Cult has a miracle cure right on tap

smh.com.au/July 17, 2001
By Joseph Kerr

Need something for what ails you?

Why not try a cup of Agent Orange, a glass of Popeye's Spinach, a jolt of the Fiery Exorcism of Death Psychology - or perhaps a drop of Don Juan Egg Elixir?

For about $100 you can get a bottle of any of them, and supposedly benefit from their healing powers - able to "dissolve the particular karmas of any and every suffering mortal."

But the NSW Government says they are nothing but water. Yesterday it attacked the sale of more than 270 different healing elixirs by the group Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember, calling it a New Age spin on an old-fashioned rip-off.

As the Minister for Fair Trading, Mr Watkins, put it: "The old sideshow spruiker selling the cure-all elixir."

Mr Watkins named Infinity as an unfair trader, saying it charged mark-ups of up to 400,000 per cent.

He said the company claimed its healing products "from the future" could fix almost anything, including heart weakness and alcohol and drug addiction. They included wands, vials, pendants and one device known as the "Saturn Bubbler."

But Mr Watkins said there was no dispute, even by Infinity itself, that the bottles contained anything but water. "People with severe drug addictions, mental illness, or with potentially fatal diseases such as HIV or cancer may be vulnerable to the promise of a cure through the use of these waters," Mr Watkins said.

He said prosecution under the Fair Trading Act was being considered.

Infinity refused to respond to the allegations yesterday. However, notes on its Web site suggest any failure of its products to heal is because of the user's own imperfection. "The limitation is not in the product, the limitation is in the reception," it says.

The director of Cult Counselling Australia, Mr Raphael Aron, said the tightly controlled group - with addresses in Sydney and Byron Bay - was one of the fastest growing cults in Australia.

His organisation was working with "two or three dozen" members of Infinity to reconcile them with the families they had left.

One woman had abandoned her four children to join the cult in her attempt to reach "enlightenment."