All Was Not Lost…

I got out of a spiritual community where I had lived for six years. The community was led by Joseph R. (not his real name), who was a teacher of A Course Miracles. I had always been impressed by Joseph's ability to hear Jesus and the Holy Spirit. His knowledge of the 1200 pages of A Course in Miracles, and his ability to quote it, was extraordinary. My job was to edit videos of Joseph’s talks, edit his work into books, and spread the course and Joseph’s teachings to both live and virtual groups.

I had begun studying A Course in Miracles 20 years before I joined the community and was entranced by ideas such as “God is but love and therefore so am I.” The course has many helpful ideas to recommend it. I myself had written a book on compassionate communication.

But after joining the community other ideas from the course began to loom larger: “This is a course in mind training.” It trained me to think that I was not a body, that “special relationships” were unholy and of the ego.  Joseph took this idea further by encouraging me to break my connections with my wife, family, and friends. He declared there should be “no people pleasing.” I experienced this as no one saying “thank you” or appreciating any of the work that I did. In this negative environment over the years, I became depressed. I thought I had nowhere left to go in the world. Joseph then coerced a large sum of money from me. A few months later the community told me that no one would talk to me.

To my great relief my son contacted me and asked to see me. I got on a plane and left to see him and my family. With the encouragement of friends and family, I wrote a letter to the community threatening legal action unless they gave me the money they had coerced out of me. In this way I got my money back. Subsequently I have been making a substantial recovery from my years in the community.

~Andy