April 2000 was probably one of the weirder months in the history of Adidam. Two main events took place: Frank opened his arms to the devotees of Frederick Lenz, the young American guru who committed suicide in 1998 -- and Frank himself suffered from a series of debilitating anxiety attacks, for which he was treated with meds like Valium.

I was able recently to have conversations with no less than three people who are relatively close to these events. I am going to summarize here some of the stuff I was told.

I also found out, for the first time, that this website is regularly monitored by Daists -- people who keep track of what is going on here, and report back what is being said about Frank to group meetings. (I hope you've learned something, Da-guys...now you've seen life from both sides of the mirror. ;-)

First, here's some info on Frank's illness. As I understand it, on April 12, while visiting the San Juan Islands, in the Seattle area, he was unexpectedly overcome with numbness, cramps, pressure in the heart area, difficulty with breathing, and ringing in his left ear. The symptoms became so extreme that a Rescue Squad was called, and Frank was rushed to the hospital, where they gave him the full emergency treatment.

The Seattle doctors gave him nitroglycerine, assuming a heart attack. When the nitro had no effect on the symptoms, they concluded his heart was fine, and informed him he was having a classic "anxiety attack." He was treated with Valium, and his symptoms promptly retreated.

The panic attacks continued in the subsequent weeks, and Frank continued a regimen of tranquilizers.

Almost immediately after the trip to the hospital, the whole thing became blown up into a huge mythological event -- even an event upon which the entire future history of the world hinged. Frank went into apocalyptic mode, dusted off his best Doom and Gloom speeches, and laid waste to his community for abusing him, refusing to serve him, and generally making his life into a living hell.

The basic import of his tirades, I was told, was that the community has failed to bring in enough important people (they call them "contacts") with whom he could do his Work. So he has nothing to do but "sit around and watch television";. In consequence, the "dark forces" that he is fighting worm their way into his body and just have at it. It is a life-and-death struggle, and frank-ly these are momentous times -- the balance could tip either way. If he dies from one these anxiety attacks, it is quite likely that the world will be destroyed, or at least become unliveable (due to, one supposes, nuclear firestorms and such).

So, as you can imagine, the devotees have a pretty big responsibility, to obey and please Frank and keep him healthy so the world won't be destroyed! This is some heavy duty stuff.

Enter the followers of Frederick P. Lenz III, aka "Master Rama."

BACKGROUNDER ON LENZ

(The following is a composite of newspaper and magazine reportage from the time of Frederick Lenz's suicide.)

On April 12, 1998, Frederick P. Lenz III fell off the dock in front of his Long Island mansion and drowned in the waters of Conscience Bay, Long Island Sound.

A pier railing at his estate was bent or broken. Divers found his body in 20 feet of water, about 60 feet from land.

Mr. Lenz, age 48, was dressed in a suit and tie. Around his neck was a dog collar with a dangling rabies vaccination tag. Police told reporters that Mr. Lenz and a female companion had made a suicide pact two nights before. The pair had drugged their dogs with Phenobarbital, taken "fistfuls" of Valium (at least 1650 pills by Lenz alone) and stepped off the pier. While the dogs and his partner survived, Mr. Lenz did not. "Zen Master Rama left his physical body" sometime between April 10 and April 12, 1998, according to his followers. Authorities place the date of death as Monday, April 13.

Lenz's female companion, identified by as Lacy Brinn, 33, of Manhattan, was found in an upstairs bedroom about 2 a.m. Monday by Police Sgt Bob Bell, who had noticed lights burning and the front door open. Bell told the newspapers about the death of Lenz at his Old Field estate: "You get to know the residents, what they do. This -- something just didn't look right."

The woman, who had ingested 50 drug tablets, told a somewhat incoherent tale of going down to the water with Lenz, and seeing him fall in on Easter Sunday morning.

"She was all bruised up," Bell was quoted as saying." I guess that happened when she was trying to reach him, but he just floated away -- on his back, she said."

San Diego-born Frederick P. Lenz III, a.k.a. "Zen Master Rama," was known as the "yuppie guru" and wrote such books as Total Relaxation: the Complete Program for Overcoming Worry, Stress, Tension and Fatigue (out of print), Surfing the Himalayas, and Snowboarding to Nirvana. Mr. Lenz was included in a list of groups labeled cults in the Congressional Quarterly Researcher.

According to information filed in his will, his mother, Dorothy Lenz, died in 1963, and his father, Frederick Lenz Jr., -- a former mayor of Stamford, Connecticut -- currently lives in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The younger Mr. Lenz was divorced from Pamela Lenz in a Haitian court in 1973.

Frederick Lenz described himself as a businessman engaged in consulting and software, as well as a CEO and author.

Former followers called him a con man who encouraged them to sever family ties and used them for sex and to enrich himself. Mr. Lenz denied this, but said sex with students was "perfectly acceptable."

He maintained that his training had enabled followers to become millionaires. Lenz-Watch, a parents group, said he took in as much as $6 million a year from his students.

His followers reportedly never numbered more than a few hundred at any time.

Surfing the Himalayas, about a snowboarder who hooks up with an Eastern sage, was a best-seller in 1995. Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls, loved the book. Mr. Lenz followed it up in 1996 with Snowboarding to Nirvana.

In 1995, New York magazine put him on its list of the "100 Smartest New Yorkers."

Mr. Lenz was born in San Diego in 1950, but grew up in Stamford, Conn. He received a doctorate in English from the State University at Stony Brook in 1978.

He became a recruiter for Sri Chinmoy, a New York-based Hindu teacher and promoter of physical fitness. He struck out on his own in 1980 in San Diego.

Frederick Lenz III was not married at the time of his death, had no children and left no money to his ex-wife. The total $18 million of assets was said to contain $4.8 million of real estate in New York State. Approximately $6 million of his assets were in treasury bills and another $6 million in "closely-held companies."

A great deal has been said about Lenz and his teaching. Links for more information on Frederick Lenz:

Profile of Rama cult members

Rick Ross's Lenz site

Official Lenz Website

Good Lenz Resource Site

Good Background Info (some inactive links)

For whatever reason, Frank has been assiduously courting the disciples and students of Lenz for the last few months. Some have speculated that he is attracted by their kick-butt approach to practical life. They know how to make money in the high-tech realm, and apparently they have made lots of it. Whatever the reason for his affinity for Lenzites, he has put aside any misgivings he might have had about Lenz as a person, or as a spiritual teacher, giving Lenz an unusual ammount of praise. (As we know, it is very unusual for Frank to heap praise upon another teacher -- although to be honest, he sometimes takes them into his loving embrace once they are dead, usually to assign them a place of significance well-below himself.)

In the case of Lenz, Frank announced that Lenz was a reincarnation of Swami Ramatirtha, who was a disciple of Vivekananda. He also noted the similarities between himself and Lenz, in the abuse they had both suffered from the public media. He explained the suicide by saying that Lenz killed himself because the spiritual work just got too much for him -- he lacked the siddhi that such work requires.

In a weird coincidence, Lenz is said to have taken his life on April 12, 1998. April 12, 2000 is the day that Frank suffered his Divine Anxiety Attack.

Lenz's followers were told that Adi Da saw them as people who had come a long way on the path, people who would be sensitive to his spiritual needs. He longed to draw such people around him, creating a new generation of spiritually-evolved attendants who would give him the energy he needs for his Work.

Notes were sent, the red carpet was rolled out, darshan was quickly granted to "the New York students" as they were called. Many of them were flattered by the attention, and quickly signed on. They were granted positions and responsibilities that other Daists had only dreamed about. Frank was very upfront with them about their practical talents, too, telling them he was expecting that everything Lenz had taught them would be put to good use in Adidam.

(This could get interesting. Lenz followed the L. Ron Hubbard model, of charging lots of money for classes. The higher you went in the organization, the more you had to pay. The idea was to inspire you to go out and make more and more money, become more successful in the world, become a mover and shaker. Lenz's followers were expected to wear business suits, drive nice cars, and live in great houses. So much for those yet-to-be Adidam charities!)

However you slice it, the followers of Fred Lenz were made to feel that they are "the real devotees" that Frank has been waiting for all these years. The old-timers were accused of "emasculating" him, and making his "circumstance" intolerable. Just so. Some heavy notes went down, you can be sure.

That's pretty much it. I have some other bits and pieces of info I will probably post in a few days.

ever-amazed at the foolishness of the human race, I am your 'umble servant,

Elias

FOLLOWUP POST:

Lenzites institute new policies: Adidam Community to be denied news of Adi Da

In reaction to a report which appeared recently on the Daism Forum, the new inner circle of Daist devotees -- former disciples of suicidal guru Frederick Lenz -- have instituted a news blackout around Adi Da.

In e-mail sent to all the Daist centers, the Lenzites warned the community that just as Rama devotees were "blacklisted in the past", there is a danger that their involvement with Adi Da will bring bad press to the Church of Adidam. They also warned that since "this is the year the world will come to know Adi Da", the press will be looking for negative stories about him. (Note: There's quite a backlog of such stories, so they shouldn't be hard to find.)

As a direct consequence of the Lenzites paranoid thinking, access to information about Adi Da is now being denied to everyone in the Adidam community who is not part of the innermost circle of trusted devotees. The usually gushing leela-spigot, for the moment, has been turned off.

(If this isn't overkill, I don't know what. I can imagine that some of the devotees must be mightily ticked off.)

In other news, Frank was seen shopping for cameras is Los Angeles. Rumor has it that he is looking for a house there, to add to his world-wide collection of nice houses.

As for the cameras, many know from Daists postings in this forum that there was a recent private showing of Frank's photographs in Los Angeles. The guru fancies himself something of an art photographer, in the grand tradition of Harry Calahan, Robert Frank, and Ansel Adams. According to Conrad, among Da's favorite subjects are nude devotees (female). This was verified by other sources, who have seen the prints.

Just so.