Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 43
Location: Yelm
Common Ground July 1995 Vol.X No 1. Part 1 of 2
Here's the article printed in the now defunct Common Ground newspaper - July 1995.
A rare case of investigative journalism of RSE.
Although it is pre RSE ‘wine ceremony abuse days’.
John Cruncher’s reporting is the most accurate and honest description of the workings of RSE I have ever read.
The article was also published in Spectrum magazine (USA).
Thank you Joe’
David.
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Common Ground July 1995 Vol.X No 1.
Part 1 of 2
By John Crutcher.
RAMTHA The Enlightened One’
Common Ground takes an in-depth look at the controversial 35,000-year-old teacher and the woman who channels him.
Few people living in the Pacific Northwest have not heard of Ramtha. Like the Space Needle, he has become a fixture upon the diverse, futuristic, and stubbornly alternative landscape of Bastyr, grunge, and the New Age. And few have not been aware of the cloud of controversy that has swirled about him over the years: the apocalyptic teachings, the accusations of fraud, the infamous divorce trial.
But in recent years, things have been pretty quiet down in Yelm. That is, until a few months ago, when Ramtha was yanked back into the limelight, this time in connection with a well publicized Federal Aviation Association (FAA) training scandal. Gregory May, a student of various human potential and New Age teachers, had until two years ago, been contracted by the FAA to train its executives. Gregory May's training methods were reportedly very strange and abusive. One of Gregory May's teachers happened to be Ramtha, and when the media caught wind of this fact, they began drawing a lurid link between May's training methods and Ramtha's bizarre reputation. Due to the renewed media attention on Ramtha set in motion a series of events that led me to inquire into the nature of this enigmatic New Age figure.
For those who have not heard of Ramtha before, he is, by his own admission, outrageous! And one of his many outrageous claims is that he is a 35,000 year old ascended master who speaks through a 50 year old woman named J.Z. Knight.
Long ago, he was a Lemurian slave living in the lost continent of Atlantis. After years of being oppressed by his Atlantean captors, he led an army of fellow slaves on a brutally successful revolt, and then a barbaric campaign to conquer the world. In the course of events, he suffered a nearly fatal wound, and was compelled to retire to a mountain, where for seven long years he sat on a barren rock and contemplated the sun, the moon, the stars ‘ life itself.
Eventually, he became enlightened, and in full view of his army which numbered in the thousands, he "ascended" into super consciousness, where he assumed the mantle of archangel-dom sitting alongside Gabriel and Michael. Supposedly, he was "Rama," the ancient Hindu deity whom the people of India worship to this day. He also hails from a race of extraterrestrials, inter-dimensional beings known as Andromedans who have come to the aid of humanity at various times in history, inspiring all the world's great messiahs and teachers, from Buddha to Jesus ‘ and who have come now to help humanity over the looming millennial hump.
He is Ramtha, the Enlightened One.
Or so the story goes.
He says that his message is simple: You are God. Become sovereign and self-sufficient. Take back your power. Just be. Become super consciousness. But for all the glittering wisdom of these purple homilies, Ramtha tends to provoke more puzzlement with the vacuous answers he so readily dispenses.
One thing is for sure. He has come to teach, and for those eager to acquire his pearls of wisdom, he is the great one. For actress Linda Evans claims, ‘Ramtha is the greatest teacher I’ve ever known.’ For most people, however, Ramtha is an ‘enigma’.
JZ Knight is a beautiful, 50 year old woman with long blonde hair, who in 1977, was experimenting with "pyramid power" in the kitchen of her then home in Tacoma. On a lark, she placed a cardboard pyramid on top of her head, and a seven foot tall, angelic entity with coal black eyes materialized in the kitchen hallway.
"I am Ramtha the Enlightened One," the imposing figure announced. "Beloved woman, I have come to help you over the ditch."
Ramtha continued to appear to Knight and engage her in face to face conversation for months afterward. Eventually, however, Ramtha requested that Knight let him utilize her body, a request that she resisted at first.
"When I began to understand that the process would be: You abdicate your body, says Knight, "I had a problem with that because I was my body."
Scholars acknowledge that channeling has a long, though relatively unstudied, history. Many revelatory and poetic passages in the Bible are suspected of having channeled sources.
J. Gordon Melton, a renowned scholar of religious history, believes that channeling provides the source material for many Gnostic sects which emerged at various times in history since the 2nd century A.D.
Channeling is often compared to or considered synonymous with trance mediumship, which is a form of communication with spirits who are either dead or believed to be from other dimensions. The form Thai channeling takes, however, varies from channeler to channeler. Some channels remain conscious during the process while others do not. Jane Roberts, who channeled the "personality essence" Seth, and Edgar Cayce, who gave medical and prophetic advice to hundreds, both required the loss of conscious awareness during the channeling process in order for the spirit entity to come through.
Knight insists that her channeling process is significantly different from that of Cayce or Roberts, labeling them mere "mediums" who pick up messages from discarnate entities much as a radio picks up stations on the dial. Ramtha explained to Knight that she would not be doing that form of channeling. Rather, she would be a "channel" for more than just a message, she would channel an entire other consciousness.
But other channels claim to do this very thing. How this can be characterized as something wholly other by Knight or Ramtha is puzzling, if not arrogantly misinformed.
According to Knight's autobiography, A State of Mind, Ramtha acknowledged the debt the world owed to Knight for selflessly allowing portions of her life to be used up by another. She has been specially chosen because Ramtha regards her as a "perfect channel" ‘ and it does not hurt that in that epic past life in Atlantis she was, Ramaya, one of Ramtha's 10 children.
"It's like a death process," says Knight of the channeling experience. "I go through a tunnel, and there's a whistling sound and a light at the end. As soon as I hit the light, I come back." And over the past 17 years, with almost daily channeling sessions, she has "died a thousand deaths."
On purely here and now material terms, Knight has managed to capitalize smartly on the entity speaking through her ‘ to the tune of millions of dollars. Not bad for a woman who grew up in abject poverty and a troubled home. Born Judith Darlene Hampton (The "Z" in "J.Z." came from her childhood nickname of "Zebra," because she wore black and white clothes), Knight had to contend with an alcoholic and absent father, an abusive stepfather, and the trauma of being raped by an uncle.
But destiny seemed to beckon her practically out of the crib. In A State of Mind, Knight tells of a time, two weeks after her birth, when a Yaqui Indian woman came to the house. The woman picked up baby Judith, stared intently into her eyes, and said, "This li'l girl of yours will see what no one else sees ... her destiny is important."
If part of her destiny was to have extraordinary experiences, she has certainly claimed her share. She has been struck by a bolt of lightning. She has witnessed a UFO encounter. She has healed herself of cancer. And she has healed one of her sons of crippling allergies. She has married five times, though in her autobiography she only mentions four of them. And today she heads up seven businesses, the largest of which is J.Z.K. Inc., the parent company for all of her Ramtha-related enterprises. Her base of operations is her 50 acre, $ 3 million estate known as "the Ranch," in Yelm, Washington.
"J.Z. is a very nice person," says J. Gordon Melton, after numerous interviews and visits to her house. "She is a very strong, assertive woman. The more I've gotten to know her, the more I've gotten to like her."
In Yelm, she is appreciated for her largesse. Every year, she offers all graduating seniors at Yelm High School fully paid tuition to the college of their choice. Over the years, she has contributed $800,000 of her own money to this project.
Educationally, however, Knight's biggest pride and joy created right in her own backyard.
A sign over the registration window just outside the Great Hall reads, "You cannot fail this school. You can only quit."Ramtha's School of Enlightenment is unlike any other school you will encounter. Modeled on the legendary mystery schools of ancient Egypt, Ramtha's School of Enlightenment is a Gnostic school, a mystery school, a school for studying sacred, revealed wisdom. "Gnostic" is derived from the Greek "gnosis," meaning knowledge. Gnosticism is the study of mystical, divinely obtained knowledge.
The brochure for Ramtha's School of Enlightenment (RSE) claims the school is engaged in the study of "the knowledge of God, of mind, of reality" in order "to gain direct experience" through the subconscious mind. Here a "student becomes a disciple of his or her own mind ... and rediscovers that one's own mind is the source of divine truth!" You are God, you are responsible for your life, etc.
J. Gordon Melton spent two years studying the Ramtha teachings, taking classes, interviewing Knight and Ramtha, and active students. He has written a soon-to-be-published book on the subject. Melton concluded that RSE is an authentic heir to a tradition of Gnostic mysticism dating back to the 2nd Century A.D.. He believes the revealed word of Ramtha is a natural extension of a lineage defined by the Cathars, the Rosicrucians, the Kabbalists, and 19th Century Theosophists. Melton considers RSE exciting because it radically revises some of the brilliant metaphysical constructs of Theosophy.
For example, RSE delineates the same seven cosmic planes of existence as Theosophy. But armed with knowledge of modern day quantum mechanics, Ramtha introduces the idea of a "radical break at the third level." Picture a pyramid with seven layers, the lowest layer being the first level (Earth plane) and the triangular layer at the top of the pyramid the seventh level (Super Consciousness or "the Void"). Theosophy considers the third layer to be just another plane in the evolutionary progression toward higher consciousness. But in 1989, Ramtha introduced what became known as the "Light Teachings," in which he explained that dwelling at the third level of existence are Light Beings who strip you of your emotional memory when you die. These are the beings of light at the end of the tunnel who are so often reported as Christlike helpers during Near Death Experiences. "It goes beyond Theosophy," says Melton.
Melton also finds it interesting that Ramtha teaches a powerful tantric breathing technique called "Consciousness and Energy" (C&E) that seems related to breathwork used in Hindu Buddhism, but with a twist. Ramtha's method departs from traditional meditation by incorporating extremely loud music into the process, using it in conjunction with the breathing.
"She says, 'This is not meditation,'" reports Melton. "'It's concentrated focus, attention. It raises Kundalini."
She says’ Or he says’
Despite Melton's claims that Ramtha's C&E is a radical departure from Kundalini breathing, it is not a radical departure at all from Stanislov Grof's Holotropic Breathwork.
Grof, the famed LSD researcher and one-time Esalen Director, searched diligently for the best non-drug method of inducing altered states of consciousness. He wanted a method by which to induce the kind of powerful transformational response he effected with psychotropic drugs. After years of experimentation, he discovered that hyperventilation in conjunction with extremely loud music produced altered states of consciousness in which powerful healings could take place. He also found that it was helpful for the person doing the breathwork to express any energy in the body that the person fell needed to be expressed ‘ be it yelling, chanting, dancing, or crying. The similarity between Grof's Holotropic Breathwork and RSE's Consciousness and Energy breathwork is uncanny. CIasses at RSE depart radically from the standard academic curriculum. Here there is only one teacher ‘ Ramtha.
The teaching takes place in the Great Hall, a wood frame horse arena that has been converted into one gigantic classroom. The Great Hall is carpeted with Astroturf which has been marked off into about 1000 numbered rectangles, one rectangle for each student. Students sit in the rectangles or pillows, zafu cushions, or "Happy Hovel" canvas lawn chairs purchased from the store of the same name. All lectures are given by Ramtha, with two exceptions: Knight's introductory speeches at the beginning of events, and guest lecturers, invited to the school to talk about everything from survivalist lore to ufology. When Ramtha speaks, he can spend hours expounding upon seemingly deep metaphysical issues. During the day I attended the Beginner Consciousness and Energy Weekend, Ramtha talked for hours explaining the relationships between various parts of the brain and the seven levels or planes of existence. The knowledge seemed very impressive. But what appeared to be a sophisticated dissemination of knowledge to an all too grateful audience might well sound to a neurologist like a simplified rehash of the latest theories on brain function. While I could not form an opinion on brain theories, I also could not help forming one on the manner in which Ramtha presents his information. On the one hand he addressed us as "an august body." And on the other hand, he treated us like ignorant children. He told us that he loved us and he told us that there was a lot that we did not know ‘ and that he knew a lot. He built us up and put us down in the same breath. I found his demeanor at times arrogant, and his humor disparaging. Ramtha seemed to suggest that he had a vast reservoir of knowledge that he deigned to impart, and we would be foolish not to grab for every golden ounce.
Lectures are followed by "field work" where students can put their special knowledge to action. The basic purpose of most field exercises is to develop "mind over matter" skills. On the one hand, students strive to manifest things in their life. They visualize them, practice their C&E breathing technique, and strive to become one with whatever they visualize. It is believed that through the intense C&E breathwork we can successfully enter the void, the seventh level of existence. The absolute focus we maintain on whatever we hold in our mind's eye causes us to merge with the thing visualized, and voila! It manifests, because we and it are one. The concept of manifestation occupies a fundamental place in the Ramtha teachings.
It serves as a demonstration of one's proficiency in the Great Work, and it helps peel away the tenuous illusion of our material, earth-bound lives, the greatest illusion being our identity as physical creatures. The manifesting principle is part of an overall package of concepts, techniques, and exercises known by the acronym "C&E." Students often refer to "doing their C&E," which means the breathwork, the visualization, and the ascent into the void. The work is progressive. First, they work at overcoming gross matter, where C&E refers to everything from psychically knowing how to find things that cannot be seen with physical sight, to making gold coins materialize out of thin air. Then, on subtler levels, C&E refers to merging with higher and higher dimensions of existence, raising the vibratory rate of the Self. Ultimately C&E leads to ascension, what Ramtha experienced 35,000 years ago before thousands of his awe-struck army, and according to Ramtha lore, what Jesus did on the cross. Various kinds of field work have been established at the school to start people on the path toward ascension. The most well-publicized is the card work practiced in the "Field of Miracles," the void work played out in the Tank, and the sitting required at Paradise Beach. The field of miracles involves drawing a symbol on a card, exchanging cards with
other student somewhere on the fence rail of the pasture. Then, along with hundreds of other blindfolded students, you practice the breathing and follow your knowing to your card. Whenever you bump into the fence rail, you peek under your blindfold and pull up whatever card is there to see if it is yours. If it is not, you continue on until either you succeed or the exercise ends. This exercise usually lasts for 2-3 hours at a time.
The tank follows the same guidelines as practiced in the card work. The student slips on his blindfold, practices his C&E rapid breathing, and then gropes his way through the maze of rooms and tunnels to the center of the tank. Students strive to become one with "the void. In the tank, the thing visualized is the center of the maze. So the idea is to thread the maze by "seeing" your way to "the void."
Paradise Beach is a little different. Here the mind must work to overcome the severe pain and discomfort of sitting without eating and without moving for two days at a time. Ramtha was able to sit on a barren rock for seven years. "Now that was a long time!" says Ramtha. So two days does not seem so bad by comparison.
For someone setting out to develop magical powers, the opportunity to learn and practice these skills can be very enticing. Many at the school view field work as a playground for practicing mind over matter skills. And there is no other place like it on the planet.
In the early days of the school, however, students were frequently injured through poor facilitation of field work exercises. In the Field of Miracles, 500 people would line up on each side of the field. Then with a signal from Ramtha, all 1000 blindfolded people would take off at a run. A former member described the scene as "carnage." Jeffrey Knight, J.Z.'s former husband, in an affidavit filed in their 1992 divorce trial, stated that students suffered broken bones, broken teeth, bruises, and in one case, a detached retina. A former employee of the Ranch told the Tacoma News Tribune in 1992 that 38 people were taken to local hospitals for treatment of injuries.
Critics charge that RSE kept the extent of the injuries quiet by secreting off the injured in a waiting golf cart. Everyone was so focused on their own endeavors, between the heavy breathing and the blindfolds, they rarely clued in to what transpired during the exercises.
Barbara Wood, a former who student who spent three years working personally for J.Z., told the Tacoma News Tribune that she suffered a dislocated retina after someone stepped on her face in the maze. "There have been people who have had heart attacks, broken arms, broken noses, broken legs," she told the Tribune. "If someone got hurt, they'd be put in a little go-cart instantly and taken away and no one would even hear their name. I couldn't stomach it anymore. I had been witness to too many bodily injuries."
Another curious aspect of the field work is the fact that neither J.Z. nor Ramtha ever demonstrate or test their own abilities in the field. Rumors have circulated for years about J.Z. doing this or Ramtha proving that. But in fact, former students have determined that these were strictly rumors with no basis in reality. Before exiting the community, it was common to swap stories about Ramtha and J.Z.'s proficiency at the Work, attributing stories to something someone else had seen. But after leaving the community, and after comparing notes, they realized that nobody had actually ever been there when Ramtha or J.Z. had supposedly proven themselves. On one occasion, with hundreds of students intently working away in the field, one student became incensed over the way J.Z. stood outside the field, making snide remarks at everybody as they bumped blindly into each other. From that day forward the student harbored deep resentments toward J.Z., because the channeler, despite claiming to be a student ‘ Ramtha's "number one student" ‘ never descended down into the ranks of the common student population. She never tested herself.
As for increasing proficiency, J.Z. says that at a recent event, "everyone except 5 people out of 1100 got their cards." Having observed hundreds of advanced students move stoically around the field during the Beginner's C&E Weekend, I saw nothing like that kind of success. J.Z. seems to be suggesting a 99% rate of proficiency. Percentages and rates mean nothing, however, without sophisticated analysis to determine the law of averages, according to Paul Sampon, a statistician at the University of Washington. To say that virtually everyone found their card, one would have to ask how long a period the participants were allowed to work. During the hour and a half that I watched, only about 15 out of roughly 300 people found his or her cards. That may be above average or below. The fact is, we do not know where this level of success lies. But to hear J.Z. talk about it, you would think the students are exploding with new found siddha powers.
According to several former students, this is patently not the case. Even J. Gordon Melton agrees that proficiency among individual students in the field does not seem to increase over time. Rather, he suggests that the students benefit not from increase psychic power, but from dealing with their frustration and whatever comes up of themselves during the long hours of often fruitless psychic labor. He observed an interesting shift in goals among the students. Whereas they initially wanted to magically manifest physical things out of the air, over time, they began to realize that the exercise offered a more profound opportunity for dealing with whatever psychological issue arose during the exercise.
But from the literature, and from J.Z., and from Ramtha's own golden tongue, RSE is not about an adaptive, Taoist philosophy that Melton suggests bubbles up naturally as a consequence of field work failure. Rather, a great deal of emphasis is clearly placed on being able to manifest and to cultivate mind over matter powers, god-like abilities. Ramtha's decidedly proactive approach to spirituality squares off directly against the more neutral, middle path approach of Taoism to which Melton seems to be alluding.
Herman Gabriel, one of the most proficient students in field work at the school before he left in 1991, claims that from his experience, people actually grew worse. When he first arrived at RSE, he possessed great psychic proficiency; he consistently found his card, and he was one of only 12 students who regularly reached the center of the tank. Within weeks, months, however, all that changed. It was as if something in him began shutting down. An increasingly competitive atmosphere was developing at the school and an increasingly authoritarian Ramtha undermined student confidence by thrusting them into ever more challenging and impossible circumstances. Rather than increasing siddha powers, RSE's field work seemed, almost by design, to disempower student psychic prowess claims Gabriel.
More troubling is the claim by former students and employees that the Tank is rigged. According to Vicky Cady, J.Z.'s right hand person, "Ramtha reads the bands that are around the people. He sees where they're at." Therefore, if anyone ventures near the void by sheer luck, he can tell. When this happens, Ramtha instructs an assistant to close a gate installed for the purpose of preventing the student from stumbling into success. In turn, Ramtha indicates when the gate should be opened for those individuals who, according to the band Ramtha reads, have arrived at the void by their knowing, and are therefore deemed worthy.
Supposing that Ramtha actually has this ability to weed out the unworthy students, some question the pedagogical benefit of not even allowing a small victory brought on by luck. A more serious charge, however, is made by former students who claim that a particular type of student consistently succeeded in reaching the void. In all other field work conducted at the school, field work over which no one could control the results, women proved predominantly more capable. In the Tank, however, the opposite proved true. Young, handsome, "hunk" men consistently outperformed their female counterparts.
The question is, who was visualizing what in the void’
In the early to mid-80s, Ramtha appealed to the spiritually weary by shunning ritual, dogma and faithful obedience.
'From the beginning it was said there would be no dogma or ritual," says Linda Baker who spent seven years in the community. "You are god. You are perfect. You don't have to do anything to become greater," says Nancy Barr-Brandon, who entered the teachings in 1982. She felt such love and acceptance from Ramtha, "after a few minutes of being in that presence, I was hooked." You did not have to meditate or fast or embark on long progressive journeys of growth. You just had to "be" yourself and get in touch with the God within.
Joe Kramer and Diana Alstad in their study of authoritarianism in spiritual movements entitled, The Guru Papers, argue that the fall of many gurus from god-like stature following revelations of deceit and corruption has helped elevate the appeal of the disembodied. They seem free of corruption, as corruption makes little sense without a body to profit from its results.
"The thread running through these assumptions," say Kramer and Alstad, "is that disembodied entities are reliable, trustworthy, benevolent authorities with a deeper understanding of the nature of things. Here channeling, like gurus, creates a context of privileged knowledge that essentially cannot be challenged." One of the great teachings of Ramtha concerns the "image." Image refers to our self-enslaving identities, the most pernicious of which is the conviction that we are physical beings. By being "outrageously" disembodied, Ramtha provides the perfect teaching for shocking us out of this illusion. In Ramtha, we have no body to worship. When he departs at the end of a channeling session, we cannot follow.
J.Z., on the other hand, is as fallible and imperfectly behaved as anyone else enrolled at RSE; for she is Ramtha's "first student." This dichotomy between the ostensibly enlightened spirit and the unenlightened channel has a long history, and according to J. Gordon Melton this phenomenal relationship is characteristic of most gnostic traditions. Typically, a simple, uneducated, unsophisticated individual channels information and knowledge that she or he cannot possibly possess. J.Z. Knight says in her autobiography, A State of Mind, that her "formal education extended only to business college and the rest of my learning had come from experiencing life ‘ the highest form of education there is."
"The assumption that the spirit and channel are separate entities," say Kramer and Alstad, "means incongruities between the channels' behavior and the channeled words are not seen as significant or relevant. A channeled message can never be questioned or challenged because of the impurity of the messenger.... The channel is not necessarily even supposed to be the entity's best student or exemplar, unlike those in the guru's inner circle."
And as to the unenlightened behavior of J.Z., stories abound, the most public of which was exposed at the divorce trial between herself and her fifth husband, Jeffrey Knight.
The divorce trial, which made the headlines of local papers for most of 1992, was a very public affair. Jeff Knight wanted it that way. After years of living under the spell of Ramtha and J.Z., he wanted to finally stand up to both and take his power back. (A strange manoeuver of assertiveness given all the years of personal training by Ramtha in the arts of developing sovereignty and recovering one's power.)
In 1980, J.Z. was browsing through a tack shop when a magazine on Arabian horses fell open to an advertisement for a horse farm. A photo of a handsome cowboy dominated the ad. Despite being married at the time, J.Z. fell instantly in love with the man in the photo, Jeffrey Knight.
Within two weeks, J.Z. had located Jeffrey by phone and invited him to a Dialogue at Richard Chamberlain's Beverly Hills home. Jeff told a People magazine reporter in 1992 on that occasion, "J.Z. and Ramtha seemed to be giving me a great deal of individual attention." Ramtha prophesied that a conflict would arise shortly in Jeff's life and that as a result, he would be forced to make a difficult decision, following which he would make a great journey "beyond the mountains." After that Dialogue, J.Z. made Jeff a standing offer of a job taking care of her horses in Tacoma, WA. When Jeff had a falling out with one of his co-workers, he called J.Z. to say that he was ready to go beyond the mountains, and he accepted the job.
For nine months J.Z. and Jeff lived under the same roof with J.Z.'s husband and two children. J.Z. coyly played upon Jeff's heartstrings, and he resisted out of confusion over his sexuality and concern for J.Z.'s family, for which he had grown fond. A few days before Christmas, Ramtha gave "Master Jeffrey" a special, one on one audience, in which Jeff confessed to Ramtha the confusion he felt about his desire for women. Ramtha proceeded to discourse on "soul mates" making it clear that he and J.Z. were eternally matched. Sanctioned by Ramtha, Jeff and J.Z. moved out of her husband's home, and three years later they married.
For years, the two lived in an apparently blissful union. Ramtha Dialogues went on a rocket launch of popularity. In the early 80s, Ramtha became the "channeler to all the stars." Richard Chamberlain, Joan Hackett, Shelley Faberes, and Shirley MacLaine all found something in Ramtha's messages that struck a chord. Jeff and J.Z. began building their lavish estate in the then rural backwater of Yelm. Part of the plan was to create a lucrative Arabian horse business for Jeff and J.Z. while J.Z. submitted herself to the Great Work of Ramtha. But as the years progressed, problems plagued the soul-mate marriage, for as Jeff would later confess, he was gay. J.Z. claims to this day that she never knew he was gay until late in the marriage. Jeff contradicts that claim to friends, saying that J.Z. knew from the beginning his sexual orientation.
A Ramtha intensive in March of 1986 entitled Soul Mates expanded upon the discourse that had begun with Jeff during his private Christmas audience with Ramtha in 1980. Now Ramtha was telling the world that homosexuals were confused entities, the product of decadence. Since the beginning of time, said Ramtha, entities on the earth plane were split in two, a male half and a female half. As the two halves reincarnated through many lifetimes, there came a time when some females, weary of being oppressed for eons by their male counterparts, desired to incarnate as men. Hence, they "crossed over" and became homosexuals. This, Ramtha averred, was a mistake; it was perverse and wrong.
Ramtha had the temerity to actually suggest that many who suspected themselves of being homosexual were actually confused by the pressure of society to be gay. "Many are confused because others say they are crossovers because they are soft, non-violent. And yet they are not; they are aligned. When they cease listening to social consciousness ‘ and be who they are ‘ they will realize that through this science, they are thus complete. Complete."
One wonders what Jeff was thinking when he heard this. Ironically, it is just this sort of political incorrectness that many find attractive in Ramtha; such comments are construed by some as both a voice of authority ‘ for who would risk making such unpopular statements in today's politically correct climate’ ‘ and a confirmation of what they as heterosexuals subconsciously think, or as homosexuals subconsciously fear. Unfortunately for Jeff and J.Z., Ramtha's persuasive arguments failed to win the war for Jeff's sexual soul. Jeff learned in 1985 that he was HIV positive, an unfortunate consequence of sleeping with a man prior to the marriage. (Fortunately for J.Z., she has subsequently tested negative for the HIV virus.) By late 1987, the 41 year old J.Z. became involved with a handsome, 19 year old Mormon named J.O. Alt, the man who remains her partner to this day.
The dissolution of the marriage peaked in 1988 when J.Z., in a fit of rage, threw Jeff's possessions out of the second story window on to the lawn below. After years of daily, one on one audiences with Ramtha, J.Z. cut Jeff off completely, saying that until he made peace with J.Z., he would not be allowed to see his teacher. Jeff depended on Ramtha to help heal himself of HIV, for which he had, at Ramtha's urging, never sought medical treatment. He believed that without Ramtha's assistance, he would surely die.
At the divorce trial, Jeff accused J.Z. of having forced him into a meager settlement in their 1989 divorce by threatening to out his homosexuality and keep him cut off from Ramtha, as well as by persuading him that the empire they had jointly built was crumbling under the weight of enormous debt. Jeff settled, taking only $119,000 in cash from a vault in the basement of the house, a few of his personal possessions, some appliances, and a luxury automobile. Unbeknownst to Jeff at the time ‘ J.Z., he claimed, handled all the finances ‘ the various Ramtha businesses were grossing $240,000 per month ‘ close to $4 million a year.
J.Z. counters that the debt was real and overwhelming: $7 million, of which, $2.5 million was owed to the IRS which was "ready to come in here and do a firesale." Jeff, she claims, did not want the responsibility of having to climb out from under that debt. She met with the IRS and said, "Look, I have never not paid anybody in my life." Together, they worked out an ambitious schedule of repayments; and she began the long, arduous, but impeccable process of paying everything off.
When J.Z.'s finances recovered, she says Jeff, who was now living with another man ("who was Catholic!" ‘ meaning he would naturally be unsympathetic to anything connected with such a heretical teaching as Ramtha's) ‘ "they came to me," says J.Z., "and basically said, 'Look, I'm sick and I want you to give me $360,000.' I didn't have $300,000! ... the idea was, Give it to me now because I deserve it."
J.Z. says Jeff threatened that he would tell the world what she had done to him. JZ. said, "You go right ahead and do that, because it's not true." At the trial in 1992, Jeff's lawyer, Mary Gaudio, argued that J.Z. had hidden assets from Jeff, that over the years, through the persona of Ramtha, she had brainwashed him, and that Ramtha was, put simply, a fraud.
Jeff failed to prove that he was brainwashed, or that Ramtha was a fraud. But, at least temporarily, he won the argument that she had hidden assets from him at the time of their divorce, and Jeff was awarded $792,000. J.Z. appealed this decision before she ever had to pay and won. Evidently, however, a later settlement may have been reached. Jeff's lawyer, Gaudio, would not speak to us due to a confidentiality agreement related to the case.
Following the trial, Jeffs AIDs advanced, and in 1994 he died. In response to saying I was sorry to hear about Jeff's death, J.Z. responded, "Well, that's okay. It's what he chose!"
Those close to Jeff before he died say he made peace with J.Z. in his heart. J.Z. however, still chafes at the thought of what Jeff did--to her and to Ramtha. In her mind, he took something that was beautiful and sacred, and he trashed it.
Former students of Ramtha note several time periods during which the teachings "shifted" from a more benign to a more sinister aspect. The first shift occurred in May of 1986 with an Intensive in Denver, CO. J.Z. is aware of the impact of this particular teaching had upon the fold. "Ramtha delivered a teaching called, Changes, the Days to Come," she recalls. "It was on satellite, and he lost half the people who came to see him." Ramtha told a mesmerized audience that before the end of the millenium the world would undergo cataclysmic earth changes during which most people in the world would perish, and for which those fortunate enough to hear this warning would prepare.
Pamela McNellNeely is one of the many who left the community following that event. She told the Seattle Times in 1987 that she became increasingly troubled by a barrage of negative, homophobic and controlling messages." California would fall into the ocean; New England would choke on its own pollution; and the Southeast would flood. "Cities are doomed, and everyone should move to the Pacific Northwest, stock food and become self-sufficient."
In 1987, Ramtha's message grew paranoid, saying that the international financiers and powerful families called the "gray men" were involved in a global conspiracy to set up a New World order. The gray men would instigate total financial collapse in may of 1988, following this the populace would be issued debit cards with the number 666 inscribed on them---"mark of the beast"--and through which the gray men could control and rule the world. This same conspiracy theory fueled the anti-government hysteria of the militia groups in recent years; it is practically their religion. It is also the same anti-semitic rhetoric that catapulted the Brown Shirts into power in the early days of Nazi Germany; thirteen, mostly Jewish families who pull the purse strings of the world.
To survive the coming economic collapse, Ramtha advised his followers to buy gold and bury it on their property. The price of this precious metal would skyrocket to $5000 per ounce after the predicted collapse the following year. Banks were institution of the gray men and should not be trusted, so they should bury the gold underground. Following his advice, believers sold property, unloaded nest eggs, and borrowed money, all to invest in this sure thing. Ramtha was getting this stuff from a pure and unassailable perch in the ethers, from the pinnacle of the pyramid, the seventh level.
Ramtha could not be wrong.
And so Ramtha followers buried thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of gold bars and coins into the ground. They fully expected to dig it up in June, and sell it at an astronomical profit, providing them with the opportunity to reach the state of American independence that Willy Loman referred to as "free and clear." In Yelm, they called it being "sovereign."
May 1988 came and went without incident. No collapse. No crash. No blip. In fact, the stock market continued inching up toward record new highs. Surprise and consternation quietly wafted through the community. Ramtha had failed them. How could this happen’ Questions about Ramtha's infallibility began to surface. Could Ramtha have been so wrong’
Not missing a beat, however, Ramtha explained away the inaccurate prediction by saying that the collapse was avoided by all of the great work his students had been doing. They must simply continue to do the work, and miracles would continue to happen. And then he would preface a new set of predictions with, "As it is seen now ..." and a new line on the future would emerge.
One former student claims an accountant friend of his later helped over 100 couples cope with bankruptcies that the accountant attributed directly to the gold buying fever of that year.
Many former students cite the second half of 1988 as another major shift into the fear mode of the teachings. The C&E breathing technique and the blindfold were introduced, and RSE started up with the controversial field work and the dividing up of followers into hierarchical levels of advancement. Overnight, the community culture turned competitive and elitist.
But nothing prepared anyone for the year that followed. In 1989, fear and paranoia kicked into overdrive, the likes of which, the community had not seen before, and has not seen since. Consider that during 1988 and 1989, J.Z. was navigating the complicated pratfalls of separation and divorce. Her marital dream into which Ramtha had even invested his teachings, had been shattered. Ramtha had now been publicly humiliated by the unaccounted for economic prosperity of the times. And as if that were not enough, someone wanted to blow Ramtha and/or J.Z. up.
Just as an event was getting underway in Estes Park, Colorado, the hotel where the event was staged received a bomb threat. J.Z. and her entourage immediately packed their things and flew back to Yelm, stranding those who had flown from around the country to see Ramtha.
Again, students consider that date in the calendar significant in that it demarks another discernible shift "into the fear."
This time, the shift was in the direction of greater secrecy. Video and audio tapes were no longer made available for sale.
"It became a secret school," says Nancy Barr-Brandon. "Everything became mandatory and secret. We weren't allowed to talk about anything that went on at the events. There was tremendous fear, about everything from aliens, conspiracy, and the water."
At one event, J.Z. talked about a book entitled The Egyptian Mysteries, a book about ancient mystery schools, and one that emphasized the vital importance of keeping a code of silence regarding the school's sacred teachings.
"J.Z. personally held up the book," says former student Herman Gabriel, "and made the comment that people who broke the code of silence were murdered. Then she said that we would not do anything like that." But the point was made. RSE was an authentic mystery school, and its code of silence was a serious matter.
For a couple of years, Ramtha had broached the issue of UFOs and aliens, portraying them as genius brothers from other constellations and dimensions. He talked about two races, the giant, Nordic, benevolent aliens and "the grays," spindly shaped, almond eyed visitors who abducted Whitley Strieber and the popular imagination. At one event the year before, Ramtha claimed to know which students had been implanted with alien probes. To carry a probe inside you was a badge of honor. You were one of the chosen. But that was in 1988 when being an abductee was fashionable. Now a year later, parts of that scenario fell into disfavor.
On one chilling occasion, according to Gabriel, J.Z. herself announced that some students had been implanted with nuclear devices that could explode. "She would search out those who had the probes," says Gabriel, "because she could not risk the school being destroyed. She would kick these people out."
The school reached a bizarre and feverish nadir with an ultra secretive teaching students refer to as the "UG" teachings. UGs are "underground" bunkers for which students were urged to drop everything and start digging. On top of the New World Order and the coming earth changes and the nuclear implants, there was now a third species of alien called the Reptilians who enjoyed eating humans (In fact, the only thing they enjoyed more than eating people was gold; another reason to keep gold buried at the ready in case you had to trade for your life.) and a government that had nothing better to do than hunt down students from RSE. Ramtha predicted a war for dominion of the planet that somehow involved the U.S. government and the reptilians. The UGs would save the faithful from certain annihilation. When reptilians came looking for a snack or the government buzzed by in a black helicopter, you could plop down into your UG, like a prairie dog zipping into his hole.
"My roommate came home pale from one of these talks," Herman Gabriel recalls. "She walked around the kitchen table a dozen times. 'Why did you have to pick tonight not to go’' she blurted out. 'Ramtha has sworn me to absolute secrecy.' "She couldn't sleep that night. The next morning, she couldn't keep it in any longer and she told me what Ramtha had said. I burst out laughing. There was such paranoia and fear."
Gabriel says that Ramtha told students that they were not ready to be dragged out of their home and through the streets. "He would have the tapes stop recording, take off his microphone, and have everyone swear to secrecy. He would explain that the government had listening devices at the Ranch." Initially, students were told to build their UGs by hand. "If anyone found out where it was," says Nancy Barr-Brandon, "we were to cover it up and dig another."
One former student who had left the community but remained living in the area, stumbled upon a UG at a friend's house while taking a walk. "I didn't tell him, because I was afraid he would start all over again and build it someplace else."
After some of the events during which UGs were discussed, the sense of eminent Armageddon was so great, people went home and stayed up all night digging holes in the ground with their bare hands. But the first UGs proved a disastrous waste of time. Without proper knowledge of how to build underground bunkers, they either collapsed outright or filled up with water. When the second phase of the UGs kicked in, students relinquished hope of being able to dig their bunkers by hand and resorted to hiring expensive independent contractors, shelling out between $6.000 and $20,000 for the construction of these supposedly ultra-secret survival homes. One former student claims he knew a couple who sold their home in order to pay for the construction of their UG. One of the more disturbing aspects to this entire UG affair is the fact that students were instructed during an early event to build their UGs on National Park or Forest Service land. Former students claim that many UGs were, in fact, burrowed into public forest land. Rumors of two UGs high up on Mt. Rainier have drifted quietly through the community.
During one memorable event, Ramtha said prophetically, "When the Dragon marches, be prepared to hibernate." The "Dragon" represented China, and "hibernate" meant retire to your UG. When rumors began to fly about the Chinese massing just below the Mexican border, the community broke into a collective panic. Never mind the logistical impossibility of keeping such a massive maneuver under wraps, especially from the Mexican government. A similar incident happened in Okanogan County earlier this spring when survivalists mistook Forest Service trucks for a UN takeover; and mobilized everyone within a Bo Gritz grasp of reality into a state of military alert.
"After one UFO talk, " says Gabriel, "we were told to carry backpacks with us, so we would be prepared at a moment’s notice to abandon our cars and go off into the woods."
When the end of the year came, and Armageddon did not, once again the community breathed a confused sigh of relief. Linda Baker remembers well how surreal that time was. "Everybody was scrambling in fear to build and bury and horde," says Baker, "and we'd think ‘ sense of urgency ‘ get the anchor out of your butt ‘ get moving here!
"Then J.Z. would come out with new beginning classes for next year. You'd get the updated schedule of events, and there's new beginning C&E ‘ and you'd think, my god, we've still got some time." "When Armageddon didn't come," says Herman Gabriel, "Ramtha would say, 'You people are so lethargic! I had to prepare you well in advance so you would be willing, ready and waiting.' There was an excuse for everything." Near the end of the year, Ramtha introduced the "Light Teachings," a radical understanding about the 3rd level of existence, and about what happens when you die. "When you died," says Linda Baker, "if you went to the light, you went to the Light Beings who would strip you of all your emotions. It would feel like being stripped of skin. And then you would reincarnate with no memory of past experiences and emotions. "It was the icing on the cake as far as the control factor went. Even death was out of your control."