I got in touch with someone who knew Eric Allen Bell in his early days, when he was definitely starting a small cult. And she has sent me an email with her recollections and observations about Eric then and Eric now. I will copy it in below, with her permission:
My daughter was one of Eric’s roommates in the late 1990s in California. He was just starting to see his screenwriting career take off and would late move out into a place of his own. He was very likable but kind of had a “Hollywood” vibe to him when you first met him. But he was charismatic and funny and people liked him.
I was recently divorced and studying for a new career, which is the career I have now. I lived close by and spent a lot time at the house they were all renting. I noticed that Eric was having meetings about once a week in the living room. At first I thought it was an A.A. meeting or some kind of support group. I dropped by spontaneously once only to find that my daughter was not there. I asked Eric what kind of meeting they were having and he said it was a discussion. When I asked him what kind of discussion he said, “Why don’t you have a seat and join us?” So I did.
Eric was talking for probably about 30 minutes straight. I have to admit that I was transfixed. I couldn’t believe he had so much wisdom for someone so young. There was maybe about 9 or 10 people there, mostly younger people. I noticed that the boys were dressed a lot like Eric.
I wanted to ask some questions because he was talking about spirituality and this really peaked my interest, but my daughter came home. She motioned for me to come upstairs with her, to her room. I said, “I’ll be right there honey” and she looked sort of nervous and upset and motioned for me to come right away.
My daughter told me that she thought Eric had started a cult. I told her there was still a lot she did not know about the world and that Eric had a special kind of wisdom. I said I wanted to go back downstairs and listen to him speak and ask some questions. She and I got into a bit of a fight. “Eric is what you said you got mixed up in up in Oregon when I was little” she said. That shut me up. She was talking about Rajneesh.
I was one of the “Sannyasins” which is the word given to the disciples of the Indian guru who had taken over a town in Oregon. If you don’t remember him, he was the one who also owned 90 Rolls Royces. My husband and I had sold our house and our cars and had moved to Rajneeshpurm in Oregon and given everything we had owned to Bhagwan. We lived there for a while when the kids were little and eventually we came home to live with my mom until my husband could go back to work.
Anyway, my daughter was now a young adult and afraid that I was going to get caught up in something like that again. I told her that Eric was different. I spent numerous hours listening to Rajneesh and Eric was different. I couldn’t explain it, but I asked her to just trust me. I told her that I feel my heart open up when he was speaking to the group like that and it was just what I needed at the time. But when I finally went downstairs, the meeting had ended.
A couple girls stayed behind to clean up and I was able to speak to Eric alone for a while. I told him that I felt something when he spoke and asked if it would be possible for us to get together. He said yes. I was delighted. All I could think about for the new several days was how much I was looking forward to him coming over to my place to talk.
Looking back on it now I feel like such a fool sometimes, but I also believe that everything happens for a reason. I don’t regret the past. I just try to learn from it.
Anyway, I will try to make this long story short. I became a member of these weekly meetings. The purpose of the meetings, according to Eric, was “inquiry” and “self-realization”. People would ask questions and Eric would answer. No offering basket was ever passed around. In fact, one of the young men asked if he could bring a friend next time and Eric told him no, that he only wanted people there who were serious. When I told my daughter this she agreed that it did not sound like a cult. Maybe it was just a small spiritual group having meetings.
The few times that Eric came to where I lived, it was different. He turned off all the lights, lit a candle and told me to sit in Lotus position. Then he led me into a sort of meditation. Once my mind was quiet he did something called “Shaktipat”. He placed his finger between my eyebrows and it was like electricity was coming out of him. I know that sounds strange, but this was my experience. I usually fell back to the floor and then rolled around in a state of pure ecstasy.
Finally one day I took out my checkbook and told Eric that I wanted to make some kind of a donation, for his time. He declined. I couldn’t wait to tell that to my daughter. At this point she was convinced he was not running a cult at all and that maybe Eric was the kind of teacher I had been looking for back when I ended up with Rajneesh (by the way, he is also called Osho).
At this point I’m just going to cut to the chase. When I got divorced my husband hid most of his money and I got next to nothing. But he did pay my daughter’s rent and school. After Eric did Shaktipat on her, she took Eric to see my ex-husband, you was a very well off doctor, who was living in a big house and had several cars. This was about the time that Eric also disappeared from my life. Then he moved out of the house he was sharing with my daughter and a few other young people.
Both my daughter and I were shocked and hurt and confused when we discovered that my ex had paid off Eric’s car loan (I think he was driving a Jetta in those days). He also set him up with a very nice house in South Pasadena, which is a very wealthy area. The house I’m told had a big living room and Eric continued to hold his meetings, but they became more exclusive and more secretive. After that mostly what I heard were just rumors.
My daughter did finally tell me more about what happened between Eric and my ex-husband however. My ex claims that Eric never asked for everything, but appeared to him in a dream along side the Hindu gods Krishna and Shiva. And his “spirit guides” told him to give Eric an account, sort of like a trust fund, to build a worldwide spiritual movement. I think this is how Global One came into being, many years later.
My daughter tried to convince her dad that Eric had brainwashed him, but he wasn’t having it. He said they would have to agree to disagree and that, if she kept bothering him about Eric, he would have to remove her from his life. His own daughter!
Eric continued to pursue screenwriting and directed an independent film. But he never had a job. Instead he had a small clique of wealthy admirers and devotees. And he was careful not to have anything about the meetings ever publicized. No one who came to the house was allowed to take pictures. The whole thing was very secretive.
My ex-husband and I are on speaking terms today. Both he and I have been to therapy together to work out our “stuff”. But one of the things we talked about only a little was Eric. He says he just wants to forget that part of his life, whatever that means. I think he handed over millions of dollars. I’m not sure. All I have to go on there is what our daughter tells me. I don’t know what they had a falling out about, but this must have been around 2007 or so.
Then I read about the documentary in Murfreesboro and that he was palling around with Michael Moore. “Oh brother” I thought “Is he going to brainwash the master of propaganda?” I really thought that Eric was going to get inside of Michael Moore’s head and commandeer his fame and influence to expand the reach of Eric Allen Bell (he used to be called Eric Edborg).
Here is the last part of my long story and I’m sorry this is turning out so long. An acquaintance of my daughter’s was an ex-girlfriend of Eric’s. She reached out to him in 2011 and he told her he was depressed. He said he just edited together a documentary and figured out that he got it all wrong. He gave back all of the money and didn’t have much left to live on. He had tried to ask the Global One subscribers to chip in to keep that going, but not much came in. Then he wrote those Daily Kos articles about Islam and things got much worse for Eric. I think he lost most of his followers at that time. He also got cut off from his family, who was already pretty much done with him over the cult stuff.
The ex-girlfriend is still friends with my daughter. She said that Eric was living in motels, writing articles for Front Page but not getting paid for it. Then he was blamed for making the YouTube video that had all those Muslims rioting and some Christian families took him in, until he was told it was probably safe to go back into public. He was moved to I think 3 houses and now none of those people will talk to him because he went onto Facebook and insulted Christianity.
I didn’t have much time to prepare all of this. So some of what I have to tell you is incomplete. But I think he has made peace with his dad whose parents left Eric a sizeable amount of money. He has been rebuilding his living room meeting scene again, but with an emphasis on stopping Islam and stopping all forms of organized religion. He lives somewhere in Beverly Hills and is unmarried.
He advertises Global One on Facebook and Google, but only to people in Beverly Hills. Then he tries to recruit them. I guess it’s all working. My daughter’s husband ran into Eric at a restaurant in Beverly Hills last year and they talked for a while. He said that Eric finally said he had to get back to his table. It was a big table and all of the people sitting at it were waiting for, you guessed, Eric. And Eric was talking and talking. My son in law says it was the same Eric as years before, only much more polished and much more magnetic. He said that the people looked like rich zombies.
On April 21, 2013 I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I finally found what I had been looking for all my life. People like Eric sprout up in different places. They seem to promise to fill a spiritual void. I don’t mean to preach, but I feel that void can only be filled with the love of Jesus Christ. Eric is a false prophet. And someday he might have to answer for that. I am glad I was contacted about this because it’s reminded me to pray for Eric.
I think that’s where I’ll leave it for now. I will pray for him. Eric has a lot of extraordinary gifts, but he is not using them to glorify the Lord. If he chooses to take his reward in this life, then he’s going to have eternity to regret it. I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for anyone. I hope that in some small way my story helps you to stop him, before he leads more people astray.
My daughter was one of Eric’s roommates in the late 1990s in California. He was just starting to see his screenwriting career take off and would late move out into a place of his own. He was very likable but kind of had a “Hollywood” vibe to him when you first met him. But he was charismatic and funny and people liked him.
I was recently divorced and studying for a new career, which is the career I have now. I lived close by and spent a lot time at the house they were all renting. I noticed that Eric was having meetings about once a week in the living room. At first I thought it was an A.A. meeting or some kind of support group. I dropped by spontaneously once only to find that my daughter was not there. I asked Eric what kind of meeting they were having and he said it was a discussion. When I asked him what kind of discussion he said, “Why don’t you have a seat and join us?” So I did.
Eric was talking for probably about 30 minutes straight. I have to admit that I was transfixed. I couldn’t believe he had so much wisdom for someone so young. There was maybe about 9 or 10 people there, mostly younger people. I noticed that the boys were dressed a lot like Eric.
I wanted to ask some questions because he was talking about spirituality and this really peaked my interest, but my daughter came home. She motioned for me to come upstairs with her, to her room. I said, “I’ll be right there honey” and she looked sort of nervous and upset and motioned for me to come right away.
My daughter told me that she thought Eric had started a cult. I told her there was still a lot she did not know about the world and that Eric had a special kind of wisdom. I said I wanted to go back downstairs and listen to him speak and ask some questions. She and I got into a bit of a fight. “Eric is what you said you got mixed up in up in Oregon when I was little” she said. That shut me up. She was talking about Rajneesh.
I was one of the “Sannyasins” which is the word given to the disciples of the Indian guru who had taken over a town in Oregon. If you don’t remember him, he was the one who also owned 90 Rolls Royces. My husband and I had sold our house and our cars and had moved to Rajneeshpurm in Oregon and given everything we had owned to Bhagwan. We lived there for a while when the kids were little and eventually we came home to live with my mom until my husband could go back to work.
Anyway, my daughter was now a young adult and afraid that I was going to get caught up in something like that again. I told her that Eric was different. I spent numerous hours listening to Rajneesh and Eric was different. I couldn’t explain it, but I asked her to just trust me. I told her that I feel my heart open up when he was speaking to the group like that and it was just what I needed at the time. But when I finally went downstairs, the meeting had ended.
A couple girls stayed behind to clean up and I was able to speak to Eric alone for a while. I told him that I felt something when he spoke and asked if it would be possible for us to get together. He said yes. I was delighted. All I could think about for the new several days was how much I was looking forward to him coming over to my place to talk.
Looking back on it now I feel like such a fool sometimes, but I also believe that everything happens for a reason. I don’t regret the past. I just try to learn from it.
Anyway, I will try to make this long story short. I became a member of these weekly meetings. The purpose of the meetings, according to Eric, was “inquiry” and “self-realization”. People would ask questions and Eric would answer. No offering basket was ever passed around. In fact, one of the young men asked if he could bring a friend next time and Eric told him no, that he only wanted people there who were serious. When I told my daughter this she agreed that it did not sound like a cult. Maybe it was just a small spiritual group having meetings.
The few times that Eric came to where I lived, it was different. He turned off all the lights, lit a candle and told me to sit in Lotus position. Then he led me into a sort of meditation. Once my mind was quiet he did something called “Shaktipat”. He placed his finger between my eyebrows and it was like electricity was coming out of him. I know that sounds strange, but this was my experience. I usually fell back to the floor and then rolled around in a state of pure ecstasy.
Finally one day I took out my checkbook and told Eric that I wanted to make some kind of a donation, for his time. He declined. I couldn’t wait to tell that to my daughter. At this point she was convinced he was not running a cult at all and that maybe Eric was the kind of teacher I had been looking for back when I ended up with Rajneesh (by the way, he is also called Osho).
At this point I’m just going to cut to the chase. When I got divorced my husband hid most of his money and I got next to nothing. But he did pay my daughter’s rent and school. After Eric did Shaktipat on her, she took Eric to see my ex-husband, you was a very well off doctor, who was living in a big house and had several cars. This was about the time that Eric also disappeared from my life. Then he moved out of the house he was sharing with my daughter and a few other young people.
Both my daughter and I were shocked and hurt and confused when we discovered that my ex had paid off Eric’s car loan (I think he was driving a Jetta in those days). He also set him up with a very nice house in South Pasadena, which is a very wealthy area. The house I’m told had a big living room and Eric continued to hold his meetings, but they became more exclusive and more secretive. After that mostly what I heard were just rumors.
My daughter did finally tell me more about what happened between Eric and my ex-husband however. My ex claims that Eric never asked for everything, but appeared to him in a dream along side the Hindu gods Krishna and Shiva. And his “spirit guides” told him to give Eric an account, sort of like a trust fund, to build a worldwide spiritual movement. I think this is how Global One came into being, many years later.
My daughter tried to convince her dad that Eric had brainwashed him, but he wasn’t having it. He said they would have to agree to disagree and that, if she kept bothering him about Eric, he would have to remove her from his life. His own daughter!
Eric continued to pursue screenwriting and directed an independent film. But he never had a job. Instead he had a small clique of wealthy admirers and devotees. And he was careful not to have anything about the meetings ever publicized. No one who came to the house was allowed to take pictures. The whole thing was very secretive.
My ex-husband and I are on speaking terms today. Both he and I have been to therapy together to work out our “stuff”. But one of the things we talked about only a little was Eric. He says he just wants to forget that part of his life, whatever that means. I think he handed over millions of dollars. I’m not sure. All I have to go on there is what our daughter tells me. I don’t know what they had a falling out about, but this must have been around 2007 or so.
Then I read about the documentary in Murfreesboro and that he was palling around with Michael Moore. “Oh brother” I thought “Is he going to brainwash the master of propaganda?” I really thought that Eric was going to get inside of Michael Moore’s head and commandeer his fame and influence to expand the reach of Eric Allen Bell (he used to be called Eric Edborg).
Here is the last part of my long story and I’m sorry this is turning out so long. An acquaintance of my daughter’s was an ex-girlfriend of Eric’s. She reached out to him in 2011 and he told her he was depressed. He said he just edited together a documentary and figured out that he got it all wrong. He gave back all of the money and didn’t have much left to live on. He had tried to ask the Global One subscribers to chip in to keep that going, but not much came in. Then he wrote those Daily Kos articles about Islam and things got much worse for Eric. I think he lost most of his followers at that time. He also got cut off from his family, who was already pretty much done with him over the cult stuff.
The ex-girlfriend is still friends with my daughter. She said that Eric was living in motels, writing articles for Front Page but not getting paid for it. Then he was blamed for making the YouTube video that had all those Muslims rioting and some Christian families took him in, until he was told it was probably safe to go back into public. He was moved to I think 3 houses and now none of those people will talk to him because he went onto Facebook and insulted Christianity.
I didn’t have much time to prepare all of this. So some of what I have to tell you is incomplete. But I think he has made peace with his dad whose parents left Eric a sizeable amount of money. He has been rebuilding his living room meeting scene again, but with an emphasis on stopping Islam and stopping all forms of organized religion. He lives somewhere in Beverly Hills and is unmarried.
He advertises Global One on Facebook and Google, but only to people in Beverly Hills. Then he tries to recruit them. I guess it’s all working. My daughter’s husband ran into Eric at a restaurant in Beverly Hills last year and they talked for a while. He said that Eric finally said he had to get back to his table. It was a big table and all of the people sitting at it were waiting for, you guessed, Eric. And Eric was talking and talking. My son in law says it was the same Eric as years before, only much more polished and much more magnetic. He said that the people looked like rich zombies.
On April 21, 2013 I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I finally found what I had been looking for all my life. People like Eric sprout up in different places. They seem to promise to fill a spiritual void. I don’t mean to preach, but I feel that void can only be filled with the love of Jesus Christ. Eric is a false prophet. And someday he might have to answer for that. I am glad I was contacted about this because it’s reminded me to pray for Eric.
I think that’s where I’ll leave it for now. I will pray for him. Eric has a lot of extraordinary gifts, but he is not using them to glorify the Lord. If he chooses to take his reward in this life, then he’s going to have eternity to regret it. I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for anyone. I hope that in some small way my story helps you to stop him, before he leads more people astray.