Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Michael Roach, Christie McNally and the death of Ian Thorson
“Should a Buddhist university really be doing such things?”
A three-year, three-month, three-day silent Buddhist retreat takes an unusual twist, ending in death in the desert mountains of Arizona. Previously.
posted by Gordion Knott
posted by Gordion Knott
The Michael Roach situation sounds in every way like a classic cult and typical of the West's fetishizing Eastern religions. He seems like a charismatic narcissist cult leader, zigzagging from diamond businessman millionaire, robe wearing pseudo-monk with enmeshed female consort, wilderness retreat control freak to Armani suited, disco dancing with Russian model hedonist, while dragging his devotees' minds into various states of mental and social confusion. Related reading by Len Oakes:The Charismatic Personality and Prophetic Charisma as well as Eric Berne's Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, which analyzes the social dynamics of the members of a cult.
Christie McNally sounds like a classic cult devotee, as well as a cult leader herself, previously pathologically enmeshed with Roach to the point of 15 feet proximity for years (yikes). Whatever it was they had going on, it doesn't sound remotely Buddhist but more like a folie à deux, some sort of profound co-counter dependence.
She stabbed her husband 3 times in the torso but didn't know a knife could cut. What? Looney tunes right there. Her husband, Ian Thorson, had a history of violence with her so she, who considers herself to be her husband's holy teacher, takes him to a cave where he starves to death? Wtf?! Seriously nuts. Roach kicks her, his ex velcro-partner, and her new husband out of a lengthy meditation retreat with a 1 hour notice to get off the property/retreat center she helped found? Huh, sounds like he's having a hissy fit, vindictive jealousy-paranoia attack. Lethal mix.
My condolences to the family of the man, Ian Thorson, who died.
The current Dalai Lama, whose lineage has its own scandals, may verbally chasten manipulative/scandal-ridden Tibetan Buddhist teachers/cult leaders, such as Sogyal, a notorious serial sexual abuser, but then condones by going to the centers, endorsing their books, various photo ops etc. There are tens of millions of dollars being given by Westerners (here over 4 million just to one center alone) to these often grossly lavish centers, packed full of golden statues, ritual relic holders to be venerated, huge icons, Big Brother style pics, as well as the increasingly luxurious Tibetan communities or wealthy monasteries (with the tax free status of any religious group in the United States) connected with them.
In the 70's I was previously involved with Tibetan Buddhism and it is my opinion that it may have at one time, perhaps a thousand years ago, when Atisha arrived in Tibet, tried to be authentically Buddhist, but rapidly devolved into a nightmare shamanistic-theocracy mashup, based on the indigenous shamanism of Tibet, Bon, but then heavy on the monastic control of an entire country with no printing presses (except hand carved wood blocks printing only religious texts), almost no popular or secular literature, pretty much country-wide illiteracy (still still less than 25% literacy in 2003), no use of the wheel except for ritual purposes (prayer wheels), all travel up until 1959 was on horseback, no electricity, no phones, no tv, no radio, no plumbing, no secular education, no hospitals, no secular universities, Tibetan Buddhism was the state religion, almost no contact with the outside world, no newspapers, no magazines, no secular books, almost no study of science and that almost only by the wealthy or the politically connected central Lhasa families, not least a language in which the word for woman, key-min, means inferior birth.
Then when the leading proponents of Tibetan Buddhism came West in 1959, straight out of this Medieval, feudal culture with serfs, Trungpa, Sogyal and Kalu, they were all involved with sexual abuses/manipulation of their devotees, who they encouraged to worship them, kowtow on the floor to them, as living Buddhas.
A young Tibetan lama, also named Kalu, talks here recently about his having been sexually abused "by other monks", his life being threatened by his "tutor" and his disillusionment with the Tibetan Buddhist scene.
If Buddhism does take root in the West I think Stephen Batchelor
's approach, Buddhism Without Beliefs, seems to be not only a healthier, saner, wiser approach but authentically Buddhist, even without some of the typically traditional beliefs, such as reincarnation (some of his online audio talks). There are excellent, non-cultic Buddhist meditation centers without gurus/devotees, such as the Vipassana meditation centers, that teach Buddhist meditation, for free, with videos on YouTube, no clap trap, no gold icons to worship, no tantric sex bs.For those who are spiritually inclined it is, imo, important to maintain critical thinking as well as some understanding about how a cult works, not just about the cult leader but to be honest in oneself about the impulse to be a devotee.
PSYCHOSIS, STABBING, SECRECY & DEATH AT A NEO-BUDDHIST UNIVERSITY IN ARIZONA
Meme busters, critical thinking, personality disorders and manipulation by cult leaders
It's hard to know where to start on this topic, so I'll just jump into the thick of it.
Tonight I came across a few paragraphs written by a person with the online username,corboykatz, a person I'd met online in other cult recovery forums, American-Buddha, discussing a variety of cult abuses by Tibetan lamas, in Sustained Reaction and SustainedAction, cult recovery forums discussing the cult around Carlos Castaneda.
I am impressed with the clear thinking of this person's thoughts and wanted to post them here.
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,5623,page=1
I was also impressed with the forthright insight of Robin Billings and thought I'd post his thoughts here as well:
http://sustainedreaction.yuku.com/topic/4678#.T87JqcUeeSo
Tonight I came across a few paragraphs written by a person with the online username,corboykatz, a person I'd met online in other cult recovery forums, American-Buddha, discussing a variety of cult abuses by Tibetan lamas, in Sustained Reaction and SustainedAction, cult recovery forums discussing the cult around Carlos Castaneda.
I am impressed with the clear thinking of this person's thoughts and wanted to post them here.
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,5623,page=1
- corboy
- Date Added: 06/19/2002
Article by a Former New Age Teacher
you can go visit the www.sustainedaction.com website--it covers the very troubled legacy of Carlos Castaneda, whose work has been revealed as fraudulent, and who has, since last year, been unmasked as leader of a very cruel, secretive cultic group.
Castaneda's fantasy books were a major contribution to New Age thought, which has its earlier sources in Gnosticism, Blavatsky/Theosophy and Gurdjieff.
There were a small group of dedicated correspondants on SA, such as emiliolizardo, greg mamishian, and robin billings, who tried to argue with people who'd invested their peace of mind and sanity in Castaneda's wierd world. They got burned out, got tired of being screamed and jeered at, and left.
The clash of the two cultures is quite visible on the website.
If you use the concept of meme theory, you can see that the big difference between New Age and science is that both are bundles of memes, but the New Age 'meme-plex' lacks 'meme busters', while science has 'meme busters.'
Critical thinking (aka 'meme testing/meme busting') is the intellectual equivalent of a boundary--like a well functioning immune system.
When you lack a healthy immune system, you get sick from any alien micro-organism that comes along, because your physical boundaries are readily breached.
If you dont know how to detect and test new memes through use of critical thinking (and a capacity for healthy, appropriate annoyance when your BS detector is triggered)--then your brain will be infected by any stray meme that floats in on the cultural tide.
If you dont have a 'meme buster'--that is, critical thinking skills and tools such as Carl Sagan's Baloney Detector, you have no way to test the memes in your collection and determine which ones are truthful and which ones are just cluttering up cognitive space.
Unless you can test memes, you'll eventually get stuck with what I call 'cognitive packrat syndrome'--your inner life gets more and more cluttered up with a burgeoning jungle of memes that you've never tested and dont ever toss out, exactly the way you get more and more dust bunnies under your sofa when you neglect to clean house on a regular basis.
(Guilty as charged!)
I flirted mildly with some New Age material myself. But I never really got into crystals, even when these were fashionable; it wasnt critical thinking that saved me.
What saved me was sensing that if I let myself take crystals and channelling seriously, there would be an expanding list of things I'd have to worry about and that I'd have too much stuff to worry about.
Thats the thing with New Age stuff--without a 'meme busting' process built into it, there's no limit on the amount of mental curios you end up burdened with.
The embargo on anger had a crippling effect. My peace group boycotted anger, and we thought it bad to 'be judgemental'.
As a result, we were constantly taken advantage of by various street savvy crooks.
The limit was achieved when one of the women in our group came home early from work and found her boyfriend at home, in their bed, shagging another woman.
X got mad.
Know what her boyfriend said?
He bleated, 'You're being judgemental!'
Castaneda's fantasy books were a major contribution to New Age thought, which has its earlier sources in Gnosticism, Blavatsky/Theosophy and Gurdjieff.
There were a small group of dedicated correspondants on SA, such as emiliolizardo, greg mamishian, and robin billings, who tried to argue with people who'd invested their peace of mind and sanity in Castaneda's wierd world. They got burned out, got tired of being screamed and jeered at, and left.
The clash of the two cultures is quite visible on the website.
If you use the concept of meme theory, you can see that the big difference between New Age and science is that both are bundles of memes, but the New Age 'meme-plex' lacks 'meme busters', while science has 'meme busters.'
Critical thinking (aka 'meme testing/meme busting') is the intellectual equivalent of a boundary--like a well functioning immune system.
When you lack a healthy immune system, you get sick from any alien micro-organism that comes along, because your physical boundaries are readily breached.
If you dont know how to detect and test new memes through use of critical thinking (and a capacity for healthy, appropriate annoyance when your BS detector is triggered)--then your brain will be infected by any stray meme that floats in on the cultural tide.
If you dont have a 'meme buster'--that is, critical thinking skills and tools such as Carl Sagan's Baloney Detector, you have no way to test the memes in your collection and determine which ones are truthful and which ones are just cluttering up cognitive space.
Unless you can test memes, you'll eventually get stuck with what I call 'cognitive packrat syndrome'--your inner life gets more and more cluttered up with a burgeoning jungle of memes that you've never tested and dont ever toss out, exactly the way you get more and more dust bunnies under your sofa when you neglect to clean house on a regular basis.
(Guilty as charged!)
I flirted mildly with some New Age material myself. But I never really got into crystals, even when these were fashionable; it wasnt critical thinking that saved me.
What saved me was sensing that if I let myself take crystals and channelling seriously, there would be an expanding list of things I'd have to worry about and that I'd have too much stuff to worry about.
Thats the thing with New Age stuff--without a 'meme busting' process built into it, there's no limit on the amount of mental curios you end up burdened with.
The embargo on anger had a crippling effect. My peace group boycotted anger, and we thought it bad to 'be judgemental'.
As a result, we were constantly taken advantage of by various street savvy crooks.
The limit was achieved when one of the women in our group came home early from work and found her boyfriend at home, in their bed, shagging another woman.
X got mad.
Know what her boyfriend said?
He bleated, 'You're being judgemental!'
I was also impressed with the forthright insight of Robin Billings and thought I'd post his thoughts here as well:
http://sustainedreaction.yuku.com/topic/4678#.T87JqcUeeSo
Having read The Teachings of Don Juan and all the subsequent works, mindful of the cultural context in which they were published, it seems obvious to me that Carlos was following the prevailing zeitgeist and capitalizing on the allure of psychedelic drugs that existed in the late 60s and early 70s; as their popularity fell into decline with fiascos like Charles Manson, etc., he modified and pulled back from that position in his published works.
The evidence that Carlos was crafting his characters, story line, and field data, from the very beginning, is overwhelming to any reasoning mind. As one small, but characteristic, example of the general lack of veracity surrounding his work, when asked to provide voucher material for "humito" by R. Gordon Wasson, Castaneda was unable to produce anything that met minimal standards of convincing evidence. In fact, to someone who has had training in any of the spiritual traditions he was clearly borrowing from in crafting his fiction, there is nothing at all convincing in any of Castaneda's books. Everything he borrows is twisted by the perceptual distortions his characterological disorder cast on his thought processes. Amy has indicated she has received reports from a mole at Simon and Schuster that there was heavy editorial assistance needed to make his work publishable. The success of his books enabled him to hoodwink enough of the public to make some money ("just enough money to sink a devil deeper into the pit"). That he would utilize his notoriety to aggrandize himself among a small group of gullible, albeit sincere, followers and exploit them for his own ends pretty much sums up the quality of his life's work. Castaneda's fiction, centering around his grim Gnostic cosmology of a predatorial universe, is a literary reflection of his grim, paranoid, predatorial character structure. It appears that he did burn from within, after all, devoured by the flames of his own private hell of lust, deceit, and paranoid hatred of humanity, and in particular his loathing of the one specimen of mankind that was his first care - himself.
Just my opinion,
Robin Billings, Ph.D.
The evidence that Carlos was crafting his characters, story line, and field data, from the very beginning, is overwhelming to any reasoning mind. As one small, but characteristic, example of the general lack of veracity surrounding his work, when asked to provide voucher material for "humito" by R. Gordon Wasson, Castaneda was unable to produce anything that met minimal standards of convincing evidence. In fact, to someone who has had training in any of the spiritual traditions he was clearly borrowing from in crafting his fiction, there is nothing at all convincing in any of Castaneda's books. Everything he borrows is twisted by the perceptual distortions his characterological disorder cast on his thought processes. Amy has indicated she has received reports from a mole at Simon and Schuster that there was heavy editorial assistance needed to make his work publishable. The success of his books enabled him to hoodwink enough of the public to make some money ("just enough money to sink a devil deeper into the pit"). That he would utilize his notoriety to aggrandize himself among a small group of gullible, albeit sincere, followers and exploit them for his own ends pretty much sums up the quality of his life's work. Castaneda's fiction, centering around his grim Gnostic cosmology of a predatorial universe, is a literary reflection of his grim, paranoid, predatorial character structure. It appears that he did burn from within, after all, devoured by the flames of his own private hell of lust, deceit, and paranoid hatred of humanity, and in particular his loathing of the one specimen of mankind that was his first care - himself.
Just my opinion,
Robin Billings, Ph.D.
A little back story about Robin Billings in relation to his perception of Castaneda:
Fictional character and plot motivates suicides?!?
Amy,
I just finished reading your book and would like to thank you for telling the story of your relationship with Carlos. I trust this recapitulation will serve as an auspicious beginning on the path of truth, healing, and peace in your life.
I first read The Teachings of Don Juan in 1969 when I was 15 years old, which temporarily deflected my career course away from my first love, psychology, and into anthropology. Like many, I was motivated by the aim of eventually doing anthropology fieldwork in the Southwest and finding Don Juan. As I matured in my undergraduate training, I soon realized that Carlos' works were fiction, particularly coming to my senses with the cliff jumping scenario depicted at the end of "Tales of Power." I was then fortunate to be able to happily return to my true love, clinical psychology, to eventually complete my doctorate.
During graduate school, reading De Mille's books on Carlos sensitized me to his paranoid and misogynist tendencies, as revealed in his portrayal of the feminine in his books, such as the "diablera" he depicts as trying to "steal his soul" and which he is so frightened of in the final chapter of "The Teachings." I once met Terence McKenna at a weekend retreat in Chicago, and upon being asked about Carlos, he portrayed him as "a weird little man...." Which, following the reading of your book, pretty much sums it up. The three categories of personality disorder in the DSM-IV can be summarized by the three "W" words, the weird (Cluster A), the wild (Cluster B) and the weepy (Cluster C). Carlos appears to have crystallized out into a classic blend of a paranoid with sadistic tendencies (Cluster A), and the narcissistic/borderline pattern (Cluster B - "one who loves without measure those he will soon hate").
One question remains after reading the book. Obviously, Carlos and Florinda reached an agreement on allowing her to utilize imaginary interactions with the fictional character Don Juan in her books, as must have also been worked out with Taisha. Apparently, his wives were let into the fold of using Don Juan as a literary device to further the cause. Was this issue ever discussed by either of the witches? Knowing Don Juan as a fictional character, it seems to me, would cast a glaringly fictional light over the "burning from within" story line as well. This being the case, it would certainly seem hard to explain how the witches would be motivated to end their lives over a shared fictional story line.... Any thoughts on this matter?
Robin Billings
I just finished reading your book and would like to thank you for telling the story of your relationship with Carlos. I trust this recapitulation will serve as an auspicious beginning on the path of truth, healing, and peace in your life.
I first read The Teachings of Don Juan in 1969 when I was 15 years old, which temporarily deflected my career course away from my first love, psychology, and into anthropology. Like many, I was motivated by the aim of eventually doing anthropology fieldwork in the Southwest and finding Don Juan. As I matured in my undergraduate training, I soon realized that Carlos' works were fiction, particularly coming to my senses with the cliff jumping scenario depicted at the end of "Tales of Power." I was then fortunate to be able to happily return to my true love, clinical psychology, to eventually complete my doctorate.
During graduate school, reading De Mille's books on Carlos sensitized me to his paranoid and misogynist tendencies, as revealed in his portrayal of the feminine in his books, such as the "diablera" he depicts as trying to "steal his soul" and which he is so frightened of in the final chapter of "The Teachings." I once met Terence McKenna at a weekend retreat in Chicago, and upon being asked about Carlos, he portrayed him as "a weird little man...." Which, following the reading of your book, pretty much sums it up. The three categories of personality disorder in the DSM-IV can be summarized by the three "W" words, the weird (Cluster A), the wild (Cluster B) and the weepy (Cluster C). Carlos appears to have crystallized out into a classic blend of a paranoid with sadistic tendencies (Cluster A), and the narcissistic/borderline pattern (Cluster B - "one who loves without measure those he will soon hate").
One question remains after reading the book. Obviously, Carlos and Florinda reached an agreement on allowing her to utilize imaginary interactions with the fictional character Don Juan in her books, as must have also been worked out with Taisha. Apparently, his wives were let into the fold of using Don Juan as a literary device to further the cause. Was this issue ever discussed by either of the witches? Knowing Don Juan as a fictional character, it seems to me, would cast a glaringly fictional light over the "burning from within" story line as well. This being the case, it would certainly seem hard to explain how the witches would be motivated to end their lives over a shared fictional story line.... Any thoughts on this matter?
Robin Billings
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