The strange case of the 'Group of Thebes"
Paris, June 3 1990: In a hall of the Grand Orient de France (GOF), the most important Masonic observance beyond the Alps, the official founding of an occult esoteric group took place. It was called the Group of Thebes, but will only become known three years later thanks to a press release revealing its name and composition. The latter is very interesting because it involved a peculiar acolyte. The lynchpin of the group was Rémi Boyer, a representative of the magical Order of the Rosicrucians (AMORC). Boyer had already founded 'Arc-en-ciel', an association of occult and New Age groups (including Sri Chinmoy, the Grande Loge indépendante des rites unis, the Institut pour une synthèse planètaire, the Ordre Chevaleresque de la Rose-Croix, the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual University). The Group of Thebes was thus Boyer's second creation, dedicated to a smaller and presumably higher group of 'initiates'. It is therefore noteworthy that among the latter was the very Catholic Massimo Introvigne, a prominent figure of Alleanza Cattolica and founder and director of the Centro Studi Nuove Religioni (CESNUR) for two years. The lawyer, who was caught in this embarrassing situation by a French magazine, will claim to have been admitted as a scholar. A claim that might convince those who are not familiar with the workings of an esoteric society. Indeed, initiatory orders proceeds for hierarchical levels of knowledge sanctioned by special rites of passage. It is therefore unlikely that an initiatory group would accept an uninitiated scholar among its high-ranking esotericists. Among other things, the group was even secret from the Freemasons of the Grand Lodge, and also from the "Alexandria Group", which acted as a nursery to attract new members to the more occult circle. Introvigne, who had only been involved with spiritual movements for two years, would have entered this circle directly, and the high initiates, who did not break secrecy even with "brothers" of the high degrees, would have welcomed him to be studied by a profane. In response to the criticism levelled at him by the traditionalist magazine 'Sodalitium', our man finally let it be known that he was one of the founders of the Group of Thebes. However, it is not untrue that the Thebes Group was a study group. The various esoteric realities there should have been compared in order to define which groups really fulfil the criteria of the Tradition.
This of course requires advanced knowledge, in the initiatory sense, from all members.
Introvigne was not the only Italian; there were others. One of them was a no less anomalous presence. It was Paolo Fogagnolo, a former member of the 'Brigate Rosse' (Red Brigades), a communist terroristic organisation, to whom the "Madonna", or rather the Sefira, the equivalent of the Virgin in the esoteric tradition, had appeared. He had therefore turned to esotericism and founded the group 'Prometheus', which was dedicated to the Egyptian mysteries. The group was recognised by various magical orders, including the Ordo Templi Orientis). This is the hermetic order made famous by Aleister Crowley, who called himself "the Beast 666" and is regarded as the founder of modern occultism and a source of inspiration for Satanism. Crowley had sympathies for the Nazis.
In addition to the traditionalist Catholic and the former terrorist who saw the Mother of God, there were some interesting personalities. One of the pillars of the group of Thebes was Jean-Pierre Giudicelli. He is a Corsican independentist, right-wing extremist and former member of the neo-fascist groups Ordre Nouveau (inspired by the Italian group Ordine Nuovo, responsible for the massacres in Italy) and Troisieme Voie (disbanded by the Council of Ministers). The latter, former head of the French section of the Order of Myriam, an organisation dedicated to sexual magic, later became bishop of the Church of the New Alliance. Other members were Jean-Marie Vergerio of the Order of the Templars of Circe, Robert Amadou, parapsychologist and occultist, Rosicrucian, Triantaphyllos Kotzamanis, Freemason, Bishop of the Gnostic Apostolic Church and Rosicrucian, Gérard Kloppel, Freemason and Martinist, Jean-Pascal Ruggiu, Grand Hierophant of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (a magical order also linked to Aleister Crowley), Georges Magne de Cressac and Jean-Marie D'Asembourg, well-known right-wing extremists.
So far, the most presentable members have been listed. According to some French outlets, one of the members was the historian Robert Faurisson, the most famous Holocaust denier. However, Massimo Introvigne scornfully and firmly denies this claim, stating that he never saw him at the group's meetings (and adds that if Faurisson had been there, he would have left). Introvigne is keen to express his opposition to holocaust denialism. The Italian does not show the same contempt for a member whose presence is instead certain: Christian Bouchet. The latter is a Nazi-Maoist (or, as they say in France, a Mao-Maurrassien). He was active in several neo-fascist groups and joined the Groupement de Recherche et d'Études pour la Civilisation Européenne (GRECE) in the early 1980s. GRECE is an anti-Christian and neo-pagan group in favour of identity and sovereignty. An expert on the English magician Aleister Crowley, Bouchet was a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). He is also a member of the white supremacist cult World Church of the Creator, also known as the Creativity Movement. He is also the editor of several magazines. These include 'Lutte du Peuple', which can be categorised as 'neo-Nazi'. Remy Boyer replied to a journalist who asked him how he could include a character like Bouchet in the group
when adventurers, the great travellers, set off to tackle the Himalayas, they know that above 4000 metres, everyone they meet is inevitably their friend. No matter what they were in the valley.
Bouchet was a speaker at the international CESNUR conference in Santa Barbara in 1991 and four times in France in 1992. CESNUR and Bouchet were clearly above 4000 metres.
Figure 99 - Jean-Pierre Giudicelli, Christian Bouchet and Robert Faurisson
Surprisingly, 'Secrets et sociétés', a small confidential newsletter specialising in the life of cults, reported in great detail on a disagreement between Bouchet and Ruggiu (the two had clashed because Bouchet had published part of the Golden Dawn ritual in his magazine 'Thelema'). Rémi Boyer picked up the phone and called the editor-in-chief of Secrets et sociétés, Arnaud d'Apremont. It is not known what the two talked about or how the newsletter learnt of the internal disagreements within the group, but the two became friends. Behind d'Apremont, however, was Arnaud Dupont, a militant right-wing extremist, as well as the director of the newsletter, Philippe-André Duquesne. The aim of the two men was to build bridges between right-wing extremist networks and the small world of esoteric groups and secret societies. The project stemmed from Duquesne and Apremont's shared experience in the ranks of GRECE, the same neo-pagan group as Bouchet. The extreme right has indeed appropriated the pagan tradition to make it the basis of a new fascist thought. The idea is to destroy the concept of equality associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. The plan of the two editors of the newsletter to infiltrate the group to make it a node of the fascist network was certainly successful since D'apremont revealed to the journalist Serge Faubert that he and Massimo Introvigne were planning to create an esoteric magazine together.
Agostino Sanfratello, one of the founders of Alleanza Cattolica (see the Fascists, spies and gurus. 4. The black network), explains perfectly how it is possible for seemingly opposing souls such as Catholic traditionalism and neo-paganism to coexist. We remember that he is close to the neo-fascist Franco Freda. The latter, a self-proclaimed 'Nazi-Maoist', was convicted for the explosives attacks of 25 April 1969 and those on trains the following summer, which were carried out as part of the so-called strategy of tension. He was later convicted of subversive association for founding the Gruppo di Ar. Freda is also the editor of 'Edizioni Ar'. In the manifesto of the Ar Group he writes:
We are for an Aristocracy that is a radical rejection of the egalitarian model [...] We are for a traditional concept of existence in which the exaggerated and abnormal suggestions of society and the economy give way to the heroic values of the spirit understood as Honour, Hierarchy and Loyalty'.
In 1983, to mark the 20th anniversary of the publishing house, Freda published 'Risguardo IV', a special edition of his journal containing numerous contributions, including one by Sanfratello. In this text, the ultra-Catholic, founder of Alleanza Cattolica and one of the main protagonists of the Confraternity of St Pius X, turned against the comrades rebelling against the neo-pagan current of the New Right by invoking the "plurality of traditions' and the 'convergence in the common struggle'.
Marco Pasi commented on Introvigne's speech at a conference on the "roots and development of contemporary paganism" in Lyon in the right-wing magazine "Orion" with these words:
Thus, in his first speech, Introvigne explicitly said that accepting an invitation to a conference on neo-paganism, where a confrontation with 'neo-pagans' was planned, was 'not only a pleasure but also a duty', at a time when the report of the commission of enquiry [of the French parliament] described neo-paganism as socially dangerous because it was widespread in racist and anti-Semitic far-right circles."
(in 'Esoterismo e nuova religiosità', in Orion, Milan, March-April 1996, p. 51 ff.)
Figures 100 and 101 - Agostino Sanfratello and Franco Freda
Tradition, perennialism and Far Right
We have said that in the group of Thebes different esoteric realities should have been compared in order to define which groups really fulfil the criteria of Tradition. It is therefore necessary to briefly explain the relationship between traditionalism, esotericism and right-wing political thought, i.e. the constituent elements of the group just analysed.
Traditionalism assumes the existence of a perennial wisdom or philosophy, of original and universal truths that are the source of and shared by all major world religions. According to the representatives of traditionalism, all major world religions are based on common original and universal metaphysical truths. The perspective of their authors is often referred to as "philosophia perennis" (perennial philosophy). There would then exist a perennial wisdom (sophia perennis) and a perennial religion (religio perennis).
According to the traditionalists, this truth has been lost in the modern world due to the rise of novel secular philosophies dating back to the Italian Renaissance and led to the to the Enlightenment, and modernity itself is seen as an abnormality. The breakdown of natural hierarchies, egalitarianism and disregard for the sacred are part of this abnormality. This constitutes reactionary thinking and gives rise to a first link between the political right and traditionalism. In addition to right-wing culture, the traditionalists' perennialism is closely linked to esotericism. Indeed, esotericism refers to the supposed ability to access the intimate and unified core of a truth that transcends external appearances. Every religion would have an esoteric component from which it emerges.
By transitive relation, right-wing culture is linked to esotericism.
The access to truth permitted by esoteric research involves an initiation and a step-by-step discovery. Exoteric (external) and esoteric (internal) characters can coexist in the same doctrine: instead of excluding each other, they can complement each other. The same doctrine may have an esoteric and an exoteric component; or the same teaching may be given an exoteric interpretation, open to all, and a deeper esoteric one, the preserve of the initiated only. The most famous example of an esoteric order in the West is Freemasonry.
The best known exponent of traditionalism was the French René Guénon, but for the purposes of our discourse the Italian Julius Evola is more important. He was influenced by Guénon but from whom he departed on many points. In fact, he was the one who exerted the greatest influence on the far right-wing movements in France and Italy, especially in the "years of lead". The terrorists of Ordine Nuovo were devoted to pagan-type rituals with animal sacrifices. Some fringe slipped into magic and occultism (You can read Stefania Limiti, Potere Occulto. Dal fascismo alle stragi di mafia la lunga storia criminale italiana, Milan, 2022).
After Evola, Traditionalism provided the ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces, also in post-Soviet Russia. So, Steve Bannon, former Donald Trump adviser and Aleksandr Dugin, informal adviser to Vladimir Putin, can both be included in the same club, that of Evola's admirers, and have therefore interacted with each other on the basis of their common interests.
CESNUR in action
The Group of Thebes is undoubtedly very heterogeneous. Despite its obvious exoteric diversity (there is the Catholic, the neo-pagan, the sovereignist, the terrorist, the red-brown, etc.), the members of the Group of Thebes are nevertheless united, because they are representatives of reaction and traditionalism. In practise, it is a group of extreme right-wing esotericists.
Indeed, the composition of the Group appears to be similar to that of the French branch of CESNUR, now extinct. The board of the Introvigne study centre included Antoine Faivre, right-wing Freemason, occultist, martinist and editor-in-chief of the esoteric magazine "Cahiers Villard de Honnecourt", Olivier-Louis Séguy, Freemason and right-wing extremist with links to the Front National, Roland Edighoffer, Freemason and Rosicrucian, and Jean-Francois Mayer, a militant right-wing extremist in Lyon, former sales manager of the denialist newspaper 'Défense de l'Occident', member of the neo-fascist movement Nouvel Ordre Social, a contributor to the esoteric magazine 'Politica Hermetica' and 'Panorama des idees actuelles', a magazine of the neo-pagan group GRECE, as well as an agent of the Swiss military secret service. Régis Ladous, a historian with occult interests, was also a member of CESNUR's board of directors. The latter was at the centre of a scandal involving the University of Lyon when student Jean Plantin received an excellent grade from Ladous in 1990 for a thesis denying the Holocaust.
In 1992, the conference 'Magical Challenges' took place in Lyon, organised jointly by the University of Lyon II and CESNUR. Regis Ladous did not speak as a representative of CESNUR, but as a professor at the University of Lyon III. Other speakers included the indefatigable Massimo Introvigne, Bruno Geras, Rector of the University of Lyon III, and other emblematic figures of CESNUR. Among them was Christian Bouchet, the neo-Nazi who is also a member of the Thebes group.
In 2001, Serge Garde wrote in 'L'Humanité':
Massimo Introvigne's CESNUR acts as a bridge between the sects and the far right, starting from their university bases. In Lyon, but also in Paris. The president of CESNUR-France, Antoine Faivre, is a professor at the École pratique des hautes études en sciences religieux at the Sorbonne. This small world knows each other, works together, publishes and helps each other. This is how the activist Christian Bouchet became a doctor of ethnology in 1994, after defending his dissertation with Robert Amadou, professor at Paris 7, chronicler of '"Original", an esoteric series in which Massimo Introvigne and Christian Bouchet are rampaging. Régis Ladous is published by Jean-François Mayer, among others.
(Bold mine)
'L'originel' is the magazine of Charles Antoni, who claims to specialise in 'traditional sciences' but is in fact an occultist. It was around this magazine that the group was reformed in practise. In short, CESNUR , some esoteric groups and the Group of Thebes overlap. The structures have different functions, but the characters are often the same.
To better understand the role of CESNUR, let us begin with the testimony of criminologist Jean-Marie Abgrall before the Belgian parliamentary committee of enquiry into cults (1997):
A few years ago, the cults joined together in FIREPHIM, the International Federation of Minority Religions and Philosophies, a kind of mutual assistance treaty between the cults in the event that one of them is incriminated or threatened. Just as FIREPHIM (NDR: association created in 1992 on the initiative of Scientology, the Unification Church and the Raelian Movement to 'defend new religious movements') was quickly exposed, the cults have created a parallel structure, the CESNUR, the Centre for the Study of New Religions, whose director, Massimo Introvigne, is a professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, which belongs to the Vatican. This Athenaeum was founded by the Legionaries of Christ, a movement that is close to the European far right, or more precisely to a fundamentalist Catholic extreme right. At this moment, all European cults are trying to obtain a kind of moral, public and political guarantee. Introvigne himself is also responsible for a structure called Alleanza Cattolica, the Roman equivalent of TFP Tradition-Family-Property, a far-right cult.
(Bold mine)
Abgrall's statement is imprecise in its temporal definition, since CESNUR was founded in 1988 and FIREPHIM in 1992, so that the Italian organisation cannot be considered as the answer at the end of the French one, but the description of their functions is valid.
The 1999 report of the French commission of enquiry on sects states:
The presence of dominant characteristics in different organisations raises the problem of the existence of a "cross-sectoral" structure that would be responsible for ensuring the defence and coordinating the different movements. Several examples of co-operation between cults have been brought to the Commission's attention. Several organisations play an open role in the coordination of the cults. The Centre for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) - under the direction of Mr Massimo Introvigne - has been a platform for the defence of sectarianism for several years... In particular, CESNUR has launched a campaign to denigrate the work of the former [parliamentary] commission of enquiry.
Traditionalist Catholics defending cults...no stranger than Catholics who ally themselves with neo-pagans...
According to Stephen Kent of the University of Alberta, CESNUR is "the highest-profile lobbying group for controversial religions" and its director is said to be "[a] fierce critic of any rational attempt to identify or restrict so-called 'cults,' who has spoken out against what he sees as intolerance towards 'minority religions,' particularly in Belgium, France and Germany.
Double truth and noble lie
It is well known that Alleanza Cattolica has followed the doctrine of the Tradition, Family and Property from the very beginning (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 4. The black network). According to the historian Orlando Fedeli, who has been a member for thirty years, Tradition, Family and Property would be a millenarian and gnostic cult. There would be an external doctrine and a secret teaching reserved for the highest levels of knowledge.
De Oliveira's 'esoteric' teachings, which can also be read in the magazine 'Dr Plinio', directed by Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, focused on the 'metaphysical superiority' of the nobility, especially the South American landed gentry. One can see how this faithfully traces both the Platonic hierarchy of human beings and the Gnostic idea that salvation is reserved solely for the 'spiritual' (and condemnation partly for the 'psychic' and entirely for the 'ilical'). The TFP's anti-egalitarianism engenders in its activists a contempt for class, a taste for luxury and idleness.
In the Joyeux report on the TFP school in Saint Benoit, France, we read that hardness of heart and undisguised hatred of ordinary people characterise the daily behaviour of the majority of TFP activists. Everything that has to do with luxury, glamour and idleness is seen as counter-revolutionary and triggers a sense of pride that stems from the feeling of belonging to a destined elite. Since the revolutionary mentality is characterised by a virulent glorification of pauperism, the TFP acts by systematically claiming the opposite.
A TFP activist once said to a young Frenchman visiting Brazil: 'It's good to get up late in the morning because it goes against the revolutionary spirit that drives activism'. Since most TFP activists do not have to keep a schedule and do not have a job, they can lead a sweet life (p. 46 of the report).
To understand De Oliveira's elitism, it is enough to know that he never supported 'integrism', the Brazilian version of fascism, because he considered it too 'interclassist' and 'socialist' and not open to the demands of the metaphysical superiority of the landed aristocracy.
The result of this thinking is authoritarian-conservative in politics, pro-free market in economics and gnostic-millenaristic in the spiritual realm.
Its Italian expression Alleanza Cattolica was originally propagated by the Veronese magazine 'Carattere'. The Catholicism of 'Carattere' had its points of reference in Papini, Attilio Mordini, Domenico Giuliotti and Silvano Panunzio; it was a Catholicism that pursued the 'chivalrous path of an aristocratic and Ghibelline Christianity'. In short, it was well prepared to embrace the vision of Dr Plinio. Not only that, it pursued a 'traditionalism' that we might call ' Christian esotericism" (see here), i.e. not even in opposition to those who seek "tradition" in the myth of the heights of the spirit that preceded the Fall, i.e. the decadent era, the "Kali Yuga" described by Julius Evola, who is indeed among those who are appreciated by Alleanza Cattolica. The fact that Evola was pagan and anti-Christian did not seem to bother the founder of Alleanza Cattolica, Giovanni Cantoni, as he praised him as one of "the "prophets of the crisis of the modern world"; immediately afterwards he added, among other things: "In our opinion, only one person has said what needed to be said and could be said: René Guénon". Evola and Guenon were both esotericists and expressions of a traditionalism that is a "revolt against the modern world" and an anti-egalitarian differentialism. The convergence in the above-mentioned common struggle.
It has been seen that Tradition, Family and Property embraced American neoconservatism in the 1980s (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 4. The black network). At the suggestion of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Paul Weyrich founded the International Policy Forum (IPF), an alliance of conservative associations that laid the foundations for the emergence of a transnational New Right. Paul Weyrich also founded the Heritage Foundation, the Free Congress Foundation, which he chaired, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). We know that these organisations, along with dozens of other 'libertarian' organisations that see religious freedom and economic freedom as inseparable - paradigmatically, the Acton Institute calls itself "for the Study of Religion and Liberty" - form an important operational arm of the US soft power. The tactic is that of 'entryism', i.e. the colonisation of the media, the academy, and the parties, in order to steer the masses in a counter-revolutionary direction. Alleanza Cattolica (and CESNUR) is participating in this strategy.
Emanuele Del Medico writes:
The goals set by this 'counter-revolutionary apostolate' relate above all to the struggle against secularism, the rewriting of historical memory and the control of the ideological production of the Italian right through the creation of a narrow intellectual elite from which the future ruling class would emerge. The 'establishment of the kingship of Christ also over human societies' would be expressed in the restoration of traditional hierarchies within the framework of a society of order in which religion would once again assume a predominant role in social control and the legitimisation of political and economic power. The access of representatives of AC to the upper echelons of Berlusconi's coalition does not appear to be a novelty: the politicians Riccardo Pedrizzi, Alfredo Mantovano and Michele Vietti are part of it. The underlying project is not so much to uphold the banner of Catholic traditionalism, but to establish a hyper-conservative neoliberal right wing on the model of that in the United States
(Bold mine)
As a critic "from the right" of the TFP's epigones, Luigi Copertino, writes, "The thought and above all the financial resources of American neoconservatism, which reach as far as Europe, have succeeded where flowery theological and philosophical treatises have failed: namely, the feat of converting to Americanism, with extreme and suspicious rapidity, large sections of Catholic traditionalism that until yesterday resisted anything that seemed modern and liberal and therefore American," underestimating that the Catholic neoconservative who espouses the reasons for Euro-American cultural unity "accepts to move ideally in a Protestant rather than a Catholic context." In truth, this acceptance of moving in a Protestant context had already manifested itself in the TFP in the 1970s, when one of the organisation's top figures, José Lùcio de Araùjo Correa, suggested to a fierce anti-Catholic, the Reverend Carl McIntire, that they work together to "fight progressive Christianity, secular modernisation and communism" (Cowan, 2001, p. 154). This deep aversion to progressive drift enabled McIntire to overcome his deep aversion to Catholicism, and TFP to overcome McIntire's anti-Catholicism. Overcoming theological and ideological differences in pursuit of a common goal is thus the hallmark of the counter-revolutionary network and will indeed be the hallmark of the work of Introvigne and CESNUR, an organisation born from a rib of an ultra-Catholic group and ready to protect non-Catholic cults from the criticism of those who carry the values of modernity.
The same conversion from anti-Americanism to Atlanticism that we have seen in the TFP had taken place in European neo-fascism through the OAS and the Aginter presse (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 3. The black network).
It is therefore interesting to look at the roots of the idea that Alleanza Cattolica and the board of CESNUR have embraced so passionately, namely the neoconservative movement of America. Leo Strauss is considered, rightly or wrongly, to be their inspiration. Strauss believed that all great writers wrote in a form distorted for the common people, an 'exoteric' form, and that the clues to the 'esoteric' truth had to be found between the lines. This truth was reserved for those who could bear it, such as the disciples chosen by the Master, whom he called "hoplites". This truth consisted of the nihilistic realisation that the only truth is nothingness and that all moral principles are empty and meaningless. The 'exoteric', external message, on the other hand, consisted precisely in these 'natural moral values'. The authentic philosopher must despise the beliefs of the people, but in public he must pretend to believe in the myths and illusions concocted for the use of the masses, he must conceal this contempt and in reality be the spokesman of moral values suitable for the masses: religion, democracy, justice.
Once again, lessons reserved for the elect, elitism, counter-revolution.
Strauss, who, like de Oliveira, adopts an anti-egalitarian and aristocratic perspective, enters into polemics with modernity and democratic concepts by explicitly resorting to the "noble lie" and affirming the need to use religion as a rhetorical device to manipulate and control the masses. It is the doctrine of "double truth", the first legitimisation of which comes from a thinker very dear to certain elitists, Plato. In his 'ideal city', the aristocracy of spirit and thought is legitimised to use deception for moral, educational and political purposes:
[...] God, when he created you, mixed gold into the generation of those among you who can exercise power, so that they are the most valuable; into that of the guards silver; iron and bronze into that of the farmers and craftsmen.[...] the city will perish when it is protected by a defender of iron or bronze.
As it turns out, the members of TFP feel like they are made of gold, probably their epigones too. The TFP, its Italian sister organisation and the study centre derived from them, in the wake of the overlapping elitist thinking of Correa de Oliveira and Strauss, seem to have embraced the duplicity that every Platonic builder of 'caretaker governments' recommends.
So when we highlight the duplicity of CESNUR, since it is the front office of a traditionalist Catholic organisation and at the same time a centre that produces studies for the benefit of the cults furthest removed from Catholicism, we are not talking about logical paradoxes or personality splits, not even the banal lie of mercenaries hired by the cults, but about double truth and noble lies.
It is not surprising that it is considered morally acceptable to resort to lying 'ad usum populi', to profess the values of a democratic and liberal society that one inwardly despises. The fact that these values are despised by the CESNUR leadership is clear from the much-cited genealogy of the study centre. That it is a 'legitimate' imposture to pose as defenders of religious freedom becomes clear when one considers the Platonism inherent in this genealogy.
When a law against mental manipulation was passed in France in 2001, Introvigne wrote a "manifesto" with advice on how to defend oneself against it. Point 1 was entitled "Trying to understand the law in the French context" and made it clear that the defence of religious freedom that CESNUR proposes is still perfectly embedded in the counter-revolutionary project. Indeed, the author wrote that a good starting point for understanding the French law is to realise that "the French are truly convinced that the eradication of religious belief is desirable and possible". It is this theoretical conspiracy that CESNUR is responding to. The enemy is still Robespierre.
Point 2 is entitled 'Supporting internal and European litigation'. In other words: Intervention in the media, in the courts and even in supranational bodies such as the OSCE and the UN to protect the rights of 'new religious movements' from persecution by a phantom 'anti-cult movement'. In practise, this is an action of institutional lobbying and cultural influence.
This is precisely the mission of the international network of associations for the defence of 'religious freedom", made up of non-governmental organisations linked to Scientology and other cults, but also American neo-conservative foundations, very reminiscent of the Birch Society, which acted as a link for the Aginter presse, including that of the aforementioned Atlas Network or the Rutherford Institute, with which CESNUR has a historical acquaintance. The 'cult apologists' form a network of interest groups that are active in international bodies such as the OSCE and the Council of Europe. These organisations include Human Rights Without Frontiers - HRWF, the European Federation for Freedom of Belief - FOB (which we met in the prologue to this dossier) and Coordination des associations et des particuliers pour la liberté de conscience - CAP LC. The mutual contacts between these organisations, CESNUR, Scientology, the American 'libertarian' foundations and sectors of neocon politics are so close that the distance between one node of the network and another is hardly greater than two intermediate nodes. In fact, there is often complete overlap.
CESNUR seems to play the same role in this network that the Aginter Presse played in the subversive work, namely that of a control room.
In point 4 of the manifesto ('Don't feed the wolves') Introvigne writes:
[...] even the less pleasant movements, accused of pseudo-crimes such as 'brainwashing' or 'cult', should be vigorously defended. No matter how much we dislike them, [...]
The benevolence even towards abusive cults therefore seems somewhat hypocritical and the call for tolerance and ecumenism seem to be actions that only acquire a morally positive connotation when they follow the justifying logic of the 'double effect' that was of Ousset and the OAS militants. In short, if it serves to combat subversion and secularism (and enforce the global hegemony of conservative America), anything goes. St Thomas takes care of that. With the help of Uncle Sam.
Figure 102 - Paul Weyrich, Plinio Correa de Oliveira, Leo Strauss
Fascists, spies and gurus. 2. Mind Games
Next chapter: Fascists, spies and gurus. 10. East Wind
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