terramaid Wrote:
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> I showed up in Philly to do this, the center
> itself looked like a cult lair. People were living
> upstairs, it was cold and everything had a very
> un-est-like, unprofessional, thrown-together look
> to it.
>
> I was housed in the apartment where several DC
> cultists lived. I think the host's name was Joe.
> The first night we were treated to a very loud,
> public act of sex right on the floor with us NJ
> people sleeping right nearby. Joe had brought a
> very pretty cult member home with him and lying
> there, a virgin, I was terrified to move. In the
> morning, other grownups 'shared' how they felt
> witnessing the public sex. I had the impression
> that this was done on purpose, but I have no idea
> why.
>
> To break us down or make us feel vulnerable?
I remember the Philly house I think you are talking about. It was an attractive townhouse on an affluent block in Center City, unless DC had moved elsewhere by the time you are talking about.
There was lots of sexual activity among DC members, and Bayard himself was brazen about his dalliances with many women over the years who were mesmerized by him. He was very out about having sex and affairs with recent members and assistants, with his wife Fran fully aware of all of it. He was not a guru who did this covertly. From what I could tell, this high level of sexual activity was the norm for people in the LGAT and New Age worlds back then, at least the parts of them that I dabbled in. It was especially true among people who were involved with rebirthing.
DC is where I was able to begin to come out as gay/queer. I recall visiting Philly one weekend c. 1980 to assist at a course. I spent time with R, another male assistant, one of the full-time assistants living in that house who I had a brief affair with. His mom was taking the Course that weekend. She slept in a crowded room upstairs along with R, myself and many other people. I recall that R and I delighted in having not-so-noisy sex with his mom asleep (hopefully) just a few feet away, and gave no thought whatsoever to the others sleeping in the room. We honestly didn't care about her or anyone else possibly having a bad reaction— we were entitled to do what we were doing. Our attitude was that anything someone else might be uncomfortable about had to do with their attachments, and the point of the Course was to provoke people to face their attachments (voluntarily and involuntarily) and let go of them.
I have no idea what reaction R's mom had if any — I heard nothing about it the next day.
I don't think this shameless overt sexuality was a planned strategy on anyone's part. It was part of our culture, with Bayard himself setting a precedent. It might be faint praise, but I'm glad that I had spent time in a sex-positive cult rather than a cult which which shamed, discouraged and denounced sex, like so many of the Christian and Eastern-religion-based cults discussed here on this forum.
When HIV finally reared its ugly head in the early 1980s, I'm sure this sexually free atmosphere began to get disrupted, but I was cutting my ties with DC and the New Age movement in general at that time (1982-1983), and can't say anything about this from first-hand experience. I wonder if some fools believed that they were "manifesting" HIV.
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> I showed up in Philly to do this, the center
> itself looked like a cult lair. People were living
> upstairs, it was cold and everything had a very
> un-est-like, unprofessional, thrown-together look
> to it.
>
> I was housed in the apartment where several DC
> cultists lived. I think the host's name was Joe.
> The first night we were treated to a very loud,
> public act of sex right on the floor with us NJ
> people sleeping right nearby. Joe had brought a
> very pretty cult member home with him and lying
> there, a virgin, I was terrified to move. In the
> morning, other grownups 'shared' how they felt
> witnessing the public sex. I had the impression
> that this was done on purpose, but I have no idea
> why.
>
> To break us down or make us feel vulnerable?
I remember the Philly house I think you are talking about. It was an attractive townhouse on an affluent block in Center City, unless DC had moved elsewhere by the time you are talking about.
There was lots of sexual activity among DC members, and Bayard himself was brazen about his dalliances with many women over the years who were mesmerized by him. He was very out about having sex and affairs with recent members and assistants, with his wife Fran fully aware of all of it. He was not a guru who did this covertly. From what I could tell, this high level of sexual activity was the norm for people in the LGAT and New Age worlds back then, at least the parts of them that I dabbled in. It was especially true among people who were involved with rebirthing.
DC is where I was able to begin to come out as gay/queer. I recall visiting Philly one weekend c. 1980 to assist at a course. I spent time with R, another male assistant, one of the full-time assistants living in that house who I had a brief affair with. His mom was taking the Course that weekend. She slept in a crowded room upstairs along with R, myself and many other people. I recall that R and I delighted in having not-so-noisy sex with his mom asleep (hopefully) just a few feet away, and gave no thought whatsoever to the others sleeping in the room. We honestly didn't care about her or anyone else possibly having a bad reaction— we were entitled to do what we were doing. Our attitude was that anything someone else might be uncomfortable about had to do with their attachments, and the point of the Course was to provoke people to face their attachments (voluntarily and involuntarily) and let go of them.
I have no idea what reaction R's mom had if any — I heard nothing about it the next day.
I don't think this shameless overt sexuality was a planned strategy on anyone's part. It was part of our culture, with Bayard himself setting a precedent. It might be faint praise, but I'm glad that I had spent time in a sex-positive cult rather than a cult which which shamed, discouraged and denounced sex, like so many of the Christian and Eastern-religion-based cults discussed here on this forum.
When HIV finally reared its ugly head in the early 1980s, I'm sure this sexually free atmosphere began to get disrupted, but I was cutting my ties with DC and the New Age movement in general at that time (1982-1983), and can't say anything about this from first-hand experience. I wonder if some fools believed that they were "manifesting" HIV.
