I have read that it is common in cults for devotees to turn over their possessions and money to a leader or guru. Sometimes everything that they own, cars, houses, etc. I've read that gurus even obtain property that their devotees don't actually own, such as cars that are actually owned by young devotee's parents.

Devotees have been known to turn over all that they own to guru and then to start turning over all their earnings to guru.

Perhaps people even turn over profitable businesses. I wonder about Wayne Nishiki and just how his "Da Market," on Maui. became the first Down to Earth store. The Honolulu Advertiser Walter Wright articles from August 1977 say that "Da Market" was grossing $2,000 per week.

The Walter Wright articles say that "Da Market" property was transferred to the Down to Earth stores "by way of a Midgett-Moore entity called Jiva Ltd., in which their guru, Butler, was a director." ("Midgett" is Johnny Baldwin Midgett and "Moore" is John Moore (Jivan).)

Bill Penaroza and his family on Kauai also had a market, Penaroza Market, and a farm, which ended up in Chris Butler's or his devotees hands, as part of Down to Earth.

Wright says that the Down to Earth store in Honolulu was incorporated by "Moore, Olsen, Midgett and O'Connor." That would be John Moore (Jivan), Larry Olsen, Johnny Baldwin Midgett and Tim O'Connor.

I have talked to a devotee of Chris Butler's from the early days. This person is now a former devotee, of course. He told me that he had turned over property, I believe to other Jagad Guru devotees, at gunpoint.

I do not believe that Chris Butler was present when the involuntary property exchange took place.

I am not sure that this former devotee wishes to go public with the information. I am trying to protect this former devotees identity.

Even if the story were to fully come out, I don't know if anyone could be prosecuted after all of these years.

Hi Terrenaut. I'm guessing I know you. Thank you for that intelligently written piece. The last time I saw Siddha, I was in the doghouse for something. For the life of me, I can't remember what. I went up to him in a parking garage of one of his condos, I believe. He had just come down and I guess I was wanting to speak with him. When I saw him, I bowed down to pay my obeisances. When I got up, he had disappeared. At that moment, I was free. I don't know whether it was his gift to me or my free will exerting itself. But for the first time in years I felt the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. I dreamt about Siddha for a few years afterward, so I know what you mean about the residual factor.

Athiest, the property exchange at gunpoint was the turnover of the market on Kauai. Siddha was not there. Midgett was a very nice guy, by the way. He would not have been party to that. He married a beautiful girl from NZ but I don't know how anyone's life turned out once I left the scene. It's been a long time.

RadhaGovinda the property that I wrote about, that was turned over to Jagad Guru devotees at gunpoint, was not the market [Penzaroza Market ?] on Kauai.

If a Kauai property was turned over to Butler devotees, then there would have been at least two of these incidents of property being turned over at gunpoint.

The Penaroza Mkt was the only one I heard about. I don't know that Siddha knew about any of that. I've always been somewhat gullible and naive, though. I ran the Good Earth store (I think that's what it was called) next door. Used to sell a hodgepodge of stuff; herbs, books, machetes and gram scales (hard to rationalize that one). Even sold used cars out front. People would buy them when they got on the island and sell them back to me when they left. And sometimes they were in a very big hurry to leave, especially if they got beat up at Taylor Camp. I was one of the early followers on Kauai. The early days seemed rather innocent. Things got more complicated and paranoid as it progressed.

There is an article in today's 03/25/11 Honolulu Star-Advertiser about Honolulu City Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo getting a Temporary Restraining Order against a man named Aniruddha Sherbow, 40, who made harassing phone calls and text messages to Tulsi.

The article confirms that Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo is single.

Here are excerpts from the article:

Court orders man to stop harassing councilwoman

Quote


Gabbard Tamayo got more than 35 abusive calls and text messages

By Gordon Y.K. Pang

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 25, 2011

A three-year injunction was issued yesterday against a man who made a string of verbally abusive telephone calls and sent similar text messages to City Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo, then sat in at a Council meeting last month.

Aniruddha Sherbow, 40, must stay away from Gabbard Tama­yo's residence and workplace under the injunction. He must also not contact, threaten or harass Gabbard Tamayo, including through telephone calls or text messages.

Gabbard Tamayo said she does not know Sherbow, who contacted her more than 35 times from Feb. 3 to 23.

Sherbow was not in court when District Judge Maura Oka­moto granted Gabbard Tamayo's request yesterday.

Gabbard Tamayo told the Star-Advertiser that Sherbow, who would only identify himself as "Sphinx," first contacted her on her cellphone on Feb. 3 when he asked her if he could rent office space from her. Her cell number is widely available on the Internet.

When she politely declined, she said, Sherbow called her again the next day and asked whether he could rent space to work out of her home.

The calls and messages continued and became increasingly aggressive, personal and abusive, Gabbard Tamayo said. Early on, one message said, "It's not that you can't (help), you're choosing not to."

Later, a text message said that if she approached him, he would force her to perform a sexual act.

On Feb. 6, Gabbard Tamayo sent Sherbow a text stating, "I don't know what's going on, but please don't text me or call me again."

"He was calling me numerous times, at strange hours," she said.

Gabbard Tamayo said the calls and text messages continued, but she stopped communicating with him. Each contact he made came from a different telephone number he received from his cellphone carrier.

Quote


On Feb. 23, Sherbow sat in the audience of a regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

"He kept moving around and moving around until he positioned himself directly within my line of sight, and that I knew he was there," she said.

When he walked out of the room, police spoke to him, Gabbard Tamayo said.

That night, she received an angry, profanity-laced telephone message from Sherbow, criticizing her for taking the matter to police and telling her "you shouldn't have done that."

Police arrested Sherbow on March 4. He was charged with harassment and released on $500 bail.

Gabbard Tamayo said she has had no contact with him since.

The Iraq war veteran, who is 29 and single, said she has taken reasonable precautions, but she declined to discuss specifics.

She emphasized, however, that "I am continuing to live my life the way I did before this started."

She said she is willing to speak publicly about the ordeal to encourage others in similar situations to inform police.

Quote
RadhaGovinda
Hi Terrenaut. I'm guessing I know you. Thank you for that intelligently written piece. The last time I saw Siddha, I was in the doghouse for something. For the life of me, I can't remember what. I went up to him in a parking garage of one of his condos, I believe. He had just come down and I guess I was wanting to speak with him. When I saw him, I bowed down to pay my obeisances. When I got up, he had disappeared. At that moment, I was free. I don't know whether it was his gift to me or my free will exerting itself. But for the first time in years I felt the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. I dreamt about Siddha for a few years afterward, so I know what you mean about the residual factor.

Hi RG,
You were really lucky to have had a catalyst that was able to wake you up somehow.

Others have related similar stories. One female initiate told me that she bowed in front of Down to Earth and he ran away with his entourage! She saw them laughing and felt certain of her sincerity and wondered why she got that response. She spent years in self doubt. But it became one of the "bricks in the wall". Once, she went at great expense to see him somewhere in California when he had abandoned one of his big propaganda projects (I think it was a newspaper in Northern California). She had no place to go and no "instructions" on what to do or where to "serve". When she saw him he asked WTF she was doing there. When she said, "I wanted to see you..." and before she could ask for guidance he said, "So, now you have seen me..." and kicked her out.
She was free but later a big "devotee" asked her to work on some other non-paid project and so she came back to the cult for several years after that --- in want of something....to be accepted --- to be reassured she was making spiritual progress --- was on the right spiritual path --- to be pleasing to g0d --- and felt there was no way for her to know what was right or wrong without Butler.
But she eventually woke up and left the cult.

Just know that the residual effects are long lasting...like an insidious, low level radiation ..... You don't always see or feel it. It is an invisible influence that has seeped in every pore, affecting and poisoning your life for years, even decades. It can affect your success in life, your ability to trust and bond with others, sustain a job, get along in the world, etc.

And yes, it can cause a lot of life-long bitterness due to the pain and hurt some followers have experienced. So try to understand others who had a rougher time in the cult than you may have had.

I'd like to know what other residual effects you had besides dreams about Siddha.

"And yes, it can cause a lot of life-long bitterness due to the pain and hurt some followers have experienced. So try to understand others who had a rougher time in the cult than you may have had."

I didn't mean to be glib. I do understand the pain and suffering and feel for those whose lives have been turned inside out and upside down. I still blame myself, though. I mean, when you think about it, the world balancing on the back of a giant tortoise? What was I thinking? But Siddha did have a certain power beyond charisma and I guess it was the initial dose of that that kept me there longer than necessary.

"I'd like to know what other residual effects you had besides dreams about Siddha."

Just the dreams. And wasting some of the best years of my life, of course.

RadhaGovinda:

You said, "What was I thinking?"

In cult groups critical thinking is often shut down by coercive persuasion and thought reform.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Also see [www.culteducation.com]

As you say, "But Siddha did have a certain power..."

This would be the basis of that "power."

The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:

1. The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance

2. The use of an organized peer group

3. Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity

4. The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified

The basis or foundation for this is control of the environment, or what Lifton calls "milieu control."

Milieu Control

The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual's communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads or writes, experiences, and expresses), but also - in its penetration of his inner life - over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.

Such milieu control never succeeds in becoming absolute, and its own human apparatus can - when permeated by outside information - become subject to discordant "noise" beyond that of any mechanical apparatus. To totalist administrators, however, such occurrences are no more than evidences of "incorrect" use of the apparatus. For they look upon milieu control as a just and necessary policy, one which need not be kept secret: thought reform participants may be in doubt as to who is telling what to whom, but the fact that extensive information about everyone is being conveyed to the authorities is always known. At the center of this self-justification is their assumption of omniscience, their conviction that reality is their exclusive possession. Having experienced the impact of what they consider to be an ultimate truth (and having the need to dispel any possible inner doubts of their own), they consider it their duty to create an environment containing no more and no less than this "truth." In order to be the engineers of the human soul, they must first bring it under full observational control.

Psychologist Margaret Singer identifies other control techniques such as the use of hypnosis and trance.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Meditation can also be used in a destructive manner.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Reading and understanding how cult groups work often helps former cult members sort through their experience and better understand what happened.

I suppose one could spend a life time analyzing the whole brainwashing phenomena. I recognize the techniques. Textbook, in this case. I'm still not sure about some of the mystical experiences. Were they my own? Or were they induced by Siddha? Did he finally release me or did I release myself. Maybe I give him too much credit. Without the mystical connection, I doubt there would have been the allure for me. I didn't necessarily feel called to a higher purpose, nor do I remember being afraid of the repercussions of leaving.

Without discounting the brainwashing, and the damage it does, I see it in so many forms of socialization in school, government and religion that I don't know where the Hare Krishna movement, and SoI in particular, would fall on the spectrum. People go to war for irrational ideals all the time, whether it is called Crusades or Jihad or Patriotism. On a smaller scale, I guess people go to war for Siddha.