- Horrific. Sometimes it amazes me that people can recover after experiences in these controlling groups. Some do. Some don't. That picture of the teddy bear is going to stick in my mind for a long time. It is a too-accurate representation of what these power-hungry manipulators do to people.
- December 23, 2009 8:10 PM
- Janehellen said...
- This awful cult groups shuldnt be allowed to exist. I was there to, close to suicide. I thought that jumping of Golden Gate should do it, but fortunatelly I was to confused and in to bad shape to even get there after leaving SRF.
- December 23, 2009 11:29 PM
The people at the Spiritual Rights Foundation are a pretty close-knit community of the few who are the "spiritual elite", small in number. Not so much out of choice but more of necessity. SRF is such a secretive and foreboding place, there simply wasn't anyone else you can talk to outside the cult. In fact, the "contract" we were forced to sign forbade contact with psychologists, therapists or practically any mental health or medical professional.
The result of that restriction had a profound effect on the congregation.
Of course, there is the story of our friend "Santa". Santa followed the meditative teachings faithfully. He was also known to have some "issues" in his life that led to some odd behavior at first then finally to a full-blown psychotic episode in the SRF headquarters. He was not referred to emergency psychiatric care but was thrown out on to the street and left pounding on the gate.
But that is only one story.
One man named Larry was a successful general contractor and had a thriving construction business. He joined the Spiritual Rights Foundation's elite Clairvoyant Training Program. After admission, the taunts, the cheating and a lot of general exploitation began. Larry spent a lot of money on SRF. Larry spent a good deal of time at SRF. He even employed several SRF members in his construction company.
Despite Larry spending so much money and providing jobs for many of the SRF members, he was treated like a doormat and played like a fiddle.
There are several tales of Larry being demeaned and spoken of in terrible ways. The people doing the talking were the leaders of SRF. For what purpose is anyone's guess. How the result came about is unquestionable, though.
After a few years of this abuse, Larry sat down in his home in the Berkeley Hills shoved a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Larry blew his brains out.
While Larry's is the only suicide I know of, there are several who speak of suicidal thoughts and actual suicide attempts. None could find the strength or will to contact a mental health professional or even call a suicide prevention hotline.
Why?
Because that kind of contact was prohibited.
The Spiritual Rights Foundation operates a "Psychic Help Line" charging $4.95 for the first minute and $1.95 for each additional minute. Some of those calls were from people who spoke of suicide.
As one who kept answering the "Help Line" I fielded my share of those kind of calls. I did refer a couple of them to the national suicide hot line. Later, I suggested that we keep that hot line number near the "Help Line" so persons better served by mental health professionals may receive the help they really need.
That not only got shot down, it was ridiculed with the taunt that I was more interested in getting someone else in the caller's head than helping them "blow that picture".
I did hear of one person at SRF who was admitted to emergency psychiatric care. Apparently that referral was made by way of a relative - not anyone at SRF. After some months of treatment, that person returned to SRF.
And of course, there is Santa.
Of all the companies and organizations (religious and non-religious) I have been associated with, suicidality was a pretty rare thing and when recognized, was immediately addressed with medical and mental health care. I remember one event at a retail store I worked at as a young man. A salesperson called his colleague to say: "I'm sitting here with a bottle of Scotch and my gun on the table. The gun is telling me to shoot myself." The mental health emergency team was immediately contacted and he got the treatment he needed. His life was saved.
Nationally, the rate of suicide is about 0.01% of the population. Factor in suicide attempts and ideation and I'll bet it's at or below 1%. So for a small group like SRF, suicidal thinking or suicide attempts should be rare indeed.
However, I have heard from many who escaped the Spiritual Rights Foundation that the experience there led to thoughts of suicide and attempts at suicide. More so than I have ever encountered at even the most dysfunctional company, club or street gang.
From that small number of the elite, the number of those who have contemplated, attempted or even succeeded in suicide is truly mind-boggling. I won't say how many but the number of those who disclosed they have thought about or attempted suicide is one hell of a lot more than one.
Proportionally, I would bet you a dozen Krispy Kremes that the suicidality at the Spiritual Rights Foundation (and suicidality means thinking, attempting or accomplishing suicide) is far higher than anyone would expect in a group that small or in a group of any size.
The time, place and means of suicidality varied. But it all boiled down to just one issue. A evil and horrid issue: the constant harassment, the vile and animalistic verbal assaults on your thoughts and daily life, the relentless drive for control over your being, your money and your family.
I have never encountered so many from such a small, "elite" group who share such a dark experience.
I have never encountered an organization so disdainful of those who follow it.
I have never encountered an organization who would stand silent and sacrifice the lives of those who support it to continue the vile greed that sustains it.
Those who survived their experience with the Spiritual Rights Foundation are survivors in the purest and truest sense of the word. Not only did they live to start again but they survived long enough to have that second chance at life.
Unfortunately, Larry doesn't have that chance. As for his widow, after Larry's death Bill Duby offered a pitiful sum to take Larry's construction company right out from under her. I am told the offer came only a few days after Larry's suicide - apparently in order to use that horrible event to bargain from the position of strength. Still in shock, she accepted.
So, think of that before you attend that free healing clinic or get a psychic reading at the Spiritual Rights Foundation. After a few years, you may wind up looking down the barrel of a shotgun.
And your widow may as well...
Horrific. Sometimes it amazes me that people can recover after experiences in these controlling groups. Some do. Some don't. That picture of the teddy bear is going to stick in my mind for a long time. It is a too-accurate representation of what these power-hungry manipulators do to people.
ReplyDeleteThis awful cult groups shuldnt be allowed to exist. I was there to, close to suicide. I thought that jumping of Golden Gate should do it, but fortunatelly I was to confused and in to bad shape to even get there after leaving SRF.
ReplyDeleteHello Jenahellen, great comment. I am sorry you suffered there. What years were you there. Here is a story that might jog some memories.
ReplyDeleteRev. Bill said I had to secure Linda, so she could feel safe, but right on cue Linda said she didn’t trust me and didn’t feel safe with me. She said she felt safe only with Rev. Bill because he knew what love was. She said Rev. Bill had shown her “the light,” and now she needed no less than that to be with a man. Rev. Bill told us the story a hundred times about how he had spent hours preparing her by breaking down her personality’s resistance; then he had looked straight into Linda’s eyes and given her the pure light of Christ’s love. He said, “I stared into her eyes for 20 minutes, even though it happened in an instant, and Linda melted like butter as all the resistance in her body vanished.” Linda said she felt the pure light of love and that it had been channeled through Rev Bill.
Rev. Bill said that he hadn’t done anything, himself. He had just reflected Christ's love “for her—to her.” He always said he didn’t want people to be in love with him, that he was just trying to turn people back on themselves, so that they could learn to love themselves. He said that if people did fall in love with him for a time, it was better that they were attached to him than to someone who didn’t know how to care about them, or who might abuse them. Linda was the first one he gave the direct light experience to, although since then he had done it with several women. Linda sometimes sought him out, shamelessly, to get another “fix” of the light, as Rev. Bill put it. She acted like a giddy school girl when she got it, and she was jealous when he gave it to another woman, or even if he just spent too much time with another woman alone on a project.
I saw him “give her the light” when he wanted to demonstrate to the other women what it was she was so giddy about. It was during a Ministers Class late at night. He was talking about the times he had done it before and then asked Linda if she would like to experience the light now. Linda giggled and said, ”Yes, yes, yes, yes,” as she danced up to the front. He meditated for a moment, took some deep breaths, and then grabbed Linda’s face with both hands and stared intensely into her eyes. Both their faces turned red as he stared into her eyes. Some strange battle seemed to go on in Linda’s head. She seemed unnaturally flushed. Rev. Bill began to laugh knowingly, and let her go. Linda began to breathe very deeply and half laughed in an unnatural, unusually forceful way, like when a person gets the air knocked out of them and they are gasping not only for air, but for their dignity.
Rev. Bill said, “See, she’s still got resistance in there, but she got it; she’s definitely got it. You have to know what you are doing with this. It takes a phenomenal amount of energy and integrity. I could have taken over her mind, but instead I just left all the Christ energy in and took all the negative out. It’s up to her if she can have it. You people don’t realize how much work this is being up here. Now I have to clean out all the negative that I just took on for her sake. I have to clean it out of my space; otherwise I might grow tits and act like a nut like her. For each hour I spend working on your pictures, I have to spend three cleaning out. But it’s all fun for her…” He stopped for a moment and looked at her, as did the audience. She was still breathing deep, red in the face, and oddly uninhibited. All her energy seemed to be in her head. “How are you doing in there, Linda?” he asked. She said, “I feel great. I love it.”
I thought insubordinate thoughts in the secrecy of my mind, thoughts that I barely let myself hear: It looks like she’s in her ego. She is offended and confused. I thought it was the principles of the teaching to not go into someone else's space. She looks like she is hooked to him. There’s no chance she is going to love me.
R