Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1994, Page 31
their commitment, turn it around for recruitment of other victims, and on and on it goes, like
some kind of pyramid scheme with the leaders at the top benefiting constantly financially.”
He showed me his file on CBJ, which basically consisted of little phone-message slips from
people saying “Help!” These were from the families of folks who had gotten involved with CBJ,
and the mood states of the callers seemed to range from the terrified to the furious. That
wasn‟t funny. It also wasn‟t funny to think of the cancer victims and the HIV-positive people
who had gotten sucked into CBJ as a last hope.
Rick‟s phone rang a lot. All the calls that day were from frantic people with questions about
Waco. Nobody, of course, knew that the Branch Davidian compound was soon to go up in
flames. Nobody knew that the innocent people inside would soon meet their death due to the
facts that (a) like humans everywhere, they were susceptible to a cult and (b) Really Big Law-
Enforcement Agencies and Important People, including the president of our own United States
of America, are astoundingly ignorant as to the insidious nature and fundamental workings of
the more than 1,500 cults in this country. Authorities should definitely think about getting
educated before they go after other people with guns and tear gas and extremely loud
recordings of the screams of animals being slaughtered.
Rick showed me the checklist of criteria used to discern if a group‟s leaders are employing
mind-control techniques (a list developed by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, a sort of guru for
cult deprogrammers), and you could see CBJ line up ever so perfectly. We talked about milieu
control and pseudoscience and “love-bombing” and repetition. “They hammer the message
over and over and over again,” Rick said. “Again and again and again and again. Constantly.
It‟s reinforced that‟s the program: „You cannot be separate from us, you must be with us,
you must have contact with us or you will lose your life, you‟ll start dying ...‟ So there‟s this
fear coercing these people to stay in the group.”
He said CBJ is a con job, a moneymaking machine, a scam. “We‟re talking about three people
who found a hustle from which they can make more money than anything else that they‟ve
ever done in their lives. And they are ...I mean, what‟s their background? Hype, sales, selling
people. Entertaining people, pulling people in, persuasion techniques. They‟ve simply put what
they‟ve learned over the years together into their current road show, which is “CBJ Presents.”
***
I visited Charles, BernaDeane and James at their home in the Pinnacle Peak Estates, in north
Scottsdale. Their house is pale pink. Their Cadillac is bright white. Their Harley-Davidson is
sort of a deep salmon. We stepped outside onto the patio overlooking the pool and the Jacuzzi
and a golf course with golfers on it.
We made small talk, which is pretty big talk when you are making it with an Immortal. We
talked about how CBJ wants to make physical immortality available to all people on the
planet, and we talked about why people can‟t just be physically immortal all by themselves.
BernaDeane did not join in the discussion. BernaDeane went inside and retrieved her
manicure set. She did her nails and then leaned back in the sun and took a nap. Meantime,
Chuck likened human beings to the molecules in a laser beam: It takes a lot of them to fall
into phase, and only then can they pierce the shield of death that for all time has imprisoned
life.
“But what about money?” I said and asked them to tell me how much money, exactly, they
make.
The question, first of all, woke BernaDeane up. The question caused an apparent revocation
of my own personal invitation to any future cellular intercourses. The question did not go over
well at all.
their commitment, turn it around for recruitment of other victims, and on and on it goes, like
some kind of pyramid scheme with the leaders at the top benefiting constantly financially.”
He showed me his file on CBJ, which basically consisted of little phone-message slips from
people saying “Help!” These were from the families of folks who had gotten involved with CBJ,
and the mood states of the callers seemed to range from the terrified to the furious. That
wasn‟t funny. It also wasn‟t funny to think of the cancer victims and the HIV-positive people
who had gotten sucked into CBJ as a last hope.
Rick‟s phone rang a lot. All the calls that day were from frantic people with questions about
Waco. Nobody, of course, knew that the Branch Davidian compound was soon to go up in
flames. Nobody knew that the innocent people inside would soon meet their death due to the
facts that (a) like humans everywhere, they were susceptible to a cult and (b) Really Big Law-
Enforcement Agencies and Important People, including the president of our own United States
of America, are astoundingly ignorant as to the insidious nature and fundamental workings of
the more than 1,500 cults in this country. Authorities should definitely think about getting
educated before they go after other people with guns and tear gas and extremely loud
recordings of the screams of animals being slaughtered.
Rick showed me the checklist of criteria used to discern if a group‟s leaders are employing
mind-control techniques (a list developed by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, a sort of guru for
cult deprogrammers), and you could see CBJ line up ever so perfectly. We talked about milieu
control and pseudoscience and “love-bombing” and repetition. “They hammer the message
over and over and over again,” Rick said. “Again and again and again and again. Constantly.
It‟s reinforced that‟s the program: „You cannot be separate from us, you must be with us,
you must have contact with us or you will lose your life, you‟ll start dying ...‟ So there‟s this
fear coercing these people to stay in the group.”
He said CBJ is a con job, a moneymaking machine, a scam. “We‟re talking about three people
who found a hustle from which they can make more money than anything else that they‟ve
ever done in their lives. And they are ...I mean, what‟s their background? Hype, sales, selling
people. Entertaining people, pulling people in, persuasion techniques. They‟ve simply put what
they‟ve learned over the years together into their current road show, which is “CBJ Presents.”
***
I visited Charles, BernaDeane and James at their home in the Pinnacle Peak Estates, in north
Scottsdale. Their house is pale pink. Their Cadillac is bright white. Their Harley-Davidson is
sort of a deep salmon. We stepped outside onto the patio overlooking the pool and the Jacuzzi
and a golf course with golfers on it.
We made small talk, which is pretty big talk when you are making it with an Immortal. We
talked about how CBJ wants to make physical immortality available to all people on the
planet, and we talked about why people can‟t just be physically immortal all by themselves.
BernaDeane did not join in the discussion. BernaDeane went inside and retrieved her
manicure set. She did her nails and then leaned back in the sun and took a nap. Meantime,
Chuck likened human beings to the molecules in a laser beam: It takes a lot of them to fall
into phase, and only then can they pierce the shield of death that for all time has imprisoned
life.
“But what about money?” I said and asked them to tell me how much money, exactly, they
make.
The question, first of all, woke BernaDeane up. The question caused an apparent revocation
of my own personal invitation to any future cellular intercourses. The question did not go over
well at all.
