Class #2 related to spiritual healing; a black woman in that class claimed that a friend of hers was “cursing” her and appearing in her dreams and influencing her life for the negative. The minister listened closely, then told her (and everyone else there) how she could be rid of her friend’s influence…the solution involved obtaining a lock of hair, or a piece of paper with the friend’s signature. She was told to draw a stick figure of her friend, and along with the hair or signature, wrap this inside two small hand mirrors which were facing inward. The minister told her that if the mirrors were facing inward on the drawing and hair, this would lock in the negative actions and make them affect the friend, not her any longer. And for added effect, she could purchase a black rose and bury the mirrors and rose underground, with the promise that within 3 days her friend would no longer bother her.

..

Yes, voodoo/santeria/black magic IS taught and practiced in these churches.

I think what Mr Hetfield described is how to “wrap and bury” someone. It is designed to destroy their spiritual connection to any higher source, and - obviously - to harm them.

There was a minister, mentioned in a previous post, who went around bragging (in the church, during classes, etc), how he had “no living enemies”. He told stories of how he’d use techniques like this (the mirrors, the rose) to destroy his enemies. That he had so many willing followers — and was not immediately banned from ever setting foot in the UMC again - reveals this type of black arts is condoned and even encouraged at the UMC.

I came into the United Metaphysical Churches family earnestly believing in spirit guides, angels, the Course in Miracles, Ernest Holmes, etc.

I was identified by various ministers as someone with strong clairsentient capabilities and encouraged to join the ministry and give readings and messages for others.

I felt uncomfortable with this as often I HAD no message to give. I took a few classes at the Arlington and Takoma Park Chapel(s), where I realized message giving is NOT about what is good for the other person, but in formulating and spouting off generic feel good aphorisms.

In classes we were browbeaten into giving messages to people we did not know, and no matter how ridiculous and false our impressions were, we were rewarded like Pavlov’s Dogs.

One example - I’m in a class with a Rev. Farley. He has postcards inside envelopes, and we are to place our hands over the envelopes and read the postcard. I put my hands on and all I can think about is the traffic outside, the voices coming from another room, the bad smell of the woman next to me, etc. I say “I see a red door and an open road”.

Farley opens the envelope and there is a postcard of a historical location, no red door, no open road, etc. He manipulates what I said into being close enough to the message on the postcard…

And so on. A person will have an impression — maybe a feeling, emotion, or a remembrance of a scene from a movie - and the teacher will coach the message giver into ignoring any doubt and simply confidently announcing to the recipient that this is the message, from spirit, so you’d better accept.

I stopped giving messages after a few months, when I realized the horrific power a message bearer has for good or evil. NO messages I ever received came anywhere near being true - all were vague and nonsensical. So I did not want to burden anyone else with my own false statements.

Webb and Farley and a few others mentioned here (Brown, Tedora, Carl Polesky, et al) had a tendency to say things that were flattering and sounded promising, so the average person was emotionally seduced into believing them. After all who wants to say NO to a person giving flowery compliments from God or Jesus or Mary?

Yet, the percentage of messages that ever came true were preposterously low. I was regularly told in readings that I’d be selling my house (never mind that I rented), I’d be meeting my true love/soulmate (never did), that my spirit chose me to be a minister (never became one), etc. I began to realize, message givers said what people wanted to hear, or what they themselves wanted to believe, and that there IS no guidance from spirit.

There is delusion picked up from movies, tv, songs, books, personal traumas, superstitions, etc… it is not hard to look at or observe someone for a while and be able to say something flattering or deceptive to them, it is just that in the cult like atmosphere of the UMC this form of seductive manipulation is casually expected - so no one thinks to realize how blatantly they are being scammed.

I had a friend show me precipitated card writing results - she had NO idea what it meant, and it looked like a sodden mess of a kid’s kindergarten art project left out in the rain. However she became so enthralled at the vagueness of the images she hypnotized herself into believing it significant. And kept going back for MORE readings.

My advice - run away before you become part of the problem.

Wednesday Night Meditation - presided over by either the delusional “Reverend” Jane Batt, or the “Reverend” Tony Farmer. Imagine sitting in a circle as an assortment of Dr Drew rejects spouts off their delusions and hallucinations and projects them onto others, who coo in admiration of their shared dysfunction.

A typical message is “you are coming into your light, the spirit world rejoices in your transformation; your guides are with you, your angels are creating openings in destiny to allow you to flourish”.

Ummm….yeah right.

Sunday services - featuring Elmer Gantry types standing and proclaiming we are all “One”, such as the “Reverend’ Jay Speights, “Reverend” Jim Marion, and other “I got my degree on Ebay” types like Elliot Fiedler and Iyanla Van Zant.

I was wondering why Bishop Eddie Long was not around, until I realized even he could not stomach the openly proclaimed psychosis that went for norm here.

Most comical of all were the desperate pleas for money from the different speakers, who must have been hard up to continue their own private therapy. I sat next to a few women who were so poor they could not even put a penny in the basket, while others stood up and willingly handed over checks for $100 to $1000, each time proclaiming how their healing and transformative work with one of the ministers changed them for the better.

I made the mistake of taking a class with the senior minister, who seems to have stolen his best material from varous other new age writers - gee I got better information for 99 cents in a used book store than by paying over $100 to listen to the non-reverend Webb.

I came to the conclusion that this was an imaginary church. There were imaginary ministers, imaginary sacred texts, imaginary readings and messages, and imaginary healings. Everyone there drank the cool aid and went along with the imaginary scenario, except - tragially - they did not seem to realize it was all role playing. For these people the imaginary is real and the real is nonexistant.

F. Reed Brown - total fraud.
Sandy Tedora - fraud

Met both (and several others) on a Physical Manifestation Weekend. Yes I witnessed the so called trumpet mediumship, the card writing, services in the chapel with Gladys Strohm reading out (reciting) peoples birthdates, several lectures by Sandy, Mike, Fraud Reed Brown, et al.

How any person with an ounce of sanity or self respect can take these clowns seriously is quite the issue. Messages that are so vague as to be open to any interpretation, preaching of false science (the ectoplasm explanation alone is worth a lifetime course of Thorazine), laughable attempts at justifying past fraudulent mediums like the Fox sisters, Fraud’s ridiculous Scottish accent, etc.

I thought it could not be as cringeworthy as this at other churches in the United Metaphysical Churches family, but in fact its worse.

Arlington Metaphysical Chapel - while there an obviously delusional woman wanted to give me an improptu reading, whereby she claimed to see a guide around me. If the woman did not reek so much of alcohol and urine, and if the dirt and leaves on her clothing did not clue me in to how she shares a bed with Rover in the local dog house, I may have found her rantings touchingly naive. However in light of her condition it was frightening that the power$ that be allowed her in public without a leash.

Takoma Park Chapel - oh my, where do I start. At a psychic fair I had the misfortune of being lied to to my face by a Jim Webb, a Bob Farley, a Karen Franek, and a Daniel Neusom, all in one afternoon!

Jim Webb - should have been a porn star, as he is interested mostly in sex and money. If his life story ever makes it to film, look for him to be played by that fashion designer dude on Real Housewives of Atlanta. Jimmi prayed, laughed, flirted, and told me nothing I didn’t see that morning in the astrology section of the Washington Post.

Bob Farley - spent much of the time talking to me (with a deck of cards between us - his readings use an ordinary deck of playing cards!) alluding to his own alcoholism and his quasi-racist views on blacks and gays. I say quasi racist cause he seems to make most of his money off of them, so he must not dislike the lower class paying customers as long as they fork over the money.

Karen Franek - tried to slip me her phone number so I could get more readings, gee, this “wana be MILF” needs to stop trying so hard to pick up men while doing tarot readings.

Daniel Neusom - tried to sell me his books and cd’s, after I cringed through a message by his imaginary friend, “Hayzoos”.

Verdict- guilty of fraud, guilty of false prophecy, guilty of self delusion.

What I found:

-Most non-denominational black churches were little more than dating services/swingers clubs for gay men.

-most people of any sort of authority in these churches were gay men, lesbian women, and self-hating ultra liberal whites.

The spiritualist churches were little more than support groups for the flagranty emotionally/mentally ill. Imagine you are thrust into a 21st century One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, except the inmates are all gay black men or other ghetto types, and each competes to proclaim more dysfunction.

From what I can tell from listening to a dozen or more sermons by ghetto ministers, the main requirements to become a ghetto church minister are:

1. abandonment by one’s father
2. multiple suicide attempts
3. history of mental illness
4. HIV positive
5. ability to give oneself unearned and undeserved titles, degrees, and certifications

Obviously the failure to attend any sort of legitimate divinity school, theology program or even to have certification as a doctor of psychology or counseling never stopped anyone in the ghetto. Each minister had a band of flunkies always willing to stand up and proclaim how their minister was a great healer, couselor, advisor, friend, and brother.

Don’t look for legitimate science at these churches, I heard or saw the following proclaimed repeatedly:

1. A 400 lb minister who claims that he can channel the spirit of an 18th century Scottish physician, in order to answer questions for church members. MORE RED FLAGS THAN INDY 500!

2. A different man, who claims he can diagnose illnesses using a pendulum, i.e. a cork on the end of a piece of string.

3. Minister number three, who claims to be able to teach a method to become invisible from police, and how to dematerialize from one place and reappear in another.

In one church, I sat in the pew while a very obviously gay minister preached. In the congregation were children as young as five. The minister kept talking about the “Divine Threesome”, which involved inviting God into ones sexual relationships. This minister repeatedly mentioned….masturbation, spanking, vibrators, transsexuals, dominatrixes, queens, and the orgasmic bliss of union with the divine. He did not seem to know or care that five year old parishoners should not be subject to listening to odes proclaming the joy of gay sex.

Another church had a class after the service, called “Mystical Love Secrets”, for around $25.00. In this class, comprised of mostly black women, the minister made a point of putting each attendee on the spot to talk about their sexual desires, history and hang ups. If there were 12 black women present, 11 of them confessed to a history of sexual abuse by fathers, uncles, neighbors, ministers, doctors, their sisters’ boyfriend, etc. One woman, who was wearing a fur coat, loudly proclaimed “I s*cked 100 dicks to get this coat, and now I’m gonna get me a house”.

Class #2 related to spiritual healing; a black woman in that class claimed that a friend of hers was “cursing” her and appearing in her dreams and influencing her life for the negative. The minister listened closely, then told her (and everyone else there) how she could be rid of her friend’s influence…the solution involved obtaining a lock of hair, or a piece of paper with the friend’s signature. She was told to draw a stick figure of her friend, and along with the hair or signature, wrap this inside two small hand mirrors which were facing inward. The minister told her that if the mirrors were facing inward on the drawing and hair, this would lock in the negative actions and make them affect the friend, not her any longer. And for added effect, she could purchase a black rose and bury the mirrors and rose underground, with the promise that within 3 days her friend would no longer bother her.

Another church featured a seminar by a gay latino man, who had anglicized his name. He was selling his book out of the trunk of his car. In the book he described a life of self hate, causal sexual encounters, abuse by lovers, and an eventual diagnosis as HIV positive. He also talked of time spent in a mental institution and of how how is now on anti psychotic medications. Nonetheless, he claimed God had told him he is a healer and minister, and he was offering spiritual messages to any who asked. (As long as you bought his book that is).

White people at these churches tended to be attention seeking middle aged women or gay men; I was repeatedly propositioned by several white women 10 or 20 years older than me. They would try to get me to agree to tarot card readings or hands on healings, or even massage therapy sessions. As none of these women’s husbands ever seemed to be in attendance I had to think any non-gay man who walked in the doors of the church had a very active sex life - and probably more than a few courses of antibiotics to follow.

I have attended several events at the Arlington Metaphysical Chapel. At times, I could not explain how some of the mediums (esp. Reverend Reed, Reverend Tedora and there used to be another gentleman with an Asian name who I thought extraordinarily gifted and the dearly departed Reverend Strohm who seemed uncanny in her psychic abilities) could possibly know what they knew about me? Not vague statements and not with any information furnished by me. I am a skeptic myself.

Frequently, I would write absolutely nothing on the paper except my initials and birthdate - yet they would name specific names and places which were not vague - and had special meaning to me. I should mention I do not have any friends who attend this church and before events do not have conversations of a personal nature with others which could explain how these mediums did know specific people, places and events related to me. Several even predicted major future events which I experienced within a few months of their reading.

However, I have attended some of the special events where they tried to show psychic card writing and the mumbo jumbo with the trumpet - all of it was a joke. I didn’t notice anything fraudulent (like you I was positioned close to the cabinet and could see quite well), with the trumpet bit absolutely nothing happened and Reverend Reed explained that this sometimes happened. He went on to explain that what worked in olden times may be less powerful in today’s world or that new psychic phenomena are replacing those of yesteryear.

At one major event held each year, there was a visiting psychic originally from England but now living in Baltimore. I took a class with her - she was very down to earth and seemed to be quite gifted. She gave each student a mini-reading and picked up on specific concerns I had about my older brother and said his name. There was no way she should or could have known this information,

Later over the weekend, in the main part of the chapel all the mediums were present, to demonstrate the different forms of mediumship. Reverend Strohm pulled my billet and gave me an amazing reading with very specific information. On the same evening, the Baltimore based medium gave what appeared to be a spot on reading to two people from the same family about a deceased man in their family who had been a decorated firefighter. Of course these people could have been planted but it did appear genuine.

While I am shocked to learn that of all people, Reverend Reed would engage in fraudulent activities, I still cannot explain some of what I have personally experienced. I have felt that a few of the mediums, a visiting psychic named Donna Fitzgerald and a regular Steve Woods, were poor representatives of psychic skill - neither picked up on anything related to me. And their readings for others were vague and in Fitzgerald’s case - absolutely silly.

Thanks for sharing your experience. If I do ever attend an event there again, I will do so with even more skepticism!