Police Descent on Terre du Ciel at the Chardenoux Estate

Police Descent on “Terre du Ciel” at the Chardenoux Estate.

January 2010

After the descent of the MIVILUDES on the Moulin des Vallées at the end of 2009, the Chardenoux Centre (“Terre du Ciel”) in Saône-et-Loire has just undergone one of those police assaults of which anti-cult France has made a speciality (read the press releases of Terre du Ciel). Not knowing the official grounds for this action, and on reading the account of the head of the Centre, one may suppose that the blind and deaf anti-cult fight is the principal reason for their situation. Awaiting clarification, the employees were at first deprived of their computer equipment, preventing them from carrying on their activity following the search ( update of 27/01: read on this subject the interview with the public prosecutor by Jean-Luc Martin-Lagardette)

CICNS has put online a model of the

letter which our association sent to the authorities (various ministries). We encourage you to draw inspiration from it to write on your own account, in order to challenge the government (Prime Minister, MIVILUDES, President of the Republic, Ministry of the Interior, Minister of Justice) over the excesses of the French anti-cult policy. We invite you to draft these letters in a rational manner and to avoid remarks that are excessive or too “conspiracist”. It is enough to underline the existing excesses. These letters must however be written in a personal capacity and not in the name of CICNS or of Terre du Ciel. On reflection, the choice of letters to the government seems more effective and pertinent than a petition (slower and often more timid).

Assessment, projects and proposals of CICNS as at 29 January

The campaign of letters to the authorities has had a certain success, though doubtless too weak to date to alert their addressees. It is still possible to address your letters to the ministerial cabinets above to express in solidarity your disagreement with the excesses of the anti-cult fight in France. It is a citizen’s action to be encouraged in the current climate, whose impact must not be neglected if it is done in large numbers.

We also suggest that you contact the journalists you know, so that they look into the subject more attentively than they have done to date (you can offer them certain links from our site for information, and in particular our brochure ). “La Vie”, for example, in this article, managed to treat the subject with neutrality.

A national colloquium will be organised shortly with a round table conducted by CICNS.

An action on a larger scale, intended to alert public opinion and the media to the situation in our country, is being put in place. We will inform you of its details when its preparatory phase is in place.

In short, if you are reading these lines and feel concerned enough by this situation to take part, see first what you can do to feed the campaign of letters to the authorities; inform the people you know about the descent on Terre du Ciel and what it means for individual liberties in our country, particularly in the spiritual domain; approach local or national journalists so that they treat the subject of the said “cults” taking into account the alternative information which CICNS offers;

We continue to underline the importance of avoiding overly emotional and aggressive reactions, which tend to disserve the cause of minorities. A large proportion of the people involved at one level or another in these anti-cult actions are honest and, at the same time, very ill-informed about the real nature of the spiritual and therapeutic approaches with which they are confronted. Your letters, and circulating the information on the Internet, will contribute greatly to countering the disinformation of the anti-cult agencies, all the better if you respect your interlocutors (which does not prevent you from being firm in your statement of the facts). We are facing a work of re-information which requires the participation of the greatest number to be effective. We will continue to keep you informed on this page in the days to come. Our email [email protected] can be used to put questions to us or to offer help.

Janine Tavernier, former president of UNADFI, criticises the police action at Terre du Ciel

« My principal preoccupation during my term as president of UNADFI, from 1993 to 2001, was that the fight against cults should not itself become a vector of sectarianism. Not being followed by my associative entourage in my ethical demands, I resigned as president of UNADFI in September 2001. The search carried out at Terre du Ciel only confirms my fears. Faced with such doings, I wish to bring my support to this association which carries on, in a spirit of liberty and with respect for persons, activities for an individual and collective human progress. Is it condemnable to be outside the “pensée unique”? » Janine Tavernier (source: testimonies of support for Terre du Ciel)

Our account of the “Spirituality and Society” forum of 22 to 24 May 2010.

Read all the Terre du Ciel communiqués on this page

At the end of April, according to a Terre du Ciel communiqué: ” The first line of inquiry (of dérive sectaire) has been completely abandoned. They are now on a banal financial trail ”. According to CICNS, the “cult trail” is never any good. Even if traces of this slanderous and defamatory attack on this centre will remain, the disagreement expressed massively by the friends of this centre and by our campaign of letters to the authorities will at least have made it possible to eliminate the “cult” ground of this attack. But the “financial trail” remains a very effective tool for crushing a structure, whatever the official motivation.