Ex-students take on Ramtha School November 2, 2007

[David McCarthy]

Nisqually Valley News, Friday, November 2, 2007


By Megan Hansen.

Ex-students take on Ramtha School.

A public gathering of former Ramtha School of Enlightenment students drew nearly a hundred people to Yelm Middle School Saturday.
The topic was cults, and speakers included former RSE students who formed a support group called "Life After RSE," a cult exit specialist and a Lacey pastor.
A representative of RSE was also granted time behind the microphone to rebut allegations made against the school and refute assertions that the school is a "cult."
Through her representatives, RSE channeler JZ Knight herself has said she has grown weary of being called a leader of a destructive cult by people who are motivated by malice or the desire to make money.
FORMER RSE student David McCarthy, an organizer of the forum, gave his account of 'Ramtha-land," as he calls it.
In 1989, when McCarthy joined the school, he said he was told one of the people in his group would become a Christ and that he would achieve enlightenment and learn the meaning of life.
"I was in a place in my life where I was panicked and in a lot of pain," McCarthy said. "I was told miracles were happening here, extraordinary things were happening."
"People were being healed of cancers and could manifest some-something out of nothing."
"I found it very difficult to express the truth for a very long time," McCarthy said.

Using the analogy of the canary in a coal mine, in which coal miners brought the bird down into the shaft with them in order to determine if air was running out, McCarthy said, "The canary died in me."
"It represented my conscience?.
MCCARTHY SAID his biggest concern, and the primary reason for organizing Saturday's meeting, is people's health, and addressing the idea they can heal themselves.
"I've had a friend die in my arms and say he's going to Ramtha," McCarthy said. "I asked him, 'why didn't you go to Ramtha to heal you?'"
"He said he did. Ramtha said, 'I'm not ready.'"
McCarthy also talked about a woman named who was dying of cancer, but wouldn't seek treatment because it was against the teachings of the school.
"I've had friends die looking for Ramtha," McCarthy said. "I see too many people die looking for a miracle that doesn't exist." "It's suicide."
AUDIENCE MEMBER Kevin McManus, a student of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, lashed out against meeting organizer David McCarthy, Shouting angrily at McCarthy from the second row.
"What's your point?"
McManus asked. "What would you like to do about it? Remove JZ?"
"You can't take away our First Amendment right to practice our religion freely."
McCarthy responded with questions directed toward McManus and other RSE students.
"Why don't you go heal (named) of her cancer?" McCarthy asked.
"Show us.""What are you masterful at?" McCarthy then asked. "When she dies, what are you going to say? She's dancing with Ramtha?"

On whether RSE is a school or a religion, students and RSE marketing managers Greg Simmons and Mike Wright said that RSE runs a curriculum based on science.
"The school looks at divine aspect potential," Wright said. "We focus on the intangible."
"Some see it as a religious position."

Yelm has cults, 'but RSE isn?t one of them'
SIMMONS, WHO is also a teacher at RSE, was granted five minutes to address the audience on Saturday.
"I estimate 50,000 to 75,000 students have come through the school,
" Simmons said. "I am encouraged by how few students seem to be dissatisfied."
"Would we love the school to be what everyone wants it to be? Yes."
To the assertions that RSE is a cult, and JZ Knight its leader, Simmons said that's not the case.
"Priests and believers preying on people, people burning in hell," Simmons said. "That is insidious ? that is in Yelm, in the Catholic Church."
"So do we have cults in our neighborhood? I think so, but RSE isn't one of them."
On Monday, Simmons clarified his comments during Saturday's meeting.
"If you want to talk about organizations doing harm to society there's no need to look further than the Catholic Church."
"Talk about a disturbing organization."
Simmons also noted examples from other religious organizations.
"You're going to burn in hell ? what kind of pep talk is that?"
LOS ANGELES resident Robert Menna, whose daughter is a former RSE student, talked Saturday about how the school affected their relationship.
"When she actually left (to attend RSE) was my awakening," Menna said. "She was insulated so she couldn't respond."
When Menna and his daughter, Alexandra, came to Yelm in 1992, she was 16 and couldn't attend classes. However, she tried to sign up, but couldn't without her father's permission.
When Alexandra was 17 and still determined to enroll at RSE, Menna said she was placed in involuntary cult exit counseling with Szimhart.
She was held in a house for three days for "deprogramming."
Menna said that didn't prove effective and only increased the gap between her and her father.
"It was like being violated, a caged animal," Alexandra Menna said. "He had tricked me, deceived me."
"It was a violation of trust."
Alexandra Menna attended RSE for eight years. It took her three years after the attempted deprogramming to contact her father.
"I decided instead of being the person who was going to take her out of school, I decided I was just going to be her father," Menna said.
Alexandra invited her father to an event, free of charge, to see what she was involved with.
Robert Menna accepted, on the condition he could ask questions.

During the event, Robert Menna was told that students were healing broken bones and teeth, and that there was documentation to prove it.
"I asked to see the documents, and was told I could," he said.
After months of getting the runaround from RSE's administration, Menna said he gave up.
"I'm never going to get information because it doesn't exist," Robert Menna said.
"It's a con, you end up with your pockets empty."
Menna's lack of response from the school also proved to be an eye opener for his daughter.
"THESE THINGS happened," Alexandra Menna said. "I knew the woman who regrew her teeth."
During the time that Robert Menna was pursuing the evidence of healing at the school, Alexandra said she received a telephone call from a former boyfriend.
The boyfriend told her JZ Knight was worried about her, and thought that her father was trying to destroy the school.
Knight, the boyfriend told her, also thought Menna was an undercover reporter who was writing a book.
"This was absurd to me," Alexandra said.
"I knew my father."
Another turning point for Alexandra came when she and her husband decided to pay their rent rather than attend an RSE event.
"It's more important to live the teaching than be at the event," Alexandra said.
After skipping an event, she said it was as if a weight was lifted off her shoulders.
And following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Alexandra said she was absolutely shocked to see how students at RSE reacted.
"There was no sense of compassion or realism," she said. "There's something really wrong with that."
"I started to realize that one of the reasons people can't feel compassion is that it hurts."
CHRIS KING, an on- again, off-again student at RSE since 1989, spoke from the audience about his experience at the school.
"I learned how to practically save myself from addiction," King said. "He (Ramtha) gave me the tools to use to be successful." King, a former deacon of a Pentecostal church in the south, contradicted Alexandra Menna's account of not seeing any compassion among students after Sept. 11.
"I have experienced more compassion here," King said. "I got more out of that than anything."
"Love each other, care about each other," he said.
"That's what he (Ramtha) told us to do."
SZIMHART SAID he has counseled about two dozen ex-RSE students and continues to work with former students when he can.
"Cult is a neutral term," Szimhart said. It is an intense form of devotion to a person or object.
Szimhart showed footage from 1990-91 of a woman who was part of a doomsday cult known as "Circle of Friends." That group was led by George Jurckek, a Hungarian who ultimately was sent to jail for four years for loan fraud
Jurckek had directed group members to apply for state-guaranteed education loans, money not spent on education.
Szimhart said that there were two types of cults ? one being benign and the other being totalist, or self sealing.
Totalist cults are considered the more dangerous of the two because members can't grow within the group.
It's hard for them to leave and they can never quite get the magical powers or healing promised to them.
LACEY PASTOR Jeff Adams, who leads Bible study in the Yelm area and is looking at starting a church here, spoke of help and hope being offered to former RSE students.
"Relax, I'm not here to preach," Adams said.
"I'm not a master of anyone or anything. I'm just a servant."
The community has this "as long as they're not bothering me, I'll leave them alone" mentality, Adams said.
"The community must recognize screams for help."
"I can't simply stand by and let people be hurt," Adams said. "Brainwashed and controlled people."
"Highly intelligent and decent people find themselves hurting and searching for something."
"My primary goal is not to destroy RSE, but undo the damage," Adams said.
"I'm an advocate for healthy community in Yelm."


Nisqually Valley News link..
http://yelmonline.com/