blogging about recent ramtha litigation

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joe sz
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blogging about recent ramtha litigation

Unread post by joe sz »

just posted this rumi--nation ;-)
http://jszimhart.com/blog/rights_of_ramtha
For over a year now, the Ramtha organization and its leader JZ Knight have been embroiled in litigation with ex-members of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment over live-streamed videos that ex-members and others have posted on the Internet. The videos show JZ Knight as herself and in Ramtha character making crude and blasphemous remarks and appearing intoxicated with her devotee-students laughing and snickering while appearing intoxicated as well. Knight successfully sued ex-RSE members Virginia Coverdale and David McCarthy for posting the damaging, RSE-generated videos and has demanded that they retrieve and hand over or promise to destroy every last copy. Knight is currently suing a non-member, Glen Morgan of Evergreen Freedom Foundation, for posting the videos also, the difference being that Morgan never signed a CoP or Condition of Participation to not distribute Ramtha School “sacred” and secret teachings in any form. Morgan was never a student. As students, Coverdale and McCarthy signed the generic form claiming they had no idea what it covered at the time, but it held in court anyway. Morgan, on the other hand, is using the videos to expose disputed facts as a journalist under the fair use clause, the same way critics of Ramtha (like me) have over the decades without being sued. In fact, in McCarthy’s settlement, the Ramtha people signed an agreement that McCarthy could use any lawful means to express his criticism of the so-called “cult.” Part of the Morgan dispute is whether Morgan gained access to the videos legally and whether that matters

There, I said it—cult—that four letter word that Ramtha students hate because they say it is pejorative and does not represent their “experience.” Perhaps the term cult has no bearing on RSE one way or another—cult is a neutral term that has come to signify crazy or dangerous devotional behaviors. I generally throw the useless “c” word out when discussing groups like Ramtha. Calling a group a cult tells me nothing. It is like saying someone is in a car. So what? I want to know what kind of car, who is driving, is it stolen, are the occupants following regulations, do they have a license, are they intoxicated, who is packed in the back seat and are they in any danger because of the way the driver is handling the vehicle, etc.

The question is not about cult: Does JZ Knight and RSE represent a history of deceptive, self-deceptive, manipulative, crazy, and harmful behavior? The ex-members who have direct experience in the cult/car argue yes to all of the above. A prime example is JZ Knight’s ex-husband Jeffrey Knight who saw that RSE was harmful and called JZ a greedy fraud after he awakened from the Ramtha spell before he died in 1994.

Ramtha students have this vague vision of their “school” as the proper reconstruction of what Jesus (Yeshua, Joshua, Issa) the Christ actually did and taught 2000 years ago. The following is a recent quote from a current RSE member that represents what I have heard from RSE members for the past few decades:

“I personally don't want to have a repetition of what happened to Jesus' teachings where people who hadn't met him wrote the bible for their own ulterior motives and changed them throughout history to enslave and control people.

In the last 2000 years history took its horrific course because of the falsifying and alteration of Jesus' true life as an initiate, husband and father, and of his true teachings, and his true message, and nobody could really - afterwards - show the truth about him, his life, his teachings and message and/or set the record straight in these 2000 years.

Only in the last decades scrolls were found that were written by eye witnesses. Those written accounts show a very different story than what was passed down in history! But they are either ignored or rejected by Church and believers. And we know why!” (http://www.rse-newsletter.com/2014/05/r ... spaper-ad/)



The grandiosity implied by knowing that “history took its horrific course” because of someone falsifying some hidden thing Jesus did is pure New Age fantasy and a sad testimony to ignorance about history.

Of course, neither do we in this 21st century want anyone to misconstrue what Ramtha taught and did since JZ “Bennett” produced him after 1977. The student’s claims are ludicrous, as JZ Knight has been rewriting Ramtha’s history all along as evidenced by her 1987 book State of Mind, the sudden appearance of new teachings around 1988 centered on blindfolding and hyperventilation, and some lame, apparent rip off of Buddhist teaching when JZ as Ramtha introduced an ominous teaching about “the Void.” Now we have this dishonest historic spin on what drunken Judy/Ramtha really meant in those live-streamed videos: Judy was merely being satirical! How dim does she think we are? Apparently not as dimwitted as the local Democrats that bought her rationalizations after Judy offered around $70,000 to the Party cause.

Already, in the mid-1980s, Ramtha was saying through Knight’s lips, “I am Christ for you in this age.” Knight and her minions have a particular hate for established Christianity, and more so despise the Roman Catholic tradition. The RSE pretends to be a “mystery school” or something akin to the legendary pre-Christian and Gnostic Christian initiatory cults that RSE claims represent the “lost” Christianity that the early Church leaders hijacked and changed.

The RSE writer I quoted indicated “scrolls”, most likely referencing the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea finds in the last century, and obviously not the seminal research and commentaries represented by scholars like Bart Erhman or Carl Raschke. Those scrolls, if you know anything about the scholarship surrounding them, do expand on what we know about primitive Christianity, but they do nothing to undermine the essential four or five strong traditions that became the Christian canon by the 4rth Century. The limited mindset of JZ Knight infects her devotees to a default position represented succinctly by the RSE member’s letter I am using here. That default position includes a naïve persecution complex:

'Another aspect is in my opinion, that this wonderful school is a true beacon of hope for this world because of Ramtha's teachings and because of the disciplines he has given us.

And those who have that experience have a right to relate that to their fellow human beings in our times without being burned at the stake.'



Nobody, including McCarthy, Coverdale, or me, is disputing this RSE member’s “rights” to be crazy on the streets with devotion to a channeled spirit, just as nobody disputes the rights of the Flat Earth Society or the Unarius Academy of Science to exist and meet freely as they still do to this day. RSE and Judy Knight have been babbling openly and secretly about Ramtha for over 35 years now with no government resistance, unless Judy did something like break the law by selling Arabian horses at inflated prices to her devotees using Ramtha’s endorsement.

What is at stake here is not rights but the duty to inform when one citizen notes that another is being fooled and manipulated and has evidence to prove it. If my mother or a friend were being recruited by the Unarians or the Flat Earthers, I would be duty bound, based on what I know and can teach, to have a serious if friendly discussion with them. Do I even have to say that this is not burning at the stake?

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

http://www.unarius.org/



The RSE persecution complex reminds me of a line from Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream:

The man says, “Get out of here
I’ll tear you limb from limb”
I said, “You know they refused Jesus, too”
He said, “You’re not Him
Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain’t your pop”
I decided to have him arrested
And I went looking for a cop

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/bob-dy ... z32fiDZvm2

That’s correct, JZ is not Him, and not by any stretch of the imagination is Ramtha, who is no Buddha or Zoroaster either. Ramtha’s handler (to me Ramtha is like a pet on a leash) is an aging psychic medium, one of many thousands that adopt the White Brotherhood milieu handed down by fading neo-Rosicrucian movements and sectarian Theosophists, one that has firmly testified that Ramtha is one of the “Council of Thirteen” of the White Brotherhood of Ascended Masters early in her career.

And you, the RSE students surmise that wounded and financially insecure ex-members and a few pastors are out to “break your bones,” so you go “looking for a cop” to remedy what Judy’s all-powerful and all-knowing yet thin-skinned mind puppet Ramtha can’t seem to control, namely JZ Knight’s offensive behavior.

I would say to the RSE members, no evidence of a secret, initiatory tradition was destroyed by early Christians, unless your “wisdom” is based on factually inaccurate Dan Brown novels like The Da Vinci Code. The Christian initiations were there in the open from the beginning as evidenced by the cults of the Eucharist and baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit and studying under the elders, as evidenced by the desert fathers that faced dark nights of the soul in their inner search for communion with God, and as evidenced by early monastic traditions among men and women in the church. The Gnostic movements hailed as “real Christianity” by so many New Agers, failed more so due to their radically dualistic myths and unstable governance. This is not to say that Gnostic sects were not persecuted by Romans and later by the established Roman church.



I mentioned Professor Carl Raschke above. He was featured on the 1988 20/20 television expose of Ramtha as an expert. Raschke stated that Judy Knight could be either a victim of some “deep force” within that she could not entirely control, or it could all be an act. RSE members would do well to read Raschke’s interesting and well-researched GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn (2008). In the least, a read of GloboChrist could bring them out of the RSE frog pond and into the academic ballpark on how to discuss Christianity when you actually know what you are talking about. And to get a clearer perspective on how primitive Christianity actually evolved, I suggest Professor Bart Ehrman’s lectures and books on Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002) as a start. You will learn why the creed of emergent Christianity became so paradoxical due to the challenges of adoptionists and Docetists, Gnostics and Marcion. Don’t go mentioning “scrolls” when you have no clear idea what they say or how they fit into history.



Judy Knight seems to have a particular vendetta against Virginia Coverdale who allegedly “stole her man” while Coverdale was yet in the group. That vendetta might be mutual as Coverdale quite boldly posted the damaging videos and other information about Judy Knight after breaking with the RSE. Of Coverdale, Judy stated:

“She’s somebody who wants to be famous and is a very jealous and envious, controlling person that thought they could make some money off of me,” she claims. “People who say those things, we are taught by the Ram, are really speaking about themselves, it’s the Jung concept of the shadow.”

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/i ... s.facebook

Beyond the obvious cheap shot using an ad hominem, Judy Knight’s rationalization could have come straight from Charles Manson. Take note and compare:

Manson

'I have killed no one and I have ordered no one to be killed. I may have implied on several occasions to several different people that I may have been Jesus Christ, but I haven't decided yet what I am or who I am. I was given a name and a number and I was put in a cell, and I have lived in a cell with a name and a number. I don't know who I am.

I am whoever you make me, but what you want is a fiend; you want a sadistic fiend because that is what you are.

You only reflect on me what you are inside of yourselves, because I don't care anything about any of you and I don't care what you do.

The Court: Anything further?

No. We're all our own prisons, we are each all our own wardens and we do our own time. I can't judge anyone else. What other people do is not really my affair unless they approach me with it.

Prison's in your mind ... Can't you see I'm free?' http://www.mansondirect.com/transa.html

Prison is just a state of mind? It is my experience, my perception and that is reality because I create my reality, says Manson. Sounds familiar if you grasp anything that Ramtha teaches through Knight's lips these past 38 years.
end
joe sz
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Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2008 2:43 am
Location: Birdsboro, PA
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Re: blogging about recent ramtha litigation

Unread post by joe sz »

addendum to my 'blog' above
add as second paragraph:
Coverdale disputes the judge's ruling, claiming that the evidence shows she "did not breach the contract." McCarthy signed a settlement but believes that he could have won the case had his health and finances held up. Both ex-members share a conviction that posting the videos in any form should be allowed under "fair use" clauses under freedom of speech. They have a point and a good one. These cases are not over because they hinge on a far larger discussion about morals, ethics, undue influence, and downright deceit when a psychic can claim to be sole owner of a god or a ghost and get away with it.
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David McCarthy
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Re: blogging about recent ramtha litigation

Unread post by David McCarthy »

Thank you Joe,
In fact, in McCarthy’s settlement, the Ramtha people signed an agreement that McCarthy could use any lawful means to express his criticism of the so-called “cult
If JZ Knight really wanted to test my 'lawful use', why did she want to settle out of court?
had his health and finances held up.
This is why I fully qualified as a legal aid recipient. NZ legal aid is not free,
it afforded me a Government loan to fund a lawyer. My cost to-date exceed $40.000.
Here’s a sequence of events that led to my agreement to the settlement offer that included a sworn affidavit to destroy all the videos(evidence) including the plaintiffs briefs (evidence), and promise not to release them again.
At first I refused.
My lawyer then notified the LSA in his opinion JZ Knight's settlement offer was reasonable :shock:
I then placed a complaint to the (LSA) alongside with a request for a replacement lawyer, he then quit.
Within days, I received a letter from the (LSA) of their intention to withdraw my support, they agreed with my lawyer the plaintiffs settlement offer was reasonable.
I was then left without a lawyer, no legal aid funding, weeks away from trial.
Essentially my hand was forced by my LSA lawyer and the LSA to settle.
Under NZ civil law, if you lose a lawsuit your assets and property could be seized to pay costs.
Our fight has now moved back to the US courts.
I will make all the relevant documents to the NZ case available on EMF ASAP.

David.

Related:
Judge Denies JZ Knight’s Request to Suppress Vulgar Videos |
http://www.myfreedomfoundation.com/blog ... -jz-knight
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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