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Driving with the Brakes On

Those of you who have met me, in person or on the phone, know that I’ve struggled with speaking fluidly, freely, and easily, often with a strained or stuttering voice.

Today it became clear how the Universe has been sending me messages (or reflections)—on three occasions (that I’m aware of)—over the past few months. I might have finally heard them.

I took my car into the shop today because what had started a week ago as a squeak had turned into a rumbling vibration when I drove with normal speed. My fuel usage had increased markedly. A few months ago I’d had a similar squeak, and a few months before that as well. In the first two instances, and again today, the diagnosis was, “Your brake caliper is seized and has destroyed the pads and rotor as well.” The past two times, it affected a single wheel. Today was not one, but two.

I asked the service advisor, “Why does this keep happening?” Tonight, it dawned on me, “Wait a minute… there’s a parallel here… am I driving my life with my brakes on?”
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20th Anniversary of My Heaven’s Gate Departure

August 31, 2013, was the 20th anniversary of my departure from the Heaven’s Gate cult. That anniversary was about eleven months ago. Below is the journal entry that I shared with my brothers on that day.

I realize there may be contextual factors of life in the Heaven’s Gate cult that aren’t clear from this account since it’s a snapshot of my time there. If so, I apologize. If you do have questions, I’m sure some of them will be answered in subsequent blog posts. Or you might have to wait for my book to come out. Please feel free to leave your comments and questions below.

 
Today was the 20th anniversary of my departure from the Heaven’s Gate group (cult, classroom, commune). It was 20 years ago today—on August 31, 1993—that I was driven to the airport in San Diego and I boarded a plane for Calgary (with a plane change at LAX). I remember two fellow group members, Srrody (pronounced “Sirr-ody”—Terry Stephen McCarter) and Swyody (pronounced “Soy-ody”—he now goes by Sawyer), sitting with me at the San Diego airport in the departure lounge. (It was pre-2001 of course—remember when you could see your friends and family off in the departure lounge?)

They sat reading their personal notes, I suppose from a recent meeting with Do (Dō, the remaining leader of the cult), while I sat anticipating the transition I was about to undertake. Srrody seemed almost smug as if he knew without a doubt that he was going to “Heaven” while I was going to “Hell”. But that didn’t dampen my resolve to leave. I was glad for him that he was so sure of what he needed to do. I felt just as sure of what I needed to do. I was sure of my decision to leave the group, or put another way, I was sure it was no longer right for me to stay in the group, although I recall having mixed emotions about what was next for me.

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Relationships

Preamble

With this post, I’m breaking from chronological order in the cult saga, but this is what’s coming up for me now, so I’m writing about it.

Let me also cut to the chase here and explicitly reveal the name of the cult for anyone who may not be familiar with it. I was a member of what the news media eventually called the “Heaven’s Gate” cult. As mentioned in previous blog posts, the focus of the cult was to embark on a “classroom” experience, likened to an astronaut training program, as preparation—according to the cult leaders—to graduate into “the real physical level above human” or the “Next Level”.

In March 1997, the cult made international news headlines due to the unfortunate event in which all remaining 39 members committed group suicide in San Diego, California. That was three and a half years after I left the cult. I knew most of the people who died. In future posts, I will write more about that and its effect on me.

Elizabeth

For now, I’m at a crossroad, a next step in my life. I’m about to divorce Elizabeth, my wife of nine years, the last year or more apart.

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What is My Business?

Why would I join a cult? Why would I willingly embark on a life-path of giving others power over how I lived my life every day? How do I make sense of my choices day after day to relinquish my freedom of thought to someone else? Maybe these are your questions; they have been mine since leaving the cult.

When I joined the cult in 1975, I was an idealistic, somewhat naïve 21-year-old young man. I joined after attending a meeting at which the two leaders spoke. At the time, the group was not known in the press, and cults were not in the public eye. The two leaders, a man and a woman, shared a message unlike anything I had ever heard. They talked about preparing to ascend to the “level of existence above human”. Their teaching involved assisting any who cared to join them in undergoing a process they called “human individual metamorphosis” (HIM) in preparation for ascension. This process would involve leaving behind our human lives and devoting all of our focus and energy to preparing ourselves to “graduate” into this “next evolutionary level of existence above human” or “next level”. They likened this process to the chrysalis stage a caterpillar undergoes to become a butterfly.

MeetingInTheWoods

They said they were the two witnesses spoken of in the book of Revelation in the Bible. They said they had come with a continuation of the message Jesus brought 2,000 years ago. Not only that, but they said that “some” of the extraterrestrial spacecraft, seen by humans as UFOs, were the mode of transportation of this next level.
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My Open Heart

Hi. I want to tell you a story. It’s my story. I have a secret. I’ve held it close. I’ve told very few people. I have been ashamed. The shame and the not-telling has been a weight on my life. The failing to shine a light on my story, even for myself, has kept me from becoming all I could be. I’ve played small. I’ve maintained the illusion that by hiding I would be safe. But it wasn’t true. Instead, I was choosing not to live fully.

Here’s what I have been ashamed of letting be known: I was in a cult for eighteen years. In joining, and choosing to remain as long as I did, I relinquished my choice to determine my own beliefs and my own behaviors moment by moment, day by day, until years had gone by.

HeartInChains

My leaving the cult is a story in itself, for another day. In my internal work years later, delving into my unremarkable life in the world, abandonment issues came to light. I realized the person who had abandoned me, was me. In trying to fit in and be acceptable to the requirements of the cult, I had developed a strong habit of ignoring my inner voice. I had all but turned off that voice.

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