To read up on links between Gottlieb's Royal Way material to Rajneesh/Osho's output, read here:

[forum.culteducation.com]


Rajneesh liked to tell dirty jokes, some reportedly copied from Playboy.

[forum.culteducation.com] Date: August 28, 2013 10:50AM



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2018 06:13AM by corboy.

Just as Osho inspired Michael, Wild Wild Country has brought life back to this forum, as awareness is growing. All around the world, specifically in America, mindfulness has become a "hot topic" - this is something we as a people should take pride in. Osho would be proud, and i believe so would Michael, in the strength the collective consciousness has amassed.

Disclaimer: there are no answers here. There are no correct conclusions and you will never find the meaning you've been seeking in a forum. It is like free therapy and it is always nice to vent, but one must figure out the question they are asking before they expect to receive any sort of an answer.

A word: do not shun osho, do not shun Michael and most importantly do not shun yourself. You are beautiful, as you are or otherwise, and you are the cause of your own success and suffering. Take a moment, breathe, take pride in your life.

I did not have the pleasure of knowing Michael firsthand - fewer and fewer members do these days. Maggie, Michael's disciple, was the medium by which Michael was prescribed to me. I hold nothing against Maggie, but every member and their mother (no pun, it truly is a family affair) knows that when they listen to Maggie, it is the voice of Michael they are hearing.

The same goes for Osho. Osho has inspired the lives of millions and if you are a dedicated follower of Michael Gottlieb then you are a Rajneeshee and you are yet another branch in Osho's tree of consciousness and love. His love still spreads like a beautiful wildfire.

If you've seen wild wild country you will understand, and if you are a royal way member and you have not watched the netflix documentary, you owe it to yourself to take a look. propagandists talk constantly about manipulation, control etc. This was not Osho's doing, but Sheela's. I will not do Maggie the discourtesy of comparing her to Sheela, but in practice their roles are actually quite similar. It was Sheela, and her loyal band of renegades, who brought terror on that small town in oregon. Sheela lost sight of what was important, but only because Osho had done the same.

So ask yourself, how could Osho, great spiritual leader and chosen disciple of the almighty lose himself? simple. the same way people in the traffic jam of life lose themselves each and every day. it was society, it was pressure, it was the relative disarray of the masses compiled into a simple manifestation called drugs. Osho was pressured by hollywood "donors" to do drugs and, ultimately, 0sho too was steered off the path of righteousness and love. As is Michale (and even Maggie), osho is but a vessel. How this vessel becomes filled is the responsibility of hte community.

To the members, i ask you now: how will you handle your responsibility?

This thread is not about Rajneesh aka Osho. It's about the Royal Way.

"Osho great spiritual leader"?

FYI -- Osho was deported from the US long ago due to his criminal activity. He tried to immigrate to other countries, but was blocked entry, e.g. UK. Finally India allowed him to return when he paid money owed.

IMO Rajneesh/Osho used Sheela like a tool and she did everything with his full knowledge and approval. Including the terrorist attack in Oregon.

Rajneesh hurt many people and in IMO is a prime example of a destructive cult leader. Rajneesh Osho is included in a chapter about modern cult history in the book "Cults Inside Out."

See [cultsinsideout.com]

For anyone interested in the historical facts regarding Rajneesh or Osho see the Cult Education Institute archive on Osho.

See [www.culteducation.com]

1sadhana,
I knew Michael firsthand. There were many pleasurable times. There were also many times where his demands for loyalty, his personal attacks on those who disagreed and his questionable methods were all too obvious as a cult leader. Publicly, he would sometimes taunt those who fawned over him. He would also make fun of students and devotees behind their backs. He was never afraid to demand donations from the wealthiest followers, though usually through an intermediary like Maggi. As a teacher, he had his flaws. As a person, he made some morally bad choices. People were seriously hurt by those choices. They could have been avoided. He knew what he was doing.

People in RW are afraid to speak truth to power. Many will never leave due to fear of abandonment by their closest “friends”. They love bomb each other, then use attack therapy in encounter groups. They use the path of personal growth to create a dependency on RW and each other. I will guarantee you that if someone in RW has stayed for more than 6 years they are probably staying for life.

Michael once taught that RW was a place where you get what you need and then move on. Later, he said the opposite; RW was now a lifelong commitment. The majority of Royal Wayans who knew Michael are never leaving because they know could never face the deep loss and despair awaiting them. Michael did a good job embedding his influence into their psyche. It is every individual’s responsibility to account for their actions. Michael died before his methods were exposed had to account for his actions.

A cult studies psychologist named Alexandra Stein has published some
very interesting material describing the exact nature of the personal bonds
that distinguish cult leaders from genuine healers.

Fear is always part of the bond between a cultic leader (or abusive partner) and others.



A Cult Member Turned Expert Explains How Anyone Can Be Brainwashed

Dr. Alexandra Stein was brainwashed by a Marxist-Leninist sect as a young woman. Now she studies them for a living.

Quote



[broadly.vice.com]


How totalism works

The brainwashing methods of isolation, engulfment and fear can lead anyone to a cult. I should know – I was in one

Alexandra Stein

How totalism works

The brainwashing methods of isolation, engulfment and fear can lead anyone to a cult. I should know – I was in one

[aeon.co]

Professor Stein has also published a book:


Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein

[www.google.com]

From the Alexandra Stein article:

Quote

"It's like being absorbed into a group of false, sometimes cruel friends. Cults have the illusion of solidarity, but Stein describes them as a perverse group of deeply lonely individuals who have lost the will and the capacity to make decisions on their own. "You can't confide in anyone in a cult," she says. "If you say, 'There seems to be a problem here,' you will be likely to be punished, so there's nowhere to go. You're scared but you've got nobody else left in your life, so you cling to the very people who are causing you that fear."

That's how cults operate: on a cycle of fear and attachment. It's Stockholm Syndrome, only more insidious and confusing because you feel like you made the choice to join when you started out."

As many current and former Royal Wayans have most likely observed, Michael Gottlieb’s death has not had much impact on the business of Royal Way. With the approval of Maggie Hodge, the current authoritarian spiritual leader, RW has embraced the creation of an online presence to attract new, younger members into their fold.

This is evident in all the photos of ONLY Millennial or younger members on their site. In reality, at least half of their community is 55-75 years of age. Some younger members are the children or family members of the older ones. The site is sophisticated and offers their path to enlightenment in a safe, inviting setting. They lease out their ranch to such groups as Agape when not utilizing it for RW events. Most of the upkeep is provided for free by members doing “service”. They also have a Facebook and Instagram presence. They are as alive as ever but still do not acknowledge their Osho connection, their rejection of LBGT or how their non-profit Church status contributes to their growing wealth. They continue to solicit large donations from their cult members in exchange for status in the group.

Maggie has a retail website, maggisart.com, where she sells her paintings-mostly to RW members for exorbitant prices-while she sits on millions of dollars of wealth accumulated by RW. Gifts of real estate, renovation and landscaping in and around the ranch. Gifts for her birthday and the Patron’s Party. The amount of gold in RW’s coffers is staggering. This is a very rich cult for its size, still under 500 members. The older members have the luxury of not having Michael to challenge them. “Oldies” humorously refer to their present existence as “Royal Way Lite”. Maggie once said that RW is a business, after all. More than ever, it is branding itself to new generations of youthful seekers, where the discomfort of tech and service job hours demand that there must be something more to life.

RW is alive and well, run by Boomers and looking for XYZ recruits. Take heed and do your research. This is a cult founded by a very flawed guru. They are not your friends. That stops when you leave. Find out what they refuse to discuss!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2020 08:34AM by Michael's Osho Secret.

Here is why the Boomer members of high demand groups need XYZ generation recruits.

So the aging Boomers who run these groups will have strong young servants to fetch and carry for them - and do so while regarding the Boomer members as Superior Beings and yourselves as Inferior Beings who need to be whipped into shape.

And meekly accept nastiness and scoldings as spiritual discipline.

First, you may be taken aside and given hints you have a special destiny, perhaps that someday you will be hand picked for a leadership position.

You will never guess that others like you are told the same thing - and told to keep this a secret.

Here are some of the tasks young members will be conned into performing for no pay, in the guise of spiritual discipline.

At no pay, of course, and at the expense of your own careers and your own friendships and family lives.

* Be house servants to senior members of the group.

* Do the gardening

* Scrub the toilets, do laundry, walk the dog, clean the cat's litterbox, etc

* Do unpaid landscaping and construction work.

* Do the shopping and cooking for senior members and get yelled at when the food is not to their liking.

* Put milage on your car running errands.

* Pick them up and drop them off at appointments and to and from the airport.

It has been 10 years since Michael’s death and RW is still going strong. When will Osho’s publishers sue them for plagiarism? There is so much of Osho’s writings in over 100 of Michael’s letters. Maybe because he was careful not to publicly publish or sell them. Very clever. He will always be a thief as long as RW keeps printing them without acknowledging their source. The big lie that he cultivated to fool his community, the big lie he took to his grave. How sad and pathetic.

A few weeks have passed since Royal Way’s 13th annual Day Of Devotion, honoring the passing of their fraudster charismatic patriarch, Michael Menachem Gottlieb.There is still no public and rarely private acknowledgment of his wholesale lifting from Osho’s many published writings. Those who are willing to compare the RW charlatan’s letters with the easily referenced published writings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on the Osho.com website will find an abundance of plagiarism to expose. Yet Gottlieb’s followers, devotedly transfixed with cultish reverence to the memory of their liar leader, still make their climb along the RW Ranch fire road to the Cave Of Forgiveness, where his bones were dropped 20 feet down into the ground. They sing songs and remember a time when he had them jabber, laugh and cry so they could feel new again, at least until the next pilgrimage a month later. Royal Way went from being a path where one could get what they needed and leave, to one that was a lifelong pursuit. I imagine that money had a lot to do with that change of concept. So what does one do with a cult that is based on the pilfered hours of lectures from another teacher? Expose it. Make sure that the crimes are never forgotten; the many women that were SA’d and left quietly in fear, the ones who left after finding out the truth that were slandered to the fold and the ones who died that were disrespected on Micheal’s orders. Never forget! May this be a warning to newcomers and the easily swayed. Royal Way is a CULT, founded on half truths and stolen writings. Do your own comparisons. Don’t disregard the obvious conclusions. Michael Gottlieb was an ego driven sexual deviant and profiteer who mocked his devotees behind their backs. That darkness cannot be washed from the organization with another name change. From Jacumba to Royal Way to ? What litigation will take place to warrant a new name? Only time will tell.