Lenz loyalists may claim that Lenz' original message was excellent that only in his final years did he became a victim of negative energies.
No. Lenz was troubled and power hungry from the very beginning.
Here is an interview with professors who knew Lenz when the latter was a graduate student.
This includes a description of Lenz's instructions on how to angle job interviews.
Early in his career Lenz was a manipulator and a user.
[www.ex-cult.org]
(Excerpt)
No. Lenz was troubled and power hungry from the very beginning.
Here is an interview with professors who knew Lenz when the latter was a graduate student.
This includes a description of Lenz's instructions on how to angle job interviews.
Early in his career Lenz was a manipulator and a user.
[www.ex-cult.org]
(Excerpt)
Quote
ewsgroups: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy
From: an113729@anon.penet.fi
X-Anonymously-To: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy
Organization: Anonymous contact service
Reply-To: an113729@anon.penet.fi
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 03:48:15 UTC
Subject: "Take Me For a Ride" -- Epilog, Part 3
Lines: 323
This is 3/3 files contain the epilouge from the book
"Take Me For A Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive Cult" .
The entire text of the book has been posted in newsgroup
alt.buddha.short.fat.guy with full permission of the author.
This is the true story of the author's seven year experience
in the cult of the CPU Guru, Dr. Frederick P. Lenz, also
known as "Rama" or "Zen Master Rama".
This book is electronically distributed with full permission
of the author. Please feel free to download and pass along
to interested parties.
* * *
In 1990 I spoke with the three English professors who, in 1976,
had served on Rama's doctoral dissertation committee. Louis Simpson,
a Pulitzer prize winning writer, told me he had written a poem
about a student, a brilliant lecturer, who creates his own system
rather than working within an existing one (Simpson, Louis. "Herons
and Water Lilies." In The Room We Share. New York: Paragon House,
1990). Paul Dolan told me that Fred's performance on the Ph.D.
oral exams had been slightly above average. Gerald Nelson told
me that while he had taken a liking to this graduate student,
he had never thought much of Fred's get-rich-and-famous schemes,
including the one to boost his credentials via a mail-order minister's
degree.
"Fred once asked me what I thought of his idea for a book called
The Thirteen Mystics," Nelson told me. "I joked that he would
already have a built in market for the sequel, The Return Of The
Thirteen Mystics." But Nelson had not taken lightly the way young
Frederick had been affecting undergraduates during his free lectures
on meditation. In 1975, Nelson recommended that Fred read about
Ken Kesey and about Charles Manson. The lesson was that while
both charismatic leaders had experimented with drugs and with
young peoples' lives, Kesey learned to check his power over others.
Manson did not.
"Yet it was difficult for me to guide Fred," Nelson explained.
"Though he was my student, he was Chinmoy's disciple."
Professor Nelson was a tall man with a strong, kind voice. I
wondered if Fred had been drawn to him in his search for a caring
father figure.
I asked Nelson if he had read the newspaper accounts of Fred's
recent schemes. He nodded sadly. "This is the sort of thing you
would expect from an intelligent, sensitive, abused child from
a well-to-do family. Fred quite obviously needs help, but is probably
too far-gone to realize or admit it."
In the mid-eighties, Rama sent Nelson self-promotional brochures,
tapes, and books; in 1986, Rama wrote in a brochure that Nelson
had been one of the three most influential people in his life;
in 1988, Rama confessed to Nelson that he only wanted to make
some money, that he no longer maintained a following, and that
he had finally learned his lesson about Ken Kesey and about Charles
Manson.
Yet the more I learned about Rama through my continuing research,
the less I was heartened by Rama's confession to his former mentor.
In 1988, Rama persuaded many of the roughly three hundred disciples
to move to Reston, Virginia, and then to Westchester, New York.
He founded two for-profit organizations: National Professional
and Personal Development Seminars (NPDS) and Advanced Systems
Inc. (ASI) During regular meetings of NPDS and ASI he continued
to teach his disciples about spirituality. He continued to experiment
with mind control. He also experimented with new ways to make
money.
Rama had been strongly encouraging disciples to study software
at the Computer Learning Center (CLC), a six-month technical school
which typically prepared people for entry-level programming jobs.
Several disciples, including my brother, Sal, and Paul, had developed
impressive track records in the software industry. But many were
only CLC graduates. During the meetings of NPDS and ASI, Rama
told disciples to share their knowledge of state-of-the-art software
technology. Then he told them to lie. According to the San Francisco
Chronicle ("Yuppie Guru Finds Cash in Computers: Devotees pay
$3,000 a month to sit at his feet", 7/30/92),
Rama, in 1989, wrote
a manual for disciples in which he encouraged them to think of
a resume as "a mandala that reflects your new self." Rama wrote:
"They will believe anything you say, even when you intersperse
unrealities, because they feel the truth of your experience. When
you have your stories and images in place, arrange for your references.
Choose people from our group who are comfortable on the phone,
who sound professional and who have had data processing experience.
Give them a few notes about who they were."
In 1991 Rama told New York Newsday's William Falk ("The Yuppie
Guru", 7/30/91), "It's the most amazing career that I know of.
You can start in the mid-30s, and in a year or two you can make
$100,000 to $150,000 a year."