maryann,

first of all, i wish you and hubby well with this challenge you face. i understand how hard it is. i also understand the brick wall you're talking about. if your stepson is in the "believing" stage of the teachings, it's a real hard thing to get through to someone at that time.

i think, just that you both disagree with him being in the school, is hard enough.

but, there are other things, perhaps that you have both heard about, that he has been exposed to there. one thing, is the episodes of "teachings" where "ramtha" is drunk, along with adult students, and the swearing that "he" does would stun many if not most adults. this has been ongoing for years now, and children are in the audience hearing this.

as a matter of fact, "ramtha" has had to address parents of children, because their children seemed to think it was alright to say, "f*** you" to anyone for anything, as long as they felt like it. my opinion, is that "ramtha" was inappropriate for using that teaching style in a mixed audience such as one including children. i also question if subjecting a child to that environment, especially repeatedly, is child abuse.

i could say more, but i think that i am making the basic point that it is, at least, questionable.

please feel free to email me if you would like to speak more about this topic, privately.

thank you all for responding. so much of what you're saying rings true. we do try and stay in touch as much as possible, but they live in yelm and we are no where close. lots of phone calls. yes, virginia, there is another point of view outside of ramtha's santa village and all of that. hopefully it will sink in eventually. but it's difficult for a child who's only known this lifestyle other than short visits to choose between a mom's life and dad's life. I'm not saying that some of the ideas aren't positive and valid. but as you all seem to say, the methodology seems to be more towards confusing the participants and making money than much else. I'm concerned for a child's psyche who spent several months in lock down awaiting the end of the world, who has/is participated in the wine/smoking ceremonies, who thinks - depending on the instructions of the month - that red meat, medicine, toothpaste, or fumes from airplanes will kill him, to the point of hysteria. and then of course, when the rules change, all is buried rather than admitting it doesn't make sense. yes, also showing symptoms of megolomania from being fawned over. we didn't realize that was a standard kissing baby thing. thank you for that insight.

our biggest problem is to get him to talk to us about it. there are no feelings - you're right. conversations tend to be about third party issues. not friends, feelings, thoughts. he shuts down and refuses to talk. and we don't want to push too far in fear of how fragile he is. we don't know how much he's been told to not talk to us about this or something bad will happen. how mentally brainwashed are these kids? if we knew what they were told to say and not to say, perhaps we could use it as a starting point. to my knowledge, he has yet to levitate - but they're so close .. .. if only they concentrated harder .. . . am I alone in thinking normal emotional development is stunted in these kids? he reacts emotionally more like a toddler than a rebelling prepubescent.

one interesting differing thought - the bad language has never been an issue with him. he doesn't use it and seems very uncomfortable when he occasionally hears it. it certainly doesn't seem to be a ramtha sanctioned behavior for him.

small mercies.

i think the emotional development is affected.

maryann, i suggest that you obtain a book titled, Getting Your Life Back by Janja Lilich.

it will be helpful and extremely insightful to you and hubby with your situation.

and yes, it's a probability that he is being told NOT to talk. my opinion is, it's about 99% probable. it's fairly common, actually. also put under the guise of "nobody will understand you because they don't understand the teachings, and you must keep pure. do not cast pearls before swine."

guess who the swine are ?

no problem with me being one of the swine - heck, I am the stepmom, after all. but I'm also the outsider coming in to a preexisting situation and potentially being able to see all sides a bit more clearly because of that.

and that's where I'm looking for a bit of validation for my approach. I think that avoiding the situation, and not attacking obvious falsehoods, discrepencies, whatever, only continues to give them validity. because we all know that the kid is being told that the outside world is swinefilled and evil. and if we don't argue, we have the old silence indicates agreement. however - it's a fine line. because, as I said before, we don't want his head to explode.

and I'm not convinced that a child raised by total zombies in this environment will ever develop a healthy sense of doubt. at least not in the foreseeable future.

so if I could start a conversation with something like, so, did you believe it when ramtha said/did ____________ fill in the blank for me with information, please, at the assay, or new years meeting or whatever, could lead to something that might stimulate independent thought in his head.

and please feel free, everyone, to give me some information to fill in the blank.

by the way - am I just a parent of a different generation or concepts of parenting, or do you all think it's normal for a 10 year old to be out partying in a field with ramtha on new years eve as opposed to home in bed??

I was at Assay 6 in 2005 when the children were huddled at the door in gleefull anticipation of ramtha's arrival...and i will say after looking back on it...it was staged, in my opinion. I think those kids were not forced but prodded to be there by their guardians...plus, what kid doesn't love to be acknowledged with a big hug from the big kahuna. More scam, more organized deception, more BS.

Maryann, As it appears you are not the legal guardian of the child it appears to me that the influence you can have on it is minimal....unless the child decides for itself it has had enough.

I know someone who was going to attend a New Year's Event in 2005. The person changed her mind at the last minute and told me afterwards that the reports she heard from the event were that people were so drunk that people were throwing things and it was like a war zone. She was very glad she did not attend.

we have shared guardianship, however, he is primarily in yelm. we get holidays, summers, etc, until/unless he chooses to live with us. which of course we hope for. as you said - legal battles are no ones' first choice. but if one parent says one thing, and the other says the opposite, it's still the child that is torn in half, regardless of joint custody.

one of the intriging things we heard about the new years eve bash was that it ended a little before 12 this year - seems ramtha's legal dept didn't want to be liable for drunks on the road -

i'm going to start a new thread for the drinking and driving issue.

maryann,

if you scroll up to the top of this webpage, you will see a link to FACTNet. There is a folder in FACTNet for RSE and it has actually been there for years as part of a larger website that covers forum boards for many coercive groups (and similar groups).

In any case, if you go to the site and read through some of those posts (many of them, so it will take some time), then you will find lots of topics that you can insert into the sentence you stated in your previous post. That should go a long way toward sparking conversation with stepson.