Since 1996, DTE member, Kurt Svendsen, has been the subject of what effectively amounts to a modern day witch trial. It has all the attributes: spiteful accusations, persecution, scapegoating, victimising. Over several years, Mr Svendsen has been the victim of a host of outrageous rumours and accusations (ranging from spiking the Spiral Village water supply with LSD at Easter 96, to molesting women and children). The rumour/hate machine has been particularly relentless. Kurt’s worskshops on ‘Shame Healing’ were sabotaged - rubbed off the blackboard - at Tocumwal Easter 96, he suffered an illegal banishment from ConFest at the hands of David Cruise, and was apparently struck off the shareholder’s register and mailing list.
It is my belief that the rumours and his persecution are the result of a misinformed puritanical reaction to Mr Svendsen’s Psychedelic Spirituality (or ‘conscious tripping’) workshops - consisting of lectures (neurochemistry, responsible usage and spiritual and political ramifications) and ‘hands-on’, or experimental, phases - which he facilitated from Tocumwal Easter 1994, to Moama New Year 96/97.
During and following this year’s Easter ConFest, Mr Svendsen distributed 20 copies of a 240 page missive (The ICBM)to core group DTE members and Pt’Chang, explaining, in detail, his ‘version of events’, providing useful theories explaining the sequence of events leading to his defamation, categorically denying all allegations made against him, and requesting letters of apology published in the DTE News from all those involved in his persecution. Despite the distribution of this document, and the reality that no one has come forward with one shred of evidence to support any of the serious allegations made, Kurt Svendsen has not received any apologies, continues to be demonised, and receives nothing but silence from the likes of David Cruise when asked perfectly legitimate questions and reasonable requests on the DTE email-group.
I am simultaneously fascinated and appalled by this entire episode. It seems that an alternative community like DTE/ConFest is not as distinct from any ‘mainstream’ community as many would like to believe. It is common knowledge amongst researchers of communities, from nation states to small neighbourhoods, that they require the constant identification of an ‘evil’ Other, especially one apparently in their midst, in order to define them ‘selves’ as normal, as pure, as ‘good’. And, if such Others arent readily detectable, then communities, as is so often found, will manufacture them - inhuman beings who eat their children and commit beastiality and other abominable behaviours, fictitious ‘enemies’ who are often ruthlessly bound and banished to the margins where they are publically loathed and abhored - a target for the community’s enmity.
Communities manufacture and devour a host of folk devils in the business of maintaining a righteous, ‘sane’, ‘true’, identity. Witches, homosexuals, the mentally ill, alterant addicts and users, Jews, ‘abos’ and ‘creepy people’ are all good examples of such folk devils, those who have been invoked historically to stand for ‘immorality’, impurity, deviancy, degeneracy, ‘unnatural’ behaviours - ‘evil’. Not only does the community render itself as ‘good’ with the practice of naming its ‘Other’, but it will seek to prove itself as ‘good’ in the very act of defending itself from the named ‘evil’. Inquisitions are held. Moral crusaders emerge from within the community’s ranks to combat the named ‘evil’, to drive it out, to vanquish it. There is never any dearth of volunteers to undertake such chivalrous acts, to slay the devil (the dragon) - given the possibilities of accolades upon return, the hero’s welcome, the keys to the city.
Quite simply, DTE has found its scapegoat, its ‘evil Other’, in Kurt Svendsen. Kurt has become an icon of otherness, of evil, for a minority of core group people within DTE - some of whom are directors. I can only imagine that they have constructed Kurt’s image through countless hours of gossip, egging each other on, actually willing him - or their idea of him - into existance. And the disturbing realisation is that such individuals actually need him, because for them, his image serves as a boundary marker. He is made to represent what they are not (evil). He is *evil* - therefore they are *good*.
This is especially clear in the way Cheryl Boston ran for the position of director at the last AGM for the principal reason, publically stated by her at the time, that she did not want Kurt Svendsen, who also ran, to be a director. It became clear to me that Ms Boston was operating out of fear, out of spite, out of hatred for Mr Svendsen, and that she imagined herself a protector of the community against an evil enemy (Big Bad Kurt). Since nobody, including Cheryl Boston herself, has provided any proof that Kurt is an actual enemy of the community, that he has harmed people in any way, that any of the circulating allegations can be substantiated - then there can be little recourse than to conclude that Ms Boston’s behaviour, and now, current directorship, is founded upon an illusion, an elaborate construction of an ‘enemy’ who’se ‘otherness’ a community has conspired to manufacture.
This entire episode is a most shameful one. An archetypal scapegoat, packed full of fears and sent off into the wilderness to expire, Kurt Svendsen deserves recognition for his tenacity throughout all of this. Where others may have expired, to his credit, he has hung on. The public apologies he requests should be forthcoming immediately from those directly implicated in his persecution. I also recommend that those same people attend Kurt’s next Shame Healing workshop.
Yours
Graham St John