My Brush With a Cult, Part 5: Dénouement

One year ago today I began writing a post about my experience with the pseudo-Native-American martial arts cult known as Warriorschool. Soon into the first post I realized there was no way the whole story could fit into a single post (lest that post be as long as my "Fictional Morality: DnD" post), so I broke it up into two. Little did I know that two would become three, three four, and so on, until I found myself on the far end of a journey as epic as any in the blogiverse.

Over the course of a week I typed madly, detailing the sordid goings-on of a bunch of entitled men-children whose disdain for women was cleverly disguised as respect, their major goal in life to convert more people to their cause, to "raise an army," and do all they could in support of their leader Jeff Prather.

Boy, did I open a can of worms.

Within days of my first post a comment was left by somebody claiming to be a lawyer representing Jill Prather, Jeff Prather's ex-wife. Apparently, Jill was embroiled in a custody battle over their children and wanted to demonstrate in a court of law that Prather and Warriorschool were dangerous and keep her children away from both of them.

I responded initally with skepticism bordering on outright paranoia, but soon verified the story in a couple of ways. At their request, I deleted the initial exchange in the comments as it had lots of phone numbers and personal and professional information. I'm just now rereading the Word file to which I copied it, and there's nothing interesting except me being paranoid and not at all forthcoming.

Shortly, I was e-mailed a document prepared for court motioning for an ordered psychological evaluation on Prather. It contained information to which I was not privy at the time of the initial posts but which has since been independently verified in the many, many comments and e-mails I have received in the subsequent months. It also referred to and quoted liberally from my posts. Have you made it as a blogger when someone uses your writing in court? Or do you have to actually be sued first?

Anyway, the claims that have been verified by posters and e-mailers include:
-That Prather claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and refers to himself as the "Neo-Christos"
-That Prather's current paramour has been christened the new Mary Magdalene, or the "New Magdala"
-That Prather performed "sexual healings" on female members, and that said sexual healings had little or nothing to do with Marvin Gaye

I also learned that the DEA, to whom Prather is contracted to teach hand-to-hand combat and CQC (close-quarters combat), was also investigating him.

It later came to my attention that there is also a Next-Noah to go with Christ and Magdalene, forming a holy triumvirate of reincarnated fictional entities. It's like those kids who think they're reincarnations of dragons or unicorns or Ichigo from Bleach. It became clear to me that the rumor I had once heard of a Warriorschooler proclaiming, in his wonderment, that "Prather's aura is brighter than Jesus'!" was probably true and truer than true.

Don't believe me? Here's a scan from The Bracelet, the official magazine of Warriorschool (click to embiggen):


Prather himself is at the center of the picture, and some sort of ceremony is detailed in the caption with language that can only be described as "babbling crazy." It identifies the pictured trio as none other than the Next-Noah, the Neo-Christos, and the New-Magdala themselves. Word is that apparently the high-level WS circles believe that "Noah," "Jesus Christ," and "Mary Magdalene" were not names but rather titles (well, "Christ" was, meaning "messiah," but the others most certainly weren't) bestowed upon powerful spiritual leaders at different points in time.

What is readable of the rest of the page also babbles on at just-below Timecube levels of incomprehensibility. At one point, crown chakras are mentioned, though it is spelled "charkas."

That simple scan of only one page of one issue of The Bracelet demonstrates amply the insanity of Warriorschool. Moreover, it makes abundantly clear that their mythology isn't just bastardized Native American stereotypes; Prather also borrows liberally from Judaism, Christianity, whatever newage Eastern mysticism he can get his hands on, and sprinkles it with a bit of The Da Vinci Code. Warriorschool is a catch-all mishmash of all sorts of random superstition and nonsense.

But that's hardly all of the story.

After I received the Motion for Evaluation, I opened regular communications with the attorney. I pulled in every contact I had in Bujinkan while I was, at the same time, e-mailed by people I had never even heard of expressing their thanks and desire to help. I put them all into contact with the attorney. There were at least half-a-dozen people communicating their experience with and knowledge of Prather and Warriorschool to Jill and her attorney, some high-rahking shihan in the Bujinkan, some former members of Warrioschool itself (one particularly high-ranking) who had left because of many of the things I named in my post.

There was a whirlwind of activity on the internet and in meatspace; I was trading fast and furious e-mails trying to scare up as much support as I could, telling everyone at the old dojo about what was happening, watching them try to scare up help...

After a time, though, regular contact slowed. A month after intially hearing from Jill's attorney, I was given an update: Prather's attorney showed at the court date without Prather. He agreed to have Prather evaluated.

It was also mentioned that a few women were coming forward to local police and the DEA alleging that they were raped under the guise of a "sexual healing." Whether their allegations were true, or if anything came of them, I still do not know, and thus they must remain little more than allegations.

That was the last I heard from Jill's attorney. For months, all was quiet on the Western front except for a few comments here and there and the odd e-mail asking if the writer could do anything to help (as well as one supplying the above picture). For a while I forwarded people to the attorney, but then simply stopped. After all, I had heard nothing at all from them and for all I knew the case might have been dead in the water. I later found out that Prather fled to New York, refused to take the psych eval, and went to ground, taking down the old Warriorschool websites because of the continuing DEA investigation and replacing them with ones that didn't anywhere mention apprenticeship or Initiation.

Then early this year, the floodgates opened again: a commenter calling herself "Outraged" began posting on Part 4. She was asking for more information regarding Prather and his practices and activities. She claimed to be Jill Prather herself,once again trying to get Jeff to take the ordered psych eval so that he could be kept away from the kids.

Did I mention that they got divorced because he was schtupping the New-Magdalene? And that she used to be married to the Next-Noah? Well, I did now.

I began trading e-mails with Jill directly, and I put her in direct contact with a lot of the people who had spoken up last time, though a few had decided that they'd washed their hands of Prather and Warriorschool forever and wouldn't poke it with a forty-foot pole. Last I heard, late last month, she had spoken to at least one of them.

She's still trying to get Prather to take the psych evaluation that was ordered last year shortly after he fled to New York. Prather, apparently, is arguing that the test should be administered by a specialist in PTSD (why, I don't know) who would probably be police or military. Jill wants a cult psychologist so the right questions get asked.

She also passed on the following nugget of wonderful, hilarious news:

FYI---Obviously Jeff is monitoring your site (or having others monitor for him) and has learned of my communication with you. This is what he wrote me last night:
"...And by the way your blogger is a Satanist pedophile..."

You heard it here first folks: I apparently worship the devil while raping children.

I laughed for at least fifteen minutes after reading that.

One thing Jill wanted me to impress upon people was that Prather hasn't quit; he's merely gone underground. Her daughter had a friend who supposedly quit Warriorschool last year, but they recently found out that he's currently prepping to undergo Initiation. Prather may have shut down the websites and cancelled The Bracelet, his friends and supporters may have been falling away from him like rats off a sinking ship, but he's still out there, still trolling for more converts to his twisted ways of thinking.

And that's the behind-the-scenes story of the currently year-long Warriorschool saga, played out in part in the comments. As I mentioned above, though, I received comments and e-mail from plenty of people whose lives had been changed (and not for the better) by Prather and his shenanegans. Some were in the comments, so I'll link them here as well as highlight the best parts. The rest were sent to me personally in e-mail. As you will soon see, there are plenty of people who have a far more intimate understanding of the cult-like behavior, some of it just completely bizarre, that takes place inside Warriorschool.

The first is from a commenter identified as "tesseract." She experienced firsthand the monetary extortions, "sexual healings," and eventually her marriage fell apart due directly to the influence of Warriorschool in hers and her ex-husband's lives.

I was involved in Warriorship back in the 90's. I was involved because my husband (at the time) was convinced that Jeff Prather was God. To keep my marriage happy and intact I attempted to go along for the ride. Warriorship changed my life. It was 10 years of misery and unhappiness. It is a cult.

Everything Akusai says is right on the money. I went thru all the cycles. Paying my $200 to experience God. I apprenticed to become a healer. The whole time I had WTF going thru my head.

I do believe there was sexual abuse going on (some of it may have been consensual, but alot of it wasn't). Although, I never witnessed it, I know firsthand from people that bad stuff was going on. Because a warrior can heal someone with sex. It's bullshit. I went along with all this bullshit for so long. It really turned my life upside down.

My dear ex-husband (ha) performed sexual healings on other women. Unbeknownst to me until after the fact!! Give a man a reason to cheat......

She also says:

So much bullshit. Jeff Prather did claim to be right up there with Jesus. The lady (whore) I was apprenticing under claimed to have died in a sweatlodge one night and when she came back to life she returned as an angel. No shit. It was so freaking bizarre. I was there when "she died". Oh the drama. And when she told me she was an angel.....I had to stifle my laughter (she thought I was overwrought with joy).

Regarding their claimed "freethinking" and "anti-cult" stance:

Whenever you question the teachings, you are told you "are off". If you question anything it is frowned upon and you are chastised.

And finally:

I have so much to tell you all, it's just hard to remember. I finally left WS when my ex-husband left me for the angel.....my teacher, my spiritual mother. They had already left WS....because they were going against a fundamental principle...Ha....of keeping a family intact.

When I left I never heard from my so called spiritual family again. Because I'm sure I'm evil now that I've left the cult.

Yet another tale of a family destroyed by Warriorschool comes from commentor Kamereon, who began e-mail correspondence with me soon after Outraged's comments came in. He has a MySpace page where he tears down Prather himself and has information I do not. I highly recommend reading his posts. He says:

In short, my ex-wife left me for this cult. I tried a number of different ways (over a two year duration) to both save my marriage and get her out of that cult. My experience with them is first hand, but it is still as an outsider. WS/Prather knew pretty much from the get go my stance regarding WS. The funny thing is that I was nearly sold on this brand new religion...until I met Prather. I wish I could say it was something that I observed, but it was more of a gut reaction - I didn't like the guy, didn't trust him, and wanted nothing further to do with him or anything he has involved with.

It bears mention that in addition to calling me a Satanist pedophile, Prather called Kamereon a "very, very sick sadist."

Projection, perhaps?

Next up is an e-mail I received. As with most of my correspondants, anonymity will be preserved.

Jeff Prather burned my hand in 2001 with an AR-15 rifle which cost about $3000 in medical bills to deal with and I still have the scars.

And:

Also keep in mind that one of his Bracelet magazines talks extensively about how he was supposedly resurrected from the dead.

So add "unsafe training exercises" to his list of misbehavior.

Coming in with another account of injury is commentor somebody121:

I also know for a fact that Jeff Prather gave a student third degree burns on his hand. I was also told by an ex-Bracelet, that Jeff Prather supposedly ripped some guys ear off during a Close Quarters Combat training probably with an AR-15. They guy who told me about the ear situation made it clear that it was not an accident.

I actually don't think "unsafe" is enough to cover it.

Probably my biggest e-mail contact throughout all this has been P.J. Dixon, who used to be very close to Prather himself but cut his ties in 2002. He says:

Two other friends of mine, here in Tucson, have willingly agreed to step forward on Jill's behalf too. [Name removed], formerly and directly involved with Warriorschool as an apprentice - in fact, [He] is the former apprentice who got third-degree burns on the top of one of his hands after Jeff placed the barrel of a hot rifle on the back of his hands at a Warriorschool shooting seminar, and then stood on it while forcing [him] to do push-ups - all because Jeff felt that [he] was being unsafe.

Another person with whom I traded e-mail, who also wishes to remain anonymous, recounts some of Warriorschool's bullshit:

One of the exercizes we did was to sit in his backyard wraped up in a friggin blanket, looking at the sun through a hawk feather. All I saw was the sun through a hawk feather. Others were talking crap about seeing hawks flying etc etc.

There were a bunch of other things like that, as well as a bunch of times where we layed around while the "bracelets" did some ritual, basically spent 20 min wish this bowl that was sort of a bell. The ran a stick around the rim, kind of like you'd do with you finger on a wine glass. I guess this was supposed to open some pathway or something.

We did crap with seeing auras - never could. We did another thing called face dancing. Basically looking at yourself in a mirror by candel light, kind of gives you an eerie look but they made a big deal of it "never do this alone".

Then, from newage, they move to Catholicism:

I was at one of the seminars when some guy came, and as I am sitting there, some of us were inside, some outside. From another room, I hear yelling; things like "get out" "let go" "leave here now". I may be a bit off on the words, but close enough. Those of us downstairs were ushered outside. I was a bit more than a casual aquaintence with the instructor, and asked him what was up. The reply was in essence that it was an exorcisim. The brace;et newespaper that came out always had bs like this where they supposedly exercized deamons, the skys parted blah blah blah.

And then onto more bullshit:

Oh, I was at one seminar where the instructor mentioned and another of his seniors were supposedly doing some crap where they were literally standing in the yard, pointing at clouds and talking about they were clearing the weather and parting clouds "look, there did you see that one break up" well it was a windy fall day, when you get a lot of blowing clouds that come together and part on thier own.

And then this account of Prather being a grade-A dick:

I took my son to a bujinkan semiinar. Prather was there as well as the guy I did initiation with (lets call him bob), as well as a bunch other WS guys, and bujin instructors. I am talking to prather and bob, they start talking about an upcoming week long initiation - doing it over 1 week as opposed to 4 weekends. They were asking if I was going to bring my son up. I looked at my son, asked if he had any interest. He sort of mumbled as most kids do. I told prather we'd talk about it. Dropping $600 for mmy son, I wanted to make sure he was going to be commited to it. Prather looks at another "bracelet sitting there - right in fron of my son and I - he says "these parents that want to talk about it get me". Then he says "all a kid wants to do is sit on the sofa, watch TV and eat potato chips". So his marketing strategy is to insult both of us to our face.

And finally, something that maybe I should take away from Warriorschool as an asthma sufferer myself:

A guy I did a little bujin training with became an apprentice. Apparently he had asthma, and was having trouble with some of the physical stuff. They were telling him the asthma was really deamons, and he had to fight them. He pretty much quit then and there.

Good for him.

Commentor bright57, who went partway through Apprenticeship, says:

I quit after working at an Initiation camp with a Warrior "Brother" - meaning we had the same Benefactor (apprenticeship mentor). He was behaving very un-Warrior like with egotistical and ungracious behavior towards the Healers (a no-no) and to me. I was a lowly apprentice, albeit one on the Impeccability cycle so he could treat me as he pleased. But, on Impeccability you ARE allowed to speak out about wrongful behavior as you see it since that is a test of your Impeccability. When my Benefactor chose to listen to my "brother" complain about me my Benefactor came down on me without a thought that I might have a different or even valid point of view. At that point I knew it was over for me. My free-thinking freedom had had enough abuse.

And finally, for the pièce de résistance, we have the story of commentor Lana, who recounts in gory and gruesome detail the entire weekend of an Initiation Camp, from start to finish. I strongly urge you to go read it in its entirety if you have not already; the only word for it is "disturbing," and it is far too long to reproduce here. A few highlights (using the term loosely):

The week is a bit blurry in my memory, but there are some things that I do remember. There were early morning jogs, hours spent listening to lectures in a stifling hot room, "meditation" exercises (learning to see tree "auras", attempting to make clouds disappear from the sky, attempting to move the "astral body", answering the question of how a feather is like a person), and building sweat lodges. Men and women were kept as separate as possible and cross talk was not encouraged (even for the married couples who were doing Initiation camp together).

Newage bullshit coupled with physical exhaustion, uncomfortable circumstances, and a removal of the emotional and psychological support structure.

I remember feeling unsure of what was going on most of the time. There was no set schedule. Wake up times, meals, everything was different every day. We were kept up into the wee hours of the morning and then awakened at 5-6am and rushed to get ready for morning runs.

A complete lack of consistency coupled with a minimum of sleep and maximum of physical activity, all in order to help break down psychological barriers by starving the brain of needed rest and energy.

One of the things that struck me the most about the experience was how angry Prather seemed. His lectures often composed of shouting, angry gestures, denigrating, picking on people, basically making us all feel like shit. Questions were not answered but were instead redirected and those that asked in the first place were put down for asking them at all.

All to break down that old, evil "ego" thing, of course. Not a disturbed individual on a power trip.

There was one point where Prather was standing in the room, dressed in full "apache" regalia and holding a shotgun and spear asking all of the women if we felt safer knowing and seeing that there was a "warrior" in the room with us. Some women began nodding and smiling immediately but frankly it was frightening, he was hostile and shouting and approached me when I didn't join in the nodding. He stepped closer, asking again if I felt safe, I shook my head "no", he stepped closer and closer, asking me each time. Each time I said "no" until the point where he was in my face shouting at me and telling me that I should feel safe.

That's the part that made me say "Prather should be played by Will Ferrell in his biopic, because that's some serious Will Ferrell shit." Brandishing a spear and shotgun and screaming in someone's face "YOU SHOULD FEEL SAFE!" is like a sketch on Saturday Night Live, except in real life it's not at all funny. Perhaps, though, it is a sign that Prather and Warriorschool have become parodies of themselves.

Following that, Lana gives a couple of very in-depth descriptions of a couple of ceremonies that are both completely bizzare. Go read her account. I am confident that if you have any doubt left in your mind about Warriorschool, her story will set it to rest.

Obviously, I still do not have the final word on Jill Prather's battle with Jeff. I don't know if I ever will, but if I do, I'll certainly post it. Until then, though, this anniversary Part 5 will have to stand as the endpoint to perhaps one of the strangest experiences in my life.

I'd like to thank everybody who gave me their stories, either in the comments or in e-mail: tesseract, Lana, bright57, kamereon, and all those who wished to remain anonymous. Your stories lend weight and credence to my own, and let me know that I wasn't just a slighted crazy person screaming in an empty room.

I'd also like to thank the anonymous donor of the above scan from The Bracelet. It is both hilarious and pathetic, and perhaps the most definitively damning piece of evidence I've yet seen.

Finally, I'd like to extend my deepest gratitude to P.J. Dixon. He's been doing his damndest for Jill, fighting tirelessly the good fight, even way back when I was deeply paranoid of anyone that sent me an e-mail mentioning Warriorschool. His words of encouragement have helped reassure me that I had done the right thing in shining a light on their dark side. Thanks, P.J. You're a hell of a guy.

Disclaimer: All statements of fact herein are true to the best of my memory. That is to say that all the events recounted are exactly as I remember them. I am not a cult expert, however, and what I do know about cults is from independent study. I make no factual claim about Warriorschool's cult status; it is merely my opinion based on my experiences with the organization and its membership.