Testimonial submitted by Mark Lurtsema
on his time with Dr. Frederick Lenz's group, among others.

For me, the most important thing to a good life is peace of mind. For a mind to be peaceful it must be free to think for itself.

This is so important to me because I spent a greater portion of my life, from about the age of seven until I was nearly 30 years old, bouncing from one mental tyranny to another. When I was young, my parents and I converted to the "Truth." That is to say, we became Jehovah's Witnesses. My family spent years, miserable. My mother was "disfellowshipped" twice, once because she was raped and didn't cry when she told the elders about it. When I was 16 years old, faced with an ultimatum, I left home and left the religion. My parents quit soon after.

But I wasn't through yet. I had a girlfriend, who became my wife, and through her, I converted to Mormonism. I didn't really believe it at the time (or at least I do not remember believing it); but I did spend a lot of time feeling guilty because I couldn't seem to follow the rules and keep my right hand off my well. . . you know how teen aged boys are. When my wife found another man, she left me, and I was excommunicated for adultery and drinking. . .and I suppose I was guilty as charged. My ex-wife is now on husband number three and still in good standing with the church. Perhaps I was an outsider.

Of course, that is okay, because soon I found est and the Forum, and went through the whole litany of seminars, including the six day and the communications workshop (twice). I even became a Guest Seminar Leader, although I never led a guest seminar, because I quit the whole thing before then. I think I breezed through the entire organization in less than a year. I remember I became a real a**hole during that time of my life.

Which probably helped me survive six years with Rama, Dr. Fredrick Lenz. I met him in 1984 and was swept up like none of the other organizations was ever able to sweep me up. Even the JWs who got hold of my poor mind when I was young did not get so inside of me as this guy was able to.

Before I knew what hit me, I was traveling all over the country, and giving this 'holy' man all of my hard earned cash. I was also able to recruit several people into this organization, which is something I never did in any of the others. I think this shows how much I was enraptured of Rama.

After six years, I walked away, never realizing how much he had affected me. I only knew that he was screwing my ex-girlfriend and that she broke up with me because he told her to. I had already moved on, and wasn't that concerned, I didn't have deep relationships or anything like that in those days. But it did get me thinking. . .Friends don't do that to friends. Then I started paying attention to everything else and began to apply the same standards that I lived by for myself, and although I could never be held up as a saint by any stretch of the imagination, I realized that I lived a far more moral life (in that I caused less harm to others) than he did. Boy, did I feel stupid.

39 years has taught me very few truly interesting things, except perhaps one--no one has the answer for me but me. The only thing another person can do is offer perspective. Perspective is not worth slavery. So be careful of gurus bearing gifts :o)

contact info for Mark: existent013@aol.com