Last Updated 05/18/99
When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you've ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding person you've ever met, and then you learn the cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true! - - Jeane Mills, former member of the People Temple
Unlike some Destructive Cults, the ACC does not appear to stockpile weapons like the Branch Davidians. They are not planning a mass suicide like at Jonestown, the Solar Temple or Heaven's Gate (at least not yet - Heaven's Gate didn't start out with that either). It doesn't seem they want to spread poison gas down any subway tunnels. The physical safety of ACC members seems therefore to be pretty secure. No, the damage Gabriel does is psychological. He destroys families, he destroys identities. He makes people dependent, fearful and distrusting. The worst part of it all is that Gabriel seems completely oblivious to it all. Never one to take responsibility for his evil deeds, Gabriel instead blames his victims. It's pathetic.
Already, two former members of the ACC have attempted suicide as a direct result of psychological problems induced by Gabriel of Sedona and his mind control techniques. One of them was successful. She was a New Age Minister from Hawaii. A lovely woman I am told and a good spirit, with two lovely daughters. Unfortunately she would not do everything Gabriel wanted. She clung on to contacts with some of her New Age friends and she asked questions Gabriel didn't like answering. At first Gabriel humiliated her publicly and put her on "probation" for 3 months. Apparently feeling he had not successfully broken her will, at the end of her probation Gabriel ordered her without warning or provocation to leave the ACC. Like others who join the ACC, she had given up everything to be there. She had invested not only her material goods, but also her entire belief system and spiritual framework. When Gabriel tossed her out, she lost all of it and was left with her children in the street with nothing and not a bit of compassion from Gabriel. She ended up hanging herself in California in 1995 having never recovered from what Gabriel took from her. She desperately wanted to believe in Gabriel, but all he wanted was for her to shut up and do what she was told.
I don't know much about the other person who attempted suicide. I know she was thrown out in the cold with her kids and no money and no place to go after disobeying Gabriel on some trivial matter. I understand she started to drink in her despair and was thankfully unsuccessful in her suicide attempt - saved by another former ACC member who had got out on her own. Gabriel and his Cosmic Family turned their backs on this woman, but her real friends were there for her.
The two cases mentioned above are hardly isolated. There are numerous post-cult after effects that have been identified among former cult members. I have had people tell me about mental breakdowns, psychological and physiological disorders of various kinds, loneliness, depression and all other manor of problems after coming out of the ACC. These were perfectly normal and healthy people before they went in to the ACC, there can only be one person to blame for what happened to them.
Do you think Gabriel cares about any of this? If he does he has not shown it. Gabriel demands total subservience and obedience. Anyone who does not willingly cooperate gets thrown out. Some leave on their own when they realize Gabriel is a fraud but still suffer the effects of Gabriel's highly unnatural Divine Order. Gabriel has to know that many of these people he has thrown out in the street were in trouble and needed help but Gabriel and his Cosmic Family turned their backs on them anyway. All because Gabriel's ego was bruised when they would not do exactly as they were told. Such needless suffering should not be required in order to form a closer relationship with God. Gabriel himself is to blame for things like this.
Those are the worst stories but not the only ones. Many people have left the ACC. Indeed there may be more ex-members than there are members. People leave a big chunk of themselves behind when they leave a cult. The story of Mark and Regina Sprague, which they were able to tell to Dateline NBC, is probably typical. The experience with Gabriel cost them a marriage. It also had a severe effect on their daughter who ended up having nightmares for a long time after leaving the ACC. Instilling that sort of fear in children is child abuse folks. There is no other way to describe it. Other former members have told me how Gabriel has issued death threats against them and told them if they did not return their souls would be banished to some demon planet somewhere. Gabriel works hard to ensure that people who leave are instilled with a sense of fear, distrust and paranoia. I don't know if he does it out of spite or what but it sure does not represent an example of the unconditional love of Jesus about which Gabriel so often speaks. Indeed, very much unlike Jesus, Gabriel's love seems to be totally conditional on the individuals loyalty and obedience to him. When people leave or are thrown out of the ACC they lose their spiritual base, their identity and their Cosmic Family (social support system) as well as all their money and everything they have ever owned. Because by its nature, Gabriel's theology promotes ACC members disassociating with family and friends, these people often have nowhere to go and no one they can turn to. The highly conditional love love of the Cosmic Family is no longer there for them.
Even ACC members who go home for only a few days visit experience psychological problems - both in being away from the cult on which they are wholly dependent, and re-adjusting to the highly unnatural cult life once they return. It is a double-edged sword. When they are away from the cult they are standoff-ish, unwilling or unable to engage in really meaningful association with anyone, even beloved family members. When they return to the cult they find the restrictions and manipulations of the cult life hard to reconcile with the freedom and lack of pressure on the outside world. It's a wonder more of them don't go completely nuts, but it does explain why Gabriel is so intent on limiting member's ability to travel.
My own brothers have been denied permission to visit our grandparents because the experience of visiting a warm and loving family is apparently too traumatic for them. No bullshit, this is what we were told. Before joining the ACC my brothers used to come for visits several times a year. They loved it. My grandparents certainly haven't changed so they can't be the problem. That leaves only one explanation - the psychologically debilitating conditions of cult life.
I have a number of reports, all second or third hand of possible child neglect within the ACC. The ACC like many other Cults destroy's families in a variety of ways. All the children are removed from their birth parents and raised in what is essentially an orphanage. Food, proper clothing, diapers and other physical necessities seem to always be in short supply. Parents are around only occasionally or in some cases forbidden to visit their children entirely. The teacher/caretaker staff is constantly changing due to the high turnover rate of cult membership therefore the children experience a severe lack of proper love and affection that only a real parent can provide. Most parents if not denied permission by Gabriel to see there own children, or are so busy doing Gabriel's bidding that they simply forget about them. I have numerous reports of children that are often sick, undernourished, dehydrated and denied proper medical attention. Often, the cult is reluctant to take a sick child to see a doctor because they fear the group might be reported to authorities for investigation. They are more concerned about keeping Gabriel out of jail than they are in the health and welfare of the children under his care and protection. Cults like the Aquarian Concepts Community use their absolutist ideology to hide these sorts of problems, even justify them. The ACC can and does use the First Amendment to avoid scrutiny and curtail investigative efforts. Because members are so devoted to Gabriel and accept his justifications for what goes on so readily, and because they are so isolated from society, abuse and neglect are unlikely to be reported. The isolationist nature of the ACC provides a further barrier to close scrutiny of what is going on. Contrary to what Gabriel says about the community being wide open, in fact many ACC members do not even realize a lot of what goes on there and outsiders are definitely not welcome and are blocked at every step.
As I said, these are all second or third hand reports. I have not had the opportunity to see for myself (as if Gabriel would let me), but there are enough of them and they are consistent enough to make the condition of the children within the ACC a matter of serious concern.
Simply the way in which children are raised in the Aquarian Concepts Community, the way they are separated from their parents should be cause enough for concern. Gabriel justifies this by saying it is necessary in order for the parent and child to have a healthier relationship. In reality, the ACC is like many cults which think of themselves as a "family." The ACC like all cults has a hierarchical structure where the parents essentially become "middle management" to their own children with little or no say in what activities they will engage in, what they are taught, and how they are disciplined. Gabriel of Sedona makes all these decisions, the parents are not a factor.
Belonging to a Destructive Cult implies the adoption of a psuedopersonality in order to adapt to the conflicting demands of the group. An adult who enters a cult already has a great deal of knowledge about the outside world. When they leave the cult, part of the recovery process requires re-awakening their natural pre-cult personality, which will allow them to adapt back into the world. A child who enters a cult on the other hand will have limited knowledge of the outside world. That child's personality will in large part be determined by what happens in that cult. When the child leaves the cult, they have to pre-cult personality to awaken. Instead they only have the experience of dependency, denigration of independent thinking, and private insecurity where people are taught there own thoughts and feelings are flawed and only the group is right. A child may potentially never fully recover from the cult experience. Mainstream society emphasizes critical thinking and independence, traits that are suppressed in the cult. The cult dogma will be so imbedded in them that their capacity to think critically and act independently may be highly deficient.
All in all I think it is safe to say the Aquarian Concepts Community is not a safe place for children.
What is certain is that every activity in which the ACC engages it does so out of totally selfish motives. And when something benefits the ACC, what that usually means is that it benefits Gabriel more than anyone. I have asked the question many times as to what truly altruistic charitable work the ACC has engaged in and no one including Gabriel himself has been able to provide an answer. In over ten years of existence the ACC has not done anything that was not in some way self-serving. A true religious movement will do things for the good of their fellow man which will be of no benefit of any kind to the organization itself, but not the Aquarian Concepts Community. In everything they do there is always present an angle that is designed to benefit Gabriel. If such an angle can not be found, they don't do it. Although Gabriel likes to talk up how he takes people in off the street, his intentions are not noble. Those people he takes in are taken in as ACC members. They are not simply given a place to stay until they get back on their feet. If they don't become ACC members, they don't stay. Thus the motives here are self-serving. Gabriel uses peoples misfortune to benefit the ACC in terms of increased membership, an enlarged labor pool, and bragging rights to say he is doing something good. All too often, Gabriel turns his back on people in need, he does not help them. Only when it is in Gabriel's interest will he reach out his hand. All this talk about being in service to the greater benefit of mankind is just that, talk. It seems to me that self-promotion is not in the greater interest of God or mankind.
It's been more than a decade now. Can anyone tell me what the ACC has accomplished which has been to the greater benefit of mankind? Anyone? Something, anything?
The Aquarian Concepts Community does no charity work.
The Continuing Revelation seems at the very least to be on hiatus in favor of Gabriel's musical career. Even if work is still being done in this regard, Gabriel's complete failure to find an audience and effectively spread his "revelation" casts serious doubt on Gabriel's claims and ability to be effective in his role if he is for real.
Gabriel has squandered hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars of his followers money on overpriced real estate and his own pet projects while at the same time denying his followers proper medical care, decent clothing and housing, freedom to travel and adequate food - allowing only $40 per person to eat per month. Everything Gabriel has he owes to his followers and he can't even be bothered to take decent care of them, preferring to fund his own selfish interests instead. It's like Feudal times when the local Lord would live lavishly and want for nothing on the heavy taxes of his impoverished subjects.
Meanwhile, mankind goes on in exactly the same way they would if the ACC never existed. Gabriel of Sedona and his Aquarian Concepts Community have had absolutely zero positive impact on mankind. I think this is unfortunate because there are really a lot of highly intelligent, very devoted people there who could really be making a difference in this world if given the opportunity.
Pointea is unique among Aquarian Concepts members in that he is allowed to maintain his own personal web site and email address. I happened into Pointea's Homepage the other day and found myself rather amuzed by something he said.
THINGS I DON'T LIKE
ignorance, prejudice, anger, thoughtlessness, apathy, rudeness, small mindedness, fundamentalism, fanatacism, arrogance, and pride
I found it odd that Pointea would actually want to be a part of the Aquarian Concepts Community since so many of these traits are so common there, especially in Gabriel of Sedona himself.
Despite his alleged clairvoyance, it is truly amazing how unaware and ignorant Gabriel of Sedona truly is. He is ignorant of the media, he is ignorant about how politics and government functions, he is ignorant about the most basic aspects of human nature and he at least pretends to be ignorant about why there is so much opposition to him. There is certainly plenty of prejudice to be found in the ACC where basically the entire community looks down upon anyone in the "Third Dimension" as being inferior, of being on a lower level and not being in divine pattern. I would characterize Gabriel as an angry man. He is angry at the godless, greedy world around him, he is angry at the media who never seem to be on his side, he gets angry at his own followers whenever they step out of line. I would certainly characterize Gabriel as thoughtless, the way he has abandoned so many people without any concern whatsoever for what would become of them. And all because they had the nerve to doubt or disobey him. Fundamentalism, fanaticism and arrogance go hand and hand in the Aquarian Concepts Community. They are all zealots who believe only they have the one true path to God and there is no way you can convince any of them that they are wrong about anything - the true mark of a fundamentalist. Anyone who claims he is the only one with God's true message is almost certainly a fanatic (or at least an asshole). It creates that whole "holier than thou - chosen people" attitude that most people find at least annoying, if not outright dangerous. I personally don't see anything wrong with pride. There is nothing wrong with being proud of what you are and what you have accomplished - to feel good about ones self. Gabriel certainly does. Anyone who says different is only interested in keeping you down. Pointea man, wake up!