QUEENSLAND is famous for many things. But who’d have thought it would ever be famous as the place the reincarnated Jesus calls home.

Self-professed former computer systems engineer Alan John Miller, or “AJ” as his followers call him, shot to infamy by not only claiming he’s Jesus Christ reborn, but that his latest partner, Mary Suzanne Luck, is Mary Magdalene.

Together with their reborn disciples, they’re here to place anyone who desires it on the Divine Love path.

The internet means you don’t even have to shift to Murgon to start the journey: you can log on, join God’s Way of Love or learn more about the Divine Truth Pty Ltd, parenting, earthly catastrophes, as well as Miller’s ability to talk (selectively) to spirits.

Furthermore, if you even mention Miller on your Facebook page, as I did when I decided to write this column, your post is, without permission, transposed to his Facebook page along with any comments. That’s one sneaky way of making “friends”.

After watching a documentary on AJ, his teachings and followers on Sunday, I wondered what it was about this man and his claims that has people talking, crying, praying, leaving allegedly solid relationships after many years and even bringing children into his sphere

Raphael Aron, the director of Cult Counselling Australia and David Milliken, who filed the report for Channel 7’s Sunday Night, feel he’s establishing a cult and worry about the consequences.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a cult is “a system of veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object” and/or “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or imposing excessive control over members”.

The word “cult” makes one think of Waco, Jonestown and The Order of the Solar Temple, and the violent end many of their members met.

Describing himself and Mary as “works in progress”, AJ at first glance seems benign, passionate and, ironically for a reincarnated Jesus, down-to-earth. He openly talks about how, in 2004 in an epiphany, he not only recalled his past life as Jesus, but left his then wife and two children.

On a big whiteboard at one of his sessions, he scrawls amidst much laughter: “I’m Jesus. Deal with it.”

Followers wail, howl, beat pillows, shake and shudder. Watching the YouTube clips and the documentary, there’s a strong sense of preying on the vulnerable, the weak and marginalised and giving them a place to vent, grieve and belong. As Aron says, Miller is creating a recruiting ground for the alienated.

Relying on donations to survive and having applied to have God’s Way of Love recognised as a non-profit organisation, it’s hard not to see this as pure exploitation.

If children weren’t involved, it wouldn’t matter quite so much. Even susceptible adults have a right to choose. But children don’t; they’re following their parents into this world.Attracting all kinds of followers, including most recently Dr Louise Faber from the University of Queensland’s Brain Institute, the Divine Truth may be growing in numbers, but it’s at the expense of families, relationships, hearts, minds and pockets.

Believing Miller is the Messiah or someone whose “wisdom” they wish to follow, these people either fail to understand that this former real estate developer may be charismatic, but he’s also a born-again salesman – or they don’t care.

In her book Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives (written with Janja Lalich), Dr Margaret Singer argues “charisma is less important than the skills of persuasion and ability to manipulate others”.

This doesn’t make Miller the Messiah or a naughty boy.

But it does make him canny and powerful and with that comes responsibility: not for people’s souls, but the human and emotional detritus scattered on his Divine Love path.

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Dr Karen Brooks is an associate professor of media studies at Southern Cross University.

brookssk@bigpond.com