Waterboarding at The Academy for Psychic Studies

Here's an excerpt from "Spiritual Perversion" where Steve Sanchez describes his own brand of Academy for Psychic Studies waterboarding.

Not much more I can say about it other than this was pretty much a way of life and a common event at the Academy for Psychic Studies for those at the elite levels: we Clairvoyant Training Program students and our hapless ministers.

I say we were elite as we were the ones who got smacked by Bill Duby and the Witches of Ellsworth Street pretty much every day.


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Rev. Bill was lecturing several ministers in the center room. He was talking about me as if I were a non-present third person. “This is why I tell the women, never trust men. If they breathe don’t trust them. First comes children, then women, then dogs, then rats, then snakes… then men. Ha ha! Steve is possessed. He is possessed by pussy spirits. I told you guys that when you fuck, all the problems and entities of the other person goes into your partner’s space and you have to deal with them. He’s just showing he can’t deal with it. Their energy is mixing like vinegar and water. The pussy is like a camera; the little man in the boat is recording everything, and her hole is showing it doesn't like the consciousness he is demonstrating. The pussy is like an altar; you have to approach it with the right sermon. Sermon and semen are similar words. When the semen goes in the pussy reads it. Steve did the wrong thing. She doesn't like the sermon he is selling. She ain’t ever going to trust him now. He’s stuck with entities he doesn't understand and can’t handle. All that for a little funny feeling between the legs. You guys have no idea what you are doing. He’s fucked now. He’s possessed by pussy spirits. The pussy is full of heaven or hell. He opened a whole cadre of hellish spirits. That’s what happens when you men let your dick run your mind. I warned him, but you men fuck it up every time.

“He needs some male friends now. You guys are going to have to talk him down like a heroin addict on a bad high. He’s no student of mine. You men are his only hope. He is in total competition with me. He can’t hear me at all. Otherwise he wouldn't have done that. That woman up there loves me. All I did was give her the light. I tried to show him how to do it, but no. He’d rather do it his way. She’s capable of holing up there for months. Actually there’s nothing she’d prefer more, as long as she is somewhere close to me.

“So, it’s up to you men now. The women are disgusted with him. If you care about him, you can take him and try and talk some sense into him. The spirits he has now are not going to change. They are hunkered in, so you are going to have to try and get through to him and hope his heart melts. But don’t expect him to change. Nine chances out of ten it won’t happen, so don’t expect anything, but as ministers it’s your duty to try. Just don’t talk to him over here. We don’t need that energy here around the beginning students. Don, in the army, we used to just shoot guys like him, right? When a guy gets too much pussy juice in him he becomes a liability. A guy like that might get the rest of the squad killed. You have to frag him, do a mercy killing.”

Don said, “Yeah, that’s right, I've seen it many times in Nam.”

I was in a state of devastation. I was at once like a raw wound and numb from excess pain and stress. I was enraged and felt helpless. Everything he said felt like arrows of injustice, but at the same time, I was absorbing it and at least partially believed it.

We milled about the Academy for a bit. I was like a lame, numb duck walking around. Everyone looked at me like I had the plague. The guys had something to eat. Don and Rick received some more instructions from Rev. Bill, and we went over to Russell Street. I desperately felt a need to eat some protein to help ground my hypersensitive nervous system. I dreaded every second of what was coming.

We gathered in the lower half of the front house where Mason, Ross, and I lived. It was located in a rough neighborhood in the flatlands of Berkeley. Our apartment was a basement that had been converted long, long ago. My head missed the ceiling by about three inches. It was a long, narrow house, done in a cheap, ghetto style, with lots of paneling and few windows. All the windows had old bars on them. Everyone called it the dungeon, or the bachelor pad.

They all found seats in the narrow living room. I stood at one end near the next room, because it would be easier to walk out from there. Rev. Ross, Don, Rick,  Dave, and I were now in the room. Ross and Don fiddled with the hems of their shirts constantly. Dave had a contemptuous, agitated look on his face. Rick seemed to consider himself the director of the proceedings since Rev. Bill had given him instructions. He took a deep, loud breath and looked up as if it pained him and said, “Well, Rev. Bill says you need some brothers right now, Steve, so that’s why we’re here. You know we are all dogs here. I think everyone here has been through this before, except maybe Dave. Rev. Bill says it’s our job as brothers to try and get through to you. The first thing I see is that you have a hard time bonding with other men. You were always in competition with your father and brothers and you can’t seem to let go of that, so you can’t bond with other men. You always have to be one up. So the real problem now is you are in competition with Rev. Bill, and that will ruin you. You have to get out of competition with him if you are going to make it. We've all been there. Linda loves him because he gave her the light. He got there first. It’s like Rev. Bill says, if Jesus Christ walked into a room with men and women in it, the women would instantly fall in love with Him and the men would all go into competition with Him. You just got to get over it man.”

I could barely tolerate standing there; I wanted to end it as quickly as possible. I said, “Okay, that makes sense. I see what you are saying.” I wanted to diffuse conflict. I was attempting to be a good soldier of the teaching by not resisting or competing with what they were saying. According to the teaching, “you become what you resist” and “competition shuts down your psychic abilities.”

Rick said, “I have to let you know I have to report back to Rev. Bill whether or not you got the healing.”

Ross jumped in. He had obviously wanted to say something for a while, “Yeah, and you clearly haven’t changed your attitude, motherfucker. The problem is, you are making it bad for all of us men, so don’t shuck us off. You’re making us all look bad, so the women won’t trust any of us. You know how Rev. Bill says the women go blind when they’re upset and shoot with a shot gun blast instead of a rifle shot? That’s what they are doing now. On a psychic plane they are whacking all of us, motherfucker, not just you. We all feel it.” Ross was a very heavy-set man with a Fred Flintstone body and face, who usually had a good sense of humor. He was in his forties and had been in the navy in his younger years. He had been in the teaching for 10 years now and, for the most part, lived off checks form his wealthy mother. When it came to matters of confrontation like this he was usually very militant, so it wasn't as terribly offensive as it might seem for him to call me “motherfucker” because everyone knew the way he was, and he always said it when he was upset. Wrong or right, what he said made me feel guilty.

Rick went on saying stuff he’d heard from Rev. Bill. Then Dave spoke up. He was the house control who had me sign the agreement form on my first visit to the Academy, a baby-faced chubby man, famous in the Academy for being a 32-year-old virgin. He was Robin’s younger brother, and Robin and Angela coddled him because Rev. Bill said he had so much innocence. They protected him from the other women. Even though most of the women needed a man they felt too guilty to take Dave. He was a bit hyper and had a comedic sense of humor, but he always seemed to be in a personality conflict with somebody. He said, “ I've seen you several times trying to go upstairs, Steve. On spirit patrol we see your energy on the second floor all the time. I live up there; it causes me problems as a male, kinda-kinda like Ross said. The women are always on edge, and they g-get on me f-for every little thing. Every time we do spirit patrol we see your energy… on the second floor. You are causing me a lot of problems, and I-I don’t like it.” He stared at me with his brows furrowed, at once expecting me to react and challenging me to fight back, in which case he clearly world have escalated the conflict.

I was tempted to react in anger for a moment, but I knew his pattern too well. I sensed he was talking to the ghost of his brother, not me.

Rick said, “Dave, lets not make this into personal attacks for our own pet peeves.”
Dave shot back, “Don’t tell me how to talk, Rick!”

Periodically Rick posed the question as to whether I had changed my attitude. I tried to show I was cooperating and changing my attitude, but it didn't come natural. They kept voting down that I had made any internal change.

Rick said, “Don, you haven’t said anything. You want to add something?”

Don was a large, big boned man with a wide face and down-home look. He had been in the army, in Vietnam as a helicopter repairman. Now he worked for himself doing under-the-table repair jobs. He said, as he unconsciously fiddled with his shirt, “The problem is, Steve, you are addicted to her pussy. It’s like Rev. Bill says, your nose is so far up her cunt you can’t hear, (a-heh-heh-heh).” He giggled at his own tough talk. He’d been thinking of what to say for some time. He loved to talk strong male talk. “It happens to all of us, I've definitely been there, (a-heh-heh-heh)… Ah well, you got to have a little humor sometimes you guys… Anyway, I guess I have to get all serious now. I think you got to drain out, Steve; spend time doing things with the guys. But not by going to play basketball. Like Rev. Bill says, I think you are picking up foreign female energy from those guys, and that’s the worst kind. You remember that story Rev. Bill told about how some guy got in his head and it almost made him go crazy. That’s foreign female energy from another male. It’s hard to see because it is from a male and it’s like your own, you know what I mean. Because you can’t see it, it has more power to control you. Foreign female energy from a male will make you go into competition every time.”

I disagreed with him, but I tried to be reasonable. I said, “I hear what your saying, Don, but playing basketball is a great release and a lot of fun. It validates my male energy and keeps me in good shape. Rev. Bill always says competition doesn't work in indoor sports. Basketball is an outdoor sport. I think there is a healthy aspect to competition too.” I thought to myself, You guys ought to try it; then you might not be so fat and unhealthy.
Ross said, “I guess you just don’t want to hear what we are saying, Steve. Don’s talking about the energy behind it. Rev. Bill has also told you many times, it’s about time to hang up the cleats. What do you think he means by that?”

This sort of thing went on for some time, and then the phone rang. Rick answered. We could all tell by his manner that it was Rev. Bill on the other end. “Okay… Yes, we are working on it. I think he’s trying, you now, it’s hard… Yeah, his attitude… No, it’s not really changing…” Rick went silent, his eyes bulged slightly, and his fat, dark-eyed face turned stone sober with distress. He half turned away from us. It was obvious Rev. Bill was lighting into him. He said nothing for the next five minutes except an occasional, “okay.” The rest of us sat in tense silence waiting to find out what was going on.

When he got off the phone Rick was all puffed up and said in a loud, demanding voice, “Okay, this is what we have to do. Rev. Bill said in a nutshell that we are not owning it and we should not have taken this long. He says we are getting diddled and the life-force energy is being sucked out of us. He said what we have to do is say the Lord’s Prayer, for Steve, and all of us, to get the healing. We have to stand in a circle around Steve and say the Lord’s Prayer!”

I said, “I don’t think I want to do that.”

Rick said, “Do you want to get the healing or not? Do you want to stay stuck in hell? These spirits are not going away by themselves you know!”

I said, “How long?”

Rick said as he frantically motioned everyone to come around, “As long as it takes, man!”
They stood around me and held hands as Rick led them through the psychic techniques of grounding, running energy, and blowing roses to set up the energy. Then they began moving slowly in a circle and saying the Lord’s prayer over and over. I stood there looking down, passive on the outside but violently torn on the inside. Rick kept trying to increase the momentum of the prayer. Each time it ended he immediately started over.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,As we forgive those who trespass against us,And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen.

They began moving faster in a circle. Sometimes they looked at me to see what I was doing, or if I was getting the healing. I felt like a child being shamed. I just wanted it to end. I felt totally self-conscious, like an idiot. I thought, Maybe I should pretend like I am getting a healing. Maybe I am getting a healing. Maybe I should just tell them to stop. No. Then there would be more trouble. They will say that I don’t want the healing, which would make me evil. I kept enduring it. My heart burned with a suffocating feeling. They kept going on and on. What does it mean to get the healing? I certainly did not feel safe.

No, I felt extraordinarily threatened. I wanted to tell them to stop. I tightly guarded myself inside till it was over. They began to lift their hands and say it louder. They kept spinning around me. I wondered if I should spin. I wondered if I should say the Lord’s Prayer with them. They lowered their hands and began to say it in a deep voice. This became a powerful drone, which went on for a long time. Over and over they kept repeating it in a low drone while they spun around me. I kept my eyes closed now and breathed within myself. I kept breathing into my heart to keep contact with myself, to keep contact with my heart. I felt a suffocating pressure around my heart. I kept breathing into my heart. I had to. I suddenly felt prepared to go into violent action. I needed to. When I was just about to bust through, they slowed down, and stopped. It had gone on for close to an hour.

At first they acted like I had got the healing, but Ross and David disagreed, and they concluded that I really didn’t. I didn’t care. I wished very badly that it had continued, so that I could violently escape it on my own, but it was over now. Rick said he would report back to Rev. Bill. We had been doing this right in front of the door to my room. I went into my room and was finally alone. I kept breathing into my heart. I had been floating, totally out of touch.

I kept breathing into my heart and put on one of the custom tapes I made for myself and lay on my bed. These were compilation tapes of the most beautiful, peaceful, and inspiring songs I could find. These tapes gave me a lot of comfort. I loved making them, and listening to them. They gave me hope that there was a loving, creative realm, and that God loved human beings like me. I made them late at night. So far I had made four. They had a variety of musicians on them, including Bobby McFerrin, Santana, John McLaughlin, and L. Shankar. I was deeply moved by “Adagio,” a haunting violin solo by L. Shankar. Then “Open Country Joy” by John Maclaughlin came on, followed by Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” I had the version from Platoon where Charlie Sheen does a voiceover about needing to find a goodness and meaning to this life after going through incredible trauma. It moved me to tears. I kept breathing deep into my heart because I had to dispel the feeling of suffocating pressure. I felt like I was fighting for my life. Gradually I began to relax. The song and the words were beautiful, profound, caring, and tender. I listened and cried.