January 1957 - Initiation

I learned well that day my paternal Grandfather turned me over to the church elders. During the laying on of hands by the Church elders, I listened to them, listened to what they were praying for: that my "Satan-touched soul" would be cleansed, and the foul demons banished.

They don't hear me, they don't want to hear me... they would rather believe that I'm demon-possessed than face the truth about my paternal grandfather... they're blind, they want to believe I got my stories from demons instead of real people, that demons put all the pain and horrible stuff in my mind, that I burned and cut and bruised myself on purpose... they want to believe that instead...

I knew they would not give up on their prayers until they believed they had succeeded in casting out the demons, saving my soul. I hurt, I had been abandoned; and somehow made a vault for all the pain deep inside, and gave them the appearance of what they wanted. It was so easy to cry, the tears were real, tears of pain and grief and betrayal because they didn't want to believe - tears they believed were tears of repentance. I listened to them, and echoed their own words back to them; repentant, remorseful, denouncing Satan and the demons; but deep inside hating them, resenting them, vehemently vowing internally to never forget what they did and why.

The rest of the vacation was spent pleasantly enough; Grandma and Grandpa Davidson took us various places - the ocean, the high mountains to the snow, to forests and more.

I feared what would happen when my mother and stepfather came to pick us up; what they'd do when Grandma and Grandpa told them what I had said.

Then, the morning my mother and stepfather were to arrive, Grandpa Davidson took me outside, telling Grandma we were going to go for a walk out in the desert together.

Once away from the house, Grandpa asked me if I truly repented of the horrible lies I had told to get attention, to get my parents in trouble; I told him yes, told him that I was very sorry, and then thanked him for casting out the demons.

I had learned, oh how I had learned...

He nodded his head and quietly said "Then that's the end of it". He and Grandma Davidson never did say anything to my mother and stepfather.

I learned from this.

I knew then that to survive, to do the best I could to take care of my sister and brother, that I would have to learn everything I could; that I would have to become even better at hiding - and shutting down - my emotions than I already was.

I learned how to be completely silent, totally verbally, mentally, emotionally, physically silent; learned how to compartment the feelings deep inside, how to memorize and store each thing that happened so deep inside that no one could trip me up.

I learned to use what my Grandfather Davidson taught me about how to hide in plain sight, how to watch and listen to everything around me, how to see patterns in the flow of life around me; and that helped a lot, helped me to survive more than I realized - then.

I learned to listen and watch silently, to shut down every emotion, every feeling, every facial expression, how to endure extreme pain without crying out - "gotta be a Man, my boy, a real Indian, only babies and girls and sissies and squaws cry" as I had been told so many times.

I learned to be silent, learned that noise and speech and movement attracts attention; and under the cover of that silence, my mind going intensely, white hot, gathering facts, observing, watching, memororizing, analyzing.

I learned how to tell the difference between things that were important to memorize, remember, and things that could be ignored. I learned the hard way in a literal school of hard knocks how to analyze and deduce the near-future actions of the ones around me by paying attention to every tiny minute detail, every nuance, every action, every word said.

I learned how to extrapolate potential threats to myself and my sister, and - by trail and error - what actions to take to avoid each kind of situation. I learned well, for each mistake I made cost me, cost my sister - beatings, rapes, burns; powerful motivation, that, to learn which actions worked and which did not. In learning all of this, I could not understand - then - how my mother and stepfather could not see what was going on - and my hatred for them started to grow as well.

I learned how to give the appearances that others wanted, how to talk and act in ways that would deflect attention while keeping my real feelings and thoughts deep, deep inside; thus reducing and many times eliminating the abuse inflicted on me and my siblings. I learned too that giving those appearances, pleasing the adults around me, often resulted in rewards; candy, food, toys.

Side note: To this day, I still watch everything around me, still gather data, still analyze and extrapolate all I can. I've tried to stop the process, no luck; I haven't even been able to slow it down. It drove my ex-wife up a wall several times. Even now, there are many times I quietly enter a room of people and stand next to someone without them realizing I am there; watching them jump out of their skin when they finally do realize - or when I simply say "hi." Where I have recently succeeded is stopping the people-pleasing; the projection and acting as how others thought I should be, how others thought I am.

I watched and memorized everything they did and said - so that someday, if I was able to live long enough, I could come back and apply it all to them, make them feel the searing pain and fear and helplessness and hopelessness; control their lives and very thoughts with an iron hand, make sure they knew beyond any doubt that they had no way out, no recourse, no hope - that the rest of their days would be pain and terror filled. To this day, similar feelings of burning rage are evoked when I see or hear abusive situations - particularly when people for whom I care are the targets of the abuse.

It helped somewhat; but not enough. The abuse continued, the conditioning and programming continued.

One tool they used to guarantee my compliance was simply beating my sister instead of me whenever I defied or resisted them, and vice versa. They were good, very good at causing us severe pain without leaving marks. Peggy and I became very compliant and obedient to survive, and I kept tallying all they did, the hatred building within me.

I took to heart my role as protector of Peggy and Danny; so, if I did whatever the adults wanted, no matter how perverted or wrong - If I did so without complaint or any obvious signs of resentment, then Peggy was rewarded. If Peggy did what they told her to do, I was rewarded. This ensured our compliance. If I disobeyed, Peggy was brutally punished. If she disobeyed, I was brutally punished. The guilt Peggy and I experienced was tremendous - and the adults used that guilt to control us.

As the weather warmed up, the cult training increased in frequency. Almost every full moon, my sister and I were taken to the Victorian and given "instruction" prior to the ceremonies; trained as to which chalices and implements were used when, what ceremonies were performed at various times of the year - errors and mistakes were punished severely. More beatings, sodomy, rape, electrical shocks with what I now know are cattle prods.

Simultaneously we were brutally trained to remain silent, to never say anything remotely related to the training; adults we had never seen would come up to us at the playground or on the street or at the store, and would make casual remarks about various rituals, such as asking us what we thought of the taste of the wine used in some ceremonies, or what we thought about the various robes, or what we thought of the drugs, or the sexual attention; or ask if we like to have some of those drugs, or even sex.

ANY reaction other than a look of blank ignorance coupled with running away from the strange adult was punished severely; any failure to report in great detail any such encounter was also punished severely.

They trained us well, very well; and it wasn't just to ensure our silence, but also, as I learned later, as a way to identify and locate pedophiles and users. It was a way to guarantee us kids could be used as shills, as preliminary screens.

Any contact with an adult we did not know had to be reported in full, no matter how friendly and harmless the encounter was; failure to report was punished, always.

My own training and conditioning started shortly after the new year.

Grandpa Art picked me up and took me to the Victorian; Mary Anne was waiting there and took me to the basement, to the altar room; no one else was there.

Mary Anne told me that they were very pleased with me, and it was time to start some real training, that maybe I could really show that I wasn't like my real father, that I could be smart enough and strong enough to be worthy of the "Real Family". Years later in 2005, my mother and I were discussing the training, and my mother broached the possibility that "Uncle Ray" was my grandfather Art's blood uncle, and it is very possible that my younger uncle, a master warlock, was named for my grandfather's uncle.

Uncle Ray then came in - He resembled grandpa Art a lot, but where Grandpa was fairly stout and of average height, Ray was gaunt and much taller and somewhat older. Grandpa deferred to him, reminding me so very much of a puppy trying to placate his master - and they both deferred to Mary Anne. All of them deferred to Greatgram.

Ray said nothing, but only looked at me, smiled, and opened the curtains behind the altar.

An alcove; a shelf on either side holding pale leather-bound books. Two small torches mounted above the shelves, censers hanging from their brackets; a silver bowl with two handles in the center, and in the center of the back wall, the inverted pentagram - the Pentacle - overlaid with the goat's head, satan's symbol. I was to become very familiar in the next few months with that alcove, that chamber. All too familiar, far too familiar. Years later, in 1995, I showed the drawing to my mother; she replied "I know that place, I didn't think you'd remember!". My brother remembers it as well.

Ray reached into the right-hand shelf and took out the pendant and handed it to me, and told me how it was to be used and when. It was a thin carnelian disk, bordered by two silver dragons; a smaller circle on the top with a crescent moon on either side where the chain hooked in; the smaller circle engraved with the eye imbedded in the pyramid, surrounded with the inverse pentagram.

The crescent moons were razor sharp, and Uncle Ray told me they were used to open veins so blood could be drained into the chalice. I had seen it used before; seen that the disk was then dipped into the chalice and used to anoint the north, south, east, and west sides of the altar in that order while saying either the Disciple's Prayer (what some call the Lord's prayer) or the 23rd Psalm backwards, depending on the ceremony and the time of year.

Side note: in 2005, my mother and I figured out that the implements in that chamber had belonged to my real Uncle Ray - Art's younger brother - and had been stolen by "The Family" when Ray died - instead of being returned to the Grand Master Warlock as they were supposed to have been.

Both Ray and Mary Anne stressed that I was being shown something few ever saw; that most of those who participated in the Gaia ceremonies had no knowledge of what was behind the curtains in the alcove; that I had been selected to be trained to eventually become the High Priest if I was could prove I was worthy enough, obedient enough, smart enough. They told me that I would be trained - if they found me worthy - to replace the high priest (Grandpa Art?) when I was old enough and knew enough.

They also told me that should I ever reveal what they showed me, should I ever tell anyone outside the confines of that room, that they would take and torture my sister to death in front of me, after which I would be killed slowly, horribly. I believed them and told them I knew that.

They were pleased, and told me they wanted me to learn very well so that I could take part in their Easter mass; their Easter Black Mass. I had no idea what a Mass was, and told them; Mary Anne then told me she'd take me to a regular mass that weekend so I could learn - and she did - and I saw that the participants of that mass quietly, meekly obeyed the priest. I told Mary Anne that, and she smiled and called me "smart boy".

Ray then showed me how to use the pendant to lightly cut into veins by cutting his own, and had me practice on a dog they had brought in, a dog they had sedated somehow. I learned fast; by the end of that session, I was able to open my own veins with cuts small enough that the blood dripped out slowly, very slowly.

I felt sick, nauseated, dizzy; I hated them for what they were doing to the dog - and making me do - but I also knew that I didn't dare let them know that, I didn't dare let them see that I hated what they were makiung me do; I knew that if they knew how I felt, knew what I was feeling, that they would say I was unworthy and punish me, that they would hurt my sister and baby brother a lot more. I knew they were very observant, and pushed the feelings deep within so I could no longer feel them; and remained silent, outwardly calm and quiet, attentive.

That was not the last time I used that pendant to open my veins. I still have those scars.

They held the chalice beneath my wrist as the blood dropped, mingled with their blood and that of the dog; showed me how to stop the bleeding with pressure, and then performed a small ceremony to "sanctify" the blood before drinking some and passing it to me.

The hot metallic copper taste - my wrists aching, the chants echoing in my mind still, to this day... flashbacks, abreaction; I learned to like blood, I still like blood.

Afterwards, they drilled me; had me walk through the entire ceremony step by step; correcting me with the cattle prod when I made a mistake. I made very few mistakes the second time, and none the third time.

The training accelerated after that; sometimes Greatgram was there, sometimes grandpa Art, sometimes both; my mother was never present during any session; Mary Anne and Greatgram forbade it because my mother was "unworthy to learn."

Ray started me with cats and dogs, showing me how to drug the animals, then stepped aside as Mary Anne showed me what cuts to make to reach the heart easily, fast. How to remove the heart and drain it into the chalice while the animal on the altar still lived. Precision, efficiency, and timing was everything.

By then, I had learned to surpress the nausea, the sickness and dizziness; shutting down all of my emotions and stuffing them deep inside where I could no longer feel them. Learning how to mentally shift into the smooth methodical movements and patterns they required of me, learning how to become more alert and efficient, more focused and aware; at some level recognizing the value of being able to shut down like that, to become that efficient, that observant. It became easier and easier over time to make that mental shift, that switch into the mode required to keep them happy, keep them from hurting me and Peggy and Danny. It also made it easier to make similar shifts at home and in school so I could deal with incidences I did not like.

Mary Anne used one of the leather-bound books from the alcove as a reference for my lessons; the book had excellent drawings of the anatomy of several animals and humans, as well as a lot of strange text that I could read but was not given a chance to read. I later found out the language was latin.

The book had a raised inverted pentagram - pentacle - on the cover, and was a pale beige leather... That wasn't significant to me - then.

Later that month the training took an even more ominous turn. Someone had taken two huge pine beams, joined them in an "X", then mounted them to a stand in the chamber. A man I had seen before in the "ceremonies" was present; Mary Anne demonstrated by tying him upside down on the cross; then untied him and tied me to the cross, also upside down, so I could feel what it was like, where the pressure was, the stress was; and how to tighten the ropes just right so that the pain would be worse without dislocating any joints.

It hurt, hurt bad; my hips and shoulders felt like they were being torn out, my groin stretched painfully, the pine slivers digging into the skin of my back.

She then untied me, and had me practice tying the man until I got it done to their satisfaction. Mary Anne then went to the other room, and came back with Ray.

Ray reached inside his cloak and pulled out two long objects wrapped in leather, laid them on the altar, and unwrapped them; two wavy-edged knives with black handles; silver dragons inlaid in the black leather of the handles, very unusual handles. Each had a hole through which the thumb was inserted, with the fingers wrapping around the curved handle just below the guard; a natural, easy grip. One knife's dragon had red gemstone eyes, the other green gemstone eyes.

A goat was brought in; I didn't see who had come and gone. Ray leaned back against a wall and watched; Mary Anne told me to tie the goat to the cross and sacrifice it using one of the ceremonial knives in the same manner as I had the dogs. The goat was lethargic, probably drugged.

I did as I had been trained; preparation, chants, sacrifice, filling the chalice, drinking, passing the chalice, cleanup; all of it, as the three of them simply watched. I must have pleased them, for afterwards, Ray crossed over and talked with Mary Anne so quietly that I couldn't hear what he said.

Then he turned, went to the altar, picked up the sacrificial knife with the red eyes and told me it was now my knife and mine alone; that I had proven my worthiness to take part in the basic rituals, and that no one was to use that knife but me.

He resheathed and wrapped the knives, and put them in the alcove. The goat was wrapped up in butcher paper and taken with us when we left; my grandfather was waiting outside with my sister. He drove to my parents house, and picked them up, then we drove to Alum Rock park and barbecued the goat.