my arica story

conclusion

After a while, I returned to California. I remember immigration in Hawaii. I had on sandals, a tee shirt, shorts and a little red TWA bag with almost nothing in it. That was all I possessed. The immigration officer gave me a real strange look. I got a job at Deetjen's in Big Sur, benefiting from Ed Guardian's traditional hospitality, but I was pretty empty. Eventually a couple of friends got me up to Joan Brewer's in Redwood City. Joanie had also been tossed out of Arica, along with her then boyfriend Ron Pippen and Joseph Hart, three of the best teachers in my three month training. Joanie took care of me and we eventually became a couple.

We moved to Berkeley. At one point we decided to try Arica again and take the new Advanced Training. In order to do it, even though Joan had been a member of the Chile group, she had to take a 40 Day. We went to Colorado, near Aspen where the training was to be held. We had a beautiful trip. The training was okay although the level of the teachers did not inspire me. I asked the people who administerd the training complex what they though of the affair, always finding that ordinary human perspective is useful. They told me the Arica trainers were the worst people that they had ever dealt with. Arrogant, discourteous, unreliable and so on. I learned how to kayak. At the party I revealed the really terrific Money Enneagram (The idea that it is an enneagon is just nonsense, not supported by history or the dictionary.) which I had developed.

(I no longer have this Enneagram, and would appreciate anyone who might still have it in their training notes to send me a copy.)

Then Joanie and I went to the advanced training in New York. It was a nice training. I enjoyed it. We had rented Patrick Watson's room in the Orwell house for the duration of the training. It was a rat's nest. The drawers and closets so stuffed we couldn't even unpack our bags. More junk than you could possibly imagine. It created a very unpleasant atmosphere. I was pissed off. But one day I thought I would look around a little in the closet to see what was there. It was an incredible jumbled mixture, like it had been put in there with a shovel. I found a loaded chrome plated .380 automatic pistol. Christ, possession of a gun in New York is a felony and it was in my room. So I unloaded it, threw away the ammunition and took it all apart. Then I took it to Mr Paranoid, Bob Jolly, and gave it to him. His eyes got that weird gleam he often had and I could see the paranoid intriguer come alive in him. I don't know what he did with it. I also found a copy of Professor Cheng's 16mm Taiwan film, so I took it into "protective custody". As a student of Professor Cheng, I thought it was disgusting for Watson to leave such a precious object in such appalling conditions. Later, Patrick and I discussed the matter at a Mexican restaurant in the Mission District of San Francisco and it was agreed that I was a better custodian of the film.

This was of course only a simple example of the actuality of Arica that lay behind the publicly spun image. Secrecy and hidden agendas were rampant and it was years before I learned from Oscar's daughter that he had given her LSD and raped her (see a technical analysis of the handling of this allegation in Rodomontade) and other, just as repulsive accusations of perverse sexual and unethical behavior including a rampant AIDS epidemic and incidents involving underage women, sex and drugs. I was not involved in any of that darkness nor did I even know of it while I was involved with the cult, but many Aricans have indicated they were aware of such activities.

After the training we returned to Berkeley. I set up an Arica House there, and found a facility with really low overhead. I always thought Arica had a problem understanding basic economics. You design your facilities around what you can afford, not on the basis of speculation about how much business you imagine getting. You can always move up. This problem continues. Then Stewart Karlan started his Pyramid project, a giant pyramid made with Arica's spectrum, at the end of Market street in San Francisco in conjunction with a Rainbow Festival. It was a really neat idea. It was beautiful. I made the diamond light which hung in the center. I was very proud of it. Then Joanie and I left for South America.

While there we visited Machu Picchu, certainly one of the loveliest places on the planet. We stayed at a little hotel near the entrance to the park. One night, on a full moon when everything was locked up, I jumped the fence and went into the Inca city. I took off all my clothes and ran around in there by myself most of the night. It was an incredible experience. When we got back to Berkeley I discovered some Aricans had entered my house and, saying they had permission which was not true, taken all my tools. I never got them back.

The new Yantras came out and Toham Kum Rah and some short training: "I Want to Change", which was a complete flop. I never liked that stuff, from the moment I saw it. Neither did Joanie. It didn't seem natural. We stepped away from Arica. I returned to Big Sur for a while, flipped out a couple of times, got my pilot's license and settled in Europe where I developed a journalism and photography practice.

The I saw a copy of the Equal. I thought it was great. A family newspaper with quality that actually came out regularly. Sheila Foraker, a wonderful woman, was the editor. We got on very well. I wrote columns for every issue, mostly about Europe, but submitted other objective work as well, like my Rice Cooking Enneagram.

Then there was some big flap about a picture of Oscar that was placed too close to an article about homosexuals in Arica. Whoever freaked about it was afraid that the society at large would conclude Oscar was homosexual. There was also a flap about Sarah Ichazo and a photo credit. Both items were ridiculous. Even in ordinary society all you do is print a rectification in your next issue. No big deal. But the Equal was fully chastised by the board, with Oscar and Sarah in full support behind them. It was felt that continued use of the Equal name, a copyrighted term, might reflect badly on Arica. So the paper had to change names but its back was broken and it died.

Later there was a meeting of European Aricans in London. It was fun to attend. We did some holy work and had all kinds of ideas about European expansion, teamwork, coordination and so on. When I returned to Switzerland, I supervised the translation of some Arica material into French and German, but nothing else ever resulted from the meeting.

The Arica 1990 Reunion was a great time for me. Seeing all my old friends including Oscar was so wonderful. Hawaii was terrific. I had never been there before except at the Honolulu airport. I had a run in with Patrick Watson's wife. She didn't want me to photograph her Tai Chi class. How weird. Later I argued with Patrick about it. He told me that, following Oscar's example, he had copyrighted Cheng Man Ching's form of Tai Chi under the choreography provisions of the law. I thought that was an amazingly stupid thing to do and warned him in no uncertain terms about his transgression.

The group work was not so interesting for me as I had hoped. Ho Music was wonderful but the rest of it left me flat. And I certainly don't need strobe lights to stimulate my Alpha waves. I was going to write an article about my experience and interviewed a number of people about their impressions. NONE of them would agree to being quoted by name. Later the board asked that no one write anything out of respect for Oscar's nearly completed book. Oscar has been saying he would soon publish a book or books at least since 1970, when he said so in an interview in the Chilean edition of Vogue. I hope it comes out soon.

Some specific commentaries:

Claims:

As I read over the list of those Aricans who attended the Reunion, I noted at the names of at least four who have since died from disease. (Not including my dear Keta, who perished in an auto accident.) They are: Elliott Dunderdale (stomach cancer), Jack Downing (some kind of leukemia), Patrick Watson (diabetes) and John Lindseth (heart or kidney problems. Others have died from Aids and other diseases

[Most recently, Fall 1998, my dear friend Linda Cross bless her - passed on, ead of cancer, one of the diseases Ichazo has BOTH implicitly promised to cure and said he didn't know what it was. The average age of Aricans at death seems quite low, but statistics are impossible to obtain. Arica claims to be unable to even tell its own members how many people are purchasing "trainings".]

When I commented on this to a dear brother Others have died from Aids and other diseases [Aricans call each other brother and sister, and say things like We Are One and You Love Me - except when savagely tossing out anyone who questions cult belief systems.] out of the group.], he said we did not expect to be exempt from ordinary human Karma. I concurred, but pointed out that was not exactly my question. In a recent Arica publication, Oscar claims that, when enlightened (and he has repeatedly claimed they are enlightened), Aricans will obtain nine powers, one of them being the ability to heal peoples' spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical infirmities. Oscar's claim means to me that, in order to promise it to others, he must himself have achieved this ability. So why didn't he heal these people?

The UN Writers Society award: [This is pathetic.]

Great fanfare was made by Arica upon Oscar's receipt of the prestigious UN Society of Writers Award and his invitation to speak at the United Nations. Yet what exactly was this award? I faxed the society with some questions which they didn't answer. So I called the president of it up. The society is a private group of UN employees, essentially a club. It has no official standing at the UN. They are all amateurs, with no evidence that any member ever produced any publications outside the UN. The president, a typically unpleasant medium high level UN employee, had heard about Oscar from his son who had met Oscar in Hawaii.

He had never read anything Oscar had written. The invitation was not to speak to the UN, in the sense of before the General Assembly or whatever, which I had hoped was the case, but before the club membership. As far as I know, Oscar never spoke before them. But the way the award was promoted, including a reproduction of the award letter in an Arica publication was presented as quite something else. The award has since been cited in other Arica publications. This is quite simply, misinformation, or in current terminology, spin doctoring.

The Enneagram:

As I mention above, the Enneagram is NOT an Enneagon. I have written a four page paper to show this. Anyone who would like a copy need just contact me.

[see the GonGram page] Gratitude and Credits:

One of the hallmarks of Arica is its obsession with copyrights and 3072 legal stuff. I think there must be 500 copyrighted terms by now. Once I had them all listed on a data base, but it fried before I could print it out. Now Oscar has said, and we were specifically told, that all the early Arica work was: "A variety of exercises taken from many traditions, stripped of their cultural artifacts and assembled in a synthetic manner to produce higher results quicker than any prior method." Fine, I accepted that. It was part of what drew me to Arica. That work benefitted me greatly. [But the society that it has produced is another matter.]

All these exercises and techniques were copyrighted by Arica, at first in the three month training manual. Yet not there or anywhere else (with very few vague exceptions like the Pamir as the source of Kinerhythm) is there any credit given to a master, teaching or tradition. Is this ethical?

A Final Straw:

As I was preparing this work, I told the woman I had lived with for two years, we are now separated, about it and asked to borrow her copy of the latest Arica address book so I could send it to those named at the beginning. She is an eighth level Arican, still active. She kind of drew back in her seat and started thinking (reading minds is not usually fun) whether she should permit this as I was certainly going to say something negative and perhaps she could somehow prevent my heresy. I was shocked at this and turned off the mind reading channel. I don't know where her thoughts went next. I was seeing Red China, the USSR and 1984. Was I being judged an enemy of the people? Is this really the kind of mentality Arica wants to create?

So this has been My Arica Story. I hope you have enjoyed reading it. I look forward to receiving your input. Within a month please.

(Later note, 6aug96: Twenty copies of MAS were sent out the last week of June, 1996. To date no one has found any fault with the accuracy of the above material except someone pointed out, incorrectly, that I should have used trademark instead of copyright for the bulk of Arica's legally protected terms. In fact I should have used the word "service mark" for the hundreds [Current estimate: AricaEntity has service marked, trade marked and copyrighted over 2,000 various terms] of terms. There was also a comment from the same person that Oscar may have mentioned some of his teachers in the Kensho training videos, but specifics were not given. There was also a posting alleging I was incorrect concerning the Equal's demise and thus perhaps on other matters. Two knowledgeable sources confirmed the accuracy of my account and the complainee decently withdrew his allegation. Hopefully he and others will read the rest of what I have written in The Lance with open minds.)

+++++ May you all develop shining mind and calm action.

++++ This has been written in the tradition of the:::::
+++Way of the Compassionate Warrior+++
with gratitude to all my teachers///

Sterling Doughty
Häringstr 13
CH-8001 Zürich
Switzerland

Dear Sterling,

October 1, 1996

This is to acknowledge that the Institute has received a copy of "My Arica Story." For your information, Oscar is completely focused on his work at this time and is not corresponding.

Sincerely,

(signature)

Christopher M. Ogle
Arica Institute Board of Directors

========

[As I have never heard another word, aside from the empty promise, from the Institute or Ichazo about 'my arica story' or any of my other writings, I presume they recognize the accuracy of what I have presented. Sterling Doughty March 1999.]

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