Swami Chetanananda resides in Gold Beach, Oregon, a seaside village of 2ƒƒ000.
For 26 years, he lived in a mansion in Portland. He called it the Movement Center, also known as the Nityananda Institute.
It was a 61-bedroom property on 3-plus acres.
The Swami sold the property for $8 million. He now has a hermitage in Gold Beach.
The Movement Center offers yoga, meditation classes, and retreats.
The Swami also offers something else, as we will learn from various people interviewed by FR.
Swami’s website speaks of his gracious invitation to a new world.
“Swami Chetananandawelcomes you with love and respect, and invites you to open to an unimaginable possibility as you explore the incredible potential that is available within you.”
His online bio states, “Swami Chetanananda is a spiritual teacher, author, and highly accomplished practitioner of kundalini meditation and tantric sadhana. He has the remarkable ability to share an extraordinary energy that enables hundreds of students and disciples to grow spiritually.”
A recent photo of Chetanananda, whose legal name is Michael Shoemaker, is captioned, “44 years ago, I took Sanyas initiation in Ganeshpuri, at the feet of Muktananda.”
Taking Sanyas is the act of making two vows and becoming a Swami. Traditionally, Sannyasins vow to renounce sex and money and live the life of a celibate monk.
FR has published two stories about Swami Chetanananda:
Strangulation Swami Can’t Get Hard Without It
Two Swamis –Muktananda Raped Women and Girls; but Strangling is Shoemaker’s Arena Alone
The story below is the first of a series of interviews with people who met the Swami or people who knew one or more of his hundreds of students.
All who have had experiences with the Swami are welcome to call and tell their story. I can be reached at 305-783-7083 or by email at frankparlato@gmail.com.
In this story, I changed the names and non-essential details to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
The Swami Chetanananda offers his teachings to the world. Therefore, he is subject to the scrutiny of all who provide priceless treasure for the small payment of obedience, discipline, and faith.
FR
Have you met the Swami Chetananda?
Jim
I have not.
FR
How did you learn about him?
Jim
I’ve been into the swingers’ lifestyle for some time now.
FR
Could you explain what that is?
Jim
Swingers are generally couples who enjoy mutually consensual, extramarital affairs and meet other couples or an individual. I’m single. Most often, single guys involved in swinging are creepy and socially inept. So they don’t get very far in this lifestyle. But I can speak well. I’m somewhat intelligent. I’ve managed to have decent success with women who meet me without their partners. I don’t want to try to meet a woman to take home to mom.
Linda
It was the early 2000s. I had gotten my first computer and started dabbling with the swinging lifestyle. I was cruising around online. Yahoo used to have groups. That is how I met Linda. Her screen name was Slut-Lin.
She was in her early 40s. She worked in the bioscience field. Because I talked with her intelligently, she felt safe.
I lived in Hood River, which is 60 miles east of where she lived. She had to get permission, but he allowed her to come to my home in Hood River. She was beautiful. Wholesome, traditional good looks. Not fake whatsoever. Prim and proper, a professional in the scientific world, but she had a dark side.
I had a hot tub outdoors. We ended up getting naked and having sex that night.
FR
How long did you know Linda?
Jim
About three years?
FR
How many times did you meet?
Jim
A couple of dozen times. Whenever she came, she had to ask permission. I don’t know if he knew my name. But he knew of me.
One day she told me about Fantasy Theater, where men watch videos in booths and masturbate. She told me she was sent there and elsewhere to gang-bang events. At least 10 or 15 men had sex with her, one after the other.
Usually, some deviant things go on. For example, men would urinate and defecate on her and ejaculate in a funnel inserted into her anus. It was so far off the edge. I think the Swami put her up to this.
FR
Why?
Jim
If Linda turned against him, it probably gave him the power to blackmail her. She was a highly educated woman. I can’t see how she got a thrill from a man urinating on her or ejaculating in her anus.
FRP
What did she tell you about the Swami?
Jim
She wanted out. She had initially fallen for the whole thing and was starting to see the light. She said she had given the Swami a large sum of money over the years, like a percentage of her income.
Before I lost touch with her, I tried to get her to visit me. We had become friends. She’d come and hang out at my house and sometimes be nonsexual. I always had to get his permission to see me.
FRP
How did you get his permission?
Jim
I would email and ask him if I could see her. I remember him insisting I call him sir.
FR
Why did he want you to call him, sir?
Jim
That gets this kind of people off. Anybody who tells you to call them sir or master is just an asshole who’s using the BDSM world as an excuse to beat up on women.
FRP
Did Linda tell you he beat her or did violent acts?
Jim
She never did. Her stories were mostly about going to different places and doing gang bangs.
FRP
Did you get the impression he was aware of this?
Jim
I got the impression that he insisted on it. It was his idea.
FRP
Was he a participant?
Jim
I don’t think so.
FR
Have you seen Linda recently?
Jim
I have not seen her in almost 20 years.
FR
Did you have any further opportunity to hear or know about the Swami?
Annalise
Jim
I met Annalise four years ago. She is a successful business owner in the Portland area. Thirty minutes after our first contact online, she came to my house.
I saw her walking up the front sidewalk of my house. She’s like an Italian supermodel, slender, dark hair, and a perfect body. I’m thinking to myself, “she’s gonna laugh and run away.” But she didn’t.
She was super gracious, super-intelligent, and great to be around. We sat down and drank a bottle of wine. When we finished the wine, she stood up, took her clothes off, and said, “Okay, let’s fuck.” And we did.
We probably spent three or four hours together. Her phone rang, and she had to leave because he called her home or said, “time to get home,” I guess, to be with him.
Over the next two months, we would see each other every week or two.
She brought over a $200 dinner from a nice restaurant the second time we met. And we had dinner together at my home on her nickel. She was not in this for monetary gain. I thought I hit a home run.
FRP
Would you have liked to have had a serious relationship with her?
Jim
Not with what she was into.
FRP
Were you one of the numerous men she saw?
Jim
Yes, but I think she enjoyed being with me because I wasn’t into this like super hardcore. She was also into PNP, which is party and play. Drugs and sex. I used to like to play around a little with cocaine, which she preferred at the time.
I had sex with her one-on-one, probably half a dozen times, on more intimate terms. She talked about him as her husband. But publicly, she referred to him as her Swami.
He owned a large building in Portland. I assume that’s where she lived. She told me that he had this whole compound in the works in Gold Beach. Her goal was to move to Gold Beach.
Annalise had a thriving business. She drove a nice car. She kept talking about the building. When I first met her, I was a contractor. She promised me she would hook me up to be his contractor for every building in Gold Beach. When I learned what was going on, I did not want the work.
FR
You met Annalise years after you met Linda. Did you know their commonality with the Swami?
Jim:
Here’s how I put Linda and Anna together. Anna had the Swami on her wallpaper on her cell phone. And she set it down on the table when we were together. So I just had a glance at it before it went blank. I saw his face, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand. It took me a few days before it finally hit. I said to myself, “Slut-Lin. Oh my god, it’s the same guy.”
That’s how recognizable this guy is.
FR
As far as you know, was Annalise a swinger before she met the Swami?
Jim
She told me she had tumultuous relationships with other men in the past because she was not monogamous. I assumed she had some wild lifestyle in the past. She told me she meditated a lot.
If we had got into a strange sexual position, I would ask, “Are you okay? Like is it hurting or something?”
She would say, “pain is nothing to me. I meditate constantly. And I can tolerate pain.”
I took it to mean that he must be inflicting it. I also took it that the Swami is putting her and other women to be on all these websites trolling for men.
FR
Did she tell you anything he did to her that was violent or painful?
Jim
I witnessed one event with Annalise on a webcam. He was beating her with a baseball bat.
FR
Did you see this, or did she tell you about it?
Jim
I saw him hitting her, striking her with an aluminum baseball bat on the webcam.
FRP
On what part of her body?
Jim
On her back and buttocks.
FRP
Did the Swami know you were watching?
Jim
He knew someone was watching. I wasn’t the only one watching. I may have been the only one appalled by it.
FR
Was he dressed in his orange robe when he hit her with the baseball bat?
Jim
No, he was pretty much naked, limp dick and all, so that wasn’t getting him off. And she was black and blue—her whole back.
FR
Was this clearly visible on the webcam? Could you tell it was him?
Jim
Clearly, it was open for members to see. This was going on when I tuned into the webcam. He was done beating her with a bat. The next thing I know, she invited anybody who wanted to go that she would be naked in her car in the parking lot of a cocktail lounge in downtown Portland. She said they could come there and have sex with her if anybody wanted to go.
I was worried. I cared about her. So I drove down there and, sure enough, found her there. No one else was around. Annalise was scantily clad, very dirty and black and blue from her neck to her legs. Nobody was there. No would-be suitors and no Swami for protection either. She was naked, except for a thin sweater. It hardly covered her butt.
So that was a Friday night. This all happened with the webcam, a baseball bat, and everything Friday night. So I was in the parking lot of the cocktail lounge. I had a full-size van. She jumped in and first tried to try to give me sexual favors.
I kept asking where the Swami was because I wanted to know who was protecting her from potentially anybody who wanted to show up and do whatever they wanted to this naked woman.
And she, of course, asked me if I could get meth. I did get her a small amount of meth. I only gave her enough for one person for probably an hour. If I didn’t get it for her, I figured she would get it from somebody else. Maybe someone who might hurt her.
Then she asked me if I could get more. And, of course, I could. But Anna was talking about massive amounts, like thousands of dollars. I’m not that kind of guy. And so that’s that. So that was a red flag for me.
FR
Why did she want so much meth?
Jim
She and the Swami wanted to party. They like to do that kind of thing. But, the amount she talked about, I thought there must be a room full of girls ready to be indoctrinated. I wasn’t going to have any part of that. So I didn’t get her or what she wanted.
When I pressed her about the Swami not being there to protect her, she got angry and jumped out of my van. I didn’t hear from her for the rest of the weekend. Then on Sunday afternoon, she texted me.
I said, “Hey, how are you doing?”
She said, “I’m in the basement of Fantasy Video, getting gang banged.”
I asked her if she had rocket fuel. Meaning meth, and she said I have piles of rocket fuel. She had gotten more from someone else besides me, so she had drugs. She sounded like she was naked, and God knows how many guys.
I said, “Well, we can handle this three ways. The first way is to put your clothes on and go home. The second way is to call the police and have them come down and deal with it now. Or I can grab my guns and come down there.”
She chose the first. She said she got dressed and walked home.
FR
What happened?
Jim
We spoke. She claimed the Swami loved her intensely and was always there to protect her. I said, “I didn’t see him when you invited the whole world to have sex with you in the parking lot. He was nowhere to be found.”
She got furious when I disagreed with what was going on with her and the Swami.
She called me later and said, “Now you’ve done it.” And then she said softly, “I love you. But goodbye for now.”
I think he made her break off with me. She ended up blocking me.
She called me one other time, probably a few months later, and asked if I wanted to party. I had gotten out of that. I lost my contact. I told her.
And she said, “Oh well, maybe tomorrow night.”
And so she called the next night. And all she said was, “Can I ask you a favor?”
I said, “sure, what’s on your mind?”
And she said, “If I beg you, I don’t care what I do. If I beg you anytime in the future for cocaine or meth, don’t get it for me.”
I said, “I can abide by that.”
That was the last time I heard from her.
Funny, both Linda and Anna said the same thing to me, almost verbatim. I may have been questioning his control over them, and both said that they would be wild without him and probably would have been arrested long ago, something to that effect.
FR
Going back to the baseball bat incident. Did viewers pay to view?
Jim
You have to pay for a membership—something like $30 a month.
FR
Did Anna get revenue for this?
Jim
A small amount. At best, someone constantly on it might make a few hundred.
FR
What would prevent you or anyone from photographing or filming this baseball, bat-wielding Swami?
Jim
Nothing at all. I think the person broadcasting has control to make it not recordable. But you know, anybody with a little tech-savvy could figure out how to record what’s playing on their computer screen.
FR
How long ago was this baseball bat event?
Jim
About two years ago.
FR
We’re talking about a 70-plus-year-old guy, right?
Jim
Yes.
FR
How many people would you guess witnessed the baseball bat video,
Jim
As I recall, there were maybe 30 or 40 people on.
FR
So the Swami must have known that others were seeing him?
Jim
I think he was the one who put it on cam.
FR
Could you give me an idea of what his appearance was?
Jim
He was pudgy, out of shape.
I remember saying later to Anna, “You’re one of the most beautiful women I ever met, and his dick isn’t even close to hard.”
Her excuse was that they had been partying and going at it for days. I don’t think he ever gets erect.
FR
A woman who felt extremely abused by him told me that he only gets an erection when he strangled her.
Jim
That happened to Anna. She mentioned it to me.
FR
Did she tell you anything else? Any insights about Swami?
Jim
She tried to defend him. She knew I wasn’t buying his stuff. I think she was afraid I would take him out physically. Not that I would. But it crossed my mind.
I tried to tell Anna that she had been conditioned. That she had Stockholm syndrome. She got angry at me for saying so. She cut communication with me,
My theory is that she was somewhat into that lifestyle before she met him. But she would have never done things like going to a video store to get gang-banged carrying a large amount of drugs. Or advertising online to people, then go there without an escort where anything anybody decided to do, they could pretty much do to her.
FR
Wouldn’t this be a high risk for venereal disease?
Jim
After I didn’t walk, I ran to the clinic because there was no protection.
He has many women doing the same thing. So multiply each of those women by 100 men.
FR
What does he get from this?
Jim
Control. Women like Anna or Linda couldn’t tell anybody about it because they would ruin their careers. If it came out in the Oregonian that Anna gets gangbanged at a video store or was arrested or busted for drugs, her career would be over. She is well known.
FR
Did Linda or Anna try to tie these experiences into higher spiritual teaching?
Jim
Anna did big time.
I would say she’s been brainwashed or conditioned into doing these extreme things. You know that this guy doesn’t give a rat’s ass about her. And she would always strive for the spiritual wonderfulness: “If it weren’t for him, I would be wild. I would probably be in jail.”
Both these women said the same thing, verbatim.
Anna was an executive in Chicago. I heard her story.
I think she was more into yoga and the spiritual end of this whole thing. She might have sought the Swami for that purpose, and the sex and crazy BDSM world was something that came along with it.
She had dabbled with it in the past. So it wasn’t completely foreign to her.
My theory is that he conditioned her to more bizarre, over-the-top antics, making her more comfortable with it. Further and further. More deviant, like the gangbang thing in the video store.
Hopefully, she’d be escorted by at least one man if a woman went there. I don’t think any woman would be as wacky sexually, you know, as she could be. I don’t think any woman would do that alone.
Look at it without the drugs, and then add the drugs. And you have a recipe for disaster, especially for someone who’s a professional in the same town. The potential backlash is mind-boggling.
FR
Drugs were a significant factor here.
Jim
The kind of drugs we’re talking about, their main effect is losing inhibitions and doing wild and crazy things.
Swami Chetanananda, despite being a septuagenarian, takes pride in his muscular physique.
The Swami informs his followers that he is “doing sadhana and attempting to serve humanity.”
The Swami_Chetanananda explains, “Offering in Gratitude…. And praying for Peace.. for our loved ones and Friends… and all living beings.”
[…] figured out from Frank’s stories that she was the woman,“Linda,” sent to […]
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[…] Bat-Wielding Swami Sent Woman to Gang-Bang […]
[…] the publication of Bat-Wielding Swami Sent Woman to Gang-Bang, I have received calls and emails. The two women mentioned in the story were identified by people […]
Abuse within cultic systems is epic.
The Children of God were known for their terrible practices of child sexual and physical abuse, Yogi Bagan abused girls and women followers, David Koresh had sex with all the women in his cult, Bhagwam Shrif Rajneesh aka OSHO oversaw sexual, emotional, physical abuse of his followers, including children, Warren Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Later Day Saints also promoted corporal punishment and sexual abuse of his “child brides”. So, Shoemaker is just a cookie cutter, evil cult leader who will abuse anyone he can bring under his coercive control.
Drugs fuel even worse abuse. Jim Jones had his followers kill their own children. The US legal system won’t lift a finger until the “victims” of Shoemaker come forward to denounce his evil, damaging and dangerous behavior. Why do you think he settles accusations out of court and gets the “victims” to sign non-disclousure agreements? Who can face Shoemaker in court after being beaten, drugged and defiled in the manner described in this interview?
Excellent points Molly!
Regarding the credibility of the story….
Raniere’s behavior & actions and those of his followers give credence to Frank’s interview with “Jim”.
This story isn’t much different than Raniere ordering a woman to spy/seduce on Esther Carlson’s son and Raniere ordering, at various times, women to submit to being beaten.
Hasn’t the NXIVM story taught any of you how people will submit to the most demented of commands?!?
I can see why people may think this is over the top. To someone in this culture (bdsm) this is not that strange.
That someone outside of his control is exposing his secrets like this would absolutely drive him crazy. This is definitely his hardcore stuff, it’s hidden from the view, and most of his students wouldn’t have a clue how wild he is and how cruel he becomes if you don’t say yes.
I have no issue with adults choosing kinks and whatever gets them there. But misusing the power differential that is given over freely by often traumatized young women looking for spiritual solace and growth and turning it into a means to satisfy his sexual deviancy and gluttony is the lowest of the low.
While I don’t know this man “Jim”, I know for sure, personally, this is textbook Shoemaker. He has his preferences and this has been his M.O. for decades. And he is careless.
I’m surprised the details have been concealed for so long, but the women also need protection from being exposed. I can deduce who the women are that Jim is referring to, and I can tell you for sure, there are a number of his other students I personally know of who he has these hardcore relationships with. His students for the most part are attractive people, many are accomplished. He picks and chooses from what’s available to him in the student pool — which is very much less over the last 10 years as people realise what he is and he loses his appeal.
No disrespect to Jim, I’m sure Linda and Anna are not the usual type that would frequent these seedy places. Comparatively, they probably do seem like “supermodels”. But they most certainly are intelligent and well spoken., as all his students are. They are most certainly not who you’d usually think to participate in this level of wild.
These places are chosen because they’re so seedy. The random men is because he says it’s a great spiritual practice to fuck people you wouldn’t normally want to. The gang banging is an even higher level because it’s so antithetical to your mind’s programming, it breaks down your ego. The goal is to open your heart completely while it happens and to view all experiences as one. (No, I’m not kidding. This is the line.)
.
Here it is:
Weekends of drug-fuelled bdsm games with one or two of his female students, and occasionally orgies. Usually cocaine, but it sounds like he’s changed to meth, or his current gf prefers it.
Chat rooms, webcams and texting photos to strangers (men) on the internet to watch.
A lot of porn.
Calling, face-timing, setting up meets around Portland with random men trawling the chat rooms.
Beatings, dog collars, ball gags, being strung up, whips and batons to beat the women by him, or him making the women do it to each other. I guess he’s upped the ante to a bat now.
Shoemaker can’t get hard because of the drugs. Not sure if that’s changed now because of his age and he just can’t get it up at all.
In the past, I’ve known him to invite men to the Portland centre, but usually meeting in a carpark in Portland, or going to the man’s house if he ‘intuits’ its to be safe.
I also know of him and a woman (and not the ones Jim speaks of) meeting in a carpark for the woman to be gang banged. I know from her first-hand account, she was fucked by numerous men who were in a group, one after the other while he watched.
I knew him to go along to these meets. It surprises me he sends his girlfriend out now by herself. Maybe as he gets old he needs his rest/can’t be bothered.
Maybe she’s doing it of her own accord because he’s not paying her enough attention and she has become addicted to the heightened experience since he’s desensitised her so much she can’t feel anything — like him.
This may sound like BS to you. But to me, with this man, it sounds like a Tuesday.
Sometimes the truth is in the middle.
I believe Frank checked out the veracity of his source and at first blush the story sounds kind and of fanciful.
After the Lawrence Ray story — I believe any whacky story might be plausible.
***
One of my buddies in college went home with a girl and she grabbed a big candle and wanted to pour melted wax over his chest. I got invited by this woman I had a one nightstand with to an orgy(I didn’t go).
Freaky shit is out there. I believe this man’s story and he might of embellished a little. Everybody embellishes a little when they tell a story. Overall his story probably true.
Jim’s story isn’t so strange. Look here:
https://pagesix.com/2007/01/22/tales-from-inside-the-vault/
The word swami is defined as master or teacher of Hindu philosophy. It means the swami strives for the mastery over his or her smaller self and habit patterns. Perhaps Shoemaker overlooked the Hindu philosophy and took “smaller self” to mean his penis.
We have now entered the Devil’s Twilight Zone. Excuse me while I vomit. I’m still processing this.
I have stayed in touch (for 30 years) with someone who followed him around to several locations, but lived many years in the “Movement Center” in Portland.
They had told he partied with prostitutes. I also heard about the meth and coke, but STILL my mind is blown. I’m trying to fit this deviant behavior together with him conducting kundalini classes, having babies on his lap and teaching people how to grow spiritually.
But still, what is worse is the Salami “followers” knew and accepted his hobbies and remained loyal; even to the point of people being injured and in one case dying. Why? How did they rationalize keeping his secrets?
Swamiji Chetanananda Salami’s journey into darkness is paralleling the symbolism of the House of Usher. Most of us know the ending to that story. We can only hope.
I would estimate the vast majority of his “students” didn’t have an inkling this was happening behind those closed glass double doors of his Portland penthouse. That would obviously have blown his entire charade
Don’t believe one word of Jim’s story. Posting a story like this without any background checks or supporting evidence has nothing to do with journalism. Frank can and should do better as a self proclaimed journalist.
Sorry, but I call bullshit on this “Jim.” For one thing, he says the woman was being beaten on a live webcam with a metal baseball bat and she had immediate bruises from her neck to her ass from it…bruises don’t show up right away, it takes a day or two after an injury to see a bruise. Also, how the hell does he know how much money these women would make on a sex cam? The fact that he confidently stated a number when there is no way he could know how much she gets paid just goes to show he was probably bullshitting about everything else. Time to step away from the meth, Jim!
WTF-
—Bruises don’t show up right away, it takes a day or two after an injury to see a bruise.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve had my ass kicked and kicked ass.
Once time, I was jumped and beat down by a bunch of Fraternity brothers my face immediately swelled up one eye sealed shut and both were purple. My body was completely covered in bruises.
Another time I knocked somebody out in upstate New York. His face after he fell to the ground immediately turned purple.
The only place on the human body that doesn’t bruise immediately/ever is the stomach.
Lastly Played 5 seasons of Union Rugby and after every game within and hour or under I’d be bruised.
My suggestion get in some fights, play rugby….
……Or have a family member hit you in the muscled part of the thigh with a hammer.
(Be man get whacked in the thigh with a hammer.)
Also, webcams broadcast internationally through the magic of the World Wide Web. Seems very unlikely she’d give the name of a local cocktail bar where she’d be waiting to have sex with anyone who showed. The odds were minuscule that anyone in her neighborhood was watching.
Sorry, Frank, seems like BS. Rough sex, group sex, etc. is out there of course, but this seems like some guy with a gang-bang fantasy making stuff up.
“Jim” doesn’t just meet average women, but classy babes. Linda was beautiful. Wholesome, traditional good looks. Not fake whatsoever. Prim and proper, a professional in the scientific world. Annalise is a successful business owner. She’s like an Italian supermodel, slender, dark hair, and a perfect body. She was super gracious, super-intelligent.
This seems as believable as erotic fan-fiction about how an average guy happened to score with the actresses in Smallville.
Penthouse forum?