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Section 2:
Early Classroom Materials
1975-1988
With the distribution of Statement One in March of
1975 (the first document featured in this section), the public phase of Ti and
Do's mission was begun. From a hotel room in Ojai, California, where Ti and Do
stayed for less than a week, the statement was sent out to ministers,
evangelists, and awareness centers far and wide. Within two or three days, a
man who headed an awareness group in Los Angeles came out to Ojai with one of
his students to meet with the two. After deciding Ti and Do
were seemingly sane, he invited them to speak to a gathering of some of his
students and their guests at one of their houses. They accepted and were taken
quite by surprise to see that the house was packed. Unbeknownst to Ti and Do,
this was adding up to the "not too welcome" idea of followers. And so
it all began.
The poster featured on page 3 of this section
was designed several months later to announce free
public meetings, some of the earliest being held by these newly
proclaimed followers. Then, on August 24, 1975, using the names Bo and Peep,
the two made
their first appearance at a public meeting given at Cañada
College, located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. If
our recollection is correct, the crowd was so large at the appointed time that the
auditorium was filled to capacity twice - that is, for two back-
to-back meetings. Then three weeks later, on September 14, 1975,
Ti and Do (still using the names Bo and Peep) held a meeting in
Waldport, Oregon. It was at this point that the press picked up
on the story and the onslaught had begun. Their interest was
largely stimulated by reports of individuals giving away both
children and property to join the group. Although such actions
were certainly not according to Ti and Do's instructions,
nevertheless, bedlam had broken out by then. We had become a
national media item. Their unrelenting spotlight glared upon us
for over half a year. And by and large, almost every report
either written or aired about us was either riddled with
inaccuracies or outright lies, that is, with one noteworthy
exception. On Sunday, February 29, 1976, the New York Times
published the best researched article to date.
As the cover story of The New York Times Magazine, free-lance
writer James S. Phelan, who actually had a lenghty interview with Ti and Do, wrote
a generally quite objective article (though certainly not the
way we would have written it) despite the "journalistic tide"
against his doing so.
Over 130 public meetings held throughout the U.S., as well
as in Canada, continued until the Spring of 1976, when on April
21, Ti announced that "the 'Harvest' is closed." In late June of
1976, the students were called together in the Medicine Bow
National Forest, Wyoming, to begin a "classroom" in earnest.
Close to 100 followers showed up. The classroom reduced
to about 40 to 50 pretty quickly. Over the period of time from
then until the spring of 1992, we lost a few more students, some
of whom have since returned, but no new students had
entered the class. (Excerpts taken from '88 Update.)
The 17 Steps and
Major Offenses are documents that were
never intended for public release - that is, until now. Rather,
they were "in-house" guidelines for appropriate Next Level
behavior and conduct.
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