Here is a gent who seems to be a lot like Nxivm’s Keith Raniere. He has a Nancy Salzman-type assistant, developed a process similar to NXIVM’s “Exploration of Meaning,” and had a number of women devoted to him, who had sex with him, who later turned against him.
Russell Kruckman, 78, better known as Swami Shankarananda, heads an ashram in Melbourne, Australia, where he teaches “Kashmir Shaivism,” or Shiva Yoga, a mixture of meditative practices, yoga, concentration on sound, mantra repetition, chanting, breathing exercises and, for some of his female disciples, tantric sex.
The ultimate goal, Kruckman teaches, is for the individual to realize oneness with the universe.
“God dwells within you as you,” Kruckman says, “see God in each other.”
About 40 disciples live at his ashram permanently, up to 100 people stay there for temporary retreats, and hundreds come weekly for yoga and meditation classes and other courses.
Kruckman is assisted by Valerie Angell, also known as Devi Ma, who was an experienced Gestalt therapist before her involvement with Kruckman.
[NXIVM similarity: Nancy Salzman was an experienced Neuro-linguistic Programing practitioner before cofounding NXIVM with Raniere.]
Those who live in the ashram are assigned a schedule, occupying them from morning to evening. Besides spiritual practices prescribed by Kruckman, voluntary work to help maintain the ashram consumes a large part of the day.
Guru Is God
“God, guru and Self are one,” Kruckman teaches. “Using these three complementary aspects of the divine as navigational indicators, the seeker arrives at the goal.”
To realize the goal, the student is told he or she must master the mind, control the vital energy, subdue the senses, conquer sleep, overcome anger and agitation, and, the quickest path to this is to love, surrender, obey, and worship the guru as if he were non-different than God Himself.
Disciples give Kruckman, who they affectionately call Swamiji, authority to decide where they live, what they do for work, what they can and can’t do sexually; their diet, hobbies and what they study. His disciples believe he has psychic powers and knows the future.
To support his work and show devotion, people work at the ashram without compensation and some pay money to stay there and work for free. His disciples read his correspondence and take dictation from him typing his replies, clean his room and bathroom, wash his clothes, do his ironing, make his bed, prepare his meals, clean his dishes, wash his car, help him organize lectures, and report back to him about other students and potential recruits, providing important information to help him help them.
“If you see the guru as perfect, you will attain enlightenment. If you see him as a demon, you will attain hell,” explains Kruckman. “Pleasing the guru is the source of all attainments.”
Kruckman warns that failure to see the guru as perfect is fraught with danger. There are frightening, demonic entities, ghouls and ghostly presences seeking a human body who lie in wait to possess a faithless person and destroy their connection to God. A person is ripe for demonic possession if that person thinks or speaks negatively about their guru, says Kruckman.
“Everything the guru does is ordained by God,” said one disciple, a sentiment shared by all of his disciples.
Shiva Process
To aid his disciples, Kruckman developed a technique called “Shiva Process” [SP].
Practiced in small groups or one-on-one with an experienced SP practitioner, members look to their inner world for deficiencies and then report what they find to the SP practitioner. Confessions of a personal nature are encouraged to help eliminate blockages preventing the divine flow of cosmic life force. SP practitioners encourage members to realize that inner deficiencies disappear once they realize the guru is God.
Kruckman has been accused of using personal information confessed during SP to his advantage by speaking to students as if he can read their minds, when in reality SP practitioners [his disciples] told him what students said in therapy sessions.
His supporters maintain that he knows the past, present and future and does not need such help. He has the power to not only read minds but raise the consciousness of an individual to higher realms of thought and awareness.
Despite his best efforts to help, some of his disciples have left. In fact quite a few in recent years.
Journalist Dan Oakes did an in-depth story last month on Kruckman, for ABC Australia, interviewing more than 20 former followers.
Anna
In his ABC story, Oakes introduces readers to a number of women and a few men who are disillusioned.
For instance, a woman who we’ll refer to as Anna (not her real name) was Kruckman’s disciple for 16 years, and living at the ashram, when, one day, after serving her guru lunch, she went to collect the tray.
“He pulled my arm and just started kissing me,” Anna told ABC Australia. “He used to love raw red onion, and all I can remember was the acrid taste of the red onion in my mouth. And I just kind of stood frozen there, just not understanding what had happened. Then he kind of released me and after a certain amount of time, he said ‘interesting’.”
Kruckman instructed Anna to come to his room that night.
“He text messaged me at 10:30 and said, ‘The coast is clear, you can come down,’ and I went down. I didn’t really know what was going to happen,” Anna said. “And when I got there, he ushered me into his room, being very clever at making sure no one was around, no one could hear us, and he just started kissing me and told me to take my clothes off.”
Anna obeyed and had sex with Kruckman, she said.
“I’ve never experienced anything so repulsive in my whole life. He was an old, fat, bald man, and I was a young woman. And I just couldn’t understand what was happening. And after that night, I realized that that was something that he was wanting from me and expected from me,” she said. “He said, ‘You know, this is a secret between you and me. You can’t tell anybody. That’s the way Tantra works. It’s a secret.'”
[Raniere employed the same kind of insistence on secrecy for women he had sex with.]
[Kruckman had esoteric explanations as to why he was having sex with women. Calling it tantric yoga, he said that it was to assist them in the awakening of the “kundalini,” a powerful life force that is encouraged to flow in an upward manner from the base of the spine to the brain. When it is fully awakened, the human is transformed into the divine — as Kruckman claimed himself to be. Another reason for the tantric sex was to encourage guru-love, or God love, by seeing God as one’s lover, which quickens the spiritual realization of the devotee by making God not a distant, awesome, fearsome entity that one propitiates, but an intimate, loving partner, whom one can know well, and can please and be pleased by.]
Rather than leave the ashram, where she lived for years, Anna stayed, continuing to seek guidance from her guru, though she said she sought to avoid tantric sex as far as possible.
“I did everything I could to avoid getting into that situation with him, from pretending I had a headache to saying I had my period to saying I’d just taken a sleeping tablet to saying there’s people there,” she said. “Sometimes, in the end, I just knew that I had to go and see him and let him do what he wanted and do just to get it over with, and those were the worst nights of my life.
“I would go to him, desperate for him to give me a teaching that would help me to kind of get to the source of my [childhood] trauma. There’s something I’m not doing right. There’s some teaching that I don’t understand,” she said. “I kept seeing it as a shortcoming in me, and I would beg him.”
Kruckman offered a tantric method he said would help Anna.
“He’d unzip his pants and make me give him a head job,” she said. “That was his answer to my issues of insomnia and my suffering and my pain.”
[She performed what outsiders call fellatio and what her guru called tantric yoga, to overcome her childhood trauma and anxiety issues which caused insomnia. While she is not quoted as saying it directly, one can infer that the tantric technique did not work. Whether the failure was caused by a lack of faith in the guru, or because it was merely a bogus teachings of a selfish, lecherous old man who desired sex with a young woman, is not known. I suspect, most would assume the latter.]
Tanya-Lee
Tanya-Lee Davies was another disciple who is disenchanted. Her idea of the guru is that he is “a direct conduit to God.”
“You trust them, you allow yourself to be vulnerable. You love them in a different way…. you believe that this person has your best interests at heart and that they want to help you become the best person you can become,” she told ABC.
On the 12th anniversary of meeting her guru – a significant day in the Shaivite tradition, she went to see Kruckman.
“I went to hug him, which was pretty normal, and he kissed me on the lips. And I got a real surprise because it was so unusual,” she said. She said she told him she could not have that kind of relationship with him.
He replied, “Think of it as an initiation.”
[An initiation is a formal, ritualistic event between guru and disciple, where the guru takes on certain obligations for his disciple and the disciple accepts a deeper commitment to the path her guru is leading her.]
“All my safety was immediately just gone, it evaporated, you know,” Tanya-Lee said. Yet she stayed nine more years with him as Kruckman continued to teach and guide her life, and he included this new method of teaching.
“It would range from him wanting to kiss me to… kissing [my] neck and putting his tongue in [my] ear,” Tanya-Lee said.
Other Women
Tanya-Lee kept this a secret from everyone, except one woman at the ashram, who claims Kruckman sexually assaulted her in 2013.
ABC also reported that other woman alleged indecent assault and predatory, manipulative sexual practices, dating back 15 years.
One of them made a police statement claiming she had gone to Kruckman’s bedroom to refill his cookie jar when he pushed her onto the bed and sexually assaulted her.
Was He Cucked?
Another disciple, Simon Hart, spent five years as Kruckman’s disciple.
“I thought he was a kindly old grandfather figure. I really loved him,” Hart said. What Hart did not know was that his guru was employing secret tantric practices with his girlfriend, who was also his disciple.
Hart did not worry that Kruckman taught his girlfriend at night, then dropped her off at Hart’s house. No one knew about the tantric practices except the women who were receiving the teachings.
One night, after his guru dropped his girlfriend off, Hart sensed something was wrong in his relationship. The following day, he went to his guru for advice.
“I went to him to say, ‘I think there’s something wrong with my relationship, and I don’t know what it is,'” Hart said.
Sometime later he found out he was being cucked by his own guru.
Hart said, “He’d abuse her and then drop her off at my house…. [Kruckman] was sexually abusing my partner, and then the next day offering me relationship advice.”
Public Revelation
Just as NXIVM’s Raniere had his scandal when his secret sorority, DOS, was revealed by this writer – and hundreds left, Russell Kruckman, otherwise known as Swami Shankarananda, Swamiji, or Guruji, had his fateful day.
Though Kruckman never publicly said he was celibate, many followers assumed he was. He called himself a Swami, which in the Hindu tradition is a monk who takes vows of celibacy and poverty.
[Kruckman was not poor. He inherited enough money to have purchased the expensive, spacious property in suburban Melbourne to convert into his ashram.]
In 2014, at the annual Christmas gathering, one of the biggest events of the year, many devotees come, most of whom were born into the Christian faith, but who saw a higher teaching in Kruckman – and in him they saw the living Christ. At this gathering, in front of his devotees, a number of his followers accused Kruckman, then 70, of having sex with his young, female disciples.
Kruckman admitted he taught a small number of women certain “tantric practices” and that it was fully consensual.
Aftermath
The scandal magnified. Followers split into camps, some remaining loyal and others vilifying the guru. Many did not know what to think.
The management committee of the ashram released an open letter admitting Kruckman had “secret sexual relations” with a few women.
Rather than insist that, as the guru, he was infallible, Kruckman and his executive committee took a route that was different than Nxivm’s Raniere.
Raniere, when faced with a similar scandal in 2009, [which he navigated successfully] and again in 2017, [which he navigated unsuccessfully and which led to his arrest] blamed others, including his executive committee, denied the allegations, told his followers to shun the accusers, and went after some of the women with heavy handed lawsuits and false criminal complaints.
Kruckman, on the other hand, admitted he made a mistake and apologized. His board wrote that he was “sincerely apologetic and deeply regretful if his practices have caused hurt or confusion.”
The guru himself wrote, “I know people are disappointed and upset. I apologise to them and ask their forgiveness. I want to meet you all and make appropriate amends if you will let me. I am open to talking about a way through, back to love.”
By the time the dust settled, more than 70 former devotees left the ashram. Half a dozen women sued Kruckman for sexual abuse. Several women, including some of those suing him, made sexual assault complaints to the police.
The lawsuit was settled. Whether money changed hands or not is unknown.
As for the criminal sexual assault complaints, Kruckman was arrested and questioned, but not criminally charged.
Brainwashing Not Coercion
In Australia, brainwashing or mind control cannot be used as a defense of a crime or as evidence of being a victim of a crime.
A police investigation resulted in concluding that the women who had sex with Kruckman were over the age of consent and mentally competent to consent.
Despite their unhappiness with the tantric practice, women returned to his room to engage in it, some of them coming back for years.
Some are convinced the women were victims and should be treated as such. There are others who say that the women wanted something in return from Kruckman and believed he could provide it — such as enlightenment, salvation, freedom from fear, and perhaps higher status in their community. They vied for his attention, telling him they were prepared to do anything. By pleasing the guru they thought they would attain their goals.
They made this pact with him and when he told them to engage in certain practices that have a sexual element, they agreed, even though they did not enjoy the sexual component. Later, after they became disenchanted, and with the realization that he could not provide the things they thought he could, they wanted to withdraw consent for the purported spiritual teachings that were sexual in nature and wanted him arrested for sex crimes.
Unlike Raniere, who collected blackmail-worthy “collateral” on his female “slaves,” Kruckman did not have, as far as is known, nude pictures or signed confessions to crimes to coerce female disciples into obedience.
Raniere offered the stick – the threat of “collateral” being released where it would do the most damage. Kruckman offered the carrot — salvation. The stick is illegal [Raniere got 120 years]. The carrot apparently is not.
Aftermath for Kruckman
Although dozens followers left Kruckman, after his tantric sex teachings became public, his loyal followers remain, and new students continue to come to the ashram.
After Kruckman apologized, claiming he had not considered the ramifications of his sexual ‘tantric’ practices, the fallout caused the organization to go into liquidation temporarily. Kruckman resigned as director but remains in charge as the spiritual head.
He also owns the ashram property, so in a sense nothing really changed except the optics. The property is now called The Ashram Mount Eliza, and Kruckman continues to run it, conducting regular programs for residents and the public.
The loyalists have been known to tell newcomers that the women who complained were under the influence of demonic entities that caused them to lie, and that they will suffer grave consequences in the spirit world.
Like Raniere and his lieutenant, Nancy Salzman, did in Nxivm, telling followers not to read the Frank Report, the disciples of Kruckman are told not to read anything negative about Kruckman or speak to ex-members, or risk losing their internal representation of their guru, which would put them at risk of “spiritual suicide.”
[Nancy Salzman told doubters about Raniere that if they read the Frank Report, they would lose their internal representation of Raniere and would not be able to get it back, which would prevent them from ultimately being “unified”, the highest state of consciousness.]
Meantime, while Raniere is in prison, Kruckman’s ashram continues to thrive. Those who ask questions about the old “sex scandal” are told about persecution, about haters, hungry for power, who lied about Kruckman.
The allegations were “a publicity stunt from those that would bring him down,” said disciple Rhonda Reukers, adding that one of Kruckman’s former disciples was “trying to destroy his credibility because he wants to be a guru himself.”
Mea Culpa
Kruckman came to realize that, despite promoting his own worship among disciples, he may have been stupid to think that he could teach women tantric sex and it would not come back to bite him.
“I don’t know how I could have been this stupid,” he wrote to his students, “…but I was. I beg your forgiveness.”
Perhaps if Raniere had taken that approach — apologizing, even if not sincerely — he might be in Clifton Park right now, walking with one of his female devotees while other female devotees vie to do his ironing, make his bed, prepare his meals and make his clothes magically appear while he made theirs magically disappear.
Two links with more:
[…] I wrote about Kruckman in An Australian Keith Raniere? Similar Story With a Different Outcome. […]
[…] https://frankreport.com/2021/04/07/an-australian-keith-raniere-similar-story-but-with-a-different-ou… […]
I’m from this ashram (one of the ‘loyalists’ I suppose) and I would love to know where this information comes from, I’ve spent 12 years with the ashram and a lot of this reads like it was made up on the spot. Demonic entities? Telling personal details during Shiva Process? It is specifically banned to tell details of your life in Shiva Process and was that way well before 2014. The group leaders reinforce this, if somebody starts telling details by saying “No story.” A lot of outright falsehoods in this article.
Warning: If someone claims to be a divine or holy being, they are not! Run! Real Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other realized beings well not say so, they just live so!
Can we all just agree that if anyone without a legit degree on the wall and about a decade of education at an accredited institution asks you about deep secrets or childhood trauma, just run? It’s the line that runs through all these groups. Scientology calls it auditing and Nxivm calls it EMs, but it’s all the same, it’s about finding your vulnerability and using it to make you question your own common sense. If you want to explore these things and get some closure, go for it, but do with someone who values their medical license and doesn’t continually tell you that you are lacking and beat you down with it. I’m certain that there are therapists that genuinely can and will help but they are not found in a group setting like this. Anyone who wants to help doesn’t insist on you viewing them like a god. Humans are humans and knowing that is something any good therapist knows and will tell you. These men are not magically empowered above the rest of us, they systematically disempower those around them, a true helper will always empower you not themselves.
J. Michael Shoemaker, aka Chetanananda, Kruckman and Charles Cannon worked together in the US. The three men formed a traveling “teaching’ group called the 3 gurus. All three of the were “disciples” of Muktananda and another teacher who called himself “Rudrananda”, Albert Rudolf. All of them have accusations of sexual assault/abuse. They must have learned how to get away with this and honed their techniques together.
Shoemaker and Cannon went to Australia to “teach” at the Kruckman center. Shoemaker has ties to Los Angeles through his work as part of “The Three Gurus”. All three men, calling themselves the 3 gurus, were disciplines of Muktananda. Muktananda, who has died, has been outed as a serial sexually abuser. The following article has some information about the three gurus.
https://smmirror.com/2005/09/the-three-gurus-to-visit-santa-monica-promise-14-entertaining-days-of-inspiration-enlightenment/
J. Michael Shoemaker presented lectures and programs nationally and internationally with Master Charles Cannon and Swami Shankarananda, aka Russell Kruckman. Master Charles has died, but not before he was associated with a fraudulent spiritual reader, who stole millions of dollars through Synchronicity. https://culteducation.com/group/1180-synchronicity/29784-nelson-spiritual-center-initiated-scheme-involving-psychic-court-filing-argues.html . Shoemaker’s other associate, Swami Shankarananda, aka Russell Kruckman, has been accused of sexual abuse.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/alleged-victims-of–shiva-school-of-meditation-and-yoga-were-previously-sexually-assaulted-20150317-1m1c3a.html .
Shoemaker has a “side kick” named Sharon Ward who was educated as a lawyer and takes care of the non-disclosure agreements that are needed for all the people who are abused by Shoemaker. Shoemaker just sold his Movement Center in Portland Oregon for about $7 million. He bought a property for about $2 million in Gold Beach Oregon where he has “retired” with his most devoted exploited devotees.
Richard Read wrote a series of articles about Shoemaker for the Oregonian and Be Schofield has interviewed some of his most recent victims. He needs to be brought to justice….so hard to do for this type of traumatizing narcissist who has the First Amendment to protect his “religious” practices and where “consenting adult” legal statutes protects his abuse. Sigh
I think that this is a very interesting story. Too many good looking women for this old dude to resist.
Great report. I think it’s good to expose these kinds of groups as they are toxic to the community. {redacted at commenters’ request.]
The end illustrates how hard it is to get these cults – where do we draw our lines between consent or otherwise, free will or being tricked? Same issue with people who agree to or don’t object to sexual predators – they are not easy lines to draw. If people join a foolish group or even join a US church and give 10% of their income to it (as millions do), are they hypnotised almost into believing in invented gods having been taken in by false advertising as it were in bibles and Korans or are they exercising free will to choose their religion?
All we can do is intervene when precise laws are broken: e.g., sex with underage people, tax evasion, fraud, etc.
I was watching an item from an ex-FLDS man today – the men in that group even accepted being forced to give up their families and repent, for years sometimes – that probably was free will. Or is that no different from the Australian programme of a woman taken in by a fraudster who was jailed – he lied and she gave money. Similarly, if your cult says the world is about to end, give us the money and then the world does not end or a mainstream religion says give us 10% and you get eternal life but there is no eternal life, is that a fraud too?
This dude is one sharp cookie. I want to learn from him and his guru Muktananda.
Not that similar to Raniere. All cults are pretty much the same, they all exploit gullible fools, take their money, yadda, yadda. Raniere’s was business-oriented, this one’s a bogus Yogi.
Religion, personal growth, enlightenment, financial success. It’s all just bait.
This [Anna] sounds like an A1 prime fool. “I didn’t know what was happening” when the elderly cult leader grabbed her and kissed her. “I didn’t want to” when she went to his room that night and undressed for him.
Yeah, right. Nobody’s that stupid.
These gullible suckers surpass all belief. Some nubile young twit having sex with a fat, bald, disgusting old man and then claiming she had no choice.
Nonsense.
People can be unbelievably stupid. Give their money, their bodies, and their minds to some obvious fraud and con-man. This is the only reason cults exist: people are stupid enough to fall for them.
And there will always be ruthless half-clever assholes to exploit these fools.
These Gurus and Vanguards don’t even need to be particularly original, they copy each other’s playbook. Their fool followers are too dumb to even notice.
Fortunately, Raniere got greedy and overconfident, broke numerous laws, and got prosecuted. Now he’s rotting in prison in Tucson.
There are a number of factors that can make these situations unusually controlling and coercive.
Those who reside in a community or are part of a family tied to it may have no social relationships or economic ties outside of the group. If they’ve been there long enough, they may not have resources to fall back on like bank accounts, job and credit history, or even current ID. That makes it very hard for people to imagine leaving, and thus leaves them feeling under pressure to do whatever may seem necessary to go along – essentially the same characteristics as confining domestic relationships.
Particularly in the case of Eastern-influenced religions as in this case, that have a doctrine of reincarnation – as does Scientology – true believers can become certain that the leaders or gurus control their fate, such as determining whether they spend their next life as an advanced human being, or a dung beetle; but in Christian sects, it can be the difference between spending eternity in heaven, or tortured forever by demons in hell. Those are essentially just variations of the beliefs of billions of people, easily subverted and exploited – and not easily dismissed.
Involvement in NXIVM is easier to see as just bad choices, because there wasn’t any such compelling ideology. Yet in the case of Dani, she was young enough, and her family and livelihood intertwined enough, that it wasn’t that simple, even for someone with enough strength of will to resist and, finally leave. And Karen U. had been with Raniere since she was 17, and so had known nothing else since her youth. Michelle Salzman also had essentially grown up in the group, and her livelihood depended on it, without any really transferable skills.
There are others as well, documented and explained extensively in the literature on high control groups and cults.
It’s not so simple – which is why someone like Raniere gets away with what they do, at least with a certain number of people, including a few who surprise us.
I have lots of sympathy for children who get snared into these cults by their families. I don’t expect kids to have good judgment or much experience of the world.
But adults have no excuse. I know how “high control groups” work and, sorry, but only a fool would get involved with one or take it seriously. These are obvious scams. Some Australian clown named Kruckman claiming to be Swami Oshb’gosh? Dressed up in saffron robes with a caste mark painted on his forehead? I’m going to believe he offers the Path to Enlightenment? Get outta here!
Only a fool would fall for it. And only fools do.
I know Rick Ross and other cult-busters talk up the idea that anyone can be seduced by these so-called high control groups. What else are they going to say? They’re not going to tell their clients they’re fools and stupid to have gotten involved. That would not only be bad for business, it would be unhelpful to the client. Not a very positive message.
But it’s the truth. People who join cults are fools. Naive, weak-willed pathetic fools. Some of these losers make the same mistake over and over again. Sarah Edmondson, branded with KR’s initials, is now an enthusiastic follower of Elkhart Tolle. Proof once again that you can’t cure stupid.
This man seems like the real deal to me. Bottom line – the women said they wanted him and he gave them his perfection. Now they want to take some and reject the tantric. Not fair.
I know Keith agrees with me there and I’d like to meet this swami and if Keith permits – I would like to learn tantrums from him.
Yantra is not sex so I would not be cheating on Keith.
‘I would like to learn tantrums from him.’ —No-one does beetroot faced rage quite like Keith. You may be dissapointed.
A lot of sex cults seem to have some elements, or more, of Eastern religions. And Western women who enter them often have practiced yoga and meditation.
Is yoga a gateway “drug” to such sex cults? First it’s “Namaste…I bow to you”…to “Master, I kneel to you and blow you.”
Ahh, just another textbook example of plain old psychological manipulation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation
I see the similarities to Raniere, but this guy sounds a bit more like Bikram Choudhary to me. They are all clearly predators but at least neither of these yoga/ashram dudes tried to create blackmailed and branded slaves and control as much of the world’s wealth as possible. Raniere is a little bit special in that regard. It’s completely demented but he sure was aiming high!
I find it sad that predators do walk among us but I’m grateful to Frank Report for bringing awareness to the issue.
Great article!
These male cult leaders never change….
Please also see Tony Quinn’s EDUCO. Tony is 77 and since the 70s has run a Yoga/Hypnosis cult with many ups and downs. A summary of his “life” is here: https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/the-tony-quinn-story-%e2%80%9cfrom-butcher-to-oil-slick%e2%80%9d/
Modern day, it’s a mixture of NLP, Hypnosis and lying that you believe he is Jesus. It’s all so pathetic.
Well, personally, if someone who was kissing me told me to come to their room at night, and I claimed I didn’t know “what was going to happen”, I’d consider myself an asshole.
Yes. Who falls for this shit?! This guru is corrupt like most of these fakers appear to be. He does not even have the guts to be a simple, ordinary man who wants sex. Instead he has to pretend to represent some version of “God.” All of that NONSENSE, just for a blowjob? Christ!
There are easier and happier and more generous ways to get off, ya know.
Just another penis sanctifier, who is afraid of sex and afraid to get real. Trotting his goddamned trick cigar of a dick out, as if it were somethin’ special.
Somebody send him a donation. How about a sex robot?
How about a twin sex doll robot, made physically identical to him, except with a vagina. So he can officially go and fuck himself. That is, if he can stand himself as a sexual “partner.”
Then he can go back to being a happy fake guru again and keep bossing his abject fools around for another decade or so. He might live to he 89 and perhaps can still provide his burlesque. Just stop masking it as having anything to do with spirituality or teaching anybody anything.
The ordinary can be the extraordinary. Just simply say “I am feeling horny.” Fuckknuckle gurus. Who needs these idiots….
Russell Kruckman sounds like the world’s second smartest man.
Meet Russell Kruckman in his ashram.
Shiva Ashram on TV
These cults!
Tell us all your secrets it is the only path to enlightenment.
Shhh. Swear a vow of secrecy about giving me blow jobs and boning me.
And in the case of DOS/Nxium: plus keep secret the pornographic photos. And the blackmail. And that I have a son. And the initials are mine in the brand. And the brand. And a million more secrets you must keep for life…
But remember TELL us ever other secret! And also please tell us the secrets of your family and friends! And we would like those secrets recorded. Written and signed. Plus all your passwords and financial information. Can we get copies of your medical records BTW? Deed to your house?
That right there tells you every thing.
Total hypocrisy. Contradictory and situational “ethics”.
Another disgusting swine pretending to avail himself of so-called ‘”tantric” blowjobs, etc. Are these 30 second blowjobs, pig-brain? Well, hubba hubba!
This creep decided to apologize for fucking up and to say that he didn’t know how he could be so stupid. Oh, how nice of him. Hallelujah to the asswipe.
He can call me and clear up his fucking mystification about his horniness AND about his phony gurudom. Farthead.
I will not answer the phone, though. This asshole KNEW and knows what he is doing.
You might be surprised to know that he is an American, born and raised in Brooklyn, taught Shakespeare at Indiana University-Gary and maybe Northwestern. He started and ran the Siddha Yoga ashram in Ann Arbor, Michigan for several years, where he had his own followers, though the official guru was Swami Muktananda. His teachings are derived from his time under the tutelage of Muktananda, but he has added a lot of self-aggrandizing lore to what was taught in Ann Arbor and Siddha Yoga in general.
Muktananda taught celibacy, especially for people who took vows of “sannyas” – renunciation. This included Kruckman/Shankarananda, but it turned out that Muktananda himself was molesting young girls in his ashrams. After Muktananda died in 1982 there was a falling-out, a kind of renunciate diaspora, with his successors splitting-off, swamis dropping out, and some starting their own “lineage.” Kruckman had already spent time in Australia under the auspices of Siddha Yoga, and it was an easy place for him to set up shop for his own gig. His claims of “tantric” sex practices are totally bogus, just a way of self-excusing a lot of predatory behavior.
Now that he is notorious in Australia it will be interesting to see how this plays out. He is 79 now, and from a recent picture he looks like he might be suffering from dementia. His ethnic ancestry is Ashkenazi Jewish, which makes him highly susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease. At 79 he is likely not availing himself to his devotees as in days of yore.
John Hamilton
April 7, 2021 at 11:13 am
You might be surprised to know that he is an American, born and raised in Brooklyn, taught Shakespeare at Indiana University-Gary and maybe Northwestern.
Raniere was born in Brooklyn!
What the hell is wrong with Brooklyn?
“Biography
Born Russell Michael Kruckman, son of artist Herbert (Herb) (1904–1998) and school teacher Selma (1908–1998). He was a Pulitzer scholar at Columbia University, New York, where he played on Columbia’s US Champion intercollegiate chess team, earning the title of US Chess Master. He taught Shakespeare and English Literature at Indiana University. In 1970, a decisive encounter with the American yogi Ram Dass inspired him to go to India where he met his guru, Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa, the disciple of Bhagawan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri.”
https://www.jewage.org/wiki/he/Article:Mahamandaleshwar_Swami_Shankarananda_-_Biography
Jewage is a Jewish website that is partly written in Hebrew.
The American yogi Ram Dass who influenced Kruckman was born Richard Alpert who was an associate of LSD guru Timothy Leary.
I am not surprised, I was there with Muktananda and Krookman at the ashrams in South Fallsburg and Ganeshpuri. As you know, New York Jews were one of Muktananda’s main sources of cash flow. I understand how folks get sucked into these cult situations as I have been there myself. Truth-seeking leaves people very vulnerable to manipulation.