Post describing Beverly O'Mahony's 1985 lawsuit against Adi Da Sawmraj (Da Free John) and several of his devotees in Adidam
Posted by Former Daist in 2003
Beverly O’Mahony’s lawsuit was what kicked off all of the media coverage in 1985, but it did not contribute in any significant way to the information about Adi Da’s hidden life that eventually came out. To the best of my knowledge, Beverly did not personally have anything particularly shocking happen to her in the Adidam community. From what she told me her experiences there were for the most part not much different than what the typical Adidam member living in Marin county went through.
However, anyone who reads the newspaper articles from 1985 can see that Beverly was just one person among a large group that spoke to the media at that time, a large group that concluded Adi Da and Adidam were seriously messed up. Many of the other people did have direct personal experiences with Adi Da that were downright despicable, and some of these were at least briefly described to the media.
I know a little bit about Beverly O’Mahony’s lawsuit because I was a member of the community from the late 70’s to the mid 80’s. I knew Beverly and almost all of the people who talked to the newspapers, the so-called dissident group, which wasn’t an actual group by the way. I spoke to many of these people frequently during the time period when all the stories hit. In fact, Douglas Rosestone asked me if I wanted to be interviewed as well. I didn’t do it because I didn’t have anything special to say. All I did was serve my butt off and live in poverty like everyone else in Marin did. I never got to see Adi Da except on formal occasions and celebrations and never went to any of the parties.
I think Beverly was actually surprised by how much coverage her story got and the way it was portrayed. She told me that she wished that other people who had really bad things happen to them would have taken more of the spotlight. She wished there was a way that the coverage could have focused more on Adi Da’s interaction with his inner circle, and she was not a member of that circle. The inner circle was the group of people very close to Adi Da who were trusted to see and participate in the more bizarre activities, and then were expected to keep everything secret from regular devotees and the public.
Regardless, Beverly did know a lot of the dirt about what was going on back then. She knew some of the women in the inner circle and Adi Da’s wives and would get information from her ex-husband Brian O'Mahony who was CEO of Adidam (then called JDC). She told me that in Hawaii and I also think in Fiji Adi Da was scripting nightly sex shows where he pushed people to do all kinds of sexual things to each other and to him, and that women were getting injured with dildos and also by him hitting or throwing them around. I think it was Tripura whose neck Adi Da injured through physical violence, and Beverly’s husband Brian told her he was extremely shocked by it. The inner circle closed ranks and convinced Brian to just accept it, maybe with some explanation of how it was a Divine Lila of the Master’s Play that none of them could really understand. That seems to have been a standard explanation for just about everything that Adi Da did, that and the fact that his actions were crazy wisdom.
I do know that people like Neil Lupa were saying that Beverly’s lawyer David Cunningham was lazy and didn’t want to do his homework on a legal basis, and that the lawsuit was sloppy and was going to have to be completely rewritten. There was supposedly some problem with the statute of limitations running out and a number of other legal technicalities that Neil was going to tell her lawyer how to solve. The lawsuit was said to be more of a narrative than a proper legal document. Sal Lucania told me that by the time that Beverly’s lawyer was going to re-do the legal document, the community already told Beverly they were going to settle so it didn’t matter anyway. I don’t think Beverly’s lawyer ever re-wrote the lawsuit, and Beverly did get settlement money paid to her so of course she didn't care.
My impression was that none of the “dissidents,” as they were called, liked Beverly O’Mahony’s lawyer or her lawsuit very well. Still, they were happy that it gave them the opportunity to expose the hidden life and abuses of Adi Da. So, people gave legal declarations and went on TV shows. There were a lot of people involved in the discussions of Adi Da’s abuses, and people like me were supportive of what they did. Before that time, everyone blindly accepted the idea that Adi Da did everything for the sake of devotees, and not for his own benefit. It seems crazy that we believed it, but we did.
If you look at the actual content of Beverly’s lawsuit, the only parts of it that are very relevant or useful in my opinion are the declarations from Andrew Parker and Patricia Masters (Duff). Those tell the bigger story about Adi Da’s financial abuses.
There were other lawsuits that were settled out of court during that time which ex-devotees seemed to think were more solid. I know Mark Miller and Heather Lupa counter-sued Adi Da after Adidam sued them and tried to scare them out of talking to the media any more. (I’m not sure if Heather actually filed the suit before it got settled). A lot of money was paid out by Adidam. So, if you look at the whole picture, Beverly’s lawsuit was just one of the many events that happened in 1985, and her own particular story wasn’t terribly interesting to any of us who knew what really went on in Adidam.
I met a number of people during those times who didn’t sue anyone or talk to the media, but whose lives were messed up by the group. Mostly they just faded away from the community and had to heal on their own. A lot of people got hurt by Adi Da and were left as what Heather Lupa called “damaged goods.” There were a lot of very sincere and loving people who were taken advantage of by Adi Da and the higher-ups in Adidam, who tended to be a bunch of ruthless sharks.
We talked to several women who were traumatized by Adi Da personally and gave their stories anonymously to the media, and I wish they would have had the full details of those abuses come out more fully, because the community probably would have been investigated or shut down. The women were extremely upset about what they went through, to say the least.
I actually left Adidam before all the news came out, for other reasons. I had grown tired of the rat race our lives had turned into in the community, and the lack of any sense that people were maturing spiritually. Everyone was always rushing from one place to another, up to the Sanctuary in Lake County on the weekends and back, and sometimes up and back during week nights. It was more than a 2 hour drive each way, and there were times I worked my regular job in Marin during the day, then drove up to work all night at the Sanctuary and came back to work in Marin the next morning. It was very unsafe but Adi Da didn’t seem to care. I lives were more about doing work for Adi Da and the community than doing spiritual practice.
After five years in the community it started to get old and was just wearing us down. People were not happy, despite what they might say in sadhana groups. Many people lied about their practice so they would be able to sit with Adi Da on celebrations . There were some people who would do anything to gain status within the group and climb the hierarchy so they would be acknowledged as belonging to a higher stage of spiritual development than us mere sheep. I remember Larry Hastings bragging about how he systematically lied in interviews about not breaking the conditions so he could sit with the Master.
The inference was that this was a sign of his deep devotion, and an indication that he knew what the “practice” was really about, which was contact with Adi Da.
No one had any money saved because they gave it all so that Adi Da could build his properties, fund his parties, and create his empire. It was a very unhappy and unsatisfying lifestyle and I decided that it just wasn’t leading anywhere I wanted to go. I decided to explore spirituality without a Guru. In the beginning I had a lot of guilt about this, because my friends who were still in the community told me I was just being conventional and didn’t want to practice, that I was abandoning the Master, and would “go to zero” once I was out in “the world,” like the Master said. However, I have learned there is also God outside the community, and in hindsight understand that what they called practice was actually just hero worship.
The early teachings of Adi Da, then called Franklin Jones, were very interesting and communicated some great ideas. The teacher himself and the community he gathered around him just didn't practice what they preached.