Re:Escape Techniques

I hesitate to add my input, I was never a part of "the work", but I lived in Mt. Shasta and fell in love with a man who had been involved for many years and still had connections with several people; Jane, Sandra, Michael, Stacey, Patricia, John Casey, Eileen, Emil and others.The first time I saw John Panama I said "Oh you're Panama Jack! Panama Jack is a sun tan lotion company in the state I am originally from, Florida, and I got that name confused with John Panama's. He got up and left, I was not gopi material, evidently)I have to say I was horrified by the whole JP thing. One thing I noticed is how much "former" Panamites kept talking about their experiences, and how in my own jargon they were so corded, tied into the energy field of John and others.They never left, even when they thought they had. My meditaions with them were in my view heavily blanketed byJohn's energy and presence which always felt horrible to me, It would take days for me to recover from meditaions with members of John's group.

Once, after the first time I meditated with a group of "former" panamites, I was so trounced with what felt to me enourmously dark energy, I could barely leave my bed. Two very close friends from Fla. called me the next day asking what had happened to me, they could feel it across the country.I am saying all this as someone who was an outsider and could only ever be an outsider. I also saw and experienced how egotistical, elitest, and superior "panamites" saw themselves, even years after officially being in the group. People I really loved, including my now husband truly felt they were several grades above anyone else on the planet and the things they had experienced and learned via John were far and away above anything anyone else was experiencing on the planet.

For a number of years I felt I was screaming into the void, telling my version of reality:that Robert, God bless him was not Jesus, that ignoring children is not "highest option", that believing you are more evolved than everyone else is not spiritual progress...and so much more. I don't say this with any sort of superiority, but I am saying that there was an enormous amount of manipulation through feeding on people's egos and their weaknesses and their desire to feel sacred.( as we all feel, we all , in my opinion, need to connect with our sacredness, just not through abuse and manipulation of others, that is not sacred) Bad, bad, bad juju for John and Emile and others. I also remember Chuck's trial, and how many people said that the children involved were to blame! My God! The most profound example of sacrificing the powerless for the machine of this cult. Truly, God Bless you all, Karen