Faith's leader is an ex-insurance agent

The leader of the Kabbalah Centre is a mesmeric 77-yearold former insurance salesman called Philip Berg.

He was born Feivel Gruberger in Brooklyn, New York, but later anglicised his name. Berg was ordained as a rabbi at the Torah Va Daath school before working as an insurance agent for 17 years, until 1970. He married Rivka Brandwein and had seven children. In the early Sixties, Berg travelled to Israel and met Rivka's uncle, Rabbi Yehuda Brandwein, then Dean of the Research Centre of Kabbalah.

In 1969, Rabbi Brandwein died and according to Berg, handed over the leadership of Kabbalah study to him.

But Rabbi Brandwein's son, Rabbi Avraham Brandwein, says Berg was never offered the leadership.

In the Seventies, Berg claims, he lectured at the "City University of Tel Aviv". But, according to the Tel Aviv University press office, there is no such institution.

About this time Berg left his first wife for the woman who became his second wife, Karen. In 1971 the couple went to Israel and set up a small Kabbalah Centre in Tel Aviv with a tiny number of supporters. Their lucrative marketing operation followed and the movement now boasts 40 centres around the world, worth millions of pounds.

With Berg elderly and frail, the Centre is now being run by Karen and their two sons Michael and Yehuda.