Crappy Birthday

Since this article was first posted, there were at least a few people left at this idiot cult to have a birthday celebration for the perverted leaders.  Now, there's no one left and the two Witches of Ellsworth Street will have to figure out how to celebrate their respective birthdays on their own, with no one to share the joy with.

And no one to lavish them with presents, either.

So let them now experience the kind of birthday celebration we had to endure while involved with this cult: isolated and alone.

Now as fun as this shit is, I'm going off line for a bit of Downton Abbey.  I'll be back shortly.

While perusing the SRF official interweb page, I ran across the following:

Rev. Ang's Birthday

When Sun, August 16, 4:30pm – 6:30pm

Description

Rev. Ang (Angela Silva) turns 60 next month! To celebrate - and watch her face turn red with embarrassment, we're having a surprise party!

Date: August 16

Day: Sunday

Time: Aprox. 4:30 pm

Where: Macaroni Grill, El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito

NO, I am NOT asking anyone to crash the party. But I can't stop you from attending or having your own celebration at the same time and place.

I was, however, thinking about birthdays. The birthdays of the members. Everyone there has a birthday, obviously. And like Angela Silva, they all have a birthday every year. And a few of them have celebrated their 60th. Many more look forward to celebrating their 60th. But few have had a birthday party in their honor.

In my 14 years at SRF, I only remember a few times where a birthday was celebrated. A couple of times, a cake was brought in (usually by the b-day boy or girl) to be served and quickly gobbled down during a 30 minute class break. I've only remembered one damn birthday party for any one of the members. Actually it was for three or four of them. It was the only way people would show up.

The rest of the parties were for the leaders or for Bill Duby's daughter - just like the party the last few deluded individuals at SRF are throwing for Angela Silva.

At the Academy for Psychic Studies/Spiritual Rights Foundation, no one has birthday parties. Certainly nothing like I had lately with great people, great food and a great time. It's not because no one wanted to have a birthday party (certainly, a few of us would sneak out for a beer to celebrate a birthday - then sneak back before anyone found out).

No one was celebrating their birthdays for a simple but strange reason: no one dared have a celebration of anyone as an individual - unless that person is one of the leaders or Bill Duby's daughter.

To acknowledge a mere member as an individual, as a person of value, as someone who's life and friendship was valued and honored was well beyond the thinking of the average SRF-ite. Only the leaders (and the golden child of Bill Duby) were worthy of a celebration and acknowledgment.

Only a cult of personality would elevate the status of the leaders to the detriment of the members. Think about North Korea: Kim Jong Il's birthday is a national holiday. His crazy dad's birthday was too. How about Saddam? And those birthdays aren't a day off either, bucko. You'll spend the day toiling in the sun or otherwise slaving away while the leaders swim in a pool of champagne and eat caviar from a nubile lass's, well, eat caviar from a nubile lass.

Anyway, birthdays of SRF members aren't celebrated at the Macaroni Grill or any other place for that matter. And as for presents, forget about it. Hey, all the member's money is tied up in classes, tithing, and donations for this, that and Angela's birthday parties at the Macaroni Grill. (how in hell do you grill macaroni?). If someone remembers, you'll get a card from Safeway's "lame-ass birthday cards for the desperate" aisle because the members are so busy with classes, tithing, work hours, love projects and earning enough money for tithing, classes and Angela Silva's party at the Macaroni Grill they can't make it down to the mall to get a Hallmark.

But the leaders enjoy a much higher level of birthday prosperity than your average dirt-eating, lowly cult member. I remember every year, for Bill Duby's birthday, we were cajoled, prodded and nearly kicked to "donate" money for a lavish birthday gift to be presented on the great day. These gifts usually cost in the thousands of dollars. Bill especially liked gold coins. Real gold coins. He also liked equipment he could use to ride around his farm. Like a big lawnmower, a big horse, a big tractor and so on.

Angela was more modest. She enjoyed big gift cards for Macy's (a few hundred bucks was the norm), jewelry and handmade, golden nick-knacks costing mere hundreds of dollars.

Bill's "wife" and daughter weren't forgotten. Every year, they were lavished with gifts from every member.

And giving was encouraged. Strongly encouraged. So encouraged, you might find yourself in the SRF doghouse for weeks on end for not being an enthusiastic giver.

Because you have to give to live. You have to give even if you are so tapped out, you are wondering how you are going to eat or sleep in a bed with a roof over your head.

After a few years of seeing the members foist shovelfuls of gifts on the leaders while eschewing their own birthdays, I started to wonder what the hell that was all about.

It's all about the cult of personality. It's all about gaining attention and favor from the leaders. It's about the culture of losing your sense of self while you honor the people who stole it from you.

You have to see it to believe it. And if you don't believe it, well just head on over to the Macaroni Grill on Aug 16.

And enjoy this video of the personality traits of cult leaders.

Ding, Dong the Cult is Dead! Which Old Cult? The Wicked Cult!

A little while ago, Steve Sanchez made the observation that the Cult of the Spiritual Rights Foundation is now DEAD.

I happen to think the head of the SRF chicken is chopped off but the body will continue to twitch and run in circles for a while longer.  It's probably too early to say they are dead once and for all.  However, that this evil mass of sewage is about to be flushed is not in doubt.

Of course, I will have to make the following statement to the remaining SRF idiot (well, actually there are many SRF idiots but only one of them is still active with them):
The statement that the cult is DEAD does not refer to the extinguishing of the Witches corporeal presences.  It is, in fact A FUCKING METAPHOR for the cult becoming impotent (which in this context is NOT a condition treatable with Viagra) to the point of being unable to resurrect a membership that can sustain the kind of income the Witches aspire to and certainly unable to restore the cult's former perverted glory.

Sorry about that but there are idiots everywhere still reading this blog.

One thing the Witches will continue to do this year is make lame attempt after lame attempt to pull in more and more and more followers for the purpose of rummaging through their wallets and handbags at class breaks.  
Most of the prospective members are turning to the interweb to conduct due diligence and have the good fortune and remaining mental capacity to find this blog and the many not-so-warm-and-nourishing media articles about the Spiritual Rights Foundation.

Occasionally, there is a hit for ISHI Hypnosis.  Not many, but a few come in.

Amazingly, the Witches of Ellsworth continue to use whips, chains and Robin Dumolin's old lady shoes to beat their last remaining sycophant into promoting classes that have no available instructors, and hypnosis sessions that have no one to facilitate them.

If they had just been the slightest bit compassionate and humane, they'd still have at least two quite successful and supportive people who could bring in quite a bit of new members and the loot those members brought with them.  

Unfortunately for the two supportive members, the Witches have made it such a habit of picking up the nearest cheap QVC knick-knack or one of the shoes they bought from Macy's geriatric support department and use it to teach an opportunity for learning, well, there's only so much a downtrodden follower can take, you know.

The Woman at the Well might have been ecstatic at being a prominent ISHI Hypnosis hypnotist and instructor.  Unfortunately, the Witches only saw her as just another bag of loot they were trying to open up so she ran like hell, leaving the former bishop standing alone.

When you have that one person and that one person only who can be the pack mule who can carry your cult back into the good graces of the public, it would make an enormous amount of sense to increase her prominence, give her a larger salary and a generous expense account.  Creating a publicity campaign around the ex-bishop would quickly erase the bad memories left behind by Bill Duby and cover up the misdeeds of the Witches.  If they were to properly utilize and promote the ex-bishop, the Spiritual Rights Foundation had its best chance for a renaissance.

Even those who left the cult were expecting it to happen.  Current and ex-members alike were expecting to see her explode onto the scene with a tidal wave of enthusiastic and energetic followers in tow.  It was the right choice and the best choice.  Elevate the bishop, increase her visibility and the cult will rise again and the critics of the Spiritual Rights Foundation would have little to no audience for their cries.

So of course, the Witches did the following:

June 9, 2012 marks the one year anniversary of my unexpected resignation from the non-profit organization I was deeply involved with for thirty years. This was probably one of the most frightening decisions I’ve ever made and I was filled with fear and anger.

My reason for leaving? My monthly stipend was taken away and I was offered a mere 20% of all the hypnosis work I was doing.

What’s funny to me in hindsight is that I did not see this coming at all – so much for my psychic abilities!

But it wasn’t funny at the time. At first I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what had taken place nor could I imagine how I was going to pay my rent and take care of basic living expenses.

I was so angry that the two people I had called friends for thirty years had treated me this way, and then filled with sorrow when I realized they had never been my friends at all – friends don’t do that to each other

It's amazing.  When the Witches are given a golden opportunity, they take a dump on it.  What's not so amazing is that the Witches used a false sense of friendship, hollow esteem as well as empty loyalty to exploit someone who gave them the friendship, esteem and loyalty they could never give to anyone.

Our confidence that the ex-bishop could turn around the Spiritual Rights Foundation was so strong, I believed her enthusiasm and strength of personality would be just too much to overcome. I could not fathom how powerful the Spiritual Rights Foundation might have been if the ex-bishop was the face of the cult and its guiding light.

Fortunately for the world and society at large, Robin Dumolin and Angela Silva were still in charge and if there is one thing they have absolute expertise with it's fucking up.

As the interpersonal skills of Robin Dumolin and Angela Silva are so bad, corporate HR departments would like to use them as examples of the kind of people who should never be hired, all of the departures of the last few years can be traced right back to them and prospective members will need to be kept away from them if SRF has any hope of anyone coming back for more.

So, if the Spiritual Rights Foundation has any hope of a comeback they will need to recruit the kind of people who have built a relationship of trust with Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin as well as having a confident and charismatic presence with the public.  Kind of sounds chicken-and-egg, doesn't it?

There is no one left at SRF who can have the kind of charisma of the ex-bishop. No one has their trust.  No one in his or her right mind and who has the charisma the Witches need would trust those two anyway (especially the enigmatic Robin Dumolin) without the kind of intense mind control only the dead founder could practice.

Since Robin Dumolin and Angela Silva are less skilled at mind control as they are at the old game of cheating at cards, I think they won't find a new confederate to attract fresh new faces to their den of iniquity.
Besides, they'll be up to their eyebrows trying to dodge or appease the Contra Costa County building inspectors.

That'll cost them plenty.  It may be a drop in the SRF bucket but think about this: can't you drain a bucket a drop at a time?  What if you put a lot of holes in the bucket?

With all the departures and with openness and truth beginning to emerge, the holes in the Spiritual Rights Foundation bucket are becoming more and more numerous.

If this keeps up, there will be enough to start a storm.

Want to make some rain?  If you run into someone looking for some spiritual awakening, tell them to stop at Peet's for a nice latte and come back after their eyes are open.  Then you can tell them what to expect at a place like SRF.

I do ask that you give the ex-bishop and all former members of this insidious and destructive cult the kind of support they will need to overcome the obstacles that hounded them earlier.  Those who are establishing their own hypnosis or psychic reading practices deserve a chance to do what they do without our interference.  In fact, they deserve our best to help them become established and prosper no matter what you think of the place they learned their craft.

It's not the ex-members we have a problem with.  In fact, they went through the same things we did (the ex-bishop too).  The ex-members deserve the chance to overcome and begin to heal just like we did.

It's the victimizers we need to expose.  It's the people at the top who exploit and abuse those who would have served with pleasure.  It's the Witches we need to stop.

And since the Witches' traffic light of life has gone from green to yellow to red, we can now be happy that even though the Witches of Ellsworth Street are trying to run the light in the lumbering SUV called the Spiritual Rights Foundation, there's an 18-wheeler about to enter the intersection.