Universal Medicine is FINALLY geting some proper news coverage in the Uk. The Times ran a short article on Sunday March 10th about The Lighthouse headquarters in Frome. What stands out is that schools in the area are starting to pull out of their swimming pool contracts and hopefully it's only a matter of time before Simon Williams is ejected from the Chamber of Commerce in Frome.
The BBC had a short segment about UM in their news program on Monday 11th March, which should also help spread the word.
Sunday Times, March 10th 2019
by Gabriel Pogrund
The Somerset B&B that’s home to Universal Medicine ‘burpers’
Frome is a picturesque town in Somerset with cobbled streets and a lively music scene — but it is also the unlikely headquarters of a “socially harmful cult”.
Followers of Universal Medicine (UM) believe in breast fondling, vaginal massages and burping up evil spirits as alternatives to modern medicine. They go to bed at 9pm and rise at 3am, avoid carrots and alcohol and refrain from making certain clockwise motions.
From afar UM may appear to be a bizarre but harmless new age movement. A recent court case in Sydney, however, shed light on its darker side. Founded in Australia by Serge Benyahon, 55, a once-bankrupt tennis coach who believes he is the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci, the sect is a mishmash of religion and science fiction that imagines the world as a struggle between positive and negative energy.
The legal saga began when a survivor blogged about her traumatic experience of the cult and accused Benyahon of sexually exploitative behaviour. He responded by launching a defamation lawsuit against her.
A Supreme Court jury in November found it was substantially true to say he was a “charlatan who makes fraudulent medical claims”, preys on cancer patients and has an “indecent interest in girls as young as 10” who stayed unaccompanied at his home. It found Benyahon was at the helm of the “socially harmful cult”.
Australian authorities have now banned Benyahon from treating children and demanded that the millionaire, who once persuaded a dying cancer patient to leave him £750,000, should pay legal costs to the blogger.
All of which poses fresh questions for UM’s European headquarters on the outskirts of Frome and its penetration into life in the town, which will be put under a television spotlight tomorrow night.
Followers include Simon Williams, an Old Etonian who is president of Frome Chamber of Commerce, and Otto Bathurst, a film maker who won a Bafta for his work on the BBC drama Peaky Blinders.
The group is based at the Lighthouse, a B&B with 30 acres of woodland that was bought by followers in 2007. Its centrepiece, an indoor pool, is run by Benyahon’s daughter, Simone. Since the court ruling, two Church of England schools have stopped using the pool. Two others may follow suit.
The Lighthouse is open to the public but guests have complained about the presence of UM pamphlets and paraphernalia. One 2-star review on TripAdvisor said the experience was “very odd”, adding: “What started out as quirky oddities soon became claustrophobic reminders that this is not ‘just a B&B’. . . but in fact a business run in support of the decidedly dubious ‘Universal Medicine’ organisation.”
The BBC had a short segment about UM in their news program on Monday 11th March, which should also help spread the word.
Sunday Times, March 10th 2019
by Gabriel Pogrund
The Somerset B&B that’s home to Universal Medicine ‘burpers’
Frome is a picturesque town in Somerset with cobbled streets and a lively music scene — but it is also the unlikely headquarters of a “socially harmful cult”.
Followers of Universal Medicine (UM) believe in breast fondling, vaginal massages and burping up evil spirits as alternatives to modern medicine. They go to bed at 9pm and rise at 3am, avoid carrots and alcohol and refrain from making certain clockwise motions.
From afar UM may appear to be a bizarre but harmless new age movement. A recent court case in Sydney, however, shed light on its darker side. Founded in Australia by Serge Benyahon, 55, a once-bankrupt tennis coach who believes he is the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci, the sect is a mishmash of religion and science fiction that imagines the world as a struggle between positive and negative energy.
The legal saga began when a survivor blogged about her traumatic experience of the cult and accused Benyahon of sexually exploitative behaviour. He responded by launching a defamation lawsuit against her.
A Supreme Court jury in November found it was substantially true to say he was a “charlatan who makes fraudulent medical claims”, preys on cancer patients and has an “indecent interest in girls as young as 10” who stayed unaccompanied at his home. It found Benyahon was at the helm of the “socially harmful cult”.
Australian authorities have now banned Benyahon from treating children and demanded that the millionaire, who once persuaded a dying cancer patient to leave him £750,000, should pay legal costs to the blogger.
All of which poses fresh questions for UM’s European headquarters on the outskirts of Frome and its penetration into life in the town, which will be put under a television spotlight tomorrow night.
Followers include Simon Williams, an Old Etonian who is president of Frome Chamber of Commerce, and Otto Bathurst, a film maker who won a Bafta for his work on the BBC drama Peaky Blinders.
The group is based at the Lighthouse, a B&B with 30 acres of woodland that was bought by followers in 2007. Its centrepiece, an indoor pool, is run by Benyahon’s daughter, Simone. Since the court ruling, two Church of England schools have stopped using the pool. Two others may follow suit.
The Lighthouse is open to the public but guests have complained about the presence of UM pamphlets and paraphernalia. One 2-star review on TripAdvisor said the experience was “very odd”, adding: “What started out as quirky oddities soon became claustrophobic reminders that this is not ‘just a B&B’. . . but in fact a business run in support of the decidedly dubious ‘Universal Medicine’ organisation.”