The Academy for Psychic Studies - Reverend Bill Duby's 10th DEAD-iversary

It's been a wonderful decade without you, Bill.
Now, if we can just have some time
without the Witches of Ellsworth Street...

It's been ten years since the deranged founder of the Academy for Psychic Studies, Reverend William "Bill" Duby, dropped as dead as a poisoned rat (which I guess he was - the rat part anyway).  I for one, would like to commemorate his timely passing into the depths of fiery hell by taking a look at the crazy practices he engaged in while he was alive and the wake of destruction and the legacy of control, exploitation and disdain for anyone with an ounce of independent thought.

Let's commemorate Reverend Bill Duby's 10th DEAD-iversary by reviewing the last 10 years of Bill kicking up daisies and his Witches of Ellsworth Street kicking their follower's asses.

• December 5, 2001 - Bill Duby dropped DEAD face-first in front of his wretched, deluded followers after running the biggest and most lucrative scam he could have possibly concocted.  Actually, I guess his claimed "mentor" Lewis Bostwick actually concocted it and Bill just copied it - just like he pirated all the things BPI did and called it his own.
   

• A fellow blogger reveals Bill Duby's claim of being taken under Lewis Bostwick's wing during his time at the Berkeley Psychic Institute was just another perverse fantasy.  Bill was considered "dangerously twisted" and was ordered to be kept as far from Lewis Bostwick as possible.  Bill was shuffled off to a BPI facility some distance away from BPI headquarters and was not known to have spent any face time with Lewis Bostwick.  At Bill's graduation from BPI, Bostwick blew him off by saying "now go out and learn" - which Bill frequently claimed was Bostwick's blessing to start up the Spiritual Rights Foundation.
  
  
• I'm not going to date the rest.  In fact, it won't be in chronological order either.  So don't expect anything like that.
  
  
• A follower with a history of disturbing behavior attends an Academy for Psychic Studies Christmas activity and proclaims himself "Santa Claus".  A few days later, the same follower arrives at the Academy HQ and begins beating on doors saying he is a messenger from whoever the fuck he heard from who will save the cult from world-wide evil.  Instead of being given psychiatric care, he's heaved to the street.
  
  
• A follower with a history of mental health issues joins the multi-year and unending Clairvoyant Training Program (deceptively called "the year class").  The follower has a habit of saying "the people in my head say..." and claims to see inside another person's head and other body parts.  Her attendance in Angela Silva's "beginning year class" is claimed to have got her "back in her body" - at least they made that claim until the Witches sucked that follower's cash-on-hand and inheritance dry.  Then she was called crazy and promptly thrown out.  She still believes her expulsion was all her own fault.
   

• Articles in area newspapers appear.  All of them expose the inner workings of the cult and torment endured by the followers.  Most describe the leader's habit of inserting themselves between parent and child, with the clear intent of replacing the parents.  Other issues such as improper sexual behavior, arranged marriages, forced divorce, financial exploitation, mind control through the improper use of hypnosis and neglect of children's education are all brought into the public eye.
  
  A High Price for Keeping Faith
  Consider The Children
  Eye of the Believer
  
  
• After decades of being yelled at, cursed at, smacked up the side of every part of her body by William Duby while doing nothing more than exactly what he told her to do, the Academy for Psychic Studies' first ordained minister decided to make an exit after realizing the Witches are no less brutal and no less demanding than her now-dead tormentor.
  
  
• The cult's most loyal and supportive female member opened her own hypnosis practice without the help of the Witches of Ellsworth Street.  Not long after, the Witches of Ellsworth Street help her out of the Academy for Psychic Studies.  The Witches conducted yet another shakedown attempt on someone who was just trying to make a decent living on her own.
  
  
• The Bishop of the Academy for Psychic Studies and party to a losing lawsuit against this blog finds herself at the short end of the Witches' attempt to shake her down for more of her earnings.  Instead of capitulating, the Bishop resigns her position in the cult, beginning her new life as a free woman.
  
  Graceful Transitions - Healed Heart Hypnosis

• Since Bill's face-plant in the infamous "center room" of SRF HQ, the Clairvoyant Training Program begins to dwindle.  Fewer new students enroll.  Even fewer remain. Existing students begin to bail well before they "graduate" - as "graduation" may take a decade or more and cost tens of thousands of dollars to accomplish.  The Clairvoyant Training Program rarely has a student and the few who appear leave as fast as they arrive.
  
  
• Two Clairvoyant Training Program students realize there is no end to paying the Witches of Ellsworth Street more and more and more money for nothing in return so they escape from their indentured servitude and establish psychic reading and spiritual bodywork practices.  Their time at the Academy is never mentioned on their websites and marketing materials.
  
  
• The ISHI hypnosis training program continues to be a cash cow - for a while.  Then, as the Clairvoyant Training Program, it dwindles to nothing.  In response to the lower (well, non-existent) enrollment, the Witches of Ellsworth Street attempt to start the Berkeley Hypnosis Training Institute (AKA BHTI, pronounced "Booty") to escape the sordid past of ISHI.
  
  
• First a few SRF ministers quietly depart the deranged and perverse environment created by the Witches of Ellsworth Street.  As time passes, the number of minister departures become commonplace until  six ministers depart nearly en masse - leaving an estimated two ministers.  One of them is either worn out from health issues or just plain burned-out.  The second is as psychotic as the founder, which makes him a perfect fit as their lone hit-man and sycophant.
  
  
• The pride of the cult, the Blue Sky Ranch in Bethel Island California degrades from a farm with dozens of goats, chickens and other animals to a hole in the ground where buildings sink into the swamp and the no longer useful animals are thrown in after them.  As there are no more people in the cult to provide slave labor, the farm can no longer maintained on the cheap.  Unfortunately as farms cost a lot to maintain, the cult's dream has turned into an expensive nightmare.
  
  
• As the Blue Sky Ranch in Bethel Island sinks into the ooze, Angela Silva turns on one of her many godchildren by demanding that child's animals be removed at once or they will be sold at meat and glue auction (where Angela will pocket the proceeds).  This godchild's crime?  Being the real and natural child of a departed minister of Angela Silva's cult.  Until that event, the child was a big supporter of the Witches of Ellsworth Street.  Any guesses on what that child thinks now?  To the child's credit, she worked diligently so all animals would be safely relocated with caring owners.  Most were sold at fire sale prices - and Angela Silva demanded every penny of those proceeds.
    
• The Blue Sky Ranch is put up for sale.  Shortly after it is listed, it's pulled from the market.  The reason: Contra Costa Building Inspectors discover the ranch has so much un-permitted construction, they demand a host of corrections.  As the illegal construction is corrected, one inspector calls the plans a "very confusing project".
  
  
• The book "Spiritual Perversion" is published.  The author, Steve Sanchez, exposes the completely perverse, deranged and unnecessarily cruel and brutal practices of the Spiritual Rights Foundation and it's Academy for Psychic Studies "educational" branch.  The book has received strongly favorable reviews and has sold out its first printing.
  
  Spiritual Perversion Press Release
  
  
• An attempt to re-shape the perverse image of the Academy as an instutute of hypnosis training and energy healing fails when a local TV news reporter exposes them as a cult.
  
  
• Another former member starts a blog describing his experiences at the Academy for Psychic Studies and his own impressions and insight on the beliefs and practices there. This blog pisses off Robin Dumolin who throws a screaming tantrum while Angela Silva tried to load her rusty old .38 Special but stops when she discovers the Preparation H she loaded in the cylinder won't fire.  Instead, they file a defamation lawsuit against the blog authors, everyone who leaves a comment or reads it and they demand all anonymous commenters be identified so they may send two large persons to administer spiritual healings with baseball bats.  Too bad for them the lawsuit failed.  Even worse, the court forced them to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the blog author.  The blog author is amazed and delighted they had to pay money to have their ass kicked.
  
  
• The SRF web site is revised so there is no reference to Rev. William Duby, Angela Silva or Robin Dumolin.  In fact, the site is so thoroughly revised, there's no way you can know who, if anyone, is teaching a class, leading a workshop or who's left to hand out a communion wafer at church.  The site says so little, the only way to know what a class is all about is to pay for it first and hope it's what you were looking for.  It's also revised so you can pay for a class but you can't take it - making the prospect of taking a class so risky no one would want to sign up (and from what I've been seeing, no one has).  Unfortunately, as SRF's online activities were so verbose there are several bells they can't un-ring.  Besides, the SRF web site is archived at an internet archival service which keeps that bell tolling.
  
  
• A member who was held up as the epitome of all that is wrong with the male gender while William Duby was alive begins to experience a whole new level of degradation and harassment after Duby's timely death.  As paranoia in the cult escalated, all the cult's ills and travails are blamed on his bad energy, disloyalty and haircut.  He suffers damage to his car, threat of eviction from his cult-owned apartment, as well as an endless barrage of insults and dehumanizing treatment.  At the end, two cult members break into his home and haul all his personal belongings away to the city dump, forcing him out.
  
  
• Paranoia among the members and leaders reach an all-time high.  Not only were members accused of disloyalty and sentenced to waterboarding, the cult's internet activities were summarily extinguished.  Where the Academy for Psychic Studies had maintained a YouTube channel, a blog, a Facebook page, an internet radio talk show and an annoying amount of recordings, publications and self-help products shilled on their sparse website, all those activities have been suspended or curtailed for fear that someone, somewhere might disagree or disclose what really happens there.  In fact, this blog maintained links to their sites so you can see their side of the story (I may be an asshole but I am a fair one).  The Academy for Psychic Studies demanded those links be removed.  So I did.  And that is why you can't see their side of the story.

• Not coincidentally, the Academy for Psychic Studies initiated or inserted themselves in several legal actions.  Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin attempted to influence several divorce and child custody cases through slander and psychic disruption of attorneys and judges. The attempts backfire and the judgments were not even close to the outcome Angela and Robin wanted - they were fair and decided per the law.  Angela Silva's attempts to sue Yahoo because their search engine displayed sites not fully supportive of her and Amazon because they sold a book written by a former member were treated as idiotic and were subsequently dismissed.  Of course, they lost their famous defamation suit against this blog.  Despite Angela Silva's and Robin Dumolin's litigious nature and the fantasy they are legal geniuses, the Academy for Psychic Studies record of success in the legal realm is about as dismal as it gets.
  
  

As far as the mischief Bill Duby conducted while he was alive: start here then read this book: Spiritual Perversion by Steve Sanchez.

Now, I know I can only list a few of the crazy things Bill Duby did before he died and only some of the things the Witches of Ellsworth Street did later.  So, if you readers would take a stab at adding to this blog all the strange, perverse and ugly things Bill Duby or any of his Witches has done, please leave it in the comment box and I will be sure it is posted.