Ramtha's School of Enlightenment

Ramtha's School of Enlightenment or RSE (est. 1988), is a school of mysticism and parapsychology based near the rural town of Yelm, Washington, in the United States.

History

J. Z. Knight in 1977 began claiming that the entity named Ramtha, a 35,000-year old disembodied entity from an ancient civilization, was channeling through her. Since then, Knight claims, through her, Ramtha has been teaching the truth about the reality of the world, and that he chose her to "help [her] over the ditch".

Since then, JZ Knight/Ramtha has been having private sessions with students of Ramtha's teachings, which were called "dialogues". The dialogues were held in 24 cities between 1979 and 1988 (including Seattle, Honolulu, New York and Denver), when she decided to found Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, on land which was previously a ranch. By 1995 she had expanded her tours to include other countries in the world, such as Australia, Italy, Japan and South Africa. It is now a place where students can travel to and attend the more systematically organized lessons, usually staying there over the course of several days, called retreats. The campus is located on a property owned by J.Z. Knight, under the umbrella of JZK, Inc. (a corporation by J.Z. Knight). The School's 80-acre (320,000 m²) fenced compounds are open only to staff members and students and are not open to the public.

Knight has been making immense profits from the School's activities, and from sale of books, tapes, CDs and DVDs, and in 2007 Knight had reportedly made a profit of $2.6 million in sales alone.

In 2004, various Ramtha school leaders (including James Flick, her current husband) joined community groups to strongly oppose a proposed 75,000-seat NASCAR racetrack in Yelm. However, the proposal was withdrawn.

In 2008, lessons were given to the public in more than 20 countries, including the Czech Republic, Romania and Chile for the first time.

See below for related projects.

Teachings

See also: J.Z. Knight - Teachings

Knight claims that through the School, the students have the opportunity to utilize their inner wisdom, focus their brains, and create their own reality.

The school's curriculum is based on the alleged channelings by J. Z. Knight of the entity Ramtha. Although the School has been criticised for being a cult (see below), JZ Knight and her followers deny such claims, and say that the School is neither a religion nor a cult.

Ramtha's School of Enlightenment teachings have been described as part of the New Age movement. Controversial religious scholar J. Gordon Melton wrote a book countering this argument, called Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha's School of Ancient Wisdom.

Activities undertaken in the School's compounds during the lessons include wine-drinking (earlier in the School's history), tobacco and pipe smoking, and breathing, among others. Through these techniques, the students believe they are on their way to becoming as "enlightened" as other shamans, or even "real magicians" who can alter the world and reality at will. Allegedly, it is being taught that alcohol and nicotine can help to achieve these means. The students believe that they can obtain such immense powers that will allow them to raise the dead, freeze a rocket in mid-air, make gold appear out of thin air, or even predict the future. Psychic progress in the sector is said to eventually lead to "ascension" of the body into the "Void", what Knight calls the ultimate spiritual state.

Other skills allegedly obtained by attending the lessons include psychokinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, and other ESP skills, which have been criticised by various skeptics and scientists around the world (see each article for more information).

The dialogues, and a lot of transcripts from Ramtha's and JZ Knight's talks have been compiled and published, over the course of many years. Videotapes of various dialogue sessions have also been released. While some of the major themes around the School's teachings are covered in these publications, a more in-depth and systematic presentation of his philosophies and teachings are only accessible by students of the school.

Research

In February 1997, Knight hosted a conference of scholars who had been studying her, the students and the school for the previous year. During their research phase, they also observed Knight channel Ramtha and measured various physiological functions of her body. The researchers examined Ramtha’s teachings and the school's practices from a variety of perspectives, including physics, feminism, parapsychology and religion. Melton organized the research. In addition to the conference presenters, Knight invited the media to attend. However, Knight said she did not sponsor the conference to gain publicity or to convince her skeptics.

Knight paid the travel expenses and stipends for the conference presenters, which caused some of Knight’s critics to suggest she had influenced their research, a contention describe as odious by Joe Bettis, one of the presenters whose Northwest Research Group partially funded the research phase but not the conference in which their papers were presented.

Apart from the conference proceedings, two papers were published. In 1998, Stanley Krippner published a paper on the psychological, phenomenological and geomagnetic results of the various studies. In 2009, Joan Hageman published a paper examining the results of the physiological testing on Knight and six students.

Controversy and Criticism

See also: J.Z. Knight - Controversy and Criticism

Ramtha's School of Enlightenment has been called a cult by various people, including her ex-husband Jeff Knight, former personal bodyguard Glenn Cunningham, former students of the school (such as David McCarthy or Joe Szimhart), and skeptic Michael Shermer. Melton's book, which denies the school's status as a cult, has been criticized for siding with the School and not providing a neutral description of what is going on within the School, and has been called a 'cult apologist' by various opposers of cults. His position was further criticized when he took the stand as a witness in the case Knight v. Knight (1992–1995), against Jeff Knight (JZ Knight's husband at the time - see J.Z. Knight court cases), by further supporting that the School is not a cult.

Former students of the School have accused the RSE of practicing brain-washing and mind-control, as well as using intimidation and fear techniques to keep students in the School. David McCarthy, a student of the RSE between 1989 and 1996, calls Knight a "spiritual predator", and he mentions various parts of the teachings which had an intimidative character, such as the prophecy that unless students remain faithful to Ramtha, they will become prey of the "lizard people", and that the ancient figure of Jehovah would return to earth accompanied by lizard people, in a spaceship. The former students (including David McCarthy and Joe Szimhart) have formed what they call Life After Ramtha's School of Enlightenment (also known as LARSE), a community group to provide support for people who have quit the school and find themselves lost.

Massimo Introvigne, president of The Center for Studies on New Religions CESNUR argues that most former members of such groups hold no strong feelings concerning their past experiences, while former members who dramatically reverse their loyalties can form a very vocal minority. Introvigne writes in his article "So many evil things: Anti-cult terrorism via the Internet", that fringe and extreme anti-cult activists resort to tactics that may create a background favorable to extreme manifestations of discrimination and hate against individuals that belong to new religious movements. Other sociologists refer to such extreme stories as an Atrocity story (See also: ’’Apostate role’’.)

A further controversial issue regarding Ramtha's teachings involve the so-called "endtimes", which were prophesized catastrophes. Instructions from Ramtha were given to the students, telling them to leave their friends behind if they resisted or disagreed with them. He taught that "your government is an illusion", which encouraged some students to engage in tax evasion, and he also directed students to build and prepare individual underground shelters to protect themselves against an imminent invasion of Chinese Communist soldiers from Mexico, planning to invade Seattle and the surrounding areas. Other prophesies include a holocaust would take place in 1988, the USA's involvement in a major war in 1985, a discovery in Turkey would reveal a big hidden pyramid which would reach to the center of the Earth, or that cities would be obliterated by diseases.

Various incidents within the School's compounds have been characterized as controversial. Glenn Cunningham, in an interview with David McCarthy, describes how one night, Knight suggested that all students should stay there for the night, because she said it would be 'good for the energy'. That was before the Great Arena (formerly used as horse stables) had been floored, and as a result there would be a lot of dust in the air. Cunningham says that there was a very old woman among the students, who begged him that she doesn't want to do this and she wants to go home, but Ramtha said that she can of course stay, under the protection of Ramtha and her bodyguard. Leaving the arena the following day, the old woman died of pneumonia (due to the dust in the air and humidity).

Another incident which is mentioned by both Cunningham and Joe Szimhart is the practice of running blindfolded towards all directions around the "tank" (an open fenced field, which was a former ranch). Szimhart mentions in particular an occasion around the year 1990, in which about 1,000 blindfolded students were directed to split up and run across the field, with their hands in the Consciousness & Energy position in front of them, and the exercise was meant to help the students overcome their fears. Szimhart recalls how many people crashed into each other, and that there were some injuries. A customer of his ended up with a deeply bruised shoulder and a big lump on his forehead. Aside from the minor injuries, a few people had to be treated at the hospital.

Infamous Members

In January 2011, French couple Philippe Meniére and Agnes Jardel, aged 60 and 55 respectively, are the subject of an armed manhunt in the Northern Cape, South Africa. The couple went on the run after opening fire on policemen who attempted to evict them from the farm where they had been living, rent free, for the past twelve years. The shooting left one policeman dead and another injured. They have been described as very reclusive by their neighbours in the town of Sutherland.

What started out in December as an eviction dispute that was not going well for the owner, ended in tragic events in Sutherland in January. Hardie farm owner Gerhardus du Plessis asked SAPS to assist in an eviction of Meniere and Jardel from the house Mr. du Plessis had let them live in for the past 12 years. His rational for calling in the police in an otherwise civil eviction matter was his concern that the couple might have illegal weapons.

Upon hearing the news that the fugitives had died in a shoot-out with police yesterday, JZ Knight, founder of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment (RSE) expressed a mixture of relief and sadness, “I am joined by the staff and students of RSE in sending our prayers to the families, friends and community members of Sutherland who have been so tragically affected by the recent shootings on the du Plessis property. We send our prayers for a swift healing for officer [Glenwall] du Toit. To the family of Jacob Boleme, we know that no words can console such a loss, still our hearts go out to you. This unfortunate atrocity affects us all and many lives have been impacted by these horrific events.”

Meniere and Jardel reportedly attended several RSE courses between 1999 and 2004. In a statement, RSE said they had no contact with them since they last attended a seminar in Johannesburg in January 2004. “As reported by the du Plessis family to the media, the change in their behavior happened only within the last year or two, so their recent actions are unrelated to RSE or its teachings,” Knight said. “This School does not condone violence in any form. The fundamental precepts taught at the School emphasize the sacredness of human life. The choices made by the couple do not reflect an understanding of the school’s philosophy,” she said. Knight said she had never met the couple.

From news reports, it appeared that Meniere and Jardel had thought the world was ending for decades. The couple had been involved in survival academy and Nostradamus prophecies as far back as the late 1980s. “They believed that the world was coming to an end and decided to flee. The sane academy members had a good laugh when they returned red-faced two weeks later,” Pete Swanepoel told the Independent yesterday. Swanepoel is a weapons instructor at the academy based in Germiston, Johannesburg.

French consul Antoine Michon said he had learned from the couple’s family and friends in France that the couple had moved to Sutherland in 1995 and wrote letters to breaking off contact everyone they knew in France.

On 20 January 2011, they were found at a farm in Sutherland and shot at. Early reports indicated that they had both been killed.

A team from the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) will investigate the death of a French couple during an apparent shootout with police on the farm. "They will look into the allegation that people died due to police action," ICD spokesperson Tiyani Sambo said. He said the directorate has to "probe" the incident because people were killed, allegedly by police officers.

Related projects

In 2004, three members of the RSE produced a controversial film that combined documentary interviews and a fictional narrative to posit a connection between science and spirituality, called What the Bleep Do We Know!?. The film has been criticized heavily by the scientific community due to its mis-representation of quantum physics, and an unnecessary connection to consciousness. The American Chemical Society's review criticizes the film as a "pseudoscientific docudrama", saying "Among the more outlandish assertions are that people can travel backward in time, and that matter is actually thought."

See also

• J. Z. Knight
• Cult
• Anti-cult movement#Cult-watching_groups_and_individuals,_and_other_opposition_to_cults
• New Age
• New Religious Movement
• Pseudoscience
• Pseudoskepticism
• Skepticism

External links

• Ramtha's School of Enlightenment - official website
• UK co-ordination website
• JZ Knight's Official Web Site
• EnlightenMeFree - A site set up by former students of the school, which questions the authenticity of Ramtha and provides support for members who quit the School