Hi all -

I'm looking for a bit of insight here. my 10 year old stepson has been living the ramtha life with his mom for the last several years, much to the distress of his father and myself. we could really use some advise - obviously we'd love to get him out of the situation, or at least get through that brick wall that's been constructed around his head

My opinion advise is this:
Just stay in touch with him if you are on those terms, and be there for him to share any feelings he may have, especially if he may not feel he can tell those in the area who are pro Ram. I think kids are pretty smart but indeed, if thier parents are holding them to go to events and such, he might feel a pressure to conform. I know several kids who have been to RSE, CSE, and who opted out of one or both, or been in and out... and thier parents allowed that, which seems healthy to me.
Personally, I see the School as a School to learn stuff in..and maybe to learn about what fanaticism and deception is all about as well!

You could try telling the child to do what makes it Genuinely happy. Perhaps involvement in RSE does and perhaps it does not. I have heard that some children cry because they do not want to participate but the parents think it best for them. If the child has its own mind that might break the spell.

My observation is that children are worshipped and idolized at RSE. At Assay 6 in 2005 the children were always at the door when Ramtha came in and they were always hugged and kissed....the baby of the group in particular. If several sessions happened in the day the children had several opportunities.

Many other students...old, middle aged and young would like similar opportunities and never get them.
The audience adds to this by applauding the children endlessly if they accomplish some task given. The applause is generally more long lasting and greater than with adults who accomplish.

In effect they are treated as though they are better than other people. It is discriminatory behaviour that does not respect the equal rights and opportunities of all people.

The child eventually gets the idea that it IS better than other people. It has had consistent validation that it is the case. Eventually it gets too old.........
It does not benefit the child or anyone in its life.

Everyone knows that politicians kiss babies excessively. Apparently the same old ploy continues to work. They still do it.

Just perhaps next time it will be MY child that is infused with the Sacred Essence.

Keep him away from RSE as much as possible without causing a family rift,
A little girl once asked me..
How can I create my day when I am also told to live in the moment?

The rules and doctrines change according to JZ Knight's latest experiments with her flock.
RSE will destroy a family in the cause of the "Great Work"
Sadly.. I have seen this happen too many times.

The number one 'to do' with a child or adult caught in Judy's trap is to Love them unconditionally.
Ten year olds are usually pretty wise. Do you see him, get to communicate with him? What is his opinion, perspective? Or can't he talk about it.? Conversation, communication, education - calmly, as objectively as you can -- is essential.
Bottom line, he is in an abusive situation.
The challenge is - what to do about it. It could be a legendary court case costing millions and untold mental physical and emotional stress. It could be, if you acknowledge Divinity/Divine Order/Universal Love in any way, trust It. And, you can encourage him to listen and trust the Divine that speaks within him. To trust his own intuition. And that he can always ask questions, and there will always be answers--- no one, and no entity here or not, has an authority greater than that which speaks within him. You can even use Judy's Ramtha 'teachings' - because both sides of the coin are taught in dualistic schizophrenic terms - i.e. trust yourself cause your god, and you better listen to only me Judy's Ramtha because I'm a greater god than you.
I'd also recommend talking with Joe Szimhart jszimhart@dejazzd.com - He is extremely knowledgeable; a sincere and good man.

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.