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Preaching to the converted: how Kabbalah keeps on growing
Kabbalah is booming, with the London HQ planning a £5m extension and boasting over 1,000 devotees, many of them City high-fliers. But what does the faith really offer?
Harriet Sherwood
Monday 26 October 2015 18.55 GMT
Marcus Weston strides into his office, housed in an elegant Georgian house in the West End of London, clutching a bottle of slime-coloured water. It’s made from lemon, ginger, cucumber and super greens powder, and West drinks 1.5 litres of it a day. “It gives me an extra gear, cleans me inside and makes my thinking clearer,” he says.
Weston, a former investment banker, devotes this clarity to studying and teaching Kabbalah. Commonly described as a mystical offshoot of Judaism, it has grown exponentially in the UK since its London headquarters opened in 2002. Now 1,100 students cram into its premises, which are next door to the upmarket Oriental Club, each week, with waiting lists for some classes and events, and it teaches spiritualism to businesses, diplomats, charities and local authorities. Weston has been invited to a Whitehall meeting to discuss the idea of incorporating emotional intelligence content into the national curriculum. “We’re inundated,” he says.
But recently two people came to the London Kabbalah centre who were not seeking to fill a spiritual void in their lives. Knocking on the door at 5am on a Sunday morning were a pair of council officials investigating a call from a local resident, who complained about 36 hours of continuous loud chanting that had emanated from the centre. “I guess it was too noisy for one person, for which I apologise,” says Weston, with a shrug and a smile.
The complaint about the chanting over the Jewish holiday of Sukkot drew fresh attention to a movement whose many reported celebrity adherents include Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore. Princess Eugenie, currently eighth in line to the throne, has been photographed apparently wearing the distinctive red thread that devotees ties around their left wrist, although Weston declines to be drawn on this, saying only that he has “many connections with many royal families around the world”.
Weston is a charming man, wearing a smart suit, perfectly judged stubble and an almost-continuous smile. He is happily expansive on the spiritual meaning of Kabbalah, with only a slight clench of the jaw betraying irritation at questions regarding the financing of the movement and claims by some that it is a cult. Brought up in a “very un-observant but culturally Jewish” family, he embarked on a career in investment banking before chancing upon Kabbalah 16 years ago.
“I wasn’t looking for anything spiritual, but felt there was more to life than sitting on the tube. I came to a class and sat at the back, thinking, ‘What on earth am I doing?’. But the more the guy talked, the more it made sense, it resonated.”
Now he is the full-time lead teacher at the London Kabbalah centre, living with his wife and small children in Kabbalah accommodation, eating Kabbalah food and drawing on his savings for all other necessities or pleasures. He says he is entitled to a salary or allowance, but chooses not to take one.
etc...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/kabbalah-religion-marcus-weston-madonna
Preaching to the converted: how Kabbalah keeps on growing
Kabbalah is booming, with the London HQ planning a £5m extension and boasting over 1,000 devotees, many of them City high-fliers. But what does the faith really offer?
Harriet Sherwood
Monday 26 October 2015 18.55 GMT
Marcus Weston strides into his office, housed in an elegant Georgian house in the West End of London, clutching a bottle of slime-coloured water. It’s made from lemon, ginger, cucumber and super greens powder, and West drinks 1.5 litres of it a day. “It gives me an extra gear, cleans me inside and makes my thinking clearer,” he says.
Weston, a former investment banker, devotes this clarity to studying and teaching Kabbalah. Commonly described as a mystical offshoot of Judaism, it has grown exponentially in the UK since its London headquarters opened in 2002. Now 1,100 students cram into its premises, which are next door to the upmarket Oriental Club, each week, with waiting lists for some classes and events, and it teaches spiritualism to businesses, diplomats, charities and local authorities. Weston has been invited to a Whitehall meeting to discuss the idea of incorporating emotional intelligence content into the national curriculum. “We’re inundated,” he says.
But recently two people came to the London Kabbalah centre who were not seeking to fill a spiritual void in their lives. Knocking on the door at 5am on a Sunday morning were a pair of council officials investigating a call from a local resident, who complained about 36 hours of continuous loud chanting that had emanated from the centre. “I guess it was too noisy for one person, for which I apologise,” says Weston, with a shrug and a smile.
The complaint about the chanting over the Jewish holiday of Sukkot drew fresh attention to a movement whose many reported celebrity adherents include Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore. Princess Eugenie, currently eighth in line to the throne, has been photographed apparently wearing the distinctive red thread that devotees ties around their left wrist, although Weston declines to be drawn on this, saying only that he has “many connections with many royal families around the world”.
Weston is a charming man, wearing a smart suit, perfectly judged stubble and an almost-continuous smile. He is happily expansive on the spiritual meaning of Kabbalah, with only a slight clench of the jaw betraying irritation at questions regarding the financing of the movement and claims by some that it is a cult. Brought up in a “very un-observant but culturally Jewish” family, he embarked on a career in investment banking before chancing upon Kabbalah 16 years ago.
“I wasn’t looking for anything spiritual, but felt there was more to life than sitting on the tube. I came to a class and sat at the back, thinking, ‘What on earth am I doing?’. But the more the guy talked, the more it made sense, it resonated.”
Now he is the full-time lead teacher at the London Kabbalah centre, living with his wife and small children in Kabbalah accommodation, eating Kabbalah food and drawing on his savings for all other necessities or pleasures. He says he is entitled to a salary or allowance, but chooses not to take one.
etc...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/kabbalah-religion-marcus-weston-madonna