by Adrienne Hutchins (nee Ryan), B.Ed, QLD, Australia
I would like to share a letter I sent to the Courier Mail in response to their weekend article…
Reading your article “New age ‘medicine’ of Serge Benhayon leaves trail of broken families” (Courier Mail Saturday 8-9 September 2012), I was disappointed to see the slandering of Serge Benhayon and such a bias towards the disgruntled few, in light of the many MEN and women throughout the world whose lives have been deeply enriched by the simple presentations of Serge and Universal Medicine.
Ironically, it was in your paper last weekend where I read of not one, but three diets to support people to bring back their vitality, energy and quality of life – all of which recommended removing or reducing sugar, gluten, caffeine, alcohol and dairy from the diet, and which advocated getting regular exercise and rest.
I say ‘bring back’, because as children, for the majority, this vitality and energy is natural. What happens to us as we grow older (and supposedly wiser and more intelligent) that leaves us needing fixes – caffeine, sugar, carbohydrates, alcohol, adrenalin rushes, music, TV, computer games, porn etc. – to pull us through the day, or reward us at the end of it?
In the face of a global health crisis, with diabetes, obesity, kidney disease, cancer and heart conditions widespread – not to mention anxiety and depression – is it not incredibly arrogant that we do not stop to ask, “what is going on?” To look at the quality of our own life in the simplest of ways and ask, “how do I sleep at night (including actually getting to sleep and staying asleep)” and “how does my body feel throughout the day (how often am I reaching for something to get me going or keep me going?)”.
It is confronting to ‘stock take’ our daily life using these markers, for when we do it is undeniable that we live in a society that is bankrupting itself on a personal and very physical level that continues to go unrecognised and ignored.
We have so much that seems to confirm our intelligence: phones, tall buildings, smart screens at school, yet children in prep are being treated for anxiety – what is going on?
We have newspapers reporting on people who have begun to take responsibility for their lives – to make choices regarding what they consume and how they live in the most basic ways: sleep, food, exercise, sex – and labelling them a ‘cult’. This from the same newspaper that reports on diets that recommend the same ‘cult practices’ of avoiding dairy, gluten, sugar and alcohol, yet does not label the author a ‘cult leader’. What is going on? The same newspaper that reports on sexual and physical abuse labels women who choose to be treated gently and with loving respect by their partners as ‘cult followers’ at the mercy of the “svengali-like sway” of Serge Benhayon. What is going on?
The disgruntled few, the 42 you report, are not to be disrespected. There is real pain in the man concerned for his 7 year old daughter and for his wife who has made changes to her life in response to what she came to know about herself through Universal Medicine. Yet there is more to these 42 stories that no newspaper has yet sought to truly investigate. Equally, there is more to the stories of the ‘2000 mainly female followers’, not to mention the many men who the press leave invisible, whose lives have been and continue to be enriched.
It would be of great benefit to have these stories told, for they offer what the medical world has been asking for (see your own paper’s story about the surgeon who is calling for licensing hours to be reduced in response to the horrific casualties he attends to, including the bashing and glassing from people under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol); that is, simply asking that people live responsibly for their own wellbeing.
Instead, we have your paper using the word ‘cult’ to describe people who have adopted practices of self-care and self responsibility, labelling them by definition of the word ‘cult’ as abnormal or bizarre.