The cult apologist mafia (Part III)
- Luigi Corvaglia
- Mar 2
- 40 min read
Updated: Mar 7
VII - Cults and Soft Power
Religious polarisation
On 8 January 2023, thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro raided the Congress building and also stormed the Federal Court in Brasilia to protest against the election of his rival Lula. In part a repeat of the storming of Capital Hill two years earlier by Donald Trump supporters. While in Washington many of the rioters were fundamentalist Christians and many also adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory who flaunted their affiliation on T-shirts and signs, in Brasilia most of the participants in the storming were evangelical Pentecostals who gathered and prayed amid the devastation. Some turned their rosaries towards the police riot squad. This shows how important religion is when it comes to determining the moves of the masses on the geopolitical chessboard.
Religious soft power
The term soft power was coined in the 1990s by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Nye sees it as a form of exercising power that represents an alternative to the use of military force and aims to influence public opinion, primarily through mass culture and the media. Such operations are a low-intensity but effective strategy for influencing public opinion. This is a strategy of hybrid warfare. The use of religion as a tool of influence has a long history.
The CIA's first religious tool was Catholicism, which “became the model through which intelligence agencies could understand and manipulate other world religions” (Michael Graziano coined the phrase). Under the guise of the Church's profound power of persuasion, the OSS, the CIA predecessor, mobilised the European population against its Nazi (and later Soviet) occupiers. In fact, Allen Dalles, who headed the CIA in its early years, had used the Catholic Church as a cover for intelligence operations when he was in charge of the Office for Strategic Services (OSS), the CIA's predecessor organisation. In his book ‘Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors’, Michael Graziano, recalling the Office of Strategic Services of the Second World War, writes that ‘American analysts often assumed that Catholic interests - and especially those of the Vatican - were perfectly aligned with the goals of the United States’. Through the Belgian priest Felix Morlion, the agency also co-operated with the Catholic international press in what became known as ‘Operation Pilgrim's Progress’.
When the agency encountered other world religions during the Cold War – Shintoism in Japan, Buddhism in Southeast Asia, and especially Islam in Iran – it took it for granted that "the United States and world religions were [natural allies]" in the fight against atheistic communism. After the war ended, former OSS agents joined the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), bringing with them the experience and networks necessary to turn religion into an operational tool for clandestine activities.
In the early years of the Cold War, James Angleton organised an elaborate spy network that enabled the CIA to obtain the intelligence reports sent to the Vatican by the papal nuncios stationed behind the Iron Curtain and in other "closed" areas. At the time, this was one of the few means available to the CIA to penetrate the Eastern Bloc.
CIA officials such as Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt, Miles Copeland, William Eddy and James Jesus Angleton did not hesitate to use religion as a transactional tool. American clergymen, missionaries and the evangelist Billy Graham worked secretly with the CIA. In 1975, a US Senate report revealed that various American priests and missionaries were being used to gather information in various countries.
The primacy of Catholicism, so great that the CIA was nicknamed the “Catholic Intelligence Agency", has waned over time. In Latin America, the Catholic continent par excellence, the Roman Church is increasingly losing ground to the various evangelical denominations. One reason for this is the fact that the position of the more conservative Evangelicals was directly supported during the Cold War by the United States, which saw the religious group as a useful bulwark against communism in Latin America, an area where liberation theology had given Catholicism a dangerous flavour.
The Rockefeller Report of 1969 and the Santa Fe Declaration of 1980 illustrate the use of religion by North American intelligence in defence of American interests in South America.
The Rockefeller Report states that the US must strive to win the battle for the hegemony of consciousness by exposing Latin America to the influence of the American way of life “through the control of the traditional socializing apparatuses of civil society: family, school and church”.
The Santa Fe document, prepared for the Council on Inter-American Security and presented to the Republican Platform Committee in 1980 by a team of ultra-conservative advisors, states that “US foreign policy must begin to counter (and not react to) liberation theology as used in Latin America by liberation theology clergy.” The paper refers to the work already done in this direction:
The experience gained in Vietnam through programmed population control was exported by many A.I.D. agents and other U.S. services to Latin America, particularly Guatemala. Some cults were founded by psychological warfare specialists who had been entrusted with the control of political space and hegemony over consciences. (emphasis mine)
The Santa Fe document is clear and does not mince its words. Through the National Security Agency (NSA), the United States is creating “cults” “ that are able to "control the political space and the hegemony of consciences”. In charge are “specialists in psychological warfare.”
Jesus Garzia Ruiz writes in a text entitled “La notion relative aux sectes en Amérique latine” that in Latin America " all cults are work of the United States and are financed from abroad." A note from the Mexican Ministry of the Interior states that
Sects carry out the most subtle part of the process of domination and North Americanisation of underdeveloped societies by using religious preaching, which is part of the ideological struggle, within civil society.
To support this policy, the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), an interfaith organisation, was established in 1981 and funded by right-wing institutions, including the Smith Richardson and the Mellon Scaife Family Foundation. Both served as financial conduits for the CIA. The IRD unleashed a propaganda campaign against church activists who were at the forefront of opposing US aid to the government of El Salvador and other repressive regimes in Latin America.
The project was successful. Today, the influence of evangelicals on society in these countries is enormous in terms of electoral potential. The expansion of evangelical churches in Latin America, especially the neo-Pentecostal churches, which have considerable fundings that make them more “competitive” with the Catholic Church, has contributed to the rise of “right-wing” personalities and political forces close to the interests of the economic-financial powers, especially the American ones. Behind these phenomena there seems to be a very specific strategy, which consists of replacing “left-wing Catholic” Christians (because they are interested in social issues) with “right-wing evangelical” Christians (who are very interested in moral issues, but little in social issues).
The use of the Mormons seems to have been remarkable, as Alain Gillette points out in his book "Les mormons. De la théocratie à Internet". In the early 1980s, the Nicaraguan government accused the Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses of being involved in a CIA plot to overthrow the Sandinista government.
It has been proven that many Mormons in Finland have been involved with the CIA since the 1950s. In 1978, two journalists, Jorraa Lindfors and Jukka Rislakki, wrote a book about the CIA’s alleged links to the Mormon Church. According to the authors, "many of the young missionaries in Finland had been trained as military officers, and the head of the Mormons' international missionary work, Apostle Neal A. Maxwell, was a former CIA agent".
There is ample evidence of US funding of all kinds of churches, Christian and non-Christian. For example, the CIA funded churches in Kerala, India, and this interference in Indian politics came to light in 1978 when the former ambassador to that country, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, published the information in his book “A Dangerous Place” In addition to the interference in Kerala, the American churches also supported the terrorists in Nagaland on a large scale. These terrorists received blatant help from the American establishment in the form of so-called human rights reports and public statements of support from high-ranking politicians like Jimmy Carter.
The CIA worked with agents of DINA, the Chilean secret police, to build a very sophisticated intelligence system in Chile that utilised the Pentecostal “Message” cult and the Colonia Dignidad facility, founded as a Nazi refugee colony and run by Pastor Paul Shafer, for covert operations. Paul Shafer, a former Nazi and security agent for Pastor William Branham in Germany, worked with the DINA (Chilean secret police) to interrogate, torture and murder opponents of the Pinochet regime.
Religion plays a very powerful role in culturally influencing and orienting the masses. Religions are an extraordinary instrumentum regni because they can dilute the religious identity of some population groups by creating new forms of mutual recognition (in-group) that become manoeuvrable constituencies when they are not useful for processes of social polarisation that can lead to uprisings or real revolutions. For example, Carl Gershman, director of the National Endowment for Democracy (Ned), told the US Congress in 2018 that Ned had spent $3,381,824 on programmes prior to the 2014 popular uprising in Ukraine, which took place under the name “Euromaiden”, including support for those non-governmental organisations that fuelled the uprising. The role of the various churches and cults in the Euromaiden affair was significant. Among them were the Greek Catholics. This does not mean that Euromaiden was carried out by “sects” or “Satanists",” as has been claimed, but only that the religious element played a role in social polarisation.
Two Chinese cults
In 2019, the television channel NBC revealed that Donald Trump's most important advertising supporter - after his election committee - was the newspaper The Epoch Times. This is a multilingual, far-right newspaper run by the Chinese religious movement Falun Gong. Much of the newspaper's efforts are dedicated to promoting the right in America, but also in Europe, a work that has included the dissemination of false data about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 US elections. The Epoch Times is also one of the main disseminators of conspiracy theories. The most important is that of QAnon, the bizarre theory that sees Trump as the possible saviour of the world from the satanic-pedophile dome that secretly rules it.
In 2020, the New York Times called the paper a “disinformation machine of global scale.” According to Media Matters for America, the main goal of the Epoch Times - which is now published in 36 countries under the supervision of a network of non-profit organisations - is not to make a profit, but to organise a long and extensive “influence operation” The aim of this influence operation, in turn, is to “foment anti-Chinese Communist Party sentiment". The cult is actually being persecuted in its own country.
It has been said that The Epoch Times was the main financier of Donald Trump's election campaign. However, it is not clear where Falun Gong's funding came from. Steve Bannon, the guru of Trump's New Right, has collaborated with Falun Gong in the production of a documentary for New Tang Dinasty TV (NTD), a channel owned by the cult's holding company, and said that in conversations with these interlocutors he was under the impression that they had unlimited resources.
The conclusions frequently drawn over the years, not only during Trump's presidency, about a connection between the Chinese cult and the CIA in an anti-Chinese capacity are based on sporadically filtered and reported press reports. As early as 2010, the Washington Post reported $1.5 million in funding from the US State Department for the Global Internet Freedom consortium, which is based in the US but linked to the Falun Gong spiritual movement. More recently, in 2021, the US media reported on a State Department grant to a software development team owned by Falun Gong. Oddly enough, Steve Bannon himself is involved.
In June 2024, the finance director of Epoch Times, Weidong Guan, was arrested for alleged involvement in a multi-year money laundering scheme involving at least 67 million dollars in illegally acquired funds. According to the indictment, Guan allegedly used a cryptocurrency platform to purchase prepaid cards with illicit funds, including unemployment benefits, at a discount. Interestingly, following the arrest of the finance director, Falun Gong spiritual leader Li Hongzhi wrote two articles that appear to be aimed directly at the media company's leadership and were published prominently on the Epoch Times homepage:
You were thinking that it’s hard to fight the CCP’s persecution without funds, and wanted to make money for this cause; and that the U.S. government would be understanding if something wasn’t handled quite right - Li wrote in an article published on 5 June -But that was your own thinking.
The Falun Gong leader, who apparently distances himself from the newspaper's leadership, which allegedly orchestrated the scam without his knowledge, describes the publication's mission (to fight the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong) and refers to the complacency that this leadership would have expected from the U.S. government in case the illicit operation became known.
On what premise should a money laundering activity conducted by a Chinese cult would have met with such complacency? So the New York District's investigation was embarrassing.
However, in order to understand how a work of influence takes place, I am reporting here on a fact that is small (but perhaps not even that small) but extremely significant from the point of view of international political relevance: In 2022, the main international, but mainly Italian and Canadian newspapers published an alarming news story about the proliferation of secret Chinese police stations scattered around the world, tasked with monitoring compatriots abroad. This alarm was based on a report by the Madrid-based non-governmental organisation Safeguard Defenders, whose leading figure is Peter Dahlin, who co-founded it with Michael Caster. A quick Google search was all it took to find out that Dahlin writes for the Epoch Times (Figure 72).
Does this mean that the issue of the Chinese police stations is a fake? We cannot say. It may very well be true as far as a person outside of this intelligence dynamic could know. However, it should be noted that national and supranational agencies and bodies are also acting on the basis of information coming from organisations linked to a cult that has been described as a disinformation machine on a global scale.
However, another Chinese cult has come to the fore undermining Falun Gong. This is the Church of Almighty God, also known as the Lightning of the East, which is considered the most persecuted religious movement in the world. The financing of this cult, too, is also unknown. It must be much larger than that of Falun Gong, because this movement, which worships the reincarnation of Jesus Christ in a Chinese woman, is known for an intense artistic production that includes films, songs, ballets, musicals and various shows of dizzying quantity and outstanding quality.
It is unclear where the Church of Almighty God, a minority and persecuted cult, gets the huge sums of money needed to produce such a large amount of artistic material, produced with great professionalism (among other things, translated into almost every language in the world, in which it is dubbed with equal professionalism). This is an immense commitment from people such as directors, actors, scriptwriters, set designers, authors, dancers, choreographers, costume designers, singers, translators, dubbing actors, cameramen, editors, etc. The money required is enormous and the organisation complex: logistical difficulties, studios, rehearsal times that are incompatible with the daily work of a non-professional, etc.
Video 2 - One of the thousands of ballets and musicals produced by the Church of Almighty God
One of the stars of these films is Li Yanli, who staged a suicide attempt at Madrid airport on 3 November 2023 to avoid being deported to China. Although she was a follower of a cult that was far from Catholicism, she was supported by a broad front of Catholic extremism that managed to collect over 60,000 signatures to present a petition to the judges to grant the actress political asylum. Part of this broad front was the association “Abogados Cristianos”, an ultra-Catholic lobby closely linked to the far-right party Vox, but also to such fundamentalist lobbies as CitizenGo, HazteOir or El Yunque, of which HazteOir appears to be only a screen-organization.
In 2021, Wikileaks published “The Intolerance Network", ” consisting of 17,000 documents revealing the relationships between CitizenGO, HazteOir, the far-right party Vox and the occult organisation El Yunque. The latter is a Mexican secret society organised as a paramilitary corps with the aim of restoring the Kingdom of Christ. Basically the same agenda as Tradition, Family and Property. It is therefore interesting to read what is written about the situation in Spain in the report “Modern-Day Crusaders in Europe", prepared for the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights:
[...] in 2003 a new organisation called Hazte Oir appeared which seems to fit many of the characteristics often associated with TFP (see section 5), including: grass-roots mobilisation combined with fundraising, multiplicity of branding, youth outreach, the same US contacts, intense contact with other TFP organisations and, finally, exercising traditionalist pressure on the Catholic Church. It diverges from TFP characteristics primarily in its branding, and, while Catholic-inspired, Hazte Oir is by no means a religious movement, and there are no references to Corrêa de Oliveira. Hazte Oir (literally, ’make yourself heard’) plays a watchdog role on Spanish political life and launched a social mobilisation platform “CitizenGo” which would appear to be a 21st century digital version of the direct mailing techniques TFP pioneered in the 1970s (see section 8). Hazte Oir may be the reincarnation of TFP-Covadonga (name of the Spanish branch of TFP, ed.) under a new set of circumstances where there are limits as to how openly it may display its affiliations in Spain26 (see section 6). Whether Hazte Oir is formally part of the TFP family or not, it shares many of the characteristics of TFP organisations and occupies the same niche. (Bold mine)
After all, representatives of another organisation that is closely linked to the TFP via Alleanza Cattolica (see the fourth part of this report), namely the Centre for the Study of New Religions (CESNUR), expressly apologise to CitizenGo and also describe it as a “meritorious organisation".
We know about the persecution to which the Church of Almighty God is subjected by the Chinese Communist Party mainly thanks to an Italian publication issued by the think tank CESNUR, which emerged from Alleanza Cattolica. It is called Bitter Winter. Not that the backers of Bitter Winter, a daily magazine in eight languages with news from China, a country from which it is not easy to export news, and which is published by a non-profit organisation based in Turin, CESNUR, are clear either. But the news about religious persecution in China used by the US State Department is that of the Turin-based magazine. The Department, whose documents represent the official US position and are supposed to guide US policy, openly admits in its report on religious freedom that much of the information comes from Bitter Winter. Its editor, Massimo Introvigne, rightly boasts of this and writes
Readers of Bitter Winter will forgive us if we mention that, in the section on China, Bitter Winter remains, as it was in the report of last year, the single most quoted source. We were quoted 74 times in 2020. The quotes became 85 in 2021.
It is evident that the sources accessed by the Catholic Lawyer's magazine are more reliable than those accessed by the US intelligence services.
In an exchange on Facebook between a member of the Italian “anti-cult” community and Introvigne, faced with the paradox that Bitter Winter could have more information than the American services, Introvigne commented with a short text containing the following statements: “I have known the people who produce these reports for decades" and “there are people in China, but not only there, who prefer to pass on information to scholars who do not work for American government agencies or those of other countries”. With this, the editor of CESNUR and Bitter Winter confirms both the direct and long-standing knowledge of the report writers and that his magazine actually knows more than the CIA because Chinese citizens are willing to talk to its editors rather than the agencies the magazine will later report to anyway. The post lasted the minutes it took the author to realise that it was inappropriate to leave it online and delete it. However, the screenshot was photographed before it was deleted (Fig. 73). A few days later, returning to the same topic on the same social network, the director of CESNUR had a new fit of unbridled self-congratulation, going so far as to boast that “a small magazine published in Turin has become the main source of official documents on religion in China from the most important country in the world” (Fig. 74).
It is therefore ironic that a magazine and an organisation capable of such intelligence capabilities should fall for a hoax such as the one perpetrated on it by a Ukrainian pseudo-scientist: Oleg Maltslev. This is the leader of an Odessa-based organization with whom CESNUR developed an instant affectionate relationship and for whom it gave in to an exculpatory impulse after this organization came under heavy criticism in 2014 from Russian and Ukrainian anti-cult associations.
According to a well-known script, the exchange of cordiality and appreciation then began between CESNUR and the leader of the group vilified by the evil anti-cultists, Maltslev. A monographic issue of CESNUR's magazine was dedicated to him in 2018. The monographic issue was preceded by an exchange of courtesy visits in 2016. Malstlev had first been invited to the CESNUR headquarters in Turin, and then the CESNUR director had returned the favour with a visit to Odessa, where he gave a lecture to Maltslev's supporters on the blatantly discriminatory actions of the anti-cult movement. The CESNUR director reportedly called Meltslev “a scientist whose scientific research deserves much attention”; the Ukrainian instead referred to the Italian as a star of great magnitude that “shining in the sky of Odessa”.
In 2024, things took a turn for the worse: Ukrainian law enforcement and security services gathered evidence of psychological abuse, blackmail, threats and harassment against supporters and journalists after a lengthy investigation. Those who questioned Maltslev's authority, his titles (which were apparently all fake) and his merits were harshly persecuted on social networks, for example by spreading accusations of paedophilia accompanied by edited audio and video files. In addition, many people who were persecuted by Maltslev's organisations were bombarded with calls with threatening content from unknown numbers. One person died of a heart attack as a result. But that's nothing.
On 1 September, almost six months late, the Ukrainian press reported that on 5 March law enforcement officers had arrested the closest associate of the “guru'”, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Unsolved Crimes” (one of the organisation's productions) Konstantin Slobodyanyuk, and taken him to a pre-trial detention centre. The latter was accused of an impressive series of crimes. These include the payment of bribes to an official, criminal conspiracy and illegal burglary of computer equipment, but above all high treason under martial law (Part 2 of Article 111 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code). For the latter offence, he and Malstlev himself, who was on the run, face a life sentence.
The intelligence investigation revealed that Oleg Maltsev had set up a spy organisation that worked for the Russian enemy. It was a full-fledged sabotage unit consisting of 23 people, including an assault group, a sniper, a reconnaissance group, an operational support group and even a communications officer.
This story is ironic for two reasons. The first reason is that the “anti-cult movement” have been accusing them of being close to Russia by cult apologists for years. So being caught by the Ukrainian security services in the vicinity of a traitor working for the Russian enemy is just as embarrassing as a conservative being caught red-handed with a tranny. This guy will of course be able to say: “I did not know that",” and if he is not particularly bright, there is also a risk that it is true.
The second element that makes me smile is that the director of CESNUR, who likes to describe me as “sometimes funny but not brilliant” - as is common among academics - said that CESNUR's magazine, Bitter Winter, would be able to gather much more information about the misdeeds of the Chinese Communist Party than the CIA. However, it had failed to realise that the group they were exchanging mutual appreciation, besides being (it seems) a criminal syndicate, was also working for Russia. They also were betrayed. Funny, but not brilliant.
If you want a little amusement, you can read Willy Fautré's (HRWF) heartfelt defence of Maltslev, who is allegedly the victim of a conspiracy. Among the hilarious things expressed in his article, Fautré cites as the most likely of the hypotheses about the architects of the plot against poor Maltslev the martial arts schools, which would have been very concerned about the new form of fighting invented by the Ukrainian “scientist”. No kidding. It is written here: Ukraine, Suspicion of Fabrication of a Criminal Case. The less authoritative newspaper publishing this piece of journalism is an old acquaintance, The European Times, the publication linked to Scientology (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 1. Prologue).
Back to China. One of the most horrific accusations levelled at the Chinese Communist Party is that it harvests organs from living people (or kills them to harvest their vital organs), especially from “prisoners of conscience” such as followers of Falun Gong and the Church of Almighty God. According to a 2017 Washington Post report, investigations and reports have refuted the claim that China is currently secretly performing 60,000 to 100,000 organ transplants per year. Data compiled by US-based Quintiles IMS showed that China's demand for immunosuppressant drugs, which are needed to prevent patients' bodies from rejecting transplanted organs, was roughly equal to the number of transplants China said it was performing. On 14 November 2018, Mark Field of the UK Foreign Office responded to a specific question in a debate on the issue in the House of Commons in London: “We disagree with claims of systematic organ harvesting from political prisoners of conscience, assessing that the evidence they present does not substantiate that claim.” A similar position was taken by Australia. However, a London-based independent tribunal called the China Tribunal - Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners of Conscience in China has confirmed the veracity of organ harvesting. This body was founded by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC). However, if you look at ETAC's website, you will find that many members of its “management” have close ties to the Epoch Times, the Falun Gong newspaper! If you go through the list of ETAC management, these Falun Gong connections appear in almost all of them. ETAC is clearly a Falun Gong front organisation. Of course, this does not mean that the findings and conclusions of this tribunal are necessarily false, but its vaunted independence does. The problem is that it is the judgement of this tribunal that Bitter Winter refers to in his articles on this subject. Let us remember that Bitter Winter is the main source of information on China for the US State Department.
Meanwhile, the influence of Bitter Winter also seems to be having an effect in Italy. This is evidenced by the fact that, as Introvigne himself writes on the website of HRWF, the Belgian organisation chaired by Willy Fautrè, more and more followers of the Church of Almighty God (CAG) are finding asylum in Italy precisely because of the magazine. Interestingly, Italy is the main refugee country for the Chinese cult. Introvigne writes:
On June 14, in an exemplary decision judging a CAG asylum seeker, represented by specialized lawyers Amalia Astory and Laura Bondi, as deserving “the higher level of protection” in Italy, the Tribunal of Rome answered the question by mentioning as “reliable sources” “Bitter Winter,” reports by the U.S. and other governments that quote “Bitter Winter,” and a statement by the late sociologist PierLuigi Zoccatelli, who was deputy director of CESNUR, “Bitter Winter”’s parent organization.
Reference is made to the case of a woman who was refused asylum at first instance in 2018. The author speculates that the court was influenced by Chinese propaganda. That may be, but the real objection was that it was not credible that in a closed, non-democratic, high-tech surveillance country, an influx of believers from a church persecuted by the government into Italy, all of whom with their proper passports, was possible. It was Bitter Winter's men who made it clear to the court that corruption of officials is extremely widespread in China and therefore it is not very difficult even for members of the Church of Almighty God to obtain a passport to leave the country. On what basis did they prove this? Introvigne says:
Quoting Italian government sources, which in turn refer to “Bitter Winter,” “a study by sociologist Pier Luigi Zoccatelli,” and the U.S. State Department reports on religious liberty (which also quoted “Bitter Winter”) […]
Oh, okay then...
Bitter Winter not only informs the West about China's persecution of spiritual minorities, but also campaigns vigorously against the “anti-cult narrative” promoted by organisations it assumes are linked to the governments of France, Russia and China. Another conspiracy the editors are keen to address is the artificial origin of the coronavirus, which allegedly escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
It may be a coincidence, but a recent study conducted by the University of Urbino has shown that most of the nodes of the disinformation network about the Covid 19 pandemic in Italy lead directly to the website of the Church of Almighty God.
Certainly, some doubts about the reliability of Bitter Winter, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not have it, have instead been expressed by sources that have no connection with the Chinese government, which could have an advantage in discrediting the magazine. For example, from a Korean Protestant publication (see screenshot below) and from the website BZBriefs, which is affiliated with China Source, a non-profit Christian “ministry” based in the U.S. that seeks to reduce the CCP's pressure on Christian churches. These critics speculate about a connection between Bitter Winter and the Church of Almighty God. It must be said that China Source later rectified its claim by publishing that it understood that Bitter Winter is not connected to the Church of Almighty God in private discussions with Bitter Winter .
However, no one dares to speculate with whom this church is in turn connected.
We only know that the persecutions of the CCP, real and alleged, are absolutely useful in demonstrating the godlessness of the Chiana government. There is one small problem, however: what is going on in China is hard to know. But that's not a problem for Bitter Winter. The magazine is a useful megaphone of persecution. Ifit did not exist, the American services would have had to invent it.
Video 3 - Massimo Introvigne on TV 2000 (Italy) in October 2023. The journalist hints at his relationship with the secret services
VIII - The Double Truth
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 78 - 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 79 and 80 - 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.
'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.
CESNUR at the scene of the crime
In October 1994, 48 followers of the Order of the Solar Temple were found dead in the villages of Cheiry and Salvan in Switzerland. When the bodies were discovered, a self-appointed ‘religious affairs adviser from the Central Defence Office’ appeared at the scene of the crime and collaborated with the investigators by questioning the witnesses alone, ignoring all procedural rules.
He was Jean-François Mayer, a former far-right activist in Lyon and a contributor to the magazine Panorama des idees actuelles, a publication of the GRECE, the right-wing, neo-pagan think tank we have already met. By 1976, however, he had converted to orthodox Christianity. The most interesting thing, however, is that this person was a leading member of CESNUR, the Centre for the Study of ‘New Religious Movements', which grew out of an Alleanza Cattolica offshoot. In a BBC documentary on the Solar Temple suicides case, Mayer is portrayed as a representative of Swiss military intelligence.
After the discovery of the bodies of 16 other followers of the Solar Temple in December 1995 in Vercors, France, Jean-François Mayer was one of the 300 privileged people who received a cult file containing the posthumous writings of the sacrificed.
In her book ‘Ordre du Temple Solaire, en quête de vérité’, Rosemarie Jaton reports on the content of an interview with J.F. Mayer, in which he admits to having been in contact with Luc Jouret, one of the two leaders of the Order of the Solar Temple. Luc Jouret was a former Belgian far-right military officer who was associated with Gladio, a branch of the secret anti-communist NATO organisation known as Stay Behind.
The supposed ‘mass suicides’ of the Solar Temple still remain shrouded in mystery. Certainly, the facts recounted suggest a connection between intelligence, the far right and cults.
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. Yes, 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 82 - Paul Weyrich, Plinio Correa de Oliveira, Leo Strauss
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