Secret Psychics

Gee, if the Academy for Psychic Studies had fundraisers like this...

Found the article below at: http://tinyurl.com/6jg2s7m

The article below is an editorial written by Mitch Horowitz and is a great use of Steve Hassan's BITE model for identifying a cult or controlling group.  Mr. Horowitz describes the Academy for Psychic Studies so well, I'd swear he was right there with us.

It's probably the best description of our experience at the Academy for Psychic Studies I have seen.
The key is secrecy.  Keep the goings-on behind the iron gate a secret.  Be sure the members don't find out what is happening a the top of the heap.  Never allow anyone from the outside (like a journalist) to look behind the gate - unless you have complete control over what they do and do not see.

Yes, we did have an extreme leader and extreme leader-etts who kept the Academy on it's mission of exploitation.  Sure, information from the outside was controlled, our thinking was modified, our behavior closely modified and our emotions were controlled with the taunt to "stay neutral" while we were tortured, humiliated, blackmailed or pummeled with insults and deeply degrading healing sessions that were more like an interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo.

The founder, Bill Duby was fond of saying "Don't fuck with me when it comes to money!"  The Academy's finances were a dark secret.  They had money.  A lot of it.  They got it from their followers.  The Academy for Psychic Studies never released an annual report nor were anyone besides certain members of the Board of Directors were allowed to know where the money came from and were it was going.  Maybe those select board members were the ones raking it in for themselves.

How could we say this?

Did we know how the leaders (who had no jobs) could tell us they were poor as dirt but were able to drive luxury cars?  Were we told how Bill Duby could acquire apartment buildings, a farm and other properties while he slumped in his chair moaning about how broke he was?   Did anyone know how it was possible that the leaders could use Academy money to pay for whatever the hell they wanted?

I remember accompanying Bill Duby and Angela Silva to an RV dealership.  Bill wanted a new RV.  The one he wanted cost over $60,000.  Bill made the deal on the spot, then asked to use my phone, explaining he had to call a board member to say he's making the purchase.  Obviously, the deal was already done so the board member couldn't do a damn thing to object anyway.  When he returned from his shopping spree, Bill told everyone he mocked up his new toy and that he bought it personally.  There was no mention that he used church funds to buy it and I was too smart to talk about what actually happened.

Bill's own personal history was also distorted and exaggerated.  Bill's accomplishments were much more than any one person could have achieved in the time he had.   Computer programmer, construction expert, soldier, father, husband, preacher, gambler, lady's man, businessman, prophet, scholar and spiritually perfect being were only some of the claims he made.

Why was the public history of Bill Duby so fantastic and superhuman while the truth behind the tall tales told an entirely different story?  And why was any question or doubt about the supernatural accomplishments of the leaders met with an overwhelming wave of degradation and hostility from the leaders and their deluded followers?

Take a look at this comment from a former member:

Anonymous said...
I know many secrets at SRF and would be oh to happy to tell everyone who reads this, including those who are on the fence still at the cult. 

1. Rev. Bill molested a person who was associated with the church. 

2. Rev. Bill took money out of the donation box for his own needs. He would take out all the large bills and leave just the dollar bills in there. 

3.When Rev. Bill took his name off all the legal documents regarding the whole corporation including all umbrella companies, he did so to not draw attention from the IRS, and any possible future lawsuit regarding molestation case against him. 

4.Rev. Angela and Rev. Bill were lovers then Rev. Bill dropped Rev. Angela full time after she got jealous over Rev. Bill's attention towards Rev. Robin. Rev. Angela went out and got drunk and picked up some stranger in a bar for a night of self destructive behavior. Oh yah, she was on the board of directors of the church. Nice example! 

5. Rev. Bill made sure that all properties and assets associated with the church, are to benefit two people and only 2 people....Rev. Angela Silva and Rev. Robin DuMolin. So, if they want to pull the plug at anytime, they would walk away with all the assets.

If they sell off the many properties, or liquidate any stock or bonds bought with church monies, they would go to Rev. Angela Silva and Rev. Robin DuMolin. 

NO ONE ELSE IN THE CHURCH, INCLUDING THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS GETS A DIME! 

Any student who is going through the training right now or in the future doesn't get a thing. 

Any current or past minister associated with the church doesn't get a thing if the place goes under. 

And believe me, many old and new ministers don't know this! 

Those who do know, are so conditioned to look the other way, because if they spoke up they would get verbally beaten down and isolated. 

They were told to shut down the place and start again with all new people. 

The current church bishop basically is a yes man for the two current top leaders, so not to catch the heat from above. Nice....! 

Piling on is an art form at the cult. If you don't agree or are put into a position not to agree with the agenda, you are isolated and verbally abused in the staff meetings once a week, or at the beginning of each month. But this is called cleansing of the bad negative energy that is in the church. Trying doing an exorcism on yourself first! 

Its like OJ saying when acquitted for murder, "I will look for the real killers". Yeah on the golf course, in Vegas and the bars you frequent. Try looking in the mirror. 

The same goes for the negative energy in the church building, try looking in the mirror before you hold a staff meeting to dispense with the made up negative energies you did a reading on...oh clairvoyant one.....What a made up con of cons! 

No different than the televangelists claiming something bad will happen if you don't cough up some money. Extortion through guilt, emotional blackmail and verbal abuse. 

Happy Holidays everyone, and hope you learn from these accurate insights.

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And how about this one from a student (who thankfully got out before she got cooked alive):

Anonymous said...
So much for the sick and psychic. What a joke this place turned out to be. I was a student in SJ and witnessed what only perceived as hanky panky and arm twisting going on during the school break periods at night. That Rev. Steve was always under stress and felt like this place hardly ever had any students. That Sandi person I remember taking classes from, and in hindsight, I wished I could hug her now, as she probably needed one or many. 

Wow, I came up to take some classes in there Berkeley school and had a few encounters with these woman that are talked about. 

Rev. Robin seemed cold and calculating like a space alien scanning you, wanting to know if your intentions are threatening or peaceful. 

Rev. Angela seemed like a hot wind bag and phony. I didn't know why all the talk was about getting a reading from her or taking a class from here. I was bombarded with advertisement for her so called gift and insight. Seemed like she was one of those lady gypsy scammers who bilk large amounts of money over time form victims who want to believe. She did seem to exhibit signs of drinking or years of drug taking. 

Rev. Bill seemed like a inmate that welcomed the newly incarcerated. Scanned you up and down and wondered if he can use you to do his bidding. I'm glad this guy is not around anymore to lay waste on the rest of the poor people continuing to find fleeting thoughts of nirvana in a house of pain. 

December 26, 2008 8:23 PM

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The thing most stressed with us was to keep our light for ourselves.  We were not encouraged to go out and talk about our experience at the Academy.  In fact, it was forbidden because we might "blow people's mind" if we did.  That the Academy for Psychic Studies tried to silence me with a lawsuit that blew back in their faces (where I forced them to pay my legal expenses while retaining my right to free speech) should tell you a lot about their quest for secrecy.

When my good friend Steve Sanchez wrote his book "Spiritual Perversion", the Academy made similar threats for legal action.  "Spiritual Perversion" was still published and the truth came out anyway.
Steve and I are members of a small number of people willing to speak out against this cult.  Most take the threats, the shame, the emotional blackmail so seriously they remain in silence, huddling in the shadows in fear of a psychic attack that will never happen.

Yeah, the Academy for Psychic Studies' need for secrecy rises above all of their other needs.  Take a look at their website.  It's sparse and there's little real information about it.  The emotional control, the humiliation, the emotional blackmail, the information control and the deep shame we have all felt about being in this crazy cult are just the tools they use to keep the Academy the most secret of secret societies.

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When Does a Religion Become a Cult?

America has long been a safe harbor for experimental faiths. But the unorthodox can descend into something darker.

By MITCH HOROWITZ

America has probably supplied the world with more new religions than any other nation. Since the first half of the 19th century, the country's atmosphere of religious experimentation has produced dozens of movements, from Mormonism to a wide range of nature-based practices grouped under the name Wicca.
By 1970 the religious scholar Jacob Needleman popularized the term "New Religious Movements" (NRM) to classify the new faiths, or variants of old ones, that were being embraced by the Woodstock generation. But how do we tell when a religious movement ceases to be novel or unusual and becomes a cult?

It's a question with a long history in this country. The controversy involving Hollywood writer-director Paul Haggis is only its most recent occurrence. Mr. Haggis left the Church of Scientology and has accused it of abusive practices, including demands that members disconnect from their families, which the church vigorously denies.

To use the term cult too casually risks tarring the merely unconventional, for which America has long been a safe harbor. In the early 19th century, the "Burned-over District" of central New York state—so named for the religious passions of those who settled there following the Revolutionary War—gave rise to a wave of new movements, including Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism and Spiritualism (or talking to the dead). It was an era, as historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom wrote, when "Farmers became theologians, offbeat village youths became bishops, odd girls became prophets."

When the California Gold Rush of 1849 enticed settlers westward, the nation's passion for religious novelty moved with them. By the early 20th century, sunny California had replaced New York as America's laboratory for avant-garde spirituality. Without the weight of tradition and the ecclesiastical structures that bring some predictability to congregational life, some movements were characterized by a make-it-up-as-you-go approach that ultimately came to redefine people, money and propriety as movable parts intended to benefit the organization.

Many academics and observers of cult phenomena, such as psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo of Stanford, agree on four criteria to define a cult. The first is behavior control, i.e., monitoring of where you go and what you do. The second is information control, such as discouraging members from reading criticism of the group. The third is thought control, placing sharp limits on doctrinal questioning. The fourth is emotional control—using humiliation or guilt. Yet at times these traits can also be detected within mainstream faiths. So I would add two more categories: financial control and extreme leadership.

Financial control translates into levying ruinous dues or fees, or effectively hiring members and placing them on stipends or sales quotas. Consider the once-familiar image of Hare Krishna devotees selling books in airports. Or a friend of mine—today a respected officer with a nonprofit organization—who recalls how his departure from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church was complicated by the problem of a massive hole in his résumé, reflecting the years he had financially committed himself to the church.

Problems with extremist leadership can be more difficult to spot. The most tragic cult of the last century was the Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, which ended with mass murder and suicide in the jungles of Guyana in 1978. Only a few early observers understood Jones as dangerously erratic. Known for his racially diverse San Francisco congregation, Jones was widely feted on the local political scene in the 1970s. He was not some West Coast New Ager gone bad. He emerged instead from the mainstream Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) pulpit, which sometimes lent a reassuringly Middle-American tone to his sermons.

Yet every coercive religious group harbors one telltale trait: untoward secrecy. As opposed to a cult, a religious culture ought to be as simple to enter or exit, for members or observers, as any free nation. Members should experience no impediment to relationships, ideas or travel, and the group's finances should be reasonably transparent. Its doctrine need not be conventional—but it should be knowable to outsiders. Absent those qualities, an unorthodox religion can descend into something darker.


Mr. Horowitz, the editor in chief of Tarcher/Penguin in New York and the author of "Occult America" (Bantam), is writing a history of the positive-thinking movement.