Monday, 25 March 2019 / Published in Cults

Cultilingus

“There are many roads to enlightenment. Ours is through female orgasm.” – RJ Testerman

Here is a short list on how to know if you are in a cult. Anyone who has lived with RJ will recognize these traits. If you still doubt and you have the occasion, which is rare, to get someone from the inner circle alone, watch closely. Listen and ask why and see how it sits.

What I find interesting if not surprising is that cults are similar to how pimps and pedophiles work to capture people. There is enough overlap with the isolation and secrecy to make a hefty Venn diagram. Doing this I relived moments with RJ in all three.

Understanding helps, a little. It’s a start.

I met with Ellen Huet, a reporter from Bloomberg news who wrote about One Taste, another “orgasm business” launched with Vic’s teaching. She nailed the business model that RJ taught Nicole in this article. RJ was threatened by Erwan, the plaintiff, in this article in the SF Gate to get the money back that he put down on “courses”. Part of the money he wanted to recover was paying for Nicole’s training. More of Ellen’s reporting is for Bloomberg and linked below.

One of the questions Ellen asked me is why Nicole was so successful while RJ has not found the financial or popular success she had. Nicole brought the information into the 21st century by adding meditation, yoga, and a new age element. She was also more concerned with getting the word out and building her brand than protecting her flanks.

RJ can’t do that, he can’t come out of the shadows because the sexual and domestic abuse of his inner circle is too well known. Even with all their subterfuge you can’t hide the bruises and the drunken public shaming. Anyone who has been in the group for a few hours knows that the supposed egalitarian community is run by RJ.

RJ lives in a separate house on the same property as his followers with his current number one woman. There he is serviced on all levels by the rest of the women and the community. When he wants, he goes out to one of his other houses in Smith River to fish on his boat. Only the most worthy of the community are allowed to come out and only if they are useful in some way. RJ doesn’t come to SF much anymore. He has trained his two oldest children, his daughters, to carry on the family business in the Bay Area. Even so, RJ still has SF as his legal address.

Nicole made the mistake of having her name on property and other assets which allowed the lawyers to access it as part of the lawsuits. RJ has his name on nothing. He is a bottom feeder that has to work in the shadows because he doesn’t stand up to the light. The only way for him to control his life is to control those around him who have covered for him, and who continue to try and spin and manage the outer circles. Those people who actually have their names on the paperwork and tax returns. For everyone, even the closest, if you leave, no matter how much money or time you have invested in the group, you get nothing. In fact you are only given back those things of yours that no one else wants. Usually in black garbage bags that are dropped unceremoniously with you, or after you, as soon as any doubt about staying is voiced. Ostracism, is only effective if it is done swiftly and totally. This how it works, this can help as well if you are feeling the burn.

I apologize if I pushed you for him, I did believe it that was love, I know better now.

All my life RJ has told me psychologist and psychology were full of shit and now I know why. Because if I had spoken to one, or if I had understood more about child development and how the mind works, I might have seen him differently. He would have gone to jail. One of the ways RJ isolated me, especially around the community, was by acting like only we truly understood the meaning of life and the rest were poor dullards. We were doing work for the betterment of mankind and the others just didn’t understand what it takes. Self-aggrandizing was and is part and parcel of his promotion.

I remember suggesting once I volunteer for Larkin Street Youth when it was a one-room non-profit taking care of runaways in the Tenderloin. RJ said I shouldn’t do it because it was too close to my own story. I thought he was taking care of me, not corralling me.

I see the fences he built now: around my family, my friends outside the group, education, and any other chance of considering another point of view. RJ always belittles intellectuals, academics, homosexuals, meditation, and anyone or anything that challenges his thinking or cult culture. He has no education and only ideas that fit his own are allowed. Secrecy and lies are his benefactors, and his women and his community are his tools.

Just to be clear, there is benefit in the information. Like everything and everyone else, it is made up of good, bad and indifferent. The information that RJ “teaches” is word for word what he got from Vic Baranco. He has not written anything new or changed even one line. He just changed the names of the courses. In fact, he has condensed the “teaching” into just the one liners delivered with no supporting evidence. No funny stories or personal experiences from the “teachers”.

Described as a lecture and discussion course, it is now a lecture only with well timed pauses to shamefully silence anyone who questions the validity. No explanations are given, as if they are only interested in those who “get” it, when actually they are only interested in who will “buy” it. This is fundamentalism, clearly. While Vic’s prodigy and others who have found benefit from Vic’s work continue to write, teach and expand life and sensuality for many people, the information rots and turns in on itself in RJ’s hands. Like anything hidden from the light.

If you have spent time in any of the groups you know that they get 90% of their food, clothing and vehicles donated through a registered 501(3)c. They also get help on their properties, and find students, through an online international organization for organic farm workers. You can read a few of their encounters here (updated) and here. Here is more reading about how cults work and sustain themselves. The site in general is a wealth of information. Especially if a loved one is caught up in this group. They have been a great resource and support to me.

Although RJ has become masterful at “DOing” (manual stimulation of a clitoris) women for extended orgasm, this is mainly accomplished through “fear, pain, and coercion”. Practices that he is celebrated for in the inner circle, because someone has to right? The guy willing to hurt you for your own good loves you more than anyone, you lucky girl. RJ has hurt more women than he has helped.

Intimacy coupled with abuse is more than toxic and stays with you. Humiliation is always hurtful and when it is about your sexuality, it is deeply scarring. To take women who are already bombarded with everyday life in a female skin and make their willingness to have their genitals rubbed as the measure of their worth is awful at best. You can’t be there unless you do hours of withholds and “DO” dates. You might even get a new name, because sometimes everything about your old self must be discarded.

The promise is finding sexual liberation and friendship between the sexes, but it is actually a prison of cis-gender hyper-femininity for women: short skirts and high heels and saying yes, because we really want ‘it’ as much as guys. Liberation is impossible when so much abuse is also present. It is not enlightenment, but snake oil. There are others who have achieved the orgasm without the abuse. There are other communities doing good work because they believe they have enough, not just what is left over after they get theirs. This is not that.

Aubrey De Graf said “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.” It is not easy to look honestly at people you love. It is not nice to feel that you have been used or duped or tricked or lied to. It feels better to believe you are more to your loved one than just a revenue stream or a resource to garner more resources. For those of you living in the community now: I know you have doubts and you know who I am talking to. I will leave the door unlocked and the light on for you, whenever you’re ready.

“Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members’ lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a ‘cult’; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.”
–Philip Zimbardo