I like that - a big glass means fewer trips to the bar!
Now if I can just solve that men's room problem...
There are no accidents in the universe.
It's another one of those axioms regurgitated from the lips of the SRF Faithful. What it really means is anyone's guess. What the SRF Faithful think it means is anyone's guess as well.
At any rate, the Faithful and the Formally-Faithful socialize now and then. Well, I guess it's only the Formally-Faithful. The SRF Faithful spend their time running in circles like headless barnyard animals trying to avoid the cold steel of the leadership's axe.
Or maybe they are running in circles because they MET the leader's axe.
People talk about things all the time. It's especially good when those things are related to the vile, dysfunctional and self-serving practices of the Spiritual Rights Foundation and the Academy for Psychic Studies in San Jose and Berkeley. As Justice Brandeis said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”
Talking about SRF may be painful at times. Well actually, it's crazy. Crazy because all the nutty, bizarre, contradictory and weird behavior perpetrated by the leaders of SRF just makes you shake your head in disbelief. It make you wonder if they are really psychotic, not psychic. It makes you wonder if they need the kind of mental health treatment they say the rest of us need. But most of all, it makes you wonder how you fell into the convoluted, selfish agenda of the SRF mentality and how it could be that good people continue to get dragged into that morass.
During one of those talks between ex-members, something came up. Something that made me just hang my jaw in mid-air at the amazing circumstances.
An ex-member couple have a son. Despite his exposure to SRF, he's able to lead a very normal life. That's very impressive news. Not all children of cult families can accomplish that. In fact, he mustered the strength to resist the cult's attempts to draw him in deeper and deeper into their deadly web of exploitation.
In the course of him being, well, a young man, he met a nice young woman. A very nice young woman. Nice enough to date. And nice enough to tell mom and dad about.
So far, so good.
In the course of dating, the topic of what they do when they are not together came up.
The young woman revealed she was attending a "Clairvoyant Training Program" at an old Victorian House in Berkeley.
The young man (after getting his heart started again) gasped "uh, what's the name of this place?" To which the young woman replied "Spiritual Rights Foundation".
Once he picked himself off the ground, it seemed like a good time to talk to mom and dad (and if you are like me, all you are probably really happy this young adult man would go seek their advice).
But before that, he would need a little more information. So he pressed on.
The young woman revealed that she was in the "Year Class" for more than a year. A lot more. And that she actually inquired of the leaders about when and how she would "graduate" as a "minister". She never got an answer. Even after asking for a graduation (believing in good faith she met the requirements) she was turned down.
Even worse, she complained that she was forced to pay for classes the leaders cancelled. The cult leaders explained: even if SRF did not provide the class "education" they promised her, she was "in the energy" that day even if there was no class to attend.
And to SRF, that "energy" has a price. Your money is your energy, you know. So if SRF expended the energy to cancel a class on you, you have to replace their energy with your hard-earned money by paying for a cancelled class. Yep, makes sense to me.
After hearing this tale, the parents made the suggestion that this young woman should just plain get the hell out of Dodge. They thought they could inform her of the dysfunction, exploitation and outright greed of the place, hoping reason will snap her out of her malaise. At no time was that young woman marginalized, demonized or demeaned - she probably got enough of that from the cult. And they respected their son's desire to form and maintain a good relationship with her. A tip of the hat to them for not demanding their son leave the young woman immediately.
What happened after that is not yet known. With luck, the young woman will have left that painful cult experience and moved on to living her life with a young man with a good head on his shoulders and a strong heart in his chest.
But as leaving that horrible, exploitative, disruptive and irredeemable organization is as hard as recovering from that experience, I wouldn't be surprised if she is still there, faithfully arriving for classes that are canceled at the last minute and wondering if she can ever reach the brass ring of spiritual knowledge.
Now, you have to keep in mind that what I relate above is coming to me through a fairly long channel and the details may show some differences between my writing and what actually happened.
But, I think the gist of this post is dead on: there is a young woman stuck in the endless, frustrating and nearly inescapable SRF Death March to a goal she may never be allowed to reach.
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In case that same young woman wants to hear the other side of the story - the side of the people who attended those canceled classes and pursued that spiritual education for year after endless year; from those who have felt the frustration and pain of the relentless struggle to maintain their sanity in that insane environment, I'm re-posting the following article on the never-ending classes at the Academy for Psychic Studies / Spiritual Rights Foundation:
The Academy for Psychic Studies is the arm of the Spiritual Rights Foundation that was formed to provide spiritual education to the public and its members.
Most of us had encountered the Spiritual Rights Foundation by way of the Academy for Psychic Studies. I have no idea why it makes sense to have a organization of a separate name to conduct spiritual education. The Academy and SRF were actually one and the same.
Classes and workshops were presented in the name of the Academy for Psychic Studies but oddly, the instructors were all ministers ordained by the Spiritual Rights Foundation. "Donations" for classes were paid directly to the Spiritual Rights Foundation, not the Academy.
Basic classes were six weeks long. Workshops, only two. Six week classes cost $140 at last look, two week workshops were $60. Those prices may have changed up or down. Probably up.
The six week classes teach the techniques of grounding, running energy and blowing roses among other topics. While there was strong emphasis on learning the basic techniques, the fundamental theory, the basic spiritual principles, were never presented. Apart from saying that the meditative and visualization techniques made you feel better, there was no real presentation of how this all works. No explanation other than it moves bad energy from your space. No sense of how these techniques are based in theological, medical or any other theory. You just had to take it on faith or leave.
Beaten into our head was the saying: To those who believe, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
I'll add this: To those who ask why, no explanation is given. To those who are asked to explain, you, well, ummm, errr... just get the fuck back in your goddamn body and ground you fucking transmedium.
Once you received training in the basic techniques, you were now eligible for admission to the prestigious Clairvoyant Training Program. In the CTP, you will develop the skill of reading the color and picture contained in the human aura and make interpretations based on what you see. The training cost some $2000 to join plus some $250 a month, over $75 a month (in lieu of performing monthly hours of word), expenses related to "field trips", fees for "retreats" as well as related expenses such as gas and meals (the training schedule is rigorous enough that there is little time for more than a quick gulp of fast food much less a healthy meal and you tend to be in the road a lot, travelling to fairs and other events to have your psychic skills paraded in front of the public).
The unofficial name for the Clairvoyant Training Program was "the year class". As originally conceived, the CTP was to last just about a year. Over time, the "year class" began to elongate. it went from a year to eighteen months to two years and eventually to as long as the leadership wanted to keep you there. My contemporaries and myself were in that class for over a decade.
As before, the need to practice the techniques are reinforced almost daily. But the spiritual or psychic basis for the need to conduct that kind of technique was never disclosed. Nor did anyone have the courage (or maybe insanity) to ask. Our job was to sit in trance and learn how to put the techniques into practice.
Only after I looked at the blog and YouTube page by Psychdoctorate did I realize the basic techniques of running energy, blowing roses and grounding were indeed the basic foundations of mind control and mental illness. With Bill Duby being there to encourage and inspire us to continue to practice and intensify our dedication in the program, we were under his spell without even knowing it.
He said often that he did not want to have a program like that at the Berkeley Psychic Institute where people went through in two years. He wanted to have a community of people instead.
Bill got a community all right. And we got a prison. Leaving was strongly opposed. Staying "in the energy" by remaining in the "year class" was encouraged daily. Even if that "year class" took more than a decade. Staying in the class (and under Bill's control) was emphasized so much that we were led into exercises intended to eliminate the desire to be anywhere but in class.
Even though the door was open, we could not leave. Our hearts, our minds our very sense of self was controlled by a madman named Bill Duby. The Clairvoyant Training Program was just the thing he needed to accomplish the mind control he desired.
Once released from your indeterminate confinement in the CTP, you would be presented with a ministerial title. And yet another class. The minister's class.
The minister's class was originally intended to train ministers in the art of psychic ministry. The teachers there were usually senior ministers - those who had been ministers at SRF and who rose through the ranks.
It became a forum to study the works of Emanuel Swedenborg and whatever Bill Duby was reading at the time. Again, everyone was required to purchase the materials and learn the contents by rote without any reason or explanation. Costs for the minister's class were higher than the Clairvoyant Training Program. A higher initial payment, higher monthly payments, a more demanding requirement to work for the cult, more demands to attend special events (many "SRF parties" were not only mandatory for ministers to attend, the ministers were also required to purchase from the supermarket food and drink to provide for this event with money from their own pockets).
The minister's class lasted a lifetime. Or at least your lifetime as a minster of the Spiritual Rights Foundation and teacher at the Academy for Psychic Studies. Many would prefer to make that lifetime as short as possible and bailed out before things got worse.
The rest stayed in the hope of achieving the enlightenment and satisfaction that being a minister can bring. Those people "advanced" to the Academy for Psychic Studies "Revelations Class" taught by the founder, Rev. Bill Duby himself.
Like the other classes at the Academy for Psychic Studies, the Revelations Class began as an attempt at biblical education. The class was formed to study the contents and meaning of the Book of Revelations in the Bible. Like other classes, Revelations Class required substantial payments. And like the other classes, the "Rev Class" degenerated into something completely different. Something scarier and sinister.
The fact is, Bill saw betrayal and deception everywhere. Everywhere but himself, that is. And there was no better place to find the true Judas of the cult than in his own Revelations Class. Ministers who served Bill and SRF were roasted in front of their peers. And that roasting was not in fun as the Friars Club would. It's more like being sandwiched in a George Foreman Grill.
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In "Spiritual Perversion" Steve Sanchez writes:
In Revelation Class that night Rev. Bill started berating the ministers for being phonies and not promoting the Academy. This scared me, and I finally acknowledged the constant underlying feeling that I needed to do something about it. I really didn’t want to be part of the class
In Revelation Class and others, ***** was berated heavy-duty two or three nights a week. He was in a strange position. He performed several important functions for the Academy, but he was looked down on by everyone.
Bill started teaching from the “other Bible,” ... He was reading about how the giants had perverted and corrupted the holy church of heaven, but then he said, “*****, every week you come in here spewing hate with a phony smile on. That perverts the church. You are getting fatter and lazier because you are in denial. Always in denial, everything is always someone else's fault. All these bitches are complaining about you, saying you are always late and don’t want to pitch in and do any work around here. They resent that, and rightfully so. You hate the farm, don’t you?” ***** didn’t say anything but her face twisted in confusion, pain, shame, and anger.
Bill continued, looking back deeply at *****, “You are getting fatter and lazier because you are in denial. All that anger is making you puff up because the body is psychic. It has to have some way of protecting itself from YOU, the resident spirit. Your body is going to hate you for doing this. You need to get some exercise out here. All these other people are doing it. They are all busy. Some of them have kids, too. They manage. You know what the energy is, don’t you, *****? You guys forget—I can read!”
He was starting to boil, and then suddenly said with intense fury, “I can read SHIT up a gnat’s ASS! You stupid motherfuckers! But you guys don’t believe it, do you? I’ll tell you what the energy is, since you don’t have the courage to admit it. I warned you all many times, every time I have to solve your problem for you, you lose the spirit of self-discovery and I take a piece of your soul energy.”
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The above excerpt illustrates the every day occurrences in the Revelations class. No real exploration for meaning, no discovery of revelations and no bible study. Just the spewing of vile, perverted and delusional hate and degradation.
After Bill's death in 2001, we all expected that much of the intense and insane behavior would end. However, it didn't. The Revelations Class remained the pinnacle of verbal abuse and degradation - even with Bill pushing up daisies.
Angela Silva and Robin DuMolin made the attempt to fill Bill's shoes and continue his legacy of insanity and unrestrained hate in the Revelations class. But since the mind control Bill practiced was his and his alone, their attempts fell flat. It didn't matter. They went on spitting in people's face anyway, because there is no one to tell them to stop. If you don't believe it, just sign up for a FREE sit-in session with the Clairvoyant Training Program. You'll be sitting in the Revelations class in ten year's time.
Since the two leaders are pretty dense, it took a while for them to notice how much Bill's spell was falling away from all but the most weary among the members. The membership has been going down lower and lower every year. And there are fewer and fewer willing to take the plunge to fill their ranks.
So, if you do decide that now is the time for a class at the Academy for Psychic Studies, decide carefully. Based on what I and many others saw and experienced, taking more than the basic classes may give you more than the spiritual enlightenment and inner peace you were promised.
In fact, my recommendation is to get no more involved than a free healing and a copy of a newsletter. You can start the barbecue with the newsletter. Or line the birdcage with it.
And the free healing is good for a laugh.
A few observations:
The Year Class - it lasts a decade
Minister's Class - it takes a lifetime
Revelations Class - you want to take your life
I was watching a TV program about the Branch Davidians and David Koresh, they sure did remind me of SRF, Bill Duby fit the mold of Koresh quite well, the present female cult leader fit the mold of the female behind the Branch Davidians, and the weird heirarchy where leaders are picked based on their craziness and ability to be a loyal hatchet man for the cult leaders. Of course Duby made
ReplyDeletea point to disassociate himself from them when they were in the news. Right now, until a new male cult leader is groomed from the existing crazies, they will continue to be a group run by Self Righteous Females.
Good stuff Mike, one correction. In no way was the revelation class a forum for studying the Works of Swedenborg. We only used Swedenborg's concordance to translate Bible scriptures into psychic language. This is a totally different thing than studying the works of Swedenborg. No-one there understood Swedenborgian theology and the profound implications of it. Bill I do believe read him a lot, and he often said Angela read it like cartoons. A few others may have read snip-its from Heaven and Hell. Bills reading of it was for the wrong reasons. He read it for the sake of making himself look enlightened. He twisted what Swedenborg said to make it look as if he had discovered by his intelligence and psychic power the 'secret teachings', a phrase he often used. He did sometimes reference some of the more common things Swedenborg said, but usually he did not. No-one of course could tell this unless they knew Swedenborg's writing extremely well.
ReplyDeleteIt is my joy and passion to study Swedenborg, the Bible, and other theologians and I have come to know the writings of S very well, although there is always much more to learn. It is very surreal and strange to come across phrases and concepts that Bill used for his manipulative purpose. For instance, Bill said that he was one of the .01% of teachers on the planet that carried the real Christ consciousness, without which the planet could not exist, obviously building the impression in his followers minds that what he and they were doing had an elite purpose. This is a perversion of S's wholistic concept that there must exist on earth, even at the time of decline in the universal church, a church that is in genuine charity toward the neighbor so that conjunction is maintained between heaven and earth. Another example is when asked about reincarnation, Bill gave Swedenborg's answer without revealing the source. He also used Swedenborg's info to describe in many details how spirits operate. There are many more examples of this, but I am not going to include them because it is too difficult to properly explain Swedenborg's concepts in a short bit of writing, and if I am going to express them, I would want to do them justice. Even the concept I just mentioned requires a great deal more explanation to be properly understood.
Swedenborg's writing is all about revealing the internal sense of Holy scripture, the metaphysical structure of the universe, the nature of humans relation to God, the nature of heaven and hell, and especially the divine-human nature of Christ the Lord. If any current or former SRFer even began to understand this they would humble themselves and forgive each other for all. Many former SRFers have done this from common decency. This is the furthest thing from what the revelation class was doing. Bill actually hedged everyone away from reading Swedenborg's works, because he no doubt feared someone would actually develop a relationship with Christ instead of himself and his version of it.
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It is difficult to face but Bill actually had a very ambitious plan as a cult leader. He wanted to possess people souls, and the best way to do this was to make people identify himself with Christ. After all the other levels of mind control this is what he went ofter when a person was ripe. In the revelation class, after we were beratted for hours he would say, "you losers have no idea about the real Christ, you are praying to entities in your head. I am the closest thing you have to Christ, you need to let me model him to you for a time so that you can see what it is like. He has put me here in your life or this purpose".
ReplyDeleteThis is also an example of how he twisted S. Swedenborg warned not to pursue psychic phenomenon because what really happened was that while a person thought they were contacting spirits they were really only meshing with the emotions of spirits and giving them an elevation they do not deserve. Bill took advantage of this to control people, and of course it was evil spirits in him influencing him to do this.
Bill also often claimed to channel and speak or Christ. He did this in revelation class, but even did this in public sometimes. I wrote in scene about this in spiritual Perversion in the chapter called 'Reverse revelation'.
Part of the reason I am writing this is because a lot of people who leave SRF and cults, struggle and even lose their faith afterward. They may have had issues with this before the cult experience, but the cult certainly tends to exacerbate it. If this kind of stuff goes un-discerned it is possible that it ruins a person relationship with religion, and quite possibly their relationship with God. This is, of course, tragic. I am aware that people have various views about God, and I want to be respectful of them, so this is not easy to write about. In relation to the cult, this subject is a very big part of the mind control, so I think it is important to attempt to address. We were all sincerely searching in our lives and got derailed by the cult.
I know everyone has their own views will write more about this in a posting.
Thanks, Steve.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe SRF does or has ever truly studied Swedenborg despite having his entire Arcana Celestia gathering dust in the attic. My apologies if that is the impression I gave by calling out their lame attempt at biblical education.
We students were not allowed to read any of the works of Swedenborg and ministers were only allowed to read what they told you to read. No more, no less.
So, more than one person has thrown their barely-used copy of a Swedenborg work my way. Why beats me but I do have two of his works I received from a disaffected minister or three.
I remember Bill Duby screaming to his faithful few "I am the closest thing God (sometimes he would say Jesus - MK) you will ever see". Then close his eyes and pretend to be nailed to the cross.
At one church service, Bill walked up to the podium, announced to the gathered (which included visitors curious about the church) that he could channel God Himself. Bill then closed his eyes then in his best Charlton Heston voice admonished us to listen to "My friend Bill.".
Then after the service concluded and our visitors departed, Bill went back to ranting and raving about things no one could do a damn thing to change anyway - like why the visitors to church never came back.
The one advantage to having the Witches of Ellsworth in charge: no visitors leave because there are no visitors at all.
Thanks Mike, no apology necessary. I just didn't want people to associate the academy as Swedenborgian, or knowledgible about him. The whole academy did a field trip to the the Swedenborg church in El Cerrito once and told the church that they were Swedenborgian. This probably doesn't mean much to most people but it might to a few out there.
ReplyDelete