T here’s a recurring rumor that Elizabeth Clare Prophet siphoned off money from her Church Universal and Triumphant and stashed it away in secret Swiss bank accounts.It first appeared in Kenneth Paolini’s 400 Years of Imaginary Friends. Paolini claimed to have seen the “bank books.” It was one of the only inaccuracies in an otherwise excellent (and unfortunately now out-of-print) book. Recently, commenter Legh W. repeated the charge. I responded, but since it’s in the comment section of an old thread, I’m promoting the discussion to a full post.
I’d like to lay these rumors to rest.
As a two-time member of the Church board, from 1982-1984 and 1987-1993, I would have been in a position to know if there were any such shenanigans. Plenty of money was spent on questionable projects and the gray area of Prophet’s personal expenses, to be sure. As the head of the Church, she lived by the theological equivalent of L’etat c’est Moi (Louis XIV’s infamous quote “the state is me”).
Though contributions kept CUT going, Prophet saw herself as its chief rainmaker/breadwinner. She therefore told herself that her personal needs and extravagant expenses were justified. While still totally unforgivable, this seems to be the rule rather than the exception for many modern religious leaders, and we have only to look at some of the “prosperity gospel” evangelicals to find private jets and all manner of ridiculous financial abuses. All of these are conducted at the margins of the law under a church’s non-profit umbrella.
But it’s a whole other criminal matter to embezzle funds. The technical term is inurement, and it’s harshly punished by the IRS. An organization can lose it’s tax-exempt status, as CUT nearly did on two occasions. But it made changes to its operations and satisfied the IRS. If there had been any missing funds, the IRS would have found them in its audits which covered many years of CUT operations. There were funds sequestered at times in T-bills (Capital Preservation Fund). They were being held for future Church needs. But the idea that Swiss bank accounts existed or that money was embezzled for later personal use is pure fantasy.
I often wonder why it’s necessary to gild the lily, so to speak. Isn’t the saga lurid enough already? There’s enough trauma which resulted from CUT to fill volumes. Making up a story about Swiss accounts just confuses the issue and detracts from the more important truth that the “Ascended Master” pantheon is fanciful nonsense, as is the idea of a monotheistic personal “God.”
My parents collected money which they often squandered. What difference would it make to the donors whether they spent it on themselves or convinced other people to spend it on well-appointed but useless subterranean survival chambers? Point is, the money’s gone, and with it the illusions of many former true believers. But neither I nor any member of my family has ever profited or received any previously diverted funds from CUT after we resigned.
As of early 2008, my mother is slowly dying and losing function, her mind is gone, and she couldn’t enjoy any illicit money even if she did have it stashed away, which she most certainly does not. Her care is paid for by a combination of private contributions, church salary/royalties, and her retirement plan.
Below is my comment in response to the erroneous accusations:
Legh W.
You seem to come to a lot of conclusions based on your subjective feelings rather than evidence. I normally don’t post comments that are mostly witnessing as yours is. But I wanted to pointedly address a couple of your misconceptions:
I profoundly began to know that there was something evil about Claire Prophet, not just misguided, or deluded, but genuinely intentionally evil – especially after I met her in person.
Many forms of evil are well-intentioned. I agree with you that the effects of my parents teachings are largely negative. But you are incorrect that they were motivated by anything other than true belief. I was around them for 30 years, so I would be in a position to know.
It’s sad that her son Sean was so scarred by growing up in the bizarre cult of CUT, that he has forsaken all faith in Diety.
Sad for who? I feel fine. I don’t need an imaginary friend to make me feel whole. This is the typical hostile and condescending position from believers: expressing their “concern” about how atheists have no hope and must be so “damaged.” You can keep your pity, thanks.
I have not a doubt in my mind that millions are stashed somewhere – I do not believe for one minute that she took little for herself. That is hogwash.
Sorry, wrong again. You give them too much credit. They were not cynical or greedy enough to stash money for themselves. Sure, they got hold of other people’s money, and that was inexcusable. But they spent it on Church projects. The Church bought vast quantities of land. At one point in the late 1980s to early 1990s the organization had a net worth of $50 million or more from its land holdings alone. A good deal of that land has now been sold off by CUT’s management to pay expenses. Also, north of $25 million went into CUT’s bomb shelters, food and supplies.
Yes, there were disparities in lifestyles. Big disparities. I am in no way defending the way ECP ran her organization. It was corrupt and whimsical, and capricious, and not spiritual, and ultimately highly unjust. But there is no stash of money, OK? I would know if there was, and would have no problem admitting it. It is just simply untrue.
Watch between 2011 and 2017. ECP crossed paths with the world for a reason. It just happens not to have one thing to do with being a real spiritual leader. It has everything to do with being a false apostate in a female form. The male form to come will be much worse. Learn the lesson now, to avoid being pulled in again later in this new millenium.
This kind of conjectural nonsense is exactly why the whole new age movement is spiritually and intellectually bankrupt. The “everything happens for a reason” mentality, the paranoid predictions of doom (always in the next 5-10 years), all of it concocted out of the whole cloth. An “apostate” is one who has renounced their beliefs. A “false apostate” would be what? You’re not even making sense. Maybe you meant to say “impostor.”
Legh W., You bash Elizabeth Clare Prophet and then come up with your own equally baseless nonsense. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I think if you could collect money for your loony prophecies, you’d have no problem doing it yourself. Your accusations against my mom seem to be at their core a projection of your own ambitions. It’s why you need to perpetuate the “god” charade.
My parents were entertainers. They spun a dramatic yarn that got people to pay their attention and money. It was a yarn they believed themselves. Period. We’ve seen it before, and will no doubt see it again. Check out what wacky Tom Cruise is doing right now. Maybe he is your male “apostate.”
The whole of religion and the “new age”–a bunch of witting or unwitting con artists. No exceptions.
32 comments
Why gild the lily? Indeed. Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s legacy is already tarnished enough by the facts. No embellishments needed.
Hi Sean!
I stumbled upon your website. My mother asked how your mother was doing and I found your site! I had Lawrence and Christopher as my students in Montessori! Jeanine and I were their teachers at the Ranch and they were our favorite students! Christopher was a lovey-dovey and Lawrence was a stoic comic. You were also such kind person to wait on at the Ranch Kitchen restaurant.
I’m having a great life. Although my 2 children are rather agnostic or maybe atheisitic, they both want to go to the Ranch this summer. It was so much fun. I wouldn’t trade that experience for less than a million somethings.
I miss the ranch and all of its personalities, including your mother’s. I enjoyed knowing your family and Kathleen. I hope all is well with you and yours.
Blessings,
Lisa Meechan
Sean,
I can’t tell you how much I enjoy your CUT posts. There but for the grace of nada go I! I grew up with newage parents, and while you saw the producer side of it, i saw the consumer side of it. You have a sense of reality, a certain sense of it you get from growing up with your parents. MAN how different it is when you grow up and you start to doubt all that stuff.
I remember visiting a CUT function in a hotel ballroom near LAX (Marriott, I think). Your mom was there, leading the violet flame chant. I can still hear that in my head. You were probably there too. Your mom was talking about world war III, and was praying for a shield of protection around the united states from the nuclear bombs. I ducked out, freaked out by the whole thing, and wondering why she didn’t pray for a shield around russia too, and the rest of the poor nuked planet! My young skeptic bones were just getting warmed up!
Anyway, peace be upon you, Sean. I dig your site. There’s something so wonderful about you being an atheist now. I feel you got out alright.
-Siamang
Yes, there is something wonderful about Sean being an atheist. It’s kind of weird, to be honest, for me to feel this way; I guess it’s just the good old human “us versus them” mentality showing itself in me.
It could be that us vs them thing.
But jeez, even if there’s any higher spiritual truth of the universe unknown to us, there’s just something so purifying about cold hard reality. Visiting this blog allowed me to have an in-depth discussion last night with my wife, talking about my childhood and the new age movement, and all the bullshit I experienced at the hands of my parents who believed this stuff.
Anyway, what baggage Sean must have been brought up to carry. I think that after something like that, one must enjoy the psychic (in the non-woo original meaning of the word) clarity, austerity, and just plain quietness that atheism brings.
Lisa,
nice to hear from you. Thanks for all your good work with my sons. They are pretty much all grown up now. Glad you’re raising your kids to be skeptics.
There’s no reason not to go back to the Ranch for a visit. Just make sure they know CUT’s universe of masters, angels, and demons is a make-believe world and the characters have no power to hurt them, or help them, and are in no position to judge them.
I often times miss the camaraderie of the community. Too bad we couldn’t have had it without the supernatural overlay. I realize it’s what brought everyone there and the dynamic would have never happened without it.
But it’s been fun to get to know people away from CUT influence in the last 15 years. There are quite a lot of us in LA, and everyone seems to be doing pretty well.
I was just at the Ranch in November, and saw quite a few people from the old days. Everyone was extremely nice and it was good to see them. But it does seem like a completely other life now–a different world. Take care…
Siamang,
Thanks for writing. Was that event in 1986 by any chance? That was the last hurrah in LA if so. It was at the airport Hilton. It was kind of surreal for me, because I attended a huge new years bash there for the millennium. It was decidedly decadent. I also always park my car there now when I leave town. Little did I know back then.
Yes, she should have been decreeing for everyone’s protection from nukes. Once you start thinking you’re special, it’s easy to write off everyone else.
I didn’t know about your connection with Hemant. The whole atheist blogosphere is full of rich relationships and stories. Who says we don’t have a community? Cheers to you!
Valhar,
thanks. For me there’s some of the “us vs. them” also. But I somehow think it’s different from just tribal/cultural loyalties. Having experienced the unlimited depths of insanity and unreality that are possible once you start down the primrose path of beliefs, getting rid of them has become a central organizing principle for me. The revulsion is so deep now that I’d literally have to die before indulging this nonsense ever again. It’s no longer even a choice. Like once you’ve been to war, you can never hear gunfire without being viscerally affected.
The purveyors of faith rely completely on naivete and gullibility. When you’ve grown up behind the curtain of one of the top acts in the new age business, (and seen that there’s no “there” there) it’s a little hard to sit in anyone’s tent ever again.
“Was that event in 1986 by any chance? ”
That times out right for me.
“That was the last hurrah in LA if so. It was at the airport Hilton.”
*checks google maps* Yep, that’s it. Right by nude nudes. Right by “The Parking Spot.”
If you go back in time, you’d see a 19 year old me and a 19 year old girlfriend in the back row, thoroughly freaked out…. backing toward the exit, then high-tailing it down the hall, violet flame echoing in the distance.
Glad you made it out, my friend. Glad you’re here to help.
Yeah, I took over the atheist side of the Ebay Atheist blog when Hemant moved to his own site. I’d been part of the conversation since the ebay auction.
Take care, Sean.
Yes, Ben, they believed it, as I said in my article:
Whether it was easy for her or not is not at issue. I think she could have had an easier life too. She was tormented by many things, not the least of which being the “forces of darkness” and her unending bad publicity, which was the result of her unabashed profession of patently outlandish teachings. The world was not kind to her, so she quit reading articles about herself, and paid attention mainly to the praises of her devoted followers.
One of her favorite phrases was “The press didn’t make me, the press won’t break me.” as she justified ignoring the scorn.
She could have ended the torment at any time by giving up her beliefs. But she was so far invested into them that it would have been unthinkable. Her psyche couldn’t have handled it. At the end she went into therapy and tried to unravel some of it, but her mind was already too far gone. It’s a sad, sad story, and if you didn’t know her closely, you’d never understand it.
Thanks for the info Sean. I believe your mom once said ” this is not an easy job” I think she could have had an easier life, I think she did what she did because she believed in it.
Hi Sean,
I understood that lots of money had gone to lawsuits and settlements, so that would leave little to “stash” for anyone in the organisation?
As for the entertaining skills of your parents: I still listen to your father’s tape “Removing the mask” now and then. It really cheers me up though my beliefs have greatly changed in the mean time.
There’s also one by your mom where she reads Aesops fables, not a “message” of her own, but just her intonation of the piece can bring back my smile on a cloudy day.
I have not been in contact with CUT for a long time, but they were there when I needed a place to go when my sister had just committed suicide. I think they somehow saved my own life at that moment when I had that feeling “this is all just too much”.
I’ve been reading your site for quite some time now and I often find inspiration here. Truly I experience you as (another kind of) guru as well. Thanks a lot.
Mike Adama,
Right. The Mull trial judgment was $1.56 million (in 1986), not including legal fees, which ran to hundreds of thousands. Then there were the fines and cleanup costs approaching $2 million from the Mol Heron fuel spill in 1990. Some other disgruntled ex-CUT members received smaller payouts over the years. After Mull, the church was much more careful.
But the shelter project was the mother of all expenses, no pun intended.
Certainly the church filled the role of supporting people in times of need. But it was sporadic. As much as they were there for you, there were countless other people who were given the cold shoulder. It was inconsistent and unreliable, because although there was a small staff of counselors and the “Office of Ministry,” dealing with people’s problems was never CUT’s priority when my mom was in charge. It was more of an afterthought.
She could always be counted on to call people in their hospital beds. But day-to-day problems got short shrift. I know it the calls were a kind gesture on her part, but I can’t help but think it was partly timed for maximum impact. You always remember a call when you’re in the hospital. Did my mother or CUT ministers ever just make the rounds and visit old or sick people, to bring them food or comfort? It happened, but rarely. And definitely not on any kind of committed basis.
Boy, being a guru is the absolute last thing I want to do. But thanks. Mainly, I’m trying to encourage people to improve their critical thinking skills, look within, strengthen the boundary between their personal subjective experience and the objective world, and in general see things as they are.
Thanks for reading.
Sean thanks for your response- Very sobering words
Devian,
Good for you for providing abortion services. Mexico desperately needs your work, there is too much Catholicism there and women are made to feel guilty for contraception and family planning. But the population is too high and people can’t afford to have so many children.
1) Yes, she has advanced Alzheimer’s.
2) I did once, but now I realize it was all mythology.
3) no No NO ***NO***
4) NO
5) As Al Pacino said in “The Devil’s Advocate:
Good luck to you. You don’t need the violet flame or any other prayers. Just a healthy sense of self-esteem, and keep up your compassionate service to poor and vulnerable women. It is humanitarian and much needed.
I was born into the church in the early 1980’s and grew up in it until I was 17. I moved away at that time and never looked back. My parents were very active members and took every piece of advice no matter how crazy it sounded to everybody else. They even had us in a bomb shelter in Montana in (1989?). Growing up feeling like your whole world was wrong was difficult and that probably would have driven me mad if I hadn’t left. I’m pretty sure my parents still buy into most of the teachings. I really feel for anyone else that was brought up in “the church”. Boy did that place mess me up! I still have some of the montras blazed into my brain…..organized religion will never again be for me – that’s for sure!
very interesting!!!!
Hello everyone, this is my 1st time at the website. I grew up in the teachings from age 5. My mom having been in the I AM movement and the AMORC-Rosicrucians before that time. I’ll never forget what she said when she retuned from a Ca. conference “No more meat. No more rock-n-Roll. Okey?” Sweetly but what an impact in my life! I knew Sean thru my (no longer) step-dad in Chicago around “81” or so. I’d like to add that as off the late 80’s ECP ordered the selling of the 1st Teaching Center called the Rocotzy Mansion and D.C. never recovered well in mantaining a place for worship/services. I’ve seen, heard, read so much on the church’s finaces, No Way is there Swiss Bank accounts for any one in the Prophet Family. I’d like to say this website greatly supports those of us who are ex-members and otherwise. Everyone sharing in their comments inform, support and help quite alot of us traumatised by the whole intense experience having been members or children of parents who were members! So keep it up everyone. Just so you know I wasn’t named after the Amen in the bible, but after the God of Life in Egyptian mythology-Amen-Ra. My name challenges traditional christian theology and that’s why I keep it. Let it be / So be it is Give It Life when one ends a prayer. In case you wondering I’m what I call a new defined atheist meaning the history of the idea of God being love is totally upsurde. That’s why it hasn’t wked folkes!!!
Hello Amen, we met in montana. Would love to chat a bit and catch up. Your friend from Mexico find me in facebook "c zuili gongora"
Hey Sean – I’m glad I found your website as it’s given me an additional perspective about CUT. I have no experience with the church, but I’m dating a wonderful woman who grew up in the church and whose parents are still very active. See still embraces the teachings, and I’m fine with that as long as she doesn’t expect me to join. I’ve been on the ranch a couple times, and the people seem very nice, but a little creepy. We’ve talked about marriage, but she wants to get married by the church, and she’s discussed raising kids in the CUT teachings – something to which I am deeply against. I’m confident enough in my own ability to handle that part of the situation, but my question to you is this: are you aware of similar instances of this occurring with people you know in the church? I consider myself agnostic, but in the company of her parents and friends I often feel like they expect me to believe as they believe. Should I be concerned? Thanks for your time!
Blake,
HERE THERE BE DRAGONS. That should be the sign posted for anyone contemplating making a life with someone so steeped in a mystical worldview.
Consider how many decisions would be made differently if you accept CUT’s teachings, vs. rational materialism or humanism.
There are rules and recommendations about everything that have no rhyme or reason. Diet, color choices, music, sex, alcohol, recreational drugs, not to mention CUT’s perspective on how children should be raised.
If you want to do this, you are going to have to confront the belief system sooner or later. If she is unwilling to give it up, you have to decide whether you can sit by, keep your mouth shut, and let her make the bulk of the decisions. Mystical directives are ususally non-negotiable, since they are not based on anything, they defy analysis and become an emotional club.
I don’t know what you like to do for recreation, but don’t you want someone who could enjoy going to a rock concert or for that matter a drum circle or Burning Man? Just sayin’, a person’s belief system is going to permeate everything. I do know a guy who likes to have fun and is married to a straight-laced church member. They’ve been together a long time and have a couple of beautiful daughters. But the man is on his own when it comes to his social / recreational activities. I can’t see into his heart, but I can’t help but think he’d have a happier life if he was with someone who shared his fun-loving outlook.
Love is blind, and if you’re really all about this girl, then go for it. But just know that a mystical worldview is like molasses (to borrow a metaphor from the Paolini’s excellent book 400 Years of Imaginary Friends). It would be very hard to get all the molasses off after being immersed in a vat of it. If you’re willing to help your prospective wife get clean, then I wish you good fortune in the endeavor. But two other things could happen: The molasses could rub off on you, and you would accept it in the name of love. Or you’d find after 10 years and a couple of kids that you would prefer to make a life with someone else who doesn’t carry a bunch of new-age baggage.
Good luck to you.
Sean – thanks for the quick feedback. This is pretty much what I expected, so I thank you for the reinforcement of what I was thinking. I very much enjoy rock and roll music, and I completely disagree in the church sentiment that rock & music is evil – amongst many other things. There seems to be little logic involved in the decision-making of my girlfriend, and I have to assume that is heavily-influenced by the church. So often I ask for a reason behind her beliefs, and I get almost nothing in return. I suppose beliefs are objective, but I appreciate some logic to support it. Ultimately, I predict I won’t be able to continue on this path; this is just too bizarre for me. Thanks for the help – I look forward to future correspondence. Have a great day!
Hi Sean,
Just discovered your website but I had heard a bit about what you were up to a year or so ago…your letter re: your perspective on the church had somehow found me. Anyway, I just wanted to say that even though your parents were perhaps flawed in their approach to what they believed, yet, I always felt a true warmth and earnest energy from them. ( I never met your father but listened often to his sermons on tape). Things got crazy when everyone moved to Montana and soon it became evident that something was amiss. Nevertheless, I do believe there was great value in the connections that were experienced there in the community…I suppose as it would be in any community…but as we were all under greater stress than normal it just seemed to be more important to support one another and that was my experience. I look at many of those folks as some of the most interesting I have ever met. The contrast seemed to help me and still does as I look back and know more completely now what I do want and make decisions based on my own connection with myself and not on any belief system. Anyway, I am glad you are doing what you are doing and that you have become possessed of yourself as the supreme decision maker in your own experience. Maybe your work will help some of those who are still finding it difficult to be the authority in their own lives. You may remember me….I used to work as a line chef at the Inn of the Seventh Ray while you were busing tables there. I remember vividly your recommendation of the movie “Heavy Metal”. You were a radical chap even then! My best to your family. Michael Hayes
My daughter and family were in the Cult for a number of years and finally realized that Elizabeth Clare Prophet was a absolute phoney and possibly evil. They finally had the courage to leave the so called church and have been in therapy for several years due to the emotional and mental damage Elizabeth caused. She played on the weakness of so many who were “sheep” to her. She not only took advantage of their emotions but also their incomes, living wealthy while others sacrificed. She will have to answer to God, when her time comes, for the personal devastation and atrocities she has committed and caused many people.
James,
Did you have any personal dealings with Mrs. Prophet? To speak about something you have not experienced seems dishonest to me at best. In all my interactions with Mrs. Prophet, and there weren’t many but there were some, I sensed a sweetness and love coming from her that I had up to that point in my life not experienced…and it was a tangible energy that radiated with purpose and compassion.
I am sorry that your family feels that they were mistreated but it is true that no one gets anything they don’t first expect so perhaps they should look to their own psychologies and solve their problems without making someone else wrong. None of us can possibly be wrong if this is truly an infinite universe…everyone has room to be right no matter what they think. Judgement upon another only exposes our own narrow mindedness and sense of limitation, as though someone had to be right and someone wrong. I am inclined to put that activity in the horseshit category somewhere.
When are we going to wake up to the truth that it is all good in the broader view, in the great scheme of things…we all are part of the same One God or Source or whatever you want to name it. Maybe it is time to try to discern what really is, after all.
Hopefully you won’t be able to preempt God on all this since you seem to know, and relish in , the idea of Mrs. Prophet’s descent into hell. Why not mind your own lamp and make sure you are spotless before you cast stones? Didn’t Jesus say, “Judge not lest ye also be judged.”? I myself am personally weary of all this finger pointing as it solves nothing and only burdens your own being…chill out, friend.
Hayes,
To set the record straight:
In response to my message you state: "Hopefuly you won't be able to preempt God on all this, SINCE YOU SEEM TO KNOW AND RELISH IN THE IDEA OF MRS. PROPHET'S DESCENT INTO HELL." Perhaps you need to re-read my message. I did NOT say, hint or allude to Mrs. Prophet going to hell, nor did I say, hint or allude to relishing the idea.
In the future, when answering messages, I suggest you read them carefully and not add to what was written, twist the meaning or make assumptions about what was written and state it as fact.
Michael Hayes,
Thanks, I still go to the Inn from time to time. Those were good days working there. The place still has some of the best food in LA (and prices to match).
I’m concerned that you seem to be sugar coating a lot of what happened. Garnet James clearly said his family was in CUT for a number of years, so clearly he did have personal dealings with ECP. I can’t really find much wrong with what he said, except when he claims my mom will face divine recompense.
Sorry Garnet James, that ain’t gonna happen. We all rise and fall on our own, and some people do get away with it. There is no divine justice, no matter how much you wish it were true. The only justice any of us will ever face will be in this world. That’s why I spend time writing, because I want to set things straight. I spent 30 years at my mom’s side, and I have known few people who were as opportunistic as she was. Since she assumed the “mantles” and titles of “masters,” she convinced herself she could do no wrong as she rode roughshod over peoples hearts and dreams. I saw hundreds of people treated so shamefully it defies reason–some after they gave their life’s savings and turned over businesses to the church. I learned my sense of morality by basically resolving to do the exact opposite of what my mother did (never mind what she taught).
Now I try every day to treat people fairly and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would call me an enemy (except for CUT true believers–but they hide in the “light” and refuse to admit that they contain any animosity).
Michael, you need to look a little deeper–both into yourself and into CUT. That’s all I have to say.
Sean,
I didn’t get that Garnet himself was involved. He simply alluded to his daughter and family.
As to my view being sugar coated…I was expressing to you my experience and no one else’s. That is not my business. My experience was what it was because I was looking at what I wanted from it and I stayed on that track throughout. When it no longer met my needs, I left without blaming anyone else for any unpleasantness I may have experienced. I must admit to having been disappointed that things didn’t reach the envisioned goal but then we all had a hand in that.
I am wondering why you seem to be so intent on paying for the “sins” of your Mother and Father. How can you live your own life while immersed in that whole scene? Doncha just love free will? Take care brother. Michael
Michael,
My parents put on a good show, that’s how they kept people interested. Everyone has a need for explanations, which puts them at a disadvantage versus anyone who seems credible at providing them. This dynamic is one of the most insidious and endemic. It has plagued the human race since its inception.
You ask about free will. But that is a much more limited construct than most people would care to admit. Very few of us are truly free from the influences which surround us, and even if we are, we are still very often prisoners in our own minds.
I’m not trying to pay for the sins of my parents, only to encourage people to gain a sense of their own self-sufficiency, and to see that they don’t need to follow leaders. My parents were at the tail end of a bankrupt hierarchical paradigm. The future belongs to the individual.
Freedom is elusive, and it’s a precious gift to be nurtured and guarded. I wish you the best at finding and holding on to the maximum freedom you can. You take care as well.
Sean
p.s. for further reading on the downfall of the 4 big idols of the patriarchy (parents, god, country and free will) I suggest my post called Mother Dear.
Sean,
I am all for your encouragement and I believe you are in a good place to make that effort. May you live totally in that sovereignty all your days. Michael
Dear Sean,
I read the beautiful birthday letter to your mother that you wrote a couple of years ago. It was so touching.
I often heard your mom talk in her strangely hypnotic voice on television while I was working late at my yoga meditation Center. I didn’t follow her teachings but it may be possible that there is some good in them, as I still think there may have been there was in the teaching of my own Guru. (The jury is still out on that one, but I’m looking for the positive in my own experience anyway.)
I know that my Guru was indeed a human being and not ‘evil’ as some people have described all cult leaders to be. He was not a cruel man but a complex, strict, funny, often kind and flawed human being who was sincerely convinced of the veracity of his divinely-inspired ‘teachings’.
His family are also very good people. I know them well and still love them despite everything I went through trying to immolate my ego in the fires of spiritual devotion. :) That was my bag, not theirs.
Thank you very much for this Website. It has brought a lot of much-needed logic and sanity into the life of this recovering new-age disciple. All the best!
P.S.: I was really fascinated by your mother’s comment that she was a priestess from Atlantis 10,000 years ago in a previous life and that she had returned to earth to rectify the mistakes of the past.
This is exactly the same thing that our cult guru told all of us … that we were re-incarnations of previous spiritual Masters from Atlantis, that we had been consumed by our own selfish desire for power during that ‘incarnation’ and that we are on earth now to rectify the mistakes we had made the past.
Where do these spiritual ‘leaders’ get all this stuff – the same stuff !? There must be some kind of source. I know my teacher knew something about Edgar Cayce. He referenced Cayce In the early ‘Teaching Manuals’.
Was your mom aware of Edgar Cayce’s readings at that time?
Responding to Garnet James Judement call on ECP going to hell. What did I say about this God of the bible, “God isn’t love that’s why it hasn’t wked folks ! ! ” The Bible it self teaches such a self rightous, egotistical arrogant form of transparent love, that every religious God loving hypocrite gave me, especially my mother, devoted to the Ascended Mast. a FREAKING NERVOUS F-ING BREAK DOWN IN 93. I’m still recovering GOD F-ING DAMN IT ! ! !
God or no god we all are facing experiences and phenomenas we don’t understand. The life force that moves reality as we know it, moves our facinating and uncoprehendable brains to go as it goes and then one day something happens and we don’t understand what the hecht happened, how we got to where we find ourselves etc. It’s old. So many over the centuries have written on this. What’s new ! !.But hey I was born Yesterday and all the damn religous phenomena also refered to as hellucinations have kept it all going, misleading me and so many generations in the past and present ! ! It says in the Bible all this is for his Glory . WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSE TO MEAN ? ? ? I REALISED SOME TIME AGO THIS IS NOT SOMETHING I WANT TO WORSHIP OR GIVE PRAISE TO ! ! ! The psycholological make up of this God of the Bible is SICK, NUTS, CRAZY but most of all NOT Absolute love ! ! !
Free Will is yet to be understood and is over rated. If I was a total free being I definatly would have NEVER come here to this insane planet. As animals known as human beings we are still learnig about ourselves. So as a respecter of Bhuddist wisdom not idoleter, put aside ur egos following love truth and a dignified humilty ! ! U God loving people of the bible GET OVER UR SELVES ! U CONTINUE TO PRACTICE EGOTISTICAL HATE AND UNKINDNESS ! ! ! FEEDING TO THE MISERY IN THIS WORLD ! !
G James should be asking himself how he helped to mislead his own childern ! !
Circa 1980, ECP had taken then fiend of hers, Gregory Mull's San Francisco home, told him whom to marry and their daughter, Linda, is a gem, ECP told Gregory, the architect for both the Calabassas and Montanta sites, afterwhich he began having doubts. I got stuck via a friend into Summit U's BS. Taught Gregory Mull to open his eyes. Taught him and others how my words were bugged from the men's room under the Gillette Mansion and used against me. I tried to leave CUT's Summit U, but Monroe,their asst. to ECP stopped me, until begged for ONE phone call. I wished a friend Happy Birthday, then told him who the powerful woman was and it was our code to get me out. Finally, Gregory got out with my help and as his star witness, he won a million bucks from the witch. They were so rotten, his West Lake Village home, where the car was locked had been bombed from within and he had a major coronary, his tongue iincapable of being kept normally in his mouth. The jerks said he was a slithering beast, the final laugh is that she lost the little mind she had. Her hubbie who sued always looked as did Monroe, pussy whipped, and they were.