Talk hard, I like that. It's like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind.
Truth is a virus.
Remember my dear, I can smell a lie like a fart in a car.
You know what empowers me? It's watching films like Pump Up The Volume. Gaining inspiration from the likes of Christian Slater giving voice to not only teenage angst and young adult confusion but also suburban men in mid-life crisis.
The strength of the human voice, the power of expression, the long-lasting and pervasive impact of words are the things that sustain me and give me the kind of enthusiasm for life in all its glory I had as a teen and a younger man.
So, if you want to know what keeps me going, what compels me to write and propels me into the inner depths of our collective experience at the parasite-infested Spiritual Rights Foundation go take a look at Pump Up The Volume. What kept Christian Slater going is what inspires me.
As far as the Witches of Ellsworth Street go, as they continue to flog the dead horse that is the Academy for Psychic Studies, now is a great time to expose all the half-truths, mendacities and all out lies we were told. It's also a good time to expose their failed initiatives and let the world know what goes on behind the iron gate of the Academy.
They have one person left to operate both the San Jose and Berkeley locations. This guy is spread thin between his duties as the lone officer of the detention facility in Berkeley where the most recent ex-followers reside, half-witted promoter of classes and activities, lame-duck member of whatever remains of the governing board of directors and his duties as the main purveyor of Academy for Psychic Studies poison I would be surprised if he can keep it up for much longer.
As they are so blind to their situation they continue to make the pretense of great activity and interest in this odd and idiotic cult, I would expect him and his leash-holders to maintain as high a pace of frantic and unorganized activity for a while, though.
Think about what happened to us and our colleagues.
Weren't we all stretched to the breaking point with attending county fairs, local fairs and whatever else the leaders could get a cheap booth at so we can provide psychic readings and healings to an unsuspecting public? How about the money they charged for those services? Was that distributed to anyone who took their time to provide the actual work? How obsessed were the on-site organizers with money? Wasn't a trusted minion assigned to collect the day's take?
After a while, it looked a lot like these public presences were anything but an opportunity to "shine our light unto the world". It looked a lot more like we were running a lemonade stand to fill another person's pockets.
What about Health and Wealth. H&W continues to sell helpful recordings and publications on topics such as meditation, hypnosis, self-healing and overall spiritual awareness and growth. The CD's were about $17. Video recordings started at somewhere around $25 and went up from there. Don't ask about the books.
The public saw a full line of products to increase their psychic awareness and prosperity. They saw products that just might make them feel good.
We saw something different.
Late at night, the faithful followers of the Academy for Psychic Studies spoke into microphones to create the recordings. Other times, they acted like giddy fools for a Health and Wealth video recording or three. And when those recordings were completed, those same followers happily packaged the goods into cases, creating the disks, copying the tapes, printing the cover sheets and placing them in a spiritually-correct way in the Academy for Psychic Studies storefront.
That work was vaunted as the highest spiritual work, outside of throwing all your cash and assets at the leaders.
What was hidden from the public, not spoken within the iron gate of the cult compound or ever even approached as a topic of conversation was the people who did the work never got paid a nickel nor were they provided with even a complimentary copy of the products they created.
Well, where is my charity, you might ask. After discovering Health and Wealth is a separate entity from the Academy for Psychic Studies and was intended as a for-profit and TAXABLE money-making enterprise, my sense of charity faded faster than the hair color on Robin Dumolin's grey roots.
The revenues are controlled by Robin Dumolin. It's pretty clear. Robin is listed as the "manager" and presumed CEO of this conglomerate of
psychotic products and services in several public listings. It's also clear Health and Wealth loves to avoid taxes.
I remember one day I ran into the head psychotic, Bill Duby. He came up to me, reeking of too-much of that cheap after shave he liked to use. Bill related that Robin ran up to him in a panic saying the revenues of Health and Wealth was so high, they'd have to pay their fair share of income tax.
Most business owners wouldn't be bothered by that as paying income tax means they, you know, have income. Enough income to have made a good profit.
Robin, however was in a funk. How dare the government ask for taxes when she preferred to keep the money?
Bill Duby, the genius founder of the cult, resident financial expert and tax guru had a brilliant plan: just give a huge donation to the non-profit church and watch the taxes disappear.
Brilliant! Bill had a tremendous talent for making all kinds of money disappear. Money he threw into so many businesses, toys, cars, trucks, farm equipment, farm animals and whatever the hell else he wanted (like a King-Sized commercial satellite dish that allowed him to watch foreign language channels and other crap he couldn't understand) disappeared faster than Angela's wrinkles after her fourteenth Botox treatment.
His heirs to this perverted empire are no different.
We all know some hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent at the Blue Sky Ranch to create was was ultimately an illegal structure and unsafe environment. We also know it will take up to a hundred thousand more to correct it, now that the county government caught on to them.
Still, they pamper themselves in trips to the spa and shopping sprees. Religious retreats are the order of the day, allowing Robin and Angela to ease away the stresses of their busy days. The cult headquarters was painted and re-decorated just a few years after it was painted and re-decorated. Boxes from QVC and online shopping sites arrive regularly as well.
Through it all, Angela professes her dedication to keeping alive a spiritual place for sensitive beings. A schedule of classes continues. Open house healing clinics remain open. Promotions for the elite Clairvoyant Training Program are continually held.
The voice of the Academy for Psychic Studies remains in the public eye, although it's sounding a little hoarse and ragged these days.
The class descriptions are lame and the usual class enrollment is about, oh, ZERO. A few special classes are held, usually for female issues. No teacher is listed for those classes, though. I doubt the corpulent remaining follower would teach it as one look of him will clear the room. If one of the Witches has the will to pull away from Oprah re-runs or QVC long enough to face a room full of quizzical faces, there is a chance they'd have one or two people who'd attend. But as that requires exposure to the public, maybe not.
A few retreats to places like Calistoga and the "healing center" in Berkeley (which is the insect infested back yard of the Academy) are offered for prices that would cause a stroke. Public appearances are rare. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find any event the Academy for Psychic Studies attends, except for whatever they do in their own compound.
Still the voice of those who have been there and have seen the inner workings of this cult and have been the victims of its abuse, exploitation and bad practices remain strong.
I have no stats on how many people read the Academy for psychic Studies site but I can tell you my perusal of this blog's stats show people are reading intensely and regularly. A few of them make comments. Most read.
Like Christian Slater's character, the volume of the readers are pumped up and moves them away from the remains of abuse into the path of recovery and true freedom. With the Witches of Ellsworth Street being shown as having no clothes and the public now seeing their true nature, what was once a small voice crying out from your inner being has the freedom to shout.
Or maybe all it really needs to do is say "now, things are better. much better".
Now, if you want to see a bit about someone who has found him/her self much better, you should take a look at this entry in a certain blog written by someone who may be familiar to you readers. Before you do, I will tell you if you have triggers (well, I guess if you did you wouldn't be reading THIS blog) you should take care with this link. As this person's departure from the inner sanctum of the Academy for Psychic Studies was not discussed publicly until now, I think it would be of interest to those of us who read this blog.
Keep in mind I take no position on this person's spiritual views. As always, I leave those issues for you to decide. However, the main takeaway on this thing seems to have some relationship to a couple of Witches quite likely taking revenge. If you were to add up the things that happened in the last couple of years: the revenue ISHI Hypnosis has not realized (due to lack of interest), the fact this person joined a losing lawsuit against this blog, that the Clairvoyant Training Program evaporated as well as the Witches wanting to preserve their cut of the action at the expense of anyone else, I think it's clear the only deal you get with the Witches of Ellsworth Street is one where YOU lose.
I heard from more than one source that our donations and tithes were skimmed from the donation plate each month. Bill would reach into the tithes, pull out all bills greater than $10 and stuff them in his pocket. I once saw Angela drop a thick tithe envelope into the dish during church service. After church service, I saw her carrying the same envelope back to her home. It was just as thick as it was earlier.
In the more than a decade I have been at SRF, there was no charitable giving or charitable works for the community. Ever. And no charitable works were ever discussed or planned. Forget talking about giving SRF's hard-stolen money to charity. It would never happen. They would not even hear of SRF matching the members' donation. The only aspirations to the community I ever heard of were related to making money from the community.
As for Bill, Angela and Robin gathering the staff without coercion; failure to appear when summoned was punished with monetary fines, public humiliation, even temporary loss of ministerial title. I saw all of that happen. The temporary loss of ministerial title was imposed on a minister who was late for a meeting with Bill due to an unforeseen problem on the freeway. She also suffered from MS and was never given accommodation because of her illness. Instead, she was run ragged.
I'll tell you how strong this coercion was: when my wife graduated from college, she invited several ministers from SRF to attend the ceremony. Several agreed. None actually attended.
Why?
Angela called a last-minute meeting of the ministers at the exact time of my wife's graduation to discuss a trivial matter for an hour. None dared say they were invited to a once-in-a-lifetime event and important milestone achieved by a long time student of SRF at the same time of the meeting.
Some ministers apologized to me personally saying that they "had to go" and mentioned that not attending would carry consequences. Serious consequences.
I'm glad your healing, reading and class was of benefit for you. My first few years with SRF was the time of my life (except for the empty promise of getting laid part - at least I got a web award out of it).
But I'm relieved that you were spared the sight of the ugly underbelly of the SRF beast.