Is Damanhur really a cult?
“When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you’ve ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding person you’ve ever met, and then you learn the cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true-it probably is too good to be true! Don’t give up your education, your hopes and ambitions to follow a rainbow.”
Jeannie Mills
Ex-member of The People’s Temple, later found murdered.
The Cult Information Centre (CIC) defines a cult as a group having all of the following five
characteristics:
1. It uses psychological coercion to recruit and indoctrinate potential members.
2. It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
3. Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has
charisma.
4. It believes ‘the end justifies the means’ in order to solicit funds or recruit people.
5. Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.*
Beware! Damanhur meets all these criteria perfectly.
*With regard to point number 5. Do not be mistaken in thinking that Damanhur’s contribution to Italian Red Cross services is anything more than a way to boost its public image.
Each Damanhurian Nucleo is obliged to contribute two or more citizen ‘volunteers’ to work in the Red Cross Station in Vidracco and all citizens are obliged to become Blood Donors.
Hours spent ‘volunteering for the Red Cross can be deducted from the quota of hours of free work that each Damanhurian citizen has to offer each month. For ’A’ citizens this means that 12 of the hours worked for the Red Cross can be deducted from the compulsory 24-30 hours of devotional work (‘Terrazzatura’ ) that they are required to do.
If citizens do not do their required hours of Terrazzatura each month they must pay the Federation the equivalent of the missing hours at their current rate of pay.
This is not volunteering.
The Damanhurian Civil Protection Team in Vidracco is manned by Damanhurian citizens and members of Damanhur’s internal police and security forces. Apart from assisting locally if there are disasters or fires (good PR) the team trains to use firearms and has access to its C.P. vehicles (including helicopters) and monitoring equipment. These State financed facilities are also used to control the movement of Damanhurians on the territories and to police the local area.
These citizens also deduct their ‘volunteer’ hours from their quota of compulsory ‘Terrazzatura’.
DIO Editor
Learn more about how esoteric cults like Damanhur operate via these links to cult awareness groups:
http://www.factnet.org/rancho5.htm
http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/home.html
http://www.culthelp.info/index.php
Damanhur Inside Out 
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