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THE PRISONER OF SAN JOSE: HOW I ESCAPED FROM ROSICRUCIAN MIND CONTROL |
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ELEVEN: The Protean Self Despite my long and painful indoctrination, there was a part of me that could not be entirely suppressed by the cult personality that was now dominating my life. Perhaps this part is best described as the protean self inside me that still had a life and power of its own.
But then a moment came when strange things began to happen, things that I had not planned and over which I did not seem to exercise conscious control.
In the middle of the summer of 1984, my unconscious began to erupt like an out-of-control volcano.
How I Left Charlestine's House Around May 1985, I was still living on 114th Street and 11th Avenue at Charlestine's house in Miami. The people there were Seventh Day Adventists, definitely good Christians. A friend from my English class had introduced me to them, and they rented me a room. They were a family who made me really feel like I belonged. AMORC and Superstition According to my understanding of AMORC teachings, everything that has an association with AMORC is sacred. For example, the envelope in which I received a monograph was considered sacred. The leftover candle that was used for AMORC study in my personal sanctum was sacred. At one point I accumulated too many leftover candles. Instead of putting them in the trash, I started burning them in the backyard of the place where I was living. I burned them in an area partially covered with concrete. The oil of the candle made the fire grow very high. Luckily, the neighbors didn't call the fire department. The concrete where I burned the candles stayed very hot after the fire went out. I didn't realize that Charlestine, her husband, and their children were observing me from inside. A few days later, Charlestine started to suggest that I join their church. Actually, they had mentioned that before, but this time they were more serious about it. The reason they wanted me to join their church was that they liked me but were conscious of my superstitious practices. Finally, one day, Charles tine told me that I had to find another house to live in. I told her that I would not leave, because I had just spent some of my own money to redo the floor of the room. She said that she would reimburse me, but I didn't hear that, and I kept on arguing with her. Suzette, her older daughter, was standing at a distance, waiting for me and her mother to get into a fistfight so that she could jump in and beat me up. I was somehow subdued, and I went back to my room. I must note that even though I had said that I would not leave, it was only a bluff. I was driving taxi at the airport, and I was telling every taxi driver that I needed a room to rent. The taxi drivers and the members of the Miami lodge were my only social contacts. At that time, I realized that the members of the Miami lodge could not be of any help in such a matter. The first room I rented in Miami was from a brother from the lodge. It was a disaster, and I stayed there for only a month. So the drivers were my only chance. I was actually buying time at Charlestine's house by saying I wouldn't leave, in the hope that a taxi driver would eventually help me find another place to live. Just about a week after my argument with Charles tine, one of the taxi drivers rented me a room, and I moved out. A Regressive State of Mind Experience Around the mid-1980s, I had a friend, Lucie Macena, a young lady who lived in Haiti but often visited the United States on business. She already had her green card and came here to buy office supplies for the Haitian government. When she returned to Haiti, she would often visit my mother and my family. She was solicitous of their needs. Sometimes she would actually buy them food out of her own pocket. My mother was living in deep poverty at that time in Haiti, and I was always worried. So whenever Lucie returned to Miami, 1went to visit her so that 1could find out how my mother was doing. One Saturday morning, I learned from Nadine that Lucie was in Miami. So I left the airport and drove to Nadine's house to visit her. During the drive, I had a strange idea. Despite my need to hear about my family, I questioned the value of visiting Lucie. I am not sure why this thought came to me, but it bothered me intensely. Still, on another level, it seemed obvious to me that I needed to see her. If something had happened to my family, she might be able to lend a helping hand to them on my behalf. Since I could not really help them financially at that time or in the near future, I believed Lucie to be a kind of insurance for their safety that I might be able to draw on because of her kindness. Seeing her seemed to me a kind of obligation. Still, the thought of not going to visit her persisted, even as I drove into a gas station on Seventy-Ninth Street and seventh Avenue and got out to put some gas in my car. I gave the station attendant ten dollars and went to pump myself ten dollars' worth of gas. When the meter reached five dollars, it stopped. I rushed over to the man and said, "I gave you ten dollars and wanted to put ten dollars' of gas in my car." He said "No," in a very loud voice; "You gave me five dollars." Unexpectedly, and out of context, I put my index finger over my mouth, making the station attendant furious. It was a strange gesture, considering the situation: I had just been ripped off. I asked myself why I made that gesture. I would only learn the answer many years later. Only in 2004, some nineteen years later, when I started reading books on mind control organizations, did I realize that the gas-station incident where I put my finger on my lips to silence the loud attendant was the same gesture my Catholic schoolteachers had used to tell the children to be quiet. On the other hand, if you recall, it was also a gesture that was mentioned in the AMORC monographs, a kind of symbol of the perennial silence a Rosicrucian must keep about his work, first from the outside world and secondly from those who have not reached the appropriate degree in the order.
This showed me that, in the face of a rather small conflict over five dollars, I had really regressed to a childlike state instead of dealing with it in a more forthright manner. After my confrontation with the gas-station attendant, I went back to my taxicab and drove off, losing five dollars in the process. Inside of me, something told me that maybe what had happened at the gas station was a sign that I shouldn't go to visit Lucie. When I got to Nadine's house, Nadine said that Lucie was inside waiting for me. When I got inside, Lucie treated me very disrespectfully. She didn't like the way I was handling things in Miami. She told me exactly what she thought was wrong and what I should be doing, going on and on incessantly. The only thing she didn't do was spit in my face. The reason Lucie was so angry was because she had been having firsthand encounters with the deep poverty in which my mother was living. She was also aware of my involvement with AMORC. She didn't know anything about cults or mind control organizations, but she was convinced that something was wrong with the organization. The more Lucie humiliated me, the more I kept hearing a little voice inside of me: "I told you not to come. You see that ... " I was shocked and confused and speechless. So I went back to my taxicab and drove back to the airport. All the while, that little voice kept sounding in my brain: "I told you not to go." I interpreted that voice to be the voice of the AMORC masters. I eventually bought into what the voice said, taking what had just happened with Lucie as proof that AMORC knew best what was good for me. This incident reinforced my lack of personal decisiveness. When I had to make a decision, I'd look for a message of this type so that I could know in advance if it was right or wrong to do something.
Sixth Temple Degree Initiation A few days before my first stay in a motel, the following incident occurred: AMORC gives temple degree initiations in their lodges. Members are encouraged to receive the initiation at the lodge once they reach that degree level in their home study. I was already in the eighth temple degree but had only received the first five degree initiations in the lodge. The sixth temple degree was scheduled to be given the next Sunday. Saturday, during the day, I met Pauline, who was also a member of AMORC. Pauline and I dated for about a month. She was the only person that I ever dated in the Miami lodge. In fact, when I saw her that Saturday, she told me that the members of the lodge had noticed that we were dating and were talking about us. Compulsively, I replied to Pauline, "When you are practicing true mysticism, you do not waste your energy worrying about others' criticism." It was only after I replied that I realized that I had quoted something I had read in AMORC's quarterly publication. At that moment, I thought that quick answer was proof that I was evolving spiritually. Now I know that it was proof that I was becoming a human parrot, programmed by the so-called cosmic masters with direct quotes, rendered with precision, from official AMORC literature. Pauline and I talked for a little while that day. She asked me whether I was going to be taking the sixth temple degree initiation the next day. I told her I would not, because I didn't think I was ready, even though I had studied past that degree in my home sanctum. We said goodbye, and I went off to drive my taxi. By 7:30 PM, I had a passenger coming from the airport going to downtown Miami. While I was proceeding peacefully through a green light, a lady came flying through the red light and crashed into my car. Right after the crash, I heard that same inner voice again: "This happened because you refuse to receive the sixth-degree initiation tomorrow." The accident happened right behind the downtown Miami police station. A police car showed up almost instantly. The policeman who came was Cuban, and the lady who had driven through the light was also speaking Spanish. She didn't lie about going through the red light. She simply said she was lost and that this neighborhood was bad, and she wanted to get out of this part of town quickly. She was taking the time to flirt with the Spanish-speaking policeman, and soon neither of them even noticed me. Right after the accident, a white man came to my rescue. He told the policeman that he had seen the lady going through the red light. He also told me that he was a friend of the general manager of the Yellow Cab Company, which was the company I was driving for. Despite the importance of his intervention, I was not paying any attention to the man. I was mostly thinking about why I didn't want to take the sixth temple initiation on Sunday. I was too busy blaming myself for the accident. Right then, I decided to go the next day to receive the initiation. Still in a daze, I called a tow truck, took the car to the station, and then went home. The next day, I was one of the first at the lodge to line up for the sixth temple degree initiation. After the initiation, Pauline asked me whether I had understood the mystical meaning of a certain statement made during the initiation. I told her I hadn't heard it. Looking back, I realize that I hadn't heard anything that was said during the initiation. In fact, I blocked it all out from my mind. All my experience, everything that happened to me, was now filtered through my relationship with AMORC. A Prospective Wife I was stuck driving a taxicab. I clearly realized that the easiest and perhaps the only way to change that was to get married and get my green card. With it, I would be eligible to receive financial aid and go to college to improve my life. One night, I met a lady from Haiti. She took a taxi ride to her home. We talked during the ride, and at one point she asked me whether I was single. I said yes. She asked me if I wanted to meet her sister, who was also single. I said yes to that, also. So when I got to her home, she paid me her taxi fare, and I went inside with her to meet her sister. Her sister was a young lady, probably twenty-two years old. She had a three-year-old daughter. Later, she told me she was a high school graduate. Although I believed her, it was painful to see the efforts she made to try to convince me of the reality of her graduation. She did that, I think, because the family was obviously very poor. Still, her family lived in a very big house that they owned. Her fervent attempts to convince me about her graduation reminded me of an identical experience I'd had when I was trying to convince someone that I had studied accounting or had been a civil engineering student in Haiti. The young woman told me that her father, who had come from Haiti, had been a very prominent businessman in the Haitian community of Miami. He had died unexpectedly the year she was graduating from high school. She told me that her family had been living on their inheritance since his death. I really liked her and said to myself that she was the prospective wife I was looking for. I was also, in the back of my mind, already thinking about how I would make her a Rosicrucian. The AMORC Order uses subtle language to encourage members to make associations with like-minded people. They have a subtle way of saying, "Make your family and friends Rosicrucians." We talked for a little while longer, and she gave me her phone number. I told her I would come back to see her the next day. When I got to my car, I said to myself, "I will take her to the lodge to meet Soror Gonzales and see what she thinks." Soror Gonzales was always on my back about getting a girlfriend or a wife. Despite the fact that the soror was kind of a busybody and always pestering me about my personal life, she was kind of a mother figure for me, and I wanted to please her. I began to think that she would be very happy with this young lady. But, still, upon reflection, and thinking about the girl's obvious poverty and poor appearance, I began to doubt that Soror Gonzales would approve. I began to think that bringing the young woman to the lodge would throw further doubt on my abilities and my social relevance. I didn't want to risk that, so I began to have doubts about continuing my relationship with the young lady. In fact, I never saw her again. For more than fifteen years after this incident, I thought that the Cosmic knew that the young woman would not be the right person for me to marry and start a family with. Until 2004, when I started reading about mind control organizations and destructive cults, I didn't realize that my reasoning had been altered by techniques designed to reduce rational decision-making. In focusing on the Cosmic as being responsible for my inaction, I was giving fate or destiny part of the responsibility that was probably mine to bear.
A Legend about H. Spencer Lewis One fascinating story recounts the time Lewis's secretary mistakenly scheduled him to give a talk in two different faraway cities at the same time. Even though he had heard and understood the secretary's mistake, Lewis didn't flinch, simply remarking to her something like, "Don't worry, I'll take care of that." Then, according to the AMORC legend, he proceeded to meet both appointments simultaneously, giving talks in both cities at the same time. This was in 1915, when there was no video or teleconferencing, just live performances. Here, we are talking about a feat of bilocation, which is a miracle attributed to certain saints. An example of this would be the Catholic priest Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, who lived in the late eighteenth century. He was seen preaching a sermon in one city and giving alms to one of his followers in an entirely different city, both at the same time.
Vanessa: A Story of Being Disconnected from the World Around 1985, I rented a room from my cousin, Carlos Chery. He had a beautiful house in a very nice neighborhood in North Miami Beach. His wife was a registered nurse (RN). His wife's cousin, Vanessa, was a licensed practical nurse (LPN). She was single, like me, and she was very interested in marrying me. She gave me many hints that she felt that way, but I was not receptive to any of her advances. Carlos eventually told me that Vanessa liked me. "She needs a husband," Carlos said. "Why don't you marry her?" I told him that she was like me, illegally in the United States, and that I would not marry an illegal person. I knew of many couples from Haiti who had been married when both the husband and the wife were illegally in the United States. They had gone on to have children, but because of some minor incident, they ended up being deported back to Haiti. So I was totally convinced that I had to either get my green card or marry someone who could help me get it. Also, I wanted to make sure I would be able to get my mother and sister out of Haiti. Without my green card, there was no way I could do that. Carlos said to me that because Vanessa was a nurse, she was qualified to get a green card -- because there was a nursing shortage in the United States. I didn't believe Carlos at the time and gave him a telling look. But, sad to say, Carlos was telling me the truth. Immigration was giving green cards to nurses to encourage nurses from overseas to come to the United States. But I didn't know that -- because I was literally living in the secluded AMORC world. In other words, I didn't watch the news and didn't watch any TV, and I spent very little time socializing with anybody. My only social contact was with the people of the Miami lodge, either before or after convocation. For me, at least, these social periods consisted primarily of talking about Rosicrucian matters. This was the time when members shared stories about AMORC and its officers. This was the time where one hears legends about H. Spencer Lewis.
Job Prospect with Grand Counselor A few months later, I was still driving a taxi in Miami and still an officer of the Miami lodge. I was spending every other day in a motel in Miami Beach because I could not make enough cash to rent an apartment. It was obvious to everyone at the lodge that I needed a job other than driving a taxi. Reasonable or not, members of the lodge viewed taxi driving as reflecting a low social status. Some members' spouses drove taxis, but they concealed that fact from the lodge. In other words, except for me, you would never see someone associated with the lodge driving a taxi, and you would not see their spouses come to pick them up in a taxi. But I approached the matter differently. AMORC taught that humility was a good quality, and I was applying the AMORC teaching to the letter. I firmly believed that the humbler I was, the worthier I was to receive enlightenment. So, if the Cosmic made me drive a taxi for a living, according to the teaching just mentioned, I would have to accept that and not be ashamed of it. So when I went to the lodge, I drove up in my taxi and proudly got out of my taxicab. That caused my "loving" fellow Rosicrucians to feel very embarrassed. For some reason, the idea carne to me that I should ask the grand counselor for a job. He was a director of a bank in Miami. I felt the suggestion, because his wife, who was also an officer of the lodge, was one of many people who were "sending" that suggestion to me. These suggestions were probably prompted by the AMORC lodge community's desperate embarrassment at my prominent position as a taxicab driver and my extremely poor wardrobe choices, which were straight out of the Salvation Army. I resisted the thought for many weeks. My reasoning was plain and simple: if AMORC was not lying about the power of its techniques, I should not need the favor of the grand counselor to get a job. I should be able to apply these techniques to get my green card so that I could receive financial aid, go to school, and get a good job. After resisting the thought for many weeks, I finally decided that the next Sunday, after convocation, I would ask the grand counselor for a job. While attending the convocation, before the so-called "guided meditation" period, the idea arose in my mind that if the grand counselor of the Miami lodge gave me a job, I would feel so grateful that I would become entrapped forever in the lodge. That was a problem because, by that time, I actually hated the lodge. During the guided meditation, I found myself unable to concentrate. I saw images of dogs, cats, strange faces, and other incoherent imagery. Nothing quite like that had ever happened to me before. Almost instantly, I felt that my thoughts before the guided meditation were responsible for the strange images. Something in me had become upset when I started to think about ignoring this potential position at the bank. Perhaps I was being prideful and insistent, when an important opportunity was right in front of me. Maybe I was defying the good the egregore was offering me. When the convocation was over, the wife of the grand counselor came over to me and hugged me, trying to uplift me. Now I was in a state of shock. Did she somehow sense that I was making the wrong decision by not asking her husband for a job? Did she know what I had just gone through? I decided that it must the Cosmic's will that I get a job that way. But the next day when I was about to take action, it came to me that the grand counselor could not give me a job anyway, because my employment permit had expired and I could not renew it. I had actually become "illegal" five months before the day of the convocation. Still, I was tormented by the idea that somehow I was missing an opportunity and that my illegal status and other problems could be overcome. I called the grand counselor and made an appointment to see him at the bank where he worked. I went there on the day of the appointment, but I was sure that the grand counselor could not give me a job, even to clean the bathroom at the bank, because I looked like a disgusting little "nothing." I was sleepless, homeless, and dirty, even though I put on the best outfit I had, the one I had bought earlier from the Salvation Army. The grand counselor told me that he would check to see what the bank might have for me in the way of a job, but his body language told me that I'd have to find a way to look better before I could get a job at a bank. The truth is that when you are doing AMORC monographs twenty-four hours a day, you do not have any chance of looking any better. 1986 My First Homeless Night So far I was able to manage to get money to pay for a motel every night because I had a taxi to drive every few nights, at least enough to pay my way. But as I was always living on the edge, I finally ran out of options one night and didn't have a car or the money to pay for a motel. I checked out of the motel where I had spent the night and walked from Miami Beach to Miami, on Eighty-Third Street near Biscayne Boulevard, where some Haitian friends of mine lived, hoping they would let me spend the night and get a taxi in the morning. When I got there, it was clear that they didn't want a roommate, even for one night. It started getting dark outside, so I left Eighty-Third Street and walked to Fifty-Fourth Street on North Miami Avenue. I was not in a hurry, because I knew I was going to spend the night on the street. There was a twenty-four-hour laundromat where I figured I could sit and wait until 5 AM so that I could go to a taxi fleet and get a taxi to drive for the day. I was properly dressed and had a bag with toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap, and other basic necessities, including my monographs. I sat at the laundromat from about 8:30 PM onward. People who carne in late to do their laundry thought I was waiting either for my clothes to be dried or for a friend. In any case, no one noticed me enough to ask me why I was there. Later on, maybe at about 11:00 PM, very few people, if any, were corning in to do their laundry. At that point, the laundry became a meeting place for some "ladies of the night" and their pimps. I sat on the bench outside the laundry, listening to their conversations and jokes. I was holding my bag, with all my important possessions, so I did my best to stay awake. I probably dozed off several times, but I am not quite sure. At any rate, none of them realized that I was, in fact, homeless. I left the laundromat at about 4 AM and started walking towards the Super Yellow Taxi Station that was also located on Fifty-Fourth Street. It would be open by 5:00AM, when it began to send drivers out for the day shift. I walked slowly so that I would get there on time. I didn't want to attract attention by making it look like I was afraid. When I was almost there, a car stopped next to me, and I heard the car's horn. A Bold Intuition Validates the Order To my surprise, the person who had just stopped and honked was an AMORC member. He was a frater from Africa whom I had met at the Miami lodge before. He was surprised to see me at that time of day, around 4:45 AM, by myself on the street. I replied in a very normal way, pretending that I was just getting off the bus, and headed to the station to get a taxi. He lived in the area and offered me a ride, but I said no, because I was almost there -- which was true. As soon as he drove off, something like a Cosmic voice or an intuitive moment came, and I realized that I had heard or understood the three reasons why I was in such a financial mess. The first was my excessive devotion to the Miami lodge. The second was my refusal to eat red meat. The third was my sexual abstinence. I was relieved and grateful to the "Cosmic" for coming to my rescue, and I took this as the ultimate proof of AMORC's validity as a spiritual order. I was convinced that once I complied with these three missing pieces, my reward would come. I myself was responsible for not receiving the blessing. This was an interesting "insight," but fundamentally a kind of fantasy. In fact, it was simply one step forward into further entrapment by AMORC. Compliance My extra devotion to the Miami lodge was a fact. I was exactly following AMORC instructions that required service to the lodge. It turned out to be a very difficult struggle. I was convinced that my service to the lodge was a Cosmic calling. I was convinced that the inspiration I had received that morning was also an AMORC spiritual message. My experience in the lodge, in fact, was not really all that positive. I felt that many of the members were deceiving me with their so-called spiritual insights.
Held at Gunpoint At that point, I didn't feel I had the freedom to stop going to the lodge without missing a chance at getting an important future blessing from AMORC. I was still driving a taxi and staying at the Sunrise Motel in Miami Beach. I had the night shift, and at around 1:00 AM, I heard another driver on the radio asking for help. I guess somebody was trying to rob him. I knew where he was and started driving in that direction, a good distance away. On my way there, a guy hailed my cab. Given where he was, I would not normally have picked him up. But that night, for some reason that I still don't understand, I did pick him up. His destination was around the southwest area, not far from the Miami lodge. As we got closer, he pulled a gun, pointed it at me, and demanded my wallet. I was not afraid, and I impulsively put my hand on the gun, but I quickly realized that I was not supposed to do that and let go. For some reason, despite the circumstances, I felt fearless. He got my wallet, took the key from the engine, and walked away. He made me get out of the car before him. Trying to let him know that he was in charge, I acted like I was afraid. Although at the time, I had plenty of reason to be afraid, I was filled with calmness and certainty about my survival. Retrospectively, it was a very peculiar, even reckless state to be in. After he turned down the block, I went back to the car and got on the radio to let the dispatcher know I had been robbed. The dispatcher told me to move away from the car in case the robber came back. I went to a twenty-four-hour restaurant that was just a block from the Miami lodge and waited for the police to make a report. When I got home that night, the whole event sunk in, and I became really afraid. I suppose now they would call my reaction posttraumatic stress syndrome. I told the hotel that I had been robbed and that the gunman had taken my wallet and room key. They gave me a different room. A couple of days later, as I was in Miami Beach with a lady I had met, the thief walked passed and kind of bumped into me. Almost instinctively I knew that he was trying to see whether I could identify him. I made it look like I didn't recognize him, because I knew he could easily have killed me. I realized that, given the danger of this man's potential murderous intentions, I needed to get out of Miami. But as an officer at the Miami lodge, I was afraid to abandon my duties. Nothing would be worse than offending the egregore, one of the most successful phobic beliefs I had ingested from my indoctrination. After all, I was now the guardian of the lodge, a position with a one-year term of office. Leaving this position could be a major offense. The following Sunday, as I was driving to a lodge convocation, I stopped at a gas station on the corner, about fifty feet from the lodge. As I was putting gas into my car, I saw the thief waiting at a bus stop. I called the police using a public phone, because the car I was driving didn't have a radio. By the time the police came, the thief had already taken the bus. I didn't make note of the bus number because I didn't want him to know that I had seen him. Fearless before, I was now greatly moved by fear. This was the Sunday, if I remember correctly, that Soror Gonzales asked me whether anything had happened to me. I thought that she must have had some mystical power, but, in fact, I found out that her fellow Cubans who drove taxis had told her about the incident. God was indeed helping me to leave the Miami lodge, but I was still "stuck," restrained by the Rosicrucian order. Reading the Monographs on Foot I checked out of the Sunrise Motel in Miami Beach. My taxi had been taken from me the day before, and I had not one penny left in my wallet. I went to the motel's front desk and told the manager I did not have any money to pay. At that point, I was two days behind. I gave him the key. I told him I will come back and pay you. He told me you do not have to come back to pay. I had stayed in the motel many times since I had been driving taxis, and I had never had any problem paying my bill. Maybe this was why he let me go. So with one little bag on my back containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, and some underwear, I left. Also in this bag were a few monographs, so that I could practice the daily exercises, and some new monographs to study. My other belongings were in a storage room. So I started walking toward North Miami Beach. There was a taxi base there that I had driven for in the past, and I was hoping that they would give me a taxi to drive. I walked because I didn't have any money to take the bus. While walking, I was brainstorming, trying to figure out which part of the AMORC teaching I was not doing right. According to these monographs, if you practice the Rosicrucian teachings and follow the given instructions, things should go well in your life. Things had been going very badly in my life. Since AMORC's teaching could not be wrong, I felt that it must be that I was doing something wrong. With these thoughts, I kept on walking. But after passing the drawbridge, the idea came to me as to what exactly it was. So I stopped on the side of the bridge and pulled out a monograph from my bag and read it. What I read confirmed that I was exactly following the instructions given in the monographs. In an almost intuitive way, the idea came to me that the AMORC monographs themselves were my handicap. I was convinced that I had indeed uncovered the truth. But for reasons unknown to me at the time, I did not make any decision to stop studying the monographs. So I continued to walk toward the taxi base. When I got there, they didn't give me a taxi to drive. In the past, I had worked for them, and didn't pay on time, even though my balance with this base was zero. So I left, not knowing where I was going or what to do next. Then I started walking toward the airport. About one block after I started walking, a taxi stopped near me. It was my friend Louis from Haiti. He picked me up and asked where I was going. I made up something so that he couldn't figure out that I was homeless. I asked him whether I could have a shift in his car. Taxi drivers often take a co-driver when they have a taxi full-time. He said no. His wife knew how unreliable I was and probably told him never to share a taxi with me. So he took me to the airport, where I looked for a taxi to drive.
Civil Unrest in Haiti In 1986, I was in Miami International Airport in a taxi holding area, waiting for my turn to go to the terminal to pick up a customer. The waiting usually lasted two, sometimes up to four hours. During these waiting periods, most drivers used the time to socialize with each other, play cards, and talk about current events, mostly politics. I usually spent my waiting period reading AMORC monographs, meditating in the car, or practicing AMORC exercises. One day, while walking past some drivers who were talking about politics in Haiti, I stopped. They were talking about the fact that Haiti was in turmoil, and that if Baby Doc Duvalier did not leave Haiti, the nation would fall into civil war. Unrest in Haiti had been going on for a few weeks. The problem for me was that I had no TV and no knowledge of any current events. My whole personal life was rooted in AMORC literature and practices. This type of isolation from even mass media is not unusual in cults that are more or less isolated from the mainstream of daily life. But how about cults whose members have jobs, are not supervised by cult overseers, and do not occupy themselves with cult activities every day? What was wrong with me? Why didn't I listen to the news?
In a sense, just like the more conventional cult, which had the overseers, the daily responsibilities, and the strict censorship rules over reading and media, I was too busy and too committed to become part of the world. But now the world was facing me, and I could not ignore it. At that moment, I asked myself, "What am I doing to get my mother, brother, and sisters out of Haiti?" Then, almost like turning a light switch on, an idea came to my mind. I thought, "The Cosmic has kept me away from the news of civil unrest in Haiti so that it can protect my family. It doesn't need my help." A feeling of gratefulness pervaded my mind, and I went to my car and continued to read and practice my AMORC exercises. AMORC is not only expert in reframing everything in life but expert in teaching members to do the same thing for themselves. After they've been indoctrinated, members also become expert at reframing events in their lives in a way that makes AMORC and its teaching look good.
Days Are Numbered at the Lodge During one of my last days of association with Miami lodge, I arrived before everyone else, waiting to attend a convocation. By then, I was the lodge guardian. The role of the lodge guardian was to screen people before they were admitted to the lodge, by validating their membership cards and sometimes, if necessary, asking them to provide a password. I usually carne to the lodge with my taxicab, which I parked in the lot, a matter that embarrassed the members of the lodge. I still was poorly dressed in Salvation Army clothes, working on very little sleep. At the time, I had two full-time jobs: driving my taxi and studying and practicing Rosicrucian teachings. That particular day, also as usual, I was very hungry. Everyone was coming with food that day for a social event that was going to take place after the lodge convocation. As some of the members were tasting the different foods to be served at the party, I stepped into the room and asked whether I could join in sampling the food. They served me some food, but from the corner of my eye, I picked up that they were gossiping about my being hungry. Something inside me told me that this place had nothing to do with the values of the so-called great white brotherhood or even the more common concept of brotherhood promoted by AMORC, and I knew that my days in this lodge were numbered.
How I Got to New York from Miami I was at the end of my rope in Miami. I was driving a taxi, and my taxi license was due to expire in three months. I had an employment permit that was given to me by Immigration and Natural Services (INS) under the Haitian/Cuban refugee program. Immigration does not renew this type of permit. At least, they would not give you a new one because it was really only a stamp that they put on your 1-94, which is an immigration document allowing you to visit the United States. If you lost your 1-94, you were just out of luck. Well, as fate would have it, I lost mine. I thought that it had happened when I was moving from motel to motel. So I couldn't renew my taxi license, and I couldn't get a job either, because I wouldn't be hired if I didn't have an employment permit. One month earlier, one of my good friends from Haiti, Guenise Raphael, who was living in Boston, came to visit her sister in Miami. When I saw Guenise, she suggested that I should consider going to New York, where I might have a better chance of getting my green card. I told her that I thought that was good advice. When Guenise was leaving Miami for Boston, she gave me a very nice clock, a souvenir of Miami she had bought, and told me to bring it to her when I carne to New York. Two weeks before the expiration date of my taxi license, I left Miami and flew to New York. I had only about a hundred dollars in my pocket. In my luggage, I carried two or three sets of clothes that I bought from the Salvation Army. I also had two large traveling bags filled with my most prized possessions, five years of AMORC monographs, and every piece of correspondence that I had ever received from the AMORC order.
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