Special Night - Major Fright

This week, Steve Sanchez has generously contributed a chapter of his book, Spiritual Perversion.

Spiritual Perversion is a honest and candid account of Steve's fourteen years in the Spiritual Rights Foundation. Steve was not only a minister at SRF, he was the director of SRF's Academy for Psychic Studies in San Jose for a number of years. Steve brought in several students into the SRF "Clairvoyant Training Program", including me and my wife. We don't hold that against him.

Steve suffered such extreme abuse at the hands of the now-dead founder of the Spiritual Rights Foundation and Academy for Psychic Studies and at the hands of the current leaders of "The Academy" that writing his book was as much therapy as it is a cautionary tale of the dark side of the Academy for Psychic Studies.

I have not only read Steve's book cover to cover, I have reviewed it favorably on Amazon. As outrageous and crazy this whole affair sounds, it's all true. I saw many of Rev. Bill Duby's antics up close and personal. The event described here in "Spiritual Perversion" is absolutely true.

In fact, I know the woman described here. My wife and I had dinner with her. She's been in my home. She's not someone you would think would have any interest in the Academy for Psychic Studies. To this day, she can't believe the Academy for Psychic Studies could have caused the problems we long-time followers experienced and she can't believe that Steve Sanchez faced as much unrelenting pressure and exploitation as he did.

If you are considering taking classes at the Academy for Psychic Studies in San Jose, you should read the following closely. While this is a one-time event from a guy now dead, look at the chapters where Steve had to use labor and resources from an Academy-owned construction company to satisfy the leader's need to pimp their crib - without the leaders paying one thin dime.

That feeling of entitlement lives on. They are looking for more new people, primarily from San Jose as before, to help re-build their crumbling empire. Those of you from San Jose should be on the lookout before you find yourselves losing much more than a couple of nights a week.


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Spiritual Perversion
by Steve Sanchez

Chapter 32: Reverse Revelation


After several years, we moved the Santa Clara Psychic Academy to San Jose. Two or three times a year Rev. Bill Duby would come down to do a special workshop. Sometimes these workshops were titled “Psychic Awareness and Healing,” and other times we just promoted them as “A Special Night with Rev. Bill.” Usually we had anywhere from 15 to 25 people.

However, one workshop drew about 40 participants because I had just obtained a newspaper article—a question-and-answer interview with Rev. Bill—about SRF in the San Jose Mercury News. It was very positive for SRF, which at this point was a dubious achievement for me because I had many doubts about SRF and harbored thoughts of leaving.

Rev. Bill started out doing his usual trip of teasing and joking with the audience. He talked in a rapid-fire manner about demystifying what it means to be psychic, about how we are all spirits who are meant to own our bodies and how there are teeming millions of spirits around us all the time who would like to take over and run our bodies.

He spoke about how to “own” our bodies, how to heal ourselves of foreign energy, and many other things. He mixed sex jokes with “enlightened word play.” He talked about how he was a master at reading and “acting out” the energy in the room.

He started to whip the energy up by speaking with sudden and intense emotion, using dynamic movements, shifting who he was giving attention to, and by saying he was a channel for Christ.

He made fun of channelers like Kevin Ryerson, gurus, and people like Shirley MacLaine, and then he taught that the true way to channel was to “channel yourself as the spirit of Christ.” He spoke of how the Christ Force energy is the true healing energy on the planet. When the energy was at its peak, he went into a brief meditation and began to speak as if he were channeling Jesus Christ himself.

I began to feel more and more uncomfortable, and I sensed the new people attending felt the same way. This was weird. It was too intense and religious for beginning people to take in. Rarely did he claim to channel to begin with, but it was especially strange for him to do it with new people in the room. As I looked around the crowded room I could see the new people were looking askance at what was going on.

Then Rev. Bill chose a woman, Sharon, to read, tease, and shine the “Christ Force Energy” on. Sharon had been coming to San Jose for a long time. I had a strong rapport with her and had done many classes and readings with her. She was a sensitive, goodhearted woman who had overcome a drinking problem some time ago. She was a musician, a little naive and idealistic, and struggling in her marriage. You could see she had been beaten down around the edges a little. Her tendency was to give and give and not stand up for herself enough.

Rev. Bill got right in her face and “shined the light” deep into her eyes. He teased her with some sexual jokes and told her she had a special gift as a healer. He told her that her sixth chakra was very open and that it was taking on too much foreign energy from others, especially from her husband.

Rev. Bill told her that her clairvoyant ability had never shut down, just like his own, but that she hadn’t learned to harness it. He told her that she had a special quality of innocence and that she was an excellent candidate to join the year class. “You are a runaway psychic and healer—you need to harness it. YOU need to learn how to read, baby. Then you will have the world by the tail.”

These were typical things for him to say when he was “hooking someone for Christ into the teaching,” as he put it. It was always very intense when he singled one person out for so much validation. All the ministers sitting together now who had talked to Sharon about the year class at one time or another looked at themselves in a very self-congratulatory way.

Everyone latched onto this feeling of relief because there were uncomfortable vibes moving among us. It was more than a little weird to all of us ministers that he kept getting in Sharon’s face and talking about the Christ Force energy while gesticulating strenuously, but none of us wanted to acknowledge our uneasiness.

Still, we couldn’t help seeing that most of the people in the room thought it was weird. Personally, my biggest concern was for Sharon. I was afraid she was being led astray. I felt a nagging voice telling me that I should do something like take her into my counsel and away from Bill. I wanted to protect her.

I could see Ang making gestures to Rev. Bill to tone it down and end it. This was not uncommon, but usually she positioned herself where the rest of us couldn’t see her. But we were so tightly packed in she couldn’t hide her signals from us. She was extremely uncomfortable with this situation because her efforts to signal him were a tacit acknowledgment that he was being weird.

I felt her pain, but it was amusing, even thrilling—the main authority figures in my life were looking extremely foolish! Rev. Bill was already on what he called a “transmedium run, channeling the Christ Force Energy through his crown chakra,” so it was presumed, as always, that he was in a “different, higher realm of moral being than the rest of us.”

He ignored Rev. Ang’s gestures, as usual. The color of her face almost matched her red hair. Twice she let out an audible sigh of frustration, the kind of sigh where you let your lips flap like a horse’s as the air rushes out

Then Rev. Bill said some words that made my ears pop open wide. While holding Sharon’s face in his hands and giving her “the light” he said, “I see that you are coming into the realm of your true soul mate. You have so much love to give and receive. You are now within the sphere of your soul mate, but to see your soul mate you have to increase your soul cycle. Otherwise you will miss him. You have to be in your sixth chakra to see him. If you choose, you are someone who can have the year class. Learning to read is the fastest way to increase your soul cycle on the planet. Only Christ can take the year class because he is love, and you carry the light of Christ within you. I tell you this as a channel of the Christ vibration.” Then he kissed her forehead and let her go.

My world crashed into a sickening sober reality. Those were the same words, the same rap he spoke to me the first day I came to SRF some 13 years ago! I cringed with pain and shame. Maybe this man really is an insane manipulator.

Sharon melted into her seat, blushing bright red. She was utterly “lit up” and smitten. Rev. Bill continued his lecture, but occasionally referred back to Sharon with a laugh, saying something about how “lit up” she was, or about how what she was feeling was better than any orgasm a man could give her.

On the outside, for the moment, I was the “good” minister who had organized this “great event.” On the inside, I felt sick to death. I was leading a sick lie of a life. I didn’t believe in what I was doing anymore. I hated it and I hated myself for doing it.


The following day I wanted to call Sharon, but I didn’t have her number. I had to wait till I got to San Jose that night. I waited till the others were occupied and then went to call, but before I could, the phone rang. It was Sharon. She was very agitated and confused. She was crying and her mind had been running wild all day. She asked if she could come over and talk to me. I told her to come on in, and I asked her to come at a time I knew the others would be reading. I wanted to talk to her alone, without interference. I didn’t want the others to hear us or to talk to her.

When we were alone in a separate room she started crying again and spoke very swiftly, “Steve I am sorry to take your time. I am just so confused, I don’t know what to do. I feel like I am in love, but I have my life and my husband. I feel like I should do something about being a healer. I love being a healer. I believe I am. Everyone keeps telling me I am a healer and that I should join the year class. I am thinking that maybe I should do that, but I have my husband and my kids. I don’t know if I have enough time like all of you who are so dedicated. What should I do? Do you think I am in love with Rev. Bill, or is it someone else in SRF that is meant for me? I am wondering… like he said… um… who my soul mate is? You know… Do you know? I feel like I got the light from Rev. Bill. Is it him? Rev. Ang and Debi said they got the light, too. I am so confused. My husband is not perfect and he upsets me, but I don’t want to just leave him…”

My heart leaped out to her. I could feel an intense rage simmering below, but that didn’t matter right now. I just wanted to protect her and I was so thankful to God that I had the opportunity. I knew what I had to do. I made sure to speak to her with a steady voice and calming gestures, to calm her down and to make sure she heard me.

“Sharon, there is nothing you have to do. I don’t think you are in love with Rev. Bill. You don’t need him to be happy. He is not your soul mate, and you don’t need him to find your soul mate. The worst thing you could do right now is join the year class or leave your husband. Please, don’t even consider that. It would be the worst mistake you could make. I know. It is the exact mistake I made with my life and my first wife.” She looked at me with astonishment and intense interest.

“You are a healer, but there are many kinds of healers. You can heal with your music, which you certainly do, by painting, or just in your daily life by the way you talk to people. Rev. Bill doesn’t really give you the light. You have the light and love inside you. You have your own direct connection to God. A lot of people’s lives and relationships have been ruined by joining the year class, including mine. Rev. Bill and this place are not what you think they are. You are fine… Okay?”

She asked me questions and became much more relaxed. She had never heard anyone say anything “negative” about Bill. I was astonished at what I said, too. I loved saying it, though. It felt really good. She saw things differently. She saw that she was very sensitive and vulnerable right now.

At the end of our meeting she said as she looked directly at me, “I wish you were my husband. You really seem to care about me.” That is possibly the best thing anyone ever said to me. After that, she occasionally still came to the Academy, but she never joined the year class.

Not a single person who attended Rev. Bill’s workshop came back to the San Jose Academy for a reading or even to the free healing clinic.

In the following weeks I called several of the people who attended to see if they would be interested in joining one of our classes or in getting a reading, and most of them had a bad impression of the place.



A couple of days later on a work day at the farm before Revelation Class, I saw Rev. Bill setting something up with the women. I could tell it was about me. All the women involved had an air of self-importance because they were recruited on a mission for Rev. Bill. Ang called me into one of the bedrooms of the trailer home, and all the women filed in. There was Ang, Robin, Rev. Rosie, Rev. Sherry, Nancy—and me. I was freaked. I knew this had to be it.

This was torture. I was ready to jump out of my skin and say something. The familiar itch from my heart up to my chin was pulsating with irritation. Ang started talking. She explained that Rev. Bill wanted them to talk to me because Linda wasn’t getting through to me. “We are not here to bash you. We are trying to help you. Rev. Bill wants us to talk to you about where you are failing in business.” Maybe this isn’t it, I thought. “Just try and listen to what we say, and don’t talk back too much… you know what I mean.” She beamed her sweet, comforting smile at me.

They went around the room and told me what they “saw” psychically. Robin talked about how I wasn’t bidding high enough and how she wanted me to pay more attention to the accounting expenses. Ang talked about how I resented tithing and the fact that she and Robin got bigger salaries than I did. She said that my negative energy was taking the business down. Sherry rattled on about how she knows how business works, emphasizing that I have to let the customer always be right.

I listened and acknowledged them all. It was difficult and painful at times to stay quiet, but I put little value on what they said. I was just elated that this wasn’t the big one. I hardly talked back at all, but I did tell Robin and Ang that I thought that SRF should pay for it when Liberty men worked on SRF property because using their labor for free was hurting the business. In reality I didn’t care if Liberty went down. No, I was dearly hoping it would.

After the meeting, Ang took me aside and said, “Steve I thought you did a real good job of not reacting. You handled it well.” I thanked her and thought, how ironic.

Shortly after this, Ang asked me to build a steam room in her bathroom for Rev. Bill, and Bill asked me to put hardwood flooring in the living room for Ang. Both of them wanted this as a gift from Liberty. I didn’t want to do this because Liberty couldn’t afford it at all, it would cause me a lot of stress, and I believed they were taking advantage of the money in an inappropriate way. On the other hand if I showed any sign of not wanting to do it I would certainly catch hell for being disloyal.

I arranged all the work, even though I had two other jobs going on. I still wanted to show them I was loyal. I became their buddy as the work was going on at first, but halfway through, they decided they also wanted hardwood flooring in the bedroom, two new sliding glass doors, two new windows, and cedar paneling in the closets. I told them Liberty couldn’t afford to do this, but they overrode me and accused me of being disloyal.

They put Linda in charge of finishing the work because I had a “bad attitude,” and I was slammed in front of everyone. All this made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t know what my rights were. I was starting to hate them.

Could it really be that they’re just hatefully using me? But I continued to float over these misgivings out of fear and desire for their approval. They ended up spending about $10,000 at Liberty’s expense. I couldn’t take much more. I was so stressed I could barely stand being alive. I couldn’t mistake the endless, useless pattern of my life.

Missing the Mission

While at the Spiritual Rights Foundation, I frequently heard that those who ended their affiliation with the Spiritual Rights Foundation would leave for various reasons. "They can't blow their pictures" was a frequent one, usually said when no other reason could be found.

Even absurd reasons like the kind of clothes a student would wear, the activities that they participated in outside of class were used as reasons for their expulsion or departure.

Many people left SRF. Some because they wanted to. Others because they were told to. Many left because they just had to.

With every departure, the leaders would gather the flock and conduct all kinds of psychic techniques to clean out the "running away" energy from those who remained. And the congregation would listen intently as the leadership would describe in detail all the reasons the dearly departed "couldn't have the teaching" and all the dangerous, destructive and ungodly pitfalls that would befall the cowardly defectors.

The leadership acted like there was a never-ending supply of new recruits. In fact, the founder would frequently boast that he could replace each person with ten others if he wanted to.

When someone would want to get out or was having doubts, he would proclaim to everyone that everyone who ever left the Spiritual Rights Foundation always begged to come back in. Almost every one of them were turned down, he said. The one re-entry student I knew of was in the Clairvoyant Training Program years before I showed up. One day, while the re-entry student was away, the founder came in to our class rambling about many things as usual. He suddenly launched the topic of the re-entry student. He looked down at us from his bar stool and said: "Angela told me that ********* wanted to come back in. And she said, 'we don't want him here do we?' I had to talk her into it."

During this talk, he was sure to tell us how frightening the real world was to sensitive souls like us, while reinforcing that fear with the suggestion that once out, SRF would be less than willing to let you back in. The message - once you are here, you can't leave. Kind of like a Roach Motel.

When the founder passed away, there was a few years where SRF moved along on momentum alone. Things seemed to be rolling along just fine. But every rolling stone comes to a stop sooner or later. Over time, the decline in interest in SRF became more and more present. The momentum was indeed coming to an end.

New faces would disappear as quickly as they came. I recalled special "open house" introduction nights for the Clairvoyant Training Program. Some of the time, one person turned up. One particularly momentous night, three prospective students appeared. The rest of the time, none. Almost none of those attending the open house enrolled in the Clairvoyant Training Program. I can only recall one and she didn't last long.

The expectations the membership had on themselves were waning. The relentless pressure to fulfill the founder's direction to "replace yourself ten times" released with his death. And the relentless degradation, the offering of false rewards, the never-ending pursuit of objectives no human could achieve began to subside but never went away.

After a few years, the Spiritual Rights Foundation began to flounder. No direction. Waning interest. No enthusiasm for those things that brought so much excitement and joy. A major depression was beginning to develop.

What happened here?

In all the time we had a charismatic leader, there was a seemingly limitless amount of activities, projects, goals we can achieve with a collective effort. And there was the continuous wave of manufactured tension between spouses, contrived strife between parent and child, the perception of a Judas among the ranks and the intense effort to be right with God and live and think like Jesus.

Personal problems were amplified in order for the church to create a miraculous healing. Tension built among the membership as they avoided those at a lower vibration and associated with those who are in favor with the leadership. The constant drive to reach a higher vibration and eventually reach the inner circle ruled their lives. The members faced a constant craving to be near the leader and to be blessed with his presence.

We were all consumed with the need for validation and terrified at the thought we could be excluded from the ranks of the spiritual elite.

This attention on the lives of others, the drive for healing and the overriding fear of the outside world and those of lower vibration kept us all apart from the purpose of coming together in a church devoted to bringing their light unto the world.

We lost our sense of purpose. We lost our mission. I don't ever recall anyone explaining the organization's purpose to the world apart from the fact we "have the light" and attract those who want it.

It's a self-centered way of thinking, that. The Spiritual Rights Foundation gives "the light" to those who "can have it". But only 0.01% of the world can "have it". We were the spiritual elite, above the rest and focused on ourselves. We were always told "you are not your brother's keeper.", you have to keep your light for yourself and never, ever give away what you have learned. "Make 'em pay for it" was the mantra: get the money up front.

Can you be altruistic in an environment where people are out for themselves? Can you be have concern for your fellow man when you are always told "you are not your brother's keeper!". Can you maintain a focus on a collective mission when you are tasked with and indeed, expected to fend for yourself?

With the remainder of the membership at the Spiritual Rights Foundation having been exposed to exactly that, it is any wonder that interest in that organization declines? Is it any wonder that despite adjusting the demands on the members, relaxing the prerequisites and standards for new attendees and attempting promotional activities, new prospects are rare and the current members become fewer and fewer?

Can the church get back on course? Would there be hope among the hopeless? With the only rallying cry being the outrage over this blog and those who read it, the Spiritual Rights Foundation is on the fast track to irrelevance. It will take a tectonic shift in outlook, perspective and attitude to turn around that ship. I have my doubts that it will happen.

You can't cooperate to achieve a common goal if you have never been taught to do so. You can't pursue a mission you never hear.