A Werewolf in Beloved's Clothing
Or, Unmasking the False Beloved: Exposing the Darkness at the core of The Eternal Heart
"Weirdly enough, I don't think I came into this world to be some creepy vampire's sex slave," I thought to myself, laughing, as I looked in my bathroom mirror during the last days of my journey through India. But that's what I had become, along the way, along the twists and turns of my life's path. And I wasn't the only one.
Let me tell you a story. It may be difficult to believe. It is definitely difficult to tell. But it's a true story, or at least it's as true as stories can be.
Once upon a time, in England, in a small town in the South West, there was a group of people who came together to dance and sing through the night. It was quite the scene! It had a kind of pizazz that few other spiritual scenes possessed. All of us who were involved absolutely loved it! Many of us felt a sense of belonging that we had never felt before. And yet, underneath all the glamour there was a dark shadow, hidden in the underworld, undiscovered, unseen.
As yet, I believe that few have seen this shadow. It's possible it has only been seen by me. It's been seen by me, I believe, because it wants to be seen. It has not let me look away. It has not let me not see it. So I'm guessing it wants to be seen. Otherwise, it would have remained hidden. That's one of the reasons I'm sharing it with you, so that it can be witnessed, seen, and hopefully redeemed. Only time will tell about the redemption part. Maybe some things can't be redeemed.
A central part of our practice was the sharing of a sacrament called Ayahuasca, a sacred tea from the Amazon rainforest, an alchemical synergy of two plants. This tea gave visions, creative inspiration, and spiritual powers to those of us shared in it. Naive as I was back then, I had no idea that these powers could be used for dark as well as light, and that our leader was actually a black magician, dressed up as a benevolent, although slightly gruff and cranky, King.
The tradition that our group was a beautiful flowering of is called the Santo Daime, a religious 'school' from Brazil, a perfect blend (for me, at least!) of Christianity and Shamanism. We would say the Lord's Prayer before and after every ceremony, and often sing songs that referenced Jesus Christ. It is now my understanding that the man who was leading us in those prayers had only three main purposes: 1. the adoration and worship of HIM, 2. the sexual conquest of women in the group as well as unsuspecting vulnerable female visitors (he gave his wife a list of over a hundred women whose names he could remember that he had slept with over the years), and 3. the secret access of women's sexual energy by way of black magic.
In fact, the whole thing was imbued with black magic. I see it now as the false light that he generated. At the time it just looked spectacular. It wasn't until many years later that I discovered that myself and the other women in the group had all been programmed to love him. This programming went deep, and stayed super unconscious until my last round of black magic abuse from him. Yes, you read that right: black magic abuse. As soon as I saw the programming, I worked hard to undo it, in my own ways, super successfully. Consciousness, it turns out, is stronger than programming. Good to know. Now that I am deprogrammed, I can barely look at pictures of him. I certainly can't listen to his music. To me, it all seems as if it has hooks and snares in it, as if it was designed by Lucifer himself.
His name is Adrian Freedman. His group is called The Eternal Heart. This is the only time I will write his name here, because his name itself is extremely triggering to me. But you know who I'm talking about now. My reason for writing this article is primarily to shine a light on him so bright, that he will never predate on or abuse another woman again. Back then, we knew he was distorted. How could we not?? We were ruled by his distortions! But once in a while, you would get a glimmer of his heart, and you'd be hooked again. And our programming, our love for him, and our deep desire for him to actually be good - he was our leader after all - meant that we kept telling ourselves he was good. After all, the Daime is good, and he served the Daime.
What he actually served us was enslavement and illusions.
Let me be clear. Although I do not advocate the tourism that has grown up around Ayahuasca, and I would never suggest someone just choose a shaman in Peru to go and drink with, I believe that the Daime is profoundly redemptive and fundamentally good. After a lot of consideration, I have come to the conclusion that Ayahuasca is essentially neutral, like consciousness, in that it allows all things to exist in its presence, both the darkness and the light, and all shades in between. Despite that neutrality, I believe that Ayahuasca infused with the prayers of the Santo Daime contains the Holy Spirit itself, which is a profoundly good spirit. And if you can receive it, there are so many blessings and gifts that come with it, such a beautiful vibration to generate. However, that does not mean it can't be used for evil, just as we know that Christianity in its more orthodox forms has been used for evil.
I was completely devoted to the Eternal Heart, to this stream, to this group, to this family, and to this man. Part of our programming included undying loyalty. Now I see that loyalty was required in order that he might get away with his blatant misbehaviour, while we protected him and his name. I was the most loyal of all the loyal followers. I came to believe that to protect him was my life's calling, as I stepped in to support him and his family after he was arrested for receiving packages of Ayahuasca.
There ensued a two-year process in which we were preparing for a legal battle in court. Things became dark and contracted, codependent. The glamour fell away. I was desperately clinging to the life I had loved, this incredible thing I was a part of, as I dedicated all the powers that the Daime had awakened in me, all the gifts I had been given, to making sure this man did not go to prison. I now wish he had. Things would have been better if he had served his time. And yet, I do believe that every single thing that I went through in relationship to him was already written. Such was the potency and the sense of destiny.
I remember him saying to me once, during this time, "one day maybe you'll become a valuable member of this community." Meanwhile, I cleaned his house, took care of his children, helped set up for ceremonies, took his wife shopping, and prayed for him day and night. That's the kind of game playing narcissism we were dealing with on the regular with him. I now realise what he was saying. He was saying, in his backhand way, that one day I might become one of his chosen sex slaves - for him, that was the only thing that would have made me a valuable part of the community. He had long term affairs with both of the women who held the central space with him and his wife, as well as other women who he had taken in to help with his family. But instead of becoming recognised in his eyes as a valuable member of the community, once the charges against him had been dropped, he got rid of me. This was a man who didn't like being challenged, and I had begun to challenge him regularly. And we had started to have raging arguments. So he made me an outcast from the thing that I had devoted myself so entirely to. I was rejected from his kingdom.
This was the most devastating thing I have ever experienced in my life. It shattered my heart into a thousand pieces. It was the end of my everything. But it was just the beginning of a 7 year journey between him and I.
I had just managed to pick myself up from the devastation of my life that was my rejection from the group I loved so much, when he came through, into my field, in a way that I had come to understand as 'on the current'. In Ayahuasca circles, or at least in the Daime, this current is regarded as a 'spiritual current', but it is actually a current of magic. Before he had ousted me, while I was fighting for him in my prayers, he and I had met and begun to establish a relationship on this current. I have since learned that this is something that Peruvian shamans can do - they enter into each other's visions in order to do battle, to prove who is the more powerful. Well, I had entered his visions and he had entered mine.
Initially, I entered his spiritual field in order to purify it, to transmute the shadows there, so that he might know himself as innocent, and therefore be found innocent in a court of law. I continued to do that work over the next seven years, but there was more. Much more. He and I formed a sacred union on that current, which I came to believe was my highest calling, to resolve all the woundings and the shadows between us and unite again in love. This was my daily practice for seven years. As crazy as it seems to me now, given the level of darkness this man is involved in, he was a spiritual counterpart. We matched at a level of god and goddess, and in this process, the goddess in me was awakened.
I quickly came to believe that he was my Twin Flame, my eternal Beloved, my True Love, the one I had been seeking all my life. Some of us already held the belief that we were a soul family, come together in this group, in this place, at this time, so in some ways it was simply an extension of that idea. I still hold the idea that a small group of us are a close soul family, and that we are part of a larger soul family, and that much of what has transpired between us on this sacred journey is simply the working out of karma. But I have often wondered if part of his abuse is to lead women to believe that he is their true love, 'the one'. I still think both and all can be true at once. I do know that he and I are connected at a very deep soul level. My soul loves his soul, despite everything. Unfortunately, his tactics worked successfully to alienate the women in the group from each other, so I have never felt able to enquire if any of the other women held this same belief, that he was their true love.
For me, during this time, he was everything! It was my life and my joy, to unite with him spiritually. I called it the Happy Thanksgiving, the Two Become One Equals Three, Love's Victory. I established a whole body of thought around it, receiving a profound amount of writings, surfing that current. I lived in a bubble of magic, a radiant vibration, an exhilarating roller coaster ride, always connected to him, in this powerful love, generating this powerful love. I was radiant with it, receiving so much, so many blessings, so many gifts. And yet, still isolated from the larger family, desperate to return, to come home, some day.
I have known for some time that part of my purpose in this lifetime is to heal the wounds of the feminine. Little did I know the hell I would have to go through to fulfil that purpose.
