"Da Free John is a hero, an American hero. It happened in America. He's not Jim Jones. He's not a bad person, a manipulating and exploiting person. That is a terrible thing to say."

Susan Lesser, Adidam spokesperson, on the NBC Today Show, 1985

Susan Lesser was a professional film-maker who became attracted to Franklin Jones in the mid-1970s when she was hired to make "A Difficult Man", the movie that introduced a great many people to Daism. Because of her Hollywood good-looks and public persona, she was chosen to become one of Frank's principal spokespersons. Together with Daist apologists Franz Bakker and Crane Kirkbride, she appeared on the NBC Today Show after the Beverly O'Mahony abuse scandal broke. [Current information is that both Susan Lesser and Franz Bakker are no longer associated with Daism. Crane Kirkbride is still a leading Adidam public relations figure.]

One day while I was working at Dawn Horse Press, Susan Lesser approached me and said she would like to ask my advice about a book she was working on.

We met in her office, where she handed me a manuscript titled Twirling Away Jetlag. [When the book was finally published, in 1992, the title had become Twirling and Jetlag.] As I recall, the basic thesis of the book is that the famous "jetlag" effect is caused by losing bodily harmony with the planet's rotation as an airplane carries you rapidly across the globe.

According to Twirling Away Jetlag, after a long flight one should spin the body, like a whirling dervish, in the opposite direction from which you have been flying. This is suppose to rebalance the relationship of the physical and subtle bodies with the planet, and relieve the feeling of "jetlag".

Susan said she hoped to bring in some money for the community by selling this book to airline passengers in airport bookstores around the world. The appendix of the book would include introductory information about Da Free John and Daism.

Here is the Table of Contents of the published edition:

Introduction: Of Time Zones and Timeless Happiness.
1. Twirling and Jet Lag: A Way to Equalize the Effects of the Earth's Rotation and of Fast Transportation by the Divine World-Teacher and True Heart-Master, Da Avabhasa (The "Bright").
2. How to Twirl.
3. The Use of Polarity Screens to Reduce Jet Lag.
4. From Feeling Better to Feeling without Limitation.
5. A Brief Biography of the Divine World-Teacher, Sri Da Avabhasa (The "Bright").
6. "A Unique Advantage to Mankind": An Invitation to a Direct Relationship with Da Avabhasa. Selections from Da Avabhasa's Wisdom-Teaching.

I asked Susan if she had written the book. She said "yes", which turned out to be a lie -- it was actually written by Frank, and his handwritten revisions were all over the manuscript.

Susan said she would like it if I could read over the manuscript and tell her what I thought of it -- whether they should publish it, what it needed to make it better, and how it could be presented to the public. I accepted the task, only half aware that it was being assigned by Frank himself.

One of the most interesting aspects of the meeting was Susan's flirtatiousness. Susan is a very beautiful woman, and clearly she knows how to use her striking presence to serve the ends of the Master.

In this case I found myself spending several days alone with a leading woman devotee who was clearly testing me to see if I was sexually available. My perception of this approach was that it had nothing to do with anything Susan might feel about me personally. It was just one of the ways that Frank reaches out to people, to bring about their capitulation to his will.

One could say this was all a subjective misinterpretation on my part, and perhaps it was, since all sexual communication has a highly subjective component. However that kind of thing happened enough times, beginning with my first visit to the sanctuary in 1975, that I began to observe a pattern. The stories of Frank's promiscuity and sexual "experimentation" only served to confirm my intuition that seduction and/or sexual testing was one of the psychological methods that Frank "taught" to people -- just as he taught them how to drive hard bargains when buying or selling art or other kinds of property.

In any case, I made it a policy never to respond to these kinds of advances by Daists. (And that's probably one of the reasons I never got invited to Frank's famous parties, thank God.)

So I took home the manuscript of "Twirling" and read it carefully. The next day I gave Susan a detailed critique of the book, which amounted to my saying it was a lot of superstitious baloney!

I said that in my opinion it was a mistake to make unsubstantiated claims such as saying that jetlag was caused by the earth's rotation, magnetic fields, or fast movement of the body through space. And the idea that jetlag could be "cured" by twirling around and around in the opposite direction from which you traveled was probably sheer fantasy. I said why not take some time to conduct controlled scientific experiments and present the conclusions in a factual and entertaining way, to excite the interest of the average airline passenger, rather than falling into the "New Age" trap of promising a magic panacea for an imaginary problem?

[Not surprisingly, when the book was eventually published, it was ridiculed at a scientific conference on jetlag.]

Susan was a bit taken aback by my presentation, to say the least. Clearly I did not know that I was criticizing the Master himself! As nicely as she could she gave me to understand that Master Da felt this was a very important project, and I should confine myself to thinking about how we could present it so that ordinary people would drop their resistance to his advanced healing techniques!

I didn't want to offend Frank, and was agreeable to work with her along the lines she suggested, so we continued together on the project for several more days. But then suddenly she told me one morning that "we" have decided to put the book on hold for awhile, and I could go back to my other duties at Dawn Horse Press. End of story.

During the period between the time Frank returned from Hawaii and the time I broke with Daism in late 1982, I had occasion to sit with him in darshan at least a dozen times, possibly more.

One of these occasions was the first and only time I heard him speak at length, on November 28, 1981, at Land Bridge Pavilion. This was a long extemporaneous talk about happiness, which I believe was later released as a video and printed in Daist magazines and books.

There are several things I remember distinctly about this event. The talk itself was kind of boring. It was mostly a rehash of things he had said a thousand times before, with a slightly different spin. What was outstanding was his delivery style -- the way he moved his hands and the melifluous quality of his voice. It was very much like listening to a really good hypnotist talking a room full of subjects into a trance-state.

Another thing I recall is that there was a moment during the talk when I realized he was "doing me" -- that is, he was taking on what he assumed to be my personality and my personal characteristics. The effect was both startling and funny -- this wasn't "me" exactly, but a cartoon version of me. I got the distinct impression, however, that Frank thought he had caught my essence in a bottle.

The experience was much like watching a method actor or professional impersonator reflecting you back to yourself. Something was "right", in a superficial way. But so much was missing you just had to laugh.

After the talk there was a question-and-answer period. I recall that when a guy stood up in the back of the room and said how much the books had meant to him, and how the teaching had changed his life, Frank turned his head and wouldn't look at the man. Then Daji Boda (William Tsiknas) gave an admonitory speech about how we should always honor and thank the Teacher. Without the Teacher, there is no teaching, and we shouldn't think we can just go off with the teaching without surrendering to the Teacher Himself.

Obviously both Frank and Tsiknas heard the guy's statement as an attempt to circumvent and deny the Guru, while taking the "bone" of the teaching.

After that, almost everybody who asked a question was criticized and put down in one way or another. The only questioners who went untouched were the ones who slavishly declared their devotion in the sycophantic manner that Frank preferred. When they finished their praises Frank would nod his head slightly and say "Tchaa".

Frank was giving devotees a lot of access during that time. We would sometimes be invited to sit with him in the early morning, around 7 A.M. Other times it would be at mid-day, or late in the afternoon. It was during some of these sittings that I saw the visual effects which I described earlier, such as his eye growing very large and soaring across the room until it was right in front of me. On these occasions I would take out my driving glasses and put them on to see if the vision would change. It did not -- in fact it would only become more distinct!

I have no idea if there is an empirical physics to these kinds of experiences. Obviously there must have been a tremendous subjective component. But if you put on your glasses and you can see a vision more clearly, doesn't that indicate something material is taking place?

I remember after one sitting we were asked in our study groups to write an essay "describing your experience". I dutifully wrote a detailed report of the phenomena I had witnessed, leaving out any mention of the changes that were occurring in my meditation consciousness. The essays were sent up to Frank and came back "graded", just like school homework. Mine was marked "fourth stage".

I remember Saniel Bonder watched me carefully when he announced that my essay had been declared "fourth stage". He seemed a little nonplussed when I burst into laughter. To have your darshan "graded" like a term paper seemed just too ridiculous for words.

What was the "consciousness component" of these darshan occasions? Many sought to describe this aspect in the language they had learned from Frank. They would say things like "I have begun to understand what I am always doing, and that I tend to impose limitations on your Grace." Or, more simply, "I realized there is nothing whatsoever to attain." (a Daist classic) Generally they wrote what they thought he wanted to hear. Very few braved the uncertainty of speaking from the heart -- assuming they still knew their own heart of hearts.

My own "consciousness component", on the best darshan days, was simply wordless samadhi. That was not something I wanted to describe or (worse yet) boast about, and I resisted every effort of Frank and the Daists to box my spiritual experience into their pre-fab cultural categories.

I remember once everyone was asked to "self-evaluate" themselves spiritually. People were to go before a committee and describe their "stage" of spiritual practice and realization. The committee would then pass judgment and assign the person to a study group that reflected the "true stage" at which the person was practicing.

I was told the exercise was optional, so I didn't even show up to be evaluated. Consequently I was automatically assigned to the "bottom" group of practitioners. I found myself meeting with a group of men who were what you could call "salt-of-the-earth" types -- the kind of vital and physical men who become farmers and day-laborers.

I loved these guys! They were the sweetest and purest Daists I had ever met! Their approach to Da Free John was on the simplest level of devotion and church-going faith. It would never occur to them to question him, or to be anything but content with their place in the hierarchy of "stages" he was creating.

Because of their sincerity and innocence, in my book these men were at the top of the Daist ladder, even though their names were written at the very bottom of the list that hung on the bulletin board in Talking God Seminary.

One darshan occasion stands out from all others in my memory.

It was early in the morning, and as I recall we were again sitting in Land Bridge Pavilion. I was on the far right side of the room, seeing Frank in silhouette from his left.

As we sank into silence and meditation, he appeared almost to disappear, and then come back, as if he was blinking in and out of existence. Clearly he himself was entering a very deep samadhi, such that his face began to glow like the sun.

Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, a beam of ethereal light began to emerge from his body at the level of the heart, both front and back.

I rubbed my eyes, put my glasses on and off, looked away and looked back, but the light didn't change. It was just there, a steady ray of luminosity.

The light reminded me of a strange beam of coherent light I had seen in one of the science exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It had this particulate, other-dimensional quality. It wasn't diffuse, it was directional, and it moved swiftly out of him in a straight line, passing over the heads of the devotees and through the walls. You just knew that it had gone to infinity.

I tried to reach into his consciousness, to feel and know whatever it was he was feeling and knowing in that moment. But I wasn't allowed in. All I could do was behold him, and this extraordinary beam of spiritual light radiating from his heart.

(to be continued)