Review of ZEGG Ecovillage

By Reza Ganjavi

"ZEGG is an ecovillage located on the outskirts of Bad Belzig, Germany, about 80 km south-west of Berlin. It is an intentional community and an international seminar centre aiming to develop and implement practical models for a socially and ecologically sustainable way of living." The Wikipedia page is well worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEGG_(community)

I visited ZEGG once to check it out. I slept in a camper car and participated as a so-called volunteer or better termed "slave" perhaps. I disliked the place in many many ways. The way so many guys were looking at me (they wanted to have sex - but I am NOT interested in men sexually - but I don't think they get it - like one gay guy who once told me "everybody is gay but they don't know it". Well, I am not and I know it! 

The whole work / volunteer structure which is horrible in my view -- why would anyone want to do it -- even if it's for contributing to a good place, there are so many better places to put so much hard work into ZEGG just profits from it - they make a lot of money from their events where costs are significantly reduced because of volunteers like the project I was in to disassemble tents. And even then, you still have to pay for your meal!! They work you hard and don't even give you a meal!! Unbelievable. BAD DEAL is what I say. Adois Amigos! I left as soon as it became clear what a sour deal and horrible place it is. 

The dialogue groups were all directed, according to their ideologies which I found to be shallow and superficial and problematic. Cheap pop psychology with a sexual twist. 

The place is full of what seemed to me to be old hippies who didn't particularly look happy. They've made a big business out of becoming a seminar venue and hosting their own programs which I don't believe contributes much to human well-being and they want to extend their culture / model to the whole world!! I'm not kidding! It's a bankrupt ideology that is still stuck in 1970's, in my opinion.  They seem more like a cult, but without the discipline of a cult. 

The place is hugely molded -- old building with tons of mold (minus the few new structures). 

They use people like every other cult as volunteers but in some cults they call them Karma Yoga but at ZEGG they're just called contribution: that you contribute to them but why should I contribute to them? What are they doing that's noble? Promoting promiscuity? As a free labor, it felt like slavery. If you take a 5 minute break because it's damn hard physical work, you're called back, and if you finish your task 5 minutes early, you're asked to jump into another project for 5 minutes. Many people were reporting of being very tired after such physically demanding work - and you still have to pay for your own meal to! What a great deal for ZEGG! 

And they add a "1.5 hour dish washing" task that was not part of the deal as far as I could remember. I like washing dishes, and I quietly sang a lot of beautiful songs - many Beatles - and even had tears from that beauty while quietly washing dishes.

They had said garden and kitchen work is also available but it wasn't true because they needed people for tearing down disgusting moldy tents which are sometimes so disgusting they mark it for disposal (but visitors who paid for the events still slept in them). Other tents that were not marked were just as disgusting except some that were tolerable.

A doctor I met in the adjacent town of Bad Belzig (outside the community) told me "stay away from them because they are all into sex".  In the middle of the summer, one of the activities of our group was to attend sauna as they were directing it more and more towards sexuality.  People I wouldn't want to touch with a stick!!  I took off before then. 

The group talks were superficial as mentioned above, and lacked something very basic like: going around to briefly introducing ourselves. Instead this silly "game" was applied where you have to stare into another person's eyes (which is so odd) asking silly questions like what was the experience in the last 3 years that made your development jump towards your true self! A silly question that implies that there was a jump, and one experience led to it, and the whole subject of "true self" is ambiguous without proper inquiry and clarification, which of course was not done.

Strange how they want to export their "great" community (in their view) to the whole world. Their "great" community is also stuck in 1970's decadence: smoking. Their cafe in this ecovillage sells cigarettes !! I saw many people who smoked cigarettes even at the table by the computer room. Disgusting. And cigarette butts on the floor. So un-ecological! So hypocritical.  The New World they imagine, doesn't need a model like ZEGG. 

I was surprised how many people are smokers people who are wanting to bring about the new society, to live with ecological harmony there's so much going against their own body's ecology ecosystem biology with every puff you're inhaling thousands of poisons when you're addicted you're dependent on a drug weather with that dependence means no freedom is that your model of the future society where people are not free and are bound to a cancer stick addictive whatever so I'm happy to do sessions how to stop smoking I'm about psychological freedom

Everyone in the group spoke English, yet the moderator (from ZEGG) thought not, so everything took double the time (of also being translated into German).

I played guitar after a meal and a lady said she heard that concert this morning and it was so beautiful that her heart pounded. 

I have a lot of skills, three university degrees and so on. I went there just to check it out. I don't need anything from them. I was very disappointed and do not support what they stand for because the way they live seems contradictory of my idea of a harmonious, intelligent community.

I gave a guitar lesson to a guy who was playing during breakfast. He much appreciated it and immediately incorporated the tips. then I played some things on his guitar and people immediately reacted positively clapping and stuff.

Their mobile phone policy is not enforced or respected. Several people at dinner table using / talking on mobile phones. And still, they gave you a hard time if you had a phone on the table!! Or even a laptop, while there is no laptop policy, and the phone policy is not enforced to people who talk on it, but if the phone is on the table they give you a hard time! I thought: "Friedrich Nietzsche talked about will to power. I perceive you're making policy, extending current policy in a way that I don't believe you have the authority to do, but if you speak as an individual, and not try to pretend you have the authority that you do not have, I would fully respect your personal sentiments."

ZEGG is stuck in the second chakra.

no love

no soul 

no emotion

no melody 

no harmony 

no energy purity

too much hugging

too much staring

lot of desire

lot of craving

lot of unfulfilled, bottomless lust

"oh another to f" was the attitude I perceived in some people. 

I stopped by at another so-called eco village and they had a dance party. Most of the music was garbage from a musical standpoint - but interesting grooves and sounds. Musically clearly most of them knew nothing about music and had no sense for good music which doesn't require music education. So they take drugs to enjoy it. the The music is so soulless and lacks emotions that they have to take medicine to enjoy it!

I could not handle ZEGG and left. Here's a letter I wrote to them explaining my experience: 

LETTER TO ZEGG / REVIEW OF ZEGG

Dear Fritz

Sorry we didn't get to meet.

I wrote to Phoenix last night as soon as it became clear that I need to leave to take care of some things and also I caught another cold back to back which is not fun.

Perhaps she forwarded the message to you, if not I can forward it if you like.

I joined a work event at ZEGG for two days with the intention of staying for the whole week, to experience the place first hand, and contribute to it based on little that I had known about it, and because it was far from cell towers. Very different that the work I'm used to as a Senior IT Program/Project Manager, I part-took in a demanding and strenuous job of cleaning tents, etc., as part of the disassembly process. Cleaning was mentioned on your contribute page on the website, but also kitchen and garden were mentioned which were not possibilities but that's fine because cleaning was mentioned but this was not just cleaning - it was prolonged holding up that gave one of the program coordinators who was in my team hand pain due to her carpet tunnel / tendinitis - and same with me. It would be more representative in the program, to state the strenuous nature of the work, which is not what I expected.

What was also not mentioned in the program was doing dishes as separate from the daily work program, so I was somewhat surprised. Of course I stepped in to help when I was asked because I don't turn people down, but it would be good if you mention that in the program on the website because it's another block of work, so people can expect it.

Of course I did all the work in good cheer -- at some point the coordinator and I and the other team member sang the same song (all three knew the words) while doing heavy work -- so I made the best out of it.

I slept in a camper every night.

The program coordinators were nice people.

One key thing that was missing -- you can take this as a constructive feedback -- was that people were never asked to introduce themselves which is normal in every group that I've ever been in. It can be a very short introduction like 30 seconds just to say your name and what you're doing life or whatever you like to share , so people get to know you a little bit better.

Instead what was done was objects put in the middle of the room but that did not replace that introduction process because people were saying things like I chose the feather because it turns in many directions and lands properly. This doesn't say anything about the person except their sentiment towards dropping feather and whatever it signifies.

Also it was said that you hope to have the community as a model for the rest of the world or the future of the world or how the world should become. As though it is a very special and excellent place which can be used as a model for the world.

I don't doubt some excellent things you're doing but you're selling cigarettes on campus. Which seems so contradictory to living a holistic life, in harmony with the body's intelligence and in harmony with the ecosystem.

I don't know if the knowledge is not there or the awareness is not there that cigarettes are some of the most toxic things we can do to our bodies and to the environment.

And outside the computer room where you even have an ashtray, which is also the smoking corner, there's cigarette butts on the floor which is not only ugly but it's harmful to the environment.  Leakage of toxic chemicals in both the air and the water systems due to cigarettes is a well documented fact.

So these kinds of contradictions make me wonder about your desire to be a model for the world.

And you are an educational entity as you indicate on your literature. But I saw so many people who were smoking for example. They probably receive no education about it and they are even encouraged because they can just go to the middle of the campus and buy cigarettes. And the answer to the question of why you sell cigarettes was "because people ask for it" -- so we have some of these ecologically minded people who want to be a model for the world, who are dependent on a drug that poisons their internal and external ecosystems.

So the idea of contributing to this setup is a bit puzzling for me. I wonder why somebody would want to work hard for 6 days in a row plus a shift of dish washing, and pay something on the top of that. And what the community provides for the person is a bed and food. So people who want to do it are clearly motivated by helping the place, and to experience it which was my case. But is this educational entity/community living up to what it sets itself up as? That's a question in my mind. I know it's a big question don't feel obliged to answer -- I bet you all being intelligent humans ask that also.

What the helpers are getting back also is a program which they are giving their time to, to the tune of two plus hours a day, in addition to the work, which involves things such as sit in front of each other and stare into the other person's eye and say what was a life-changing jump within the last 3 years which got you closer to your real self. This question assumes that you had such a life-changing experience, and that you remember details from the last 3 years, and even if we assume that each person had one or more such experience, the whole notion of your real self and getting closer to it or whatever is an obscure notion that even it can make a person more confused, however much it is a cherished idea in pop psychology and superficial religious ideas (e.g. lower and higher self). It begs exploration of many other questions (e.g. makeup of the psychological sense of self). So it's a very loaded question, and to try to answer that while sitting in front of someone and stare at their eyes, someone you don't know much at all because there was never any formal introduction, doesn't seem valuable.

Anyway, I'm glad that I came and experienced the place first hand. I contributed to it a lot more than the value of the meals.

Also, perhaps you know, that a room marked as "guest room" with lots of mattresses, had a high degree of mold or whatever the black fungi is called, which is quite harmful for the respiratory system. It's next to the library in the main building. I happened to see it as the door was open and I was passing by.

Also regarding mobile phones which I completely support your notion that people shouldn't have it on in places where there is possibility of social interactions, but it's either not communicated to people because even some people who said they live there, and their friends, had mobile phones at the dinner table actively being used for fun.

And then someone on the fly makes a policy about laptops which is not even part of the phone policy because I checked it so the constructive feedback could be that make it clear policy and communicate it so that there is no ambiguity, and people don't make rules on the fly.

Best wishes
Reza

Also see: https://metamoderna.org/how-a-psychedelic-sex-cult-infiltrated-a-german-ecovillage/