AN OPEN LETTER TO THOSE INVOLVED WITH DA FREE JOHN (now Adi Da Samraj) AND THE JOHANNINE DAIST COMMUNION (now Adidam) FROM MARK MILLER
May 25, 1985
Dear Friends,
This letter comes to you from someone who no longer associates with The Johannine Daist Communion (JDC), the community of Da Free John (DFJ). Of late, my friends and I have been labeled "dissidents," and worse, by JDC's leadership. While reading this letter it would be helpful if you could simply consider me an old friend.
I had intended to write to you long before the lawsuits and media circus began. In fact, the prospect of presenting the ideas contained in this letter is what inspired me to speak out in the first place. Please permit yourself the clear space to receive these thoughts and feelings in order to work with them as completely as possible. Given the current situation, I understand that this will not be easy for you. It certainly has been a disturbing process for me as well. However, I have been overwhelmed by the weight of my observations and feel duty bound to share them with you.
This letter is not intended to serve as the last word on DFJ or the JDC. Nor is it written to prove or establish a particular point of view. Instead, I hope that it will create a balance to the information you have received from JDC, and act as a springboard from which you may begin a long overdue reappraisal of your own feelings and presumptions. Many of you are mired in a way of life which, for myself and many other ex-members, was neither happy nor enlightening, but instead offered little more than tedium, suppression, exclusivity and debilitating dependency.
Of late, JDC has required all of you to believe that certain exmembers, as dissidents, are bad simply because criticism of DFJ and JDC is not now and never has been permitted. These people have been described as vindictive, crazy, or liars, and some have been termed "extortionists" and "conspirators." Apparently it is unthinkable to JDC that anyone could sincerely believe (or know) that the allegations directed at DFJ are true. But given a history of intense involvement with DFJ, do you really believe that ex-members would turn around and speak this way unless they really felt that something was wrong? From JDC's narrow point of view, one would have to be fallen, dark, and just plain wrong to criticize their guru. I implore you to remain open to the possibility that your old friends are none of the above.
The author of this letter has over the past year spoken with approximately 40 exmembers who have uniquely personal and varied perceptions of DFJ and JDC. Among these people are a number of former high-ranking JDC officials and board of directors members, as well as personal and sexual intimates of DFJ. Thus the information related to the media and which appears in this letter is not based on hearsay, but on firsthand accounts, impressions, and observations by those who have had close contact with DFJ and JDC throughout the years 1968-1984. These people are honest and intelligent, have serious and sincere motives, and are each acting and speaking out of deep and personal conviction.
They are all united in the belief that accurate information, dialogue, real consideration and anything remotely like discrimination have never been offered or encouraged by DFJ or JDC. Therefore, they would like to see a free, full, and honest discussion occur. Such a discussion would benefit everyone, except for those who desire only the maintenance of their status and claim. Everyone, especially the "rank and file" JDC membership, must be set free in order to find their own true way through this controversy.
It is obvious however that as long as exmember dissidents are seen as negative, dark, angry, unspiritual "others" and you in JDC remain the righteous, holy lovers of god, unjustly criticized, god's army fighting off the heathen masses and demonic media -- as long as this contrived dichotomy persists there can be no clarity. If you are seriously interested in discovering the truth, you must not allow the white knight or defender of the faith within you to be manipulated. Do not permit the JDC leadership to call you to a false, childish, and simplistic understanding of this controversy. It is a complex, personal and deeply emotional matter that cannot be resolved or dismissed through name-calling and character assassination. What does the character defamation that JDC has chosen to involve itself and many of you in have to do with your avowed practice of "blessing all others?" This matter cannot be reduced to a battle between good and evil.
So, the first assumption that we would all do well to be relieved of is the sense of one side being inherently right and the other side being inherently wrong. In letting go of this basic assumption, please understand that the people you call dissidents did not create your negative media. They did not write those headlines. One woman, feeling badly hurt and mistreated, filed a lawsuit. One curious Marin investigative reporter happened to stumble upon this suit in the County Courthouse and decided to write a story. That is how all this began. Sorry, but there was no backroom conspiracy, no scheme to do anything horrible, none of the fine drama you have been led to believe.
JDC has claimed that Beverly O'Mahony's lawsuit against them consists of fabrications and exaggerations and "was designed specifically for media consumption." To all but the most deeply biased and misinformed observers, this would more accurately describe the lawsuit which JDC has filed. Beverly's lawsuit was quietly filed in Marin County on March 4th, without press releases or media contact of any kind. If her suit really had been designed for the media, why would she and her lawyer have gone to all the trouble to prepare a 33 page lawsuit, and then leave it to chance that some reporter would dig it up on his own three weeks later?
Contrast this with the lawsuit filed by JDC, which was delivered along with a highly inflammatory press release directly to every newspaper covering the story. Reporters were already working away on their stories about the JDC lawsuit before anyone being sued ever even heard about it. The lawsuit is replete with sensationalized statements, many of which are pure fiction, and others which result from statements that have been placed in a context which entirely reverses their true meaning. The suit also asks for $20 million dollars. If this number was not designed to attract media attention, then what was it for? Given the fact that the defendants are worth closer to $20,000 than $20 million, the answer should be obvious.
The lawsuit also contains statements about individuals which, even if true, would not constitute anything other than descriptions of people fulfilling their rights and duties as citizens. Exmembers are made to be seen as involved in some kind of dark conspiracy. But a conspiracy to do what? Libel or slander are not even listed among JDC's claims, perhaps because people have only spoken the truth, and we all know that truth is a defense against defamation. So what is going on here? This suit is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate and silence those speaking out, to scare away others from talking, and to divert the attention of everyone away from the real issues involving DFJ.
Instead of encouraging an open discussion, JDC has used the same tactics that any political organization would use. They have created a cause for you to rally around and feel emotionally committed to and identified with, so that you won't stare the accusations against DFJ straight in the eye. They would rather hook you into a fight to protect "the right to freely practice religion," a right which they claim ex-members have tried to deprive you of. But in what way has anyone actually done this?
Let's take a little closer look at the constitutional protections afforded to religions such as the JDC. The right to believe whatever you want is protected absolutely. However, the right to do whatever you want is not afforded the same absolute protection at all. Many of the things which DFJ has been accused of do not fall into the category of actions which are protected. Additionally, is it not reasonable as a common citizen to ask why people who have been involved in illegal activities should be granted the privilege of taxexempt religious status, as claimed by JDC? And if, in fact, abuses of people have occurred (through actions which are commonly recognized as abuses in our society) shouldn't the victims have a right to address them in all the forums available? How then does this amount to an attack on religious freedom?
JDC has also called the recent activities of exmembers "extortion." However, the author of this letter has been advised by attorneys that extortion means a threat that if certain actions are not performed, such as the payment of money, then other activities, usually designed to harm the extorted party, would follow. No such threat was ever made. Offers for settlement prior to the filing of a lawsuit for alleged acts recognized as causes of action under the law were made in formal settings between attorneys for both exmembers and JDC. This is not extortion, but a legitimate first step as allowed in every citizen's constitutionally protected right to petition for redress of wrongs through the legal process. It was always made clear that monetary settlement, or lack thereof, had no bearing whatsoever on other constitutionally protected actions which might be taken. The right to freely speak the truth and express legitimate opinions to anyone, including governmental agencies, the media, and other individuals is protected under the First Amendment. Any indication ex-members have made that they might do these things does not represent the violation of any law. This is also true for any other person, speaking either for or against JDC.
The months which preceded the filing of the lawsuits were filled with unsuccessful attempts by two exmembers to gain the ear of DFJ and JDC in order to sort through a variety of unresolved hurts and contradictions. Seeing that JDC had no real interest in assisting anything like an honest healing, others became stirred as to their own disgust and frustration with JDC's haughty spiritual claims on the one hand, and its longstanding record of contemptuous treatment of its membership on the other (once again in evidence in the treatment of these two ex-members). You should know that as far back as early last November, JDC officials began to make threats against some of those merely suspected of being "dissidents" (and they have continued such behavior even during the current month).
Thus, when the media came looking for people to speak with, many were ready to express their own true and heartfelt feelings. This is honestly the way things developed. You should know that ex-members were pursued and misquoted by the press just as much as JDC was. At times their statements were not presented in the proper balance so as to form an adequate description of the whole picture of life in JDC. Everyone was just as shocked to read the headlines as you were, and would have preferred that the media undertake a more serious and complete discussion regarding DFJ and JDC, such as this letter attempts. However, many of the issues which have been expressed in the media are real ones, and the events described (other than a few mistakes by reporters) did in fact occur. In its better moments, the media has at least provided the service of creating an awareness in the general public and all of you about events whose occurrence DFJ and JDC had refused to admit. They have also provided a forum in which these events could be described and interpreted in ways that DFJ and JDC have never encouraged or even allowed.
So let's get real and cut out the saber rattling and war cries. Those of you who are mindlessly involved in advocating the point of view of DFJ would benefit from pausing long enough to recall that, in truth, there is no fixed position to defend. What is needed is a release from positions, assumptions and battleready defenses so that each person can discover for him or herself just how they feel and are related to DFJ and JDC, as well as to the call to reflection and reappraisal which this letter suggests. The difficulty for many of you is that it has been so long since you entered into an examination other than one created for you by DFJ and JDC that to do so on your own and to examine the authorities themselves is a very difficult task indeed. And yet it must be done if there is to be any clarity or passage through this controversy.
All I ask then is that this process of unfettered examination be permitted and actually encouraged by JDC. Ask yourself how it is that you are now "advocates," burdened by belief and fixed presumptions. Why hasn't DFJ and JDC welcomed and seen the necessity for an open airing of issues? Why have you all been programmed and educated by the JDC propagandists on their way to whitewashing the so-called "JDC sacred history?" How does spiritual practice properly lead to all this manipulation and defense? Who and what is requiring that you become politicized rather than clear? And how well do you really understand that which you are being called upon to defend?
I invite you to regain the discrimination and inquisitiveness many of you have unconsciously chosen to relinquish in order to associate with DFJ and the myth he has drawn you into (both as to who he is and the necessity of turning to him for your liberation). If we assume for the moment that DFJ began his teaching work by speaking to our desire for liberation, apart from excess dogmatic baggage and entanglements, it is evident that he has now moved on and is at work merely cultivating in his students a yearning for salvation in a system where only he can do the saving.
It is on this basis that his devotees have all too often been reduced to drones and believers. Many have become willing to give up everything, including their self respect, integrity and honesty in order to climb up the shaky ladder of stages of practice (which are constantly being manipulated and redefined) in order to gain access to DFJ, the carrot held out in front of their noses. And if we accept that DFJ's writings carry a credible message, they do so only insofar as they release the reader into his or her own inherent sense of being and truth, free of the game of the search. It appears impossible for this to occur in the midst of all the medieval, dogmatic, exclusive, ritualized form beneath which direct, unmediated truth has been buried by DFJ and JDC. After all these years, where is the real evidence that any type of spiritual process is uniquely occurring within your community? People are just growing older. The greatness of god has been subordinated to the glory of DFJ and his hierarchical empire. Needing to be nurtured and fathered, and being naive as to true spiritual culture and to the game of spiritual authority, most of us never even noticed the light go out.
This is a large part of what ex-members are trying to address. You are part of a highly ambitious and politicized "machine of seeking" where you no longer own your own perceptions. Ideological dogma coupled with the edited information of the group dominates and molds your life. You are required to adapt to a complex, sophisticated technology of mind and emotion, through which you understand yourself and upon which you view the world; it is a hierarchical scheme with DFJ as the head, reigning above and beyond the world of man, as external savior or father. We have all been too much in need of an external mediator to serve the participation in and awareness of our own true condition. We must grow beyond the childish and incapacitating dependency bonds which are everywhere propagated by DFJ and JDC.
In many ex-members' experience, the first doubts and questions about their lives as devotees centered around the observations they had regarding the community and institution of JDC. But they found it much harder to take the obvious next step and look directly at DFJ, the source and creator of every aspect of the "culture," institutional structure, and spiritual life of those in JDC. These ex-members, like many of you, dared not break the great taboo of seriously questioning or doubting DFJ; either their comparative lack of in-depth or prolonged personal experience with him or their incapacity to break through the indoctrination prevented them from seeing him clearly. But finally, in the face of what is now obvious, their relationship to the mythology and imagery which is DFJ has broken down. These people have discovered the man Franklin Jones, and now know that the emperor wears no clothes.
At this point it would be good to examine the specific activities of DFJ that many people are concerned about. Some of the information recently brought to light will be recounted here for those who are unfamiliar with what has been said, or for those who have been confused and distracted by JDC. In order to avoid sensationalism and out of respect for those involved, I have not included names nor great detail regarding the incidents cited. You might ask DFJ or others involved for such details, or review the various TV and newspaper presentations which have, and will continue to cover the JDC controversy.
To begin with, DFJ has historically had control over the finances, properties, and other assets of JDC as if he personally and solely owned JDC, in stark contrast to the purposes and laws governing nonprofit religious organizations. He has personally made all key decisions and has gratified his every whim, caring not for the financial strains he has placed on others. There are serious questions regarding whether DFJ has over the years abused the taxexempt status of the JDC corporation for his own personal gain. Perhaps this is why JDC officials in the past few years have strategically destroyed documents that tended to reveal that DFJ was actually running the show.
DFJ has always demanded that people go beyond themselves to give him more money than they could afford, and then has spent the money on whatever he wanted to create or consume in that moment. Like a child, he has demanded the immediate gratification of his material desires, and then has often abandoned what he has been given in search of a new and more expensive toy. Manner of Flowers, his extravagant but rarely used personal home in Lake County, California is certainly a case in point. In private, DFJ has laughed at those who have shown any concern about his financial exploitation of others. This is purportedly an example of the fact that DFJ is free of conventional morality.
While speaking against drugs and alcohol in his literature, DFJ has himself used many drugs during his years with devotees, including marijuana, hashish, peyote, psilocybin, nitrous oxide, LSD, other exotic hallucinogens more powerful than LSD, and most consistently, amyl nitrate. Did this all occur during the period of time erroneously labeled "the teaching demonstration" in 1976? Absolutely not. And DFJ has at times used drugs and alcohol to the extent of creating serious health concerns for himself. His drug and alcohol usage has continued into the 1980's.
The drug which appears to be DFJ's favorite is amyl nitrate. This fact raises some interesting questions. If, as DFJ claims, he is a tantric master, who practices the transcendence of orgasm, why does he take amyl nitrate during sexual encounters? Amyl nitrate, for those unaware, is a drug which is used to intensify orgasm.
Also, DFJ has consistently failed to live the dietary disciplines that he has both espoused in his literature and required of others. There are brief periods when it appears he has lived the diet he recommends, but for the majority of the time he has not. This includes both recent years, and times past. DFJ has been a fan of junk food, meat, cigarettes, champagne, beer, liquor, caviar and fancy foods. Do you really believe him when he says his body looks the way it does because he conducts the life force through his navel?
DFJ has also physically beaten devotees, including his wives, to the point of causing significant physical harm to the victims and/or himself. These beatings have occurred within a time span which includes the 1980's.
DFJ has participated in and required others to perform in sexual and related acts of a highly degrading and demeaning nature which have caused psychological and/or physical damage to those participating. JDC has recently admitted to examples of these types of activity, which many people believe are a reflection of the perversion of DFJ, rather than anything like enlightened spiritual instruction. DFJ also has a particularly destructive habit of having sex with other men's wives when married couples have come to serve him at his hermitage. Is this a proper way to treat people who look to you for spiritual guidance? These sexual excesses of DFJ are not a thing of the distant past. In fact, each of the things which have been described in this paragraph has occurred in the 1980s. And it is the firm belief of many people that the inordinate amount of time and attention DFJ spends on sexuality reflects nothing more than his own obsession and desires.
The vast discrepancy between what DFJ claims and says, versus what he does and intends must be thoroughly examined and understood before one can make an informed response to the man. What should be clear to everyone is that no one in JDC is given the opportunity to cast the light directly on DFJ. Why is he so estranged and hidden from you, really? Apart from your childlike fantasies and subtle beliefs about who he is and how he works, how much and how privately have you observed him and then tested your observations? The fact is, apart from what you have read and are told, intermixed with a variety of contacts with DFJ years ago, most of you know very little about your teacher. You have therefore been called to relate to only the most superficial imagery about who DFJ is, and at the same time you have become steeped in an officially prescribed method for relating to him which permits only subservience and fawning devotion. And those of you who have been close to him should ask yourselves to what degree you own hopes, needs, and selfgenerated projections and expectations, coupled with the mythology about how DFJ's unconventional behavior has been designed to teach you, has colored your perceptions of him. Ex-members know from their own experience that many of you are paying a heavy price in terms of emotional suppression, confusion, and selfdelusion in order to maintain the false conclusion that you have actually been served by this "crazy wise" madness.
Another disturbing matter regarding DFJ is the ritual of secrecy and deception surrounding him. Some of the things described about DFJ's life would not in themselves be worthy of any real concern if they did not stand in complete contradiction to an idealized image which has been used to exploit the people who have supported the whole affair. For years, many of you have been told that DFJ's abusive behavior, undertaken in order to teach people, ended after a brief period in 1976. He then allegedly became involved in a life of prayer, spiritual discipline, contemplation and renunciation. It was on the basis of this lie that so many accepted the notion that his past behavior was in fact a "teaching demonstration," and went on to give their lives, minds, hearts, and money to this man. However, upon discovering this deception, many were understandably outraged. According to recent statements by JDC to the press, all of you have been lied to because you are not spiritually mature enough to hear the truth. However, you are most certainly spiritually advanced enough to surrender you life, money, and trust in order to provide a life of luxury and delusion for DFJ, his nine wives, and those closest to him. What kind of logic is this? What utter arrogance and contempt! The obnoxious nature of this deception is surpassed only by the fact that when it could no longer be maintained, DFJ had the nerve to blame others in JDC for creating it.
You may ask yourself why those who know all of these secrets have always withheld them from you. But we already know the answer. How glamorous to be associated with the ultimate matter and the ultimate master! But what a conceit and what a foundation for the pursuit of power. Through the screening mechanisms of the so-called culture, only the few "mature" or committed members are given access to DFJ based upon a paranoid and patriarchal mentality of obedience. The demonstrated signs of your "maturity" (i.e. submission and obedience) gauge the level of your status and regulated, controlled access to events, places and people on the political (not spiritual but political) pecking order. Only people who are trustable (sufficiently indoctrinated) are allowed to get a glimpse of the "crazy wise man" up close, otherwise the truth might leak out.
It would also be worthwhile for you to take a critical look at what is really meant by the superficial references to the "Crazy Wisdom Tradition" concocted by the official JDC apologists on behalf of the "mad avadhoot." As if the fact that such a "tradition" really did exist for abusive activities would somehow make them legitimate. We already have "traditions" for war, tyranny, racism, and the subjugation of women. Must we now add crazy wisdom to the list? The attempt to lend spiritual legitimacy to DFJ's aberrated, unloving, and destructive behavior is a travesty. His character flaws bear no relationship to Nityananda's nakedness in the public square. Do you really believe that DFJ's particular form of emotional and sexual exploitation has any precedent in the annals of legitimate spirituality? No one I have talked to has been able to find any historical accounts of a genuine spiritual master who has acted this way.
Many exmembers no longer accept the guiltridden pap that it is the immaturity of his devotees which is killing DFJ, when they know that it is much more surely his own chronically abusive and toxifying life habits which threaten the man. DFJ's behavior is a reflection of his own character and motivations, just like everyone else's, and he should rightfully take responsibility for the problems his shortcomings have created in his own life and the lives of others. He is anything but free of ego. He has his own strengths and weaknesses. Yet through the process of indoctrination and manipulation, coupled with the weaknesses of those around him, he has been successful at keeping himself invulnerable and unquestioned. In so doing, he has become afflicted in all the ways that any man would be corrupted and deluded by excessive power and isolation from critical feedback. He has also thus imprisoned himself within the expectations he created in others and the torment of pretending to be something he is not. Faced with such a creation, it is no accident that DFJ began to create a peculiar ideology in which he described himself as a crazy wise avadhoot. In this way he has allowed himself a safety valve wherein his aberrations could coincide with his purported divinity. Otherwise, he would have exploded long ago from the psychological pressure of attempting to appear to be a superior spiritual being.
On top of all of this, DFJ has also chosen to physically separate himself to insure the maintenance of this myth of his superiority. He has simply taken whatever he wanted and gone off to create his own little fantasy kingdom, apart from his friends and devotees, who have provided him with everything, and apart from a "world" that he has never been able to deal with, and from which he has always tried to escape. People no longer accept that if you give him everything, you will receive everything in return, for it is obvious that in his plan, only he will have and be "everything." Is this not the epitome of Narcissus?
Nor is it any longer accepted that "the world" is a terrible place full of terrible people, and that spiritual life ends when one leaves JDC. People now know better than to become ensnared in the tentacles of this argument. And where there was only one worthy of love and respect, all others became unworthy and worthless. This is what happened in JDC, for as we were all divested of our own self worth and simultaneously invested in DFJ, we were rendered nothing rather than nothing. Can you feel this? We have all (current and exmembers), along with DFJ, cooperated in constructing this insane empire. It is a classic and perverted play on what might have been. And it is nothing like what most of us signed up for or thought we were choosing. But so long as you are exposed to the system which life in JDC represents, there is no space within which to understand this and be set free.
We are all now painfully aware of the pitfalls of anyone presuming that he or she is somehow responsible for the life process of lesser souls. Please do not state that DFJ says this or that about not being able to relieve anyone of their responsibility in and for life. He says everything and in so doing says nothing. One is only left with confusion and disorientation if one seriously contemplates all of the contradictions and paradoxes of DFJ represented in the mass of literature and descriptions of practice which have been espoused at one time or another by him. And since all experiences, relations, and your independent reactions are systematically criticized, DFJ becomes your sole and ultimate point of reference and support system. Even those responsible for communicating the teaching to the membership over the years admitted they had no idea what the teaching really was or what the practice really was. All that could ultimately be recommended was to somehow "turn to the master and do exactly what he has asked." And it is on that basis that what DFJ has created is essentially a cult of personality.
It is also on that basis that those who serve critical functions in your culture adapt to a profoundly dependent form of relating to DFJ and a resulting righteous, exclusive, selfglorifying, self protective and politically charged life of service. You are all aware of the institutional mentality of those who lead you at JDC. They are part of a machine and priesthood of aberrated spiritual seeking and corruption, an exclusive club, reigning in association with the enlightened source or "goodie" who is offered as a reward to those giving over their center, discrimination, and direct unmediated ability to live the truth of their own condition. In this process many of you have lost yourselves, your power and your way. And for DFJ to hide behind a claim of blamelessness and divinity while placing all the blame on the immaturity of his devotees, those very people who depend on him for their spiritual guidance, is not only irresponsible and cowardly, but the perfect vision of a perfectly narcissistic megalomaniac. Surely there was a time before you came to JDC where you could have simply recognized this to be so.
But can you now? It is so hard from where you are. I know, for it has taken many people years, even after leaving JDC, to wake up from the sleep which had settled into every corner of their mind's eye. Although discrimination is spoken about in the teaching, it is nowhere present in the lives of devotees. Many of you have, through nonuse, lost your own personal, instinctual feeling for life, having been conditioned to believe that it represents recoil from the divine. You have become good at obeying without reflection. Your blank agreement is applauded as equanimity and the transcendence of reactivity.
Those who are in the JDC hierarchy have the most to lose. And they are among the most corrupt and in need of help. These people are relieved of the ordinary responsibilities of life and live instead a bizarre fantasy life. To do the bidding of their teacher they have become proficient at selectively withholding and releasing edited information, and have made the poor choice of abandoning their native sense of human decency in exchange for power and prestige.
Many of these same people are the most seriously ambitious in their "search." It is as if they have not yet adapted to the rudiments of the practice as it relates to the search and yet are influential simply because they are submitted. Having made such a heavy investment of time and energy in gaining their status and position, they are now banking on their personal relationship with DFJ to save them. In this way there is a tremendous amount of manipulation around the poles of hope and fear. You spin and turn but rarely find a seat from which to observe the play. The ideology and belief that you are blessed with the ultimate truth and the mahasiddha fuels the madness. The shocking news that thousands of people see this master of yours as a tyrannical and deluded power broker never quite reaches your ears or cannot penetrate your rehearsed belief.
When finally pressed up against this blunt observation from "the world" outside, you hold up the teaching like a crucifix to stave off the heathen hordes. You retreat into the certainty that nothing like "the teaching" could ever have been written by a charlatan. But many believe that DFJ's, or anyone else's ability to artfully synthesize, categorize, and recapitulate ideas and insights does not bear any necessary relation to spiritual realization and maturity. Aside from his particular style of presentation and arrangement of things, there is nothing uniquely described in DFJ's literature that does not appear elsewhere. And through his familiarity with literally thousands of volumes of spiritual writings, he has borrowed from or been heavily influenced by numerous others to whom he has given no credit at all. The fact that he has been able to articulate the free and transcendent relationship to life that we all instinctively feel in moments, coupled with the fact that he writes and speaks about many things which are beyond the realm of your personal experience, is offered as proof that he is spiritually superior to you.
Many of you have apparently forgotten the simple truth that actions speak louder than words, and that insights which are not practiced are meaningless, if not dangerous. Your distraction with a complexity of abstractions and a sophisticated, prepackaged context within which to interpret everything has left you incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.
"By their fruits shall ye know them", said one spiritual teacher nearly 2,000 years ago. And it is on this basis that each one of us must draw our own conclusions regarding the spiritual status of Da Free John.
I am so glad to no longer be where many of you are, and I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you why. In many respects it would have been far easier to write this entire matter off as just another set of experiences. But I have felt too much passion and serious caring to have made that choice.
Should any of you meander out beyond the fences and psychological barriers of JDC, you will find that there is unavoidably only god outside your temple walls. Your spiritual life may change in form, but it will continue. And there are many people who have been through what you have experienced and can thus offer help. Many have needed and received support in order to make the critical transition back to a measure of self-respectability.
Therefore, many exmembers are happy to offer support to anyone wanting to climb out from beneath the astral fog. They are not however in the recruiting business, and are not any type of organization dedicated to any purpose; merely a number of old friends willing to lend a hand. Please understand that I do not want to debate or confront any of you. The consideration this letter hopefully sparks in you should primarily occur amongst yourselves, including DFJ personally, the so-called "renunciate order," and the entire JDC hierarchy. On the other hand, should you ever wish to communicate about anything discussed here, in confidence or otherwise, I would welcome your letters. I can also direct you to books and to other people who can assist during the initial period of reorientation to what can be an ordinary pleasurable life, free of exaggerated dependency, concern for spiritual attainment, and the ensnaring arguments for living in submission to someone who controls your root fiber but does not love you.
It would have been preferable for all of you to have done the work of provoking this discussion. But I understand why this could not be so and trust that you will soon recognize the benefits which will ultimately come from what has been started. If in the end there is a bit more openness and honesty in JDC, a degree of selfcritical inspection, or a drop less arrogance and exclusivity on the part of Da Free John, we will have all been served. I wish you well and look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Mark Miller