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 A
lawsuit by a former San Francisco Symphony flutist
says she was forced into sex orgies during her
seven years as a disciple of American guru Da
Free John in California and on a tropical isle
in Fiji.
Former top-level members of the
sect have also told The Examiner that the guru
has nine wives, including a Playboy centerfold
model, and that his inner circle privately partook
in drunken sex orgies while publicly preaching
the value of a meditative, highly disciplined
lifestyle.
The $5 million suit filed in Marin
County Superior Court by Beverly O'Mahony, former
wife of one of Da Free John's top aides, alleges
false imprisonment, sexual abuse, assault, brainwashing,
involuntary servitude, and clergy malpractice.
Da Free John, named Franklin Jones
at birth and formerly known as Bubba Free John,
is the spiritual leader of a 13-year-old religious
sect called the Johannine Daist Communion. JDC
is headquartered in San Rafael, where it operates
the Dawn Horse Bookstore.
Da Free John's 1,100 devotees are
concentrated in Marin County, on an 800-acre ranch
in Lake County, at a retreat center in Hawaii
and on a 1,800-acre Fijian island purchased from
actor Raymond Burr in September 1983.
Beverly O'Mahony, the estranged
wife of JDC President Brian O'Mahony, said in
an amended complaint filed yesterday that she
was "compelled, over a prolonged period of time,
to accept physical and sexual abuses, confinement,
degrading acts, inadequate diet and the surrendering
of her children" to Free John and other sect leaders.
Da Free John, 45, and his followers
"were able through subtle sophisticated suggestion,
trust and coercion to control her every thought
and move," the lawsuit states.
Beverly O'Mahony said she was "forced
to consume alcohol...and was required to partake
in various sexual acts commanded by "the Master,"
defendant Franklin Jones."
Beverly O'Mahony, who belonged to
the sect from 1976 to 1984, said the incidents
took place in both California and Fiji. She married
Brian O'Mahony in April 1977.
Brian O'Mahony, who joined the sect
in 1975 and is one of nine defendants named in
the 33-page complaint, denied the allegations
yesterday in an interview with The Examiner. Da
Free John is living a "reclusive" life on their
Fijian isle of Naitauba, O'Mahoney said, and was
unavailable to respond.
"Da Free John is not a public figure,"
O'Mahony said. "He lives a secluded and contemplative
life (and) restricts his activity to writing and
living a life of contemplation and prayer."
Several top-level defectors have
told The Examiner, however, that the guru and
his inner circle privately partook in drunken
sex orgies while publicly preaching the value
of a meditative, highly disciplined lifestyle.
Brian O'Mahony conceded the guru's
rules were significantly relaxed when the group
"experimented with various lifestyles" between
1974 and 1976.
"We freely used alcohol and cigarettes
during particular periods of the year when we
would have quite a lot of parties," Brian O'Mahony
said. "There was a fairly liberal attitude toward
sex. ...We were a lot looser then than we are
now."
Marijuana was used by some members
"for a brief period in 1976," he said, adding
that "since that time we've had very strict rules."
According to former devotee Mark
Miller, however, the wild parties and extravagant
lifestyles among the leaders were continuing when
he left the sect two years ago, in 1983.
"We were told that the books are
for the public, but when you're with Bubba, it's
different," said Miller. "It's all done under
the guise of spiritual teaching."
Miller, now a 28-year-old biochemistry
student at the University of California at Berkeley,
said he and his girlfriend, Julie Anderson, joined
the group in 1976. His girlfriend, then 19, had
just appeared as "Playmate of the Month," in the
September 1976 issue of Playboy magazine under
the name Whitney Kane.
Anderson has stayed in the sect
and is now one of nine wives living in Fiji with
Da Free John, Miller said.
Asked about the guru's alleged polygamy,
Brian O'Mahony said, "We choose not to make a
public comment on his private life."
Beverly O'Mahony's suit also alleged
that her husband "violently struck" her "Many
times over a prolonged period of time, concluding
in June 1984." Divorce proceedings are under way.
Her husband conceded that he "cuffed"
his wife a half-dozen times "in the first couple
years of our marriage."
"It wasn't a very heavy slap," he
said. "I absolutely deny that I beat her."
Miller, who once served as the director
of the sect's Laughing Man Institute, said Beverly
O'Mahony's account "is just one example of abusive
behavior among years of abusive behavior."
"People are brainwashed into believing
that these events occur as the guru's way of teaching,"
he said. "With that logic, anything goes."
Another former high-ranking JDC
official, who left the group in late 1983 and
asked that his named not be used, agreed with
Miller.
"People who get abused are longstanding
members, especially women," he said. "People come
to Fiji to do the work, from laundry to grounds
work, from security guards to construction. Some
of the women who come with them, or come by themselves,
get picked off by Jones, especially if they're
attractive.
"They get paid by being allowed
to be around the teacher. That's the greatest
wealth and status you can achieve in a spiritual
community."
Beverly O'Mahony's suit said she
was beaten "with the support and backing" of other
communal members of her Da Free John household.
She alleges that, under the teachings of the guru,
women in the commune were regarded as "servant
or slave, compelled to follow the opinions or
decisions of the men."
The damages she seeks are based,
in part, on being "induced to forgo a career as
a promising musician" and having "lost eight years
of her life."
Josh Baran, the founder of Berkeley
counseling center that helps those leaving religious
cults, said he has dealt with around 50 "profoundly
disillusioned" former devotees of Da Free John.
"Their principal focus is devotion
to him as God incarnate," said Baran. "It creates
followers who are like dependent children."
Baran said some of Da Free John's
early books were incisive critiques of other East-meets-West
religious movements. Over the years, however,
"it became more and more based on him."
"They have the right to their beliefs,
but when any man proclaims his Godhood, the possible
excesses of abuses of power are enormous -- especially
when they isolate themselves on an island in the
middle of the ocean. ...We saw that in Jonestown,"
Baran said.
Brian O'Mahony said many people,
including members of the church, misunderstand
Da Free John's references to his divine nature.
"He is not God exclusively, but
represents someone who has realized God," he said.
Brian O'Mahony added that members of the group
"profoundly respect" Da Free John and "revere
him as a great spiritual teacher and honor him
as such."
Brian O'Mahony said an Australian
businessman, whom he wouldn't name, contributed
the $2.1 million to buy the island, which contains
a cattle and coconut farm, 16 staff houses, a
school, a church and a dairy, in addition to Raymond
Burr's previous home.
About 40 devotees live on the island,
O'Mahony said, along with about 75 Fijians.
Most of the guru's followers live
in rented communal homes in Marin County and on
the sect's spread in Lake County. There are pockets
of followers in New York, Europe, Australia and
Hawaii, where Da Free John lived before the Fijian
island was purchased.
JDC is a non-profit, tax-exempt
corporation. Its other divisions include the Crazy
Wisdom Fellowship, the Free Communion Church,
the Advaitayana Buddhist Order and the Free Renunciate
Order.
It has published 40 of Da Free John's
books, along with a monthly magazine called "Crazy
Wisdom" and a quarterly publication called "Laughing
Man Magazine".
The lawsuit, filed by Sausalito
attorney David Cunningham, alleges that JDC's
non-profit corporate status is "a mere sham and
shell organized as the alter ego of the individual
defendant, Franklin Jones, for his personal benefit
and advantage."
Brian O'Mahony also denied that
allegation. "Da Free John lives in a one-bedroom
beach cottage," he said. "He lives a very simple
lifestyle."
He characterized his estranged wife's
lawsuit as an "attempt to extend our divorce proceedings
to the institution and the leadership of the church."
Other defendants named are sect
members William and Patrician Tsiknas and Lynn
Closser, who are alleged to have "formed a common
plan and scheme to unlawfully hold and imprison"
Beverly O'Mahony on the Fijian island for eight
days in March 1984.
Brian O'Mahony, who said he was
responding to the allegations for all the defendants,
said his wife "could have left by boat at any
time."
Also named in the suit are Vincent
Goddard, Larry Hastings and John Andrews, who
along with Brian O'Mahony are named as members
of the JDC board of directors. They are accused
of breach of directors fiduciary duty.
Lastly, the suit accuses Da Free
John, a native of New York and former student
of the late Swami Muktananda Paramhansa, of "clergy
malpractice".
It states that the guru's writings
"are directed at people seeking a new awareness
or enlightenment, and geared to initiate an indoctrination"
into the sect.
Once they are intitiated, the suit
states, "the trap is sprung and ideological remodeling
or thought reform begins to take place."
Brian O'Mahony said the group doesn't
engage in any proselytizing. "We have never sought
publicity," he said. "We have found that the more
private we are, it serves our way of life.
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