Denomio: 7. Even Zombies Have Opinions

It wasn’t “politically correct” to have opinions of your own – that went counter to the group’s opinions. But I still had them and I wasn’t going to apologize for it:

Eating: You were supposed to think that eating mammals was bad. Angelo had this vision of what was best for our spiritual growth, and that was actually one of the linchpins before I left the group… at one point, I had started eating a little bit of red meat and I told him that I felt stronger and more vibrant when I eat some read meat. Angelo said it was obvious I was anemic and I need to start eating more beets and doing molasses and things to increase my iron content. We ended up doing a body analysis and it turned out I had about 500 times more iron in my body than I was supposed to have. It was one of those things, out of three or four, where we were told in the BF that Angelo sees clearly and we didn’t… that he has this vision. And I remember confronting him about that and told him, “You told me I needed to do this and you were quite clearly wrong because that’s the exact wrong thing to do.” And he said, “Well, I knew it was about iron.” (like he had this intuitive thing from the ethers that it was about iron) The only trouble was he told me the exact wrong thing to do about it. So, in my last year or two, I started completely disregarding what he said about nutrition. Because I found my own way with eating that worked a lot better for me than what the guidance was.

Marriage: Marriages were delusions. Maya. There is no person out there that is going to fulfill you and the idea of marriage is bourgeois and a hindrance to your enlightenment. Even more so with children. Having children make it so you could not concentrate on God so it enslaved you further into Maya. [ed. This may be different in the group currently. After the breakup there was a rumor that Angelo was officiating at marriage ceremonies for some of his disciples. Was that to keep people around him or did he change his mind? Perhaps that will become clear in future interviews.]

Parents: You could share love with them. Your role is to help them evolve. However, they are also a karmic web that you need to free yourself from and they can create havoc in the BF if you let them in too close. And that would distract you from your spiritual work if you are too involved with them. Just because they shot you out of them at some point didn’t mean they had anything to do with you.

Races: I got the distinct impression that he didn’t like the black culture. He didn’t like black music of any kind. He didn’t like black dance… unless it was Alvin Ailey and even that was just barely acceptable. One comment I remember from class is that he was talking about this woman and he said, “She’s really attractive even though she is black.” And everyone in the inner circle did a collective inhale and thought, “Oh no… don’t… that’s not the correct PC thing to say here.” So I felt like if there was a black person in front of him, the spiritual shadow of him would say we’re all souls… and this person is just another soul… but on a personality level, well, …I don’t think he would call someone a nigger… he wouldn’t say they can’t become enlightened… but he would say they have a certain vibrational energy that’s kind of low. Kind of base.

As far as sex and relationships go, Angelo gave the impression that it was base and something to be transcended. I remember he gave a talk one Christmas about how sex was just excitement. Excitement and release. And how it was such a low level of existence. It was OK if people were doing it. There was nothing wrong with it. But it was something to be transcended. And I had a lot of pressure when I first started doing my service with Angelo where he would ask me what I did the night before. And if I said I had sex, he would scold me. At one point he kicked me out of the room because he had been scolding me on a regular basis about having sex with Guinevere and I kept doing it. So one day he just kicked me out of his room in disgust. Later on, I thought perhaps this was his way of trying to break me from this hetero relationship in order that I could be moved more easily into a homosexual relationship. I’m basing that on listening to the experiences of other people and what happened with them. I’m ascribing motives to him that I don’t actually “know” he had. But I do know he was discouraging of it but when it became obvious I was not going to stop, he stopped giving me shit about it and for the next 10 years he didn’t say anything. Only during that first two year period where I felt like perhaps he was hoping I was going to “turn gay.”

Fundamentally, we were to believe that Angelo was the All in All. He was the highest guru on the planet. He was Krishna. Christ. And the members of the group… in the sea of ignorance that was humanity, these are the ones that really SEE. So much of what was considered “good” was based on what Angelo liked or disliked. Like with dance. Some forms of dance were considered beautiful, like ballet, and other forms… like tap dancing… were disgusting and low. However, Flamenco dancing, which was basically Spanish tap dancing, was this great art form. Seriously. We’d be going to these Flamenco performances, one after another and then we’d go to this composite city-wide dance festival and there would be tap dancing and he’d think it was so vile – but it was the same stuff… just with different music. That’s how it was with everything. Classical music was really beautiful and crooners from the 50’s were really beautiful but if you were going to listen to reggae or rap then it was low. Everything was completely based on his personal preferences. Same thing with your individual talents. If it was a talent that he valued, then you’d be encouraged in it. If it wasn’t, then it’s a waste of your time.