Healer? Visionary? Monster?

Self-styled spiritual guru and Universal Medicine leader Serge Benhayon has recruited thousands of devoted followers to his cult, where he claims to be able to heal and likens himself to Jesus. But as Susan Chenery reports, a new court case may finally bring an end to his web of deceit and the string of victims in his wake.

- Susan Chenery

Last October there were spirits in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. They were nine feet tall but with no feet, had pointy eyes and a little cleft where the nose should be. The problem was that the only person who could see them was the plaintiff in a defamation case, Serge Benhayon, and he wouldn’t say how many were floating around in there. It was around the time the spirits came into his cross-examination that Benhayon’s case began to backfire spectacularly against him. As he explained his beliefs, teachings and practices to the incredulous barrister for the defence, Tom Molomby QC, it became increasingly apparent that this was one of the stranger cases to have ever come before the court. Yes, he admitted, among his 2300 reincarnations he had been both Leonardo Da Vinci and Pythagoras. Yes, he said, people who had abused authority in past lives would be reincarnated as autistic and disabled children, and yes, people who had been sexually abused had been abusers in past lives. No, he had no medical or scientific training but he knew the root causes of cancer (rejection, lack of self-love), and was a healer (“On an energetic level I know what is going on in a body – endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, irregular periods – from an energetic point of view, there is no scientific way of measuring what you call energy.”) He also admitted he had said, “you need 30 years of science to tell you what I can get in one minute”.