Ironically, Mankind Project seems to have had all sorts of problems over the years, as they were connected with so-called Reparative Therapy, which are the quacks that claim to "cure" homosexuality. After many complaints, they seem to have backed away from that?

MKP must have all kinds of self-protections in place for the MKP org, but if they are busted doing group therapy without a license, they could get nailed for that.

The SECRECY in MKP is enough of a warning sign to stay away completely.



Naked Men: The ManKind Project and Michael Scinto [www.freerepublic.com]

[www.houstonpress.com]

Naked Men: The ManKind Project and Michael Scinto
The organization was supposed to make him a better man. Instead, his parents say, it made him a dead one.
By Chris Vogel published: October 04, 2007


"The ManKind Project offers trainings which support men in developing lives of integrity, accountability and connection to feeling."

— From The ManKind Project Web site

"They had three naked men bring out two chickens that they hit with a ­hammer."

— Michael Scinto in a letter to a ­Madison County sheriff's deputy.

Michael Scinto was literally scared to death.

On an isolated 11-acre compound down a winding, country dirt road 110 miles north of Houston, Scinto watched as the leader of the men's group instructed him and nearly 40 other strangers in the room. Put one foot on the carpet. Make sure to keep that foot on the carpet at all times. The leader then began grilling them about who makes them mad.

"They provoked the men into a rage," wrote Scinto in a letter to the Madison County Sheriff's Office. "They were telling 1 man fuck you, you are ­worthless.'"

Scinto felt nauseous and told a staff member he needed to leave.

When Scinto had arrived the day before, men dressed in dark clothes, faces painted black, stripped him and his fellow initiates of their keys, wallets, cell phones and watches. Now, wanting to go home, Scinto demanded his keys and his wallet back. Not that keys would help at this point anyway. After all, he didn't have his truck with him; Scinto had been driven up Interstate 45 from Houston, through the rural town of Madisonville and over to the training compound located on the grassy ranchlands of North Zulch. All the men were carpooled because they were told there was not enough space for everyone to park.

Outside and away from the other men now, the group leader sat next to Scinto.

"He told me that if I left," wrote Scinto, "I would be causing harm to the other participants. I told him that I did not care. I told him to get my stuff so that I could leave. He said that if I left they would kill...(I was) convinced that if I ran they would catch me. At this point I feared for my life."

Scinto initially agreed to sign up and pay the $650 for The ManKind Project's New Warrior Training Adventure several weeks earlier after hearing about it from his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Kim Sawyer. Like everyone else who attended, Scinto was not told what the weekend would specifically entail. He signed several confidentiality contracts and liability waivers and filled out a medical questionnaire, but was promised all activities were voluntary and he could leave at any time. Plus, of course, he trusted his sponsor. Sawyer, a business coach who counsels corporate clients on how to run more effective businesses, had been Scinto's sponsor for about eight months. Sawyer joined The ManKind Project more than a decade earlier and sold the idea to Scinto, telling him it would be the best thing he could do for himself.

"So many of the character defects that eat you [sic] lunch can be replaced by strengths and skills and understandings you'll discover from this training. It will be the best Return on Investment you ever got," Sawyer wrote to Scinto in an e-mail before the initiation.

As Scinto became increasingly distraught at the retreat, staff members fetched Sawyer, who later told police that Scinto was crying and explained that he had unearthed a traumatic childhood memory. Sawyer told Scinto that leaving would be difficult and that it would be best if he expressed his thoughts and worries openly with the group.

Scinto had to make a choice: stay and continue with the program, or try to walk away alone along the poorly marked country roads, lost and terrified someone was close behind, hunting him down.

Scinto stayed.

In a letter to the sheriff's office, he detailed some of the rituals and activities he witnessed:

• Blindfolded walking tours in the nude;

• People blowing sage smoke in his face while 50 or so naked men danced around candles;

• Men sitting naked in a circle discussing their sexual histories while passing a wooden dildo called "The Cock";

• Naked men beating cooked chickens with a hammer.

At the end of the third and final day of the retreat, the leaders and staff members herded the initiates into the main room.

"They threatened us with imprisonment," wrote Scinto. "They said that if we were married to tell the wives we loved them. They told us not to discuss any of the process that we went through. Then they let us leave."

Fifteen days later, on July 25, 2005, Scinto's father and sister found him dead, rotting in his apartment from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

His family did not understand. So they began investigating.

What they discovered was that the international men's organization with thousands of vocal loyalists claiming life-altering training also had an underworld of critics with bone-chilling tales of physical and psychological abuse.

Becky Arnett, his sister, took off from work and was able to access the group's internal Web site using her brother's password. She got a copy of the organization's local membership roster, which includes prominent doctors, lawyers and businessmen, as well as therapists and addiction ­specialists.

Some of the more surprising names included El Lago Mayor Brad Emel; Houston Ballet Foundation Director of Marketing and Communication Andrew Edmonson; artist Brooke Stroud of the Menil Collection; Marty Kelly of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; and University of Houston Chair of Anthropology Norris Lang.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle's name was also on the list. When contacted by the Press, he declined to comment.

Of course, merely being listed is no indication of what exactly anyone who went to the retreat did. For instance, one of the people who talked with the Press said he didn't engage in the nudity.

The Scintos came to believe that the group seemed to target vulnerable members of 12-step recovery groups and that its leaders appeared to practice psychology without a state license.

They were especially upset to find the names of several Roman Catholic priests on the roster and contacted the ­Galveston-Houston Archdiocese with this ­information.

Now, two years later, Scinto's parents, Kathy and Ralph, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Harris County against The ManKind Project Houston and Charles Kimberly Sawyer in an effort to uncover and expose once and for all what happened to their son, and why.

It almost sounds like the lead-in to an old joke: What do you get when you cross an ex-marine, a therapist and a business ­consultant?

Answer: The ManKind Project.

In January 1985, the three founding members of The ManKind Project, Rich Tosi, Bill Kauth and Ron Hering, took 18 men out on what was then called the "Wildman Weekend," in Haimowoods, Wisconsin. They conducted three more such weekends that year, initiating a total of 72 men.

Today, the retreats are called The New Warrior Training Adventure, and, according to the organization, more than 30,000 men across the globe have attended some 800-plus initiation weekends. The ManKind Project has 42 centers throughout the United States, Canada, England, Germany, France, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. None, however, are as active as the one in Houston. The local center's Web site boasts it has held the greatest total number of trainings anywhere, initiating more than 4,000 men since 1991 at an average of 350 a year. The Houston center is known simply as "The Weekend Machine."

The ManKind Project describes its training as "a traditional masculine initiation, but geared toward the modern-day man." Its stated mission is "to assist men in reclaiming the sacred masculine for our time through initiation, training and action in the world."

If this all sounds a bit New Age, there's a reason. The organization sprang out of the so-called "mythopoetic men's movement" that is in part derived from the work of famed psychologist Carl Jung, who studied the psyche by exploring dreams and myths, and the poet Robert Bly, whose best-selling book Iron John: A Book About Men offers a romantic view of masculinity. The overall aim is to empower men to regain their masculinity by looking at the male situation through myths and poetry. The avowed goal is to create caring and trusting relationships between men and to help men overcome their emotional wounds.

Many who join The ManKind Project say they feel the program is the most rewarding experience of their lives.

"It was a very positive experience for me," says Edmonson. "It really helped me to move forward in several areas of my life."

"I consider it more of a way of life than a membership," says George Chambers, a fourth-grade teacher at Houston's Pine Shadows Elementary School.

Artist Brooke Stroud no longer is a member and did not participate in some of the naked rituals during the initiation, but praises the organization.

"I guess I did the fraternity thing in college and did not want to go that route again," he says, "but overall, it's a good group and was a very positive experience."

Neither Kim Sawyer nor ManKind Project Houston's executive director, Scott Cole, returned phone calls requesting comment for this story. However, Les Sinclair, spokesman for the national parent nonprofit The ManKind Project, did.

"This is the best thing on the planet," he says from his home in Las Vegas. "The initiation is a real wake-up to life. We teach men to be accountable for the choices they make or the actions they don't take. We look at the emotional wounds that have taken a man's power away...He may have low self-esteem, he may feel like he doesn't measure up to other men, he's afraid of men or he's afraid of women, or he's afraid of life in general. We look at what was that key emotional wound that took his power away and set up some form of psychodrama for him to overcome. It is a very powerful process."

The procedures and protocols em­ployed at each of the organization's centers are carefully constructed and controlled, says Sinclair. And though each center is its own entity, filing its own nonprofit tax return, they all administer the same routine.

"The only difference between a training in France and in Houston," says Sinclair, "is that the training in France would be in French."

As for the nudity that takes place during the course of the retreat, Sinclair says, "It's getting real with our bodies and being men. It's of course nonsexual or anything like that. It's getting men to get beyond their shame of their bodies, like, there's nothing wrong with your body."

As for the chicken bashing, Sinclair says he cannot say what happened on Scinto's retreat because he wasn't there. However, he says that it might have been to "have a bit of levity. In the past they have brought out cooked chickens to sort of ritualize the feast" that the men have on Sunday to conclude the weekend.

It costs $650 to attend the initiation weekend, and then an additional $190 to attend eight weekly Integration Group meetings where men discuss how to incorporate the organization's philosophies into their everyday lives. Suggested activities to do during the Integration Group meetings include shaving another man's face, kidnapping a member of another Integration Group, and changing clothes with another man. Additionally, members can choose to pay hundreds of dollars more to work as staff members during retreats and to take advanced training courses, so they can rise within the organization's ranks and one day lead an initiation weekend. Members also pay yearly dues and are encouraged to make donations.

A 2005 tax return filed by the Houston center, also known as Men In Mission, shows the nonprofit group collected more than $242,000 in contributions and more than $300,000 in revenue, primarily derived from men paying to attend the retreat weekends.

The organization maintains its nonprofit tax status by asserting it provides educational services. However, critics say this claim is a sham. If the organization said it was doing therapy, it could jeopardize its special tax status.

"What it boils down to," says Rick Ross, head of the Rick A. Ross Institute of New Jersey, which studies cults, groups and movements, "is that they are doing group therapy, although they won't admit to that, and they are not qualified to do group therapy. They are not licensed and they are not accountable."

Norris Lang, who chairs the anthropology department at the University of Houston and is a former therapist, agrees. He took part in an initiation retreat in 1997 and then attended several Integration Group meetings before deciding to leave the organization.

"Some of the exercises that they had us engage in," he says, "were fairly traumatic and normally, as a psychotherapist, I would have only engaged in some of those activities...in the security of a hospital or psychiatric facility. If you get somebody to get in touch with their feelings from, say, 30 years ago, a time when they were abused as children, that can be fairly dangerous territory for an unprofessional. It's kind of group therapy without any professionals involved."

Sinclair insists the training is not ­therapy.

"It's therapeutic," he says, "in that it's healing, and we have a lot of therapists who come, but we don't do therapy. What we do have is a very powerful process that men get involved in and they start to peel away, like an onion, and break down their armor or shield to get down to their core and who they are. We confront men to wake up and to stop with the BS, to stop telling lies and tell the truth and trust one another."

Although members claim they don't do therapy, The ManKind Project has been recognized by the American Psychological Association, which bestowed an award on Christopher Burke for his 2004 dissertation that looks at the impact The ManKind Project has had on men.

Ross says The ManKind Project appears to use coercive mind-control tactics. These include limiting participants' sleep and diet, cutting them off from the outside world, forcing members to keep secrets, and using intimidation.

Critics such as Ross have additional concerns as well, including the targeting of 12-step communities and what they say is an inadequate vetting system to determine who can and cannot withstand the stresses of the program.

"What they have is one size fits all," says Ross, "and that's the problem. So, the net result is you get people with issues and troubles, and the pressures of the program can crack them and cause them to have emotional distress. And that's why they have waivers you have to sign. They don't require waivers because everything is fine; they want them because everything has not always been fine and they don't want the legal liability. The bottom line is, I wouldn't recommend MKP to anyone under any circumstances."

Several years ago, "Bob" — who does not want his real name used because he says he fears retaliation — began hearing whispers about The ManKind Project in the hallways outside his 12-step group meeting room. Men were huddled in the corner, he says, quietly discussing the program. Soon, Bob noticed more and more members of his group began attending the "Warrior" weekends.

"They don't recruit in the classic sense," says Bob. "It's more subtle. They don't push it, but they reintroduce it to you every time they talk to you and suggest that you might want to try it. Members tell you it helped them clear up things from their past and allowed them to trust other men. And that's the hook. "

After researching the program on the Internet, Bob decided it wasn't for him. But that didn't mean he was free and clear of the group.

Bob was friends with a man attending his 12-step group who he considered extremely fragile. Members of The ManKind Project began "honing in" on him, says Bob, and he warned the man not to attend, fearing he might suffer psychological damage from the stressful program. When members of The ManKind Project learned of Bob's warning, they became angry.

"They went after me in subtle ways," says Bob. "People started gossiping about me in a negative way behind my back, and it became very uncomfortable to attend my (12-step) meetings. I had to change meetings, but even that wasn't very effective because members are in all the meetings. It's scary because they know all your secrets, and physical and emotional retaliation or blackmail is possible. It's like a virus here in Houston."

There are no rules regulating what members of Alcoholics Anonymous can or cannot discuss once they are outside of the meeting room, says the public information coordinator of Alcoholics Anonymous in New York City. Furthermore, there are no written rules prohibiting a sponsor from trying to get their sponsee to join an outside organization.

However, doing so "doesn't seem to be in the spirit of AA," says the public information coordinator. "Though people have outside interests, they are usually careful not to bring them into their AA relationships. We could certainly see how people might find it problematic, though, and a new person in AA who is enthusiastically approached by someone about another organization may not know it has nothing to do with AA."

"Mary," another person who says she doesn't want her name used because she is afraid of retaliation, has watched both her husband and her son get sucked into The ManKind Project through their 12-step groups. In both cases, their sponsors pressured them to attend, she says.

"They start out with a lie," she says, "because they tell you that you have to carpool because there's not enough parking. Well, it's way out in the country and they have acres of land, so there's plenty of parking. I think they say that so it makes it much harder to leave. And then I saw the covenant that they faxed for my husband to sign saying he will never discuss anything that happens with anyone ever. And I felt, why? What's going on here that needs to be a secret?"

Les Sinclair says the secrecy is for the men's benefit.

"We ask men not to reveal the process because it would be like going to a movie where you hear what the story is about and what the ending is," he says. "We don't want anything revealed because each man's journey is different and every man should have the opportunity to have their own experience."

All weekend long while her husband was at the retreat, Mary was worried. At that point, she did not know initiates are stripped of all their possessions, including cell phones, and was expecting a call. Finally late Sunday night, her husband returned.

"He said that there were some good things," recalls Mary, "but he did not care for the intimidation, especially while you check in. He said they're screaming at you, their faces are painted black, and if you arrive five minutes early or five minutes late, they humiliate you even more."

During the weekend, men are subjected to mandatory cold showers in the morning, about four hours of sleep at night and very little food. Mary's husband did not eat Friday night. On Saturday he was fed small amounts of trail mix and fruit. "They also ate something called 'chicken broth,'" says Mary, "but it was just clear broth with nothing in it. And he only got a tiny cap's worth."

According to the 1998 protocol manual obtained by the Press, leaders are told the exact language they are to use when talking to initiates, right down to when they are supposed to pause in the middle of a sentence. When greeting a new member, the staff is told to "get in his face, hard and clear," and to "hold it for 15 to 30 seconds." Some training centers use buckets instead of toilets, which have "more therapeutic value in terms of dealing with shame." Activities include feelings exercises where the men are encouraged to growl and shove each other's shoulders. "Cock Talk" is when the men put on their "dancing clothes," meaning get naked, and pass around an erect phallus made of wood. Whoever holds the penis gets to share his sexual past or issues. The "Chicken Carving" is a ritual involving a cooked chicken. According to the 1998 protocol handbook, the ritual "has gotten distorted into a sophomoric, semi-sadistic, 'let's get 'em' sort of energy so frequently that some centers have dropped it."

At one point, says Mary, her husband and the other men were blindfolded and marched into a large room, where they were told to take off their clothes. Drums were beating in the background, and when the men were told to remove their blindfolds, "he saw 50 or 60 naked men dancing on a stage in a circle," she says. "They call this 'The Dance,' and my husband said they started playing rock and roll music and some of the men were just dancing like they were obsessed."

This moment, however, paled in comparison to how uncomfortable Mary's husband felt the following day.

"They were all in the sweat lodge on Sunday," she says, "which he actually enjoyed. It was the first moment he had to relax in days after going through such a high-drama weekend where they pound you to reveal your deep, dark stuff. So, everyone was sitting Indian-style in a big circle in the lodge when the man leading the group said, 'If you wish, you may reach over and grab your brother's dick. If your brother doesn't want your hand there, he can remove it.' Well, my husband told me he just froze. And from that point on, he just wanted out."

When asked about the incident that Mary says happened to her husband in the sweat lodge, spokesman Les Sinclair says, "That would never ever happen on a weekend. I can swear on my mother's grave that that would never happen. That's a vindictive comment and whoever told it to you has an agenda. We are very respectful of men and there's none of that sort of juvenile stuff. It would not be tolerated."

Mary says even though her husband didn't want anything further to do with the group, it wasn't that easy to get away. The following week, she says they received "umpteen phone calls asking if he'd signed up for the Integration Group meetings. He kept telling them 'No.' It's been a few years now since my husband attended the weekend, but we still get several e-mails a week, every week, asking for money, either for donations or to attend another training. It never ends."

It truly did not end for Mary, because her son's 12-step sponsor was in the process of pressuring him to attend an initiation weekend, just like the one that had so disturbed his father.

Three years ago, Mary's then-17-year-old son got involved with drugs. And like so many people, he went to rehab and entered a 12-step program.

"My son has always had severe emotional problems," Mary says, "and they just kept hammering him at AA to go do the weekend. They told him, 'You won't need meds, you won't need psychologists, you won't need anything else.'"

Less than a year ago, Mary's son attended the weekend and is honoring the confidentiality agreement down to the letter, refusing to discuss it with even his mother or father. He has completed the first eight weeks of Integration Group meetings and plans to remain an active member.

As far as Mary is concerned, her son's experience represents all that she sees is wrong with the organization: a poor vetting system and unlicensed men staffing the weekend retreat.

"Let me tell you," she says. "When you talk about unstable, you're talking about my poor son. If they had truly interviewed him and looked at the list of meds he takes, which he did include on the medical questionnaire they make you fill out, which is one of the ways they say they screen, they shouldn't have allowed him to participate. They should have looked at his medical history and said, 'This kid has a lot of problems and there is no way we can know how he is going to react to the stuff we do.' They say they screen the men, but I don't think they screen them at all. I think if they have the money, they let them come."

What's more, she says, is that they are practicing unlicensed therapy.

"They are getting deep into people's personal issues," she says. "I mean, my son is in his early 20s, takes all sorts of medications and now that he's finished with the Integration Groups, he could staff a weekend and work it. He's supposed to help someone and is supposed to know when to stop and start and how far to push a man? It's ridiculous and it's really scary."

Since her son became involved with The ManKind Project, Mary has not seen any real change in him. At least no positive change. Her son is more secretive now and spends much of his time with older men — many members are over 40 — which makes Mary uncomfortable.

"Believe me," says Mary," I'd kiss these guys if they could perform a miracle with my son. When he decided to go do the weekend, I was scared to death. But I was relieved when he came home, because the fact that he didn't come back and commit suicide means they didn't do him any serious harm."

It was about 5 o'clock on a Monday night when Ralph Scinto received a phone call from his son Michael's employer saying Michael had not shown up for work that day. Immediately, Ralph began to panic.

He knew his son had gone to The ManKind Project retreat two weeks earlier and returned terrified. Michael had told him about the threats, and that he'd fired his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Kim Sawyer. Michael also told his father he'd consulted an attorney to get a restraining order against Sawyer, who he said had been hounding him with phone calls ever since the retreat.

Ralph called his daughter, Becky, and told her he was going to drive over to Michael's apartment in Webster to check on him. Becky said she wanted to go too, and drove over to her dad's house.

Half an hour later, they pulled up next to Michael Scinto's building. Ralph and Becky rushed over to the apartment's front door and began banging on it. When Ralph turned the knob, the door opened.

Ralph Scinto started screaming.

The police arrived shortly after and were hit by the unmistakable stench of decay as soon as they entered the apartment. Blood was everywhere, on the ceiling and on the floor. And there was Michael Scinto, sprawled out on the carpet, a shotgun laying beside him.

Weeks after finding her brother, Becky took several months off from work. A friend had moved Michael's computer from his apartment and gave it to Becky because he could not crack the password. Becky figured it out, and it was then, almost a month after her brother's death, that she first discovered the letter Michael had written to the Madison County sheriff's office.

Becky launched into a two-month research binge. She went on the Internet, reading and printing out countless articles about The ManKind Project. She found chat rooms where people were talking about their negative experiences with the group and where to find crucial insider documents. Becky tracked down every lead. She used Michael's password to get into the restricted members-only section of The ManKind Project Houston's Web site and downloaded internal papers, including the full membership roster. She did not know it at the time, but she was compiling most of the material that would later be the backbone of the family's ­lawsuit.

"Thank God Michael wrote the letter and thank God we found it," says Becky.

Family members describe Michael as quiet, calm and shy. He was "the type of guy who always left a few dollars more than he needed to as a tip at a restaurant," says his mother Kathy. Michael was not seeing a therapist, and as far she knows, had never tried to harm himself before.

"He was always the strength in our family," remembers Kathy.

Even so, in the years leading up to Michael's suicide, the 29-year-old plumber had been struggling with cocaine and alcohol. As far as his family knew, he had been clean for almost a year and a half up until the week of his death and was putting his life back together after a rocky 2004 during which Michael had bought a boat and a townhouse, only to have the bank foreclose because he was spending money on partying instead of making payments.

"He had psychological problems like anyone has who goes to AA," says Ralph. "He was drinking and drugging. He'd earn $5,000 and spend $10,000."

By the early part of 2005, it looked as though Michael had turned a corner. He was well into the Alcoholics Anonymous program, and had registered his new plumbing company with the Better Business Bureau, bought a new company truck, started a Web site, and had company pens and T-shirts printed up. Michael was forced to rent a less expensive apartment in Webster, but the upshot was it was closer to the Pearland Regional Airport, where Michael indulged his true passion in life, flying.

"He loved flying planes on the weekends," says Kathy, "and he was so optimistic, trying so hard to get his business going. But after the MKP weekend, it was all over. Something had changed."

Two days after Scinto returned from the retreat, he sought psychiatric help at Ben Taub Hospital, complaining of nightmares and painful memories since attending a men's workshop. According to the hospital report released by his family to the Press, Scinto began feeling better soon after checking in. The doctor wrote that Scinto claimed to have been sober for 16 months, but that he requested a tranquilizer. The doctor then scribbled the phrase "drug seeking" at the bottom of the report.

The Harris County Medical Examiner conducted Michael Scinto's autopsy, and concluded that his thoracic blood-alcohol level was 0.24, three times the legal limit to drive, and that he had used cocaine within an hour of his death. Kathy says that her son only began drinking again one week after returning from the retreat.

Three days after Michael Scinto left the hospital, he dated his letter to the Madison County Sheriff's Office attempting to file a complaint about The ManKind Project retreat. He sent the letter, in which he detailed the weekend, including allegations of kidnapping, to former Deputy Larry Adams. But the deputy never filed a complaint. According to a Webster police report, Adams said he reviewed Scinto's letter as well as The ManKind Project contracts he signed. A portion of the contract stipulated that Scinto agreed to remain on the retreat's grounds the entire weekend. The sheriff's office decided that the matter was best suited for a civil court and not a criminal investigation.

Houston contract attorney Dayle Pugh says this decision might have been an error.

"Even if you've contractually agreed to stay," he says, "you can leave any time you damn well please. And if they don't let you go, it really is kidnapping."

Marc Young, attorney for The ManKind Project Houston and Sawyer, says the kidnapping allegation has no merit.

"I really do feel sorry for Michael's parents having to go through this," he says. "Michael had a troubled adult life and obviously he was seeking some answers that he didn't find. But I think the evidence is going to show that at the time, (Michael) requested to stay and that he fully participated when he wanted to and when he didn't, he didn't."

Still, Kathy Scinto believes the last words of her son, penned in the letter to Adams.

"It breaks our heart," she says, "to know that Michael tried so hard to get help and everybody turned him away."

The last time Kathy ever saw her son was two days after he had secretly sent the letter to the sheriff's office. It was also eight days before she would learn of his death. Scinto was supposed to serve as best man at his brother's wedding in two weeks, and went to meet his mother at a Schlotzsky's for lunch to discuss the upcoming event.

But that Sunday, she says, "Michael told me something he had never told me before. He said he thought he was sexually abused by several boys when he was about six years old."

Kathy Scinto had been in the dark about this, but apparently Sawyer was not. According to the police report, Sawyer said that during the retreat Scinto told him about the abuse. It was then that Sawyer told Scinto it would be best to share his recently unearthed memory with the group. Sawyer also told Scinto there was a licensed psychologist on hand that could help him if he wished. Sawyer told police that Scinto made the decision then to remain at the retreat.

But Ralph Scinto doesn't buy any of that.

"Michael felt anxiety after being forced to give over some deep secret in front of all those men," he says. "He couldn't handle it, or thought he shouldn't have told all those strangers. He was embarrassed and ashamed to divulge his secret. It made him feel bad, and he left there feeling even worse about himself."

It is not easy getting people who have attended The ManKind Project initiation weekend to talk about it. The Press contacted dozens of men who said they could not discuss it because of the confidentiality agreement they signed, or because they were scared of retaliation.

Real estate developer David Ward is an exception, perhaps because he views the retreat in a positive light.

"It's a chance for a man to walk through his life and see some of the places that he's stuck," he says. "I don't know if I would have done it the way they did, but the concept and their goal, I believe, is a good and important one."

Ward is no longer an active member. He moved from Houston to Sealy and says it's too far a drive to remain in the group. Ward attended the same weekend as Scinto in July 2005, but doesn't remember him. But like Scinto, Ward knew very little about what he was getting himself into beforehand.

"I was told about it by a friend and thought it would be a men's retreat with challenging events," he says. "The reality was different than I thought."

Ward is careful to walk a fine line in describing the weekend.

"I believe that they are digging deep to try to get emotion from people," he says. "And sometimes you have to do that to get someone to unearth things that are down deep. So I understand the reasoning. There may be a way to process this over several weekends as opposed to the way they do it all at once...without demanding the right response and saying, 'We're not going to stop until you get to the other side of this.' It is easy to be skeptical, but I understand what they are trying to do and where they are trying to go. But they really don't want you to reveal too much about what happened."

Brad Emel, mayor of El Lago, says he attended one of the retreats several years ago, but decided not to stick with the organization.

"It's cool, you know, I enjoyed it," he says. However, "I felt like I just didn't need the type of reinforcement they offer."

When asked why, Emel said, "Because my life's not that fucked up. I've got a pretty good deal going."

When asked specifically about the nudity and rituals, Emel denied knowing anything about it and then said, "I don't know that I'm really that comfortable talking about that."

Cult tracker Ross and an anonymous man who attended the training years ago set up chat rooms for men and their families who feel victimized by the ManKind ­organization.

Ross began his ManKind Project thread in November 2005, and the anonymous man, who calls himself Warrior X, began his on Yahoo in August 2004. At one point, The ManKind Project's entire protocol manual (running more than 100 pages) was posted on Ross's site. Ross says he doesn't know who put it there. Soon after, the organization's attorneys contacted Ross demanding that he remove the copyrighted information. Ross complied, but was allowed to keep portions of the manual on his site under the fair-use laws, he says.

"I became outraged when I found out what MKP really did to me at the NWTA [New Warrior Training Adventure] and the I-groups," writes Warrior X. "I got even more pissed off when they used their standard lines 'you could have always said no' or 'you could have left at any time' to cover their asses. A man without adequate sleep and food doesn't have the strength to resist MKP, and that's exactly what they want. I was outraged that MKP performed Jungian and gestalt psychological processes on me without telling me ahead of time by unlicensed individuals. And most of all, I was outraged for the hurt that MKP caused me. They did psychological processes on me that unlocked a Pandora's Box of pain and hurt within me that I couldn't deal with. I started the Yahoo group so that my story could be told and so that I could help and support others who were hurt by MKP like myself."

People have posted thousands of messages over the years on the two sites, comfortable in their anonymity.

Writes Dannyjoerocks on the Yahoo site: "On another carpet another man was all wrapped up in ducted[sic] tape on the floor screaming as another man was yelling you can't get out of that, On another carpet a young man was screaming I fucking hate you I fucking hate you look what you did to me. It was like people didn't know what was going on they were in some trance...I felt like I was regressing. I was being taken back to a place where I no longer want to be. A life of chaos where I had no control. The cold shower reminded me of when I didn't pay my bills. Sitting on the cold floor in the shack (after arriving and checking in) reminded me of the holding cell where I waited before going to jail. All the yelling reminded me of my father...I just kept thinking this was very inhumane very very strange stuff. Something is not right."

Writes a person calling himself Henntsp: "Much bullying and abuse goes on simultaneously which I argue can easily cancel out any healing. Amateurs helping amateurs in such an important and vulnerable area as emotional pain is wide open to abuse...as an organization and as individual members they sometimes function with extremely questionable ethics."

Several days after Ralph Scinto buried his son, he began flipping through The ManKind Project's Houston membership roster, filled with names, phone numbers and addresses. Suddenly, he saw an address he recognized. It was a Roman Catholic church. As a Catholic himself, Ralph was stunned. Michael's entire family then began searching all 2,904 entries on the 2005 list to find out who it was that belonged to this secretive group.

They discovered that dozens upon dozens of priests, ministers, therapists, heads of companies, doctors, lawyers and people involved with addiction rehabilitation all had at one point attended The New Warrior Training Adventure.

"We said, 'Oh my God,'" recalls Kathy Scinto. "We couldn't believe it. All these people who belonged were in powerful positions. And they all deal with vulnerable people who could be convinced to go to this thing. It was really scary."

Kathy Scinto then went to speak with a priest who was initiated the same weekend as her son.

"I asked him, 'If I told everyone that you were dancing around naked, what do you think people would say?'" she recalls. "I asked him, 'How can a Catholic priest who is supposed to serve God go into the woods and do these pagan rituals?' He said he was invited to attend and that he doesn't have anything to do with it ­anymore."

The Press contacted several priests who were on the roster, all of whom declined to comment, referring questions to the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. Bishop Joe Vasquez then issued a statement condemning the organization. In an e-mail, he wrote that the archdiocese became aware in late 2005 that priests were members of The ManKind Project. The then-archbishop, Joseph A. Fiorenza, "was concerned that elements of The ManKind Project and its New Warrior Training weekends seemed to reflect a New Age philosophy and were not in harmony with traditional Roman Catholic belief and practices," Vasquez wrote. "Archbishop Fiorenza issued a letter in January 2006 asking priests to refrain from being actively involved in the group or promoting" it. Vasquez says the current archbishop, Daniel N. DiNardo, maintains the same stance as his ­predecessor.

Mel Taylor, president and CEO of The Council on Alcohol and Drugs Houston, a publicly funded organization providing resources to people adversely affected by drugs and alcohol, is listed as a member. He did not return phone calls requesting comment; however, attorney Wade Quinn, also a member, speaking on Taylor's behalf, said the Council has no connection with the activities of The ManKind Project.

However, some therapists and ad­diction specialists actively recommend the organization to patients and ­clients.

George Joseph is a licensed chemical dependency counselor and founder of The Right Step drug rehab center, with locations in Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana. He says he has recommended The ManKind Project to many people.

"If you have any kind of desire to know more about yourself and how to be a better man, then I think it's awesome," he says.

Joseph attended one of the very first Houston initiation weekends in 1992 and is no longer active. However, his company pays for half of the fee should his employees decide to attend the weekend. And looking through the 2005 roster, many have.

When asked if he is concerned about the effect a psychologically stressful retreat could have on someone struggling with addiction, Joseph says that The ManKind Project is not his first recommendation for patients leaving his rehab centers; however, he does refer some people to it once they are out on their own and sober.

"I guess there are two types of people who should be excluded," he says, "if you have no sense of adventure and you think your life is already perfect. (But) I don't see that many people would need to be excluded from it."

Psychotherapist Michael Butera attended the retreat in 2001 and says he also refers patients to the program. He feels it can help men discover they have a connection with other men if they are feeling like outsiders and unconnected to the world.

"I could never do what The ManKind Project does in my office," he says, "because there's no way to give the person feedback like that. I can tell him something, but I'm a therapist. But if he has ordinary guys tell him, it's the kind of validation you cannot get in psychotherapy."

In a way, Butera answers some of the questions that plague critics of The ManKind Project. He admits the weekend is analogous to therapy and that the processes used are powerful enough to cause some men real trauma.

"There are people who would be too fragile to go through it," he says. "And MKP themselves do not want people who are actively psychotic because it may be too overwhelming to them. I think (they) do the best they can with the screening process, but that doesn't mean someone can't get through that might be too fragile. I've never had any difficulty with anyone I've ever referred, but I can appreciate, like in a 12-step program, those are not all professional people who are referring. So, mistakes will be made...and perhaps some people are referred who should not be."

Dr. John Hochman, a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, says he has seen a few patients who attended the retreat. One, he says, would not talk about it; another was scared to death.

"Some people can't deal with it," he says. "It rings of bad therapy and doesn't pass the smell test to me. The refrain of all these groups is that they're not therapy groups, they're something else. They're education, yeah, that's a good one."

He gets a chuckle out of the fact The ManKind Project uses parts of Jung and other well-known psychologists.

"What this does is give it a patina of credibility because there's a philosophy behind it and it's not just some mean bully," he says. "It's like, 'We've got this philosophy,' Jung's 'Shadow,' so they're really sensitive and thinking people, (while) putting you through this psychological wringer."

There seems to be a gray area in Texas law as to whether or not practicing techniques such as the ones utilized on the retreats is lawful. There are numerous licensing boards depending on whether you are a psychologist or a counselor. And there does not seem to be a consensus among them.

The Texas Department of State Health Services licenses social workers, counselors, and marriage and family therapists. Spokeswoman Emily Palmer says that so long as the people conducting the activity do not bill themselves as licensed practitioners during the activity, there are no rules against practicing techniques traditionally used by a licensed counselor.

Sherry Lee, executive director of the State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, says sanctions can be imposed.

"If someone is not licensed by our act and they either claim to be a psychologist or to provide psychological services, or if the very nature of what they're doing is psychological services, in other words, if it smells of psychological services, then we would issue them a cease-and-desist order," she says. "There is also an incumbency on anyone who holds a state license that you can't just do something that's in violation of the act or rules. So, if you're a licensed psychologist and you're out there saying, hypothetically, 'I'm doing therapy to reduce your tendency to want to kill yourself,' clearly that is practicing therapy, even though you may call it something else."

About five months after the suicide, Ralph Scinto says he became short-tempered and difficult to live with, so he separated from his second wife and moved into a motel near Bush Intercontinental Airport. He is still there, as if frozen in time.

"I'm just floating, just existing," he says, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes inside an office at the motel. "I try every day not to think about it."

Kathy Scinto still cries at the mere mention of her son, apologizing profusely, as though two years later she should be well and done mourning the loss. But these days, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, she senses a glimmer of hope: the lawsuit.

"I'm so stressed out I feel like I'm having a heart attack getting all this together," she says. "My family really needs a rest, a break, but we can't rest until The ManKind Project is exposed. Michael tried to expose them by going to the police, and it breaks my heart that no one would listen, but I'm so thankful that his words will finally be able to be heard in court because what happened to him can happen to other people."

She says she will not settle the case. But there is a long way to go before any trial.

For one thing, there is the matter of the contract her son signed before attending the retreat. It clearly stipulates that both Scinto and his heirs surrender their right to sue on grounds of wrongful death and strict liability, two of the allegations in the lawsuit, and if a claim is made, it must first go through arbitration as opposed to litigation in civil court.

"They've actually filed in the wrong area," says Young, attorney for The ManKind Project Houston and Sawyer, "so I don't know what's going to happen with the lawsuit. There are some procedural issues the court is going to have to deal with."

The Scintos' lawyer, George Kelley, says this won't be a problem.

"The court requires that both parties go to mediation in every case before trial anyway," he says. "It's just less formal than arbitration, so I'm not worried about it at all."

Of course, as in any lawsuit, the Scintos are suing for money. But Kathy Scinto insists that's not her primary concern.

"I've told my family that if we get any money," she says, "it's Michael's money and we will put it toward something he would have wanted. The main purpose of the lawsuit is to expose MKP. I mean, in this huge city, how many people have heard of them? Not many. And how many people have problems with drugs and alcohol or see a therapist for whatever reason and are vulnerable and may be convinced to go? Too many. It really scares me."

Ralph Scinto thinks less about the next wave of potential recruits. He seems solely fixated on his pain and those who he believes caused it.

"I try not to talk about Michael too much because it hurts too much," he says. "I get flashes of the way we found him in his apartment, sometimes daily. And they will never go away. I don't feel joy or happiness anymore. I just am. But now that we've initiated this lawsuit, they'll have to look me in the eye and defend what they did. They murdered his spirit. It was the worst kind of murder."

Here's the deal with these MKP guys.
By no means had I done extensive research into MKP, yet.
But right off the top, you can see the DECEPTION they are using on people.

There were clear signs this started in the mid-80's from the Robert Bly stuff, and that is correct.
But then they added all of the extreme LGAT wilderness bootcamp stuff on top of the Jungian "content".

The comments from the MKP "freefloatingbear" are just bullshit and nonsense.
He's just running the MKP system, where he says he wants "gentle debate". That is to try to target men in who might have some criticisms, but he wants to keep it "gentle", to lure men in who are more passive. Like all LGAT's they target soft-targets.

ManKind, Man-Kind...Gentle-Man...they seem to be trolling for "Kind Men", as they know the type of men who will be most suggestible to their LGAT system.
(in the man's movement, those men seem to be called soft-men)

BUT...once they arrive on-site for the MKP bootcamp LGAT system, they hammer them with all their extreme brainwashing systems at once. They strand you at the location, strip you naked, they take your keys, wallets, cell phones and watches, abuse people psychologically and physically, they rip people apart.
They claims its a man's Initiation, like tribal societies do. (but of course its about money and control).

They are really doing the exact same thing as James Arthur Ray, they copied all the same extreme LGAT wilderness bootcamp LGAT techniques, and they can break people down in a day or two.

So "freefloatbear" your lies and bullshit don't fly.
But they are most likely trained to troll for the soft-man, the Kind-Man who wants a gentle debate. They lure and seduce them softly.
Then once you get to the LGAT location, they rip the guy's mind and identity apart.
Bait & switch.
Organized deception.

Its very dangerous.

Good Evening everyone,

I hope your day has been productive.

The Anticult
wrote:
[... Mankind Project seems to have had all sorts of problems over the years, as they were connected with so-called Reparative Therapy, which are the quacks that claim to "cure" homosexuality. After many complaints, they seem to have backed away from that?...]

although this has nothing to do with why i chose to chat on this list, i am motivated to speak on this.

sexual orientation is a complex issue. and saying that, by no means am i any kind of expert in that field. however...

people involved in, what is called reparative therapy have clients who struggle with their sexual identity. that is, men who are struggling with leading a heterosexual lifestyle. apparently this therapy assists some men in leading the heterosexual life they want to live.

as there is no connection between mkp & Ray/Sedona, there is no connection between those who choose this medthodology for working their current situation. by "no connection", i mean that mkp has not organized nor does it support the creation of those organizations that do that therapy.

and many men who are invovled in it have also gone through the mkp weekend retreat.

but on on official statement level, mkp does not support reparative therapy.

[mankindproject.org]
"... We do not provide therapy nor endorse any particular therapy, including reparative therapy. Any group or organization that states or implies otherwise does so without our permission..."
=============================================
for all readers, i suggest that "guilt by association" assumptions/statements are most inpropititious to a clear, productive conversation.
i invite all so speak from a position of data, knowledge, experience or research.

thank you.

i'll be in touch

floatingfreebear
(just a nickname, absolutely nothing to do with native american culture)

Hello Anticult and Good Evening.

3 things:

1. would you please insert the URL address rather than copy&paste an entire article? my apologies but that was way too much info for me to read through in a post.
2. by all means... i invite you to do extensive research and find out truth for yourself.
3. i'm not interested in trolling (whatever that means) for anything and i'm not marketting for anything.

enjoy your evening.

i'll be in touch

floatingfreebear

If anyone is in any doubt that MKP does not run benign healing retreats here's one report:

Newsgroups: sci.psychology.psychotherapy, soc.men, alt.support.ex-cult, alt.self-esteem, uk.people.support.mental-health
Date: 20 Feb 2007 10:27:48 -0800
Local: Tues, Feb 20 2007 6:27 pm

Subject: Mankind Project 'New Warrior Training' weekend - 1

I went to a Mankind Project 'New Warrior Training' weekend, I was made
to go by my boss who went and returned exclaiming "for once, I'm
making decisions with my heart, not my head!" After crying to me that
I had to go, I relented... this was my boss after all, and I felt that
to not go would seriously jeopardize my job. He demanded that several
of us from the office attend. One of the fellow attendees was a good
friend/co-worker of mine and thank goodness for both of us that we had
each other to rely upon during this BIZARRE weekend.

It started on Friday night, we were told to show up between 6 and 7
pm. As we arrived at the ranch it was being held, a man was guarding
the road, when we pulled up he stared at us for a few seconds as if he
was going to kick our ass (puh-leeze..) then asked in gruff yelling
voice, "Who are you? What are you here for?!" We had to answer him one
at a time as he repeated his yelling question to each of us... "okay",
we thought- "getting weird already..."

We drove up the road to the lodge where we were instructed to get in
line and wait until called into the main building. One at a time we
were called towards the building. Once there, two of the 'elders'
greeted me at the door, they were pleasant, asking if I was willing to
"push my boundaries this weekend" and "experience new things, etc..."
I told them, "yeah, sure..." "Great" they replied, "And do we have
permission to remind you of your agreement to push your boundaries,
etc...?" "Sure" I replied... whatever. "Welcome to MPK and see the man
inside the door" They then instructed me.

I walked through the door, and was greeted by a guy dressed from head
to toe in black, with black face paint and black bandanna, as I
glanced around the room, all of the guys were wearing similar
'commando' type attire.... He glared at me not saying a word.
Obviously trying to intimidate me - I was anticipating some sort of
"breaking down" technique, but COME ON! These guys looked SILLY!
Anyway, he just stared at me for around a minute- I jokingly tried to
make small talk with him, but obviously to no avail- he wanted to
INTIMIDATE me! Of Note: I'm a pretty big guy, in excellent athletic
shape, and I'm not easily intimidated... especially by some goof
trying to act tough... so I just started chuckling to myself... Like I
said, Silliness!

After the silent period he finally yelled at me to "SEE THE NEXT
MAN!'

The next man was only 2 feet away so I side-stepped to in front of him
and asked him how he was doing etc.. once again to no avail- he gave
me the silent treatment too..... until he finally told me to, "SEE THE
NEXT MAN"

The next man then asked for my personal effects, watch, phone, car-
keys, rings, etc--- He put these in a bag for safe keeping during the
weekend and then I was instructed to "SEE THE NEXT MAN"

The next man was actually men, in the next room- the room was dark and
empty except for a couple of tables with a spotlight over each one- at
each table were the guys who where in front of me in the original
line. The commando goof-balls were busy pouring out and searching
everything in everyone's overnight bags.. After each of us was
searched, frisked, etc we were screamed at (all communication at this
point was screaming- as I said, this was the beginning of the breaking
down process...) to go down this hall...

At the end of the hall, was one of the 'elders' again- he was calm and
peaceful again, asked a few questions and then instructed me to go to
the next room...

The next room was full of the other guys who were in line before me,
this was the 'holding-pen' for everyone until everyone showed up. We
had to sit on the floor while another 'elder', a fat old guy wearing
only a loin-cloth was beating a drum and doing these rhythmic
breathing exercises... once again, puh-leeze.....

After 45 min or so, when everyone was there, we were summoned up to
the main hall. All the instructors and elders were there, all still in
commando garb.... (you think that between 15 guys, one of them would
realize that they looked silly.... oh well...) We were welcomed and
then warned that this would be a weekend that will be difficult, but
one we'll never forget... boy, was he right!! He then broke into this
shpeal about, "how you could resist, but that's not why you came....
yes... you could resist, but that's not while you came." repeating
over and over, all dramatic like.... extreme silliness!

After the initial speech/orientation we were instructed to divide into
groups for our instruction/training. The first one was an attempt to
make us recognize that we are men. So we had to go around the group
and finish the sentence, "I am a man because _________." Some of the
instructors when first to demonstrate.. the first one: "I am a man
because I can pee standing up!" WHAT! Did I just somehow revert to 2nd
grade again?? The next instructor to demonstrate announced, "I am a
man because I've GOT A COCK!" I did somehow revert to 2nd grade....
"Geez, could these guys please be a little more infantile??" I thought
to myself. My buddy who was there and I were rolling our eyes at each
other from across the room at this point.... It was going to be a
loooooong weekend.

Next exercise: "Repeat after me, "I wimp out with women by _________."
The instructors demonstrated to begin. The first, "I wimp out with
women by putting the seat back down after peeing!" The next, "I wimp
out with women by letting HER choose the movie!". "Holy Shit! These
guys are ridiculous!" I was thinking!!

We went through a few more exercises like this, all equally silly,
until they called us all together again. I'm guessing it was probably
around 1:00 to 1:30 am at this point- they took our watches away so
nobody really knew. They announced that the night was over and we were
to retire to the cabins to sleep. They told us that we would be woken
in the morning and that when we were awoken, we would each have to get
naked and take a one-minute cold shower. And to make sure that nobody
cheated, each man would go one at time while the rest of the cabin
watched and counted to 60...... "WHAT! Who does that sort of thing? This
is going from silly to WEIRD," I thought to myself. But to be honest,
the real weirdness hadn't even started- just the homoeroticism.

SATURDAY MORNING

We were woken up at who knows what time.... But everyone was still very
tired- here again, my buddy and I had read up before the weekend and
so we were expecting a degree of sleep deprivation. We took our
showers... and watched and counted for each other... It's amazing what the
group dynamic can make a person do, huh?

Then we were escorted to the main hall for breakfast, which consisted
of dry cereal and cold water. This took place during the middle of
winter in upstate NY where it was COLD, so suffice to say, this meal
was less than fulfilling.... All morning we went through more silly
"educational" sessions like the previous night. And did a few
meditation exercises as well, and of course, what warrior training
would be complete without choosing your spirit animal? So we each did
that.... Lunch was the same, handfuls of dry cereal and cold water. But
after lunch, it started....

"It" started with all the instructors/elders yelling and beating drums
and making a huge ruckus- during which they brought in two sections of
carpet- This was going to be the "hero's journey" part of our warrior
training. We were split into two groups, one on each carpet.

These carpets, we were told, represented our universes. An important
part of any Warrior myth, is the "hero's journey." This is where the
hero has to go and face his demons, then harness those powers and come
away stronger because of it- pretty common theme- see Luke Skywalker,
Beowulf, Neo of the Matrix, et al.... But I digress...

So we were told that these carpets were our universes where our
'hero's journey' would play out. We were then warned that we might not
survive due to the difficulty of the journey, it would be perilous, we
would need all of our strength, etc... They asked who would go first-- I
volunteered. I figured I'd get it over with... One of the elders walked
up to me on the carpet, again asking if I was ready, it would be
dangerous, etc etc- "yeah, yeah, I'm fine" I replied.

Then about 5 instructors walked out onto the carpet and began drilling
me with questions. Sidenote: When we first showed up we had to fill
out a questionnaire, asking if we'd ever been molested, raped, were
gay, bisexual, if we'd had any traumatic experiences, problems growing
up...etc- Luckily for me, I haven't been molested, I haven't been raped,
and I haven't had any traumatic experiences that still plague me---
Believe it or not, I had a good childhood and I'm well adjusted now
(thanks mom and dad!) Well, they didn't believe it, so they started
really attacking me verbally, trying to get me to break down. But I
was kind of laughing at their attempts.

Somehow a bunch of old, out of shape men playing Indian warrior
doesn't really intimidate me. As this is playing out, I'm watching
what's going on the other carpet across the room from the corner of my
eye-the guy over there you stepped up first, all of a sudden got
tackled by several of the instructors----- "WHOA!" I thought to
myself, "if any of these guys try to pull some physical bulls$%t on me
I will f#%k them up!...." Let's just say I wasn't in the mood to
tolerate anything like that... They then instructed me to "close my
eyes!"

I figured it was to blindside me... a few of them had circled around to
behind me... I was halfway expecting one of them to clock me in the back
of the head or something. So I told them to essentially go to hell and
that I wasn't not going to close my eyes for them. They didn't like
that answer. So a few more instructors joined in with the others and
amount of screaming at me doubled.... Finally once they realized that
they weren't going to be able to "break" me they started chiding me
for "not being ready!" etc, and to "GET THE F%&K OFF THE CARPET!!!!"...
Whatever guys...

The next guy in our group stepped up, and they began drilling him with
questions. Remember that they had info from each man about his
personal traumas and the instructors were reading off of index cards
as each man stepped forward. So anyway the next guy steps up, they
start drilling him and all of a sudden he breaks down, crying, falling
to his knees.... "WHEN I WAS 9 I GOT RAPED IN MY ASS BY AN OLD MAN!!!!"

"BROTHERS!' the elders screamed, "this man has been abused, anyone who
has been abused like this, step forward and place a hand on this
brother to show your support!" All of a sudden EVERYONE there stepped
forward except for me! I was freaked! What kind of group was this? How
could there be such a large percentage of abused people in one group??
All sorts of questions were running through my head... This was getting
weirder and weirder...

So to "cure" this man, they set up a scenario: He was on one side of
the carpet, in front of him were two instructors, one represented the
man's "shame" the other represented his "loneliness" or something like
that-Behind them was a third man, he represented the old man that
caused the trauma. So the guy then had to connect with his inner-rage,
referred to as his "shadow" by the MKP and break through his "shame"
and "loneliness" and push the old man off the carpet and hence out of
his universe... sound kind of strange? It was!

This went on all day long, with these guys, using each man's
questionnaire to break him down- at one point one guy COMPLETELY broke
down. I mean this guy was BROKEN! Screaming hysterically, shaking
uncontrollably.. I figured they were going to have to sedate him and
take him away in a padded van. AND I'M NOT TRYING TO BE FUNNY OR KID
AROUND HERE!! This guy was broken! They tried to calm him down for
about 30 minutes but couldn't.. so they took him outside, away from
the groups to try to calm him down.

From my spot on the carpet, I could see them trying to console him out
on the porch, but to no avail-this guy was broken! (I've read a few
mentions on this website of people committing suicide after MPK
weekends... I don't know if any of that's true, but this guy clearly
needed to be put under some kind of suicide watch at this point!! Once
again, I'm not kidding.) Finally after about an hour and half of him
being 100% hysterical, they instructors finally 'cured' him... How you
ask? THEY WALKED AROUND HIM 3 TIMES WITH BURNING SAGE!!!!!

At this point I was over it! This couldn't be legal, or ethical! F$
%CKING NEW AGE jerk-offs! Who the f%$k do they think they are!!!?

I'm getting so mad reliving this as I write this.... Relax... mellow....
Okay....

This went on all day until dinner. After dinner (cereal and water) we
did a few more exercises and then were told to retire to our cabins.
"But," they exclaimed, "the night wasn't over..."

Around an hour later, I'd guess it was around 9:00 pm by now, but once
again, who knew? The instructors started drumming again, summoning us
to the lodge. We were all led into a small room, the "holding-pen"
from the first night. Once there we were told to blindfold ourselves.
Once blindfolded, we were told to strip and throw our clothes in the
middle of the room... This was too MUCH! But once again, the group
dynamic... who's going to protest?

Blindfolded, we all stripped, we were then told to hold hands and we
were led in a long line towards the main hall. As we approached the
hall, we could hear drumming and yelling. As we entered the hall our
blindfolds were ripped from our heads- the hall was lighted by only
the large fireplace at one end of the room, in the middle of the room
was an alter comprised of candles, swords and animal pelts..
(Sidenote: our group consisted of about 20 initiates and maybe 15 MPK
instructor/elders) But in the lodge were no fewer than 65 men (not
including us 20 initiates!) and every one of them was buck naked and
writhing to the drumming.... And I mean WRITHING, they were dancing,
shaking their asses at each other, seeing who could shake their
scrotoms the hardest to each other... it was the most bizarre thing I
have ever seen-and I hope to ever see. I was expecting it to devolve
into a huge gay orgy at any second. Once again, I'm not trying to be
crass or funny, this is the truth.

After about 10-15 minutes of the homoerotic dancing melee... we were
called to order. Us initiates were arranged in a semi-circle in front
of the fire while the elders were up front. The other 60-some men were
arranged throughout the room. One at time they introduced themselves
-"I'm Thundering Stallion, I've traveled from NY City to be here!"
"I'm Laughing Wildebeest, and I have traveled all the way from Boston
to be here with you.." And on and on.... Each man used only his 'animal'
name.. and they all traveled far to be with us.... Lucky us....

We then went through a silly drawn-out new age style ritual where we
were each greeted one at a time and declared "Warriors!!" After the
ceremony we given the choice, we could return to our cabins to
contemplate or we could stay at the lodge to dance the night away with
the other men. Naturally my buddy and myself opted VERY QUICKLY for
the return to the cabin option. As did most of the other initiates.

Once returning to the cabin, my buddy and I were PISSED. It was at
that time that we decided that at first light we were leaving.

The weekend was supposed to last until around 6 or 7 pm on Sunday, but
my buddy and I were packed and ready to go at first light- we went to
the instructors cabin and walked in- they told us to get out! We told
then we wanted our car keys etc, because we were leaving. Naturally,
they then got PISSED! We expected them to make a huge scene in front
of the other initiates but after about 20 minutes of a few of them
pressuring us to stay, "But we're not finished!" "We still have the
renaming exercise!," "But we still have to do the sweat lodge!" (I
read the post about them telling guys to touch each other's dicks
during the sweat, and while I can't speak to that, I wouldn't be
surprised) "Yeah, that's great guys, but as we said, we're outta here,
gimme my car keys!"

Finally they relented. Luckily, my buddy and I had carpooled together
so we weren't in that trap. And by the way, we felt that the carpool
request by MKP was exactly that, a trap so people couldn't leave
without a huge hassle...

All in all, it was the strangest weekend of my life. At this point, my
buddy and I feel that the primary goal of MPK is to create a safe spot
for gay men to come out in. Whether or not this is true is debatable,
but the weekend dripped homosexuality constantly, and the complete
lack of ethical guidelines, to this day, bothers the hell out of me.

Sorry this has been so long and rambling, but there was a lot to tell...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2009 08:53PM by SeekingTruth.

Here's another report:

Newsgroups: sci.psychology.psychotherapy, soc.men, alt.support.ex-cult, alt.self-esteem, uk.people.support.mental-health
Date: 20 Feb 2007 10:35:55 -0800
Local: Tues, Feb 20 2007 6:35 pm

Subject: Mankind Project 'New Warrior Training' weekend - 2

It is an account of my experience of a portion of a "New Warrior
Adventure Weekend." I have altered names, as they do not need to be
given without permission to use them. On occasion there is an opinion
expressed about what was going on. You'll be able to sort that out.
The quotations are as close as my notes allow them to be given that
they were written the next day after I left. The timeline of events I
believe to be accurate. The attitude of the staff is described as I
experienced it to be. Another person may experience it differently.

Folks with the Mankind Project may be unhappy that someone has written
this out in detail. They may state that I have broken an agreement I
signed. One that was signed under distress. I believe that this
disclosure is part of telling the truth.

---------------------------------------------------------

A friend of mine at the time, who I shall call "M", was very
enthusiastic about an organization called the New Warriors. Now they
are part of the "Mankind Project"

This is a group that claims to hold the answer to any mans search for
his identity as a man. They proclaim that men these days never have an
initiation into being a man; we are simply told that we are one. Part
of this is supposed to be based on the works of Robert Bly. It was
started by a man here in Wisconsin named Bill Kauth along with two
others. Kauth is a Psychiatrist.

"Men have been warriors since the beginning of time and every man has
his warrior side. But social forces pressure many to repress this part
of themselves. They unconsciously substitute a distorted shadow for
the healthy warrior energy so essential to sustaining individual and
communal balance. The New Warrior is a man who has confronted this
destructive "shadow" and has achieved hard-won ownership of the highly
focused, aggressive energy that empowers and shapes the inner
masculine self. Sustained by this new energy, the New Warrior is at
once tough and loving, wild and gentle, fierce and tolerant. He lives
passionately and compassionately, because he has learned to face his
own shadow and to live his mission with integrity and without
apology."

(From www.mkp.org - The New Warrior Training Adventure)

I went on a couple of Saturday morning Men's gathering events with M.
They were held at a church on West North Avenue in Brookfield,
Wisconsin. The gathering started off with drumming. Long sessions of
guys beating on drums and other items that made noise. While I found
it interesting how the pattern of sound kept changing, I was happy
when it was over as it was loud.

Then, Bill Kauth, one of the founders of the New Warriors stood up and
explained that in times gone by, when Warriors gathered by the fire
one of them had the talking stick, and only that person could speak.
Others would open up their hearts, spirits and minds and truly listen
to what the other man had to say. And then he brought out a larger
twig decorated with feathers and looking very American Indian and said
it was the talking stick for the meeting. He went around the circle,
"Who will take the stick first?" he asked. His voice almost a hiss as
he said 'first.'

One man stood and said that before he became a New Warrior, he was
afraid of his boss, or even his wife. And himself.

Another told of how he had come face to face with his abuse from the
past and took responsibility for him self in the here and now, thanks
to New Warriors.

What followed that morning was testimonial after testimonial about the
New Warriors and how wonderful it was because it made them feel like
they were finally a man.

After some thought, and some discussion with M about it, I decided
that I wanted to go on the weekend. Part of my reasoning was that I
had been told by a relative who did some family tree research that
there were two American Indian marriages in my family, and while I was
able to honor the other heritages I had, the American Indian part was
not very available to me. I had been told and read that part of the
New Warrior weekend and philosophy was built on Native American
Spirituality. During the weekend the men were given Warrior names,
based on observations of the staff. M was called Screaming Eagle.

I talked about it with my girlfriend. She laughed and said something
like, "If you wanna go running naked in the woods and that does
something for you, I'm not gonna stop you."

So, I put together the $300.00 and filled in the form for the weekend.
It asked questions about my life experiences and why I wanted to be a
New Warrior. It also asked about any medications I was on, or any
special needs I had. I stated that I needed to eat on a regualar basis
as I had problems with low blood sugar.

I received a letter a bit later saying I was accepted, and that
someone would contact me about transportation to the weekend. Someone
called me and said they were going on the weekend and had a van we
could ride in and save gas going up there. It was a 40-mile drive. I
accepted his offer and we met at my work place right after work. He
seemed like a very nice guy and like me, he was looking for some
answers to questions raised by the Men's Movement.

In doing some research for writing this, I found a script for the
weekend on line and found it very interesting in that it was very,
very accurate to my experience.

My encounter was in the spring of 1993 and among the people there
running it was Bill Kauth. It was held at Camp Anokijig, a YMCA Camp
near Plymouth Wisconsin.

We picked up two other men on the way up to the camp and arrived at
the entrance to the camp before the time we were told to arrive. We
were turned away and told, in a very hostile way to return "on time."
So, we went into town and had a hot beverage at the DQ. Some of my
fellow carpoolers eat sandwiches, but I was a bit too nervous for
that. We talked about the attitude of the man at the camp entrance and
wondering what it will be like when we return. I was ready to go home
already at that point.

When we returned - this time on time - the scene reminded me a bit of
boot camp as shown on the movies.

At the entrance one of the two men, his face smeared with white took
our names one at a time and looked up and down the list. He seemed not
to be in a hurry. Then, he looked at you, pointing his flashlight in
your face and asked "Why are you here?" and then, of course, each of
us answered, "I want to be a man!" Or something very close to that. I
know that was my answer. After we had all 4 of us been checked in, he
told the driver to go forward to the parking lot and to "Hurry, men
are waiting!"

Once in the lot, two men came forward with flashlights, it was night
and I though they would just be helpful to us getting into the
building. Instead they begin to act like the drill sergeant one sees
on TV, where they are yelling for you to hurry up, get unpacked and so
on, and they kept saying, "Hurry Up, men are waiting!"

So, we grabbed our suitcases from the van and at their urging ran
toward the building. But, two men stopped us at the edge of the
parking lot. Both equipped with a flashlight and a clipboard. They
each asked us for our names and made a mark on the paper on the
clipboard. We were told to wait where we were until told to go. One by
one we were told to go into the door that was on the wall ahead of us,
close the door behind us, and again told, "Hurry, men are waiting!"

When it came my turn I walked as quickly as I could in the slippery
snow in the dress work shoes I was wearing, to the door, opened it and
set down my luggage, then turned to close the door.

Inside of the door there was a small foyer, perhaps three-feet wide by
three-feet wide and a little taller than the door. On the floor there
was a single candle and standing next to it, dressed in all black, his
face smeared with ash was Bill Kauth. I said "Hello Bill." Remembering
him from the meetings.

"Speak only when given permission or spoken to. Do you understand?" He
said in a stern, firm voice. He was dressed head to toe in black and
like the men I had seen before, his face was gray with a flecked
material.

"Yes, sir." I said, feeling like I had just really set myself up in a
bad way.

Then he moved close to me, very close. I could feel the breath from
his nose on my moustache. We locked eyes. I had to work to fight off a
laugh. It seemed like an unreal play. The other part was defiance. In
my mind I was thinking, "Do you think you intimate me Mister? I have
been toe to toe with bigger people than you who were drunk and angry,
and I lived. You don't bother me." and he did not.

"Why are you here?"

"I want to be a man." I responded, with a smile. As I said, I was
having a hard time containing myself. The premise of this seemed to be
strange.

"This is not funny, mister." He said, trying very hard to sound big
and angry. "Tell me, why are you here?"

"I want to be a man." I said, flatly.

He moved even closer, his belly touching mine. I don't know how long
he stood there, in my personal space, but it was a while. His
breathing was deep, intense and purposeful. Then, he stepped back. "I
believe you." He said, "Go through that door and then close it behind
you. Hurry! Men are waiting!"

To save describing it every time, each men on the weekend was wearing
black pants and a button-down dress shirt and had his face smeared
white with ashes. M told me later that they had had a fire in the
afternoon in a purifying ceremony and that these were the ashes of
that fire.

I had been told in the acceptance letter to prepare a dish of food to
share with others on the weekend. I had been told by M that it would
be used at a lunch at the end, but that anything I brought could be
refrigerated. I brought a dish I made from a recipe that my girlfriend
gave me. Only, with my lack of experience cooking with fresh garlic I
misunderstood three cloves of Garlic to be three bulbs. I didn't know
what a bulb was versus a clove. So, it was very, very garlicky.
Without notice, two men grabbed at me. One to take my bag, the other
the dish of food. I wanted to tell him it should be refrigerated, but
remembered what Mr. Kauth had told me. So, I kept silent.

The plastic container was slammed on a countertop and then stripped of
these two things; I was manhandled by the two of them to a place where
I faced another man.

I knew this man as well. I knew him only as a friend of M. He was a
burly tall man with blond hair. He pushed me by the shoulders against
a wall that was behind me and told me to stand there, "Don't move." He
said, maybe a bit gentler than others had so far. He brought out a
Polaroid Instant camera and took a photo without any warning. It felt
very mug shot like.

Now, I understood how M had come to have a 'before' photo like that
and why he looked somewhat wild eyed. In darkness this flash photo was
taken after a bit of stark manhandling. It made sense to me then. He
also had an 'after' photo that was taken with a more professional
quality to it.

I noticed that the air was acrid with the smell of cigars. Most every
man that I encountered after that point was smoking a cigar.

Soon after the photo was taken, I was grabbed by the arm by another
man, who pushed me around until we were near another man, who then
manhandled me to a table. Behind it sat two men, smoking cigars. One
had several pieces of paper in front of him. On each side of them they
had two candles lighted. I realized we were in the kitchen and behind
them was the silver face of a double door refrigerator. I wanted to
chuckle. They were only men and they were trying to play this role of
army men or something like that in a kitchen.

One of them asked my name. I told him and he looked at the clipboard.
Then he pointed to a line on it and faced the sheet toward the other
man at the table. He brought out a marker and one of those nametags
that you put on at parties that have a sticky back on it and the words
"Hi I'm" and a blank space. He wrote a number... 38 on it and handed it
to me. The first man spoke, his words spaced out a bit, direct and
forced as if he were following a script. "This is your nametag for the
weekend." Then, in an angry, threatening tone. "Do not loose it or
fail to have it where it can be seen! Do you understand, 38?" I stuck
the nametag on my shirt, figuring I would take my jacket off at some
point.

"Yes, sir." I said. Adding the sir. I was in a business at the time
where I had contact with customers and addressed them as sir or mam'm
out of business custom. Saying Sir was also a way that I diffused
situations and given how this was going so far, I felt it was a
military requirement. I thought to myself that at the end of this
weekend I would stop calling anyone Sir, I would be too much of a man
for it.

A piece of paper was brought out from a folder and slid across the
table, next to a candle. "This is an agreement for the weekend. You
must read and understand this, then sign it. Hurry up, men are
waiting." I was handed a blue pen. I hate writing in blue ink. I
started to read the text in the dim light of the candle. Actually, I
was speed-reading it.

"You agree to hold New Warriors as harmless for any physical injuries
you endure this weekend. You agree to not disclose to anyone the
nature or exact activities of this weekend. You may share that you
were on this experience, but you may not describe in any detail any
portion of this weekend. You agree to hold New Warriors as harmless
for any damage or loss. You agree to hold New Warriors as harmless for
any difficulty you may have with this weekend. You understand that
this weekend will be physically and emotionally challenging and you
may opt to quit at any time. You understand that no money will be
refunded to you after this point." It went on.

"Hurry up 38, Men are waiting!" the men behind the table started
shouting. I signed and returned the paper to them.

The man who had the marker also brought out a quart size baggie. In a
very firm voice he said, "In this bag you will put any jewelry, drugs,
electronic items or weapons. It will be kept for you and returned at
the end of the weekend. Do it now. Hurry, men are waiting!"

I took off my watch and a gold necklace that my girlfriend had given
me. I don't think I was wearing any other jewelry. I had a hard time
taking off the necklace as my hands were shaking. Part adreline and
part panic. I had cigarettes and a lighter (I smoked back then) that I
also surrendered and then sealed up the bag and handed it back to
them. The man with the markers threw it back to me. "I didn't tell you
to give it back to me! Go see the next man. Hurry, men are waiting!"
Two men came up to me, one on each side and took me by my arms and
pushed me along.

While I was rushed and pushed to the next stop I thought about how
they had then started to address me by the number on my tag. This was
something they were doing to break me down I theorized. To take away
an identity I had. I had done some work with my name before and had
thought about it prior to this as well. I had at one point decided to
use a pen name while writing so, I didn't think that it was too
strange or so much a loss to have a number instead of my name.

I waited in line. Someone behind me giggled and from the shadows
stepped a staffer who screamed, "Shut Up Goddamn it! You have not been
spoken to!" I was waiting for the word 'Maggot' to be added, just for
the Hollywood Army Effect. I had to work to stifle a giggle myself. It
all seemed so acted out. Like there was a cheaply written script that
they were all following. It was like when I was a kid spending a day
with my father's family and my cousins and I decided to put together a
'play'. We'd rehearse what was really an improvised storyline and then
after a few times through it, gather a few grown ups to watch. They
were mostly drunk enough to enjoy it, or at least be kind about it.

I stood there asking myself what this was all about. If they just
wanted to get us into the building, then have us stand in line and
take our names, I could understand that, but this matrix of men
pushing us around and the yelling and the standing order of silence.
And now, taking away items from us. What was this all about and how
would this result in my being a man. I had been told my M that parts
of it were hard core harsh, but I was not prepared for this.

Two men who were staff came out from the room taking a pledge by the
arms and left the area. Two others came out and grabbed the next
person who was in line, one-by-one. One would grab the person, the
other the luggage they were carrying. They were far from gentle. I was
trying to figure where this fit into the whole becoming a man thing. I
knew that Native American boys were taken away from the tribe for a
period of time and there they were taught to hunt and fight and other
things they would need to know to be a man, a warrior. But, I never
thought of them as pulling the boys away by force, or hustling them
around from man to man in a forceful way. It was very confusing.

When my turn came, one in the room it took a moment for my eyes to
adjust to the light. I realized that there were four men in the room,
one of them, a large black man stood behind a countertop. The others
were standing near the shelving that wrapped around the room. It was a
fruit cellar. I recognized one of them. He was sitting in a corner,
with a clipboard, flashlight and paper. Several freestanding candles
burned on the shelves and the air was thick with cigar smoke. I was
almost choking from it, but thought that the candles were a feminine
touch.

"What is your name?" the man behind the counter asked.

I responded with my real name. It was an honest answer. I heard a
chuckle from the others in the room.

"What, is your name?" he asked again, forcefully.

I again responded, this time giving my full name.

He then stabbed at my nametag. "I asked you, and I'm asking you for
the last time, what is your name?"

"38." I responded.

"Very good. You were given a bag to put any jewelry, drugs, electronic
items or weapons in. Have you?"

"Yes." I said, handing him the bag. He threw the bag to one of the
other men. I was concerned about my watch.

"We will now search your bag and person for additional jewelry, drugs,
electronic items or weapons. This is done for your safety." He said,
his tone flat.

And then one of the men came up from behind me, pushed me forward
against the counter, kicked my legs apart and patted me down like the
way police search a suspect. Except he moved to a lingered a bit too
long in my crotch - so it seemed to me. I've never had the police
conduct a pat-down search, but when I've seen it done; they tap the
front pockets, but never, ever seem to put a hand on the persons
crotch.

This was part of the script; intimidation, invasion of personal space
and demeaning action. I wondered if they had noted to do that to me,
having read my application.

"Drugs!" Said the man searching the pockets of my jacket. He brought
forth a jar of Carmex, which he handed to the leader of the group.
(Carmex is a lip balm made in Milwaukee. It is sold in small flat
containers.) He brought out the baggie and dropped the jar in the bag.
"You were told, were you not 38, to put all drugs you had with you in
this bag." The black man asked, his breath filled with cigar smoke,
and his voice with anger.

"Yes."

"Why did you not put this in there?"

"I didn't think of it as drugs."

"This is a drug. You are not permitted to have it with you, 38." He
said, and then threw the bag back to the guy in the corner. I noticed
he turned on his flashlight and begin writing on his clipboard much
like others had.

My luggage was brought up on the table and opened. The black man
rummaged around in it, using a flashlight to help him see. He soon
closed it. My clothing was rumpled now and the suitcase did not close
well. I had packed for being out in the cold or for being indoors. I
had three changes of clothing. I packed as when I was with the Boy
Scouts for a winter camping weekend.

My bag was shoved back to me. I was then grabbed by two of the men,
and pushed out of the room. There another man manhandled me to another
person, who did the same. It was a maze of men and I was pushed from
one to the next. I lost count of how many men I encountered. The
mantra "Hurry up, men are waiting!" was shouted often.

And then, there was a door. A dark wooden door. Candles were on the
floor near it an outside of it stood two men acting like guards. I
knew one of them from my ACOA group. The door was opened, it was very
dark inside. Two men took me, one by each arm and lead me to a spot.
"Put your bag down and stand here." They said, "Do not move, do not
speak to anyone or make any sound. Wait here 'till men are ready for
you!"

They left, slamming the door behind them.

It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the light that was in
the room, from what little was escaping in under the cracks of the
door and a candle that burned on top of a mound of dirt to one side of
the room. We were in a room that had been carved out of the dirt, I
could see the foundation of the building. The room smelled of mold and
dust and damp earth and the aroma of the cigars that the staff people
were smoking as they pushed their way into and slammed their way out
of the room. I was having some trouble breathing.

There were several other men around me, standing there. Each of them
had a nametag like me. I could hear and smell their breathing. Another
person was brought in and shoved to a spot and told the same thing. In
the light of the open door and the flashlights that pierced the
darkness, I noticed one man standing near the far wall had with him
only a briefcase, nothing else. I wondered if his luggage had been
taken from him, or he knew something about the weekend others did not.
I figured he was a plant and would report anything that went on in the
room.

I shifted my weight from side to side. I was tempted to sit down, as I
would still be in the same place, but then acquiesced that I did not
want to be intimidated by one of the 'keepers' as I took to calling
them. They had told me to stand there, so I did as I was told.

People were coming in on a regular amount of time. The routine was the
same for each person. I leaned back against the wall. Hell, I'd figure
out what to do if anyone said something. Then, the men stopped coming
in.

We waited. There was no sound in the building. I was wondering what we
were waiting for. I had time to consider the situation. Why was I
doing this? What purpose was this entire weekend going to serve toward
my being 'a man?'

I was trying to figure out how what had been done so far played into
that idea of becoming a man. Why the meanness and being hostile? They
were not welcoming or warm; they were treating me as if I were a
criminal, unable to be trusted. This was not the way the American's
were treated. Perhaps in Russia... I had plenty of time to think.

I thought that I would walk in and find men in a sweat lodge, beating
on drums and smoking. That we would dance and there would be chanting
and we would talk about what it meant to be a man and they would
welcome me to the other side. I was a man now.

This was far from that.

I was standing in a dank, cold, dark, basement and I had paid over
$300.00 for the privilege to be here. This was not fun, this was not
giving me insight to my spirituality. I had been mistreated and this
was not fair. I was, in short, pissed. Yet, I was curious. What would
transpire to put this all into the place where I had been told it
would? How would this all relate to being a man?

I need to be honest and say that I was also scared. I did not know
what these men would do next and did not see an escape. All part of
the plan - so I have learned.

Yet at the same time, a thought started to develop. It was a small
seed that had been planted many years ago. I had seen a story on 60
minutes about the Moonies and how they performed their brainwashing.
The person was deprived of sleep, their environment was all the same
color and the water and food was room temperature, or they were in
darkness, so that they lost all sense of time and of being. This,
well, this was starting to have that feel to it. Stripped of a name so
that I was just a number, not really a human being. My luggage
searched and my personal space invaded. Yes, something felt wrong
here.

I was wondering if they had someway to see inside of the room or
someone already in with us. I wanted to try to get my luggage to close
properly, but I was afraid that someone would yell at me for doing
something I had not been told I could do. I was angry with myself that
I was letting that happen to me. I am an adult. Other adults should
not hold such power over me.

We waited. I grew chilly and the bad air was getting to me. I started
coughing and someone came in and screamed "Quiet, Goddamn it!" then
slammed the door behind them. I figured that they would make a mark on
the clipboard about me for that. It reminded me of bad parents, like
mine.

We waited, still longer. My sense of time was telling me that we were
there about an hour or so. Nothing to do but stand there in the cold
basement and perhaps think. I wondered what my girlfriend was doing
right then. I thought about being on a silent retreat and how the
silence there was a comfort, and this was anything but that.

Suddenly there was a burst of activity. I heard the sounds of stomping
feet above us, coming though the wooden floor. Objects were scraped
and dropped. I heard voices through the floor.

Without notice, the door to the dug out basement burst open and
several of the men in black loudly rushed into the room. They kicked
dirt over the candles and the room went black. Then flashlights were
lighted their beams showing in the dust and men in black rushed up to
a pledge, grabbing them, Yelling "Take your shit, hurry, men are
waiting!" And then out the door they went. One by one we were plucked
us out, henchman style and set us out side in a hallway single file,
and put in us in line. I was happy to be out of the cellar.

We were then ushered up some winding wooden stairs to a large hall. We
were urged to hurry along with that same mantra repeated again and
again.

Once we were all assembled at one end of a large hall we were stopped
by two men. One of them I recognized as the large black man who had
searched my luggage.

He stepped forward. "You have 10 seconds to put your shit on the floor
here and get your ass over to that square and sit down! Now!" he
screamed, pointing at the other end of the hall where a square brown
tarp was spread out on the floor and surrounded by wood rails.

Drums started beating and there was a flurry of bags piled on the
floor, the stomping of feet as we ran between the two rows of men in
black, all of them beating on drums and screaming. I recognized a few
more people standing there as those I had hung out along with M.

We ran to the square area and set down on the ground. There was one
larger man who was limping and had trouble running as quickly as they
thought he should - or so they let on - and one of the two people who
were at the start of the line were running next to him, screaming like
a TV drill sergeant "Hurry up number XX, men are waiting!" I was
trying to figure out why the level of hostility toward this man who
was having difficulty walking.

He arrived in the square, sat and then the drummers moved to surround
us. They continued to drum, I was trying to figure out of we would be
given a drum to join in and this would be like those Saturday morning
sessions.

(Note: I've used the term XX for the numbers that others were given. I
don't recall their numbers, only mine.)

Then, the drums stopped.

Bill Kauth stepped onto one of the logs that surrounded the square
where we were.

The square was an area with a brown carpet and several 2 x 4's
surrounding it. During the time that we were in that section, sitting
or standing as required, the staff people would stand on them. Taking
turns. It seemed very choreographed. They would turn away at times, or
look at one another or light up a cigar.

Mr. Kauth spoke first. I noticed he did not have the 'talking stick'.
I quickly figured that we were not going to have a session like that
at this point.

"You have come here, " he said, his voice booming, "because you want
to be men. We will see if you have what it takes to become one! There
are some rules you need to know and understand before we begin. They
will be told to you only once so listen up."

I was thankful. There were rules? It had all seemed to be lacking of
any boundary up to this point. Like, they could do anything they
wanted. I was looking forward to hearing some guidelines on how this
weekend would go. Rules of what anyone on the weekend could and could
not do. Limits on the staff perhaps. I was disappointed by what I
heard next.

"You will speak only when you are spoken to. You will address only the
person who addresses you or someone when told you may. You will eat
when we permit you to, and you will eat what we feed you. You will be
given enough food for the weekend. You will be given a place to sleep
and you will do so when told you may do so and only then. You will
participate in all activities. You will get out of this weekend what
you put into it. We will encourage you to put everything you have into
it."

Then he paused.

"There will be no fucking this weekend. No jacking off. Save your
strength! You'll need all of it. As for how the weekend will go, you
will take breaks when we permit it, and if you need to take a piss,
there are two buckets on the far end of this hall. If you need to take
a shit during a break, you will need to ask one of us, and we will
take you to a place where you may do that. If you are in need of
medications that you brought with you, if you had alerted us to them
in the forms you filled out, you will need to ask for them. We will
give them to you as appropriate. We will decide if you may do so. Does
anyone have any questions? You may ask them now."

No one spoke. The idea was clear. They were in control.

Bill walked away. A group of the staff people walked up and stood on
the rails around us. Another staff person walked into the square.

"Each of you has come here for a reason." He said, firmly. "I want to
know that reason." He then called out a number and told them to stand
up. It seemed to be he was picking them at random. A power play move I
figured. Keeping each person off kilter so you did not know if you
were the next to be called. I don't recall details of what others
said, but when my number was called out, I took to my feet as others
had done. He drew near to me. "38. Why are you here?"

By the time he got to me I had created my answer. It was from the
heart. "I want to be a man. My father never was able to show me what
that was like, and I'm told this is the place to find that answer."

"38, tell me why your father was not able to show you."

"He was an alcoholic, he worked too much and he was a child
molester."

"I see, and you were his victim? 38?"

"Yes" I said, looking away from him straight into the eyes of M, who
was just over his shoulder, to the right. His expression did not
change.

"So, you never trusted him, 38?"

"No." I answered.

"I see. And, 38, what if you don't find the answer you seek here?"

It was a good question to ask. I'm sure he had done this before, or it
was in the script.

"Well, then I would have wasted my money and your time." I responded.

He told me to sit down and went on to someone else. I was surprised.
Others were confronted with their answers to the second question. Mine
was honest, hard to combat, I guess. I found that the interrogator
kept using the person's number. This was not counseling, this was not
kindness, this was questioning. I felt like a prisoner of war and soon
I would start refusing to answer questions or make them up to get them
to leave me alone. I had been there before, I was ready for them.

While this interrogation was taking place, I noticed that the staff
people standing on the rail, a dozen or so men had changed at least
once.

One man said that he was hoping that the weekend would help him stop
abusing his wife and children.

"You beat your wife and your children, XX?"

"Yes." The man responded flatly, his hands moved to his pants pockets,
his face sank and he begin to scan the floor with his darting eyes.

"And does beating them make you feel like a man?"

"No."

"Then why XX, why do you do it? You must enjoy something about it?"

"My father beat me, and my mother as well."

"So that's your excuse. You saw your father beat your mother and now
think it's OK to do that to your wife and your helpless kids?"

"No."

"Then tell me, why do you beat them?"

His answer was lost on me. I believe he first mumbled something, then
the interrogator screamed for him to speak up.

Inside, I was having a double moment going on. I was half expecting
that since I had admitted that I had been abused that the staffer
would make me stand and tell this man what I thought of him. Inside I
was torn about what I thought of him, which was the other thing going
on.

continued ....

... continued

On one hand I was sympathetic of him. He was trying to do something to
stop what he was doing, and felt was wrong. I had been in ACOA groups
with people who admitted they were not being good to their children,
and could find some compassion for them in at least making an effort
to try to correct for it.

On the other hand, I truly was angry toward him for what he was doing.
I was wondering what would have been the result of my rising, charging
after him and beating the pulp out of him. I pictured myself doing
exactly that.

The man gave some answer and then the staff person walked away from
the square.

Another person stepped into the square. It was the large black man who
had searched my luggage. "Bullshit! You guys have been telling us pure
fucking bullshit! He was shouting, spitting every time he said the
word bullshit. "I want answers that are the truth! Don't give me that
namby-pamby from your head, bullshit. Fuck that! I want the truth from
each of you!" he then picked out a number and told that person to
stand up. "Tell me the truth, or get the fuck out of here! Why are you
here?" He gave an answer, a different one. I changed how I was
sitting. My ass was starting to hurt from sitting on the floor. I
watched what was taking place and considered my new answer to his
repeated question. I wondered how much longer this could go on and if
this was what the entire weekend would be like.

While I waited, I took stock of the room we were in. It was a large
hall, two stores high at its peak, with a second floor of small rooms
that were reached by stairs off to one side. I figured these might be
the lodging areas where we would sleep, when they let us sleep. The
walls and ceiling were logs, like a large log cabin and it had that
smoky aroma of one that had had several campfires burned in it. From
the ceiling hung several metal shaded incandescent lights; dark.
Several torches like one would have on a patio burned not from the
matt and some candles were around the room.

I noted that I had seen a lot of candles. Something I always
associated with females, as it seemed that the woman in a couple was
more likely to light up a candle, than a male.

Not far from where we were sitting there was a fireplace, it was not
lighted, but it was plenty warm in the building. Or at least for me as
I was still wearing my leather jacket. Windows lined the walls on two
sides of the room. On the far end from where we where there were two
white 5 gallon buckets sitting on a sheet of plastic. Those were our
'toilets' I figured.

I was wondering if I could tell someone I needed to shit and get to a
regular toilet, or would someone be watching to make sure I did that.
I mean, if I got in, sat down and then when I was done, would a
'guard' look in to make sure I had actually put down a piece of shit?
Somehow that was something I would not put past them to do, given what
I had seen thus far.

I returned back to what was taking place. The staff person had by this
point had several people stand and answer the question and seemed to
be done with this line of questioning. I noticed that I was not
brought up for questioning, which I thought was odd. Either it was
just a coincidence, or the guy felt that my disclosures had been
enough. Or, the script had called for this to only take place for a
certain length of time and we had reached that length.

He left the area and the group around us changed again. A new person
walked into the square. He was holding a clipboard.

"When you were processed on your entry to our weekend, you signed a
pledge and you were handed a bag in which you were to place any
jewelry, drugs, electronic items or weapons. This was done for the
safety of every person who has come here this weekend. Number XX,
stand up." He moved to stand closer, almost too close to the man who
had stood. "When your luggage was inspected, you were found to have a
bottle of aspirin in it. Why did you not remove it and follow
instructions?"

The man responded something along the lines of not being aware it was
there. It was a bag he used for travel and forgot that he carried them
in it.

"Bullshit!" the staff person responded. "Every man knows what tools he
has with him. Every man knows what items they carry with him at all
times. Forgot is not an excuse. Tell me the truth, number XX. Why did
you not bring them out and put them in the bag as ordered? Do you not
care about these other men?"

I don't remember the response the man gave. The staff person made some
demeaning comment about it and dismissed him. He then called up
another number and told that person to stand up. "You were found with
knife blades in your possession. Why were you carrying a weapon you
did not turn in?"

"They were Exacto blades, hardly a weapon." The man responded. I
considered what I would say when asked about my jar of Carmex.

"Bullshit! You had a weapon. A knife, any type of knife can be a
weapon. A man can use a pen as a weapon. Do you not trust these other
men?"

Several of the staff people turned to face him. It was a very staged
response. I happened to look up, right into the eyes of "M", and saw
him do something I had seen him do before. It was an acting move. He
stuck a pose; putting one arm across his chest, and rested the elbow
of the other one on it. Then, he put his hand, with his thin index
finger pointed skyward on the side his face and looked off, stage
right, as if looking for some answer in the distance. He tilted his
head slightly into the palm of his hand.

At this point I was very clear to me. G saw it as a play. A stage
production carried out on a grand scale. Complete with violence,
threats, the nice guy, the spitting mad guy, and the confinement, the
yelling "Men are waiting!" Even Bills greeting, all of it had been
written and timed. He struck a pose much the same way as an actor
would in a Victorian Era Play. He was like that when he was doing the
actor doing a pose thing. It was a game we had played several times
during the time I knew him.

The man said that he did trust the other men. That his only intent was
do some wood carving that weekend, the knives were for art use only.
He intended no harm.

"I see." Said the staffer. "But, you know, deep inside, in that shadow
of yours that if you wished, you would use one of those knives on any
man here. If you had to defend you self, you would?
Am I right, XX?"

"Well, yes, if there was a threat, yes, then I would defend myself.
Who wouldn't?"

"If you didn't trust these men. If your shadow didn't say that you
can't trust other men, would
you even think about there being some threat to you?"

There was a long pause. The staff people shifted. "Well, come on XX,
answer the damn question!" the interrogator yelled.

"I guess not."

The staff person moved very close to him, his eyes wide and fiery. He
poked the man in the belly. "You guess not? What kinda fucking answer
is that? Here, in your gut," he said, poking the man in the stomach,
"Deep inside of you, you know it's true. You don't have trust for
these men, maybe for any man. So, you compete with him, you try to
trip him up. You try to hurt him and be better than him. And your
shadow says this is the way to act. Do you agree, XX?"

"Yes." He responded, his voice filled with a mixture of fear and
anger.

"Sit down now, XX. I want to talk to." There was a long pause. "XX" he
said calling out another number. I was relieved. I feel a bit guilty
about that, but I was relieved it was not my number. I was angry with
myself that I was willing to answer to a number.

"XX, you were late getting here. Where you not?"

"Yes, sorry." XX responded.

"XX, did you get a letter that looked like this one?" he asked,
removing what looked like the confirmation letter from the clipboard.
He showed it to the man briefly and then held it up for all of us to
see.

I looked at the man. He was shaking. In his mind I could see he was
trying to sort out his next move in that chess game it seems we all
play when confronted.

"Yes."


"And tell me, what time did it say to report to the camp gate?"

"I don't know, exactly."

"Did you read the letter, XX?"

"Yes."

"So, why didn't you follow the instructions and arrive at 7:30? It's
right here in the letter."

"I had trouble getting out of work on time to drive here, I had to
borrow a friends car. It took longer than I expected."

"And that's your excuse?"

"That's what happened. Honestly." I watched him as he said this. He
looked like the small schoolboy who had just prepared himself for
punishment. His shoulders drew up tighter to his ears. His eyes
scanning the floor. He was a large man, pudgy some would say. He was
young, perhaps only 18, maybe 20 years old. He was wearing a wrinkled
gray jacket and blue jeans.

"What's here?" he asked poking him in the belly. "What the fuck is
deep in here? Why are you so 'don't give a damn' about other men? Who
appointed you King?"

"I don't think I am. I was late. Geez!"

"A man, a real man faces his own failings and owns them. A real man
makes right what he has done wrong. He had integrity and his life is
all in congruity. You say it was a mistake, but you don't act like it,
do you XX?"

"I don't understand."

"You said it was just a mistake, but you are unapologetic for it. A
warrior is congruent in what he does and what he says."

"I said I was sorry."

"Deep inside, in that dark part of you, your shadow, that part you
don't want to think you have, or face, don't you really feel you are
better than any of these men?"

"No" the man said. His hands now shoved into the pockets of his coat.

"Really XX? You really don't? You showed up late for this weekend."

"That was not on purpose!" he responded.

"Really? No man ever does something by accident, XX. You cut someone
off in traffic, that's not by accident. It's because you think your
better than someone else. You spread a rumor about someone. Why?
Because you think your better than the other man. These are not
accidents; these are ways in which our shadow does things. We are not
clean with others. Do you understand that?

"Yes."

"So, why are you angry at other men?" I noticed that he had said the
word angry. This was a change in pace. He suggested what the man was
feeling. He implied what the man was saying.

"Angry? I'm not angry at anyone!"

"Really? So you showed up late just on accident? I don't buy it."

"That's what happened."

"You carry a lot of anger. Right here." He said, pushing hard into the
large belly of the man. "You swallow your anger at other men and put
it right here. Do you know what that means?"

"Not really."

"Well, XX, let me explain it to you. You swallow your anger and you
are fat because of it. You hate other men and you put your anger in
your stomach."

"I do?"

At this point I admit I was buying just a little of this. I had done
some body and mind work while I was at an ACOA conference and I
understood how our emotions and mind affect our body. Still, I had
noticed his implication, his direction of what the man was feeling.
This was something I knew that a therapist would not do and I would
have resented had he been directing me.

"Yes, XX, you put on every pound of anger right here." He said pushing
hard into the stomach of the man.

There was a long pause.

"Alright, I am."

"Are what?"

"Mad at men!"

"Why? What did these men do to you?"

"I don't know, but men piss me off!" The younger man responded, his
voice tinged with anger that had not been there before, but was suddenly released.

"Go with that, tell me more, XX."

His continual use of the person's number was not lost on me. It was a
connection he was trying to make, but still say superior to the person
he was interrogating.

"I've always been hurt by men. They take jobs away from me. They cut
me off in traffic, they don't respect me and..."

"So, because of that you are angry at all men?"

"I don't know."

"Tell me why, XX!" the staffer urged him.

There was a moment or two of silence. It was a pregnant pause.

"My father hurt me, he ignored me, and he told me I was not good
enough. I hated him, and I guess, I hated men from then on till now."

"You guess, or you know, XX?"

"I know, I hated my father. He was a bastard who never paid attention
to me!" The man cried out, tears now begin to flow down from his
eyes.

"I see. Tell me more. Why did your father ignore you?"

"He was busy, working all of the time."

"So, you never really had a relationship with your father. He never
showed you what it was to be a man, or to help you become one?

"Yeah." The pledge responded through tears.

"And he never told you that you mattered or that he loved you?

"Yes"

Very good, XX, that's clean, that's clear, that congruent. So, then,
tell me, are you better than these other men?"

I sat watching this all take place. Several things were going on in my
mind at that moment.

One was that I was wondering what I would be called up for. I was in a
van that arrived early and we were turned away. I was wondering if we
would be called up for that.

I was wondering if I would be called up for having the jar of Carmex
in my jacket. The man who was in charge of the search had been
screaming at me about having drugs in my possession.

I was thinking how this was very much like the frustrating
conversations I had had and seen with someone who was drunk. You can
never win. Anything you say is turned around on you, and you go round
and round, never really getting to a point.

And, I was thinking about a TV show that I saw in the 1970's. Scared
Straight.

Scared Straight was a documentary from 1978 that showed the Scared
Straight program. It had hardened convicts from maximum security
prisons tell their stories about the truth about prison life in order
to convince kids that no crime is worth the risk of being
incarcerated. The prisoners swore and were at times vulgar toward the
kids. I remember one prisoner said to a kid that during his first
night in prison, he would find himself with a sheet over his head and
a being raped. He went on to describe in detail the way he would be
passed around from several men. It was a stark, harsh program that was
shown without commercials or much by way of editing out language.

A few minutes had passed, but apparently the large staff person was
still not pleased with the results he was getting from this pledge.

"Do you have anything to say to these men?"

"I said, I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me. Not to the one's who you wronged. Do you know that
these men had to wait for you? They waited, standing in a dirt cellar
while you were out driving your way up here?"

"I did not know that."

"Well, now you do. So, what are you going to do about it? How are you
going to fix it with these men? What are you going to do to make good
by them?"

"I. I don't know. I guess I don't know what you mean.

"What act can you do to make up to them men for what you did wrong to
them?"

"Aside from say I'm sorry?"

"Yes! Goddamn it!" the staffer screamed, his face a few inches from
that of the pledge.

There was a long pause. I was growing tired of this conversation and
wondering when it would end.

"I can offer each man a back rub. I'm sure after standing all of that
time, that would make them feel better."

"Ok. A backrub. Well, that might be good. What do you all think? Will
that do it for you? Is that a good make up for you all?

I was thinking how little I really wanted that. The idea of having
some stranger rubbing my back really was uncomfortable. Yet, I was
here to try to find some ways to remove from myself the things with
other men that made me uncomfortable.

The staff person seemed to be somewhat pleased with the result. He
told the pledge to sit down.

I wondered who was next.

The questioning went on for some time as several people were called up
and torn down for what they had left on them or in their luggage.

For some reason, I was not one of them.

Another staffer walked in and said, "You may now take a short break to
piss, shit and eat something. When the drums sound, return back to
your places." And then he left the area.

I was happy to be able to stand. Like the others I walked toward the
other end of the hall. On a card table, there was a large bowl of
trail mix. That was our evening meal. I was wishing I had eaten
something substantial before I arrived. I hadn't because of the time
squeeze between work and arrival.

I begin to feel disoriented and ill. Lack of proper food was playing
it's way into my evening. I felt powerless to do anything about it. I
figured that that was part of the plan. I eat a handful of trail mix.

I also needed to pee.

As I said, there were two 5 gallon white buckets on the far end of the
hall from where we had been sitting. I have problems with bashful
bladder. A sheet of clear plastic drop cloth was on the floor around
them, and the two buckets were about 3 feet apart. I stood in line
telling myself it would be OK. I could take care of things anyway.
When it was my turn, and I moved up to the bucket and, well, without
all of the details, I gave it a good try and then gave up. I could
not.

Up to this point in the weekend, I felt like someone was watching
every move I made, looking for some failing so they could jump on me
about it. I believe this was happening. I had seen how the
interrogators were asking questions based on what had been seen by
someone on staff. I expected that in the next session I would be
called upon to stand and explain why I did not trust the other men to
let them see me piss.

I drank a little water. I didn't want to add to my water and bladder
problem.

I stood in silence with the other pledges and considered what I would
do next. I was trying to see what good this was doing? Why was I
subjecting myself to this? Why had I let someone violate my personal
space and me?

These were not professionals; they were rank amateurs playing out
roles and in some cases not very well.

But, then again, what if I left? Would that mean I was not a man? Had
a failed to achieve manhood? What was I then? I was not able to handle
this weekend. I was took weak, too much of a sissy, a wimp for not
being able to go with it.

True, I had been ill for much of the week before, crypto had hit
Milwaukee and I fell victim to that. Perhaps that was playing into
what was going on at the moment. Perhaps I was tired and needed to
rest. I had been awake since early Friday morning, worked a full day
and then came to this weekend. I had a feeling it was early Saturday
morning.

Drums sounded calling us back to our places.

Bill Kauth came back into the room.

"We've been asking you and telling you about being a man. Now it's
time for you to tell one another something. So each of you turn and
face the person to your right." We did so and some of us were back to
back. "Now, when I tell you to until I tell you to stop, you will tell
the other person how you know you are a man. Go!"

I thought for a second, I opted to talk first. "I have a deep voice, I
have a penis, I have hair on my chest. I do not have breasts for
children to suckle."

"Time, now the other person! Go." Bill bellowed.

I don't recall what he had to say. I honestly don't think I was
listening. Around me I heard similar responses to what I had said. At
this point I was very uncomfortable and not feeling well.

After this was done, with staffers standing very close by, some of
them writing on a clipboard Bill said, "Stand now and move over toward
the other end of the hall. Single file!" He barked.

We arose and walked toward the large open area.

Several staffers came out among us. One of them, a scruffy looking man
with a cigar in his mouth told us he was going to tell the story of
Iron John. We were going to act out the story.

"Shut your eyes. Do not let us find you have your eyes open."

I was suspect of what was coming next. I don't like to be places and
not have my eyes open to see what is being done. At this point, my
trust in any member of the staff had been dissolved.

The story begins when a king sends one of his huntsmen into a forest
nearby, a huntsman who never returns. The king sends more, each
meeting with the same mysterious and unknown fate. The king finally
sends all his remaining huntsmen out as a group, but again, none
return. The king proclaims the woods as dangerous and off-limits to
all.

Some years later, a wandering explorer and his dog come to the
kingdom, hearing of these dangerous woods. The explorer asks
permission to hunt in the forest, claiming that he might be able to
discover the fate of the other hunters.

As they come to a lake in the middle of the forest, the dog is almost
dragged under by a huge arm. The hunter returns to the forest the next
day with a group of men and directs them to empty the lake. At the
bottom of the drained lake they find a naked man with skin like Hair
all over his body. They capture him and take him back to the king,
where he is locked in a cage in the courtyard as a curiosity. No one
is allowed to set the wild man free, on penalty of death

Years later the young prince is playing with a ball in the courtyard.
He accidentally rolls it into the cage where the wild man picks it up.
The prince asks for the ball back, but the wild man says he will only
return it if he is set free. He states further that the only key to
the cage is hidden beneath the queen's pillow.

Though the prince hesitates at first, eventually he builds up the
courage to sneak into his mother's room and steal the key. He releases
the wild man, who reveals his name to be Iron John (or Iron Hans,
depending on the translation). The prince fears he will be killed for
setting Iron John free, so Iron John agrees to take the prince with
him into the forest.

(The story of Iron John - Excerpt - From Wikipedia.com)

This was read aloud and we were told to act out the various portions
such as the hunter walking in the woods, the boy playing with the
ball. During it, staffers were walking amongst us and I could smell
the puff of cigar smoke as they went by and hear them as they grunted
or made other sounds as part of the story. Music was played. I
recognized it as "The Oh of Pleasure" from Deep Breakfast by Ray
Lynch; I had the CD at home and had enjoyed it.

Some weeks ago, M had asked me to record a cassette of the song "The
Stripper" for use on the weekend. He said, "Don't ask for more details
or get weirded out about it, but it will be the perfect song for a
part of the weekend when we get naked. I had been to a nude beach with
my girlfriend, so it really didn't bother me.

At this point of the weekend I was very unhappy with the situation. I
felt like I was in the middle of a very dumb play. I felt this was
pointless and I wanted to stop having someone else have control over
me. I wanted to leave.

The plot for my escape was hatched in a few moments. I honestly fought
with myself about doing it or not. Following it would mean that I was
not clean with the group. I was not being congruent, as they had said
a man would be.

Somehow, I decided that none of that mattered. I wanted out and would
follow my own script to get out. I was plotting to be dishonest and
trick my captors, as I felt they were, in to letting me go.

I fell to the ground, panting. I let myself fully experience how awful
I felt inside. A staff person rushed over to me quickly. I felt faint.
Inside I could feel my temperature rushing. It may have been part
panic, and fear. I was trying to fool these people in order to create
a reason for them to let me go, one so well crafted that they would
not hold me there, but send me home gladly; Illness. I could play the
illness card, and with that drop to the floor, I had set it in motion.
It seemed like the only way I could get out of here without a major
problem.

"Are you OK 38?" the staffer asked. It was not someone I knew.

"Dizzy, sorry I fell."

"You, keep going!' he shouted to the others. He offered that I could
sit down for a moment and have some water. I took him up on the
offer.

I sat on the floor, in the middle of where the story was being played
out. I watched the others as they played the role of 'the boy reaching
for the golden ball' and heard the staff hiss and growl at them,
playing the role of "Iron John".

"How are you, 38?" another staffer asked me.

"OK." My hands were shaking. I could feel my face was flush. He told
me to stay put.

Bill Kauth came over to me. "Well, 38, are you going to be ok?"

"I, I don't know. I don't feel very well." I said, kicking in every
bit of acting I could to drive home the fact that I needed to go. It
was part acting and part fully expressing how I was feeling at the
moment.

I was helped to my feet and escorted to a door, on the one larger wall
of the hallway. On the other side was a smaller hallway. From what I
saw I suspected it was the food service area. Several sleeping bags
were spread out and inside of them I noticed people who had been in
the hall earlier.

They were working us in shifts. This could go on all night at this
rate. I felt I was right in my conclusion that it was time to get out
of here.

I was shown a place near a wall that I could sit on the floor. There
was a cushion. I was then feeling chilled. Perhaps it was the change
in the room temperature from the hall or I was really ill, or I had
managed to convince myself that I was truly ill with something and my
mind was taking over to do the rest of it. "Rest here a while, we'll
check on you in a bit." Someone told me.

I leaned against the wall, shivering, chilled.

I sat there for a while and truly felt ill. My stomach was churning.
It might have been low blood sugar, left over problems from crypto,
panic, what ever, it was getting bad and then I felt I needed to
vomit. I looked around and could not immediately see a restroom or a
sink, but I saw a door and ran out of it, into the cold night air and
onto the crunching snow. I saw a tree to my right and headed toward
it. For some reason I need to be at the base of something. I puked a
little bile, and then eat some snow to clear the tasted. One of the
staffers had come out. He helped me to my feet and then into the
building, back to the place where I was sitting before. Another
staffer came up with a blanket and offered it to me. I thanked them
for it, violating the "Don't speak unless spoken to." Rule. I was at
this point, hot and shivering and did not care what the rules were to
have been.

Not long after that Bill Kauth came up to me and said, "The other boys
are playing 'capture the flag' for a while. Do you think if you rested
for a bit you could continue? Perhaps in the morning?" I allowed for a
pause and then responded, trying not to make a lot of effort in doing
so, appearing weak. "I don't think I can, sir."

"Ok" he responded.

I wrapped myself tightly in the blanket and was shivering, hard. I had
the chills, badly. I heard M explain that I had been pretty sick from
Crypto just a week before. There was a lot of chatter and then Bill
came back to me. "We should get you home." I had to explain that I was
grouped with guys in a van, so I didn't have a way home. Someone told
me that they would find a way. I fell asleep for a while. It was the
first, and only time I have ever slept while leaning against something
on the ground.

M gently woke me. One of the staff people, a man I knew from ACOA
would take me home. I needed to go get my bag from the pile in the
other room since they did not know which bag was mine and then I could
go any time.

Mr. Kauth then told me there was one more thing to do before I left. I
needed to tell the others who I was to be on the weekend that I was
leaving. They had returned from their time out in the woods, I spotted
his watch and saw that it was close to 4:00AM; this had all been going
on non-stop since 6:00PM the day before.

I kept the blanket around me and was shown the way to the hallway. I
was directed back to the square where the others were sitting, on the
floor, sweaty and looking tired. I felt better, but tried to keep my
level low.

"38 will be leaving us.' Bill said to them. "He has decided he cannot
continue the weekend with you. He will not graduate to be a man. Do
you have anything to say to them, 38?"

My mind quickly passed around several things that I could say. I could
tell them that I knew it was phony; a well-timed and acted play and
that I felt violated by what had gone on thus far.

I considered saying that I was leaving because I saw no point to this,
based on what I had experienced so far. And that we were men, and
didn't need them to tell us so.

In the end, I said something very simple, "I wish you all the best at
finding whatever you seek this week."

I rummaged though the pile of luggage to find my bag and then I left.

Most of the ride to my home was in silence and I think I fell asleep.
I really didn't care if I seemed weak or not. I needed sleep.

When I awoke the next afternoon, I called my girlfriend to explain
that I was home, I had left and I started writing notes about the
weekend. I needed to tell someone what I had experienced. It was so
horrible. I had learned in my time as part of ACOA and other therapy
that writing helped me to work my way through bad experiences, and to
process what had gone one.

I no longer participated in any events with the New Warriors.

------------------------------

Postlude: Viewpoint and opinion.

Looking back at the 10,000 plus words that I have written about my
encounter with the New Warriors, many thoughts come to mind.

I went in search of something, an identity; man. At the time I was
seduced by the idea that I had lacked having some in my life say to
me, "you are now a man." Like someone handing me the certificate of
manhood, or something like that. I thought that this weekend would be
such at the end, I could say, "I'm a man." Instead I found what I had
experienced already at the hands of other men. Brutality,
mistreatment, some might say a sexual assault while I was being
searched. The script for the weekend reads that you are kept off
balance for much of the time. Food is controlled and meager. Breakfast
both days is 'gruel', other food times are nuts and berries. Water
intake is controlled, your actions are watched. What I came away with
was a worse mis-trust of men than I had before. I had trusted this
group to treat me with the respect that I was due, not only as a
human, but as a grown man of 32 years. Even criminals do not deserve
that same treatment.

I'm impressed by the fact that I felt I needed someone to tell me that
I was a man. I now understand that we are what we tell ourselves to be
as far as roles. No matter what someone else tells us we are, or are
not, we accept the role we want. Some choose to accept the role of
cripple and live their life that way. Others choose to accept the role
of victim, and life that way, often making other victims as well.
Still others take the role of healer and help others and yet others
are TV or motion picture stars and play that role. I've chosen to
accept many roles to play and along the way I've picked up some others
and dropped a few. I had hopes that that weekend would give me a
permanent claim to a role I had already - a man.

I've been told that had I stayed, it would have all been pulled
together for me. That the early stages are tough, so you break open
and look inside. What I wanted to do more so was shut down, tightly.
My trust of them was set lower [than ever].

------------------------------

Exposing MKP from a Christian point of view:

[www.havenministry.com]

[www.midwestoutreach.org]

good morning Seeking Truth, mr. ross and all

i hope your day goes very well for you all.

i do understand that there is a lot of hurt, pain, & emotion surrounding many who attended MKP weekends. It wasn't for them. And I do understand, that for others there was a great negative impact on the relationships with spouses, partners and families. And, please allow me to acknowledge the Mr. Scinto tragedy.

that being said I am grateful for the positive things that have occurred with the existence of the organization and, yes, i am in support of its continuance.

is there any way that i can be of further assistance here in our conversation?

thank you.

floatingfreebear