Thinking Green at the Academy for Psychic Studies

Originally Posted may 27, 2008

Well, this is not about green as we usually think about it. It's about the green with dead presidents on them.

Here's what is happening at the Spiritual Rights Foundation:

There's a free healing clinic Mondays and Saturdays. At the clinic, you can receive a free energy healing, which can feel pretty good. While there, someone will engage you in a conversation and generally suggest that you take some of the beginning classes. Not a big deal there.

Those classes cost anywhere from $60 to $450 per course. OK, if you have some extra cash floating around and a few nights free what the hell, right?

If you'd like some real insight, you can get one of the aura readings by a student or other junior member for $60. An aura reading by a full staff member costs more. $80 for that. Again, if you have a night free for the reading you might want to do that for a laugh.

The real slippery slope happens if you keep coming back. And it's a sure bet that they will want you to keep coming back. Those courses and aura readings? Well, you'll need several of them if you want to grow and unfold in the SRF way.

After taking all the beginning classes then you are ready for the elite and highly valued "Clairvoyant Training Program" (CTP). That requires a commitment of time ranging from a few months to nearly a decade. And the costs are considerable.  The time commitment is considerable as well:  one three-hour night a week for class, another three-hour night a week for your "reading night", another three-hour night a week for "healing clinic", weekends spent being paraded in front of normal people as a highly trained psychotic, more weekends spent on $300 retreat weekends, "work hours" that range from 4 to 12 hours a week, "love projects" that take from 6 to 10 hours a week working for the leader's businesses for no pay (and you'd better "love" it - or else, as well as the mandatory weekly meetings for idiotic things like "who didn't clean up the turds left by the leader's dogs" and the mandatory special $150 classes for whatever the hell the leaders want you to sit through.

Did I forget to mention the weekly $75 a session trance classes, the all-night "spirit patrol" where you try to stay awake at 2AM while you wave your hands in the air and fart all night?

Well, that is the kind of thing that awaits the eager student in the Clairvoyant Training Program.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it?  It's even more fun while you try to hold down a job and maintain your relationships while you are having so much fun!

But you'll be willing to do it so you can prove yourself worthy of the Clairvoyant Training Program.  So many of us did just that, week in and week out for years and years.  We did it, though.  We did it so we can prove we can be a part of the spiritual elite of the Academy for Psychotic Studies.

And we felt honored to be accepted in the CTP, as only the best, the most worthy, the most capable and the most skilled as well as the most gullible were accepted into the program.

Upon your acceptance into the Clairvoyant Training Program (I have never heard of anyone being turned away - as long as you have the money to spend) you will sign a contract where you promise to be present at all the activities presented to you, participate in weekend or evening activities as required, pay a "down payment" that can be over $1000 and pay a monthly charge of $250 or more.

For the serious student, the length of the Clairvoyant Training Program will take several years. Odd, as this course is frequently called "the year class".  But  it will take several years for you to "blow your ten core pictures".  What those damn things are is anyone's guess.  My guess: those "ten core pictures" had to do with your willingness to cough up a lot of cash, give up any property you might own, hand over your children to the  warm and nourishing arms of Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin and live a life of poverty, disappointment, constant pressure and depression.  Hey - where do I sign up?

Graduates of the program may be ordained as ministers. Books are not required. A course of study is not required. No one knows what it takes to complete your studies and qualify for a ministerial title. If you "blow your pictures" and spend as much as desired by SRF, then you will be considered for graduation - if SRF has room for you to be a minister.

And they will as long as you have the ability to keep turning your head and coughing up a hell of a lot of money in the form of class fees of hundreds a month (some paid over $600) take a relaxing and refreshing retreat every month at a cost of $300, hand over up to 30% of your wages and rent a flea-bag ghetto apartment from Angela Silva at an inflated cost.  Well, you have to give to live, right?  when you are an Academy for Psychic Studies minister, you'll give all right.

Upon your graduation, you become ordained and are eligible to join yet another class which requires yet another advance payment and even more monthly payments with a further commitment of three to six days per week.

It is said that that you should never stop learning. I'm sure we all agree with that. The sense that you never stop paying as well is something we would all question.

Since the people at the top of SRF have no jobs and depend entirely on the income generated through the church, it doesn't take much to see that they would start to put their own interests first rather than think about any benefit to society or the people they should serve.

Well, their interests are becoming more and more focused on keeping up with the Joneses and maintaining themselves in luxury cars. The revenues at the Spiritual Rights Foundation seem to be dwindling and the membership looks to be slowing down bit by bit.

SRF depends on those revenues to maintain the operations and expand. When I attended the classes, up to twenty students per class was common. Lately, the number of new students in the Clairvoyant Training Program has been very low. Two current students have been attending for a number or years. One other student is there because he is married to a current SRF member. Apparently, three people consists of the entirety of the CTP class.

The rate of churn with that program has always been high. Many more leave the class than complete it. When people do leave, it's said to be because they could not blow their pictures or were more interested in sex or some other reason that made no sense. Many of those who left finally figured out that dropping a some long money and a couple of Benjamins a month starts to add up fast and that money is best spent on things more beneficial. And on things that will be at last, paid for.

Thanks to some negative publicity on SRF, their own inability to promote themselves and their nature to be insular and separated from society the amount of interest in SRF is starting to dwindle.

I say that is a good thing. Let's just let SRF wither on the vine and fade away into irrelevance. Maybe irrelevant is exactly where they are already.