5 Ashram Members Attack Ruth on Being Jesse’s Victim

Oops.

I seem to have confused/conflated GBA’s post with another commenter’s post.

For my mistake, I am honestly sorry from the bottom of my heart.

Just kidding. 🙂

Fuck you, GBA. I apologize to nobody. Eat shit, you lowly turd. 🙂

As for Becker…

GBA calling Jessica Becker a pathological liar should have been done with a few DETAILED examples, even if it’s true.

People who make such grand claims about others, without providing any examples, are usually grandstanding and/or liars themselves.

…And when GBA said that Ruth has somehow ruined her credibility by hitching her wagon to Becker —– GBA’s goal seems to be to protect the ashram.

Just another anonymous ex-Swami-turd who won’t provide details to prove anything.

Ruth Graham’s story has some very valid points. I am 100% in agreement with that. She was looking towards Sadhvi as a mentor, and Sadhvi failed in that role miserably. I agree with this. The notion that Lama Wangdu’s Granddaughters’ drugged Ruth, and she was raped by him is completely implausible. It is highly suspect. Ruth Grahams credibility is suspect because what she is omitting from her story is that she LOVED being at the Ashram–for years.
She was experiencing positive energy there, that she had no chance of experiencing anywhere else. Plus, she was not a prisoner there. She was free to leave at any point in time. As far as her relationship with Jesse goes, I believe her, but at the same time she takes no responsibility for her actions in it. She was free to break up with him, at any point in time. Yet, here she: is blaming him, blaming Sadhvi, blaming everyone but herself. It’s irresponsible, and it’s also (to some extent), revisionist history.
I personally witnessed someone in the Ashram walk up to Ruth Graham, and say to her face during a dinner clean-up crew “you, little trouble maker, you”. I saw it with my own eyes. This person said that to Ruth because there was a lot of truth to it. Unfortunately, Swami is the one who creates the environment for guess what to occur: the worst to come out in everyone! Including him. It’s “jerks in both directions”. Once again, Fig’s observations are dead on.

Are you a cult apologist?
“I got mine-ism” (IGM)

An apologist is a person who argues in favor of something unpopular. If you’re an apologist for cults and for J. Michael Shoemaker, you would argue that even though some people might have been harmed, such harm is the fault of the person and the benefits received from being associated with Shoemaker and his cult make up for any individual damage. Apologists tend to be seen in a negative light, as defensive people who make excuses.

Since Frank Parlato began publishing articles about J. Michael Shoemaker, aka Swami Chetanananda, several commentators have been published that support Shoemaker and his cultish activities. Jami Currin wrote that she was never pressured to have sex with Shoemaker. Did she leave the impression that those who were sexually abused by Shoemaker took it upon themselves, were open to abuse? Is she a cult apologist? Does she blame the victim?

What about Dr. Alexis Sanderson, is he a cult apologist? He stood up for Shoemaker in the Richard Read, Oregonian newspaper articles. “Alexis Sanderson, a professor of Eastern religions and ethics at Oxford University in England who has lectured at Chetanananda’s ashram, says the swami is a “generous-hearted and pleasant individual” who leads an open and tolerant group. “Accusations of sexual malpractice are the standard way of attacking religious practitioners,” Sanderson says. Taken from Richard Read’s article, In the Grip of the Guru, Part 1 (and there are five parts to this series!) Dr. Sanderson sounds like a cult apologist to me.

There are also comments that support narratives of peaceful and calm deaths for Laura Modena and Dr. John Bonner. Such narratives give the impression that such deaths would have been impossible outside the ‘loving embrace” of the cultic community. Who knows what type of death they could or would have had outside the cult, there are hospice services that respect the natural process of death and that provide respectful, professional, caring support for families and their loved ones.

Laura Modena, Dr. John Bonner, Al DeWit , Louise (Pat) Shoemaker and Phyllis Rudolph were immersed in an abusive cult environment that exploited the labor of others. Who cooked and washed dishes for the common meals? Who cleaned the hallways, the windows, took out the trash, worked on the grounds, ordered the food? Many of these services were provided by residents who paid “tuition” and had to provide “seva” labor. While they were peacefully dying, Shoemaker was abusing and exploiting his “loved ones” (as he calls them). We have read the narratives of those who have been abused and who have escaped, like Ruth, Jes, Jessica and Dan.

The lates Laura Modena, Dr. John Bonner, Al DeWit, Louise (Pat) Shoemaker and Phyllis Rudolph (Rudi’s sister-in-law) were all in a residence or frequently in attendance at the Movement Center. All of them were “vulnerable adults” due to their age, over 65 or their frail physical condition. As vulnerable adults, they had certain legal protections from abuse and exploitation. The Movement Center, where they were residents or students, was the site of drug use, sexual abuse, labor exploitation, financial scams, BDSM sessions, alleged nonconsensual strangulations and fraudulent recruiting. A social work assessment based on the actual living conditions of these vulnerable adults would have raised questions about their safety in such an abusive environment.

What happened to Liz and Natacha? They were not protected from self-harm by the loving embrace of their “cultic siblings”. Shoemaker promoted rivalry, isolation, back biting, gossip and judgement. Where is the love, support and friendship in such a system? Shoemaker put his “favorites” ahead of all others and promoted dysfunctional dynamics that undercut the formation of social bonds where he was not the center of attention.

There are Facebook posts that show Dr. John Bonner in a Movement Center hallway with his son and daughter in law, welcoming Natacha back to her life of BDSM misery. Natacha is in her hospital bed, back brace and mind-controlled condition. Did anyone tell Dr. John Bonner about what was being done to Natacha? Shoemaker’s abuse was hidden and covered up by his “loved ones”, his cult gang, his inner circle, that included Dr. John Bonner’s family, Andrew and Becky.
Drs. Rebecca Resse and Andrew Bonner have been licensed medical providers in Oregon. They took an oath to do no harm and to report abuse. Instead, according to comments published in response to Frank’s articles, Dr. Andrew Bonner advised a young woman student of Shoemaker’s to run if Shoemaker began to take off his pants. Given such a comment, Dr. Andrew Bonner must have been aware of Shoemaker’s alleged sexual abuse. Why didn’t he speak out? If the Bonner/Resse family knew of these abuses, why didn’t they look for a safer place for Dr. John Bonner? They couldn’t because they too where under the coercive control of Shoemaker and his inner circle. Their loyalty to Shoemaker was paid back by being expelled from the Movement Center and perhaps from their Shoemaker owned medical offices. (Perhaps others have more information about Dr. Andrew Bonner’s student loans, taken out to become a naturopath at the insistence of Shoemaker? Or the cost of medical office rent?)

Dr. Andrew Bonner paid a medical visit to a victim of Shoemaker’s after one of his “sessions”. The victim was unable to walk, the victim was peeing on towels because no bed pans or toilet were available. The victim was suffering from post-concussion syndrome and could not walk. He did nothing to help the victim. Dear Molly, of whom we have read so much, carried out the soiled towels and cleaned the room after the victim was taken to the hospital, once again, on a stretcher. Why was there no help for this victim?

Matthew Remski, a survivor of two cultic experiences put it well, “I’ll preface this post by saying that, in accordance with the clinical research, I do not believe there are strong correlations between prior life experience and the likelihood that a person will join or stay in a cult (or “totalist”, or “high-demand” group.) What follows is a speculation, based on memory and anecdote, on why people who are already inside such a group may be more prone to the kind of enabling and moral harm that Facebook friend Joseph Teskey has described to me as “I got mine-ism” (IGM).

IGM is a defensive strategy by which a member who has not (or believes they have not) directly experienced abuse or institutional betrayal within the group deflects stories of abuse within the group by immediately self-referring, saying things like: “I don’t know about other’s experience; I find/found the teacher/teachings to be profoundly helpful in my life.” The statement is usually couched within an unwillingness to act on behalf on victims or mitigate future harm.” http://matthewremski.com/wordpress/the-unbearable-smugness-of-i-got-mine-ism-amongst-cult-and-ex-cult-members/
Stop being a cult apologist, stop using the defense of I got mine-ism. Tell your story of abuse, institutional betrayal or blind loyalty and great benefits that this wicked and evil cult has provided to you. For many it has only left a trail of destruction and tears and put Shoemaker in a life of luxury and ease at the expense of his “loved ones”.

Frank,

If you are going to use my comment as an “attack” please use my actual words.

I said “Pretty intense allegations about Jesse Sweeny”. Are they not? Is that an attack?

I said “Did he do these things to you”,

I suggest you write that I actually said. Also if I wanted to attack you would know it. I simply was hoping for full disclosure. This is a god damn snake pit. I learn new things every day that knocks the wind out of me.

It would also be nice Frank, when people take hours to write articles or anything for that matter that you print them as they write it. I imagine it was mentioned in somewhere in those 8 pages and you decided to leave it out?

I don’t think you would appreciate your writing being treated like this and I get it’s “your blog” but these are OUR actual life experiences and stories.

I wrote that because I KNEW it would bite her not to mention it and I was correct. This isn’t NXIVM. You knew those people personally. You do not know these people. It’s different.

No I was NOT attacking Ruth. I would just like to know what the fuck is going on. This being true is a personal betrayal that only the people who know me there, and the ones that purposely concealed from me would know.

Maybe leave people’s articles in their entirety and there will be less attacks and I’m hoping that appeals to you. There is enough pain here and I would hate to think this is a form of entertainment for you.

Now I can see why the police have not brought charges. Unfortunately, each person “coming forward” so far is an extremely unreliable narrator.