The Academy for Psychic Studies - Church Ladies

...or maybe two of them

So it's looking more and more like the Academy for Psychic Studies is swirling down the drain of their own toilet.

Looking at their web site (the one I can't link you to) I noticed they are listing their next round of classes and workshops and are accepting payments through PayPal.  The problem is: there is no schedule of when the classes will be held.  So, you can pay for a class but you can't attend one.  Nice.

There's also a dearth of activity on the web site. Where retreats were highly touted and occurred monthly there's only one woman's retreat scheduled for August.  I wonder if there will be anyone left to attend it?

The Academy for Psychic Studies web site has a link to ISHI Hypnosis, that organization that conferred a hypnotherapist certificate to me even though I had certainly failed the certification test.  The ISHI Hypnosis home page doesn't show very much.  A short stop smoking class and their one day seminar in Vermont is all they have listed.  There may be more classes available but you'd have to check their site to find them.

That there are fewer and fewer new members coming to take classes, have a healing, receive a psychotic reading or have the Academy Psychotics leave an awful smelling mess when they come to spiritually cleanse their house has been known for a number of years now.

However, the leaders of the Academy kept the pace going, driving the hapless psychotic staff harder and harder, making demands to increase the Academy's visibility and attract more new members.

Unfortunately, the visibility the Academy for Psychic Studies received was of the kind no one would want to have.  What the Academy wanted was to lead a parade.  What they got was a perp walk.

Several disaffected members spoke out about the verbal, mental, physical abuse, the unrelenting demands for labor and the continuous demand for money, money and more money.

As these formerly-faithful members told their story in the public eye, it became more and more apparent who was really benefiting from the hours and hours of free labor and the dump trucks of money contributed by the followers.

It was the leaders:  Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin.

They spared no one.  While the raw, wide-eyed recruit eagerly dug into his pocket to pay for another evening class of mind-numbing droning or a weekend retreat where he could sleep on the floor and eat greasy food, the more seasoned followers were a bit more hesitant.

That hesitance called for an all-hands spiritually enlightening meeting where the leaders would brow-beat the weary remaining followers to give more, work for free more and otherwise contribute more towards the operation and prosperity of the Academy for Psychic Studies.   Anyone who balked would be excoriated as demonically-possessed saboteurs of the Academy prosperity program.

I would understand the leaders methods of harshness if the organization were indeed in trouble and that the organization was being operated for the interests of the congregation.

Unfortunately, there's no evidence of that.  As the financial mechanisms of the Academy are so spiritually perfect, they are a closely-held spiritual secret.  Ethically managed churches of all sizes and beliefs will publish and make public church finances and would allow congregation input on spending.

That doesn't happen at the Academy for Psychic Studies.  When the leaders get a new car whenever they damn well please, purchase properties at will and shop 'til they drop while the followers are eking out a living and paying out to the Academy nearly as much as they earn, you'd have to to wonder if the Academy for Psychic Studies really does work for the benefit of the followers.

The Academy for Psychic Studies is a church of prosperity where you learn how to realize prosperity and practice prosperous thinking.

At the Academy, you can watch two women get more enamored by money every day, while you realize no one else has the kind of assets they do and you'll start thinking "What the hell?" when you see them take all expenses paid special religious retreats to exotic locales to renew their spiritual awareness over a Mai-Tai, refresh their chakras with weekly spa treatments and renew their auras with shopping sprees to Macy's, while they get up in their follower's face to pay up, pay more and find more people to  pay.

You'll learn the Academy prosperity plan seems to prosper no one but the two women at the top of the spiritual garbage heap - and no one seems to care.

Worst of all, these two spiritually-perfect women don't give a damn that empowering individuals provides them even more security and would lead them to even more prosperity.  No, their preferred method of rule is something between Kim Jong-Il and Hosni Mubarak.

Yes, I am comparing them to a couple of banana republic despots.  I have dealt with them - Robin and Angela, that is.  It's pretty clear they not only want to have people totally devoted to elevating them as spiritually superior beings, they wanted people who would be happy to work like pack animals for a proportionate cut of the income - a cup of oatmeal.  Their birthdays are celebrated with more enthusiasm than a national holiday with presents and a party no other follower would dare emulate.  When they get what they want (which is a pretty fair cut of the money - like all of it) they are the the most pleasant people to deal with.  If that percentage drops or if you have a slow period - you're dealing with the Russian mob with a "special healing session" in a secluded location that allows you to reach a personal realization of the true spiritual consequences of your transgressions - like a smack on the side of the head with a shovel.

You'll see how your private conversation will somehow be known by the congregation and you'll be marginalized, trivialized, ignored, avoided and otherwise treated as a non-person until you have paid for your crime by way of reform through labor and a payment of your inflated bills with interest and a tribute payment of your blood, first born and all subsequent children to the leaders.

Such is the price paid by one of their closest confidants and prolific cash cows.

Actually that is the price paid by any of their close confidants and cash cows.  Thanks to the spiritually superior and deranged interpersonal skills of the Witches, those cows are grazing in greener pastures.

The ranks of the Academy for Psychic Studies are thinning even further.  Thinning to the point where key members have not only become disgruntled, they have run to the door.

Throughout all this, Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin have maintained a strong face and a pledge to continue their mission to bring true spiritual meaning to all who can have it - but mostly to those who are stupid enough to spend all their money for it.

When their closest lieutenants turning their back on the two Witches of Ellsworth Street and the public now so well informed about the dark side of the Academy for Psychic Studies, with the federal government taking an interest in Robin and Angela's special accounting practices, I wonder how much longer these two will be able to keep up a spiritually-courageous front.

But more important: I wonder how much longer until the wrought iron gate of the Academy for Psychic Studies slams shut for good.