(Psst! Read the whole thing. There’s a FREE NEW Report on Spiritual Leader Abuse you can download towards the end!)
Tagged for “Your Leadership Views Please”: Andrea J. Lee, Jen Louden, Adela Rubio, Michelle Skaletski-Boyd, Linda Pannell, Gloria Arenson, Hueina Su, Liz Lichti, Laura Whitelaw, and YOU, if you have a strong opinion and want to share…
The other day, I received a private email from a well-known clergy leader in neopagan spiritual circles. In it she said: “The fallout of the ill-conceived James Arthur Ray sweatlodge in which now three people have died, is all too familiar. Unpalatably so, and it also happens in our circles. No worship group is immune. We must arm people against this kind of abuse.”
I’m fortunate to say I have been spared this kind of treatment in the main, for my first ten years in an alternative spiritual community was blessed. I was uniquely privileged to have been tutored by a true spiritual leader, a man of humility, endless patience, deep wisdom and an unfailingly generous concern and regard for others’ wellbeing.
His name was Corliss Raymond “d” deLarm, and under his tutelage and friendship of over twenty years I learned how very lucky I was to have had him as the template to compare all others against. When I came across my first abusive pagan clergy, it was comparing them to d’s sterling example that instantly gave rise to my knowledge that something was rotten. Ditto the so-called “big kahunas” of the various spiritual traditions I studied in that were only in it for the ego-boosts, the money or ability to mess with people’s minds.
You can learn to do the same thing, you already have the equipment you need.
“BULLSHIT”
I can so hear someone out there, saying this and believing it to the core. That you don’t have any power, you can’t change and there is no such thing as magic.
Well ’tis the season so I’ll say “Bah, Humbug” to that crap.
Step up and out into the light. It’s time. You’re ready.
And you have some pretty fantastic tools ALWAYS on hand, no batteries required.
Your body, for one.
Your body is uniquely tuned as a bullshit filter. You can watch someone speak to you and know by the movement of energy between you whether they are telling the truth or not.
Bodies get a sick feeling in the stomach when people lie to you.
The truth feels light, airy and wonderful, and a lie feels heavy, greasy and disgsting.
So if you feel reliably queasy when a teacher or guru speaks, don’t listen to the part of your head that’s telling you to be a nice boy or girl.
Shut the hell up and run for safety.
This is not a safe person for you to be around.
Got it? Truth light & airy, lie heavy, greasy & nasty.
Anywhere you feel these feelings in your body in response to another person, your body is telling you whether you can trust that person or not. Your body is very, very savvy. It doesn’t mess around because you need that information fast.
But likely as not, you’ve not been educated in how to retrieve it, read it and make a reasonable decision based on your body’s exquisite fine tuning.
It’s time to start. Stick with me and together, we’ll muddle through.
A short primer on how to tell when you’re being scammed
Spiritual and other types of abusers are to be found in every tradition, in every segment of society.
No, your church/circle/synagogue/masjid is NOT the one and only execption.
If you ever come across a teacher or organization who says “that stuff would never – COULD never happen in OUR church/circle/synagoguge/masjid ’cause we’re SPECIAL/Different/Blessed/Have the Real AUTHENTIC Fairy Dust™” – ditto my last instruction: run like hell.
The zombies have already sucked their brain out and you could be next.
If there was ever a magnet for the unscrupulous back in those days, it was me. I was a complete energy *putz*. I couldn’t manage my own energy and events of my life, much less be able to read and manage my responses to other’s energy output and emotional states.
Then I went to grad school, lived in Europe, took a buncha classes and worked as a therapist a few decades and figured it out – but not without being battered and bruised in the attempt, as many of us were.
Today, it’s much simpler because of tools like The ETHOS Method, which self-leads you gently to consciousness without a guru.
People are smarter today. We’ve got Google at our fingertips.
If you’re confused about a teacher’s integrity, plug their name into Google with the word “scam” and do a separate search on “abuse”. See what comes up. Read the accounts. Remember these will be anecdotal, a he-said/she-said situations and NOT always fact-based. If you find more than a handful of negative accounts and they seem credible, might want to step back from that situation.
And then you have dozens of people like me who love researching topics like “how to let go of the crap once and for all”, “how to transform your relationship to everything” and so on, are acting as human Googles for you, filtering up only the stuff that works.
Again, do a background check on anyone (me included – I’ve got no skeletons I’m not happy to have you know about 
. Then go with…what? YOUR GUT. The body is the final arbiter and will never, ever steer you wrong.
So you’ve got a lot of support today for living a Conscious life, that wasn’t around when I was growing up, and ways to protect yourself and those you love against the unscrupulous.
Kind of makes me want to be five again…
But don’t despair, after some time in the trenches, I didn’t need to be around an unscrupulous spiritual leader long to:
(a) know they were uncool and
(b) have them know that I knew it, all without
(c) saying a word
It was an unsettling talent to have had and I’m glad to be out of the milieu that brought me into contact with these people more often than not. You can learn to do the same, and keep yourself safe. And learn how to attract only people who love and nurture you and have only your best interests and the best interests of the world at heart.
AIR & Circuit Testing
You start with paying attention to your body, and all that it tells you. You won’t in the beginning have the necessary vocabulary to dialogue well with your body, but keep communicating anyway. It’ll come. It can take as little time as you need it to take. Then, just ask your body everything as it comes up.
There’s a great technique called muscle or circuit testing that uses the electrical properties of your muscles in opposition to say “yes” or “no”. You can ask your body any yes/no question and it is pretty infallible in its answers. There are some exceptions when circuit testing your muscles doesn’t work, but most of the time it does and I always think it’s a good thing to trust the body. You’ll get to know when you’re “off” soon enough. Drinking water can fix that, as can facing another direction while you do the circuit test.
Finally, no short tutorial of mine would be complete without a discussion of A.I.R. What is A.I.R? This acronym helps us create the right everything for ourselves. It stands for “Attention, Intention and Repetition”. What you give A.I.R. to, comes to life. Literally. Anything you want, simply focus your intention on it, give that thing all your attention, and repeat doing this as often as possible. Soon, that thing will come to pass, whether for good or ill.
So far this year, bar a few minor bobbles, it’s mostly been for the good, in our spiritual community.
And then along comes James Arthur Ray, and his Sweltering Sweatlodge of Doom.
For a good rundown of what goes on in a sweat lodge – or what should go on – check out Dr. Loretta Standley’s description here. Dr. Standley observes that she is Eastern Band Cherokee (close to my father’s people in Cherokee, NC) and that the sweat is not endemic to their culture. So even as a card-carrying Native American, her comments are informed by many different tribes. She says, poignantly (and I fully agree):
While sometimes there is criticism of the white people stealing Native American spirituality, the truth is — no one can steal spirituality. That would be completely impossible. God gave us many ways to connect with one another from many cultures and we can use it to help heal others and ourselves, so honoring the importance of sharing is meaningful.
Other Leaders Weigh In and…Old Wine, New Bottle
(still kickin’ after all these years)
I was talking to Andrea Lee the other day about this situation and wondering aloud if I should haul my past life as a spiritual leader out of mothballs….in particular, some of the good tutorials I wrote back then.
I decided excavate the venerable CASHI out of the steamer trunk of the past, and rewrite it for today.
CASHI stands for “Coven Abuse Self Help Index”. I wrote it in the early 1990’s in response to my practice being overloaded, as one of a very few pagan psychotherapists in the area, with the victims of spiritual abusers. The re-issue will focus around Spiritual Leader Abuse in its many different forms.
If you’d like a FREE copy of the forthcoming paper (out in 2010) on prevention of Spiritual Leader Abuse, fill in this form and after that, keep reading:
On Andrea’s blog she writes in a comment to her provocative post about the Ray incident:
“How might we describe what these ethics and responsibilities? To focus on them is good, but what are they, so we CAN focus on them? Maybe they’re obvious, or feel like they should be obvious, but clearly they’re not, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
So to capture the elusive obvious, might we start a list? How about…
Do no harm
Charge a fair price (whatever that is)
Teach people self-sufficiency….”
I replied to Andrea’s well-thought words: “To this list I would add:”
* When you appropriate another culture’s ritual, bother yourself to research it with the commitment of an adademician & know every single possible side effect both psychological, physical and metaphysical
* Do your own internal work so that you know you are leading such a serious ritual with the appropriate spirit, intentions and reasons. Any reason that points back to you in any way as a leader, is the wrong reason. You are there to serve…as we all are.
* Adapt what you are doing to minimize the damages
* Fully pre-inform all participants of those potential damages
* Ensure that a minimum of one professional caregiver (nurse, med tech etc.) is present per three to five participants at a potentially life threatening situation.
If you can’t make this minimum set of “ground floor level” responsibility, then cancel your event and teach something that will not have the ability to maim or kill participants.
That’s my .02 as one with history in shamanic practice, and one reason why I’d never do anything for the public like a mass sweat. It’s also why in the twenty-five years I knew him, my teacher only did a bare handful of sweats, only with people he’d worked with for years, only when properly prepared and usually for some community emergency situation, to help others.
Others’ mileage may vary, but I say err on the side of caution. If you can’t do your own internal work, study up, prevent badness & provide reasonable after-care, just don’t go there.
What Can We Do?
The absolute best thing for each of us is to keep steping into our Unlimited Selves. When we’re in that state, there is no way you will get “hooked” by unscrupulous teachers, therefore no way you, or anyone you influence will get screwed over. When we’re purely present, we don’t need teachings or teachers. Life itself to quote Karen Horney, remains a most effective teacher.
What’s your experience of spiritual leaders, and their treatment of those in their care?
It bugs some people, enrages others. I’d love to hear from you on this because I know mine is not the only valid opinion out there. You tell me what you think, teach your truth, and we’ll talk this thing out. What’s YOUR view? Read below for a cool new 3-In-One way to take up the talking stick and let us know what you think.
A Cool EASY NEW Way To Teach the World, Get Publicity & Continue Our Conversation:
You can EITHER leave a comment by clicking “Leave A Response” or fill in the box below this post, OR actually create content for your own blog/Facebook/Twitter with your thoughts. In the orange toolbar below click “Facebook” to post a comment on this provocative issue to our community, AND (optionally) a Facebook status update – at the same time. Or if you’re a Tweeter, click the Twitter button and do the same. Or play with updating both Twitter and Facebook. That’s like sending 3 press releases out for what you think on an issue. If you’re a coach, therapist, teacher or in other ways want to attract interest, this is a good way to do it.
If you don’t have an account yet, it’s really easy. Click here for Twitter and Facebook. Or if you’re tired of reading and want to sound off, post your thoughts in the orange bar below.
I look forward to continuing our conversation on this most controversial and provocative issue…
We had an amazing time Monday during the exact time of Winter Solstice, doing a ritual of clearing out the old, bringing in the desired and learning how each of our lives is sacred and how we are all priest/esses in our lives. I’m not using that as a religious term, but a spiritual one, for we are all here as teachers and students of each other.
An absolutely amazing video of French students doing stop-motion chair dance shows us a new Bliss Key: Cheerful Cooperation. When you engage this Bliss Key, the Bliss Blocker it unlocks is twofold:
Transparency, translucence, living a conscious life – or whatever you call it, is not only the birthright and destiny of every human, but also our responsibility to the future. Our choices are essential, each one important, even east or west, choosing paper, plastic or bring-your-own, choosing to remain conscious in the face of frightening and destructive acts of unspeakable evil, or parking a block away.
Moms especially will love this collection of f’ree downloadable organizer pages for your day, week, month and year. Three whole pages, about eighteen different forms in all to print and help organize the chaos of an active family! There’s a fall cleaning checklist, the “Eat Sheet” for a week’s worth of meals, a weekly family calendar, baby’s schedule, infant babysitter checklist and more. You don’t even have to sign up, just download:
I pledge to be more available to you in 2010. For one thing, I’ll be making lots of videos from now on. I’ve gone a bit video nutty really, as I’ve used my Flip Mino to exhaustion and happen to know Santa is dropping off a Kodak zi8.
Wassail is a contraction of the old Anglo-Saxon phrase “wes thu hal” meaning “To Your Health”. And of course, the traditional toasting beverage of this “best time of the year” ~ which in this case is a non-alcoholic hot apple cider punch we serve for the winter holidays. It is never served any other time of the year. You can twiddle the ingredients about a bit, Graines of Paradise may be hard to come by but you can substitute pink or green peppercorns or just leave it out.
I’ll be back to you just before New Year’s with some more juice for your joyous life and ways for you to live in ease, grace and joy.
Thank you as well to the officers of SFPD car 1257 who came, laughed at us just a wee bit (all in good fun, we were laughing too by that time – in the sheer terror of relief) and sprung us by summoning the California Pizza Kitchen manager who was still at work and had his own key.
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