I have been seeking the deeper meaning to things ever since I was a kid and had difficulty dealing with authority, unless I personally trusted in them. My logic was, I am a kid asking simple questions, if they cannot be answered by adults, I will keep looking but will not settle for ‘just because I said so or ‘just because it is so’ kind of answers.
I wondered why mainstream religions being similar in the most part, separately claim to have the way to God and insinuate that other religions are doomed for failure because of their differences. I found this troubling, how could it be that God gives some the right and others the wrong path. I questioned the need for religious differences at all!
I came to a conclusion already at a young age, that religion was tarnished by man. For me, truth and faith should be one and the same for all. Then I grew older, got caught up with teenage-hood and stopped asking such questions.
In my mid-twenties after experiencing many things, I became observant of different walks of life and I started feeling dissatisfied within myself again. I felt that truth was yet for me to discover, so I began my search, outside of religion this time, because of what I had already determined as a child, that most religions are based on belief alone. To me belief is subjected to human opinion and interpretation and I wondered where the truth is in that!
So I decided to look into spirituality and new age things. This was in the era when spirituality became trendy and a means to easy money. I was consistently disappointed with the lack of depth everywhere I turned and started to think there was something wrong with me, because everyone around seemed satisfied with their religions etc.
I kept Buddhism as a last resort, if nothing else, because I liked the Zen concept and the respect they have for all living things.
I also thought that if all these different faiths out there are acceptable to society, maybe I could gather truths I encountered along the way and make my own personal religion someday and base it on love.
I attended some Mind Body and Spirit festivals and was disappointed at their focus on commercialism and fortune-telling. Only a wise person that I intuitively trusted, could ever tell me my fortune, I thought. At a festival, I attended a lecture that was interesting, the speaker spoke with great conviction but it was a little too out there for me. Hard to comprehend and a little dark, a pendulum dictated their every move for example, so I left that alone and kept searching.
Around the age of 9, I stared up at the stars and pondered if we are really the only planet with life out there. Earth being one of the billions of stars in the universe, inside me I knew that it was impossible, this made me hungrier for truth. With that memory in mind, I decided to attend a couple of Raelien seminars, where I asked the lecturer, if Raeliens believed in re-incarnation, the answer was no. Life did not make sense without reincarnation for me, I knew that life recycled somehow. It could not be that we only exist once, for around 80 years or so if lucky and that is it. I also wondered why I had such an affinity with several European and other cultures and languages and felt so at home in different places, I considered that maybe I had experienced them before.
I investigated Hinduism a little because reincarnation is part of its belief. I found it fascinatingly different for a religion but complicated, with too many rules and customs for me.
I was looking for something not based on belief that would reveal knowledge to me, about all things living, in a universal way. This doesn’t come up much in religion or new age philosophies. Maybe I was asking for too much, I wondered.
I read a few interesting books like the Road Less Travelled, Out on a Limb, The Celestine Prophesies, some of Castaneda, Kahlil Gibran and Pablo Chaleo and liked them all. I picked out what I thought to be spiritual knowledge from them, but knew they were tiny insights into a much bigger picture.
I heard about Sufiism and Cabalism and found them fascinating too. I liked the numbers in Cabalism but was not drawn to their Islamic and Jewish routes. I realised then that my Christian background still had a pull over me somehow.
I encountered many people involved in reiki, crystal healing, aura therapy etc. and again none of them were all encompassing enough for me. I then attended parapsychology classes, where they had us feeling each other’s auras in the first 30 minutes. I went to two of the paid sessions and decided it was a bit of mumbo jumbo and the teachers lacked depth, so stopped; only to be harassed by phone for weeks afterwards, advising me to return to the classes, that I had something special within me and would benefit from the courses. Naturally, I liked what they said about me being special but was not going back there, especially after their persistence. Disappointed, I left my search alone for few months after that and focused on enjoying and experiencing all sorts of things, looking for fun and satisfaction in life.
Then some sombre weeks followed; where I did not understand my empty feelings. While my friends were out having fun without me, I preferred to stay home and ponder on the mysteries of life again, this time on ancient Egypt, Atlantis and the Incas. One of those nights, sitting on the floor in front of my wardrobe mirror, I asked my reflection. What is going on with me and these feelings I am having? Expecting an answer, I kept staring into my eyes for a long while, until I scared myself back to reality with what I saw, which can only be explained as a moment’s vison into my eternal being. This experience turned my spiritual uneasiness into a gaping hole in my heart, a yearning for nothing less than the truth to everything, like when I was a child. So I pleaded with my eyes in the mirror (my eternal being) to send me a way, a teacher / a guru; someone I would wholeheartedly respect and trust, who would show me how to find truth, in a satisfactory way.
My experience in the Universal Christian Gnostic Movement (UCGM)
One day, while walking on Sydney’s famous Bondi beach, I decided to walk into the pavilion to look on its billboard, on it I found a simple orange flyer, with a large pentagram line drawing on it, it was an invitation to a free Esoteric Course. I thought that sounds great, it’s free and I liked the word Esoteric, even though I was not sure of its meaning. I took the flyer and put in the book I was reading at the time (The Fourth Way by Ouspensky, a student of Gurdjieff) a heavily intellectual book divulging a lot of information.
I was so tired of disappointment that it took me 3 weeks before I found the courage to call the number on that flyer. I told myself, if I liked the sound of the person on the other side of the phone, I would attend, give it a shot and if at any time I felt anything dodgy, l would quit, just as I had done many times before. So I did, I called. The person who picked up the phone was Mark, and he spoke slowly and clearly. What impressed me most was that he listened attentively to my questions and answered them completely and with depth. His simplicity, humbleness and generosity was music to my ears. I had to meet this individual, so I attended the course even though it had begun a few weeks prior.
I was awestruck for the first time in my life and couldn’t wait for the next lecture. Doubt did kick in for a moment because the entire course being free and me being so awestruck. I decided I would trust myself, and keep going for as long as it felt right.
Weeks later I got to meet Mark, the man on the phone. His lecturing method was simple and direct to the point, with longish pauses in between and bursts of humour here and there that would light up the room. He got his points across immediately. For the first time ever, I was learning so many profound things and understood them instantly, it became knowing, like the info was there to be had all along and best of all, little belief was required. I was determined to keep going for as long as it felt right and hoped already in the first course, that one day, I too, could pass on this precious information to others.
I did not attend the course alone, I took two of my closest friends with me, one of whom never had a spiritual inclination before. For me and most other attendees, it was spot on and we could not get enough. I remember she would annoyingly shake her leg in the lectures, trying to come to terms with things she had never contemplated before. I would often poke her knee to make her stop.
The class room was so clean and basic, there were 20 or so chairs and a table covered in a blue cloth in the front, and a white board with stick drawings and bullet points at each lecture and that was it. Everything I needed was right there and the info was so profound, true and beautifully delivered.
After a few weeks of the course, a spotlessly clean practice room with cushions on the floor was opened to us and we started doing the coolest practices.
The centre always smelled divine of resin incense, what a mystical smell. I remembered my plea and knew then, that my eternal being had sent me the gurus I had asked for and marvelled and was grateful, realising how mysteriously life was unfolding for me.
I read all the books my teachers endorsed and did some of the newly taught practices at home. Wow! I was blown away some more. All the practices worked for me in some form or another and Samael Aun Weor and Rabolu’s books were truthful and interesting, I could not believe it. I love Samael’s Latin severity and Rabolu’s simplicity, I felt at home with them, it was like they were talking to me.
The courses were entirely free! I was temping and in between jobs at the time, therefore money was always a struggle for me. Fantastic, where can one find all this and for free nowadays!
This is without a doubt what I had been looking for all my life.
I attended one of their courses after another and never got tired or disappointed by any of it. All the while, my husband-to-be, was in each class doing the same thing, for two years we only greeted each other. Until one day when our chemistry met somehow. I hardly knew him and didn’t expect that to happen. Steeve and I were married 6 months later to our family’s pleasant surprise. Together our lives revolved around these teachings, striving for mindfulness and psychological improvement all the time. Life’s changes were not easy but they were good, for us both!
Sometime later the UCGM organisation closed down and we carried on with the new organisation called The Gnostic Movement (TGM) that Belzebuub and other members founded.
My experience with The Gnostic Movement (TGM)
I started attending the courses run by Belzebuub when he was running courses under the UCGM organisation.
I somehow did it! I became a teacher, a very humbling experience. Steeve did too! Then we both became members of the organisation and formed part of its board.
The internal work grew harder as responsibilities increased but we had each other and we enjoyed what we were doing, with Mark’s guidance and permission, Steeve and I soon opened our first centre together in the outskirts of Melbourne. Then an opportunity came up to go overseas to do the same, we jumped at it.
We moved to Montreal around a year later and started study groups immediately, later to open the first centre in Montreal, where we lived for 6 years. It was a wonderful experience and for me, learning a new language (French) came naturally, I was speaking it in 4 months, to my surprise. We met so many wonderful English and French speaking people in the courses and we remember them dearly.
Mark was invited to attend a retreat that Steeve and I organised in Quebec in 2004. It was great, I have very clear memories of that retreat. I realised then how deeply spiritual Mark/Belzebuub is.
I remember he sat in my very first and only lecture I gave in French to a Montreal study group, where I had no choice but to substitute Steeve (French speaker) who was obligated to work that evening. I kept switching from French to English striving to get the very important points across properly, it was a challenge alright and my most esteemed teachers were physically present, I will never forget that!
Steeve and I moved to London after Montreal, we were asked to assist the centre there that was going through a rough patch. A few of the former teachers and students there had been asked to leave the organisation. They soon became self-proclaimed enemies of the movement, plotting and doing everything in their power to dissolve everything they had endorsed and taught for years. I was in disbelief, how can anyone go from one extreme to another in a matter of months? In fact, I still don’t get it. So much hatred, like something snapped within them and they could not see clearly anymore, it worsened each day as they negatively encouraged each other and others. They then proceeded to contact and impose their distorted opinions on some European students on an individual basis.
Poisonous words contaminate very easily, I quickly learned!
We should not let discrediting campaigns put us off and miss out on an exceptional opportunity.These ancient teachings are the same, in fact better and easier to follow in these times with Belzebuub’s books and articles.
The teachings provided an endless journey into personal self-development, in more ways than one can ever imagine, they opened doors to knowledge locked within oneself, doors that continued to open for as long as we kept practicing and asking earnest and honest questions internally, about life, death, the universe and beyond. Yes! One got the tools to learn it all, a very special opportunity, a quest for truth!
The knowledge and its understanding come to us gradually in very natural and individual doses, internally and personally, through our own intellect and intuition, there was nothing scary about it!
In all my years being part of the organisation, there was no intrusion, nothing was ever enforced on us. There was no brain washing, I vouch for that honestly and confidently!
Unfortunately though, some attendees had malicious intentions, they were not interested in practicing and understand the free knowledge given. They attended only to vent furiously and spoil things for others and / or benefit physically and egoistically.
Why, one asks oneself; well here are some reasons and TGM has experienced them all:
- Some people like to play the devil’s advocate, just for the sake of it, in some cases literally unfortunately, whether they know it or not.
- Some participate for fraudulent reasons, to steal and profit from the data given freely, in turn trashing it and deluding others and themselves. Not only have some stolen the author’s data but mocked and slandered him first, then used it for themselves to profit from financially, interestingly deceitful twist.
- Some vent for the fun of it, with nothing to lose, safe and anonymous in the comfort of their home, in front of a screen, where no one can do the same to them.
- Some defame because of hatred, fear, pride and many other egoistical and cowardice reasons.
There are some people with ill intentions, only interested in fulfilling their own agendas no matter the consequence to others. This is not news to anybody, general acts of kindness are a rarity and brutality a norm nowadays, and we need only watch the news to see that.
The most disturbing thing about slander is that it’s very effective at polluting the perception of others, i.e. readers who search the web for something profound and good, yearning for inner peace and wanting to make sense of life and it all, wanting to opening doors to truth, common sense and understanding, all of which was found and experienced with Belzebuub’s teachings.
Smearing data causes readers to quickly slam shut perfectly good open doors, where we can learn about love, relationships, inner peace and so much more. Then faced with slander we are jarred with fear once more, fear already ingrained in us all, by fear-mongering societies. Wherever we turn, we are handed small doses of fear, on TV, in the media, at work, in the desire to “keep up with the Joneses”. Through politics, fear-mongering is everywhere.
I always held this utopic idea of being part of a mystical school, in a castle surrounded by nature somewhere. I am a bit of a dreamer sometimes and was laughed at when I originally expressed this idea. However I persisted, knowing that I am excellent at finding good deals and when I focus, I can make things happen, so I kept this vision and search for the castle going.
My husband and I visited Edinburgh on the way to Canada years back, encouraged by stories of the centres that were once there. We found Edinburgh to be an awesome and unique place. It has kept the old world gothic charm like no other place. You can feel the past and its mysteries in its architecture, nature and gloomy weather. The admiration for Edinburgh stayed with us, so Steeve and I decided and got permission to leave London and start a study group in Edinburgh.
Not letting go of the castle centre idea though, I finally found an Estate on equestrian acreage, made of castle ruins including one of the original towers intact. I did the math and it worked out to be a place we could afford and was close enough to Edinburgh city. Given the go ahead, Steeve and I invited colleagues from the London centre to join us in Edinburgh so we could make it all happen. This is how the Edinburgh retreat centre was born and the London centre was closed.
Some inspiring retreats were held there. Steeve and I were only present for two of them. I was privileged to run one in Christmas 2010, it had a different feel, not as disciplined as some would have liked, but myself and others really enjoyed it, it had a light heartedness to it, where the focus was on bringing out the inner child within.
After a long and treacherous search I finally found these teachings and to me, they are the real deal! As far as I am concerned, we found a raw diamond amongst ordinary pebbles through TGM, take it or leave it, the choice was ours alone and now sadly because of defamation campaigns against Belzebuub and TGM, his teachings are much harder to find.
Finding them is a journey in itself, a journey towards clarity and strength of character.
We feel blessed and grateful. Thanks to Belzebuub and his teachings, we appreciate and understand life and ourselves better and have so much knowledge to fall back on and truths continue to unfold for us naturally. The teachings are a priceless gift, one which keeps giving!
I am devastated that spiritual development opportunities like I and many others once had within the organisation, has come to an end, with the closure of the organisations, which, in most part, is due to the defamation campaign against Belzebuub, over a number of years. A soul finding opportunity lost for many! Even though I hardly participate in group activities anymore, I am still in so much awe of Belzebuub’s great work, to me there is no other esoteric wisdom on earth that matches it. I could write a book explaining why.
I feel that when faced with the opposing opinions, the good is often rubbished more than the bad, in this soul repressing era. The teachings are a world apart from anything else that one can find out there.