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Sallie
The purpose of this message board is to HONESTLY discuss destructive cults, controversial groups and movements.
Let's never forget the victims who still suffer.
Let's never forget the CHILDREN still trapped by the wiles of vicious narcissistic leaders.
Let's never tolerate those whose happiness is found through the suffering of others.

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justagirljh
http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/flyer.do?personId=57142

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danjo
Being aware that current members may peek in at this site I am addressing this post to Richie Walsh.

Dear Richie,

I came upon this site two years ago. I would have thought the whole "Community" thing would have been dissolved long ago. Instead, not only am I reading of all the hurt, disillusionment, and shattered lives; but now I read that a new generation has been spawned to endure a life of futility pursuing an imaginary doctrine dreamed up by the now deceased Jack Hickman.
In March of 1982 I attended a meeting where Nancy Boles spoke. She told of a conversation in which you informed her of immorality behind the scenes going on with Lou Ramu. When Nancy came upon other information that would directly impact her family she contacted you for a further explanation as to what was going on. You and Nancy went to see your brother Dennis who revealed to a great extent the chicanery of Jack Hickman. What sticks out in my mind was how Nancy related that on the way home that night you were lamenting that after all was said and done at the end of the day you had to face the realization that you were just an ordinary 26 year old social worker. Apparently living out Jack Hickman's imagination was the only life you knew from when you were in your teens. One thing is for sure. In your heart of hearts you know this whole thing is a lie.
I want to tell you where I am coming from. In October of 1976 I was informed that I was to participate in a winter survival trip. I was just short of 21 years old, very naive, had never been on a camping trip and did not particularly like cold weather. There were seven of us plus you and Larry. Having been given a list of items to bring in order to be prepared for the trip it seemed odd that you specifically requested that we each bring a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. Well on December 26, 1976 we all met in Southold and spent the day learning about cross country skiing. It was after sunset that you brought us outside to the lake behind the house. We had all stripped down to shorts and a tee shirt. The lake was frozen over. A hole was cut in the ice and each of us was lowered into the water up to our necks for approximately twenty seconds or so. The purpose being that in the case of an accident in the wildernes we would know to control our body temperature.
Before dinner as we were preparing our backpacks I pulled you aside and asked you for my keys and my wallet as I decided I had to be out of my mind to be going on this trip. You responded by telling me that we would talk about it later on in the evening. Little did I know that in the middle of dinner you would tell everyone that I had something to share with the group. After I explained to everyone my misgivings about going on the trip there was a short discussion and then a vote. It was unanimously decided that I was going on the trip. The trip was somewhere in the mountains upstate. The first night in the tent I flipped out and had to be calmed down by my tent mate. I did not know at the time that I alarmed everyone in the camp as they all heard what was going on. However, by the third night you had expressed amazement at how I pulled myself together; how I owned up to something that I had to go through. That was a trip that changed me in many ways and I will never forget it.
When Jack Hickman announced on January 16, 1982 a reappraisal of the community I was frantic and completely devastated over the thought of being excluded from the community. I hardly knew what life was apart from the community as I became invovled shortly after high school. He played a very dangerous game with people's emotions. Over the next few weeks I learned the concept of the community was built on a top to bottom lie. I slowly learned to move on. It was only then that I began to grow up. Life has over the years been filled with many hard providences that I have learned I could not run from or side-step, however hard I might have tried. Nevertheless, the God of heaven and earth has sustained me through many trials all of these years.
I leave you with this. On December 26, 1976 you made me stand up and face the music; I told everyone how I wanted to sneak out and go home that night. I challenge you this day Richie Walsh to stand up and tell everyone including yourself that the whole Hickman thing is a lie.
I would have liked to reveal my name but I am honoring the wishes of the modreator of this site.

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truthseeker2
There is no documentation proving it to be false. I have the victim herself. I have her drawings, recordings etc etc. When my daughter's therapist was given a supeona (sp?) to appear as a witness for Greg, and he did not know that my child had just revealed significant accounts of abuse and found this out in court; his lawyer suddenly said that Greg was "offering to give up all rights "to my child and have her adopted by my soon to be husband. You tell me does that sound like an innocent father who has evidence that the abuse didn't occur". The day he gave her up in court, it was me in tears crying for the damage and pain I knew my child would go threw with abandonment on top of abuse. Greg and his father just stood in court the whole time with no emotion. Greg's own attorney would not even ride in the elevator with him. The attorney told me on the way down that "I ruined his day" apparantly he had believed Greg too until he saw TRUTH in me. I am sick of that families BS. My child contacted Alice Smestad asking for restitution, challenging her basically that if they claim innocence why would they not help her now - financially or otherwise; with college etc. Alice said she would talk to Don and we never heard from her again. Give me a break!

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nancy westerberg
To Simply Organic.......The people who wish to be anonymous, may have family or friends still in the CULT and may be still afraid of threats.Jack Hickman told me ....all that was left for me was DEATH and HELL when I left with my family.He has , Iwould think threatend others. and this may the policy still. I don't believe he could decide my future, therefor I am not afraid and can sign my full name. Why are you anonymous ?????
Nancy Westerberg

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disillusioned1
I am going to tell my story, partly because I need to and partly because, hey, maybe it'll help some of the people still stuck in it.

I am a "youth," to me that means I was a second generation Hick-ite, my parents chose it, but I didn't. I was born into it. If I wanted to be a part of their family, then I had to be a part of "the" family. And as basic psychology somewhat dictates, kids are going to be what their parents tell them, no matter how unhappy they are about it, at least for a little while. But, I never really had a chance to experience anything else. I was born in the 1980's, and my parent's still sent me to Bet El, the private school. That means they heard all the stories and chose not to believe them. That means that you people who came to your senses in the 1982 fallout, who think that things split up then, are terribly wrong. When I recently confronted my father about the article, he told me that he wasn't a part of that (the molestation and the beatings), and that I had to consider the source. We were talking about the mainstream American media, and remember he had always taught me not to believe what they said, so how could I believe that. In case you haven't guessed, my father is a very sick man. He was even trying to re-wire my brain, even now, to disbelieve my own feelings. When that didn't work, He switched to the old intimidation tactics, told me I was always a radicle and that he would disown ME for implying that his behavior was anything less than perfect parenting. Thank my lucky stars (because I don't know who God is anymore) that I'm stronger than that now.

Regardless, I think the school brain washed me. I knew and thought of things about God and religion that no 5 year old comes up with on their own. I was convinced that I had to be perfect or God was going to kill me. I would beat myself up psychologically every Yom Kippur because I was terrified of not being inscribed in the Book of Life, but was also tangling with the feeling, how could I not be inscribed in the book of life? I'm part of this really special blood line (that never made any sense), and if God chose me then why would he kill me? But I was afraid. I was taught to fear everything and everyone. I had more than a healthy fear of God. I would say fear of the family, fear of being found out as being part of the family, fear of my parents (father specifically), and a raging fear of outsiders plagued me throughout my life and dictated most of my decisions.

Perhaps, but only perhaps, the molestation stopped with Lou and Dennis and the others of that time. But the damage was done. Our parents beat us as an accepted form of discipline. It was nothing to be at an event and have someone else's parents slap or spank you to punish you. It was the old "it takes a village" mentality. Parent's didn't bat an eyelash. Too many, too many women I know were raped. One is too much if you ask me, but I know about more than that, and don't know if I can handle hearing more than what I already know. And they weren't raped by the parents of the group, the kids were raping each other. I often ask myself, why would they do that? Why? Because something happened to THEM that shattered their knowledge of right and wrong. Gee... wonder what that was? I can only speculate on that, and have for hours. I don't like the conclusion. Nothing was done about it. Nothing law enforcement anyway. The children never got closure. Ch's and Elders were involved and it was "handled." Just like everything else was handled. And if it wasn't handled then the parents themselves ignored the complaints of the children or the obvious goings on and changes in their children, never once trying to find out why their kids were so despondent. Let me repeat this, the parents IGNORED rape. In some cases, the girls were not believed, BY THEIR OWN PARENTS. For the youth reading this, this happened to people you know, people you love, people you would never suspect. Its sick.

What else can I say? The group tried to turn into loving group of zealots that were overly spiritual. They always perpetuated the idea that the youth were a special form of soul, with a special job to do. They were always preparing us. Always preparing us for a great spiritual battle. There were no guns, that I know of. It was all psycho babble talk. They would come out with some new "thing" we had to do every couple of years. It was the next wave of information. It was the next task. We couldn't be told the whole truth all at once because we had to be ready with the last bit of info in order to acquiesce to the next bunch of spiritual jargon. The whole thing really devolved into following new books that came out and doing what they said because it was the real "Truth." The lost gospels and dead sea scrolls, Jesus and Torah scholars, Kabbalah. There were elements of everything.

But the core people, they never stopped the mind control. I was approached by no less than 4 elders over the years to make sure I was "on the right path." This included trying to get me to un-friend a homosexual male who "came out" within the group. They likened his choice to bestiality and would continually ask me if I thought bestiality was okay. I kept saying, it's not the same thing. You taught us to love each other, and now you're telling me not to love his guy. That's just simply not going to happen. They kept saying, we need to cut off this kind of perversion from the family. We can't allow it to continue. This guy was PETRIFIED of homosexuality, and that it was going to spread through the youth. I'm pretty sure this conversation got me a label somewhere. If he's reading this write now, he knows who he is, flip you. You guys ruined years of that kids life. He's only now starting to be happy with himself and not hating himself for his "choice."

I can go on and on. The abuses never stopped. They are discrete. SERIOUS ABUSES, are still going on. They are covered up by people you think of as "good guys." You can feel bad for them if you want, but they are covering things up. You won't hear about them, because you are not meant to. Only people directly involved hear about these things. They are continuing to "handle" things. They tell people who do these things that they will help them and various people with psychiatric or social work experience start to meet with the wrong doers to help them shed this "wrong" thinking. The victims of these seriously unstable people, I don't know what happens to them. Probably the same thing that happens to the rest of us, they bury their shame. The wonder what is wrong with them. The creepy crawly down the spine increases for them whenever they see the people that become the co-conspirators.

I just want to send a message out there to those who are reading. You may have figured out who I am, and I am not scared anymore. I will not divulge who I am or names of the wrong doers or names of the victims, so don't message me asking if you can't figure it out already. I want my family to finally live in peace, so people who don't know me, I'm not looking to befriend you, sorry. I'm still paranoid about people, remember, I was brain washed by a cult. But I have a support system to help me through this. There are a bunch of youth who have had the wool removed from their eyes, and are starting to really live, for the first time in our lives, free. People still in it will see us as "on the left side." Whoop de-ding. I'm not on any side now, but my own. If you are looking to get out and want someone to talk you, message me. Chances are, I live really close by to some of you, like mygoodname, fallen49r, twoworlds. We can meet for a beer if you want. You are not alone. There is nothing wrong with you. There is no need to be paranoid anymore. You don't need to live like this.

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Browndog
I had heard rumors that he had re emerged in COlorado. I can't believe that kid Gary (no longer a kid, obviously) is still involved. A lot of people got some seriouss emotional scars from that group. I was not a full fledged "member" of the family. A couple of my good friends were elders.

I moved to LI from Buffalo shortly after graduating from college- Jan. 77. I was a true believer. Some of the things may sound crazy to some people, but a lot of it made sense within the context. Not being a member of the inner circle, I was not much aware of any of the military stuff---If there where armed people of significance in NY I would be surprised, especially with the gun control (pistol ) laws there- though I think u can get most rifles. Still, I think I heard some rumors, but I have a serious hard time picturing some of those clowns with guns---I mean if u knew some of these people its kind of lauughable--the most serious problem would be shhooting themsellves in the foot or somethingl Bottom line is most of us were yankees with no military experience & Hickman was a somewhat obese minister with amazing charisma, high intelligence & fantastic persuasive speaking ability. He also seemed to be a genuine nice guy. The unfortunate part of it is the man was (is) delusinal & believes his own delusions. I seem to remember when things started falling apart there, some people went down to visit his sister in Oregon to find out if his background was true (That his family was the 'secret remnant of Israel' related directly to Jesus). I think she basically told them that he was crazy.

Anyway, things where going along kind of normaly when one day, it seemed out of the blue, there were rumors of something going wrong or being odd. They had these meetings to discuss this. I'm wondering what it's all about & what could be the big deal. I was certain it was just a bunch of BS. Then I went to a meeting explaining 'the communities' (thats what we called ourselves) position on what was going on. I'll never forget how bizarre this was.

Just imagine belonging to a Church or Temple or whatever, going to a group meeting and all of a sudden the Elder in charge starts speaking of how Abba was simply
'passing the seed' in a spiritual way, like a Jonathin, David relationship.
I was flabergasted at what I was hearing, certain that I misunderstood him, not only because it was so bizare, but because

people were not really reacting to it.

So I bluntly asked him if these guys were (I'm trying to say this nicely here, but I remember being blunt) making each other ejaculate. When He SAID YES, I ALMOST HIT THE FLOOR. It was insane that they were doing this, but even more crazy that they were trying to justify iit spiritually.

I remember my wife and I being freightened- for we immediately decided to leave. We knew no one in long island except members of the community. Our good friends were elders.

Buut wheen we did leave- other then one friend trrying to continuously trying to talk uus into staying, there was no harrasment. Ultimately, everyone we were friends with left. I remember Newsweek doing s Sunday special on it.

I remember a lot of marriages broke upp shoortly aafter. Mine did also, but noot because of that- though maybe indirectly..

If I can be of any help to anybody please Emmmmail mmmmeee @Browndog113@yahoo.com

Good day

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xmember

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hungarian2
I was a close friend of a group member about 6yrs ago. I knew about many trips by their family to Colorado and Maine, including the purchasing of mass provisions for the Maine compound. From what I could gather, it was/is a doomsday cult. Everyone is preparing for the end days, and this Abba fellow annoints priest/warriors among the youth who will be the leaders of the great end days battle. He even gave them ceremonial daggers which are to be used in battle. 'Abba' claimed to have visions where the archangel michael spoke to him. I do actually recall being told back in 1998 or so about a vision of a terrible thing that would happen in NYC in 2002, and that this event would singal the beginning of the end-days.

I understood it to be a jewish mysticism themed group, and heard also about followers in Spain and Northern California as well as Colorado and Maine. The family I knew was very well-to-do and intelligent. But it was appearant that they were spending lots of money and time preparing the logistics for a long term stay in the Maine compound for when the end days come.

I also got bits and pieces of other oddities, such as the future end-days enemies being decendents of a fish-people race (I'm not making this up). The person I knew did get married about 3 yrs ago, I assume to another group member.

I'd love to know more about the 'visions', predictions, and current provisions they are undergoing if anyone knows.

*************************

Hungarian2, et al,

I just became familiar with this forum. It is interesting how many hits and members it has...the most of this website's sub-grouping. For those of you who have been told by a friend or family member "I'm going to just visit a friend in Maine," you MUST be very suspicious.

Many of the posts wonder about what is going on with this group, even though Hickman/Abba died reportedly in 04 (I'd like to know if Miranda, Pam and Steve know this as a fact).

The fact is this cult still continues to function (and damage people's lives), primarily in Maine and Colorado, as mentioned several times.

This group went through at least two "break up/testing" periods (the first one was the infamous "passing of the seed") and its subsequent phase many years later to reach out to some of those who had previously been "cut off." It is true, Hungarian2, what you summarized above. Actually, the garbage that passed as inspired sermons by "the Abba" after he came back from California and Colorado was even more bizarre than what you write. Besides a race of fish people, he was keen on scaring his remaining followers when they met at that Long Island hotel for a "reunion" that certain "watchers" from the super-secret part of the Family living in France were testing them. The new test was to see if the remaining core of family members were worthy of being united with the ancient blood line of the Abenzur's, the Abbadonna's, and Abulafia's. With his regal attire, "the Abba" claimed to create a new line of Kohanim (Jewish priests), whereby daggers were given to youngsters and teenagers, and if proven worthy would be taught the kabbalastic secrets given to Gary by "Abba." People were encouraged to marry only from within the family, needing permission from their "clan leader" to even date someone from another household or clan. Whatever Jewish concepts he had promoted ten years earlier were replaced with gibberage, a mixture of new age and fantasy literature with dabs of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Everyone who wanted to stay part of the Family had to be adopted into a Maine "household" or a "clan". Everyone was expected - or outright told - to sell their properties on Long Island because a great tidal wave was going to sweep over Long Island and drown everyone left behind. In short order, dozens resettled to Maine, Colorado, or a spot approved by their respective clan leader. These clan leaders had to be connected to and report to one of the two top Family leaders. Certain faithful servants (such as Phil Ramu and Richie Walsh) were promoted and given to new titles and secret names at a big family ceremony. Those who were not part of the Maine "ministry" (those with houses for refuge in the Moosehead Lake region) were given a chance to move into a different family mission - more secular and socially oriented. Someone like Shane DeRolf took a large role in this. Gary Coons was revealed to be a High Priest. Followers were told of Gary's eventual marriage.

At that time and meeting, adults had a choice. Most decided their lives had more meaning and purpose if they stayed. Unfortunately, the youngsters - kids like KarmaMachine had been at Bet El - were not given a real choice. It seems most of the postings on this forum acknowledge that despite some of groups good feelings, it ultimately proved to be a controlling and harmful cult. If you know folks, especially young adults or teens, in this group, please help them. For their ultimate emotional health, they need to get out.