how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 14)

to read this story from the beginning click here

i knew it before she said it.
“i'm leaving you.” she spoke, but her lips didn't move.
she stood sideways, gently pressed against george's hip, hand on the small of his back. she placed her other hand on his stomach and gently kissed the side of his neck. he looked directly at me, smiling, showing pity as she kissed his neck.
she looked back at me as well, a beat, another beat, both of them expressing pity for me.

my daughter was 20 feet behind them, sitting in a motorcycle sidecar. like an overexposed picture, the sun reflected off her blond hair and face. she was smiling, excited, anxiously awaiting the motorcycle sidecar ride.
i the distance was a castle like home atop a lush, emerald-green hill. the land was rich with trees and flowers. birds and butterflies flitted about giving the castle-like home and the land around it a magical storybook appearance.

“c'mon daddy,” my daughter called out to george, showing her closed teeth in an exaggerated, fake-looking smile. her lips didn't move either.
the motorcycle and sidecar sat on a black, paved road which winded up the hillside to the castle-like home. directly behind it was long safari-style, open-sided car with a striped canvas top and several rows of passenger seats where goerge's other “wives” sat smiling, waiting anxiously.
i wanted to beg her to stay, but i knew she was right to leave me. george was better than me. he would give her and our daughter, their daughter, a better life. who was i to keep them from having what they deserved, what anyone deserved? besides, how could they ever love me? i was nothing. the pity she felt toward me made it clear that she could never love me.

she dropped her hands from george's back and stomach, took a step toward me and placed her hand on the back of my head. then, she looked into my eyes. again, she looked at me with pity and, as she gently pulled my head toward her lips, she said, “it's time.” she kissed me on the forehead and with a flash of white light they were gone. i was standing alone in an empty house.

there was no furniture, nothing on the windows, nothing on the walls except blue and gray striped wallpaper. the windows were dingy so that i could not see though them. they allowed enough light to penetrate them to give the room a greyish hue.

i felt nauseous. to my right, through the open bathroom door, i could see a lonely mirrored medicine cabinet. the mirror provided a visual gateway into george's grand candlelit bedroom, where george stood behind my wife holding her in his arms.

she was wearing a black cocktail dress which landed high on her thighs. she was barefoot. he reached his arms around her, placing them on her stomach as she tilted her neck and reached back to kiss him.

as their lips touched there was another flash of white light and i awoke. i was in bed in our pennsylvania town home. it was still dark. i looked over to see my wife asleep beside me. i went to the bathroom and vomited.

the green digits on our clock-radio indicated that it was 5:14 am. i had to be at church in a couple hours to go over a couple pieces of music before the early church service, so i went downstairs and made a pot of coffee.

as my wife slept, i sat out back in the darkness drinking coffee and reflecting.
it wasn't the first time i'd had that dream, or at least dreams built on the same theme. these dreams exposed a loss of self with which i had continued to struggle, my manhood, my essence, even my right to exist.

i thought about all of the staff purpose meetings, in which i'd witnessed the female staff members sitting by george, near his end of the oval. vying for their seats next to the power, they were gathered closer or further from him depending on their status within the program.
the girls on staff belonged to bob and those with less status to george. like whores, they were handed out and repossessed as bob and george saw fit.

this dynamic was part of a more dangerous and insidious hierarchical system which existed within bob's organization where, throughout the years, we just came to accept that some were inherently better than others. within this system, justice was nonexistent. punishment and reward were handed out arbitrarily; more accurately, they were handed out based on what was immediately most beneficial to bob and his wife.

bob used twisted pieces of evolutionary biology concepts to justify inconsistencies in the way people were treated. he referred to himself as “the alpha male.” he justified his constant belittling of one staffer, who he referred to as “the warthog,” by stating that the young staffer was deformed, fvcked-up, born wrong. he had told us that if he had been a dog, the other dogs would have killed him when he was a puppy in order to keep him from dirtying the gene-pool.

if one got close enough to bob, for a long enough period, he was likely to hear bob's ideas regarding who deserved what based on their genetic markers and even their primal spiritual makeup. for his part, bob was at the top of the food-chain, both physically and spiritually.

mostly, however, these messages were insidiously hidden within the structure and doctrine of the program, as well as the actions taken by bob.



why hadn't i killed that mother-fvcker? why hadn't i used raw power to beat him? i had decided to employ my intellect, my cunning, to outsmart him and right now, i hated myself for it. what kind of a man allows another man to beat him down, to take control of his home and his marriage without confronting him directly and beating him to a bloody mash?

my feeling of nausea was replaced with anger, rage, hatred. i imagined beating him with a bat. making him beg me to stop, making him beg for his life. i wanted to become his master. i wanted to terrorize him in front of his wife and daughter, in front of my wife and daughter. i wanted to destroy him, while everyone who had ever witnessed him making a punk out of me watched. and while he died, traumatized and suffering, he would know that he had been beaten in front of all these people. he would know that they knew that he was nothing. but most importantly, i would destroy him, utterly and painfully, proving to myself that i wasn't a punk, that i mattered.
i went to church.



******



the bible.
i've read a lot of books, but the bible is, without any doubt, the greatest book i've ever read. it beats moby dick hands down.

within it's text one will find every conceivable form and measure of human evil. murder, kidnapping, adultery, theft, betrayal, rape, incest, it's all there. the bible doesn't shy away from exposing the darkness that often lives within the hearts of men. i have seen this darkness first hand.

2nd samuel tells the story of david, king of the hebrews, and bathsheba, the wife of one of his his trusted soldiers. while uriah, bathsheba's husband, was on the battlefield, david saw bathsheba and wanted her for himself. he sent an agent to fetch her and he slept with her, taking the only wife of his trusted soldier...because he desired her.

bathsheba later sent a message to king david, informing him that she was pregnant with his child. this is where things get really interesting.

in order to cover up his his betrayal of his trusted soldier, david sent someone to call him off the battlefield. he gave him a gift and sent him home so he could spend the night with his wife, bathsheba, before he returned to the battlefield. not only had he impregnated uriah's wife, now he sent him to sleep with her so that he would believe the child to be his own, causing uriah to raise another man's child believing the child to be his own.

but uriah refused to sleep in his bed and lie with his wife while the other soldiers slept on the ground. so he slept with the servants at the palace's entrance. king david's cover up was foiled. so he tried again. he asked uriah to stay one more night and got him drunk. still, uriah went to sleep at the palace's entrance.

king david continued to scheme. he ordered the general to put uriah on the front lines and to instruct all the other soldiers to retreat once the battle got underway. uriah was killed. david was in the clear.

then, david took in bathsheba and made her his wife.

david had many wives. he could have had any woman he wanted. yet, he took the wife of his trusted soldier and killed him to cover his tracks. now, that's evil.

but that's not the stuff that makes the bible great. many believe that the bible is a book filled with violence, vengeance, and death. sure, it has all of those things. those things exist in the world in which we live. evil has been alive in hearts of some men since the beginning of recorded history and almost certainly before recorded history.

the bible's real poetry is not in its record of evil, but in its message of love. deliverance, repentance, forgiveness, absolution, redemption, these are the primary themes of the bible. even david, when he was shown the magnitude of his evil, found redemption

i think that one's view of the bible, as either a message of vengeance or a message of love, depends upon one's perspective. and i don't mean to say that those who go to church or are raised in the church are more likely to see the bible as a message of love. i've spent way too much time around way too many “religious” people, who claim to have love in their hearts, but clearly demonstrate righteous indignation, legalism and bigotry. i should add, however, that the vast majority of christians that i've known have been loving people. christians have visited me and my children in the hospital when we've been sick. they've prepared meals for my family during times of grief. they've provided us with groceries and money. they've prayed for us and grieved with us.

but i've also seen evil in the church. i won't deny that.

still i don't know why, given similar experiences and circumstances, one individual would come out with a perspective that would cause him to see the bible as a book of vengeance, while another would see it as a book of love. i only know how i see it. i don't even know why i have the perspective i have.

bob was like king david...without the redemption part. taking away the wives of his trusted servants is among the many evil acts i have seen him perform. still, though i could rightly blame bob for a lot of things, i knew i couldn't blame him for the harmful acts that i had committed, even while under his watch.

as an agent of the program i had betrayed my faith, betrayed myself and my family and lied to the community. i had also committed other acts which directly harmed others and had done so in the name of love.

for the next few years i continued to attend church. i read the bible, attended sunday school and bible studies, prayed and took counsel with ministers. but i wasn't seeking redemption. repentance was my goal.



lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith ;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy


o divine master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life ~st. francis of assisi

i had to get a grip, find myself. my nightmares had nothing to do with bob. they had everything to do with how i saw myself. he played his role in formulating my self image. he had aligned his pulse with mine, exploited my deepest fears and desires. he had used me and so many others as a means to his own ends. but it was up to me to take back my soul.

i knew it wouldn't happen overnight. and exactly where is the point of deliverance anyway? when does it happen? the jews escaped egypt, but then ended up wandering around the desert for 40 years. i had escaped bob's fold, but was i wandering around the desert...again?

the message of the bible was a part of me and to the degree i allowed it, it became evident in my mental and emotional state. i changed. the nightmares stopped. the “sightings” of bob and george went away. i no longer experienced bouts of dissociation. most importantly, my desire for vengeance, my desire to hurt bob was gone completely. i'm not exactly sure how this happened; it just did. it was a like a miracle. if there is a god, he did it. if there is a god, then he took away my burning rage and replaced it with the message of the gospel.

that's pretty cool if you think about it. i didn't necessarily deserve grace, but i really needed it. and though, according to evangelical christian theology, i'm lost, i've been delivered...and possibly redeemed. i don't mean to say that i was no longer angry at bob. he continued to harm people, unrepentant, and i continued to be angry. i see that as a healthy position.

when i speak of the message of the gospel, i'm not talking about the idea that only people who believe in jesus go to heaven and non-believers get sent to hell. in fact, from where i sit, the idea of a powerful god sending a bunch of people to eternal torment runs completely counter to the message of the gospel.

i've been to hell and the hell i was in was created by men, myself included. the message contained within the gospel, on the other hand, delivered me from hell.

there were things that happened in the church that i ultimately couldn't live with. at the top of the list was listening to the preacher stand in the pulpit and condemn gays. one couldn't be gay and also be born again, regardless of the state of his heart. even if one accepts the idea that it is a “sin” to be gay, which in itself is hard to accept since there wasn't even a word for “homosexual” in greek, hebrew or aramaic, why set this so-called “sin” apart from all others.*(see note)

i also had a bit of a problem with the idea that anyone who was a born-again christian could join the church, but first you had to go through an interview process with a group of church elders, presumably so they could determine whether or not you were really “born again.” that seemed a bit too similar to the early days of the christian church when the pharisees called for the gentile converts to show that they'd been circumcised in order to prove they'd been saved.

still, it wasn't my place to advocate within the church. i was there to take what i could, to focus on the message contained within the gospel.

in time, i reconnected with others who'd left bob's organization. i listened to some of the horror stories people told. bob and his programs were becoming even more brutal, more dangerous. i feared that people i loved, people who were still in, would be physically harmed or even killed. i began to think more about those i'd recruited into bob's group. i was also deeply troubled by the fact that there was no information about bob or his programs on the internet.

it had now been over 5 years since i'd left. i was healthy. my family was well. my rage was gone. i knew that i no longer had a desire for vengeance. i didn't want to hurt bob. however, i did have a desire to warn his potential victims. i also wanted to provide something for people who'd been harmed by bob and his programs. when i had left, there were no former members to talk to. there was no place to get information. i hadn't had an avenue to connect with others who'd been in the program and had left. there was nothing out there.

i thought about how great it would be to provide a resource to catch people after they left or were excommunicated, a support network where people could talk through things, reconnect with friends that had left at a different time, a place to get their stories out, to be validated. i also thought there should be a truthful resource for young people and family members who were considering joining bob's programs. the use of the internet for consumer research was becoming more common; yet, there was nothing about bob and his groups, other than their own propaganda, anywhere on the net.

then i heard 2 stories that brought me to the realization that it was time to act. the first was that of a young man i'd known since he was just a kid. his mother had been a friend of ours and had still been working for bob when we left the program. she left several years after us and visited our home. she recounted for us the story of how she nearly lost her son. we'll call him sam.

sam's parents and his older brother had entered the program when sam was just a boy. in time, sam's mother, who was active in the parent program, was brought on as the parent coordinator. his brother, though resistant at first, became indoctrinated as well and became a counselor for the program.

during this time, sam became victim to a form of inequity that existed among indoctrinated families where one child was involved in the program and another wasn't. sam's brother, because he was “with the group,” was granted the freedom to stay out all night, quit going to school and smoke cigarettes. the program's stance was this: since he was an addict, the only thing that mattered was “sticking with winners.” the staff and kids in the program were “winners.” kids outside the program (even those at school) were not. sam's mom and dad, like the rest of the parent converts, believed that, as long as their addicted child avoided drugs and drug users, everything would be okay. smoking, school, language, structure were unimportant in comparison.

since sam wasn't an addict, he had to comply with a curfew, go to school, etc. in addition, i imagine that he felt left out, at times. the rest of the family shared the “program experience.” he was not fully a part of that. i know his parents and i'm sure they did everything they could to insure that sam was not left out. but, truth is, this is one of the dynamics that exists with siblings of program members.

though he didn't have a drug problem, sam eventually convinced the counselors, his parents and probably himself, that he was an addict and needed the program. he went through outpatient treatment and became a full-fledged member, able to hang out all night, smoke cigarettes and attend the extravagant dances and parties hosted by the program.

i got to know him and couldn't help but love him. he was a vulnerable kid with a tender heart. he also had a sharp wit and a snarky sense of humor. the more he tried to defend his heart with his wit, the more his vulnerability became apparent. i knew he was the kind of guy you could count on if you were down and out.

the entire family was highly talented. so, bob exploited them. mom became a part of the national leadership elite, brother, a sr. counselor and dad, a seasoned detective with the city's police force, was drawn in by bob. bob personally took him on and became his sponsor. bob always kept “friends” in high places.

sam went through counselor training. in time, he was sent to another city and became the city's executive director. but sam had a secret; he was gay.

years earlier, struggling with sexuality issues, sam had tried to talk to his counselor about it. the counselor explained the program's stance. homosexuality is an aspect of the disease of addiction—the highest form of self hatred. it was unacceptable. he needed to stop entertaining any homosexual thoughts, stay sober, work his program. if he was on solid spiritual ground, he would be straight.

bob was more blunt. he claimed, “faggots are people who suck their own sh!t off other people's c0cks. being a fag is the ultimate form of self-hatred.”

sam buried the issue. to pursue it would surely lead to expulsion from the program and possibly the loss of his family. further, since he was compelled to break ties with the rest of the world, since seeking counsel outside the program was forbidden, he had nowhere to turn. he soldiered on.

as the director of a city, sam was perceived as the spiritual leader. serving in such a position with that kind of a secret must have been excruciating. sam was no hypocrite. he was a straight-shooter, a 'what-you-see' kind of person. so functioning in this manner must have been more than he could bear.

ultimately it was. and so sam, who was never an addict prior to joining the program, began smoking crack. it was the proverbial cry for help. as director of a militant, totalitarian, black-and-white, no questions asked drug treatment program he was using one of the most devastating, dynamic drugs available—a drug that no one could hide using for long.

his mother told us that sam would smoke crack in his car minutes before picking up bob at the airport. wasted, with glassy eyes and dialated pupils, he would drive bob from place to place, the car reeking with the stringent odor of crack-cocaine. bob had to know.

moreover, sam was calling rachael, who controlled the money, and made desperate demands for more and more money. instead of inquiring, she sent him blank checks. by all appearances it seems as though bob was allowing sam to continue to deteriorate until he could find a suitable replacement.

when he did, he took sam's checkbook and put him on the street. he convinced sam's family that they should not take his calls or help him in any way. they were convinced that this course was best for sam and for their family. in reality, bob was angry at sam. this was what bob wanted.

sam was left to die on the streets of a violent, unforgiving city 1600 miles away from home and family.

eventually, sam wandered through the doors of one of the city's charitable organizations. they did what bob couldn't...wouldn't. they helped him detox, nursed him back to health and allowed him to begin the process of embracing his sexuality. he was able to overcome bob's atrocious message regarding homosexuality which had been implanted within him since, as a kid, he first tried to discuss the issue with his counselor.

he became a man. but he almost hadn't.

the second story was told to me by someone who'd been one of my closest friends, until the time i had left the program. we'll call him ty. five years after i'd left, i received word from a mutual friend that ty was out too. i asked my friend to see if ty would give me a call. within an hour, my phone rang. it was ty.

it was great to talk to him and we made arrangements for both of us, along with our families, to meet up in new york city. we stayed at the embassy suites hotel in lower manhattan. our rooms overlooked ground zero. below, we could see the tremendous hole where the twin towers had stood just a few years earlier.

i had first met my friend in 1989 when he became a counselor in dallas. i had known his wife since 1987. i remembered when they'd gotten married, when their son was born. our children played together even before they were a year old. we believed that they would grow up together, that when they went to high school together he would be my daughter's “big brother,” watching over her.

ty was a devoted husband and father. his wife was his true love and best friend. years earlier, while working for the program, his family was evicted from their apartment because the program didn't have any money to pay him and he couldn't pay rent. with baby boy in tow, they found themselves sharing a hot dog they'd purchased, from 7-11, with the last of their pocket change. they didn't know where they would stay or where they would find their next meal.

as they ate the hot dog, ty told his wife that he felt ashamed that he was unable to provide her a home. without hesitation she responded, “my home is wherever you are.”

ty was able to find a place for his family to live. he purchased a no-money-down, take-over-payments town home and spent the next several years building a profitable program. the program put a lot of money in bob's pocket. he and i worked side-by-side as our children played together.

when i left, our friendship was over. in the program, that was the way

his wife, who had been considered a leader among the women, began to fall out of favor with bob's wife. she had asked some questions that weren't supposed to be asked. bob's wife saw to it that she was ostracized. she also began trying to drive ty away from his wife and child.

with no support, no friends and knowing the leadership was pushing her husband to leave her, ty's wife became increasingly more depressed. she needed help. but bob and his wife weren't in the business of helping people. those in need were cast aside, lest they become a burden.

ty got sick once and passed out. his wife was terrified and called an ambulance. the doctors didn't find anything wrong, but bob's wife did. she explained that ty's marriage was making him miserable. because of his devotion, he was unwilling to leave his family, she said. she convinced him that since he refused to divorce his wife, he was trying to die instead. she told him, “you don't have die to get out of your marriage.”

she convinced him that, by staying with her, he was doing a great disservice to both his wife and son. she said he was preventing his wife from getting her act together—that for her to get well, he needed to leave. his son was suffering too. how could she meet his needs when she was spiritually sick? and ty, because of his selfish need to be dutiful, was standing in the way.

they sent ty to st. louis to spend some time with another director who'd been divorced at bob's and his wife's direction. that's how they sealed the deal.

broken-hearted and ashamed, ty returned to his home town and told his wife he was divorcing her and that there was no hope of reconciliation. then, he sat down and told his son he was leaving. it broke his son's heart. he left his family and rented a townhome 45 minutes away.

his wife and child were devastated.

ty was the director of bob's biggest and most profitable program. he was responsible for most of bob's personal income. he had faithfully served bob for years. bob repaid his efforts by destroying the thing he loved the most, his family. and why? because bob's wife didn't like his wife.

ty, continued to serve bob, but he was miserable...every minute of every day. he missed his family, but continued to do the “right thing” day after day, month after month.

ultimately, he couldn't stand it any longer. he believed that he had done what was necessary in leaving his family, an idea that was continuously reinforced by bob, his wife and their minions, but the pain was more than he could endure. so, admitting that he was a spiritual failure, he resigned his position, turned over the program (his business and sole source of income) to one of bob's minions and returned to his wife and child.

this is the story he told me in the hotel overlooking ground zero.

i hung my head. first sam's story and now ty's. again, my thoughts returned to my friends who were still under bob's control. something had to be done.

i was happy. my family was doing well and intact. i had put my life with bob's cult behind me. i had found peace, deliverance. but how could i rest knowing that people i loved were still being torn apart. they believed that they were by choice, but i knew they were captive. brainwashed and manipulated, they were being led down the road to hell which was paved with their good intentions and railed on both sides with bob's insatiable manipulative powers. standing on the side of the road, looking the other way, while others were driving unknowingly toward the cliff, wasn't an option.

is there a road to redemption? in his letter to the ephesians (eph.2:8-9), the apostle paul says, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith; and not of yourselves; not as a result of works, so that no one should boast.”

i believe what paul says. forgiveness is never earned. redemption is never earned. it is given not because we deserve it, but because we need it. whatever peace i had gained came as the result of a gift that i could never have deserved. though i hadn't spoken to my parents and siblings in years, when i left the cult, they never asked me to earn their forgiveness. they welcomed me and my wife and children back into the fold, no questions asked. even my old friends, which i'd abandoned when i entered the program, accepted me without reservation.

the issue of redemption is really beside the point anyway. as i stated previously, i wasn't seeking redemption, but repentance. i had learned ephesians 2:8-9 as a child, but i had just recently read what james had written in james 2;15-17:

if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? so faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

taken together, the message seems clear. forgiveness, deliverance or redemption, whatever the case, is a gift, but it is useless without repentance. the greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means a change of one's conduct following a change of heart.

i don't claim to know many things (actually that may not be an accurate statement, but stay with me here), but i do know one thing for sure. a person can be wealthy and successful, a great athlete, writer, thinker, scientist, artist or academician, but if he turns his back on his brothers and sisters, if he neglects them when they need help, he is nothing. his life means nothing.

i knew there was nothing about me even approaching greatness. the love i had been granted was a gift. the peace i'd found was not of my own doing. any happiness i had was the result of being blessed with a loving wife, great kids and a loving family. to simply resign any humanitarian efforts to enjoy my newly found peace would be a waste of a human life, my life.



the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing ~edmund burke



my family didn't want me to do it. they were afraid for my safety. my mother warned me to always check my car before i started it...to make sure no one had tampered with it. they were worried that it might destroy my career as a drug abuse counselor—that my reputation would be attacked—that i would slip back into ptsd. there was a risk of losing myself completely.

i knew that people would come after me. those i'd harmed while i was in the program wouldn't care that i had believed i was acting in accordance with a higher purpose. they wouldn't care that i'd been manipulated. they would want their pound of flesh, and rightly so. i knew this. those who were loyal to the program would spread vile rumors about me. they would try to discredit me. secrets i'd shared with my program peers would be exposed. they would hurt me in any way they could. maybe bob would send one of his goons to rough me up. maybe he'd dig a hole in the desert.

i didn't know it at the time, but this simple step, that of speaking the truth, would lead to a national movement. it would result, for the first time ever, in an environment where thousands would be allowed an opportunity to tell what happened to them--where victims would receive validation. i also didn't realize that these people would come together and provide a loose network in which virtually anyone who had been harmed by bob and his organization could find someone to talk to.

it never crossed my mind that these people, these program castaways, would draw national media attention. that the media would inquire and they would respond, telling their stories to newspapers and tv reporters.

in the children's fable, “stone soup,” three of soldiers, returning home, came upon a village. they were carrying nothing but an empty pot. the villagers, who were poor themselves, closed their doors and windows. they knew the soldiers would be hungry and they didn't want to be asked to share their scarce supplies.

the soldiers built a fire, placed the pot atop the flames, filled it with water, and dropped a large stone in it. as the soldiers sat before the boiling pot of water, a few of the villagers became curious and came out to inquire as to what the soldiers were doing.

“we're making stone soup,” they replied. they invited the villagers to have some soup once it was done. then, as the villagers stood watching, one of the soldiers dipped a ladle into the soup, and tasting it, he said, “it's a bit bland, i wish we had some carrots to give the soup flavor.” one of the villagers spoke up, “ i have some carrots, let me run and get them.” the villager returned with the carrots and placed them in the boiling water.

after a bit, the soldier tasted the soup again. “it's almost ready,” he said. “if only we had some onions. another villager went to fetch some onions. and so it continued, parsely, beans, potatos, etc. when the soup was finished all of the villagers along with the soldiers feasted.” everyone was nourished and satisfied.

late one night, in 2004, i sat down before my computer and began writing the text for a website which i would launch. the website would provide a spark for a movement that would provide healing for thousands, expose bob and his entire organization, warn would be victims, and ultimately drive bob to his knees, destroying his credibility and forcing him into retirement.

i can't state emphatically enough that i am not the one who achieved these things. they were achieved by the people he'd harmed, the children he'd abused, the junkies he'd cast aside, the brokenhearted who'd been crushed by lies, the parents who continued to look toward the horizon hoping for the return of they're children whom they'd lost to the program, the castaways.

all i did was drop a rock in the soup.

and when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
there will be an answer,
let it be ~the beatles

(to be continued)

*note: please do not send me bible verses in an attempt to demonstrate to me that the bible condemns homosexuals. i am surely familiar with most of these verses, namely genesis 18-19, leviticus 18:22, leviticus 20:13, dueteronomy 23:17, romans 1;26-27, 1 corinthians 6:9, 1 timothy 9:10. if you just can't help yourself, you might want to review the original greek and hebrew words used to write these and other biblical passages that have been translated by english biblical translators in a variety of different ways. a good starting point? in hebrew: qadesh, quadeshaw, to'ebah.  in greek: akatharsia and arenokoitai. there are others, as well. in the original languages, verses which seem to be a wholesale condemnation of homosexuality, when read in most english translations, generally refer to male and female prostitution within the temple, pagan sex rituals, anal rape, sex with pagan idols, and same-sex relations between heterosexuals during mystical orgies.


in any event, it's just not a debate i'm interested in taking on.


thanks for understanding (or at least for shaking your head and biting your tongue).
oh...and, don't tell my mom what i wrote. i'll never hear the end of it.

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part12)

click here to read this story from the beginning


the men who committed the atrocities of september 11 were certainly not 'cowards,' as they were repeatedly described in the western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. they were men of faith - perfect faith, as it turns out - and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be. - Sam Harris

is faith a virtue as pope gregory i proclaimed?

in 1632, galileo galilei published his book, dialogue concerning two chief world systems, a comparison of the copernican and ptolemaic views. according to the ptolemaic view, the earth was the center of the universe. copernicus, on the other hand, claimed that the earth orbited the sun. as a result of his book, galileo was convicted of “grave suspicion of heresy” by the inquisition. he was condemned to hell and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.

and although copernicus' ideas were verifiable through observation, parishioners were not only forbidden from believing that which could be proven by mathematics and observation, they were denied access to writings which even mentioned these ideas. publication of all of galileo's works, past and future, was forbidden.

what was the basis of the rejection of copernican thought? a book called genesis, written by an unknown author and determined by the political powers of the time to be inspired by an unseen and mysterious “holy spirit,” who, as one-third of a triune god, had placed these men in a position of authority to rule over the lives and wealth of the masses.

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it's not so hard to understand why i was able to suspend critical thought and blindly follow bob, even to my own peril. i, like most of us, had always considered faith a virtue. many of our greatest artists, thinkers, leaders and humanitarians were men and women of faith. mother theresa, martin luther king, johann sebatian bach, benjamin franklin, george s. patton, ronald reagan, mahatma ghandi, anne frank, harriet tubman, malcolm x and muhamed ali all relied on their faith in god.

when faith clashes with observable fact we are often asked to deny that which we can see, touch, taste, smell and hear, or at least reinterpret our observations, retrofitting them to support faith in that which cannot be physically observed.

bob was a master at manipulating one's faith. he understood the extremes to which a faithful individual might be willing to go. he depended upon it, exploited it to achieve his agenda.

speaking of clayton's death, bob said, “he chose it.” rejecting the fact that clayton suffered from a life-threatening illness which had been diagnosed using state-of-the-art, replicable, scientific techniques and ignoring the fact that bob himself, had denied clayton the treatment which likely would have saved his life, he claimed that clayton's death was due to a deep-seated spiritual shortcoming—the desire to take the easy way out.

as evidence, bob cited his own previous bout with hepatitis. but he failed to mention the fact that he had contracted a different and very curable form of hepatitis, hepatitis-a, or that his hepatitis was cured using mainstream medicine.

nearly everyone in the program began saying, “clayton chose it.” in fact, it was the explanation for any one who died in the program.

i remember one kid, a 15 year-old boy, who had been banished from the program following multiple relapses. the boy died as a result of huffing glade room deodorizer. when i asked a young girl, a friend of his, how she felt about losing her friend, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “he chose it.”

i had not lost my faith, just my faith in bob. in fact, it wasn't that i'd lost faith in bob, but instead i came to recognize that he was lost. i vacillated between the belief that he was a sociopath, who had been a con-artist from the very start, and the belief that he had been pure at one point, but had lost his way, adopting machiavellian methods to protect his power and wealth.

he had begun his career as a drug rehabilitator in 1971, when he was employed by an episcopal priest to lead a group of teenagers in a church-sponsored, youth support-group. a woman, who later became his wife, was running an alateen group at the church. many of the kids in the alateen group were smoking pot and using other drugs, so they became some of the first members of the new support-group.

bob would hang out with the kids. he would tell wild stories about his experiences on the streets of baltimore and his time in the federal penitentiary. the kids would hang out at night and prank the local community. when someone in the group reached 30 days without using drugs, bob and the group would get drunk and celebrate. bob told me this. he also said that he slept with some of the girls and that he even dropped acid with some of them. he claimed that his soon to be wife straightened him out, telling him he could no longer use alcohol and must remain true to her. abstinence from alcohol became part of the program's view of recovery.

the program continued to mushroom, partly due to bob's charisma, but also due to the hard work and deep pockets of local businessmen who were the beneficiaries of houston's oil boom.

bob helped a local up and coming rock star break his heroin addiction. the star achieved national fame shortly thereafter and it is through this individual that bob may have become connected to one of the nation's most well-known actress/comediennes. she was seeking help for her daughter who had been using drugs, so she sent her child to houston to be treated in the program which bob now claimed to have personally founded.

impressed with her daughter's progress, she went on national television and plugged bob and his program. this caused parents from around the nation to inquire about the program. kids were coming in from around the country. new chapters began to pop-up throughout texas and in other states.

bob had also begun working for a houston-based hospital, where he was being paid to oversee an inpatient unit which worked side-by-side with his support groups. he was making good money. he was also becoming somewhat of a celebrity.

all this came to a halt when, in 1979 and early 1980, he became the focus of two national news expose`s, one on 60 minutes and one on 20/20. when it was determined that he was being paid to use his position with a non-profit organization to fill hospital beds for a for-profit hospital and that he had been using harmful cultic practices to maintain control, he was fired.

he then exploited another celebrity who had befriended him to start another non-profit program in california. he opened a private for-profit treatment program and again used the non-profit group to funnel kids into his for-profit fee-based program.

in time, his for-profit program was shut down by the state and he was fired from the non-profit. he was found to be promoting racist ideals, using cultic methods and attempting to circumvent the state's authority.

we knew he'd faced these challenges, but we were never told the whole story. instead, we were told that he'd been run out of the texas-based program by a manipulative rival who had lied to the board of directors and that his problems in california were due to a local investigative reporter (who bob claimed was also a child pornographer) that went after him in order to start his own youth group, presumably as a means of getting close to kids.

it was easy to imagine that bob had started out pure, but had become tainted as a result of being victimized in the past. he was terrified of the media. he maintained that no news reporter or news organization could be trusted—that he had trusted them in the past only to be destroyed by them. we were taught defensive measures. no one was allowed to talk to the media under any circumstances. if the media contacted anyone from the program for any reason, bob would hold an emergency meeting to discuss the “threat.” all of the programs became private, for-profit entities so that we could maintain control. we were careful about what we said to outsiders.

at times i would think, perhaps bob had just become too insulated. there were no checks on his power. he was paranoid. then, i would put the pieces together again. he had been released from the penitentiary just prior to being hired by the episcopal priest. he had a long history of illegal and unethical activity. he was hurting people. he lied without hesitation. he never expressed remorse. he was glib in the face of others' trauma. he had left a path of destruction behind him everywhere he went. in fact, there was not a shred of evidence that he had ever demonstrated a single genuine act of altruism, only his claims and those of his followers.

his philosophy for treating drug abusers was unconventional and there were no studies to demonstrate its efficacy, only his claims to have saved the lives of thousands. still, even after seeing failure, destruction and death, even after recognizing that most of the kids we worked with eventually returned to drugs, after having to defend the organization from those who called us a cult, after realizing that all of bob's most loyal supporters had left or been cast aside, after my awakening in the santan mountains, i believed that his philosophy regarding drug rehabilitation was sound.

i was waiting for my opportunity to connect with my wife and get my family out, but was still mired in confusion about bob, his initial intent and the validity of the program that we were delivering to the kids.

it was excruciating at times. i had set out to help people and i still held the belief that his approach alone could save the lives of dying teenagers. i had been so indoctrinated to believe that nothing else worked that i feared what would happen if this program no longer existed. it would be years before i would realize the truth: that very few kids were actually dying from drugs use, and; that scores of other doctors, therapists, and programs were succeeding in helping kids get off drugs.

my internal struggle continued--guilt, fear, anger, loneliness, loyalty, love. is leaving the right thing to do? is there any way to stay and lobby to correct the mistakes we were making? perhaps, as bob had often stated, i was using my intellect to destroy myself. he had told me that my intellect was my worst enemy—that i needed to stop thinking, to have faith, to trust the universe.

i was torn..observable evidence vs. longstanding faith.

to make matters worse, i was still undergoing constant indoctrination. though i'd made a decision to leave, i still had to go to work every day. i still had to attend staff purposes, as well as all of bob's lectures. i still had to endure frequent confrontation. i had no meaningful contact with the outside world. perhaps most devastating was the fact that the only tool i knew for resolving my internal conflict was the program's doctrine.

i had to turn the doctrine around. up to this point, faith had meant sticking with the program, accepting bob's ideals even in the face of contrary evidence. fear was the opposite of faith. to reject or question bob was to give in to fear. now, i had to tell myself that to stay with the program was to give in to fear. i determined that perhaps god had intervened—maybe he had given me the clarity to see bob for the sociopath that he was. maybe i needed to depend on god to help me escape with my family. maybe god was watching over me.

i couldn't maintain these thoughts for long periods. i would stop my car on my way home every day and take time alone to clear my head--to return the truth. i was not yet free, but i began to be able to imagine what it would be like to be free.

each day i struggled with these conflicting thoughts. each day i hit the streets on my rollerblades. each day, i parked my car on the way home and cleared my mind, reminding myself of who bob really was. each day i placed dominoes.

a year after i had returned from my sabbatical in the santan mountains, the opportunity arose. after lying to my wife for a year, i decided that this was the time to tell her the truth. this would either be the beginning of our escape from this cult which had destroyed virtually every part of our essence, the beginning of a new life, or it would be the end of our family.

i was about to lay some heavy stuff on my wife. i was about to tell he that i'd been conning her and everyone else she considered dear to her. over the last year, i had stashed nearly $10,000.00 in cash, escape money that she didn't know about. i would show her the money. i had no way to know whether she would agree to leave or whether she would take our daughter and run to bob and his wife. this could be the last time we'd ever speak to each other.

things had not been going well between us. we had recently been allowed to take an overnight trip to the grand canyon. it was our first vacation in years. we had arranged for one of the young women on staff to take care of our daughter so we could be alone.

just prior to our trip, my wife had consulted with bob's wife. she had gone to her seeking her blessing to have a baby. my wife desperately wanted another child and this desire was growing each day.

i don't know exactly what bob's wife told her. it was between them, not for my ears. i do know, however, that my wife returned from her discussion terrified. as a result of her conversation with bob's wife, she was unable to be intimate with me. it cast a cloud over our vacation. bob's wife had planted seeds, causing my wife to be afraid that, if she let go, i would impregnate her as a manipulative means of gaining control over her.

this carried over after we returned home. bob's wife was able to convince her that becoming pregnant would destroy all of my her spiritual progress. further, she claimed that i was somehow manipulating my wife, causing her to have the desire to have a baby, so i could keep her down and maintain control. she told her that she looked to men to make her happy and that she needed to learn to be happy on her own.

my wife had had long standing issues with her own mother, who had neglected her throughout her life. bob's wife accused my wife of being, “just like your mother.” she ultimately tore my wife apart and used the other girls in the program to break her.

my wife had approached her with the desire to have a baby and she had responded by launching a total push effort to destroy our marriage.

i was not privy to any of this, but i could tell my wife was devastated. she had begun to withdrawal from bob's wife, her longtime mentor. she was afraid.

so i told her everything. “i'm not happy,” i said. “this is not the life i want. i've lost my passion.”

i reminded her of our lives before the program, the intimacy we shared, our dreams for the future. we talked for hours. it was the first time in years that we'd talked openly. i told her everything.

from that point forward, we were no longer alone.

“what should we do?,” she asked. i showed her the money. “we have to leave,” i said.

i laid out a plan.

leaving wouldn't be easy. in the real world, if one wanted to quit his job, he would simply put in notice and leave. coworkers might hold an office party. employers would provide a letter of reference. everyone would wish him well. but this wasn't the real world.

in this world, to leave meant to die, if not physically then at least spiritually and symbolically. leaving bob was tantamount to betrayal. we would lose all of our friends. in fact, they would ultimately see us as the enemy, part of the “them” in the group's us and them worldview.

we lived in a world where bob's wife used hypnosis to plant phobias in others, a world where she could enter one's dreams and cause emotional catastrophe, affecting one's thoughts actions and sanity. those who had left, often experienced devastating health problems, a return to addiction, incarceration, insanity, and death—or so we were told.

upon leaving, we would enter a world we did not know. for years, we had been separated from the outside. we'd come to believe that it was a dangerous place, filled with evil. no one could be trusted. we had no connections. no friends. no family. no job prospects. no resources. no history.

after devoting my entire adult life to this work, this program, this man, i would leave with no verifiable employment history. i knew bob would never give me a letter of recommendation. he would not make himself available to verify my employment. in fact, he would do everything within his power to insure that i would fail in any endeavor i undertook. it was his way. he simply couldn't tolerate the idea of anyone having any success for which he could not take full credit.


my wife was afraid that they would take extreme measures to make us stay...or that they would try to separate us and try to get one of us to stay. bob's wife was trying to end our marriage, and she wasn't accustomed to failure. she understood the the tremendous ability of bob's wife to influence, to spin one's head, creating doubt and confusion. she also knew that bob's wife was capable of quickly employing and exploiting the one's peers to manipulate them. her power should not be underestimated.

bob would not see it coming. as far as he was concerned, i was a loyal follower who saw him as near deity. over the past year, i had been calculated in fostering this idea. i had sat at bob's feet while he told me of his plans to go overseas and spend a month with the buddhist monks, a trip which would be paid for by one of bob's wealthy followers.

“you're going to be disappointed,” i said. “i think you will find that you're lightyears ahead of all of them. while they've been sitting on the mountain, you've been changing people's lives, changing your life, my life. if you go, you go to teach...that will be your lesson.”

in order to manipulate me, bob would need information. he would need to understand my motivation, why i was leaving. i would make sure he remained in the dark. i wouldn't allow him to read me. i would not demonstrate anger or give him any reason to believe i doubted him.

i told my wife that i would call bob and tell him that i needed to speak with him immediately. this would cause him to panic; it would throw him off his game. then, i would go to his house and give 30 days notice, simply stating that i was unhappy.

he would need to try to come across as though he knew where i was coming from, that he was cosmic enough to know the answers without asking questions. since he didn't know what was motivating me, he wouldn't attempt to try to explain or counter things. he would look for cues, but i wouldn't provide them. he would, in fact, be shocked by my announcement. he'd be off balance, confused. this would prevent him from trying to manipulate me.

my wife decided that she wanted to avoid any further contact with anyone from the program. she had been working with rachael, doing the books for the program. she decided that, once i talked to bob, she would drop off all of her bookkeeping materials at rachael's house with a letter of resignation, effective immediately.

i would go to work every day for the next 30 days. i would also look for work outside the state, where they couldn't find us. at the end of my 30 days, we would leave, moving wherever necessary to obtain a job.

the next day, i called bob. my phone call and conversation with bob went exactly as planned. he was thrown. he offered to send me to pennsylvania where he was trying to launch an outpatient program. he also offered to contact a friend in branson, missouri to help me obtain a job in the live entertainment industry, a line of work which he knew i'd had a passion for.

after i left his house, i picked up my wife and we dropped the bookkeeping materials and resignation letter in rachael's foyer, using the key she'd given her to access her office when she was not home.

the smear campaign started within days. bob spread rumors, one that we were running away because my wife had gotten pregnant. he said that i was a pedophile, that i had been stealing, using drugs. he searched for reasons why i would simply walk in and announce my resignation without seeking his approval. where he could find no answers, he created them, filled in the blanks. without reservation, he said whatever he wanted to say about me and my wife. he couldn't possibly accept the fact that i was on to him.

from my perspective, everyone in the program was an agent of bob. i assumed that when i was speaking to them, i was speaking to bob. i knew that bob was telling them exactly how they should interact with me, how they should treat me, where they stood with me.

when i walked into a room, everyone would stop talking. people would leave.

i was responsible for the counselor training school, but they wouldn't let me anywhere near the trainees. so i focused on making sure all the paperwork and records were up to date. i also made sure that the curriculum was organized for whomever might take over the training program.

i was told that i no longer needed to attend clinical staffing at the residential center, staff purpose, or clinical meetings for the outpatient program. i went to the hospital every day and met my responsibilities there.

i had one other responsibility as well. i was writing the policy and procedure manual for the new pennsylvania program and working on getting it licensed for bob.

the push to open the program had begun with several pennsylvania parents, some of whom had sent their children to arizona for treatment. they had created a loosely structured committee to raise money. bob had agreed to send a director to run the program and to provide the counselors. he had asked me to get the program licensed.

i tried to reach bob, to remind him that, since i was leaving, he would need to inform the people from pennsylvania that i wouldn't be completing their policy and procedure manual. he would need to find someone else. he wouldn't take my calls. since i couldn't reach bob, i tried to go to george. he wouldn't take my calls either. i showed up at his office, but he closed his office door and instructed his staff to inform me that he was busy. after several attempts, i gave up.

a couple weeks passed and i knew that no one had informed the pennsylvania families that i was not going to get the program licensed, soi decided to call them myself.

i told them that i was leaving bob's organization and that i would not be completing the p&p. to my surprise, they offered me the job as director of the program. i explained further. “i don't think you understand,” i said. “i'm not going to be working with bob in any capacity.”

thay responded, “so what?”

i was not accustomed to this kind of response. no one did anything without bob's blessing. how could these people decide that they would simply move forward without him. i tried to be more clear.

“i am leaving bob's organization because of philosophical differences. if i were to come there and run the program, it would be my program, not bob's. we would have no affiliation with bob, no support from him. he would interpret it as though we stole his program.

bob had already sent 2 young counselors who had just recently graduated from training. they had been holding support group meetings and sending paying clients from pennsylvania to bob's arizona programs. he had made at least one trip to pennsylvania to meet with the parents, young people and community leaders. he had invested a lot of time and energy and considered the pennsylvania operation to be part of his national organization. if he lost the program, he would be livid.

the families in pennsylvania felt no loyalty toward bob. in fact, they thought he was a nutcase. not only had they found him obnoxious and arrogant, but they had been waiting months for him to send a director and were beginning to believe that he wouldn't be able to produce one. they told me they had asked for me, but that bob refused to let them anywhere near me. bob had never discussed this with me.

the truth is, he didn't have anyone to send. opening a program in pennslvania was legally and politically tricky. no one within the organization had the experience and knowledge needed to make it work within pennsylvania's tight regulatory environment.

i agreed to fly to pennsylvania and meet with the families that were backing the project. i would fly in over the weekend (i was still working for bob—fulfilling my 30-days), meet with the parents, tour the area and discuss the terms. if we all agreed, we would move forward.

it would be critical that no one other than the parents who were backing the program knew anything about my coming to pennsylvania. everything was done cloak and dagger style. the pa staff and many of the kids in the pa support group were communicating with folks from phoenix on a regular basis. if bob found out that i was considering taking the program, he would immediately pull the staff, leaving the group with no guidance. further, he would likely attempt to sabotage the entire pa operation. he would also instruct the counselors to exploit their relationships with the kids in the support group, causing them to believe that i had malicious intent.

i knew bob couldn't be trusted. interestingly, so did these parents who were backing the program. bob had thought he had them completely convinced that he was the solution to their local drug problem. he was wrong.

my plane circled over the statue of liberty as we approached newark international airport. below, i could see the twin towers through the window. as we touched down, i felt excited, fearful, apprehensive and hopeful all at the same time.

a couple, one of the sets of parents who'd been funding the pennsylvania program, picked me up at the airport. we drove across the new jersey/pennsylvania border and stopped at a restaurant to meet two other couples, also program supporters, for dinner.

that night we all met in my hotel suite. we talked for hours. i was deeply impressed with these fine folks. they were committed to helping their kids and the community.

the next day, they took me to tour the area. the trees and the grass were a stark contrast to the arizona desert. the local parks were filled with children and families. the community was vibrant. it seemed like an excellent place to raise our daughter.

we had dinner and more discussion. i had insisted that they review my c.v. and ask me questions. we also discussed the terms, if i were to come to pennsylvania.

i went home on sunday night and discussed everything with my wife. together, we decided that moving to pennsylvania was the right thing to do. so, i contacted the folks in pennsylvania and accepted the offer.

we all decided that, since bob couldn't be trusted, we wouldn't tell him anything until after i had arrived in pa to take over the program.

ten days later, our cars and belongings having been transported to pennsylania, my wife, my daughter and i boarded a plan to the east coast to start a new life.

i had had my first contact with one of bob's programs 16 years earlier. i had devoted nearly my entire adult life to his organizations. i had joined forces with bob accepting his promise of love—believing that through the principles of love and honesty we would change the world.

we were walking away from the only life we had known and into a world we didn't understand--one we had been taught not to trust.

i had given everything to bob, to this dream of setting free those who had been enslaved by drugs, fear, emptiness and trauma. i was a true believer. not only did i believe that unconditional love for others had the power to affect the world both physically and spiritually, i believed in bob's love for me.

now, at age 35, i was escaping his torturous love, saving my own life. saving my family.

i showed our daughter the glorious statue of liberty, through the window, as our plane approached the newark airport. it was the first time she'd ever seen it.

you said
love is a temple
love's a higher law
love is a temple
love is a higher law
you asked me to enter
but then you made me crawl
and i can't keep holding on
'cause all you've got is hurt ~ u2


to be continued

author's note: part 12 of how i was spiritually raped and left for dead was one of the most difficult parts to write, because it represents the death of a dream. for 16 years, i had devoted my life to a dream, that of saving lives, changing lives, changing the world.

though i made many mistakes along the way, hurt a lot of people (right now, i'm thinking of you steve s. and willie v.), i was always motivated by that dream. i often worked 12 and 16 hour days...sometimes longer. i endured sleepless nights, bouts of true poverty, frequent moves from city to city, self flagellation, criticism, loneliness and brutal confrontation. i sacrificed my own health, both physical and mental, to tend to the needs of my brothers and sisters, to serve a higher purpose.

i had known, without any doubt, that this was my purpose.

i loved the people who, for 16 years, had been my family. i was devoted to them and to bob.

i had loved bob deeply.

i'm not a saint. i never was...not even close. but i had a dream.

enjoy the video.

seeking in tongues

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 10)

part 1 is here
part 9 is here

ain't no sunshine when she's gone,
only darkness everyday
ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and this house just ain't no home
anytime she goes away ~bill withers

a horizontal shadow closed, like a curtain, down the wall and across the concrete floor, in sync with the motor of the garage door. as the garage darkened, i took a deep breath and opened the door leading into my house.

inside, my daughter was playing on the floor. my wife came through the opening leading to the kitchen and approached me as i entered the living room. we were both nervous, self-conscious. we hugged and shared a brief kiss.

i didn't know what they had been telling her during my week away. did they tell her that i had left because i was angry at her? did they give her instructions on how to behave when i returned? was i talking to her...or to bob and his wife? in retrospect, i realize that she was every bit as confused as i. that was their game; keep everyone walking on eggshells.

bob had instructed me to see him on my way home, so i had stopped at his house for a brief “pep-talk” about an hour earlier. he had given me 20 bucks and said, “take her out to dinner.” i was pretty sure my wife would be there when i got home; after all, he had told me to take her to dinner. if they would have sent her away, he wouldn't have given me the money. he wouldn't have instructed me to take her to dinner...right?

on the other hand, there was always the possibility that bob was stashing her and my daughter somewhere and that he intended to act as though he had nothing to do with her absence. he could have arranged for her to “show up” at george's house. “i don't know what happened,” he would say. “she freaked out. she's scared. she wants to have a little time to get her head straight” then, he would get me to focus on the upcoming licensing inspections, promising to “straighten her out” for me. of course if this were the case, i'd probably never see my wife again.

i had seen him do this to another couple before. it was another staff purpose night. linda was at our house for some reason. she was on the phone with a young married woman named dana, making arrangements to meet with her before purpose. linda hung up the phone and left. something didn't feel right.

about a year earlier, dana and her husband, jack, were expecting their first child. things were chaotic. bob and his wife hadn't given their blessing and i caught a glimpse of some of the hush-hush efforts to deal with the “problem.”

dana was young, 19 or 20. her husband wasn't much older. i had been a groomsmen in their wedding. these two seemed as though they were meant to be together, as though the world would have remained forever out of balance if they hadn't found each other.

they were also, critical to the program. jack was a phenomenal counselor. he was making more referrals into the fee-based programs than any other staff member. dana was tender and loving. she ran group therapy. she had a way of making everyone feel comfortable. parents and kids alike trusted her.

on the whole, the program was in a tentative spot. it hadn't been too long since bob had split with jim and al and had drawn us all in. we were short on experienced staff, most were green kids who had no real skill. we had gotten outpatient up and running. the hospital was now beginning to run smoothly. also, another couple had recently had a child, unsanctioned. it had cost the program a staff member (the mother), because bob didn't allow pregnant women or mothers to work as counselors at that time.

“we can't handle another baby,” i'd overheard someone say.

bob and his wife had driven from san diego to phoenix and had arranged to meet with dana and jack at a local hotel. the 'buzz' was that they weren't ready to have a baby—that this baby was a mistake. bob and his wife weren't about to let their “fvcked-up bullshit fvck it up for everyone else.” if they insisted on having the baby, they were gone.

dana and jack spent hours in the hotel room with bob and his wife. i don't know exactly what they were told, but i know what i was told. it came down to this. dana and jack had fvcked up by getting pregnant. since it was their fvck-up, it was wrong to force this soul [the baby] into the world when it wasn't the right time. therefore, the pregnancy had to be aborted to save the baby's soul from taking on dana and jack's fvcked-up karma.

after the meeting with bob and his wife, dana had an abortion. it wasn't talked about much. everyone knew what happened. everyone got the message—get pregnant without bob's blessing and run the risk of losing the child.

in bob's program, we all had the same political and spiritual beliefs. one of those beliefs was that abortion was murder. the fact that this couple had been instructed to have an abortion underlined the seriousness of the situation. we were also taught that we chose our parents prior to birth and that we made that choice based on what we knew that we needed to learn during this lifetime.

the only way that we could reconcile this situation was by buying into the idea that dana and jack had been self-centered by becoming pregnant. we were told that they had attempted to bring a soul into this world against its will to satisfy their own selfish desires and that those desires included sabotaging their own spiritual growth. fortunately, they had bob and his wife to stop the birth of the child and rescue them from their self-sabotaging behavior.

within the confines of the cult, their marriage had survived this trauma, but now their marriage would end.

i arrived at the purpose meeting to find the usual anxious climate in the room. dana spent the entire meeting in another room with some of bob's girls. george seemed preoccupied throughout the meeting. jack was terrified.

after the meeting, jack grabbed me in the parking lot. his wife had already left with bob's girls. frantic, he told me, “dude, i'm freaked-out; i think my wife's gonna divorce me.” what he was trying to say was, “dude, i think they are taking my wife away from me.”

i'm sorry to say that i wasn't much of a friend to him that night. it was more than i could handle. and i knew he was right.

jack was part native american. he had a strong chin and high cheek-bones. his skin was dark and clear, and he sported long, silky, dark-brown hair which hung halfway down his back. he was built like a rock. no one messed with jack.

one afternoon, we had stopped at a convenience store to get some coffee. i had filled my styrofoam cup, capped it and made my way to the cashier's counter.

i was not in the best shape at the time. i had had little time for physical activity and had put on about 20 extra pounds. i waited at the counter as a huge, burly, unshaven biker, dressed in leather chaps and a leather biker jacket, leaned on the counter and carried on a casual conversation with the cashier.

after waiting a few moments, i said to the biker, “hey buddy, you wanna move aside so i can make my purchase?”

the biker turned around, stepped uncomfortably close to me, looked down at me and said, “you wanna take it out side...fat boy?” just then, jack stepped in front of me and calmly replied, “i'd love to...and if you talk to my friend that way again, i'm gonna step outside, after i throw you through the window.” the biker stepped aside, held his hand out, ushering me to the counter, and left quietly.

i wish i'd been a better friend that night in the parking lot. i've replayed it in my head over and over, year after year. what if i'd told him, “you're right, they've got your wife, let's go find her?” instead, i told him everything would be okay. i justified it, thinking there was nothing he could do, thinking he needed encouragement when he needed truth.

no one had told me that they were going to end his marriage, but i, just like jack, had seen it coming. in the previous weeks, i had noticed george becoming increasingly more friendly with dana. he would flirt with her and act as her protector. at the same time, he was talking sh1t about jack. he had referred to jack as a “stupid injun” at times and as a “lazy fvckin' mexican” at other times. he had also commented that he wasn't about to let that beautiful girl [meaning dana] have any “little brown babies.” “i ain't lettin' my kids play with any little brown babies...that's for fvckin' sure,” he'd said.

jack went home alone. later that night, he received a phone call informing him that his wife was not coming home—that she was going to spend the night at george and muffy's house.

the next day, jack received a phone call from brian. he was instructed to go over to george's house. probably thinking that this would be his chance to talk to his wife, he headed to george's house. when he got there, his wife was gone. instead brian and george sat him down for a talk.

things happened fast. george, who looked nervous and was probably terrified of jack's physical prowess, did the talking. brian, who was there to provide the muscle in case jack went ballistic, seemed to come across as though he felt bad, that he didn't agree with what was happening.

“dana needs a break,” george said. “we've arranged for you to go to atlanta and get your sh1t straight. if you do, she'll be here for you when you return.” jack said he wanted to talk to her, to hear it from her directly. “she doesn't want to talk to you right now,” he said. “well, i at least want to say goodbye,” jack told george. “she has nothing to say to you right now,” george replied.

jack was in agony. his people had hidden away his wife and built a barrier around her, preventing him from communicating with her. george was a small man. he was nothing. but he used his position as bob's son-in-law to destroy anyone who possessed personal power. he was threatened by anyone who was more capable than him. jack had two things working against him. first, he asked questions, challenged the inconsistencies he observed. second, he was twice the man george would ever be.

jack determined that the best course of action was to do as he was told. he went home and with the help of another staffer he packed his truck. during that time, he would break down and weep. he would call brian and beg him to let him talk to his wife. he couldn't help but think if he could just talk to her, she would agree to leave the program with him. he was tormented. he wanted to be with his wife, to save his marriage.

when he arrived in atlanta, he immediately knew that things were even more screwed up than he'd thought. he was being “handled.” no one would “get real” with him.

a short time later, a new director arrived in atlanta, someone who had been his friend. jack noticed that the new director was being cold toward him. jack also realized that this guy was spending a good deal of time on the phone, talking long distance...to his [jack's] wife.

jack finally figured out that he would not be getting back together with his wife when he was served with divorce papers. there was no discussion, no explanation. he called george on the phone. “dude, what's the deal. i thought if i got my sh1t together i had a chance at getting back together with my wife,” he said. george responded by simply saying, “well, are you gonna sign the papers?”

perhaps some part of him continued to hold out hope even after he was served.

any hope he still had was shattered when, within two weeks of getting the divorce papers, he received a traffic ticket in the mail. dana's car was still in jack's name after they split. when jack opened the envelope he found a photo-ticket. enclosed was a picture of the license plate on dana's car. there was also a picture of his wife sitting next to the the new atlanta director (who had been in arizona) driving the car. he'd been betrayed, not by his wife, but by the people who'd promised to be his friends, his family. the people he'd turned to for years, seeking guidance, the same ones who'd let him believe that, by toeing the program line, he could have his wife back had set him up and given his wife to another man.*

that night jack went to his room where he cleaned and loaded his .44 magnum handgun. he sat in his room. everyone else in his apartment was sleeping. he sat alone until he was able to accept the fact that he would most likely spend the rest of his life in prison. then he went to his truck to head over to kill the man who'd been seeing his wife.

jack sat in his truck, replaying the events in his head. how did i let them do this to me? how did i let them walk in and take my wife?

as he played things out in his mind, he was hit with a realization. if i kill this man and go to prison, it will justify their actions and beliefs. if i do this they win. they get to go on looking like they “rescued” my wife from me and i get to look like a psychopath.

jack went inside, put away his gun and called his family. though he'd been disconnected from them, they were happy to hear from him. his sister wired him money. it was time to go home.

jack was smart. he didn't say a word to anyone. he simply packed up his stuff and disappeared.

to this day, dana is still his one and only true love. but she is gone.

ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and this house just ain't no home
anytime she goes away ~bill withers

dude, i love you man.

***************

beneath the city two hearts beat
soul engines running through a night so tender
in a bedroom locked
in whispers of soft refusal
and then surrender

in the tunnels uptown
the rat's own dream guns him down
as shots echo down them hallways in the night
…
outside the street's on fire
in a real death waltz
between what's flesh and what's fantasy
and the poets down here
don't write nothing at all
they just stand back and let it all be

and in the quick of the night
they reach for their moment
and try to make an honest stand
but they wind up wounded
not even dead
tonight in jungleland ~bruce springsteen


the living room and kitchen were surrealistically bright from the arizona sun that passed through the windows. and although an air of nervousness also filled the rooms of our house, my wife and daughter were there. i had an opportunity that jack never had. i could talk to my wife, look her in the eyes, touch her. i could try to convince her to leave this place of wrath. i could share a vision of a free life, one that wouldn't be permeated with fear and anxiety. we could escape the drama, the constant life and death. this group, this lifestyle had torn us apart, i would tell her. we had lost ourselves. we had been stripped of any personal desire, passion, individuality. we had been beaten down like whores and turned out, devoid of humanity, constantly struggling, performing, in the hope that our actions would make us worthy recipients of a kind word, a smile, a gentle touch from our captors.

i, unlike jack, would tell my wife the truth i had discovered on a mountainside just a few nights ago...but not yet.




later that night, after we'd put roxanne to bed, we sat out back, facing the south, toward the distant santan mountains. they were there, but invisible to us, except in our collective imagination. behind us was the sliding glass door that led to our bedroom and our beautifully dressed king-sized bed. as we talked, i couldn't help but wonder whether we would end the night there, together. it would depend upon whether or not they had given her the green light.

the stars were overhead, exposing the inviting vastness of the universe, but they were were partially washed-out by a streetlight which hung overhead, in the distance, like an all-seeing eye or a spotlight, exposing us, making us vulnerable.

we talked about my first night out, when i was lost in the high desert...the coyotes. she told me how she'd lain awake in the bed behind us, our bed, knowing that i was lost, afraid i would never make it back.

she looked at me, silent, head slightly tilted, exposing her neck, as i told her of my experience. there was so much i couldn't say. i had thought about laying it all out, telling her that i had made a decision to leave, that we should pack up and leave together, tonight. but i also realized that she had been through too much already. i could tell that while i had been away she had been filled with fears and lies. she was obviously relieved that i'd come back. i feared that if i told her the truth, it would be too much for her, that it would push her over the edge.

so i stuck to lesser truths, or greater ones. i talked of my personal transformation. i told her about the courage i'd gained, about connecting with myself. i explained how i'd felt her presence. i talked about the value of being alone. there were parts i couldn't explain and there were those things that, when i put them into words, began to lose meaning. so i became silent.

she moved closer to me and placed her long, tan leg across my thigh. i put my arm around her and she placed her head on my shoulder. the light caused her profile to become a silhouette. i could make out the shape of her red lips, slightly parted as my hand drifted up and down her arm.

she looked up at me, into my eyes. i squeezed her more tightly. she held my eyes with hers. i moved my lips toward hers, then paused. i moved closer, within an inch or two. she closed her eyes. i paused again, intoxicated by her essence. i kissed her.

her skin was smooth and dark against the creme-colored sheets on our bed. we became wholly connected, body and spirit, weightless, as if we were floating through the night sky. we were enmeshed and enraptured, immersed in this moment, oblivious to all things past, unrelenting in a timeless embrace.

exhausted and energized, i gently stroked her hair as her rested head on my heart. we drifted off to sleep.

****************

my heart was beating furiously. i couldn't breath. i stopped and bent forward, trying to catch my breath. there were formless, clouds of blackness all around me and as i ran through them i was blinded by the darkness. shadowed figures loomed in the darkness, stepping into the gaps of grayish light between the dark clouds, reaching for me, then stepping back as if they were mysteriously forbidden from fully exposing themselves to the light.

i continued to run, trying to avoid the dark clouds and shadowed figures, running though the gaps of grayish light, an endless maze.

overhead, a football-shaped, metallic object floated, chasing me. in the middle of the football there was a round lens. the football-shaped metallic object would float through the tops of the dark clouds as it followed me, moving in and out of the clouds, disappearing and reappearing as it moved in and out of the light.

i had to get to the hispanic woman at the little grocery store. she was standing behind the counter, smiling, in a trance, eyes glazed over. i had left my gun on the shelf underneath the counter. i had to get my gun. i had to shoot the lens.

to avoid the lens, i dropped my right shoulder and plowed through the darkness, intent on leveling any shadowed figure i happened to encounter. meeting no resistance, i barreled through and out the other side of the dark cloud and losing my balance, i fell forward.

i awoke with a start. shadows on the ceiling. my beautiful wife lies beside me, her head still on my heart. she is on her side and the light is peeking through the blinds, illuminating the curve of her waist and hip. her leg is stretched across tops of my thighs and bent into a 'v' shape at knee, so that the tops of her red, painted toes rest against the outside of my upper calf.

she is resting peacefully, oblivious. i am awake.

i want to awaken her...to tell her everything. i want to allow her to continue sleeping. i want to cherish this moment. tomorrow, they will ask her about this night. they will want every detail. they will analyze and interpret everything that took place. she will tell them everything, because she believes it's the right thing to do. she will assign the victory to them. they will tell her their plan worked—that i had gone to the desert and found myself. they will not suspect that i have become an interloper.

it kills me to allow her to go back to them, to allow her to be subjected to their lies. they will continue to draw her in, while i, in turn, will wait for my opportunity to rescue her...rescue us. they will build her up, encourage her to continue the spiritual path that they dictate. this “victory” will galvanize her commitment to their doctrine. although it draws us closer tonight, it will ultimately be used to draw her further into their fold, to give them even more control.

they will claim to have saved our family. in time, they will use that power to tear us apart, again. they will say that they had worked miracles to bring us together and that i, being toxic, destroyed everything. they will point to all of the suffering my wife had endured, my absence while in the santan mountains, her fear that i would never return. they will claim that she had welcomed me home and into our bed, creating the perfect environment for me to “change.” they will tell her to be angry, unforgiving, claiming that she had done everything, sacrificed herself, her body, her spirit out of love for me...and that i had selfishly insulted her by returning to my spiritually destructive ways.

even as i lie awake, with my wife beside me, i know this will be their course of action. i don't know when it will happen, but i know that it will. it is their nature, their way.

i have to beat them at their game. i will be the perfect follower, giving testimony to the spiritual wisdom of bob and his wife. i will sit at their feet. i'll work even harder to add to their wealth. i'll jump through every hoop. still, i know it won't be enough. at some point, they will knock me down again. they will find some action, interpret some statement of mine, analyze my body language and determine that i have brought bad karma into the fold. most likely, they will experience a setback and blame it on me.

i know it will come; i just don't know when. but i will be vigilant. i will watch them, their mannerisms, their statements and body language. when i see it coming, i will flank them. i'll endure whatever i have to endure to rescue my family. i'll take whatever abuse they throw at me. rope-a-dope. i am no sociopath, but i will become one...at least for now. i have one advantage; without my family, i have nothing to lose.

but, there is one part that is nearly intolerable. after they fully draw in my wife, after they grant her reprieve, provide her with sweet sanctuary, they will try to take me down. when they fail, they will bludgeon her. they will strip her of everything they have given her. they will shove her overboard and ostracize her, watching her desperately struggle to stay afloat. she will be wounded, but not dead. and here's the rub: once they have beaten her down, when she is consumed with shame and fear, that's when i will finally be able to tell her the truth.

after they beat her within an inch of her life, rape her (but before they can demonize me and build her back up) i will intervene. that is the time when a cult victim is reachable. that is when i will talk to her about cults, how they operate, how this group meets every criteria of a dangerous and destructive cult. i will remind her of our years together. i will remind her of this night. i will tell her about the secret that i could not share with her even as i held her in my arms.

still, how could they do this to this loving, vulnerable young woman? how can i let it happen? it is only because i know that she they will continue to destroy her, over and over, as long as she stays. is there any way to spare her?

i look at the woman i love, head on my heart. i gently touch the angel's cheek. i can feel her breath on my chest. i am enchanted, anguished, liberated, imprisoned. holding her in my arms, i lie.

to be continued



* i think it's important to note that the atlanta director was an innocent. he was a victim just like jack and dana. his communication with jack was limited and censored by the powers in the program. he also believed that dana had ended the relationship without any prompting and without any hint of coercion, as did dana. he was certain that jack and dana's relationship was over for good, because that's what he'd been told. he was also encouraged to get involved with dana by the people who had “saved him from addiction” and guided him spiritually since his teenage years. there are other factors that absolve both dana and the atlanta director which i will not disclose in order to preserve their dignity.

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 8)

part 1 is here part 2 is here
part 3 is here part 4 is here
part 5 is here part 6 is here
part 7 is here


i stare at the naked eyes
and i hear the hollow, hungry cries
and the streets are full of empty energy
and naked eyes have never seen a dream, without eclipse
and the poet leans to kiss her lips
but his work is just a frozen tear
‘cause shell-shocked ears refuse to hear,
the cry

where do we go from here?
do we catch the wind and fly?
or do we dare to wonder why?
where do we go from here?
do we catch the wind and fly? ~seekingintongues (1984)
 
my red t-bird was beyond cool. i had showered and shaved at the residential facility. i knew where i was headed. i was driving fast, 90 plus, down a long two-lane stretch with hillcrests that make your stomach float. i had both windows all the way down; the wind was everywhere. i slipped in a cassette tape, “quadrophenia,” “the punk and the godfather.” stereo cranked, pete townshend was hammering out angry, distorted power-chords against drummer keith moon’s spastic, explosive attacks and entwistle’s ostinato. roger daltry revolted and raged, spitting lyrics in your face:

“you declared you would be three inches taller
you only became what we made you
thought you were chasing a destiny calling
you only earned what we gave you “

although no one else would know it for some time, i had, that morning, officially quit bob's cult.

it was the morning of the outpatient program's staff meeting and i was flying down the two lane road, heading to tempe to fill out the paperwork. this had been planned prior to my sabbatical, my journey to find my true sociopathic male self. since i would be coming into the office, i didn’t know if they would keep my wife from attending the meeting.

an hour ago, i had flipped the page and made a list.

1.       a gallon of gasoline
2.       two glass mason jars
3.       two rags
4.       pants, shoes, shirt—fished out of a dumpster
5.       a handgun
 
my plan was simple. i would fish some pants a shirt, and shoes out of a dumpster or “good-will” bin. using cash, i would purchase two empty mason jars from a grocery store. i would fill the jars with gasoline, while filling-up my car. then i’d seal the jars and place them in my trunk. later i would hide the jars of gas, shoes, clothes and rags near the elementary school between my house and bob’s. i had a cheap lock-blade pocket knife, the kind they sell out of clear plastic bulk bins on the sporting-goods counters at wal-mart and army surplus stores. i could use it to pierce the jars’ lids. this would allow me to soak the rags in gas and stuff them part way into the mason jars.

as i approached baseline road, i pressed the brake. i took a hard left and dialed down my car stereo.

over the previous year, i had often visited bob’s backyard zen garden late at night. usually afraid, my primary motivation lied in the hope that bob would come outside and sit beside me—that he would give me some words of encouragement, some cue, through his words and countenance, that he still loved me, that i wasn’t in line to be barreled…that i was safe. i lived about a mile from bob. on rollerblades, i could make the trip in just over 5 minutes.

i would wait until my wife was asleep, grab my lock-blade and my cheap unregistered .25 semi-automatic handgun and rollerblade to bob’s house, stopping along the way to pick up the gas-filled mason jars, clothes, and rags.

once i arrived at bob’s, i would enter the backyard through the gate on the side of his house. i would change clothes, prepare the jars and rags, and leave my shorts, t-shirt and rollerblades next to the 55 gallon rubbermaid trash can where he stored white sand for his garden…

the santan mountains were far behind me when i pulled into the outpatient parking lot on price road. i sat in my car as sleepy-eyed, wet-haired, teenage counselors congregated near the glass door, smoking and drinking coffee from styrofoam 7-11 cups. they were just getting started; i had already put in a full day.

i watched as they crushed out their smokes and piled through the door, shepherded by george's wife, muffy. i continued to smoke.

bob's’s rear, sliding-glass door would be unlocked. according to bob, they didn’t need to lock it; they didn’t invite trouble. i would invite myself.

they also slept with a heavy duty, industrial fan in their bedroom. this would serve two purposes. one, it would block out the sound of the sliding glass door. two, it would fan the flames.

i would walk into the their house, light the rags, enter their bedroom and smash the mason jars on the headboards inches above their heads. if either of them awoke, i would use the gun to keep them at bay. of course they would awake when the flames engulfed them, but it would be to late.

i would quickly remove my clothes and shoes. would throw them, along with the bag in which i’d carried my supplies and the generic pocket knife, into the fire. then i would walk out, slip on my shorts and shirt and rollerblade home.
i could be back in bed before the neighbors dialed 911.

i shut off my engine and headed across the parking lot, slamming the door behind me.

when i walked into the office, the staff meeting was in progress. it was the same scene i’d witnessed a hundred times—george sitting at the end of an oval of twenty or so staffers. this time, my wife sat at the opposite end. rachael sat next to her.

i scanned the room as i collected my paperwork.

although the scene was the same, i was watching through different eyes. george wasn’t laughing heartily, but nervously cackling. eyes were on him, not in anticipation of his wise words, but in fear, each pair studying him to determine where they stood. the playful banter among the young male staffers served as a nervous distraction. most of the females sat near george, smiling adoringly, awkwardly. they were stepford staffwives, gathered around 'the power.'--george’s girl’s, hoping to protect themselves by fawning over him, while he slipped-in sappy, self-righteous rhetoric in his faux-southern drawl.

my wife, at the far end, was alone...lost.

i was not to participate in the meeting, so i grabbed the papers. i could tell my wife was afraid. i stopped as i walked past her and leaned down. with my eyes shifted toward george, backing him down, i kissed her on the top of her head and whispered, “i’ll be home soon.” i headed to the back room to fill out the paperwork.

before i headed back to the desert, i stopped at a large grocery store and picked up two mason jars. i put them in my trunk with my journal, half carton of smokes, and bottles of water. i couldn’t shake the feel of the room—the outpatient staff meeting. unafraid, i was able to sense the anxiety of the others, including george.

i jammed down the two lane road toward my base and, eying the little grocery store where i had seen the woman, i hit the brakes and pulled into the parking lot. i needed a lighter.

the store was neatly packed with goods. canned foods, cereal boxes, flour, sugar, and cornmeal lined the shelves. in the rear there were refrigerated and frozen foods behind glass doors. at the end of one of the shelves, facing the entrance was a glass-doored refrigerator filled with bottles of green and orange colored mexican soft drinks, drinks i’d never tasted. just to the right of the entrance was a counter with a cash register, several types of mexican candy and gum, yellow, red and green phone cards with spanish writing on them and various brands of disposable lighters. cigarettes lined the wall behind the counter. the woman sat behind the counter. she was flipping through the arizona republic. joe arpaio’s picture was on the paper.

the woman looked up and smiled. “hello,” she said. “hola,” i responded.

as i moved to the rear of the store toward the refrigerated foods, i could hear bob's voice in my head. he was saying, “this is fvckin’ america; we speak fvckin’ english here.” how many times had i heard him make derogatory remarks about hispanics?

i grabbed an orange and white ½ gallon container of orange juice. i made my way down the aisle closest to the register, grabbed a small jar of instant coffee, and placed the orange juice and coffee on the counter. i thought i’d engage the woman in conversation. i wanted to know more about her. i had already created her back story in my mind, but wanted to see if it was accurate. did she and her family own this store as i had suspected? did she live with or near her family and extended family?

bob would have called her a “wetback” or “spic.” there was just a hint of an hispanic accent when she spoke. i doubted seriously that she was in the u.s. illegally, as bob might have proposed. i had doubted a lot of things bob had said. yet as i stood at the counter purchasing these items—i grabbed 2 childproof, mini bic lighters and laid them next to the juice and coffee—i realized that i had felt uneasy even about simply interacting with this hispanic woman, shopping at a mexican market, responding to her in spanish. how deep does it go? how much of my perception of others, of this world, has been formulated by the cult? where does it end and where do i begin?

she handed me my change. i declined the offer for a bag and, passing up the opportunity to engage the woman in conversation,i grabbed my 2 lighters and coffee with my left hand. with my right hand, i stuffed the carton of juice under my left arm. i headed for the door.

and all the good you've done
will soon get swept away.
you've begun to matter more
than the things you say~judas iscariot (from the broadway musical, jesus christ superstar)

when i arrived at the residential facility near the base of the santan mountains, i placed my orange juice in the refrigerator next to my unopened block of cheese. i put the coffee next to the bananas which, just ripened, had lost the last of their green shading. tonight i would end my fast. strangely, i had no hunger. eating would be an impassionate act of self-preservation…refueling.
 
the stars were overhead and the city lights below, as i sat, once again, on the northern slope. it had been about 24 hours since i had sat in this same spot and had first seriously entertained the thought of killing bob and his wife. after the staff meeting and grocery store, i had written in my journal, raked my zen garden, walked, run, and hiked. i had also done push-ups and sit-ups several times throughout the day. for the rest of my stay this behavior would be my routine. i would spend the bulk of my time exercising…exorcising.

i knew that i needed to return looking my best. i would have to con the conman, the big cheese, the man. i would have to con everyone. i needed to make them believe that i had found my “true sociopathic male self.” maybe i had.

i spent my time preparing physically, but also determining exactly how i would present myself. how will i carry myself? what will i say about my time away? how will i act toward bob…toward the others…my wife? these are the things i was contemplating, planning, on my third night out, as i sat on the northern slope, drifting in and out of awareness of my surroundings, millions of point of light, above and below.

i would love to say that i was steadfast, that once i had determined that i had been in a cult everything fell into place. that is not the case. though i was able to hold onto the truth in some regard, i continued to slip into and out of the cult mindset. this continued throughout the night, the week and the upcoming year, when i would finally rescue my family and leave. after we left phoenix, i would continue to float back into the cult mindset for several years.

in fact, it was the floating, slipping in and out of the cult mindset--the inability at times to determine which thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and ideals belonged to me, and which belonged to the cult--that, months later, caused me to make a critical mistake, which placed my family in immediate danger and caused me to be forced to undergo public humiliation.
 
children play with grown-up’s toys
and a grown-up man is just a boy
and he listens to a neon troubadour
and there are 30 silver pieces scattered, on the ground
and a gun explodes but makes no sound
another dream is dead
but no one turns his head, to hear
the cry

where do we go from here?
do we catch the wind and fly?
or do we dare to wonder why?
where do we go from here?
do we catch the wind and fly? ~seekingintongues (1984)
 
as i stood in the doorway of my daughter’s bedroom i watched her sleep. i was a few hours away from my upcoming meeting at bob’s house. as she slept, embracing kimberly, breathing, i fought off recurring thoughts of my daughter growing up calling some other man “daddy.” i realized it was unlikely that she’d have anything but a vague memory of me. i was heartbroken and afraid. i was also angry.

how could a person play games with someone’s life like this? someone's family? like a child tearing the wings off a bug, bob and his wife were willing and fully able to destroy the lives of others without emotion. my family could forever be destroyed and to bob and and his wifi, it would be just another day. they would eat lunch, shop, watch tv, laugh, sleep, cut coupons, and complain about taxes, while we were thrown onto complete shock, fear, and devastating, debilitating grief. they would not even stop for a moment to consider the impact this would have on my daughter’s future. the destruction they’d done with a few orders and phone calls, never leaving their kitchen table, would never enter their minds.

i walked back to the bedroom my wife and i shared and pushing aside the vertical blinds, stepped through the sliding glass door and into the wind. i let the wind flow over my body and looked up at the stars. these things, the wind and the stars comforted me. they gave me strength.

the next day, sitting at bob's kitchen table, bob started in. “you are completely fvcked up, he said. “and if you can’t see that you’re fvcked up, then you’re even more fvcked up than i thought.” he was seated at the kitchen table. hunched forward, left hand in his lap, with the other hand roughly parallel to his body, fingers slightly curved and his thumb angling back toward his opposite shoulder he was accenting his words by making a chopping motion.

his wife sat across from him. my wife had been strategically placed between the two of them, across from me, but close to bob's wife.

i fired back. “i’ll tell you what’s fvcked up…this whole place. this whole system. no one here is happy. everyone’s afraid of being the next one to get barreled…or shipped off to another city. we’re all afraid of you…”

he cut me off. “oh i get it,” he said. “seekingintongues is gonna stand up to bob… you gonna punk me out, is that what you think?” he went for pure power; didn’t even try to play along. i’ll have you in allentown before the sun goes down you piece-of-sh!t, broke d!ck motherfvcker!” his wife chimed in immediately, “and mrs. seeking will stay here with us, right mrs. seeking?” she gently touched my wife’s arm, reassuring her. i shifted my eyes toward my wife. she was nodding in agreement with bob's wife.

i knew i was beat.

how could i have expected her to hold up? she didn’t even know what i knew. she didn’t know anything about cults nor did she know she was in one. i had given her absolutely no indication of what i had realized during my time in the santan mountains…the change i’d experienced. no one knew that i had quit bob’s cult. i was on my own.

i spent the next couple hours listening to them explain exactly what was wrong with me and to what degree i had harmed them, my coworkers, the program, and my family. they told me that my wife wasn’t going to allow me to take her and my daughter down with me—that she had come too far. she was part of “the family” [their family] now. they would not allow me to harm her and her daughter.

i had lost this round. i wish i could say that i was strong enough to maintain my dignity, but i was not. i was frozen and hunched over, as they continued to tear into me.

they created a plan. i would make amends. my wife would keep an eye on me and report to them.
i’m not sure of all the details. i can’t remember the particulars of my spiritual infractions in this situation. they all, the emotional beatings, tend to run together.

it might have been that i was trying to destroy bob's wife, because i thought that she was interfering in my relationship with bob, the way my mother supposedly interfered in my relationship with my father. apparently, i still hadn’t dealt with all my “parent sh!t.”

the evidence that i was trying to destroy her was that bob, at a banquet, in front of hundreds of young people, parents, and community supporters, had referred to his wife as “the b!tch,” embarrassing her and everyone else in the room. his excuse was that he was “off balance,” because the microphone wasn’t working properly. since i had set up the pa system, it was my fault. i had unconsciously sabotaged the microphone, causing bob to be off balance and refer to his wife as “the bitch.”

i was too beat to point out the fact that bob frequently referred to his wife, his daughter and most other females as “the b!tch” when he was talking about them. i had lost my poise and was unable to remind him that he'd always taught us that we were each responsible for our own actions, that he had repeatedly told us that, “there are no victims, only volunteers.”

of course, none of these things applied to bob. when i had any type of problem; when my house was burglarized; when my coffee shop was burglarized; when my bike was stolen, it was my fault. i had invited these problems into my life. when bob faced adversity, it was our fault. he admitted that he too was a volunteer...in a sense. he had chosen to love us, even though we were weak. therefore, his decision to love had caused him to suffer from our bad karma.

maybe i was being confronted on this occasion because i was trying to overshadow george at the counselor training institute's graduation ceremony. this, of course, was part of a secret subconscious plot to take over the entire program.

bob had come to me minutes before i was to deliver a speech at the graduation. “brother,” he said, placing one hand on my shoulder and looking at the ground, the fingers of his other hand on his lips and curled on his chin. “i don’t know what’s got into george, but i need you to fix it.”

he went on to explain that george was in his hotel room throwing stuff and screaming. “he’s going absolutely crazy,” he said. he told me that george felt as though he wasn’t being properly recognized as the leader of the program. he wanted more public praise. he didn’t like the fact that the kids in the training class had designed t-shirts that said “seekingintongues’s kids,” instead of “george’s kids.”

“i’ll take care of it,” i said.

i made a few notes on the speech i had written. when george arrived and sat down at the head table, i delivered a speech praising him for everything he had done to create this wonderful environment that allowed the trainees to learn and grow. “without george, none of this could have happened,” i said. i invited everyone to applaud george. george was gleaming with pride.

but that wasn’t good enough for bob's wife. she wasn’t about to see her son-in-law share the spotlight with anyone. i had to be dealt with. i had to be put in my place, shown that i was less than george.

maybe it had to do with the time that i had placed the amplifier for the pa system under the table where i was sitting so that i could reach the volume knob in case it needed to be turned up or down. this act, according to bob's wife, who had complained because she felt it was in her way, proved that i “had to be in control of everything.”

it could have been any of these (or a number of my other sins) that brought on this confrontation. it doesn’t really matter. in retrospect, it was just more of the same, with but one important difference.

this confrontation had come when we were approaching a window in which i could talk to my wife openly for the first time in years. it would interrupt my ability to help her see that we were in a cult.
my mistake was in attempting to confront bob. somehow, i had slipped back into the belief that he actually cared about any of us. in my 'floating' episodes, i would often start to believe that bob was a loving messiah who had simply made mistakes. this was the reason i had thought i could confront him. it was the reason i’d told my wife my plan and asked her to back me. and although, standing in the doorway to my daughter’s room on the previous night, i had realized the bob and his wife had no love for me or anyone else. now, face to face with him, i went straight for his throat. my wife, my daughter and i would pay a hefty price.

it was hard to keep my head straight in this environment, the cult that is. it had been months since my time in the santan mountains. i had long since realized i was in a cult—that bob was a cult leader—but i had not fully come to terms with the impact that this organization had had on its members, my family included. i was focused on rescuing my wife and daughter, getting my family out in tact. however, i was still buying it to bob's “enthusiastic sobriety” approach to drug treatment.

as the young trainees came into arizona, i would become excited by their enthusiasm. they were looking forward to an opportunity to act on their commitment to help others. it was a commitment that i understood intimately. i taught the material as best i could. i also knew something wasn’t right.

i had seen the trainees as potential victims of bob’s cult, but did not fully understand the degree to which they had already been indoctrinated. when i taught classes and spoke with trainees individually, i tried to impress upon them the importance of getting out of smoke-filled program offices and meeting rooms and connecting with the world at large.

because of my duties, running the hospital-based programs, licensing, working with insurance companies, negotiating leases, i had been allowed to have some degree of contact with the world outside of the cult. i naively believed that these young trainees would be allowed the same opportunities. i believed that they would, with my input, take time to look at things from a different perspective.

i remember sitting, late at night, on the curb behind our coffee shop, talking with a young man. he was intelligent, creative, and articulate. he had shared with me some poetry and short stories he’d written. i was impressed by his sense of fashion, his style. he dressed in vintage clothing. a lime-colored bowling shirt, baggy flat-front dickies, a vintage straight-cut leather coat and dress shoes. his hair was short. he had an urban look which was true to his hispanic, inner-city roots. he was friendly, outgoing, and a good dancer. he was loved by all the other older-group kids, and always had a smile on his face. for some reason he had asked me to be his sponsor. he was also the only person i had sponsored that george hadn’t instructed to drop me as a sponsor.

i sat with him that night and encouraged him to “consider other avenues,” aside from counselor training. he was not in the current training group, but had felt as though he was in line for the next training cycle. i also knew that, being hispanic, he could only rise so far in bob's organization.

it was one of those times that i had a higher degree of clarity. i remember explaining to him that this, the program, was just a microcosm of our society, our world. i told him that it would be a mistake to believe that everything begins and ends with this organization, with enthusiastic sobriety.

“orlando,” i said. “look at all these people here. how many of them are going to become counselors? how many will be directors? if that is the only meaningful path, then most of these folks’ recovery means nothing. most of the work done by the counselors and directors means nothing. you are clean and sober. you have overcome adversity. you have tremendous talent. don’t let anyone else define success for you.”

i was out on a limb and i knew it. i was so impressed by this young man, i couldn’t let it go. i still believed in enthusiastic sobriety. i still believed that, if it weren’t for bob’s need for ego gratification, the program, as it was, could do great things. i didn’t realize how far gone everyone was, myself included. i knew that one way or the other i wouldn’t be around much longer, but i didn’t know the degree to which enthusiastic sobriety was a path to the abyss.

orlando helped me come to terms with that. even as i was, at least on paper, the director of the counselor training program, i couldn’t stand the idea of seeing his potential squashed. i couldn’t bear the idea of this guy giving up his creativity, his style, to become a cookie-cutter, wanna-be george. the thought of seeing him sitting in a staff meeting, alongside program-molded manboys, in the peanut gallery, mindlessly guffawing at george’s potty jokes; the thought seeing him laugh along with staff as they openly referred to him as “spic” or “wetback,” or seeing him abandon his self-expressive style in favor of round robin t-shirts that say “if you think your heart can take it, come fly with me,” or worse, one’s with confederate flags insensitively posted on the backside--these thoughts made me cringe.

so i continued. “for the last 8 months you’ve existed in an environment where becoming a counselor is equated with success, but let me tell you a secret you may not know…”

it was a secret that i have to believe lots of people knew, but no dared to talk about or even think about. i had thought about though. i had run it over and over in my head as i sat on the northern slope, beneath the starry sky on my third night in the santan mountains.

also, on this third night, i thought about my plot to kill bob. i thought about the staff meeting i’d witnessed earlier in the day day—the fear on the faces of the young men and women (kids really) on staff. would they be relieved or outraged when bob was gone...after i'd killed him?

i thought about my wife. what was she doing right now? was she able to sleep? was she hanging out with bob's wife and the other girls? what ideas were they putting into her head? i could tell when i had seen her earlier that day that she was not doing well. i could tell she was afraid. i wanted to comfort her. i wanted to hold her next to my heart and tell her that she needn’t be afraid, that the source of her fear was not within her, that it was strategically, methodically put there by bob and his wife.

i longed for her that night, as i looked up at the stars overhead, but knew that i couldn’t go to her. tears welled-up in my eyes and i, once again, thought about that night in michigan, years ago, when we’d stood together beside the lake, under the stars—the night i knew for sure that i would spend the rest of my life with her.

with the wind on my face, i could feel the cool, taught trails where the tears had run down my cheeks.

i prayed.

to be continued