixing' scandal in September 2011, mainly for 'budgetary reasons.' Whilst a previous Director of the SFO was recently reprimanded by senior UK High Court Judges for bowing to external pressure and unlawfully taking it upon himself to drop a high-profile fraud, and corruption, case (concerning criminal activities dating back to the 1980s) resulting in the waste of huge amounts of tax-payers' cash.


Sadly, the wider track record of the UK SFO has been even more farcical .


This link will take Blog readers to the external website of the UK Serious Fraud Office 
The Home page (which, like everything at the SFO, has been paid for with UK tax-payers' money) contains the following 'mission statement' (replete with split infinitives):
'Our aim is to protect society from extensive, deliberate criminal deception which could threaten public confidence in the financial system. We investigate fraud and corruption that requires our investigative expertise and special powers to obtain and assess evidence to successfully prosecute fraudsters, freeze assets and compensate victims.'
Now this comic-book narrative of honest SFO heroes locked in a never-ending struggle with dishonest villains (although particularly badly-written), can appear (at first glance) to be perfectly laudable, until you begin to compare it to the adult world of quantifiable reality (i.e. the actual performance figures of the SFO). That said, it is interesting to note that senior SFO officials don't actually claim to be protecting society, only aiming to protect society. Unfortunately, they don't appear to be very good shots.

The SFO's own annual reports reveal that an expensive rampart, apparently built to enforce the criminal law and hold back an invasion of fraud and corruption, has been the legalistic equivalent of the Maginot Line. For a vast, mobile and much-better- financed army of racketeers (escorted by mercenary lawyers), has simply danced round the sedentary line of dunces with law diplomas entrenched at the SFO, as though it wasn't there. In the case of the ongoing, multi-billion dollar 'MLM/Amway income opportunity' fraud, the invaders actually hired former, SFO Deputy Director, Peter Kiernan, to guide them, and I have no doubt that banksters have already recruited similar law enforcement traitors from the amoral ranks of the legal profession.
During the period 2011-2012, the SFO cost British tax-payers about £37 millions whilst the organization added 35 millions pages to its collection of 112 millions electronic documents. During the same period, although agents of the SFO apparently received more than 500 tip-offs, it only prosecuted 20 cases and managed to recover around £50 millions of assets stolen by means of fraud. Of this pathetic figure, virtually nothing went back to the victims.
In reality, although around £2 billions of fraud was reported to UK law enforcement agencies in 2011, no one can evaluate for certain the true level of fraud going unreported. Indeed until 2006, no agency of government even bothered to try. Currently, the best available estimates (from the UK Fraud Authority) are that, during the past several years, at least £50 billions ( that's fifty thousand millions pounds) has been stolen annually from the British economy by means of fraud. However, this still- rapidly-expanding figure has not yet included the titanic 'LIBOR rate-fixing,' or 'MLM income opportunity,' frauds. Thus, when presented as a percentage of the overall damage being caused by fraud in Britain, the UK SFO's quantifiable contribution to law enforcement (i.e. its approximately 0.001% annual recovery rate), has been so insignificant that it is not even worth the mental effort to calculate. 


The SFO's own annual reports have, in fact, been nothing more than an open-invitation to criminals; for these glossy brochures clearly advertise the alarming fact that if you commit a serious fraud in Britain, the chances of being held fully to account, have been effectively-zero.


'Our aim is to protect society from extensive, deliberate criminal deception which could threaten public confidence in the financial system. We investigate fraud and corruption that requires our investigative expertise and special powers to obtain and assess evidence to successfully prosecute fraudsters, freeze assets and compensate victims.'

Even the briefest examination of the quantifiable evidence, reveals that the 'UK Serious Fraud Office,' has been an abject failure, whilst the organization's impressive-sounding 'mission statement,' could have come straight out of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.'

Danny Alexander MP

In the light of all these facts, what exactly did he mean, when Chief Secretary to the UK Treasury, Danny Alexander MP (b. 1972), said (apparently, fully-awake, sober and in all seriousness) that he was delighted to hear that the SFO will be launching an investigation of the 'LIBOR rate-fixing' scandal?

David Brear (copyright 2012)

Wednesday 26 September 2012

'Lyoness' has exhibited the universal identifying characteristics of a cult.

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Readers please note that, as a result of well-informed complaints to Carrefour in France and Lego in Denmark, both these reputable European companies now no longer do business with the 'Lyoness'  racketeers ( Jan 7th, 2013).
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My attention has been drawn to a German language Internet forum, 'KMoney,' where a typical debate is being conducted regarding the ongoing, major, organized crime group hiding behind the banal corporate-front known as 'Lyoness.' Sadly, the debate has so far remained focused on the corporate front, and not on what lurks behind it

http://www.ktipp.ch/themen/beitrag/1049232/Lyoness_Fragwuerdige_Einkaufsgemeinschaft

That said, the administrators of 'KMoney' are already warning their readers to steer well clear of 'Lyoness,' and it appears that the self-appointed bosses of 'Lyoness' are currently facing criminal investigation in Austria and Switzerland

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can immediately deduce that the absurd financial fairy story, entitled 'Lyoness,' which its author has peddled as reality, is far too good to be true. However, various free-thinking contributors to 'KMoney' have also pointed out that 'Lyoness' is not just a simple fraud.

Self-evidently 'Lyoness' is a cult, because the organization has exhibited the universal identifying characteristics of a cult.  As such, 'Lyoness' is neither original nor unique. Consequently, it cannot be fully-understood in isolation. Classically, although it will be difficult for casual observers to accept, when the wider-picture is rigorously examined, 'Lyoness' can be easily compared to all manner of structurally-similar, criminogenic cultic groups, including 'Scientology' and the 'Second Ku Klux Klan.'


Narcissistic racketeer, Hubert Freidl, playing 
the comic-book role of ordinary man turned superman.
L. Ron Hubbard playing the comic-book role of ordinary man turned superman.


It is no exaggeration to say that, due to the amount of money it has already unlawfully generated, the 'Lyoness' lie represents an ongoing threat to democracy and the rule of law. Hubert Freidl, an otherwise mediocre little parasite, should have long-since been recognised as yet another narcissistic racketeer (exactly like L. Ron Hubbard) peddling an illusion of Utopia (built from its victims' money), and all of his stolen wealth confiscated. History teaches us that the more capital deluded charlatans like Hubert Freidl and L. Ron Hubbard, unlawfully acquire: the more dissociated from external reality they (and their deluded core-adherents) can become, whilst the more difficult it becomes to hold them fully to account for their crimes. 



David Brear (copyright 2012)



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'The Universal Identifying Characteristics of a Cult' (David Brear, Axiom Books, copyright 2005):

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Apart from its use in the sense of ‘a popular fashion especially followed by a specific section of society’ or ‘a person or thing popularised in this way,’ the traditional definition of the English noun, cult (Latin cultus worship), has been ‘a system of religious worship (Latin religiosus obligation, bondage) especially as expressed in ritual,’ or ‘devotion or homage to a person or thing.’ However, the word is now also used as shorthand for what is more accurately described as a pernicious cult. This evolving, criminogenic phenomenon can be briefly described as: 

any self-perpetuating, non-rational/esoteric, ritual belief system established or perverted for the clandestine purpose of human exploitation.

Such groups are identified by the following, essential characteristics:  


1). Deception. Pernicious cults are presented externally as traditional associations. These can be arbitrarily defined by their instigators as almost any banal group (‘religious’, ‘cultural’, ‘political’, ‘commercial’, etc.). However, internally, they are always totalitarian (i.e. they are centrally-controlled and require of their core-adherents an absolute subservience to the group and its patriarchal, and/ or matriarchal, leadership above all other persons). By their very nature, pernicious cults never present themselves in their true colours. Consequently, no one ever becomes involved with one as a result of his/her fully-informed consent.


2). Self-appointed sovereign leadership. Pernicious cults are instigated and ruled by psychologically dominant individuals, and/or bodies of psychologically dominant individuals (often with impressive, made-up names, and/or ranks, and/or titles), who hold themselves accountable to no one. These individuals have severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personalities (i.e. they suffer from a chronic psychological disorder, especially when resulting in a grandiose sense of self-importance/ righteousness and the compulsion to take advantage of others and to control others’ views of, and behaviour towards, them).* They steadfastly pretend moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing various, hidden, criminal objectives (fraudulent, and/or sexual, and/or violent, etc.). The admiration of their adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ strong sense of self-entitlement and fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beautyideal love, etc.
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‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder,’ is a psychological term first used in 1971 by Dr. Heinz Kohut (1913-1981). It was recognised as the name for a form of pathological narcissism in ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1980.’ Narcissistic traits (where a person talks highly of himself/herself to eliminate feelings of worthlessness) are common in, and considered ‘normal’ to, human psychological development. When these traits become accentuated by a failure of the social environment and persist into adulthood, they can intensify to the level of a severe mental disorder. Severe and inflexible NPD is thought to effect less than 1% of the general adult population. It occurs more frequently in men than women. In simple terms, NPD is reality-denying, total self-worship born of its sufferers’ unconscious belief that they are flawed in a way that makes them fundamentally unacceptable to others. In order to shield themselves from the intolerable rejection and isolation which they unconsciously believe would follow if others recognised their defective nature, NPD sufferers go to almost any lengths to control others’ view of, and behaviour towards, them. NPD sufferers often choose partners, and raise children, who exhibit ‘co-narcissism’ (a co-dependent personality disorder like co-alcoholism). Co-narcissists organize themselves around the needs of others (to whom they feel responsible), they accept blame easily, are eager to please, defer to others’ opinions and fear being seen as selfish if they act assertively. NPD was observed, and apparently well-understood, in ancient times. Self-evidently, the term, ‘narcissism,’ comes from the allegorical myth of Narcissus, the beautiful Greek youth who falls in love with his own reflection.

Currently, NPD has nine recognised diagnostic criteria (five of which are required for a diagnosis):
  •       has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
  •       is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.
  •       believes that he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by other special people.
  •       requires excessive admiration.
  •       strong sense of self-entitlement.
  •       takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends.
  •       lacks empathy.
  •       is often envious or believes that others are envious of him/her.
  •       arrogant disposition.
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3). Manipulation. Pernicious cults employ co-ordinated, devious techniques of social and psychological persuasion (variously described as: ‘covert hypnosis’, ‘mental manipulation’, ‘coercive behaviour modification’, ‘group pressure’, ‘thought reform’, ‘ego destruction’, ‘mind control’, ‘brainwashing’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘love bombing’, etc.). These techniques are designed to fulfil the hidden criminal objectives of the leaders by provoking in the adherents an infantile total dependence on the group to the detriment of themselves and of their existing family, and/or other, relationships. Pernicious cults manipulate their adherents’ existing beliefs and instinctual desires, creating the illusion that they are exercising free will. In this way, adherents can also be surreptitiously coerced into following potentially harmful, physical procedures (sleep deprivation, protein restriction, repetitive chanting/ moving, etc.) which are similarly designed to facilitate the shutting down of an individual’s critical and evaluative faculties without his/ her fully-informed consent.

4). Radical changes of personality and behaviour. Pernicious cults can be of any size, duration and level of criminality. They comprise groups, and/or sub-groups, of previously diverse individuals bonded by their unconscious acceptance of the self-gratifying, but wholly imaginary, scenario that they alone represent a positive or protective force of purity and absolute righteousness derived from their leadership’s exclusive access to a superior or superhuman knowledge, and that they alone oppose a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil.Whilst this two-dimensional, or dualistic, narrative remains the adherents’ model of reality, they are, in effect, constrained to modify their individual personalities and behaviour accordingly.

5). Pseudo-scientific mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults seek to overwhelm their adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation into their own superior or superhuman knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) will defeat a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption,adherents are drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. failure to achieve redemption is solely the fault of the individual who didn’t believe totally). Cultic pseudo-science is always essentially the same hypnotic hocus-pocus, but it can be peddled in an infinite variety of forms and combinations (‘spiritual’, ‘medical’, ‘philosophical’, cosmological,’extraterrestrial’, ‘political’, ‘racial’, ‘mathematical’, ‘economic’, New-Age’, 'magical', etc.), often with impressive, made-up, technical-sounding names. It is tailored to fit the spirit of the times and to attract a broad range of persons, but especially those open to an exclusive offer of salvation (i.e. the: sick, dissatisfied, bereaved, vanquished, disillusioned, oppressed, lonely, insecure, aimless, etc.). However, at a moment of vulnerability, anyone (no matter what their: age, sex, nationality, state of mental/ physical health, level of education, etc.) can need to believe in a non-rational, cultic pseudo-science. Typically, obedient adherents are granted ego-inflating names, and/or ranks, and/or titles, whilst non-initiates are referred to using derogatory, dehumanizing terms. Although initiation can at first appear to be reasonable and benefits achievable, cultic pseudo-science gradually becomes evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it is completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits are never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of cult proselytizers can be highly infectious and deeply misleading. They are invariably convinced that their own salvation also depends on saving others.

6). Monopoly of information. The leaders of  pernicious cults seek to control all information entering not only their adherents’ minds, but also that entering the minds of casual observers. This is achieved by constantly denigrating all external sources of information whilst constantly repeating the group’s reality-inverting key words and images, and/or by the physical isolation of adherents. Cults leaders systematically categorize, condemn and exclude as unenlightened, negative, impure, absolutely evil, etc. all free-thinking individuals and any quantifiable evidence challenging the authenticity of their imaginary scenarios of control. In this way, the minds of cult adherents can become converted to accept only what their leadership arbitrarily sanctions as enlightened, positive, pure, absolutely righteous, etc. Consequently, adherents habitually communicate amongst themselves using their group’s thought-stopping ritual jargon, and they find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with negative persons outside of their group whom they falsely believe to be not only doomed, but also to be a suppressive threat to redemption.

7). False justification. In pernicious cults, a core-group of adherents can be gradually dissociated from external reality and reformed into deployable agents, and/or de facto slaves, and/or expendable combatants, etc., furthering the hidden criminal objectives of their leaders, completely dependent on a collective paranoid delusion of absolute moral and intellectual supremacy fundamental to the maintenance of their individual self-esteem/identity and related psychological function. It becomes impossible for such fanatics to see humour in their situation or to feel pity for, or to empathise with, non-adherents. Their minds are programmed to interpret the manipulation, and/or cheating, and/or dispossession, and/or destruction, of inferior outsiders (particularly, those who challenge their group’s controlling scenario) as perfectly justifiable.

8). Structural mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults can continue to organize the creation, and/or dissolution, and/or subversion, of further (apparently independent) corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful, activities in order to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from liability. In this way, some cults survive all low-level challenges and spread like cancers enslaving the minds, and destroying the lives, of countless individuals in the process. At the same time, their leaders acquire absolute control over capital sums which place them alongside the most notorious racketeers in history. They operate behind ever-expanding, and changing, fronts of ‘privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial companies,’ and/or ‘non-profit-making associations,’ etc. Other than ‘religious /philosophical’ and ‘political’ movements and ‘secret societies,’ typical reality-inverting disguises for cultic crime are:

‘charity/ philanthropy’; ‘fund-raising’; ‘lobbying’ on topical issues (‘freedom’, ‘ethics’, ‘environment’, ‘human rights’, ‘women’s rights’, ‘child protection’, ‘law enforcement’, ‘social justice’, 'peace,' etc.); ‘publishing and media’; ‘education’; ‘academia’; ‘celebrity’; ‘patriotism’; ‘information technology’; ‘public relations’; ‘advertising’; ‘medicine’; ‘alternative medicine’; ‘nutrition’; ‘rehabilitation’; ‘manufacturing’; ‘retailing’; ‘direct selling/ marketing’; ‘multilevel marketing’; ‘network marketing’; ‘regulation’; ‘personal development’; ‘self-betterment’; ‘positive thinking’; ‘self-motivation’; ‘leadership training’; ‘life coaching’; ‘research and development’; ‘investment’; ‘real estate’; ‘sponsorship’; ‘bereavement/trauma counselling’; ‘addiction counselling’; ‘legal counselling’; ‘cult exit-counselling’; ‘financial consulting’; ‘management consulting’; ‘clubs’; etc. 

9). Chronic psychological deterioration symptoms. The long-term core-adherents of pernicious cults are psychotic (i.e. suffering from psychosis, a severe mental derangement, especially when resulting in delusions and loss of contact with external reality). Core-adherents who manage to break with their group and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For many years afterwards, recovering former core-adherents can suffer from one, or more, of the following psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):

depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness ( asthma, skin disorders, headaches, fatigue, etc.); sexual problems/ fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.

10). Repression of all dissent. The leaders of the most-destructive cults are megalomaniacal psychopaths (i.e. suffering from a chronic mental disorder, especially when resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives). The unconditional deference of their deluded adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ own paranoid delusions. This type of cult leader maintains an absolute monopoly of information whilst perpetrating, and/or directing, evermore heinous crimes. They sustain their activities by the imposition of arbitrary contracts and codes (secrecydenunciation, confession,justice, punishment, etc.) within their groups, and by the use of humiliation, and/or intimidation, and/or calumny, and/or malicious prosecution (where they pose as victims), and/or sophism, and/or the infiltration of traditional culture, and/or corruption, and/or intelligence gathering and blackmail, and/or extortion, and/or physical isolation, and/or violence, and/or assassination, etc., to repress any internal or external dissent.


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A COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO CULTISM 

Who hasn’t heard about cults? The word, ‘cult,’ has been thrown around so often that most of us now take it for granted that we must know exactly what it means. To be honest, very few people have sought out sufficient background material to be able to form the lucid picture of cultism contained in the essential identifying characteristics presented in this booklet. Even the most-diligent news reports have tended to examine individual cultic groups in close-up, leaving the wider phenomenon either out of shot or out of focus. However, in recent years, it has become a matter of public record that, as a result of unprotected exposure to one of an ever-growing and evolving catalogue of apparently diverse and innocent groups, almost anyone can begin to exhibit remarkably uniform symptoms. In everyday terms, it is as though they’ve fallen head over heels in love. Although this initial euphoria is often short-lived, a significant minority will subsequently undergo a nightmarish transformation and recklessly dissipate all their mental, and/or physical, and/or financial, resources to the benefit of some hitherto unknown person(s), whom they continue to trust and follow no matter what suffering this entails. Only when enough victims of one of these latter-day ‘Pied-Pipers’ wind up in psychiatric hospitals or on mortuary slabs is the word, ‘cult,’ liberally applied by the popular press. It is then always revealed that there had been some timely attempt(s) to warn the authorities, but they couldn’t intervene, because, legalistically, cultism does not exist. That said, all cosmopolitan people readily accept that cults most-certainly do exist, but, due to the prevalent style of media coverage, we habitually think of them only as remote, and grotesque, freak-shows.

In my experience, if it is suggested that ‘we should all be on our guard against cultism, because it is actually much closer to us than we like to think,’ the average person is immediately convinced that such an idea is absurd. This instinctual reaction is usually accompanied by one, or more, of the following comments:
                                            
·     ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t born yesterday, a cult couldn’t fool me or anyone in my family… only idiots and weaklings join cults.’

·     ‘In a free society everyone has the right to believe in what they want… if adults decide to hand over their time and money to some charismatic guru, it’s their own business.’


·     ‘One man’s cult is another man’s religion.’


·     ‘I suppose you’re including all the people who believe Elvis is still alive.’


·     ‘Unless they are being physically held as prisoners, adults always have a free-choice to walk away if they don’t like what’s happening to them.’


·     ‘Perhaps some cult members get harmed, but that’s their problem not mine.’


·     ‘Cults have been around for centuries, there’s nothing new to learn about them.’ etc.


Whilst these opinions can all seem valid to the ill-informed, the underlying facts prove them to be nothing more than ego-protecting self-deceptions, which completely miss the point. It’s easy to understand that ‘knowledge itself is power,’ but it’s altogether harder to accept that (by the same token) ignorance is vulnerability. Obviously, cults never announce themselves, but their many disguises continue to adapt to mirror the changing spirit of the times. Throughout the ages, a dangerous minority of mythomaniacs, charlatans and would-be demagogues have always been able to get their human prey to sail blindly into positions of subjection, by first bedazzling them with all manner of false beacons which seemed so welcoming and authentic that the majority of people could not have been expected to determine exactly what was lurking behind them. Even though most of us want to deny it, at a moment of weakness all of us can need to listen to the latest cultic voice of insanity; especially when it appeals to our existing beliefs and instinctual desires, and originates from the apparent face of reason. To casual observers, the phenomenon might seem to be a ridiculous anachronism, but cultism or occultism has survived the tide of history and continues to wreck countless lives, simply because its instigators keep updating the lyrics of their siren song. Totalitarianism itself is enduring, its camouflage is ephemeral.

Young children’s unconscious acceptance of ‘Santa Claus’ as total reality, stems from a fictitious scenario reflected as fact by the traditional culture in which they live. Up to a certain age, children are not equipped to challenge the model of reality offered to them by authoritarian figures within their family groups; particularly, their parents. Therefore, once children have been converted to a self-gratifying, non-rational belief in ‘Santa,’ the truth (that they are actually being deceived by the people whom they instinctively trust and follow) is unthinkable. The scenario can then be expanded to modify children’s behaviour — ‘Santa’ has magical powers… he can see and hear everything they do at all times… he will reward them for unquestioning belief and punish them for dissent. Only when they attain the necessary level of intellectual/psychological development, can children begin to use their critical and evaluative faculties and come to realise that ‘Santa’ is merely a game of make believe. If you think about it, what I’ve just described is the most elementary form of self-perpetuating, non-rational/esoteric, ritual belief system - perfectly tailored to fit infantile minds, and reliant on the maintenance of an absolute monopoly of information presented using a constant repetition of reality-inverting key words and images combined with pseudo-scientific mystification and closed-logic.

When analysed with the same level of intellectual rigour, many of the basic procedures and conditions required to establish cultic groups turn out not to be a mystery at all. They are revealed as only more-sophisticated versions of those which also propagate the benign ‘Santa’ deception. As such, they are frighteningly easy to replicate. However, the instigators of cults are anything but benign and, interestingly, many of their most-deluded subjects and convincing apologists turn out to be well-educated adults who have simply become incapable of facing the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been fooled by what is merely a game of make believe. No sane person would ever suggest trying to ban ‘Santa,’ and everyone lies to their children at some time to modify their behaviour, but consider the variety of destructive behaviour that an authoritarian adult (with hidden criminal objectives) could get dependent children to follow by exploiting their unconscious acceptance of the same imaginary, but nonetheless emotionally and intellectually overwhelming, narrative as total reality. The unpalatable truth is that, just by perverting the closed-logic rules of the game, anything - from theft by proxy to sexual, and/or violent, abuse - becomes possible.


Prior to publication, a number of people were given unfinished copies of this booklet to appraise. Although no reader could refute its content, the reactions of a minority were split into two groups; these were as different as chalk and cheese. Those who had already survived a direct personal experience of cultism devoured it. Others, who had never knowingly encountered the phenomenon, found the booklet less easy to digest; they generally described its tone as ‘alarmist.’ One man (a middle-aged, American academic) was sure that it had been written by a naïve soul who had suddenly discovered the world to be a cruel place, and who now wanted to shout about it. Several years ago, when I was naïve, I might have agreed with him. In fact, I now blush when I remember a conversation I once had with a senior citizen of the Czech republic (a survivor of rule by the ‘Nazi’ and ‘Soviet’ myths), in which I coolly dismissed his passionate contention that any country whose own citizens mistakenly believed themselves to be immune to totalitarianism, faced the greatest risk of from it. Today, in the light of a traumatic personal encounter in Europe with the large, American-based cultic group known as 'Amway,' I have come to understand that I could not have been more wrong. However, many of the crass opinions which cultism continues to attract are completely predictable, because, even as adults, we all instinctively want to shut out of our minds any information that disturbs our habitual model of the world. Sadly, anyone who searches for the truth about cultism, and who then speaks plainly, is forced to ask a lot of people to think the unthinkable; so I make no apologies for this.

Another man started to read the booklet and decided that it contained ‘intemperate language.’ He felt sure that it was  ‘going to be a sermon’ in which I would ‘attempt to impose ideas of morality’ on him. That opinion made me go back to my original text and remove any suggestion of preaching, because that’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t pretend to be perfect, and I fully recognise that morality is only what is generally regarded as an acceptable standard of behaviour by whatever culture we live in. I tried to base my investigation of cultism on quantifiable evidence, and my analysis on rules made by democratic institutions defining what is criminal, and/or unethical. I didn’t invent this evidence or write these rules, but I couldn’t escape the fact that cultism involves the subversion of traditional codes of morality. Like my wise Czech acquaintance, I have had the dubious privilege of witnessing for myself how unsuspecting individuals can be tricked into entering a counterfeit culture in which their existing perceptions of right and wrong are overturned and then made absolute. As a result, I now accept that apparently rational persons can suddenly abandon all reason and allow themselves to be systematically abused, exploited and even slaughtered whilst participating in the systematic abuse, exploitation and slaughter of others. In short, I am describing how it is possible to enslave any human being, but without the use of chains. This, in itself, is an ego-destroying reality which, self-evidently, many onlookers will wish to deny. However, when this reality is faced, at first it can become impossible to find appropriate words (other than expletives) to describe the results of cultism. Even presiding judges, in related cases, have felt it necessary to deliver verdicts using emotive terms such as ‘evil,’ ‘sinister,’ ‘depraved,’ ‘obnoxious,’ etc., to express publicly their own private outrage. Unfortunately, many other well-intentioned people have been, and continue to be, completely fooled by the seductive words and images shielding the instigators of cultism. The great paradox of the phenomenon is that persons under cultic influence will steadfastly claim to be absolutely righteous, even when all the quantifiable evidence proves their behaviour to be (at best) misguided, or (at worst) downright evil. Although they are demonstrably dissociated from external reality, cult adherents are always certain that they alone represent the ‘truth’ and they act accordingly.

In this booklet, I have tried to demystify cultism by using an accurate, deconstructed vocabulary to describe the phenomenon. As a result of my own extensive investigation, I am entirely satisfied that all groups exhibiting the essential characteristics given previously, are manifestations of the same problem. The historical evidence has led me to the inescapable conclusion that the only real differences between cults are the exact motives and mental state of their leaders, and the length of time they survive before they face a well-informed and determined challenge.

Cultism is a trap. Obviously, anyone who only examines the bait in a trap and who remains unaware of its true purpose, risks getting caught themselves. Just like a mousetrap, the basic design for the cultic trap has remained the same down the centuries even if the presentation of the bait has become evermore sophisticated. Sadly, many commentators have found it impossible - when faced with the apparently illogical results of cultism - to abandon their existing academic, and professional, disciplines, which are anchored in the logic of the traditional world. Consequently, their understanding has often been made impossible by misplaced objectivity. However, it must be remembered that a counterfeit banknote might be 99.9 % perfect, but the bit that is not makes all of it a fake. Similarly, in order to have any chance of understanding cultism, it must be approached from the apparently subjective point of view that its results are always the product of a contagious deception, the victims of which unconsciously accept fiction as fact. Only then, can the phenomenon be examined with genuine objectivity. Once this vital principle has been learned, the apparently authentic words and images reflected by persons under the influence of cultism - like those printed on counterfeit banknotes - are revealed as dangerous distractions. They should never be taken at face value and, therefore, I try to remind the reader of this at all times. Any commentator who repeats the reality-inverting shielding-terminology of any cultic group, but without detailed qualification (or heavy irony), demonstrates that he/she remains at a pitifully low-level of understanding.


In truth, if it wasn’t for its tragic consequences, then cultism would be nothing more than a sick joke. However, until an individual is confronted by a nightmarish change in the personality and behaviour of a loved-one, then they can never really appreciate the full horror of the phenomenon. I realised a long time ago that there are always some people who will never be able to accept what I describe, because, for them to do so, they would have to abandon too many self-deceptions supporting their own view of themselves. Like many others before me, a soul-destroying experience with members of my own family forced me to abandon most of mine. Then, through close contact with the survivors of various cults and my research into the deeper origins of ‘Nazism’ and the ‘New Global Terrorism,’ I came to the further, inescapable conclusion that it is actually impossible to exaggerate the potential menace posed by the creators of these counterfeit cultures, or their significance to the history and future of civilization. I then found great comfort in the opinions of some of my critics, because the people who first tried to warn the world of the horror lurking behind an apparently absurd, little gang of sanctimonious charlatans - calling themselves the ‘National Socialist German Workers Party’ and led by a hitherto unknown, German Army veteran playing the comic-book role of ordinary man turned superman - were also dismissed as ‘alarmists.’


Whilst it remains generally misunderstood, cultism will continue to be an unnecessary threat to the lives, liberty and happiness of all communities, families and individuals all over the world.


David Brear (copyright 2012)