Thanks for all the great info, Toni. Unfortunately, my "friend" is my husband's ex wife and she knows that we're investigating her many questionable activies and that custody issues may be in the works. She's had three men in less than three years live with her and the boys, one a wanted international criminal and another a "psychic healer." The third has just attended an intensive with her! She's extremely secretive, instructs the children to hide things from their father, and the last thing she would ever do is share info. with me. She's furious at me for researching all this. I have ordered more materials and if I can find the spiritual handbook somewhere, I'll share the source for other researchers.

I am sorry for the children. It's painful for them to be taught that secrets are normal.

Unsettling for the children to have a multitude of quasi-partners coming through. You are providing stability. You probably cannot change her, nor save her. Just to learn what you can about children who are raised in cults, helping them to recover from their inevitable issues. Their issues will be minimized due to your influence. As far as I've been able to ascertain, the kids' experience may be simlar to being raised in an alcoholic home. e.g. codependency, secrets, etc, tiptoeing around the addiction (cult) of the person they love, whose addiction prevents the parent from truly being the lead in the family.

As I'd recently said to my daughter about someone else "Oh well, just like the rest of us, she'll have the rest of her life to recover from her childhood."

Sorry to sound so callous, but there IS information out there for the kids, albeit limited. Your loving (and nonjudgemental ) influence to the children will carry them far! Important to help them, as they mature, to make their OWN decisions. The goal to arrive at adulthood, and not to have to do Gourasana' bidding, nor necessarily yours -- to have the ability to discern according to an internalized set of values.

Your step children fortunate for your active concern. Keep up the good work!

I was just sent this..

This link is from a site about abusive churches but this checklist has some remarkable similarities to MOL. (Again its sad but interesting that the more you learn about these groups the more similar they become)

[abusivechurches.org]

Each characteristic on the list has an essay that goes into greater detail. Valuable info about the use of multiple layers of membership, layers kept separate from each other, and contruction of a respectable 'front'.

Thanks, all, for your wonderful private emails and for all the helpful advice. I look forward to being able to respond to private emails! I'm amazed at how many people have contacted me with further details of their personal stories. And thanks to the person who sent me the LOVELY Kalindi book....nice photos, ha ha...I can't remember who said that humor is necesseary to deal with this insanity, but they were right. One look at the finger-pointing "yeah, baby" look and that leather get up and I just dissolve into chuckles and think "THIS PERSON?!" But back to the subject, the concern for me and my family is wonderful, although there is so much fear in the air....all you who are worried for me, don't worry. I have "truth buckled around my waist and integrity for a breastplate."

I'm used to harassment as I've exposed other questionable people and practices in the past. And I'm tired of always tip toe-ing around the ex's "rights" while she tramples all over ours and the children's....I'm ready to rent a billboard! And no one should ever back down from a fight for protection of children and I'll battle to the end for those kids! You know, there's a time for a good fight and this is one of them. "Of Whom shall I fear?" It's not like I'm making this up...the great thing is that all we need is the truth.

Strength, healing and blessings to all of you who have the courage to stand up for the truth! You must continue....innocent people are suffering and they need help and info! This is the education forum, so let's educate!

Yes, your ex's family probably has all kinds of 'rights' to which you will never know (maybe outlined in K's lifestyle book? I have no idea). Such 'basics' (to my peon mind) as honesty, fulfiling commitments, are not accorded to those of the Illusion.

Truly, it's not malicious, just total LACK of awareness of others as equals. Even trying to communicate will not work, because you are not on equal planes. You are 'caught in the Illusion of this world of pain and suffering', so can never be taken seriously. It's part of the mind F**K that I'd referred to.

Some of the questions that have been raised on the board
I hope that I can answer:

As you know the last name is Siedman, and the family has some strange things going on way before even MOL,at least by the way most people have a family life. Kalindi’s sister is Jill and they have a brother Scott, and also a siter Elane. Kalindi is Carol. The mother died when The kids were young dad Jack remarried don't remember stepmoms name. But I know that Jill was not real big on the way her sister Carol was mothering her daughter (Maha), they were involved in Hare Krishna at the time. They were non prcticing jews but always got together for Hanukka, and things were stressed at these gatherings.

This is the part that I think is strange, her father and stepmom lived in a nudist colony. I think it was or is called Glen Eden.
Jill as far as I know still a nudist. She walked around naked, her son grew up that way and didn't notice but I'm sure his friends did.

Jill lived there with her son and sister and her son. One of the things that she told me was that she was the personal massage therapist to Gourassana, till he died and that she was the only one that could help him be comfortable in his last days. She also told me that he looked like a beautiful little old man when he died, that there was nothing left of him! (AIDS? ) One more thing that I think is sort of strange is that she told me that what she had learned from the intensives is that we don't have to be ashamed of anything we do or think and that when we are free god will love us all the more.

For Interested Parties :
The following are 3 recent postings from the MOLSurvivor Group. This information may be useful to those who read this thread.

1) There's a clever, well done dramatic TV show called "Veronica Mars." In Tuesday's episode (11/30/2004) Veronica joins a "love cult." I
will find it interesting to see how the writers of the show portray a cult.

****

2) So... by having the emphasis right now on 'calming' e.g. no group
meditations, organzing your home, holidays with family, meditations
are quiet sitting once or twice per day (appears like other 'normal meditation' methods), this will remove some of the concerns of outside family members. The MOL member will appear to be more normal. Still, however, the MOL member is doing this at the dictates of Kalindi not
of their own accord.

Also, like any addict who has time away from their addiction, the MOL
members will be going through withdrawals. During this time of 'calming' the MOL members will miss the high of being together in the group meditations (I know because I missed it when I left the group! It IS a unique high). This high, they are told, is the experience of God. This will
affirm for the MOL member-addicts how much they need the MOL group
activities, thus deepen their commitment to the Mission. The anticipation of what will come forth must be great! People always anticipate the surprises of what will come forth at the next Intensive.

Any concerns that family members have will be hard to address when
your loved one appears to be so normal now. It's like trying to catch a ghost.

****

3) We are interested in the financial aspects to MOL, including the possibility that MOLers are being "coached" into making substantial investments into business entities that are inappropriate (at the very least) or fraudulent. We know that a MOLer has made commissions for directing a member to these investments.

We also wonder whether the current "calm" has anything to do with these ongoing investigations.

Does anyone have any information regarding this? Thanks.

Roy

Roy Chernus
Executive Director
Legal Aid of Marin
30 North San Pedro Road, Suite 220
San Rafael, CA 94903
Telephone: (415)492-0230
Fax: (415)492-0947
Reply to: rchernus@LegalAidMarin.org

Interesting that this TV show mentioned in prior posting, Veronica Mars, has had on as a minor character, Randy Siedman. He has been
on this show on more than one episode, and is Kalindi's
nephew. Hmmmm, interesting.

I am writing this to those who are in a relationship or have left a relationship with an MOL'r and to those who are involved in MOL.

I have been reading this message board for the last couple of months and along with the links
I have been able to gain the clarity that I need to hopefully move on from my experiences and understand
the relationship I had with an MOL'r.

Thinking back, I am able to put together why he was so attracted to MOL and why he continues
to stay. How he was so slowly seduced and enticed without his family or friends seeing what was happening before their very eyes. I have been slowly able to put together the confusion of that relationship that lasted for more than a year.

The MOL'r that I was involved with, past experiences growing up taught him that women are evil, only thinking of themselves,
and will betray in the end. According to him these experiences were very painful for him.

In my opinion, MOL keeps him locked in those painful past experiences, trapped in that pain because they give him the love that he now believes and can not trust could be there for him outside of the group. He takes all of his energy to serve God and give to God because that is the safe thing to do, he is not giving away his energy to a "woman" who will end up betraying him in the end. He then bonds more and more to the group in his effort to "break free from illusions". They feed off each other keeping each other going. It is a twisted maze, a feeding frenzy. Throw in the meditations and seminars where you experience ecstasy beyond your comprehension (a manufactured high) and there are no winners here. Only a high from a "God" that a mere loving human like myself can not compete with. It is much more deeper than trying to show an MOL'r the belief system for what it is, they would have to have been open to real intimate relationships. People outside MOL also have the capacity to have nuturing hearts that love. My "acts of loving" (because I was taught that love is an action word, not always a feeling) him were already discounted through his past experiences and the fact that I am part of the "illusion". To be free and/or be willing to be free from what you can not feel to be true or possibly even false is truely LET GO, GIVE UP, AND SURRENDER.

Funny, in his (and there are many) "illusions" that all women are evil, are out for themselves, and will betray in the end, he should end up following the guidance of a "woman" who claims to be the "Voice of God".

As I said, there are no winners here.

Yes, so beautifully put. Sorry about your BF; glad you got out after only one year! Glad the postings are helping you. Thank you for helping others learn from your experience.

No one REAL individual can compete with the "Voice of God", or "The Pure Love of The Lady." A real relationship would require true intimacy, honesty, sharing mutality, and acceptance of one another's imperfections. You cannot, nor could I, compete with the high from the LGAT, and the love-bombing of the "MOL Familly."

With my demanding life, professionally and personally, right now the Pleasantville-like life of a communal MOL house sounds enticing. It could be restful to stop thinking for a time, and not to have responsbility for my own choices and mistakes. sigh. NOT!