This Monday the trial of five executives of the “Great Change” sect begins. Tried for abuse of weakness before the Paris court until May 3, they risk up to five years in prison. This movement, created by Etienne Guillé, a former CNRS researcher, has brought together some 200 followers.
Died in 2018 at the age of 81, the guru claimed to have returned to Earth after visiting more than twenty planets in order to save “the chosen race”. The faithful had to separate themselves from the “predators”, their loved ones, and rely on the judgment of the pendulum, an all-powerful instrument at the heart of the ideology of “the Great Change”.
“Water with charcoal” against cancer
Also nicknamed Greve-SVI for “Research group of eternal vibrational energies and incorruptible vibrational supports”, the sect had won followers as far as Portugal. But while the movement collected around 100,000 euros per year, according to The Parisian in 2016many complainants denounced a phenomenon of control.
One of the followers, suffering from cancer, was advised to drink “water with charcoal”. While the sect rejected all conventional medicine, she refused all chemotherapy and died in October 2009. The five defendants could therefore be sentenced to up to five years of imprisonment for these abuses.