Date: Tues, Oct 24, 2000 at 23:41:15 (GMT) From: janet Email: None To: Michael Dettmers Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

first let me say what a difference there is between now and then. back then, i doubt if i could have so much as asked you for the honey on the counter at the tea station in 401. i was a nobody, sometimes treated as a 'bongo', never an ashram member, one of the faces you saw but never had a name to match it to. and yet i set my life on the altar at my knowledge session in may of 73 and never wanted to take it back. i lived the ashram rules even when homeless. i used them to evade rape when highway hitchiking to festivals, on semi trucks, going cross country. i kept them when squatting in abandoned houses with other homeless premies. i lived in the Shelter from may to september of 74, even being trusted to run the place after Amherst, despite not being officially an Ashram premie. (and it ran like a sewing machine during my time, i might add).sophia's chapters reminded me of how inspired and open and transformed everything was in the beginnng. her recountng of her crew in maine, their wanting to buy the house, the being told to give the money to Millennium instead, made me wonder who the hell 's idea was that anyway--millennium? it made me look back, over the numerous times our innate impulse to do good, out of the change Knowledge wrought in our perception of life, got repeatedly derailed, hijacked, subverted and co-opted to serve something else. her quote from William James haunts me. i asked you to read it so that we would have a common reference point. you say in your response to me that you have changed in style in 25 years. can you say, with your hindsight now, how you see what errors you may have committed in the way you approached the problem you were brought in to handle? if you had it to do over again, what would you have done differently, or not done, in light of what effects it had on premies? i remember trying to resolve to change myself to the new, corporate, DUO way in early 76, dressing up all office proper and going down to the offices to do some kind of service,to type some copy for someone for the day. I was miserable. I was scared. I felt like a robot, a fraud, a bad actor, sitting there hearing the phones ring and the type writers clacking and the suits hustling in and out all day. I remember giving up in shame and going home and cracking in my little room, knowing i could not make the transition.I distinctly felt that there was no place for me in the 'new' DLM. I had been to the 5th floor of the kittredge building. i had liked it up there before. now suddenly it was cold and unfriendly and a chilling mood of brute efficiency had come over it. It was rather like being a child when daddy marries a stranger and the new regime has no love or warmth anymore, but you have no other home, and you're too little to run away. For myself, I distinctly felt that it was not coming from Maharaj ji. there were people placing themselves between me and the one iwas there for, and there was no getting past them. so now i learn that it was you i can attribute this change to. and now i can actually talk to you, one adult to another, with the respect of equals, and you engage me honestly when i do. that evening when i went home from DUO and cracked, knowing i couldn't do it, there came a phone call late at night. my mother had had a stroke and fallen into a third level coma out in newport beach, and was dying in ICU on the west coast. i was to fly there the next day and stand her deathwatch. the timing couldnt have been closer. it felt like my cracking point coincided with her having the stroke. all of 76 was a memory loss for me--the stone room, etc.--described elsewhere here. the changes in the mission were outside the pale of my awareness, but the fragmentation and dispersal and confusion in the mission meant there was no net to catch me, no longer a 'family' of premies to notice or protect me or see that i was ok(which i clearly wasn't.) they were all baffled and unsure and looking at each other in uncertainty, because of the changes that were coming down from IHQ. the year previous, i would have had a spot in a household, meals, service, satsang, people to live with who were aware of me day to day who would have noticed something was definitely wrong with me..and in the spontaneous, humane caring that knowledge often triggered, before it was reformed by 'policy', they probably would have moved to help me. i would like to hear your reaction to this “report from the bottom layer” that you never encountered in your executive cocoon then.

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 00:11:24 (GMT) From: Rick Email: None To: janet Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

I'd love to read your post but I just can't get past the punctuation. It's very hard to read.

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 00:37:59 (GMT) From: a0aji Email: None To: Rick Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

She's on WebTV.

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 04:09:15 (GMT) From: Rick Email: None To: a0aji Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

Okay, thanks. I didn't know WebTV was like that.

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 08:44:15 (GMT) From: janet Email: None To: Rick Subject: webtv-i can do it but it takes many edits Message:

i sometimes do not get on the board what the server showed me in my proofs. i punctuate. i try to paragraph. i know html. but its all a hassle when im emotional(like just then. im= I'm). try rereading more slowly. sorry

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 17:14:01 (GMT) From: Rick Email: None To: janet Subject: webtv-i can do it but it takes many edits Message:

I did reread it. Good story... well, bad story written well but with messed up punctuation by WebTV. Corporateness sucked then and it sucks now.

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Date: Tues, Oct 24, 2000 at 23:53:20 (GMT) From: a0aji Email: and_on_anand@yahoo.com To: janet Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

Dear Janet, That's a sad story. I had my own mental health problems, including nine months in the 'bin, back in '84. Sucks to be us. :) Christopher

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 08:46:26 (GMT) From: janet Email: None To: a0aji Subject: u 2 huh....we need to take a head count Message:

find out how many of us did time behind the walls in the quiet room.

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 10:18:33 (GMT) From: Oliver Email: None To: janet Subject: u 2 huh....we need to take a head count Message:

Hi Janet, I've been there too and have mentioned it in the past in this place but now suggest to fellow travellers to think twice before doing same. It is said in my community that one in five people will at some time become mentally ill. I would hazard a guess that the proportion of premies who have had an illness would be even greater but this is not an environment that is at all safe to discuss one's experiences, IMHO. Love your posts, keep them up and damn the pedantic puntuation pundit's. Oliver.

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Date: Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 15:50:29 (GMT) From: Selene Email: None To: Oliver Subject: oliver you are hired Message:

You'd fit right in where I work with all those impressive 'p' words pedantic puntuation pundit's, portals, pedagogy, paradigm I want to check in right now. Just to get away from work!

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Date: Thurs, Oct 26, 2000 at 02:36:05 (GMT) From: Oliver Email: None To: Selene Subject: When do I start?..... Message:

....and what is the money like? Interesting that there have been no heads raised to be counted apart from us two dare devil manics. I wonder why? Maybe we have all been disempowered, (remember that one?) BTW, heard any good lawyer jokes lately?

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Date: Thurs, Oct 26, 2000 at 02:45:02 (GMT) From: Selene Email: None To: Oliver Subject: Jim and I have a truce at the moment Message:

At least I think we do. I have no problem admitting that I got fucked up and sought help. If I had gotten fucked up and NOT sought help that would be a different matter. Don't know if you saw my post way down - or inactive most likely - in response to Q. I think all in all putting oneself into the care of those facilities sucks hugely but I desperately needed the time out and do not regret it. But I doubt I'd do it again. Hopefully I won't need to.

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Date: Thurs, Oct 26, 2000 at 03:26:23 (GMT) From: Oliver Email: None To: Selene Subject: Unbelievable Message:

So I guess if Janet wonders why ex's who have had a spell in the 'quiet room' are loath to put their hands up she may be able to put 2 and 2 together. Or am I being too harsh? My recent time out in the land of the recent coup was an excellent place for time out and far preferrable to the alternative. Came back rested and refreshed and well enough to even face the rigours of F5. Silly me. :) Of course you won't do the 'quiet room' trip again. Your to smart for that. BTW, how did you manage the truce. Did you need a white flag?

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Date: Thurs, Oct 26, 2000 at 03:54:28 (GMT) From: Stonor Email: stonor21@hotmail.com To: Oliver Subject: Unbelievable (OT) Message:

Greetings Oliver, I've been wondering if I could read more of 'They are the Particles of Light, Photons, and their unobservable cousins, the Neutrinos.' © 1998 R. D. Howe Would you know how it might be possible? I've posted my email address, if there is any way. Thanks, Stonor

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Date: Tues, Oct 24, 2000 at 14:15:04 (GMT) From: Jennifer Email: garfarboleets@hotmail.com To: Michael Dettmers Subject: Speaking to Michael Message:

Michael, I want to say hello to you. I was not a premie, but my Aunt was and I was very close to her growing up. She committed suicide in the early eighties. I just wanted to tell you that I read some of your recent posts on Sir Dave's site this morning. A lot of what you had to say was very healing for me. I can't really explain it other to say that you provided some answers to things that have been the subject for speculation around here. It appears that talking here has been helpful for you, too. Personally, I understand why you aren't able to disclose certain specific facts. You have disclosed a lot of facts, IMO. I appreciate the way you have accepted responsibility for your role in things and the fact that you said you were sorry. It's completely understandable that you worked to help Maharaji considering you were his devotee! It must be very difficult emotionally for you to have spent so much of your life in the forefront of all of this, only to realize the truth later on. You were in on the action, but you are an ex and if you need support emotionally, I hope you are able to get that within the community of ex-premies. I liked what you said about not wanting to be the bought and paid for apologist. I think it's important that you aren't. Anyway, thanks and I'll see you around. Sincerely, Jennifer

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Date: Tues, Oct 24, 2000 at 14:12:58 (GMT) From: Katie Email: None To: Michael Dettmers Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

Thanks, Michael, for all the clarifications. I should add that I think Sophia was 20 when she wrote that book. She's about the same age as I am, and was another 'teenage premie', although she was far more mature than I was at the same age. I'm not sure how old you are, Michael, but the point I'm trying to make, although not to you particularly, is that we were ALL young back then. Brian knew Bob Mishler, and even Bob was young back then :). I take responsibility for the mistakes I did when I was younger, but one of the things I've learned as I grow older is to extend to my younger self the same acceptance I extend to other people who are that age now. (I work with college students and sometimes they seem SO young! I'm sure I seemed the same way at that age, but sometimes it's hard to remember.) Take care, Katie

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Date: Tues, Oct 24, 2000 at 13:30:49 (GMT) From: EddyTheTurtle Email: None To: Michael Dettmers Subject: Bob Mischler, Sophia Collier, et al Message:

No I dont know you, but I have met Bob M few times. He struck me as being an honest guy. All I can say is that something very dramatic happened to DLM/Elan Vital in the late 70's mid 80's. It is very unusual and tangential. DLM took a round about turn in everything. What your contribution was, I dont know, only you know. But I am certain, these lawyers/accountants saw a great cash cow to milk. I am also certain that M fell for the bait and became a prisoner of this inner circle of outsiders. MAy I ask you somthing? Did M deal directly with/take advice from these guys, or was it always thro and in the company of premies like you?.

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