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When an Opponent Makes You a Banner: How CESNUR’s Bitter Winter Effectively Elevated Me as the Focal Point of Its Global Opposition

 

Also, here. 

This essay offers analysis and opinion based on publicly available sources and plainly observable editorial choices.

 

 

بهتان، اقرارِ عجزِ حجّت است

Smear is the confession that argument has failed! ~ Persian aphorism

 

Introduction: From Critic to “Figurehead” by Editorial Design

A doctrine that can’t face questions recruits prosecutors who are in fact paid lobbyists. This is because movements don’t just fight ideas; they curate opponents. In August 2025, Bitter Winter—the media arm of CESNUR—ran a multi-part series on the so-called Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL). Part 4 singled me out by name and framed my work as emblematic of a broader “anti-cult” threat.[1] In doing so, CESNUR did more than rebut an argument (which it didn’t). It followed a well-known play in narrative warfare: elevate one antagonist, define the field through that antagonist, then mobilize audiences around the conflict. The outcome is paradoxical but predictable: by attempting to delegitimize me, CESNUR effectively promoted me to the role of primary, unified face of its global opposition.

This article explains how and why that elevation happened, using media-effects theory and the documentary record of Bitter Winter’s series and masthead. It also sketches the implications for researchers, journalists, and oversight bodies.

 

The CESNUR–Bitter Winter Ecosystem and Its Audiences

CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions)[2] claims to operate both as a scholarly network and as an advocacy hub defending contested new religious movements. However, it is effectively a corporate lobby organization for cults (New Religious Movements/NRMs). Bitter Winter is its daily magazine, edited by CESNUR’s founder, Massimo Introvigne. The publication explicitly attempts to position itself as a global platform on religious liberty with substantial reach into policy and media circles. This dual role—research voice and advocacy channel—gives CESNUR an unusually agenda-setting capacity when it chooses whom to profile as an adversary.  In other words, when Bitter Winter names you, it’s not a random blog post. It’s the house outlet of the network most closely identified—rightly or wrongly—with the defense of controversial groups and the critique of anti-cult narratives.

 

The Five-Part Offensive and the Logic of Selection

In mid-August 2025, Bitter Winter launched a five-part series on “AROPL and the Rise of New Age Anti-Cultism.” Part 1 establishes a taxonomy of opposition; Part 2 targets a prominent critic (Be Scofield); Part 4 centers its fire on me by name. This editorial architecture matters. It moves from the general (defining the battlefield) to the personal (naming antagonists), with the “you are the problem” crescendo timed to maximize audience focus. That is classic central-casting in issue advocacy: identify one face to stand in for a diverse coalition of critics.

Why select me? Because my critique attacks a load-bearing doctrine—reincarnation—using insider philosophical and scriptural tools (Mullā Ṣadrā’s metaphysics of resurrection vs. transmigration; the Bāb’s doctrine of rajaʿa/return as theophany rather than serial embodiment). Responding to that critique requires specialist engagement, which Rosita Šorytė does not possess (she does not know Arabic nor has specialized knowledge in Islamic esotericism); delegitimization is cheaper and faster. Making me “the” antagonist reframes an intricate doctrinal debate as a simple personality threat—easier to mobilize against and easier to message. Parts of the series deploy precisely this tactic—isolating quotations, highlighting rhetoric, and stitching biographical fragments into a cautionary character sketch.

 

Naming, Framing, and the “Unified Face” Effect

Three editorial moves in Part 4 perform the elevation:

1.     Personal Naming: The headline and body explicitly identify me, not merely my ideas. By choosing a proper-noun focal point, Bitter Winter provides its readers and allied commentators a shared reference handle—the first ingredient of a unified opposition image.

2.     Adversarial Framing: The article imputes dangerousness and suggests police-report implications, shifting the frame from theological disagreement to public-order concern. That reframing primes audiences to perceive all future critiques routed through me as suspect or menacing—consolidating my role as the archetypal opponent.

3.     Series Context: Set within a serial package that positions AROPL as unfairly maligned (never mind the documented evidence of massive criminality perpetrated by it recorded in multiple jurisdictions) and anti-cult actors as reckless or conspiracist, the personal profile becomes the face of the problem the series claims to solve. This is “representative villainy”—a technique from issue advocacy in which one antagonist stands in for many.

 

Result: Audiences aligned with CESNUR now have a single person to cite whenever the movement’s broader critics surface. That is the definition of elevation to unified opposition—a status bestowed, ironically, by the very outlet intent on suppression.

 

Why the Reincarnation Debate Triggered Elevation

Doctrinally, reincarnation is not peripheral to AROPL’s mythic-cultic structure; it underwrites authority claims, narrative continuity, and charisma. A critique that disassembles reincarnation from within Islamic-philosophical and Bābī frameworks threatens the scaffolding of legitimacy, not just a decorative belief. In advocacy logic, when a keystone is attacked by someone fluent in the tradition, you do not concede; you instead recode the attacker. Nevertheless, the argument is a red herring fallacy.

This is why Bitter Winter’s response leans on biographical exoticism, association smears, and threat templates, rather than a line-by-line theological reply. Such tactics are not simply deflection; they are elevation gestures that tell supporters: “This is the one to defeat.” The publication history of Bitter Winter shows similar patterns when it seeks to rally communities under pressure—identifying critics, then narrating them as emblematic hazards.

 

Timing as Strategy: Synchrony and the Perception-Management Cycle

The series dropped between August 18 and 21, 2025, overlapping with reported local pressure and official complaints—an optimal window for perception management. Synchrony matters: when an international outlet casts you as dangerous while local actors are contesting your credibility, the layered narrative reinforces itself. Even without provable coordination, this adjacent timing gives the impression that “everyone sees the same truth,” which is precisely how enemy images congeal in transnational advocacy networks. Nonetheless, this is a tactic of adversarial psychological operations, which is something that CESNUR is well known for and which Rosita Šorytė, as CESNUR’s paid lobbyist, has been explicitly commissioned to perform.

 

The Streisand Paradox and Agenda Control

One might ask: doesn’t a hit-piece risk the Streisand effect, amplifying the very critic one wants to silence? Yes—and that is another reason the elevation is real. By choosing a multi-part rollout and dedicating a full chapter to me, Bitter Winter spent agenda capital to place my name in front of its global readership. It then attempted to control downstream interpretation by front-loading adjectives (“dangerous,” “conspiracist,” “hallucinatory”) and embedding me in a template that associates critique with public risk. That strategy acknowledges salience (I matter enough to feature) while attempting containment (I matter in a way they define). The first half—admission of salience—is not reversible; it is how elevation sticks. In this specifically, Rosita Šorytė has unequivocally proven my allegation in The Goal of the Unwise that CESNUR is a democracy manipulator and so an adversarial fifth column and Trojan Horse operating within democratic societies whilst systematically undermining them—and so why, in this, it needs to be framed as a threat to democratic socieities in the same way that organizations such as the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qaeda, or violent Neo-Nazi groups and similar are taken in the same light.

 

Media-Effects Mechanics: How Opponents Become “Unified”

Several well-studied effects help explain the outcome:

  • Exemplification: People remember faces better than arguments. By turning a doctrinal debate into a biographical case, the outlet created a memorable example that stands in for a category.
  • Out-Group Homogeneity: Once one critic is “the” critic, diverse opponents are perceived as variations of the same, strengthening the unifying function of the chosen face.
  • Hostile Media Effect: Supporters exposed to the profile will perceive any future coverage involving me as further proof of the original narrative, locking in my status as the opposition figure.
  • Agenda Setting: The series tells other journalists and academics which names to quote when the topic arises; that’s how a personal name becomes an index for a whole debate. (Observe Bitter Winter’s editorial board and publication rhythm to see how names and topics are routinely scaffolded.)

 

Implications for Researchers, Oversight Bodies, and the Public

For researchers: Know that once an outlet with CESNUR’s audience canonizes an antagonist, future scholarly exchange will be pre-filtered by that persona. If your work intersects with mine, expect the metonymy: debate me to debate you.

For oversight bodies: The move from argument to criminality imputation (“reported to police”) and threat adjacency transforms a theological dispute into a potential public-order narrative. That’s why logging, evidence preservation, and proportionate checks on distribution are appropriate; reputational operations sometimes function as precursors to harassment or isolation of a target—and even murder.

For the public: Elevation is not endorsement. It is a tactical necessity in advocacy communication: choose an opponent, fix the frame, and rally. Understanding the tactic helps inoculate readers against the reflex to read one face as the problem.

 

Counter-Strategy: Turning Forced Centrality into Honest Clarity

If an adversary insists on giving you a megaphone, use it for clarity, not escalation:

1.     Stay in the lane of substance: Keep returning to the argument that triggered the elevation—in this case, the philosophical and scriptural critique of reincarnation.

2.     Refuse the caricature: Document and calmly correct inaccuracies; treating smears as data points (not identity markers) denies the frame its fuel.

3.     Distribute the spotlight: Cite other scholars, survivors, and lines of critique so the “unified face” fractalizes back into a plural conversation.

4.     Archive and footnote: Elevation thrives on narrative fog; meticulous citations—of theirs and yours—reduce fog to facts. (Here, the Bitter Winter URLs and masthead make the case themselves.) (Bitter Winter)

 

Conclusion: The Banner You Didn’t Ask For—And How to Carry It Responsibly

I did not ask to be a banner. But when Bitter Winter—edited by CESNUR’s founder (who I identify as the ‘Mephistophles of the Age’) and serving as its flagship outlet—devotes a serial installment to naming and pathologizing me, it confers what it seeks to deny: salience, centrality, and symbolic weight. The publication’s choices—personal naming, public-order framing, and timing within a curated series—meet the very criteria by which movements manufacture a unified face of opposition. The irony is textbook: an attempted silencing that functions as an elevation.

The appropriate response is not triumphalism but steadiness: keep the focus on arguments, maintain evidentiary rigor, and refuse the bait of becoming only the caricature they sketched. If they insist on handing me a banner, it will be used, and used well—for accuracy, for accountability, and for the freedom to argue theology without being turned into a public-order fable. Here, Rosita Šorytė’s criminally actionable and defamatory pseudo-intellectual diatribe only reinforces the fact that Be Scofield and I have unequivocally won the argument against AROLP and CESNUR both; and in this there is no coming back from the now entrenched truth that they have categorically ceded the intellectual, philosophical and theological ground completely to us, in the process elevating the two of us as the Shiva and Shakti to their maya (illusion).

We have won; they have lost. 

 

Sources cited

  • Bitter Winter editorial board and affiliation with CESNUR; editorship of Massimo Introvigne. (Bitter Winter)
  • “AROPL and the Rise of New Age Anti-Cultism,” Parts 1–2 & 4, by Rosita Šorytė (Aug 18–21, 2025). (Bitter Winter)
  • CESNUR institutional sites and publishing ecosystem (The Journal of CESNUR). (CESNUR, The Journal of CESNUR, ISSN Portal)
  • Example of Bitter Winter’s broader anti-anti-cult positioning (Palmer piece on media and AROPL). (Bitter Winter)

 


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