Click it for ticket!
So as you know, the Spiritual Rights Foundation has pulled the decrepit Blue Sky Ranch from the market some time in March or April. Now we know why.
The Building Inspection Division of Contra Costa County has issued a notice of non-permitted work for the Blue Sky Ranch, listing several items that must be brought into compliance. This notice is dated March 15, 2012 so I would guess the place was pulled a couple of weeks after that.
As the Blue Sky Ranch is in a Special Flood Hazard Zone, the kinds of things you have to do when building a structure is much different that it would be anywhere else. It's also more expensive and really doesn't add much market value to the home. Things like keeping living areas out of the flood plain, allowing for flood waters to flow through a structure and properly securing those structures to the ground is just the beginning. Obviously, the Witches of Ellsworth Street didn't pay attention to any of that.
The list of items that need to be addressed is pretty long. It looks like this:
Insp. Type
101 Foundation - Piers
102 Foundation - Forms
103 Foundation - Slab
104 Sheer Nailing - Interior
105 Foundation - Bond Beams
106 Structural - Underfloor
107 Insulation - Underfloor
108 Structural - Roof Deck Nai
109 Framing
110 Insulation - Framing
111 Structural - Firewall
112 Structural - Partywall
113 Fireplace/Rebar/Foundation
114 Structural - Exterior Lath
115 Structural - Misc/ TBAR
116 Struc - Sheetrock/Greenboa
118 Wetwall
119 Other/R-form
120 Building - Final
124 Window Replacement
125 Foundation - Slab Garage
126 Shear Nailing - Exterior
127 Dryall
203 Pool - Pre Final
204 Final - Pool
301 Plumbing - Ground
303 Plumbing - Shower Pan Test
304 Plumbing - Rough
305 Plumbing - Under Fl
309 Plumbing - Gas Test
312 Gas Meter Release
320 Plumbing - Final
401 Electrical - Power Pole
402 Electrical - Conduit/Under
404 Electrical - Rough
406 Foundation - Ufer Ground
409 Electric Meter Release
420 Electrical - Final
503 Mechanical - Rough Sheet M
520 Mechanical - Final
604 Foundation - Driveway
610 Grading - Clean Water
620 Grading - Final
In a nutshell, the Witches have to undo, remove, repair, and rebuild all the things they did in the ten years of construction they got their slave labor to build.
This event essentially restores the Blue Sky Ranch to a legal and safe condition. As the neighbors were always leery of the events happening there and were themselves concerned about possible problems that would occur if there were a flood, I guess they'll be pretty happy to see all of it going away.
It also wipes away the impact the Witches had on their followers, removing the stain of their participation in this un-permitted and illegal action. I put in the floor coverings there, laying wood parquet on the second floor dormitory and tile on the ground floor. That will all have to come out. While no one like to see their hard work just wiped away, I feel a lot better that my actions will not contribute to the misfortune of another whether it's an unknowing buyer (who would be stuck with making expensive repairs) or maybe someone who came for a relaxing weekend and was injured or worse.
As for the Witches, the construction conducted at the Blue Sky Ranch was known to them to be illegal. In fact, Angela made it a point to tell her slave labor to ensure curtains were drawn, materials were delivered in a discreet manner and all interior work done with doors closed so no one would see what was going on there.
There was discussion after discussion of the plans for the Blue Sky Ranch, that in order to turn it into "The People's Farm" where we could pay top dollar to spend a weekend in the heat, mosquitoes, animal dung and unsafe dormitories secrecy must be maintained. It was clear from the start the work would be not permitted by Contra Costa County and we needed to protect the Blue Sky Ranch from the prying eyes of the building inspectors if we wanted to have "our place".
Every day I was there digging, sawing, hammering and doing all kinds of construction labor the need for discretion was always reinforced. Even in the heat, the curtains were drawn, windows closed, doors locked and entry was made through a door hidden from the street so no one would hear or see the work being done.
So paranoid were the Witches, even the windows in the dormitory were the small slit-like windows you'd find in San Quentin - although without the bars so no one could see into the dormitory. Actually, the bars were unnecessary as the windows were so goddamn small, no one could get out through them in the event of an emergency.
Despite the fear of having to be in compliance with the building code, construction proceeded at full pace with dozens of outbuildings erected, plumbing installed, electrical wiring laid out, water and sewage systems put in. How a pool got put in there is beyond me. The Witches of Ellsworth Street, Angela Silva in particular, directed the construction and approved all the work. Angela, at least, seemed to take pride in the work. She was especially proud of a staircase built with oak balusters, handrails and treads. Too bad for her, that's probably going to have to be removed.
For the last ten years of construction, we all knew the work there was illegal. We did it anyway. We didn't have much choice. Men in particular were told to "work at the farm" to cleanse themselves of the effects of female energy, control energy, "diddling" energy, or to restore their value to the Witches and their closest followers. No matter the transgression, the sentence was the same - work at the farm.
Men whose wives were unsatisfied advised to work at the Blue Sky Ranch for redemption. Women who were seen as unsatisfactory by the Witches were sent to work at the Blue Sky Ranch. It's not just North Korea that engages in "reform through labor", the Academy for Psychic Studies had its own penal colony smack in the heart of the Sacramento River Delta.
I know of at least two men who were spending most of their time slaving away at the Blue Sky Ranch on construction projects so they could redeem themselves in the eyes of their spouse or all the women at the Academy for Psychic Studies. This redemption went on for years and years, with no end in sight and no sense their work did anything more than enrich The Witches.
So while all the work was actually conducted by the followers of this psychic cesspool, it wasn't the followers who were responsible for creating this mess.
You can see who is.
That the Blue Sky Ranch will essentially be torn down with little or nothing left of it may be satisfying to some. To others, they'll be celebrating the Witches being held to task for their folly, their disregard for safe building practices and the law. To me, this situation brings to a close a frustrating and demoralizing chapter of the Academy for Psychic Studies book. That we were exploited into working on a property that had little value to us (but quite a bit to the Witches as they owned it) and that the possibility of causing a huge unfavorable impact on the community is too much to bear.
Now that the Academy for Psychic Studies and the Witches of Ellsworth Street have to correct this situation, that burden is relieved and we can all feel better this legacy of corruption, exploitation and overall bad intent will no longer exist.
So many horrifying things unrelated to the illegal construction happened at the Blue Sky Ranch, its too much to talk about. A few of those things are documented in Steve Sanchez's book "Spiritual Perversion". Many of us recall how women were screamed at for just trying to do something useful, men were worked hard without compensation, meals or acknowledgement and through it all, the leaders sat by in their air conditioned quarters or luxury RV doing nothing but complain about our poor attitudes and laziness.
Those memories won't go away.
The Blue Sky Ranch will.