I'm so upset, deeply concerned and profoundly shocked and didn't know where else to notify people about this. The ASI, which I joined several years ago, calls for ethical integrity among spiritual teachers, a noble cause, but it turns out that rather than embodying the ethical standards they advocate for, their director (also a co-founder) and several on the board of advisors/staff appear to lack that integrity themselves, as a great deal of their conduct/teachings violate, even in extreme ways, their own stated values/precepts of ASI's code of conduct, which members are required to pledge a commitment to. Disturbingly, the organization claims to be in service of protecting spiritual seekers from spiritual abuse/being victimized by unethical teaching conduct, these individuals appear to be the very type of teachers their organization claims to serve to protect!

A very dark side of the organization came to light, after examining numerous transcripts of interactions between Jac O'Keefe (ASI director and spiritual teacher) and her students/followers at her satsangs/retreats revealed to me an extremely disturbing consistent pattern of profoundly unethical and frighteningly dangerous, even abusive behavior/communication that ranges from irresponsible to what I believe most would agree is beyond the pale - including everything from pressuring people to engage in sexual practices, violence, disparagement/belittlement/shaming, abusive, violent language, radical gaslighting, implanting traumatic memories, overall abusing authoritative influence to pressure people to do what she says is best for them in private, personal matters, and much more. I can't fathom how she reconciles this with her position at ASI, and how the other co-founders/staff members could possibly not have known about this, and if they did, justified it!!

Beyond making members and prospective members aware of this, it would weigh heavy on my conscience if I didn't report this somewhere, as its' clear in my view that spiritual seekers turning to her for support are at risk of danger, and in line with ASI's mission, she/they must be held accountable for this and hopefully new people can take over who align their conduct with their own stated mission.

The disturbing revelations about Jac include more than the fact that her radical nondual teachings (though she critiques nonduality at times) seemingly mixed with ACIM, are based on the total, un-nuanced, denial of the self/individual and of reality/existence itself in a way that exceeds anything I've personally seen before in the radical nondual scene. Now the ASI invites people to submit complaints about being abused/treated unethically by teachers - given that she/her teachings totally deny the reality that anything is even ever happening, and that victimhood, blame, harm, attack are stories made up by a non-existent self, how on earth would the victims be taken seriously?? After all, her repeated advice to trauma victims includes realizing that it never even happened. YT Video: [www.youtube.com]

Or, as you'll see later, that they can learn to enjoy everything including violence.

Beyond these dangerously disassociatve and de-realizing ideologies/teachings, many of you will likely find her egregious, bizarre behavior in interactions with the extremely vulnerable people coming to her for help as utterly outrageous and even chilling as I have. Those familiar with the dark side of Byron Katie, will likely see frightening similarities.

After seeing the "it never happened" video, I got curious and browsed more videos, recent facebook posts, and several 30-page transcripts of her interactions with participants at her satsang/retreats, that including so many shocking things forming a repeated pattern of outrageously unethical and dangerous behavior.

-----

There's too many examples to count, but I made this google doc with about 20 examples showing the disturbing pattern I'm talking about

GOOGLE DOC WITH FULL QUOTES, Links, etc. bit.ly/3P7UED1

These are publicly available on Jac O'Keefes' website under the section "Free Teachings" - "Event Transcriptions" - [bit.ly]

Note that all of these interactions occurred in front of a live satsang audience, with extremely vulnerable individuals in various states of crisis, trauma, etc.



?? Asking unprompted invasive sexual questions to audience members including whether they masturbate and enjoy watching pornography.


?? Pressuring attendees to engage in specific sexual acts like masturbation, watching pornography, oral sex, including instances where the person said they were uncomfortable.


?? Pressures a man who is worried about violent urges to engage in a physical fight with someone, and not to worry because reality is just a movie game.


?? Doggedly pressures man to beat up a tree during the retreat, even after he clearly doesn't want to, then shames him in front of the audience for "being avoidant," while the audience ensures him it's okay to just say no.


(Another example of her abusing her authoritative influence to pressure people into doing (often dangerous) things they don't want to, using shame and manipulation to convince them it will be healing for them them/the solution for the issue they're seeking support for.)


?? Repeatedly telling a participant that their perspective is "bullshit"


?? Uses violent metaphors/language to describe what she wants to do to a participant (for his benefit) including, "hacking away at him," "performing surgery on him" and aggressively pressures him to "stop resisting" her.


?? Belittling people constantly for being crazy for simply thinking they are real. This is one of her core main teachings repeated incessantly to people.


?? Byron Katie-esque Holocaust Comment:

Claiming that if the Jews in the Holocaust had been able to enjoy everything no matter how bad it seems, like her, they wouldn't have suffered - they suffered because they were identified with their bodies, made a story out of what was happening.


?? Tells someone with borderline personality disorder that she wants to see him sent into an ungrounded state that severs their connection to themselves and the world.


?? Pressures a man to leave his wife, another example of forcefully trying to make extremely life-altering decisions for vulnerable, confused people.


?? Claims that you'll realize that even "humanitarian values" are "bullshit" from the type of consciousness she is teaching



?? Tells a woman who has severe childhood trauma around speaking and verbal expression, and is suffering from feeling like she can’t be heard by others, that we actually don’t need to be heard by others, and spiritualizes her inability to articulate her feelings as "a blessing" on this awakening path.


?? Denies that the event she is hosting isn’t actually happening, and that if they think it is, their minds are lying to them. One of so many examples of this kind of overt gaslighting, tied to what seems to be one of her core teachings - radical de-realization - to see that nothing is ever really happening, taken to the extreme.


?? Another overt denial of anything ever being problematic, harmful, or wrong, outside of the stories we tell ourselves. This prevents people from even discerning when they are being victimized by unethical teaching behavior that ASI claims to support people with.


?? Telling people that all of their thoughts are "garbage"- more denigrating, shaming, abusiveness


?? An interaction in which a woman experiences disruptive forms of memory loss from her teachings and Jac normalizes/spiritualizes it and assures her that having memory is not very important.


?? Tells woman who describes becoming passively suicidal from the shift her teachings have led to that she is to blame for the personal/familial issues she is struggling with. (More examples of extreme victim-blaming/shaming, total lack of empathy and safety concern for those sharing suffering from dangerous side effects of "awakening")


?? Encourages man burdened by care-taking his mother to beat up a tree while thinking about "chopping her head off," and plants memories of being neglected by her.


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PLEASE REFER TO THE GOOGLE DOC FOR THE QUOTES/TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS, LINKS TO EVERYTHING DESCRIBED HERE. bit.ly/3P7UED1

------



Precepts from ASI Code of Ethics Most Clearly Violated:

[www.spiritual-integrity.org]




1.Holding ourselves to the highest standards of ethics, right behavior, and professional competency, as commonly recognized by our peers.

2. "Performing our roles as teachers in a caring and compassionate manner, in both one-to-one interactions and groups."

3. "Acknowledging that, regardless of our spiritual attainment, we are human beings with human personalities, limitations, drives, and needs."

Jac: "Blessings on all of us, who are pretending to be human."

[www.jac-okeeffe.com]


4. "Fostering autonomy, empowerment, self-sufficiency, and emotional maturity in our students."

5. "Treating students’ questions, concerns, doubts, and experiences with respect, and never trivializing or dismissing their enquiries."

8. "Refraining from giving counsel in matters outside of our areas of training and expertise."

18. "Being particularly mindful of sexual boundaries with students—and honoring them at all times."

19. "Cultivating and practicing honesty, integrity, compassion, humility, and empathy."


---------


Many concerning youtube videos

Recent facebook posts...SEE GOOGLE DOC for screenshots bit.ly/3P7UED1

Regardless of whether you believe what she is saying, radically denying that anything, which includes abuse and harm is ever actually happening, is incompatible with being the director of an org that claims to support potential victims of unethical teaching behavior.

------

Advisory board members + peer supporter


Advisory board members Ray Bratcher and David Beavers' publicly disseminated teachings, derived from ACIM (A Course in Miracles) extremely victim-blaming, gaslighting, and radically denying such a thing as victimhood being more than a cognitive distortion/story of a non-existent ego, including the reality of attack and harm.


Ray Bratcher promotes Breatharianism online, including what he calls a "Food-Free Diet," (One of his videos - "I haven't eaten in 17 days") dangerous practices that have been widely warned about as severely compromising health and even being deadly.

[www.youtube.com]

“If you wake up to your unreality, then you can live on prana energy." - Ray

One of the peer support specialists and resource creator is a leading member of an organization of Sai Baba devotees. a guru against whom there have been so many accounts of sexual abuse that the UK parliament decided that families visitng his ashram be warned of the risk of danger to their boys.

[edm.parliament.uk]


-------

What, if anything, do you suggest I do further? Would you send this to the ASI/submit it through the complaint submission form? Just let it be? I'm really upset about this, any advice very appreciated!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2023 03:38AM by Soulfly1080.

YIKES. There's some stuff here that I would file under 'maybe ok depending on the particular student/teacher relationship' but there's a lot that feels really bad to me, especially the very directive advice to students around major life decisions; that's a big red flag for me. I don't know what the right course of action here is, but just chiming in to say I see what you're seeing and it doesn't look very good to me either.

Wait, so if someone submits a case of spiritual abuse to ASI, will she send instructions on how they can learn to enjoy it?

Oh god, Jacs' Holocaust comment...


It's just like Byron Katies' notorious one:



"When I’m walking to the gas chamber, other than what I’m thinking and believing, what an amazing day!" —Byron Katie



Appalling. And believe or not, its' still posted on Byrons' website:



www.thework.com/2017/11/video-no-one-can-hurt-thats-job/



I think there's a post on this forum somewhere about it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2023 03:41AM by Followthesun.

well damn... didn't look at everything soulfly documented, but about "counseling" satsang audience members on personal situation, it seems like there's like this dynamic going on where she's set herself up as like some kind of intuitive oracle woman who can "see" what they need to do better than they can...so it looks like people come up to the mic, share a deep personal / crisis-level challenge to find out "what she sees for them..." is she like a psychic/clairvoyant?


This one from the doc is wtf, she actually telling a guy to get into a violent fight??? doesn't sound like this had anything to do with self-defense either. The context not fully clear but that doesn't stop me from seeing this as totally out of line and dangerous for lot of reasons


"Q: Okay. The violence, what I notice is that I'm always being [indiscernible words] by that. Meaning I have intense aversion and intense fear towards that.



Jac: Are you talking about physical violence?



Q:Yes, kind of that confrontation. For example, if I see a movie or a situation [indiscernible words] it just….. I was thinking about that, and I think it also connects to kind of a primal source in the body.


Jac: Yes.


Q: Where maybe it was just sealed off because what's there is just that primal instinct of kill or be killed, and so if it comes out that it's just…. It just is exactly what it is, I would kill or be killed.


Jac: Okay, it comes from there.



Q: I'm not sure, so anything you can kind of add to that.


Jac: Very often on the spiritual path we kind of can't go towards things that disturb what we’re cultivating inside. That happens very often, and then once you kind of breakout of duality it's actually nothing, it's actually a game. No matter how violent it is it’s still a game....Your mind can make a story out of it and you can wonder why, or you can just listen to it and move away from violence.


Q: Well it seems to be finding me...


Jac: It's finding you like movies are finding you.


Q: Not movies but the real-life where you're kind of facing somebody where there is a real potential for a physical fight, of violence.



Jac: Ah, that’s very different.


Jac: Do you actually feel like you want to fight when it comes up to you?


Q: No I don't, but at the same time I feel like when I'm trying to evade the situation it just feels to me that you know, how long am I going to do that? Am I going to become like a coward? What’s my intention behind avoiding this situation or how do I dissolve it? Do I fight, do I back off, and what's the motivation behind that? Is it just simple fear of that or is it just like you know following that principle of non violence?


this was in that docc


Jac: Have you ever fought?


Q: Well one time you know in school, but since that…..


Jac: Do you need to do it again?


Q: Again, my intention is not to, but for some reason I encounter those situations [indiscernible words].


Jac: Is it an experience you need to have as a man?


Q: Maybe.


Jac: Maybe.


Q: Again, nonviolence I think is a good concept, but somehow [indiscernible words] recently I did [indiscernible words] and simply….. but still there was like 80% of the time it was connected to that violence where I was in view of it and participating and initiating that, and that is kind of to me the merging of the white and black light of darkness.

I just wanted to hear what you see in that situation because you would be a bit more objective on it.


Jac: I'd be inclined to get down and dirty and have a fight, and see what you learn from it. See what the experience is like, and see what your perspective is like after it. Because if it's all around you to that extent, you know…..


Q: It's all around me but it's kind of like outside.



Q: Okay, thank you for advising me to fight.





Here that google doc...

[docs.google.com]



Soulfly I'd say maybe save screenshots of stuff in case they take it down?



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2023 04:20AM by Followthesun.

omg, what the serious heck earth is this??? Surgery?? Sounds like a horror show...for christs' sake, this is beyond creepy coercion for compliance, manipulation... I mean...


"Jac: Don’t resist, let me do surgery on you and what you're saying is bullshit.
Don't resist it just trust me, really trust me. Don't resist.

That’s desire. Desire to create story. I'm not going to tolerate this now, I'm going to hack you down because you're at satsang.


What you're saying is bullshit, and it's keeping you stuck in story...Let me do some surgery on you, stop fighting.


Q: I'm not.


Jac: You are. You're saying you're not but you are. You are, you're holding back.


There's something inside that is just holding on because this feels bloody awful to let me in, but please let me in."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2023 02:24AM by brenmitchel8.

this is insane gaslighting...HOW is this person directing an org for ethics? It's like the Twilight Zone or Black Mirror


"Nothing happened here this evening, nothing at all happened." Can you find that place in you where it's true that nothing at all happened this evening? Or is the story and reality feel of what your mind has perceived, is that full on with bells and whistles? ... Your mind is a liar, celebrate it."

OMG this is profoundly haunting and makes me want to cry...anyone who gets involved with this person is in serious danger and need to be warned! that she is teaching abuse victims how to ENJOY BEING ABUSED and shaming them for BELIEVING IT HAPPENED is inconceivable and has me seriously contemplating potential criminal implications. Where else can it be shared to protect potential victims??



Q: So a couple of months ago I got pushed around a little bit, and it was the first time that I got pushed physically. I can't say that I enjoyed that experience.


Jac: But as soon as you go into the description of an experience, what's active in your brain is "I like, I dislike," because you've gone in to the qualitative, quantitative, and the description, so you're activating the part of you that's going to have a reaction to the specific experience. That's a step away, a big step away, from the essence of experience itself.


Q: Can you say that again?


Jac: Yes. As soon as your brain has activated the naming, labeling mechanism, that says, "being physically pushed around is not comfortable, I didn't like it," we're in the component that has manifested the experience with particulars, there's details.



Q: So is it a neutral experience?



Jac: No. It's an experience that's not named. As soon as an experience is named we're going to be liking it or disliking it. It's about tasting the essence of experience itself before it becomes a story.



Q: Say that again.



Jac: It's about engaging with experience itself, the essence, the nature, the pure nature of experience itself before it becomes describable, nameable.



Q: Before it is judged.



Jac: Even before that, because it has to be named to be judged.



Q: So if we talk about it in any way it's bullshit?



Jac: Yes, and then there's a you and something happened to you, and of course you liked it or you didn't like it, of course that's valid there in that realm, but your mind is manifesting that story, that scenario, as an experience that's happening to a personal individual woman, that's you. That's when the show is fully running and the personal I is running, and there's a hard experience and suffering happens there. But to live from a place of where experience only is tasted in its true nature, it's not denying the particulars of it, it's an entirely different way to engage with life.

 

Q: And it's not neutral? I want to say neutral, that experience, but is there another way to express it?


Jac: It's actually nicer than neutral, it's actually enjoyed. Regardless of the experience, the story of the experience isn't active scir doesn't touch you. It's actually not real, it actually hasn't appeared in manifestation. our way of engaging with it is through the nature of experience itself, and we can only enjoy experience then. You know that connection point between pure experience and your capacity to engage with pure experience, is always with enjoyment. But as soon as we leave it and it becomes story, and if there's something traumatic happening we'll create story, because some self protective mechanism will run the flight or fight and everything around creating the story and how to be safe. Not a good place to start, but it's possible. It's possible that even something like that can happen, and if you've trained your system to enjoy experience it won't touch you, because it actually doesn't show up, it actually doesn't happen it's the nothing is happening scenario.



Q: So in the world I'm playing as a character, but nothing is really happening.

 

Jac: That's for sure.





Are there any legal avenues or organizations that can provide guidance or support in dealing with this? Obvjously not the ASI. I cannot even begin to comprehend how she is getting away with directing of an ethics org. What about the others in that org??



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2023 04:18AM by granejim.

granejim Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are there any legal avenues or organizations that
> can provide guidance or support in dealing with
> this?

That's just the problem with cults. The RR/CEI forum has been here for years ... but people are still getting sucked into cults.

If you had psychological trauma, wouldn't you seek out a real therapist rather than a wanna-be? But in a free society, you can only go so far in protecting people from their own stupidity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2023 03:32PM by shamrock.

I have to wonder where Rick Archer stands with all of this? I’ve respected him, and seen him remove batgap interviews from people discovered to engage in unethical or concerning behavior. I’m truly baffled by this. As a co founder, it’s really disappointing and baffling. It’s hard to fathom him not knowing about Jac etc. but also hard to fathom him knowing and collaborating with her.