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Week of May 13 03

I feel the same way about Madonna's American Life as I felt about Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when I saw it for the first time; excitement gave way to confusion, then embarrassment, then anger, and finally, sadness and a deep disappointment. Why? Because a childhood icon had been thoroughly despoiled.

I'm sure there are some who legitimately enjoy American Life. There are more who profess to enjoy it only because Madonna made it. They're part of the Madonna cult, just as many defenders of The Phantom Menace are part of a Star Wars cult. Criticizing Madonna, like criticizing Star Wars, is heresy to these people. It's as if you're attacking their very identity. Blind worship such as this is dangerous.

American Life is not witty, nor fun, nor energizing, nor deep. In cases where the melodies actually compliment the music, as in Nothing Fails, enjoyment is robbed from me by the self-important, ponderous, preachy lyrics.

I ask Madonna: what kind of "extreme point of view" is it to say that love is more important than material success? Isn't that what everyone says?

"We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values -- looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful or just being famous. It's the most superficial part of the American dream and who would know better than me?"
- Madonna

Actually, Madonna, can I remind you that your critics have been saying what you're saying now, about you, since the early 80s? Lots of people have known better than you about what's important vs what isn't.. for years and years.

"The only thing that's going to bring you happiness is love and how you treat your fellow man and having compassion for one another."
- Madonna

No kidding!

It's as if Hitler had lived and one day declared that killing Jews wasn't the right thing to do after all.. and how stupid are all of you who think so. Oh really!?

Ray of Light was spiritual but it's lessons were turned inward. Ray of Light asked more questions than it gave answers. American Life does nothing but give "answers". American Life speaks down to us from a high perch.

Few things make me more suspicious than a person who claims to have all the answers, and there's something selfish about a woman who thinks that her lessons are everyone's lessons.

So what happened? How did Madonna turn from the most confident, enthralling, independent performer in pop music into this whining buzzkill?

This may be the reason: Kabbalah, in the form of the Kabbalah Centre, is a dangerous cult. Madonna has been brainwashed.

Am I the only one who freaked out seeing Madonna look into the eyes of Matt Lauer on NBC and earnestly say about Kabbalah: "It IS the code to the universe!"

Flashback to 1998. Madonna has won a Golden Globe for Evita and given birth to Lourdes. At the time, Madonna claimed to have been happy. But in retrospect, she admits to having felt very, very sad and alone. It is precisely at lost, weakened moments like this that people are most vulnerable to cults. It is then that Madonna turned to Rabbi Philip Berg and the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles.

"A lot of times you go through life looking for distractions to cover up pain, when what you should really do is face the pain and then you don't need the distraction."
- Madonna

Indeed. But isn't Kabbalah just another kind of distraction? A dangerous one?

Kabbalah, like Scientology, gives special treatment to celebrities while exploiting common people and enriching it's leaders. Like Scientology, Kabbalah charges its victims for their "enlightenment", even to the point of sending them into debt as they're dying from terminal illnesses.

There is a kind of Kabbalah that isn't a cult, or at least, is no more of a cult than Islam or Christianity. But the form of Kabbalah taught at the Kabbalah Centre by Rabbi Philip Berg, the kind Madonna studies and promotes, most definitely is.

From "The Truth About the Kabbalah Centre" by The Task Force on Cults & Missionaries:

[Rabbi Philip] Berg claims to have a doctorate (all his books go under the name "Dr. Philip S. Berg"). In some of his books he alleges to have a doctorate in "comparative religion," while another source claims his doctorate to be in "jurisprudence in biblical law." When personally confronted about the discrepancies, and questioned about his alleged doctorate, he admitted (in a published interview) that in fact - he has no academic degree at all - and that his alleged "doctorate" is "part of his smichah (ordination)". Everyone knows, of course, that there is no such thing.

For his public lectures Berg advertises himself invariably as "the greatest Kabbalist in the world;" "the world's foremost authority on the Kabbalah;" "a living Kabbalist and the rarest of teachers;" or other such flamboyant terms of self-aggrandizement. Outside of his own Centre and circle of followers, neither the academic nor the Jewish religious worlds know anything about him except for the anomalies of his centers. They have absolutely no regard for him, his teachings, writings or activities. In fact, he is universally condemned by both the orthodox rabbinate and contemporary schools of Jewish mysticism in Israel, the USA and elsewhere, as a charlatan.

In "Has Madonna joined a cult?", Rick Ross, a renowned cult expert, writes:

Canadian rabbi Emanuel Schochet, a rabbinical scholar and authority on Jewish mysticism well-known throughout the world, author and the editor of numerous primary texts--claims the following: "Berg has sold "The Zohar" and other writings at mark-ups of over 500% of the fair market-price", and has engaged in "acts of extortion by scaring naïve people with all kinds of evil and curses that will come upon them if they refuse to offer money for the Kabbalah Centre" and also making "ludicrous promises of physical health and wealth if they will purchase their publications".

The Toronto Vaad HaRabonim [rabbinical council] and the Queens Vaad HaRabonim "issued statements to the public about avoiding the learning in Kabbalah Centers as well as purchasing books which were on the market."

The Chief Rabbi, the Bet Din [Jewish religious court] of Johannesburg, and the Rabbinical Association of South Africa, also "issued decrees of condemnation against the Kabbalah Centre."

The Philadelphia Board of Rabbis "complained that Berg's followers [have] been abusive".

Rabbi Yitchak Sladowsky, Executive VP of Vaad HaRabonim of Queens: specifically reported that "Parents had complained that children were 'taken in' by Berg and were being estranged from their families."

The New York Jewish Community Task Force on Missionaries and Cults, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Cult Clinic Hotline of New York have all received complaints and/or cited problems with the "Kabbalah Centre"...

Denise Hamilton of the New Times Los Angeles, reports:

[Rachel] Bernstein [a therapist and coordinator at the Cult Hotline and Clinic of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services in New York] began tracking the Kabbalah Center in the 1990s, when she lived in L.A., and kept track of the complaints she received. They included reports from:

• A woman with a missing child who was told by Rabbi Berg that he would help find her daughter if she devoted a year of service to the Kabbalah Center. The grief-stricken woman, a dentist, gave up her practice to do so. At the end of the year, Berg denied he could help her.

• A man who wound up in the hospital feeling suicidal and wondered if the Kabbalah Center was to blame. Upon joining, he had been told to stop taking his depression medication. Instead, he had been told to buy the Zohar and scan it with his fingers. The energy flowing from the Zohar would protect him from psychological problems. It didn't.

• A man who was visiting his elderly parents in Boca Raton, Florida, when Kabbalah Center proselytizers came knocking. The man overheard them say, "Oh, I see you're elderly, do you have any ailments? We have people in our organization who can help." They urged the couple to donate money to keep them from suffering pain. When the couple declined, the Kabbalah Center people grew abusive and threatening....

There are also darker allegations. In 1992, Rabbi Abraham Union, Rabbinic administrator of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of California, found a bloody sheep's head stuffed into a plastic bag hanging on his office doorknob after he distributed the proclamation from Toronto rabbis criticizing the Kabbalah Center. That night, several young men appeared at his home and asked in Hebrew whether he had gotten their message. Fearing for his life, the rabbi filed a police report, but the Kabbalah Center denied making the threat and no evidence connected the center with the incident.

Later, Hamilton writes:

.. the Kabbalah Center might have remained just another quirky spiritual movement if not for the celebrities.

For self-anointed prophets and messiahs alike, hooking a star means hitting the jackpot. Consider famous Scientologists Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and John Travolta. Or Tina Turner and dozens of other chanting Buddhists whose "Nam Yoho Renge Kyo" anthem swept Hollywood a decade ago. Or the Tibetan Zen Buddhism championed by Richard Gere.

Several years ago, it was the Kabbalah Center's turn, as luminaries such as Elizabeth Taylor, Gwyneth Paltrow, Courtney Love, Barbra Streisand, Marla Maples, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern began flocking to its classes, with many publicly touting the spiritual merits of Kabbalah...

Madonna credited the Kabbalah Center with "creative guidance" on her Ray of Light album and delivered her daughter by cesarean section on a day recommended by her Kabbalah spiritual advisor...

But mainstream rabbis and Jewish organizations have watched the Kabbalah Center's blossoming with undisguised dismay. Many dismiss Berg's brand of Kabbalah as an inaccurate distortion of true teachings, and the leader himself as a buffoonish carnival barker.

Madonna has given parties for this man, the leader of the Kabbalah cult, Rabbi Philip Berg. She's become a stooge for a kind of Jewish Scientology that emotionally and financially exploits the vulnerable and the weak.

One hallmark of joining a cult is that you must reject your past. Madonna used to have "absolutely no regrets". But now, while never exactly saying "I have regrets", she clearly does.

Madonna will pardon me for saying that she was a revolutionary.. then.

"I was a buffoon until the age of 40."
- Madonna

Is this "spiritual growth" or is this self-hatred disguised as enlightenment?

Another sign of cult behavior is to allow the cult to dominate every aspect of your life. A cult's importance must be paramount.

On MTV, John Norris asked Madonna, "What is the single biggest change in your life over the past few years? Is it marriage, is it children, is it Kabbalah?"

Madonna replied, "Well, it's all of those things. Obviously studying Kabbalah has changed my whole outlook on life.."

Kabbalah takes center stage, even over her marriage and her children?

On a Dateline special, Madonna asked that Dateline not interview her husband. She proferred her Kabbalah teacher instead, who said that Madonna was "definitely" among the "1%" of people who truly understood the Kabbalah. And yet Madonna doesn't read Hebrew and has only studied part time since 1998. Traditional Kabbalists study full time for years.. after the age of 40, after decades of studying Judaism.. and yet still profess to understanding little of the Kabbalah. And yet Madonna gets it? Obviously, Madonna's "teachers" know exactly how to butter her up.

Madonna is even producing a documentary on the Kabbalah and writing a series of Kabbalah themed children's books.. books that her Kabbalah teachers told her she should write.

How many people will Madonna lead to the Kabbalah Centre to be exploited?

There's something self-centered, literally, about the Kabbalah, as Madonna puts it: "[Kabbalah is] several things. One is that we are all connected. That you and a person that lives on the other side of the world is an extension of me."

Madonna also claims that "any success I have is a manifestation of God. It's my ego that wants to claim ownership. It's hubris, arrogance and greed."

But what is more arrogant? Crediting success to the talented team behind you, your hard work, and your fans..  or claiming that it's God?

American Life is shallower than the culture it berates. It is the sound of regret. It is the sound of a once strong woman now brainwashed and wounded. It is the self-help book of a lonely, spoiled celebrity.

The Kabbalah Centre has turned Madonna into preachy, submissive, self-flagellating disappointment. An icon, ruined.

Cult members often work hard to convert others into their cult and their way of thinking. As Madonna told People magazine:

"I don't want people to dress like me anymore. Now I want them to think like me. Dress like Britney Spears and think like me, and everything will be fine."

No thanks.

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In addition to the quotations that I linked to above, here's more information on the Kabbalah Centre and its dubious practices:

"A Mother Experiences the Kabbalah Learning Centre"
Freedom of Mind Resource Center, 2002

"The Cabal of the Kabbalah Centre Exposed: New Relations"
The Israeli Magazine Tel Aviv, September 1994

"The Accidental Kabbalist"
City Link Magazine, January 2001

"But all is not what it seems.."
Self Magazine, November 1998

Here's the Kabbalah Centre itself. Hopefully they won't threaten to sue me. You can even take a look at the overpriced trinkets in their gift shop.

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