Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1998, page 18
The next major event in my life at that time occurred after I began working in a bookstore.
The manager gave me responsibility for the whole New Age section, and I was bringing in
the best books. I used to get into philosophical discussions with a woman who kept coming
by. One evening, she invited me to her house for dinner. Her husband was there, and we
all got into a conversation. After dinner, she asked, ―What is the most important thing to
you? What do you want in your life?‖ I said, ―I want to be like this with God. That‘s more
important to me than anything. I just want to be like this with God.‖ And she said, ―I have
some friends who I think can help you.‖ She gave me the names of three people and their
phone numbers. So off I went again. I made appointments and met these people. The group
they were with had been started by an astrologer from Italy who had a large following of
actors and actresses—people in the arts—in New York and LA.
The Work
So now I was going to meetings with this group, called The Work. I was sitting there with
people from the soaps and people from the Metropolitan Opera, and I was very flattered by
all that. There were also college-educated people, accountants, and business people there,
so I thought, ―There‘s nothing wrong with this.‖ To me, what was neat about this group
was that when I made the appointment for my first meeting, they said, ―This path isn‘t for
everybody. So what we‘d like for you to do before you come to meet with us is to say the
Lord‘s Prayer. Do you know the Lord‘s Prayer?‖ I said, ―Sure, I know it.‖ And when I
prayed it, all I can tell you is that my room just filled with energy. And I thought, ―Yes, this
is for me.‖ So I called them back and I said, ―I had this experience, and I want to meet you
all.‖
I went to meet the three leaders of the group. During this first meeting, I was told about
how the leader had started the group, that he had been the leader in New York, but that the
group in New York had broken up. They said that the leader had been the Christ—not Jesus
Christ, but he had the Christ Consciousness. While the group was in New York, one of the
members, a gentleman from Greece, had died of cancer, and the group had a prayer vigil
over the body for a month because the leader kept saying, ―I will raise this person from the
dead.‖ Six people were always there, praying for that whole month, and finally some people
from the group called the police. The police came in and arrested the people who were
there, and then the group started splitting up. They told me about a trial for the leader, and
that people who had given him all kinds of gifts were trying to get their money and gifts
back from him. Eventually, I heard that he jumped from a 10th floor on West End Avenue in
New York and killed himself.
And even though the group members told me these things the first day I met with them, at
that point it didn‘t matter anymore—I wanted to be in this group. The front, so to speak, for
this group was a theater. The fact that actors and actresses were part of the group and that
the group was very secretive (members weren‘t out proselytizing) was very appealing to
me. I remember driving down Hollywood Boulevard to go to the theater one night and
watching Moonies sell flowers right near the theater and thinking, ―Those poor people in
that cult.‖ One of the things the leaders kept telling us was, ―Just remember, we are not a
cult. We are occult.‖ And it was like, ―Oh, yeah. That makes a lot of sense.‖ It sounded
very heavy and real to me, and I bought into it.
When I got into this group, I thought, ―What could be wrong with it? There‘s no sex outside
of marriage. We were supposed to be celibate. We had a vegetarian diet. Everybody was
clean cut. We couldn‘t even wear jeans.‖ I remember going to Disneyland during this time
and thinking that the Disneyland employees were as clean cut as we were.
The group used the Bible, but they also used a number of Alice Bailey books for example,
White Magic and Ponder on This. They also used Emmett Fox‘s book, Constructive Thinking,
and his treatise on The Lord‘s Prayer—a combination of a lot of things. We also were given a
The next major event in my life at that time occurred after I began working in a bookstore.
The manager gave me responsibility for the whole New Age section, and I was bringing in
the best books. I used to get into philosophical discussions with a woman who kept coming
by. One evening, she invited me to her house for dinner. Her husband was there, and we
all got into a conversation. After dinner, she asked, ―What is the most important thing to
you? What do you want in your life?‖ I said, ―I want to be like this with God. That‘s more
important to me than anything. I just want to be like this with God.‖ And she said, ―I have
some friends who I think can help you.‖ She gave me the names of three people and their
phone numbers. So off I went again. I made appointments and met these people. The group
they were with had been started by an astrologer from Italy who had a large following of
actors and actresses—people in the arts—in New York and LA.
The Work
So now I was going to meetings with this group, called The Work. I was sitting there with
people from the soaps and people from the Metropolitan Opera, and I was very flattered by
all that. There were also college-educated people, accountants, and business people there,
so I thought, ―There‘s nothing wrong with this.‖ To me, what was neat about this group
was that when I made the appointment for my first meeting, they said, ―This path isn‘t for
everybody. So what we‘d like for you to do before you come to meet with us is to say the
Lord‘s Prayer. Do you know the Lord‘s Prayer?‖ I said, ―Sure, I know it.‖ And when I
prayed it, all I can tell you is that my room just filled with energy. And I thought, ―Yes, this
is for me.‖ So I called them back and I said, ―I had this experience, and I want to meet you
all.‖
I went to meet the three leaders of the group. During this first meeting, I was told about
how the leader had started the group, that he had been the leader in New York, but that the
group in New York had broken up. They said that the leader had been the Christ—not Jesus
Christ, but he had the Christ Consciousness. While the group was in New York, one of the
members, a gentleman from Greece, had died of cancer, and the group had a prayer vigil
over the body for a month because the leader kept saying, ―I will raise this person from the
dead.‖ Six people were always there, praying for that whole month, and finally some people
from the group called the police. The police came in and arrested the people who were
there, and then the group started splitting up. They told me about a trial for the leader, and
that people who had given him all kinds of gifts were trying to get their money and gifts
back from him. Eventually, I heard that he jumped from a 10th floor on West End Avenue in
New York and killed himself.
And even though the group members told me these things the first day I met with them, at
that point it didn‘t matter anymore—I wanted to be in this group. The front, so to speak, for
this group was a theater. The fact that actors and actresses were part of the group and that
the group was very secretive (members weren‘t out proselytizing) was very appealing to
me. I remember driving down Hollywood Boulevard to go to the theater one night and
watching Moonies sell flowers right near the theater and thinking, ―Those poor people in
that cult.‖ One of the things the leaders kept telling us was, ―Just remember, we are not a
cult. We are occult.‖ And it was like, ―Oh, yeah. That makes a lot of sense.‖ It sounded
very heavy and real to me, and I bought into it.
When I got into this group, I thought, ―What could be wrong with it? There‘s no sex outside
of marriage. We were supposed to be celibate. We had a vegetarian diet. Everybody was
clean cut. We couldn‘t even wear jeans.‖ I remember going to Disneyland during this time
and thinking that the Disneyland employees were as clean cut as we were.
The group used the Bible, but they also used a number of Alice Bailey books for example,
White Magic and Ponder on This. They also used Emmett Fox‘s book, Constructive Thinking,
and his treatise on The Lord‘s Prayer—a combination of a lot of things. We also were given a
