How do sects feed on the health crisis?

The Covid-19 health crisis, fertile ground for sects. This is one of the lessons of the latest report from Miviludes, the interministerial mission responsible for combating these phenomena. The organization reports +50% referrals, compared to 2015.

“2.0 gurus”, particularly in the field of alternative care

Who are today’s cults and gurus? Alongside the “spirituality multinationals”, such as the Church of Scientology or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there is a myriad of “gurus 2.0”, various “coaches”. They promote mindfulness meditation, fasting and “raw food”, alternative medicine, such as “reiki” or “new Germanic medicine”…

Miviludes also points to the excesses of “anthroposophy”, the “sacred feminine”, “masculinism”, and is also alarmed by the harmful influence of people like Thierry Casasnovas, Tal Schaller or Jean-Jacques Crèvecœur. One of the areas where we find the most deviations? Health, with people promoting unconventional care, then the personal development sector.

What warning signs of sectarian influence?

How to identify sectarian movements and phenomena? How to help a loved one under the influence? Why is the field of health, and more specifically naturopathy, overrun by gurus? To answer these questions in our podcast “Minute Papillon! », our guest is Delphine Guérard, psychologist specializing in sectarian phenomena, author of L‘Sectarian influence. Psychopathologies of gurus and cult followers (Dunod editions, 2022).

It should be noted that Sonia Backès, Secretary of State in charge of Citizenship, will hold at the beginning of the year 2023, the first meetings of sectarian excesses and conspiracy. They will aim, in particular, to sensitize public opinion to sectarian aberrations.

Victim or witness of sectarian aberrations? You can file an alert on the Miviludes website www.miviludes.interieur.gouv.fr.

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