Tag: cults

Who is independent?

Who is independent?

“Still waiting for a qualified, independent socio-religio-philo-psychological etc study of this movement & its history. Independent in the sense of non-affiliated. I.e., by people who are not invested or too happy in their object of study.”

When I posted this post on my private page a couple of years ago (which I repostated today as a “memory”, with the text above) I received some criticism.

That time I had written:

“Today, 130 years ago, this man, Martinus Thomsen, was born in a village in Jutland. Poor, not much schooling. He eventually trained as a dairyman.

In his thirties, he had a strong religious experience that would characterize the rest of his life. He began to write, lecture, o paint. A couple of hundred strange pictures (like the one he’s working on here). A Scandinavian “mystic”, one must well call him.

Still, pretty much unknown to the general public. As well to scholars. Only now is there an independent academic research project on its way. A study Of what he actually accomplished, I’ve heard, and of the movement that grew around him. Congrats, Martinus!”

That’s the thing about “independence.” After all, several academic papers have been written about Martinus and his “cosmology”, which have been approved, at various academic levels. A-, B-, C-, Master’s level. Yes, recently there was even a doctoral thesis. However, as far as I know, exclusively by supporters. But aren’t these works independent, after all? At least at a higher level, there are rigorous requirements on the text to be of good quality?

And I still feel like there’s something I’m missing because I’m going to think it can be really interesting.

There has something to do with Martinus Thomsen’s own claims – and how he is thus perceived, worshipped within the movement – to be a perfect individual with infallible knowledge, which I find difficult to see that it does not risk “messing it up”.

Someone objected at the time, that e.g. psychoanalysts write about Sigmund Freud, is that background disqualifying as well? Isn’t their in-depth knowledge of history, theories, etc., rather an asset?

But I don’t buy that. No one (or at least very few, and those probably enjoys no great respect) would claim that Freud was infallible, incorruptible, a perfect man who recorded the Truth in his books.

Am I being too harsh?

Where my spiritual journey began

Where my spiritual journey began

This is where my spiritual journey began. In fact, exactly 40 years ago. In the middle of christmas shopping in ’81. A man in a busty parkas and a far too big a hat, with a basket on his arm, called out to me who was out to buy presents for my family.

The ad appeared in the FB feed just now & I visited the website. It must be some subdivision of the Hare Krisna movement in Sweden? The books look exactly like then! I bought/got the titles from him, and for many years they followed me along when i moved, and they stood on every bookshelves. I don’t think I’ve ever read them tough…

So, most of all, it was the conversation with him that sparked something inside me. We stood there in the cold for an hour or more. Ethical, moral issues. I was at an impressionable, searching age. Shortly thereafter, I became a vegetarian, etc.

Then followed a few years of what you might well call “sect tourism”, a curiously flickering, snooping around. Like a birdwatcher who ticks off exotic specimens in his list. (Occasionally I went and ate at their restaurant, Govindas, at Fridhemsplan in Stockholm & it is now only a few years since it closed, so it was situated there for a long time.)

Think of the Hare Krishna movement with some warmth actually. Then they can be as much of a cult as they want.

Better late than never

Better late than never

This is so internal, I’m reluctant to post it. But I’ll do it anyway! It’s part of my own story. Perhaps it has a general message built in even.

The movement around Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen (1890-1981) has had its fair share of quarrels, internal battles. Of course. Why would it be any different from other cults?

But at least one such old lockdown seems to have been released. Earlier this week, a delivery man arrived at The Martinus Institute in Copenhagen, which the institute inform about in an email. With him he had an absolutely invaluable material – for those with an interest in the history of this Martinus movement, at least. Many cartons with original manuscripts, films, hand-painted centuries-old glass plates (like those in the picture! this was before the slide projectors), personal possessions, etc. Stuff that a close co-worker and friend of Martinus Thomsen had been keeping since the founders death and had been reluctant to give up.

A general message? That with age can come more sense, wider perspectives, a greater capacity for self-examination, an urge to put things behind you and try to reconcile while time is, perhaps.

Maybe it’s because it’s Christmas time 🙂 🎁

(Photo: Jens Christian Hermansen)

Martinus faces resistance

Martinus faces resistance

Always refreshing, but so rarely only happens when the Danish Martinus Thomsen’s (1890-1981) esoteric system gets some qualified, interested, moderately benevolent, resistance like this! (The section will be a kind of variant, with the same qualities, as the Nexus article from -82,I think.)

“Martinus Thomsen was in his thirties experiencing a transformative spiritual experience. He received strong divine light, and met a Christ figure. This led to him receiving what he called cosmic consciousness. He spent the rest of his life writing down what had been revealed to him. The life’s work was named the Book of Life. The name Is also the Third Testament.

We talk to Mikael Krall and Olav Johansson about the man and the work.”

“Magical Thinking – About the Bigger Reality” #075 MARTINUS THOMSEN (2 h 2 min)

Link to podcast: https://bit.ly/3xk4VRL

An interview that evokes the thoughts of both those who interview, as it seems, and in me who listen.

Surely it’s about faith, for me (even if I’ve been cowardly out of? o hardly dealing with metaphysics anymore) and most people. But with the addition that perhaps there are others for whom the beliefs in this field (reincarnation for example) are actually knowing, I don’t know what’s possible, but I feel like I need to keep this open in the wigifying case.

Otherwise, I became some kind of… I don’t know what?… The philosopher of dissatisfaction who takes every opportunity to cause trouble just because… Or as if it were trapped in some belief of their own (either that something metaphysical is not found, or that in a matter of fact it is not possible to have self-perceived knowledge of this) … And that would be a kind of prison, that with, o waste of energy.

I have a great sympathy for the approach that the big questions, which Martinus and others have published the text about, would in fact lack answers. At the same time, can’t even your attitude include keeping life open might actually work in a certain way, o that others may have gained knowledge of this? It doesn’t cost anything, keep it open, I think.

But what would it take? It has to be a balancing act in higher school. Some kind of wonder yoga 😃

Martinus Thomsen and his movement

Martinus Thomsen and his movement

It has probably been glimpsed, here o there in my writings, that I have been interested in the Danish mystic Martinus Thomsen (d. 1981) and his visions. Here is a post I posted elsewhere this spring for the centenary of what he himself said was the start of his work.

What makes me think of him right now? Well, this week came the ruling in a protracted dispute over copyright that has been going on for more then ten years. An dispute that has divided and chattered the Martinus movement. It’s not strange in itself, that happens in most spiritual environments.

This is not an opinion piece. No solicitation attempt either. A little world surveillance – a VDN label of me, maybe. And my idea of right and wrong in the dispute does not belong here. Let the dead bury their dead. Life goes on.
– – –

Behind this window a hundred years ago, something strange happened. The young dairyman Martinus Thomsen came home one evening, sat down in his wicker chair and soon had some kind of prophetic experience that sent him in an unexpected direction for the rest of his life.

It’s actually remarkable no matter how you look at it. Philosophically, for what he then shared, if you’re laid in that direction. Religious studies. A mystic in our neighborhood with a large production of texts, lectures and “symbol images” over half a century that – until now – has hardly received any attention at all from academia.

Or psychologically. I never met him myself. I became acquainted with Martinus Thomsen and his staggering “cosmology” only the year after he died. But I have met many people who have known him. And he seems to have behaved, no weirdness, no major scandals or extravagances. The picture you get is of a simple, friendly and fun-loving man. Of course, over time, he became a kind of cult leader, with a few thousand loyal followers. But there was never much money involved, no missionary, there was nothing you could become a member of even.

So psychologically, he’s not easy to understand, or explain away, either. To combine the person with his work. A psychotic, or at least disturbed, someone who was driven by a desire to impress and gain power over others, etc. In fact, he seems to have been a rather different new-age-spiritual foreground figure. I always say that this movement is like my spiritual hometown. Nowadays hardly more than that. But I always think of Martinus Thomsen (1890-1981) with warmth.

(The chair is preserved at the Martinus Institute in Copenhagen. The house on Jagtvej 52 is still standing and looks much like then. He himself rests in a small mausoleum at Frederiksberg’s old cemetery.)

Should society take over responsibility for everything spiritual?

Should society take over responsibility for everything spiritual?

Spiritual and personal development. How to protect applicants from harm? Get in the clutches of predatory, manipulative types in the alternative industry? What can society do to regulate and comply? Some think that a little more control or “tougher action” against the species would help. But it’s not easy to see how something like that would be possible to fix. Couldn’t we legislate that only people who have id from the National Board of Health and Welfare could do this? I.e. doctors, psychologists, nurses, etc. These alone were allowed to provide tools and guidance for people’s spiritual education and well-being. (It’s like today’s liquor can only be sold on the system.)

The CBTs have long since been doing Buddhist mindfulness, etc. Those who work in Freud & Co’s followings were able to offer a solid schooling path towards spiritual integration and satisfaction. You would of course lose some skills that exist today in the alternative world, but in return could the area be reserved for people who, in the face of the threat of withdrawal of the id and professional ban, at least stayed in the skin?

(I’m not going to pretend I’ve read the book above, because I haven’t, but it sounds 🙂 interesting.)

Meeting with the Space Brothers

Meeting with the Space Brothers

I had just been thinking about my spiritual search and what context I had actually been in. And I had noted that it was not direct sects, but more things that could be described as disorganized, or possibly semi-organized, alternative spirituality.

But then I read a recent post on the author HĂ„kan Blomqvist’s blog, about the history of the UFO movement in Sweden. And his meeting in the early 70’s with a certain Sten Lindgren, alleged “contact person” for extraterrestrial civilizations, as well as representative of the “InterGalactic Federation”, IGF. Or simply the “Space Brothers”

And then I know at least once (there are a few more) when I touched on – and felt the strong gravity from – what must be described as a “sect” with a clear leader.

“On November 21, 1970 Kjell Jonsson and I went by train to Stockholm where we were picked up by Sten Lindgren and his co-worker Bjarne HĂ„kansson. We were taken to Sten Lindgren’s apartement at Lidingö. Arriving at our destination we were soon made aware of that this was no ordinary Swedish home…”

For me, it happened in the late 80’s, at least fifteen years after the meeting HĂ„kan Blomqvist tells about. I was just over twenty and working in a kind of alternative bookstore at the time. A man who introduced himself as Sten Lindgren started talking to me over the counter, and soon invited me to a meeting at his home on Lidingö.

And I went there. It was a surreal, but of course also exciting, evening that sometimes came to mind. Like now. As I remember, most participants that evening were more familiar with and already sympathetic to Lindgren, his ideas and sensations.

The strongest memory of the evening was how he explained to us that the moment we sat there in his sofa group, “reconnaissance discs”, i.e. a kind of UFO drone, hovered outside the windows and watched us. And that we wouldn’t be surprised if they followed us from a distance when we left the house. Previous visitors had testified to this.

Here is a longer article, also by HĂ„kan Blomqvist, about the phenomenon of Sten Lindgren.