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This is the story of my mother's attempt at having me deprogrammed. It is also a witness to the power of Archangel Michael, who personally rescued me. I want to share with you what happened and all that I learned from the ordeal, but before I begin I think it is necessary to give you a little background on my life both before and after I found the Teachings of the Ascended Masters.
My mother was the kind of person who cared for her children and wanted the best for them. But for whatever reason, she was not able to give me consistent discipline. This affected my sense of self-worth and made it hard for me to have self-discipline when I grew up.
My parents were divorced when I was about seven years old. We were living in Spain at the time and after the divorce my father left the country. When we finally moved back to the United States, I visited my father occasionally but never spent much time with him or really got to know him until I was in my teens. We became good friends and have maintained a close relationship to this day.
As a teenager, I began a serious quest for a path of Truth. I felt an emptiness within and a sense of hopelessness toward the world I saw around me. As I watched the Watergate trials on television, I thought about the fact that not only was our government corrupt but most of the adults I encountered operated on a very superficial level.
My soul longed for truth and reality. I did not want a mundane life with a nine-to-five job. I longed to live a life in which I could strive to become a better person. I wanted to do something to help others. I became depressed and felt totally lost.I longed for wholeness within and without. I longed for God.
In my search for Truth, I studied many spiritual teachings of the New Age movement. Since my mother also showed an interest in new ideas and spiritual teachings, I shared with her my discoveries. We maintained a rather liberal relationship as mother and daughter, and I looked at her more as a friend than a mother.
What I discovered about many of the New Age organizations I came across was that they built up the human ego. My mother was drawn to this type of philosophy but I could not respect it. And this is where we began going our separate ways.
Up until the time I found the Teachings of the Ascended Masters, I had never really held a job, as I didn't need to because I received a substantial income from my grandparents. During that period of my life I was free to go see my mother whenever she wanted and, for the most part, could be with her whenever she wanted to come and see me. I had no major commitments or responsibilities except those that I decided to create. I spent most of my time searching through New Age teachings.
Enter ... Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the Ascended Masters
In December of 1981, a friend told me about the Teachings of the Ascended Masters and Church Universal and Triumphant. I immediately decided to attend The Class of Elohim, which was held at Camelot, the Church headquarters in Malibu. I never left. Right after the conference I began Summit University. I completed Levels I, II and III and then joined staff in the audio-visual department in March of '83.
My soul was in bliss! Not only was I receiving the spiritual truths I had so longed for but I was also beginning to live a disciplined life-style as a staff member. I was joyous and felt good about myself. And in Mrs. Prophet I had found an example I could follow and respect. It was the example of Christ in her that I was so drawn to. Somehow I knew that through this woman I could find my own Christ-identity.
Mrs. Prophet's students, including myself, call her "Mother" because of her devotion to the flame of God as Mother. We use it as a title of respect similar to the Catholic "Reverend Mother."
Through Mother I was reintroduced to the Ascended Masters. I say "reintroduced" because I felt I had known them for many embodiments. Because of their recognizable dedication to truth, honor and goodness, I no longer felt depressed about the world I lived in. Somehow I knew these great beings oversaw mankind and directed them in many ways despite all the corruption and evil so apparent everywhere. Just their presence gave me peace, comfort and a sense of hope for all life.
At Camelot, I became a production assistant in the video department. I loved my work and I loved the idea that I was doing something to help the Brotherhood and ultimately all of mankind by getting the videos out to the world. For the first time in my life I felt I had a purpose.
Part of my job consisted of taking notes and changing tapes whenever we were recording Mother. So the busiest times for me were during conferences, which usually fell on holidays. I would rarely leave at those times to go and see my mother or any of my other relatives. My work meant more to me than anything because not only was it exciting - I got to hear all the teachings and dictations - but it was helping me gain a sense of worth and self-esteem. I was healing my soul. This, however, did not go over well with my mother.
When I began my commitment to Mother and the Church as a full-time staff member, I became less available to my mother. She began to get upset when I did not come home to see her for the holidays. The ironic thing is that she had never been big on holidays anyway. I think what really was bothering her was that I no longer chose to come whenever she wanted me. It was at this point that the tension in our relationship started to build.
Once when I did visit her she saw me reading a Keepers of the Flame lesson and asked to see it. When I told her she couldn't because she was not a member of the Keepers of the Flame Fraternity, she became so upset that she joined just so she could see what I was reading. When she came to see me at the Ashram of the World Mother in Los Angeles, where I was living at the time, she felt rejected because she was not allowed upstairs. (At the time there was a rule that no outside visitors were permitted upstairs.)
When one enters a spiritual community, one expects that there will be rules and regulations. To me it was perfectly natural. But to my mother, it was totally unacceptable.
I had been in the Teachings for nearly five years. We were in the process of moving our headquarters to Montana. Just before I was going to make the big move, I decided to spend Christmas with my mother in northern California.
The whole time I was there I noticed that she was acting a little strange. She was overly nice. She told me that she was arranging for someone to come and paint a portrait of her and all the children in the near future and she wanted to make sure I would come. Although I did not know it at the time, she was using this as a hook to get me to come back when she could arrange for the deprogrammers to be there.
I moved to Montana in January of 1987. I loved my new life at the ranch and I was happier than ever with my life on staff.
Then, on February 15, I received the following letter from my mother:
I had a very enlightening trip to Texas, and am in the midst of some major decisions. I have gotten agreement from the others, and am sending tickets to all, so that it will be easier for you to get here. This is the best schedule I could get and I trust you can make it work.
I am hoping to coordinate the painting preparation at the same time, and that may be possible. There is a time factor that I need to coordinate with Daddy before tax time, and felt that it would be better that we all meet here rather than go to Texas.
All is well. What a busy year this is turning out to be! I did have fun seeing the whooping cranes in Texas! Hope you are well - I miss you, and am anxious to hear about your Montana adventures.
Enclosed was a round trip ticket from Montana to California and a copy of a letter from my mother's tax attorney in which he told her she needed to bring all her five children together to discuss how certain new tax laws would affect her and any money her children might receive from her. He asked her to bring the children together so that he could discuss the issue with them. (The whole letter was a fraud.)
I think it's interesting that every letter I had ever received from my mother had always been signed "Mom." This was the first letter signed "Mother." During the deprogramming attempt I began to see how disturbed my mother was because she thought she was being displaced by Mother. This was a big issue with her.
The following day I called my mother to tell her that I was sensitive about discussing money issues with the family since in the past I had been looked down upon by various family members who thought I was giving all my money to the Church. I told my mother that whatever she decided to do with her money was fine with me and that I really didn't feel that I needed to be present for this meeting.
My mother became upset and asked me to reconsider because it meant a lot to her. I told her I would think about it and she said she would call me back the next day.
When she called the next day she was very emotional and said that she had had a bad dream during the night. She dreamed that she was hanging on to a train for her life and felt she could not hang on any longer. Then she told me that she thought she was preparing for her death.
She said that the real reason for getting us all together was that she wanted to be with all of her children together in one place just one more time. She said she felt that then she could let us all go. If I would just come for this visit, she would be satisfied. I told her I would think about it.
I think what got me was that Saint Germain had dictated the previous month and talked about how death had come knocking at Mother's door and how she had had to wrestle with it. Saint Germain said:
One must know that though death be predestined by your karma and your stars and may surround and grip you, predestination is not the law of Cosmos. Nay, the free will of the individual to overcome a predestination of karma and to rise again - this is the law of the Great White Brotherhood whereby we have defeated Death time and again.
Let the record be clear. As one has stood in your midst to defy the enemy, so when your hour does come, the full mantle of this experience may be upon you multiplying your Christhood. ... I say to you, begin now and cast out Death and Hell from your consciousness. ... Beloved hearts, you cannot have kept from you the testings of Death and Hell. You must be ready.
In the weeks that followed, Mother had given a series of teachings on not succumbing to the death entity. I thought my mother must be a victim of this death energy and I felt sorry for her. I decided to go see her not because I believed she was dying but because I thought she needed me to help her deal with the forces attacking her. I was coming to her as an assistant and a friend, as I had done so many times in the past. So on Tuesday evening, February 17, I called my mother to tell her that I would be coming.
On Thursday, February 19, at approximately 12:30 p.m. I arrived at the Eureka/Arcada airport, where I was greeted by my mother. The moment I saw her I got a funny feeling from her. I asked her where all my other brothers and sisters were and she said that my two sisters were in town shopping and that my brothers had not arrived yet. She seemed a little nervous.
When we had my bag, we got in her car and drove to her house in Mckindleyville, which is only about five minutes away from the airport. Aside from one house nearby, my mother's house is situated in a relatively isolated area. It is located at the end of a long driveway in a big field.
As we pulled up her driveway, I noticed that there were other vehicles in front of her house. However, I did not question this too much because the last time I had visited her she had had secretaries and yardmen working at the house. We sat in the car and talked for about ten minutes as I told her all about Montana and how much I loved it there. Finally we went in the house.
We went to a room in the back and she sat me in a chair and put my feet up, which I thought was strange. She asked me if I wanted a drink of water and I said no. She said she wanted one and left the room. When she came back she had a glass of wine and asked me if I would like a drink. She said that I might need one. Then she said, "Laurie, I have brought you home to stay. I will never let you go back. I will never let you go again."
As she spoke, I felt a great fear come over me. I was frightened because I knew that she had probably hired some deprogrammers. Suddenly I heard people moving around outside the room. I wanted to know what was going on out there so I told her I had to go to the bathroom. I got up and starting walking out of the room and my mother said that she would have to stay with me.
As I walked into the next room, I saw all kinds of people running around closing windows, guarding doors, et cetera. I walked into the bathroom and my mother accompanied me. I looked out the bathroom window and noticed a mean-looking lady sitting right outside the window.
I became more and more frightened and felt trapped. My mother proceeded to tell me that she had gone to great extent to do this. She said that she had hired three "counsellors" and some local people to be my bodyguards so that I could not get away. She told me that it was hard to get bodyguards for this kind of thing because nobody wanted to get involved in it. I asked her if the lady outside the window was a guard and she said yes.
She told me she was going to take me to a house in the mountains about an hour away. The reason for this was because she had been told that once the other members of my church found out that I was gone they would come looking for me. She said that she had been told that to attempt to deprogram me was a dangerous thing and that all the people involved knew that they were taking a risk. She also told me she had been planning this for six months.
Finally she said that it was time to go and she asked me if I would go voluntarily or if they would have to take other means. Because I did not want to be physically harmed, I told her that I would go voluntarily. I was feeling weak because I was tired from the trip and from not getting much sleep the night before. I also had a back injury that was causing me a lot of pain.
I did not feel that I was in any shape to physically fight off these people or to try to run at that moment. I also felt subdued by the feeling of imprisonment that these people had created all around me. It was terrifying. I decided to cooperate with them until I could think of what to do or until I knew I was strong enough to try and get away.
When I came out of the bathroom I was met by a muscular man who appeared to be in his twenties, two very masculine ladies and a woman by the name of Arlene Powers, whom I recognized as my mother's former secretary who had worked for her in Texas.
My mother and all these people escorted me to my mother's car. I was told to sit in the back seat of the car and my mother sat next to me. On my left there was no door, on my right was my mother, and in front of me was the muscular man, who drove the car. To his right sat Arlene Powers.
As we drove out of the garage, I noticed that there was a white car in front of us with the two masculine ladies who were to be my bodyguards. I found out later that their names were Cathy and Rachel. We followed the white car the whole way.
During the drive my mother kept reaching out her hand so that I would hold it. I was disgusted and revolted by her gesture and I just could not believe she was expecting me to be all lovey with her after what she was doing to me. Everyone in the car was silent the entire trip. I felt as if I were in some sort of nightmare. I could not believe this was happening to me.
About an hour later we arrived at an isolated house somewhere in the mountains. It was way out in the country, surrounded by many trees. There was hardly a house in sight. When we pulled in the driveway, I saw a big plastic bag over the mailbox. I was escorted into the house by all the people in my vehicle. As I was walking, I noticed a big river down the hill below the house.
At that point I was introduced to two of the deprogrammers - a fat man in his mid-forties named Bob, and a tall woman with dark curly hair who called herself Becky. When I asked them their last names they said that they would not tell me that right now.
I later learned that the man was Bob Brandyberry and that Becky's real name was Nan Henderson. She had been a member of my church at one time. "Becky" told me that this was the first time she had ever done this.
I asked them what they were planning to do with me and they said that they simply wanted to give me some information. I asked them how long it would take and they said that depended on me. I asked them if they could hold me as long as a year and Bob said, laughing, "I hope it doesn't take that long!"
I then told them that I did not want to hear their information and that it was not my freewill choice to be there. I told them that I was being held against my will and I demanded to be let go. They said that they would not let me go until they had delivered their information. They told me that it was their job and they intended to do it. I was still too weak to try to have any physical confrontation or to try and run for the door.
Because I felt so tired and my back was really hurting, I told them I needed to rest. I was escorted to a small bedroom, where I was left alone. I could hear everybody bustling around the house and talking about me. I also heard people outside barring my window.
I was nervous and couldn't sleep. I lay in the bed wondering what to expect. I made fervent calls to Archangel Michael and then I remembered I had with me my little tape recorder and headphones and the Archangel Michael Rosary. So I hid it under my covers and gave it quietly in its entirety. I was able to give this rosary two times in the three days that I was held captive.
A couple of hours later I walked into the main room to get a glass of water. It was just getting dark outside. I saw the image of a man on the porch. As he turned toward me our eyes met and I knew this was truly my enemy.
This man was going to be my greatest challenge. He walked in and extended his hand to me and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. He was the most void-of-light person I had ever seen and his face conveyed so much hatred. This was my first encounter with Joseph Szimhart, the "expert" on Church Universal and Triumphant.
Joseph began to tell me about himself. I interrupted him and said, "You are all holding me against my free will and I demand to be let go. I want no part of this." Again they said they were just going to give me some information, and I said I didn't want it. They said they were going to give it to me anyway. Joe began asking me about my work in the Church. I did not answer his questions. They all began talking back and forth and then my mother demanded that I participate.
Bob told my mother not to worry because even if it wasn't the most pleasant way, they could still do their work of drilling the information into my head. He told her my subconscious would be taking it all in and at some point I would break.
So they began having dialogues with each other. Joe was sarcastic and hateful. They made fun of Mother and the Ascended Masters and anything about our church they could think of. This went on for about an hour, at which point I got up to go into the bathroom. I noticed one of the lady bodyguards standing outside the window while I was in there.
My first reaction to this entire situation was to try and outsmart all these people. I could tell by certain things that were said that they thought I was just a young, naive, happy-go-lucky person who was controlled by a cult. So the first thing I tried was to play that role so that they would never know what I was really thinking.
I felt it was important to never let them know where I was coming from. I noticed that if I just sort of laughed with them and acted a little bit interested, the energy in the room would lighten up considerably. The deprogrammers would not be so intense.
I thought that by acting this way I could eventually make them think that I would never go back to the Church and then when they released me I could go back home. I also thought that if I could make them think I was really interested in what they were saying, they would be unprepared when I tried to escape and therefore I would succeed. By 10:30 p.m. on Thursday night I had been listening to them talk back and forth for about three hours. I was exhausted and I kept nodding out in my chair, so finally they said I could go to bed.
On Friday morning they began by showing some videos. The first video was on Jim Jones. It showed how crazed he was and how he was responsible for taking the lives of everyone in his community. The anti-cult movement loves to compare Mother and the Church to Jim Jones, but anyone who has ever met Mother or visited our community knows how absurd such a comparison is.
The next video I remember was about the Rajneesh community. It showed all their strange sexual rituals. The whole thing was wild and chaotic. Then we watched The Wave, which is a true story about a teacher who demonstrated how he could control his students and make them do as he pleased. They also showed me several videos about Hitler and the Nazis and about totalitarian movements.
When the deprogrammers first began that morning, they did not discuss my church or me personally. Initially, their whole tactic was to get me to make my own comparison between the groups depicted in the videos and my church. That first day I managed to laugh with them and seem interested in what they were trying to show me, as I had planned. It was not too hard to maintain my act at that point since they were not really directly discussing me or the Church.
Bob Brandyberry was the one who had brought all the videos. He had been a member of the Unification Church at one time and often referred to the "Moonies" during our sessions. Nan Henderson's role was to play up Bob and Joseph. As they would speak, giving all their facts and logic, she would ask them questions that she thought might interest me. She would often say things like, "You guys are so loving for trying to help Laurie and give her all this information."
By Friday evening my attitude about how I was going to interact with this group had changed quite a bit. I had become exhausted, disgusted and angry at what they were trying to do to me. I had had enough of their nonsense and I didn't want to play games with them or give them any more of my energy at all.
I began to realize that trying to play a game with them wasn't going to work so I decided to take a stand and show a little more of my true colors. I was actually quite amazed at how I suddenly felt the great presence of El Morya and the Masters when I did finally take a firm stand.
This was a great lesson to me and it made me think about Sir Thomas More and other true saints who had taken their stand against the forces of Darkness. I am sure it wasn't easy for them and it brought much pain and suffering, but I know that they must have been greatly strengthened by the presence of God with them.
It would have been easier for these great souls to compromise and save their skins, but their love for God and the Truth was greater. They had to stand for what was right and there was no sense in trying to trick the enemy. In the end, God will always be the judge.
This experience taught me that the Masters cannot place on us their full mantle of power and protection until we take our stand for Truth with fearlessness in the face of Evil. I cannot compare myself to Sir Thomas More and the other saints who died at the hands of evil forces but my experience gave me a small taste of what they must have felt.
That evening when I came out of my room, the deprogrammers all noticed the change in me. I was very serious. From that point on, I didn't speak to them or engage with them in any way and I kept my head bowed down so that I wouldn't have to see the videos.
The deprogrammers became much more intense with me. They yelled at me and accused me of being a manipulator. They said to my mother, "See, this is how we were expecting her to act from the beginning! This is more like it. This is the normal way a brainwashed person reacts to us."
My mother tried to talk to me. When I did not respond she became really angry. The thing that seemed to disturb my mother the most was that she thought that I had left home to go search for a different mother figure. In one sense she was right but what she failed to understand was that I was searching for the example of Christ, not a new human mother. I wanted a teacher and a Guru who could show me the way back to God.
My mother had so much guilt about the fact that she was not a good mother that she could not see that this deprogramming she had arranged was really an attempt to assassinate my soul. All she wanted was to force me to leave the Church and come back home to her.
Cathy, one of the lady bodyguards, asked the group if she could take me on a walk and they consented. We went down by the river and she became very sympathetic with me. She told me she knew that I was upset and that she never really wanted to do this.
Cathy confided that the only reason she had agreed to participate was because she was a good friend of my mother. She told me that my mother's parents and some of my brothers and sisters were behind this. Cathy had heard someone saying that if I did not come on this visit to my mother's house they would have to come to Montana to get me.
She told me that when I absolutely could not take it anymore I should let her know and she would try to speak to my mother. However, I knew that the deprogrammers had a lot more influence with my mother than she did. I did not know if I should trust Cathy but I decided to think about what she had said.
It began to get quite dark outside so Cathy said that she would take me back to the house. I considered trying to run as we were walking back. I began looking around for lights coming from houses so that I could see which way to run. The only lights that I could see, however, were coming from a house across the river. It was too dark to try and swim the river but I decided that this was the house that I would go for when I did get the opportunity.
When we returned from the walk, the deprogrammers were anxious to talk to me more. Joseph was quite irritated with me and accused me of being a spoiled brat for not participating in their discussions about my church. I went in my room to lie down because I was frightened and I wanted to be left alone.
My mother came in and said that she was sick and tired of me acting this way. She said that if I did not come back into the main room, they would carry me in. I told her that I would go if she would let me talk to Cathy alone for a minute.
Cathy came in the room and I told her that I could not take it any longer. She said I had to try. She did not keep her word and try to persuade my mother to let me go.
I went back into the main room and they kept me up till midnight. My mother threatened to hide me out for months so that my friends could not find me. She said that she would even hide me in Europe if necessary. She warned that she would go as far as selling her house in California to move somewhere else so that nobody would ever be able to find me.
This concerned me greatly. My mother and these deprogrammers were denying my rights as an adult in society. They were holding me prisoner against my will and now my mother was telling me that she would hide me for months and even take me to Europe. I knew she had the funds to do it if she wanted to. I became more and more desperate to escape.
After I went to bed I heard the deprogrammers rebuking Cathy. They told her that she could not be sympathetic with me anymore. That night as I lay in my bed I was able to do the Archangel Michael Rosary for the second and last time.
On Saturday, February 21, I was awakened at 7 a.m. and brought into the main room for a full day of hearing my church compared to Hitler's regime and other organizations. The deprogrammers showed me more videos. I noticed that since my attitude had changed they were much more alert about guarding me and they watched my every move. I didn't get the opportunity to try and run that day.
They began directly attacking Mother. Usually the main target of attack for a deprogrammer is the leader of the organization in question. Joseph told me that he had been a member of the Church for a short time many years ago. He showed great hatred toward Mother even though he had never actually met her.
He often accused her of being a fraud. He said that she made up the teachings she delivered and that she did not come from God. He even went so far as to try to discredit her by telling me about her sexual habits, which he claimed to know about.
They will use whatever tactic they can to destroy your image of your Guru. Joseph was extremely egotistical. He really believed he was the final word on this entire matter.
But I had been a member of the Church for over five years and had worked closely with Mother and her children. So I recognized most of his information as being inaccurate or twisted. It was obvious to me that he was misinformed.
For example, Joseph would talk about the "double standard" in effect at the Church. He said there was one standard for the co-workers and another for Mother and her family. Since I had spent a lot of time with Mother and her children, I knew that they lived by the same rules as the rest of the community.
I had seen how in some cases Mother even expects more from her own children than from the staff. But I could see what a burden this part of the deprogramming session might be upon someone who had not had much direct contact with Mother.
In looking back on my experience with the deprogrammers, I always feel the wrath of God when I think how they tried so hard to destroy my Guru/chela relationship with Mother. As we know, the path of God is a mystery. Even the disciple does not always understand the initiations and the mysteries of the Path. This is why a deprogramming can be so dangerous to the delicate soul who is new to that Path.
Imagine if Milarepa's sympathetic mother had hired deprogrammers right when he was in the throes of his initiations of building and rebuilding houses under his guru, Marpa. The deprogrammers would have had a lot to say about how terrible his teacher was and how he took advantage of Milarepa for his own gain.
They would have talked about how his teacher was just a mean old man with an alcohol problem who really didn't care about anybody. They could have spoken about Milarepa's food deprivation and the sores on his back and the way he was treated and spoken to. The deprogrammers will always think they have everything all figured out with their human minds and carnal logic.
But what was really going on? Milarepa was gaining the victory of his soul as it applied to his karma. The process was a mystery even to him and there were times when he had doubts. So how could he have explained it to another?
How could he have explained that he was simply following his heart? From all outer appearances, he looked like a fool. What would have happened to Milarepa had a group of individuals kidnapped him and tried to tell him that what he was doing was wrong?
Fortunately, the initiations we undergo in the Teachings are not as radical as those Milarepa had to go through. Nonetheless, we still have our initiations, which enable us to be engaged in the process of battling with our karma - all with the loving care and assistance of the Guru, who has such great insight into our souls.
Our Guru El Morya, who overshadows Mother, is actually a Zen Master. Mother once told me that his disciplines are specifically calculated to defy the reasoning mind so that the chela will have to develop his heart chakra and approach the path of discipleship with the discipline of the heart and the wisdom of the heart. El Morya separates the sheep from the goats by giving his chelas disciplines that are like Zen koans. It is something like the Gordian knot. If you can't undo the knot, or the koan - if you can't figure it out with the logic of the mind - you just have to take a knife and cut right through!
Those who have the love of the Guru in their hearts thrive under this type of discipline. Those who do not leave in anger with a great sense of injustice because they believe their egos have been insulted.
This kind of training quickly brings you close to your own Holy Christ Self. And the proximity of your Holy Christ Self gives you more discrimination and discernment every day until the Path is no longer a puzzlement, because you have walked through the labyrinth of the puzzle of your own karma and finally come out the other side, where you see the Master's smiling face.
The interesting thing is that when the deprogrammers were pounding all their information about Mother into my head - even though I knew what their intention was and even though I knew they were focusing on the negative and twisting the truth - I noticed that my mind needed to consciously deal with the information they were feeding me. I don't think it's possible to just shut it all out because it does go into the subconscious.
What I found I had to do just to keep my sanity was to process the information in my mind as it was presented. I had to sort each piece of information so that the seeds of doubt they were trying to plant could never take root and grow.
For example, if they said something that I knew for a fact was not true, then I could disregard it. If they discussed something that happened before my time in the Church, I would file it in my mind under "Unknown - can be checked out later." If they said something that was taken out of context or twisted, I could file that away under "Based on truth - blown out of proportion."
This is why the deprogramming experience is so tiring. Your mind is working all the time to process the information even though you know ahead of time that their intention is to destroy the image of the Messenger.
The deprogrammers really do try to mess with your mind. It's important to never let the "facts" they are delivering to you create any feelings of doubt because this is what they want and this is what will make you more vulnerable to them. You have to constantly battle with your own mind to stay on top of it all.
Another thing that happened on Saturday was that my mother became much more involved in the sessions. Instead of me being "deprogrammed," my mother was being "programmed"! She would listen to all the horrible things they would say about Mother and then exclaim, "That's just terrible!" The more they would feed her, the angrier she would get.
So, even if you survive the trauma of a deprogramming, your parents won't! Parents will never be the same after hearing all the negative information.
In my case, my relationship with my mother was permanently destroyed. Everything she "learned" about Mother and the Church will always block us from having any kind of a normal relationship. To this day, she has never met my children, who are now one and three years old. We never even speak, thanks to Joseph Szimhart, who claims he was trying to bring us together.
By 10 p.m. Saturday evening I was exhausted and so I just got up from one of the sessions and laid down in my room in spite of what they thought about it. Instead of moving me back to the main room, they all came in my room with the TV and VCR - making a total of eight adults in that little room. It was intrusive and disturbing, which is exactly what they were trying to be.
The worst part about it was that they acted like a bunch of juvenile delinquents at a party. As they showed more of their videos, they would laugh and carry on with each other and make fun of Mother and anything else about our church they could think of. They acted wild and drunk.
I continued to lie quietly in my bed with my eyes closed. I felt as if I were in an astral pit filled with a terrible death vibration. It was like being in a nightmare.
Finally, after about an hour and a half of this, I got up and went into the bathroom, which caused them all to scurry around to take their positions. Then I sat outside in the main room. Since they had their whole set-up in my room, they decided to call it quits for the night. They moved everything out of my room, at which point I went to bed and tried to sleep.
On Sunday morning I heard Arlene, my mother's friend, come into my room and go over to my mother, who slept in the same room. She whispered to her that the plan for that day was for the deprogrammers to come into my room and "invade my space" and then continue to pound information into my head. I decided to get up and go into the bathroom so that I wouldn't be in the room when they "invaded."
When I came out the beds had been moved out of my room and replaced with chairs and the TV and VCR. While they were moving my bed they found my Archangel Michael Rosary cassette in the tape recorder under the covers.
My mother made some comment to the effect that she could not believe that after all this I would dare to still listen to that tape. Joseph told her that I was just getting a "fix" of the brainwashing so I could maintain my position against them. After breakfast they demanded that I go into the little room.
The session began with "Becky" (Nan Henderson) confessing that she had been a member of our church for ten years. She went into a long story of how she had gotten romantically involved with a man and all the things that happened and how she was eventually asked to leave. She told me that Becky was not her real name and that she wanted me to hear her story because she had to leave that day and she felt that this would be her final effort to convince me that I was a member of a destructive cult.
After Nan had emotionally completed her story she left the room, and Joseph and Bob began showing me a video about a guy who was psychotic. It seemed he was a member of our church but he obviously had a lot of problems. The whole video focused on Joseph interviewing this guy, whose name was David. In the video David tells Joseph that he is not really a man but a lady. He begins to tell a bizarre story about how he had gone under the world and "they" had made his body into a woman's body.
David had a harelip, which along with his sincerity and feminine way of speaking, made him appear almost humorous. According to his parents, who were also interviewed on the video, he had been a perfectly normal guy until he had come into the Teachings. He had been very masculine and was a member of the National Guard.
The point of showing me the video was to convince me that the Teachings can psychologically mess up an individual. In the five years I had been in the Teachings, not only had I never heard of David, but I had never seen the Teachings have anything but a positive effect on people.
At 12:30 p.m. they allowed me to eat some lunch in the main room. I looked out the window and I noticed that Cathy and the other bodyguard were driving away in my mother's car. I thought to myself that this was the opportunity that I had been waiting for.
I wanted to see who was guarding me, so I walked toward the door and my mother stood in front of it. All the deprogrammers in the room were watching me. When I went in the bathroom and looked out the window, I noticed my mother standing guard. I went back in the little bedroom with the deprogrammers once again because I wanted to try my escape in a moment when I would catch everybody off guard. I decided that before I would attempt to run I would try to get permission to speak to my father.
Within ten minutes after sitting back down in that little room with the deprogrammers, I became charged with adrenaline. During those three days I always wore my jeans and tennis shoes and I had my passport, plane ticket and some money in my pocket in case I got a chance to escape. I knew the time had come.
I got out of my chair and walked into the main room, where I looked at my mother straight in the eye and said to her, "I demand to speak to my father!" She said she would think about it. I then demanded again and she said no, so I ran for the glass door.
I heard a voice in my head say: "Run for your life!" I quickly unlocked the door and ran as fast as I could down a long rocky pathway toward the river. When I reached the edge, I got into the water until it was up to my knees. As I was trying to decide if I should really swim across, I turned around and saw Joseph standing right behind me. He said, "I'm not going to let you go, baby!"
Out of desperation to get away from him, I jumped in the river and began to yell for help as loud as I could, not because I was drowning but because I wanted to get attention from someone - anyone. As I attempted to swim, I started drifting down the river.
I noticed that Joseph was running alongside the river and I saw him turn toward the house and yell for inner tubes. Another man had appeared from a house around the bend on the same side of the river. He was running in front of Joseph alongside the river with his dog. He was shouting something to me that I could not hear.
The undercurrents of the river began to feel very strong. I was out of breath from screaming, which had taken all my energy. I was not sure if I could make it across the river but since Joseph was still running along the side of the river I knew I had to try to get to the other side. The water was very cold and I felt exhausted and afraid as I fought the powerful currents that were working against me. For a moment I was certain that I was going to drown.
I remember feeling angry at all the people involved in the kidnapping for causing me to die this way. I was afraid of what the water would feel like in my lungs. I shouted to Archangel Michael to help me. All of a sudden, it felt like the current changed. Miraculously I found myself on the other side of the river. I spent the last bit of energy I could muster to grab on to a rock. I just kept thanking God over and over again.
I was so exhausted and so cold from the water that I could not pull myself out of the river. When I looked over to the other side I saw that Joseph was being pulled out of the water by the man with the dog. At some point he must have jumped into the water. He never made it across.
I still did not feel safe from my mother and these people and I wanted to get out of sight. I was certain that they would be driving around looking for me. I finally summoned the strength to pull myself out of the river.
There was a steep hill before me and I decided to try and climb it so that I could find somebody and get help. I kept asking God to help me get up the hill. It took me about fifteen minutes to crawl up that hill but as I got to the top I could see the sun shining over the top into my face and it was an exhilarating experience. I just kept thinking, "I am free!" When I came over the top I saw a house.
I stumbled over to the house, knocked on the door and asked the lady who answered if I could use the phone. She let me in but when I tried the phone I could not place a call. Another lady in the house told me that there had been a problem with the phones in the whole area all day.
I then told these ladies that I had been kidnapped and that I had jumped into the river to escape. I told them that the people who had kidnapped me were probably looking for me. I asked them if they could please give me a ride into town.
They told me that everything in town was closed and that I would be better off hiding at their house for a little while. I began to feel sick and my head was spinning from the cold water so I sat down to think about what to do.
Within ten minutes three police arrived at the door and I told them that I had been kidnapped by my mother and some other people and that I had jumped into the river to escape. One of the police scratched his head and told me that he was confused. He said that he had been flagged down by my mother on the road, who had been driving around looking for me but could not find me.
In desperation, she had told this officer that we had been staying in a summer home across the river. She said I was psychologically disturbed and that I had run out of the house hysterical and jumped in the river. She warned him that I would probably be violent when he found me. The officer saw that I was perfectly sane and that our stories did not match.
I asked the officer if there were any chance that he would turn me back over to my mother. He asked my age and when I told him that I was twenty-eight, he said that he could not because I was legally an adult and had the right to do what I wanted.
Shortly after I had told this officer what had happened, the deputy sheriff, Kevin Christi, walked in the house. I told him the story and he realized that I had been a victim of a crime. He immediately sent the three other officers to the house where the deprogrammers were for questioning and police reports.
While I warmed up by the fire, Christi continued questioning me. I showed him my passport for identification as well as my round-trip ticket that my mother had sent me. When my clothes were dry, Christi told me we were going to go back to the house where my mother and the deprogrammers were so that I could get my things. I was concerned about going back to the house but he assured me that there was no way he would turn me back over to them.
On our way there, we went through the little town of Willow Creek and I saw Bob Brandyberry crossing the street. I told the sheriff and he stopped the car and questioned him and then took him with us back to the house.
When we arrived at the house, there were about four police vehicles there. I told the sheriff that I did not want to see or be near the deprogrammers or my mother. He said that I could wait in the car. He got out and started talking to some of the other officers.
To this day, I wish I had gone in the house escorted by the officers just to see the look on their faces. But at the time I was still in shock and all I wanted to do was to get as far away from that group as I could.
A detective came over to the car to question me. The first thing he said he wanted to know, just for curiosity, was whether the Church I was in controlled my diet. He asked me what kind of things I could eat. He then asked me if people could come visit me and if I could date.
I answered all the questions to his satisfaction but it clued me into what the deprogrammers had been telling him. When the detective was finished asking me questions, Christi got my things from the house and we went to a station nearby, where I had to give my story one more time on tape for the record.
At the time, Mother was on the platform delivering a lecture in Minneapolis, so I called Edward Francis, Mother's husband and the Church vice president, and told him what had happened. He arranged to get me home, as I had already missed my return flight.
One of the officers said that I could stay at his house with his family about a mile away if I wanted and I gladly accepted. He said that he had to go into Eureka in the morning and that he would give me a ride to the airport. I was happy about this because my mother lives so close to the airport and I was concerned that she and the deprogrammers would try and stop me from getting on the plane. I felt safe with this officer.
The following day the officer drove me to the airport and we saw no signs of my mother or the deprogrammers. I changed planes in Salt Lake, where Edward had arranged that I meet up with Mother, who was flying home from Minneapolis.
When I saw her at the airport we ran towards each other with tears in our eyes as we gave each other a big hug, overjoyed to be reunited. At last I had made it back into the arms of my beloved Guru and friend.
It was a great moment of celebration of my victory over these dark forces. I wanted to weep for the hatred this woman bears from the anti-cult movement. I told her the whole story from beginning to end as we flew home together.
A few days later Cathy, the bodyguard, phoned me to apologize for ever being involved in my attempted deprogramming. She said that they had told her it would be a loving experience but she had realized while she was in that cabin how hateful these people really were. She said she could not believe how horrible the videos were. When she had returned to the cabin, my mother had become furious with her for leaving and blamed her for my escape.
The most interesting thing, however, was Joseph's comment that some power must have protected me - otherwise I could not have made my escape the way I did. Joseph said that he had never seen anybody take off as fast as I had and that when I moved across those rocks by the river it was as if I were flying.
Praise God for Archangel Michael, who carried me in his wings to my freedom! He had the power to intercede for me because I had given his rosary twice and had prayed to him so fervently. Archangel Michael was so present that even Joseph Szimhart realized that there was a greater power involved in my escape.
Later I tried to press charges because I really wanted to see the deprogrammers stopped. I did not want to see someone else go through what I had gone through. But the district attorney refused to prosecute the case because it was a "family matter."
Six months after the deprogramming attempt I was married and I now have two beautiful children. I am grateful I survived my ordeal so that I could enjoy these precious little ones.
I have a good relationship with my father and his wife and they are supportive of whatever path I choose for my life. But I haven't had any relationship with my mother since the deprogramming.
The last thing I wish to express is how grateful I am to Mother and the Ascended Masters, who not only provide us with the teachings to be the Christ but who also give us the keys with which we can heal our psychology and the inner child of the past.
Lanello, Mother and the Masters,