Over the years I have often been asked my opinion of the ferociously flamboyant, voraciously addictive, and alarmingly abusive spiritual teacher grandiosely calling himself “Adi Da” (Primordial Divine Giver). Born Franklin Jones, he later re-named himself Bubba (Brother) Free John, then Da Free John, then Da Avabhasa, then Adi Da, and so on, with other self-given, self-exalting titles such as “Heart-Master,” “Kalki” (a Hindu name for the prophesied Tenth Divine Incarnation of Hinduism's Lord Vishnu), etc., and, most recently, “Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj.”

Many former Da students and devotees from his "Daist" church—in more recent years known as the Adidam community— have gone on record to describe their experiences with Da, reporting both their positive experiences and, more importantly, their negative experiences, which give one great pause before calling Da the only true “God-man” or Avatar (Divine Incarnation) for our era or any era, the claim made by Da himself and by his devotees. Some ex-devotees have written spiritually cogent and psychologically insightful essays on what might simply be called Da’s “shadow side.” Much in their critical analysis can be usefully applied to other dysfunctional cult leaders, too.

The tale of Franklin Jones (b. 1939) is a tragic one: after a few years in study with Swami Rudrananda in NY starting in 1965, a year of Scientology (1968-9), time with Baba Muktananda in India (1968-9), some Christian seminary training, assorted inner experiences and a supposed "final awakening" to the Goddess and beyond in the Los Angeles Vedanta temple in 1970, he began publicly teaching out of a bookstore in Los Angeles in 1972, before moving within a couple of years to Northern California. Showing promise of becoming a great spiritual adept and brilliant teacher of self-inquiry and Self-realization (with a strong emphasis on grounding this realization in heartfelt relationship and “enlightenment of the whole body”), very quickly, within less than two years of public work, Franklin Jones / Da Free John fell deeply and dangerously into monstrous ego-inflation, abusively toxic relationships towards his disciples and wife/wives, and heavy, heavy addictions to personal power, sexual debauchery, drug-usage, and material possessions. We have here the sad story of a gifted and highly educated young man endeavoring for spiritual mastery who became, instead, an unknowing megalomaniacal slave to aspects of a very sick “shadow” part of the psyche. He then turned trusting disciples into his own serfs in a slavish cult (often nightmarish) that pretended to create a heavenly scene around the “Incarnate God,” Adi Da.

Many of us longtime spiritual teachers and aspirants enjoyed Da’s books of often brilliant talks and writings from his earlier years— e.g., his spiritual autobiography The Knee of Listening (which was later strategically re-written to delete certain things and add or amplify other things), Method of the Siddhas, The Paradox of Instruction, The Enlightenment of the Whole Body, Nirvanasara, his book on death and dying, Easy Death (lauded by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross), and his book on sexuality, Love of the Two-Armed Form which argues (against anything that Da himself has ever practiced!) for a sexuality rooted in and permeated by Divine Love, thereby cutting a middle path between indulgence and suppression of sexual drives. Much of Da's language and schemas have greatly influenced pundit Ken Wilber, as Wilber himself has acknowledged. It is bizarre that Wilber still remains a big fan of Adi Da, along with another abusive "bad-boy" teacher, Andrew Cohen.

But this webpage will indicate why many of us do not find Da a commendable figure. Read his early books, if you wish; much (not all) of the material in them is quite excellent. But be here forewarned about becoming personally involved with Da and his seductive cult. As stated in 1996 by Jim Chamberlain (a devotee of Da for 8 years from the mid-70s to early 80s): "Many of those familiar with his 'crazy wisdom' teaching style and personal behavior have concluded that he is as dangerous as he is brilliant.... I would no more recommend that anyone go further than studying his teachings by becoming his devotee than I would recommend skydiving without a parachute while on LSD." (bewareofthegod.blogspot.com).

There are numerous far more commendable spiritual adepts and teachers to help you come HOME to your own intrinsic Divine Nature—real Love, Freedom, Truth, Peace, Bliss and Grace. One does NOT need Adi Da / Franklin Jones as one's intermediary channel of access to God.

Therefore, as a public service to those who might endanger themselves by becoming involved with Da and his church organization, which I and many others consider to be dysfunctionally cultic and harmful for too many persons, I present the following materials: 1) links to essays, blogs and emails from his former devotees, including some extensive excerpts from "Elias" (Tom Veitch) one of the most spiritually and psychologically insightful of these former Da associates; 2) excerpts from professional religion scholar Scott Lowe's 1993 essay and 1995 addendum recalling time with Da and the community in 1974, a crucial transitional time; 3) my recent correspondence with a staunch Da devotee, with a long critical assessment of his even more lengthy apologia for Da; and 4) a closing brief email confirming the terrible dysfunction permeating Da and his Adidam cult, by a 25-year-long former member.

Insightful essays and revelations have poured forth from former Da students and devotees including “Elias” (Tom Veitch), “Alice” (one of Da's ex-wives), Mark Miller, Conrad Goehausen, Scott Lowe, Connie Shaw, Jim Chamberlain, and many others.

For several years, the most all-inclusive link for much of the revelatory material on Da was the large "Daism Research Index" at Lightmind.com, a veritable library of revealing documents on Da assembled by Tom Veitch, a former close devotee calling himself "Elias." (The URL was http://lightmind.com/library/daismfiles/.)

That Lightmind website in early 2008 was replaced by the crucial new ADI DA ARCHIVES website at www.adidaarchives.org --which inherited almost all of these revelatory materials, added many new materials, and instantly became our best overall collection of articles about the dysfunctional cult leader Adi Da / Franklin Jones.

Beyond its opening homepage, this new Adi Da Archives website has over 100 essays and reports grouped by topic at several different sections, entitled “Claims to Divinity,” “Sex, Violence & Women,” “Adi Da’s Psychology,” “Rationale for Abuse,” “Adi Da’s Teachings,” “Media Coverage of Da,” “[Mark] Miller Criticisms of Da,” “1985 Lawsuits,” “Money & Labor for Da,” “Da’s History [e.g., with Muktananda & Scientology],” “Ken Wilber & Adi Da,” and “Observations & Stories” (by many ex-devotees).

Among other materials at this Adi Da Archives website, one will find the following notable items:

• Ex-wife "Alice's" brief but eye-opening revelation about just a few of the various forms of sexual abuse enacted by Da/Bubba, at adidaarchives.org/ex_wife_abusive_sex.htm

• Various other reports of sexual violence, not just upon women by Da, but also upon men, such as forced anal rapes by other men (at Da's command) to humiliate and demasculate them, posted at adidaarchives.org/sex_violence_women.htm.

• Reports of Da's heavy abuse of a wide range of drugs (amyl nitrate "poppers," alcohol, cocaine, pot, antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, viagra, etc.) at adidaarchives.org/poppers_alcohol.htm.

• Connie Shaw's revelations of documented abuses and crimes, entitled "Adi Da in the Media: A 1980's Summary: Twisted Examples of 'Crazy Wisdom' From Adi Da's Fantasy World," at adidaarchives.org/news_summary_connie.htm.

• Jewel's revelatory article, "How Devotees Became 'Dissidents' in 1985", naming lots of Da's closest disciples and how they began to wake up from the nightmare of his cult, at adidaarchives.org/jewel_dissidents.htm.

• Mark Miller's several very insightful and richly detailed revelatory articles from 1985 (start with Mark's succinct "Letter to the Mill Valley Record--May 9, 1985," and then his more in-depth and well-organized "Letter to a Questioner"; his "Letter to Family Member of a Daist"; "An Open Letter"; and the legal text of his 1986 lawsuit against Da for fraud and infliction of emotional distress). These Miller essays are grouped under the special sections:
adidaarchives.org/Miller_criticisms_home.htm.
adidaarchives.org/1985_lawsuits_home.htm.

• The reports of the "Poaching Posse Leela," for a third-person account of how Da/Bubba went after Mark's girlfriend by criminally plying them both with excessive amounts of alcohol, an exploitative strategy also used on other couples, posted at adidaarchives.org/pussy_posse.htm.

• Reports of Da's insatiable demands for the money and labor of his devotees, an example of "getting the servants to pay you!"--posted at adidaarchives.org/money-labor_home.htm.

• Reports by former long- or short-time devotees like Scott Lowe (with Da in 1974, later a professional scholar of religion), Conrad Goehausen, Sri Bob, "/m," Jo (who was with Franklin in the early 1970s) and others, of what life was like in the early years and transition periods with the seductive but increasingly dysfunctional and demanding Da and his community. (See especially the "Observations & Stories" section at Adi Da Archives for all this.)

• Jim Chamberlain's 1996 booklet and blog story, "Beware of the God," at bewareofthegod.blogspot.com/, also posted at the "Observation & Stories" section of the Adi Da Archives. This contains some useful biographical elements on Da/Franklin, lots of revelatory anecdotes, and much insightful analysis after his 8 years with Da from the mid-70s to early 80s.

• For those who claim that all dysfunction around Da ended in the mid-1980s, there's an article by "Hatley" about her experience of a fear-ridden, chronically manipulated, creepy cult-group when she visited Da's Fijian "communal paradise" in 1991, "Life on the Island" (Naitauba, Fiji), at adidaarchives.org/naitauba_hatley.htm.

• Last but not least, many extremely revealing and astutely analytical articles by "Elias" (Tom Veitch) from his defunct Lightmind website and also from his (now defunct) web-log at lightmind.com/blogs/adiblog.html. Most of these are reproduced at the "Adi Da's Psychology" section of the Adi Da Archives website. (One can also read the earlier written book, Knee of Daism, co-written by Tom/Elias and Sri Bob.)

Here are just several relevant samples from Tom/Elias' many posted writings, many of his insights pertaining to numerous other dysfunctional cult figures, not just to Adi Da. Here and there i've added emphasis via italics:

"There are certain signs that point to archetypal possession (as opposed to a real integration and transformation of the archetypal energies). One of them is haughtiness and pomposity. For some reason those who suffer the inflation of an archetype almost always lose the quality of humility and start 'lording it over' [others].... The quality of real compassion that is a large part of our humanity, goes right out the window... having been replaced by an archetype. Buddha is about the inspection, penetration, and transcendence of the archetypes. Buddhism in its purest form is about the absolute negation of archetypal possession as a spiritual path.... Christ too is about Realization through sacrificing the 'old gods' of Rome and the archetypal possession of the Emperors.... Franklin Jones/Adi Da, on the other hand, is about the return of the old gods and of the days when the frowning archetypes ruled the earth. In my opinion, 'Da' is a 'walk-in,' a spirit who pushed aside the original karmic inhabitant of the bodily vehicle 'Franklin Jones.' Franklin the man allowed this, in a moment of weakness, in a moment of inflation, in a moment of pride, in a moment of wanting to be a Guru...and in a moment of breaking his connection to his humanity.... In spite of all their pomposity and 'airs,' the archetypes are of a lower order than Man." (--from "Adi Da and Archetypal Possession," by "Elias," 1997)

"Early on Frank [Franklin / "Da"] got into minor siddhis (yogic powers), and he has continued to push in that direction, becoming somewhat adept at manipulating mindforms in the field of psychic awareness that includes himself and other people. In the process he developed a yogic ego -- an enlarged self-sense that feeds on the adulation of weaker human beings. Over the years Frank has become extremely skillful in the use of intimidation, coercion, and manipulation -- and once you have capitulated to his 'power' (and signed 'vows'), he will ruthlessly exploit and drain you. Once you are used up he will discard you like the rind of an orange. Liberation? Daism has nothing to do with liberation.... I have a snippet of old video tape (which I may transcribe at some point) where he rips apart the whole idea of a unique avatar [Divine Incarnation], and puts down 'these gurus who start thinking they are the one and only messiah.' It's just a marvelous and accurate critique of the madman he later became!" (--from Elias' 2000 essay, "The Daist Inquisition.")

"Adi Da's agenda is simple, and ultimately life-denying-- he draws all value to himself, and he leaves his victims feeling utterly worthless and hollowed out.... To justify this vampirism, Frank accuses his followers of an interminable sin of 'ego'--a mysterious unhealing disease which he also finds afflicted Jesus, Gautama Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, and every other spiritual teacher since the beginning of time. In other words, Frank finds all human lives, except his own, to be unredeemed, and utterly without value. ('The five billion slugs' he called us.) If you want to heal, if you want to be redeemed, all you have to do is fall down and worship 'Adi Da,' the embodiment of all value and all possible perfection.... It is a terribly seductive message to the weak-minded and to those who are given to project all value upon the expectation of a great messiah who will surely come to lead us out of this world of interminable suffering." (--from Elias' 2001 essay, "The Forbidden Planet.")

"Among the 'ex-Daists' who actively critique Adi Da and his dharma, I see most as being completely faithful to the practice of relationship without separation or contraction [a central tenet of Da's early teaching]. That is to say, we do not separate ourselves from Frank -- rather we bring all our spiritual feeling and insight to bear upon whatever reality (or lack thereof) that he represents. Speaking personally, I have NEVER closed my heart to the guy. My sense of the mutual dynamics is that over time he has continually run away, hidden, and walled himself off from myself and others -- even all others -- and he does this on many levels. He appears to have made an overwhelming commitment to the neurotic mechanism -- common to those who suffer from a deap-seated self-loathing -- of acting aloof and pompous and domineering. Such behavior is an attempt to control relationship by making others feel small, dominated, and even guilty.... The whole psyche that Frank animates is the mind-game of pomp and power. After 'the seduction phase' (using half-truths and false promises) he moves rapidly into 'the domination phase,' in which the person whom he seeks to control is pushed toward a contracted state by every means possible. (He even asks them to sign a 'contract'!) Separation is enforced in Adidam [the Daist community], not melted. Purported 'One-ness' is claimed for the ornamented facade of the 'guru' -- but any testimonies of full and unobstructed relatedness by the student or devotee are invariably criticized as egoic, unlawful, 'targeting,' delusional, and so forth. That said, I have no qualms about making the claim that ex-devotees are still holding up their end of the original promise. We are not avoiding relationship -- Frank is avoiding relationship. In fact, as his increasingly bitter rants reveal, he just can't hack relationship! (He has said it makes him physically ill to sit with 'beginners,' i.e. the entire human race.) The great Indian guru Ammachi [Mata Amritanandamayi] has hugged twenty million people world-wide [now some 28 million people by 2007], all the while remaining in the pink of health [beyond the orthopedic damage to her spine from the chronic torqueing by human bodies pulling on her], and Franklin Jones gets sick just sitting in a room with a few dozen Americans who have taken vows to worship him!" (--from Elias' 2000 blog "Always Already in Relationship with Frank.")

"Aham Da Asmi [a recent work] is the first volume of the '23 source texts of Adi Da Samraj.'... [Herein,] he delivers a 'prophetic' tirade condemning anyone and everyone who fails to believe in him, respond to him, and fall down and worship him: [Quoting Adi Da from this book:]

'Those who Do Not heart-Recognize Me and heart-Respond to Me-and who (Therefore) Are Without Faith In Me -- Do Not (and Cannot) Realize Me. Therefore, they (By Means Of their own self-Contraction From Me) Remain ego-Bound To The Realm Of Cosmic Nature, and To The Ever-Changing Round Of conditional knowledge and temporary experience, and To The Ceaselessly Repetitive Cycles Of birth and search and loss and death. Such Faithless beings Cannot Be Distracted By Me -- Because they Are Entirely Distracted By themselves! They Are Like Narcissus -- The Myth Of ego -- At His Pond. Their Merely self-Reflecting minds Are Like a mirror in a dead man's hand. Their tiny hearts Are Like a boundless desert, where the mirage of Separate self is ceaselessly admired, and The True Water Of My Constant Presence Stands Un-Noticed, in the droughty heap and countless sands of ceaseless thoughts. If Only they Would Un-think themselves In Me, these (Now Faithless) little hearts Could Have Immediate Access To The True Water Of My True Heart! Through Devotional Surrender Of body, emotion, mind, breath, and all of Separate self To Me. Even Narcissus Could Find The Way To My Oasis (in The True Heart's Room and House) -- but the thinking mind of ego-"I" Is Never Bathed In Light (and, So, it sits, Un-Washed, Like a desert dog that wanders in a herd of flies). The "Un-Washed dog" of self-Contracted body-mind Does Not think To Notice Me -- The Divine Heart-Master Of its wild heart and Wilderness. The "Wandering dog" of ego-"I" Does Not "Locate" Me In My Inherent "Bright" Perfection -- The Divine Heart-Master Of Everything, The Inherently egoless Divine True Self Of all conditionally Manifested beings, and The Real Self-Condition and Source-Condition Of All-and-all. If Only "Narcissus" Will Relent, and heart-Consent To Bow and Live In Love-Communion With Me, heart-Surrendering all of body-mind To Me, By Means Of Un-Contracting Love Of Me, Then -- Even If That Love Is Shown With Nothing More Than the "little gift" of ego-"I" (itself) -- I Will Always Accept The Offering With Open Arms Of Love-Bliss-Love, and Offer My Own Divine Immensity In "Bright" Return. Therefore, whoever Is Given (By heart) To Me Will Be Washed, From head To toe, By All The True Water Of My Love-Bliss-Light, That Always "Crashes Down" On All and all, Below My Blessing-Feet. My Circumstance and Situation Is At the heart of all beings -- where I Am (Now, and Forever Hereafter) Avatarically Self-"Emerging" As The One and All-and-all-Outshining Divine and Only Person (Avatarically Self-Manifested As The "Radically" Non-Dual "Brightness" Of All-and-all-Filling Conscious Love-Bliss-Light, Self-Existing and Self-Radiant As The Perfectly Subjective Fundamental Reality, or Inherently egoless Native Feeling, Of Merely, or Unqualifiedly, Being).' (Aham Da Asmi, pages 77-78)

[Tom/Elias resumes:] "What can we say? What can lowly unwashed dogs like ourselves say before such awe-inspiring megalomania? Well, first of all we can point out the 'them vs. Me' aspect of it -- the mountainous duality of the claim of his rule over all imaginary others. Secondly we can point out that he is, in fact, mimicking the prophetic voice, stealing words and phrases from the inspired speech of Spiritual Adepts, and recycling them into bombast.... What is the purpose of that kind of speech except to intimidate and push the mind of the listener into a conflicted state? And who would want anything to do with such a man, except to see that he is properly cared for in a State Institution? [And Elias contrasts Da's ridiculously self-exalting verbal style of the 1980s onward with Da's older message from books of the 1970s like the long-suppressed early text, Garbage and the Goddess, wherein Da plainly stated, on pp. 335-6, an exactly opposite message: 'The world is the Avatar [Divine Incarnation]... It is humanity as a whole that is the Avatar in human form, not some specific human individual. No apparent or exclusive manifestation is in itself the Avatar........ But people want the Guru to be the Avatar. They want that exclusive God image, whereas God doesn't exist in the exclusive sense. God is absolute.'] [Elias resumes:] A careful study of Frank's 30-year evolution of speaking about himself will show this: Throughout the years there has been a relentless expansion of the claim of 'Divine Me' and an equally relentless contraction of the admission of the divinity of 'the entire human race.' In 2001 Frank fully believes he is the exclusive avatar, the exclusive God image, the unique (for all time) manifestation of the Absolute." (--from Elias' 2001 blog, "The Gathering Madness of the World-Teacher.")

"My criticism of Adi Da really began the moment he began to trash the [great spiritual] traditions -- 'demoting' Gautama the Buddha and [India's great modern-era sage] Ramana Maharshi [1879-1950] to '6th stage.' My criticism accelerated the moment Frank proclaimed himself the First, Last and Only 7th stage Realizer-adept. Frank-ly I was content to cut Frank a lot of slack, for years after I disconnected from his whacky community. But at some point it became clear that his agenda was nothing less than the 'political overthrow' of the Great Tradition -- a tradition that, for thousands of years, has perfectly expressed the native state of enlightenment, and a tradition that has liberated many thousands to Self-Realization and Buddha-Nature. When the Lankavatara Sutra [of early Mahayana Buddhism, along with texts like the Vedanta works Ashtavraka Gita and a few others] gets downgraded to a document created by ego-bound '6th stagers,' by a teacher who previously proclaimed the same text an ultimate example of 7th stage teaching, something is terribly terribly wrong. (And I can easily discern that wrong by reading the Lankavatara Sutra and then reading something of Frank's own writing. With rare exceptions Adi Da's own texts, IMHO [in my humble opinion], are laboriously turgid mentalizations and prime examples of self-apotheotic inflation.)" (--from Elias' 2001 blog, "Adi Da, Defamer of the Great Tradition.")

"Far from honoring and bowing to 'the Great [Spiritual] Tradition,' Franklin Jones and his followers have conducted an ongoing campaign of belittlement and character assassination against the most honored spiritual teachers in history." (--from Elias' 1999 blog, "Refutation of Daist fabrications regarding Ramakrishna.")

"After 1991, when he demoted Ramana Maharshi from 7th stage to 6th stage, Franklin Jones began promoting the idea that Ramana's realization was an 'exclusive inversion' upon the witness consciousness, and a 'developmental phase' in the life of the ego.... Daist apologists, who previously looked to Ramana as the very pinnacle of spiritual realization, now began pointing to Ramana's periods of silence and apparent inactivity as a sign of this 'exclusive inversion.' Adi Da, they pointed out, has fully expressed the Divine through his insatiable appetites for sex, drug use, and hard drinking. Adi Da is immersed in life, they said, his body radiating the Divine in a way that no previous master ever did. According to Daists, Ramana Maharshi represents the weak, the ineffectual, and the castrated state of withdrawal from life. Ramana 'hides in the cave of the heart,' dissociating himself from all others in egoic identification with the samadhi of [mere] 'witness consciousness.' In their statements about Ramana, Frank and his minions demonstrate that they do not yet understand that the Heart-Realization Ramana described is truly all-inclusive.... In living contradiction to many of the great teachings he has mimicked, Frank's 'realization' is in fact not realization at all, but the self-apotheosis of an egoic 'doer' --an exaggerated fifth stage yogic answer to the 'problem' of getting by in this world as an isolated genius in a crowd. [Da's strategy is this:] You spend a weekend with a well-known guru like Muktananda, letting him possess you with his 'shakti force' until you are 'God-Realized.' He gives you a name and an official letter granting you permission to hang out your shingle in his lineage. A week or so later you go into business as a 'Spiritual Adept,' and this is how you will make yourself rich, acquire properties and expensive toys, and take coup on thousands of young women. From the point of view of Maharshi's realization, no such self-apotheosis or yogic siddhis or worldly ambitions are needed. Simply find out 'who' you are, as Being Itself, and then you will completely understand the world from the position of Being, in which no separate subject exists, and in which the 'problem of the doer' has utterly vanished. Contrary to how Ramana is painted by Daists and others who have seen a few photographs of him lounging about, Maharshi was fully engaged in the life of his ashram. According to reports he was the first one up every morning, going immediately to work in the kitchen, directing the kitchen workers and cutting up vegetables for the day's meals. He was the most unpretentious of men, i.e, a true realizer, who made himself constantly available to everyone. He had no illusions that you can 'teach' people anything by parodying (or 'reflecting') their sins [as Da has done so abusively]. And whereas Frank has always claimed that people 'can't see' his real purity due to their egos, Maharshi made his purity visible to all.... He was a powerfully attractive being, who drew thousands upon thousands of people to him, year after year. He sat in the communion hall and conversed with visitors day after day, right up until he died.... If Frank had anything even close to Ramana's power he wouldn't need to carry on like a clown the way he does, endlessly mind-gaming, endlessly changing his appearance, endlessly trying to distract people from noticing 'the man behind the curtain' [like the impotent "wizard of Oz"]. He also would not be such a whiner and a scold. Frank is a clear example of 'the ego standing apart' -- the mad subject that thinks it can swallow God whole. Put the writing of this [so-called] spiritual genius' aside for a moment and see how he runs: he wants all of existence to revolve upon his physical needs and desires, exactly like a baby whose primary adaptation is to impulsively demand all the food and attention it can get. If it is fed, if it gets 'Big Gifts,' then the infant is 'happy' (or at least satisfied) for today. If gifts are not forthcoming, he throws a tantrum. The honest fact is that Frank is a prime example of the very worst trait of Americans who go the East seeking the ultimate: he literally believes that 'God realization' can be owned by the ego and amplify the ego to cosmic proportions. The proof of this statement is the unfolding of his life since his possession by 'the goddess' in the Vedanta Temple in 1970 [in Hollywood, CA]. From that day forward he embarked on a megalomaniacal (yet sophisticated) program of transforming himself from a human being into 'The First Last and Only 7th Stage Adept Realizer,' the one man in all of history who could claim to be wiser and more compassionate and spiritually fruitful than Buddha, Krishna, Jesus...and Ramana Maharshi." (--from Elias' 2001 blog, "The Daist Attempt to Pigeonhole Maharshi.")

"Elsewhere I have argued that Frank's 'seven-stage' system is false dharma [false spiritual teaching]. However, for the purposes of this discussion I will generally assume that it has some validity. In his conceptualization of the spectrum of spiritual awareness, Adi Da (Franklin Jones) has placed himself and no one else at the pinnacle of achievement—the so-called '7th stage of life'.... In his early development of the system, a few rarified beings were allowed to share the '7th stage' with Frank. Now—at least since the early 1990's—everyone who ever existed is arrayed below Frank, in the lesser strata of consciousness. For instance, Frank has said very plainly that he considers Gautama Buddha and Ramana Maharshi to be '6th stage realizers.' Jesus Christ is 5th stage. Ramakrishna is somewhere between 4th and 5th stage. And so forth. For decades critics have pointed out that after 10, 20, 30 years of teaching a 'Way' to enlightenment, not a single one of Frank's students had been declared to be realized beyond the '4th stage.' According to Frank's own evaluation of his followers, most seem to be permanently mired in the second and third tiers of his system. Perhaps in response to his critics, or for other reasons, Frank has now announced that one of his wives -- Bonnie Beavan, aka Quandra Sukha Mai -- is practicing in the 6th stage of life. That is to say, according to her guru and husband, she has attained the same level of realized spiritual practice as Gautama Buddha and Ramana Maharshi. (Jesus Christ only gets to be 5th stage in Frank's system, so now one of his wives is more realized than Jesus!).... Frank, of course, has an agenda of keeping everyone locked at some 'stage' below himself. So Jesus, Buddha, Ramana, et al are still, in his view, '6th stage'...forever. This in itself is pretty interesting -- to imagine, as a Daist, that all the Realizers who have gone before are not responding to Frank's presence, in their living state, but remaining locked in egoic isolation in the '6th stage'! In conclusion, no one in Adidam has ever demonstrated, by word or action, any of the traditional qualities of the 6th stage. And their photographs (as published in the Daist literature) betray the obvious -- they are not Realizers in any sense of the word, but people practicing at the 3rd and 4th stage of life. Perhaps Frank has created a 'new kind of 6th stager' -- an ordinary bloke who lacks the originality and profound access to Truth of all the old-time 6th-stagers. In fact, that is probably what Frank intends with his invention of the 'murti guru' [who will never function outside of the Daist community with his/her own disciples, but must always show adherence to Da]. As for Adi Da -- because he demonstrates such a powerfully resilient yogic ego, Frank Jones is clearly awake at the 5th stage of life. Good for him, I say. That's quite an achievement for a spiritual seeker." ;-) (--from Elias' 2000 blog, "Has Any Daist Attained '6th stage' Realization?")

"I am well aware that Frank has said 'There is no separate person.' And yet his is a path of interminable accusation and abuse of this non-existent separate person! Unlike Ramana Maharshi, who made it obvious that 'no separate person' exists, Frank's conflicted teaching posits and reinforces the existence of this 'separate person' at every turn. Daism is a dark and ego-based view of the human condition. Great Spiritual Masters like Maharshi and the Dalai Lama teach that human beings are essentially good, and already living from a core of purity and divinity. The infamous 'self-contraction' [of which Da relentlessly accuses other people] is, [as described by Ramana, the Dalai Lama and the literature of the great nondual spiritual traditions] for most people simply a matter of ignorance or wrong view. Once human beings taste the nectar of real wisdom, they tend to respond like bees to honey.... Frank is unable to deliver the nectar that would attract real devotees, so he falls back on blaming the whole human race for 'failing' him!... I would go further to say that Frank himself represents a mode and process of self-contraction upon the formless divine. This has become fairly obvious to everybody except those who have been blown over by his sales talks about himself or bought his brutal description of themselves as 'loveless assholes.'... The humor and sense of self-worth of the healthy ego flows effortlessly into the ecstatic I AM of the ocean of divine Self. The guilt-ridden ego of Daists is simply neurotic and forever stuck in a psychic-loop that orbits the frowning authoritarian archetype of the Da-guru." (--from Elias' 1999 essay, "Daism and the Betrayal of Human Innocence.")

"The idea of transmission-of-state from Guru to disciple [turning the disciple into an authentic Guru] is ancient and venerable. However, transmission is unlikely to occur if the disciple is continually defined to herself (even after decades of service and surrender) as failing to please the guru. (And disciples’ failure to please the Da-Guru is the Daist mantra.) Ongoing approval-disapproval is one of the hallmarks of Daist ideology. Every action (and every thought) of every disciple is continuously vulnerable to judgment and evaluation by the Da-Guru, his subordinates, the community at large, and the disciple herself (through the internalization of the Da-Guru's demands). In Daism the authoritarian quality of the guru-disciple relationship caused it to long ago reached a stasis in which no awakening-transmission occurs. Year after year the Da-Guru only compounds the situation by endlessly berating disciples for failing to live up to his demands, and 'failing' to release the self-contraction! And so Daism developed not as a transmission of the Realization, but as a circular teaching of culpability.... Narcissus (a name for the ego or self-idea [and one of the central ideas in Franklin Jones' early teachings]) is defined then as an adversary of the Da-Guru and his Grace. The ego is defined as Da-Guru's self-contracted opponent, struggling in vain against the radiant transmission of the Perfect Liberation of Divine Realization. Throughout the Daist rubric there are numerous variations on this theme. However, in the earliest books, one finds the suggestion that the ego 'can be allowed to rise and fall, without awakening the motivating sense of dilemma.' In this regard, the earlier teaching is closer to the ancient [Perennial Wisdom] idea that Liberation is the natural state of existence which has been covered up by an error of view -- or, as Franklin Jones used to put it, 'the failure to Understand.' However, in its emphasis on Narcissus, even early Daist ideology is a philosophy of blame, which assigns a negative value to the conscious state of virtually all human beings (except, of course, Franklin Jones). As such, in the view of this commentator, the Daist ideology is not and has never been a teaching of Liberation, but a teaching of culpability, or sin, not that different from ancient patriarchal systems in which guilt was assigned (and forgiven) from a central authority." (--from Elias' 1999 essay, "Some Notes on the False Teachings of Daism")

[Here's another gem about Da/Franklin Jones' own colossal narcissism:] "The natural setting for a narcissist is a situation where the attention of other people is focused on him or her. The famous moment by the pond -- the moment of preening in front of the mirror -- is just the setup for the moment in the spotlight. Psychology tells us that narcissists, in general, have a distaste for solitude, and feel lonely and uncomfortable by themselves. They are enamored of their own image, for sure, but the proof and justification of their self-love is not in solitude -- it is in seeking the notice and attention of others.... Narcissus' greatest fear is that he does not exist, or that he might not be remembered. So Narcissus builds monuments to himself, temples -- even religious cults. Narcissus wants to be a Star, and he wants to be remembered as the Great One in a story of his own devising.... Traditionally the spiritual hero -- everyone from Buddha to Ramana Maharshi -- expressed humility, discouraged adulation, and turned the attention of listeners away from himself to his message, which was that Truth is found not outside yourself, but in your own heart.... Some of us have noticed that Frank is not content to wait for history to honor him -- he does the whole show himself. He builds the statues, erects the religion institutions around himself, and accumulates and spends the wealth. He looks for sycophants as disciples, and practices well-worn psychological techniques to control their minds and gain their hysterical adulation. He has given himself the honorific of 'The Liberator of All Beings,' and yet we don't find any liberated or enlightened people around him -- NONE. We do find people worshipping him according to his rules, and bowing to photographs he ordered taken. Virtually all his 'recognition' is self-generated. He owns the printing press and he prints the books. He micro-manages the magazines, he chooses the photographs, and he controls the lives of the community of devotees from morning to night. (I remember, as an employee of Dawn Horse Press, hearing him screaming on the telephone to my supervisor about the most minor details.) By the standards of traditional society, Frank is like the man in the madhouse claiming to be the Second Coming of Christ who has taken control of a few other patients and convinced them that he is in fact the Messiah. People walking around outside the walls of the asylum say 'Yes, you think you are Jesus Christ, but we don't think so. You claim to be the Most Enlightened Being Who Ever Was and Ever Will Be, but it just doesn't add up. Your behavior doesn't add up. Your pomposity and your self-important declarations do not add up. By even the most liberal standards, you are quite insane, totally nuts, absolutely bonkers, a real nutcase...' Frank is one man against the world...and less than a thousand people have bought his tune. Like the rats of Hamlin they have followed the mad piper into the mountain of doom." (--from Elias' 1998 essay, "Narcissism and Franklin Jones.")

"Frank's endless talking [about himself] can also be viewed as an attempt to prove something about himself to himself. His complicated self-justification includes reading all the classic spiritual texts and then emulating them, writing his own Gita, writing his own Upanishads, writing his own Buddhism, writing his own esoteric Christianity... Reading him I get the feeling I am being argued into believing in something and somebody...some hypothetical 'Liberator' who has come down to earth to 'save' me from myself. (I also get the impression of a man with a terrible Father-Complex, who is arguing his case before the Highest Court in the Universe.) What's missing in his endless rationalizing? The simplicity of truth. Where's the simple direct and spontaneous heart-speech of a Ramana [Maharshi]? I am sure Frank has tried to simulate that at times, just as he once tried to simulate the Christ of the Gospel of John. But to my knowledge he has never succeeded, because Truth cannot be simulated." (--from Elias' 2000 blog, "What Isn't Enlightenment?")

"Frank's self-apotheosis may be the most outlandish example of psychic-inflation in the history of yoga and transcendence spirituality. According to him, the One Divine Person has never been born or completely Realized until now, in the person of himself, and, as he has said in See My Brightness Face to Face (page 144), 'It is neither possible nor necessary for another seventh stage Adept to appear anywhere.' By his bizarre logic all previous 'Realizations' and 'Enlightenments' have been in some sense incomplete, and therefore dualistic. One Divine Person (Adi Da) existed--but was never Realized! Therefore for all Buddhas, avatars, spiritual masters, and ersatz 'realizers' until now, there must have remained a separation in Consciousness! Further, it follows from Adi Da's statements about himself, that all recognized Buddhas and Realizers -- including Shakyamuni, Krishna, and Jesus Christ --were 'mistaken' about their Realization and their Avatarhood.... There is a river of pure water and there is a madman standing by the river selling glasses of dirty water from his latrine. He tells you he is the only one who has ever really sold pure water and the only one who ever will sell this water and if you want this water you must bow down to him and give him all your earthly possessions. Frank's statement of his timeless and 'all-time' exclusiveness is not meant to be metaphorical. It is an unequivocal declaration of the primacy of the body-mind of Franklin Jones, born 1939.... It is the dualistic mental knot of yogic-ego upon which the entire bizarre psycho-drama of 'Da' turns. Daism, the worship of 'Adi Da' as an idol, is in reality a 'perfect' expression of a man who psychologically and sexually abuses others, who indulges his bodily cravings to the point of damaging his health, and who has sucked endlessly on the financial tit of his followers, until they are left impoverished and desperate." (--from Elias' 1996-8 essay, "The Self-Apotheosis of Franklin Jones.")

"Frank [Da] has skillfully pushed away the realities of life as it is lived by 99.99999 percent of the people on the planet, preferring to act out the age-old myth of a pampered god-king, his every want and desire fulfilled by willing sycophants. OK...that's old news. That aspect of Daism has been soundly trashed from all sides. What came to me now was the thought that Frank is a descender-- he escapes from reality (including spiritual reality) by descending into the vital. It's funny, because the man has always criticized '5th and 6th stage saints and yogis' who escape from this world by ascending into the spiritual realms of the sahasrar ["crown"--for yogic release into formlessness]. Even a good old fashioned nirvakalpa samadhi ('formless ecstacy') is, in Frank's view, 'limitation'--a contraction from the Real, and self-indulgent unenlightenment!... But if you examine how Frank has 'moved attention' after his own 'enlightenment,' a pattern of descent emerges--the manipulation of the body-mind into a conditional manifestation of infantile mental-physical self-gratification. That is to say, his 'spiritual' journey is one of seeking ever-more isolation and enclosure in a womb-like environment, where he will feel protected and cared for by others. The instruments of his search have been unvarnished greed, lust, thievery...and all forms of seduction and mental violence.... Frank and his mates' manipulation of the minds and lives of others to acquire a conditional heaven for themselves is, more than anything else, the definitive statement about what Frank is and what he is doing. Frank has written a few interesting philosophical tracts, which at one time or another impressed Ken Wilber, Georg Feuerstein, and several other religious scholars. Practically speaking, the books mainly serve as consciousness-traps for the young and the weak-minded -- once you enter their mental labyrinth, extrication can take years. But the lionshare of Frank's pitifully selfish existence has been spent on his own comfort and self-indulgence. In my view, he has given nothing of lasting value to the human race." (--from Elias' Oct. 1999 essay, "Frank's Escape From Reality.")

"The financial situation for most Adidamites is pretty scary. Their obligations to their guru include the following:
--15% of gross income tithe
--the Congregational Services fee
--the 5% Treasures support
--regional support fees
--book prepay (you buy books before they are printed)
--magazine and Internet subscriptions
--fundraisers and auctions
--emergency fundraisers
--financial gifts 'over and above established agreements.'
Curiously, after all these years, Adidam has never been able to develop a really successful community business -- one that would free devotees from the exorbitant drain on their personal incomes...." (--from Elias' 2000 article, "Daism Report #4: The New Pattern.")

"The funds raised to support Adi Da's 'circumstance' go for many other things besides his expensive hobbies [in Disney art, nude photography, and even more expensive paperweights, such as the collector-item he paid $159,000 to get at a Sotheby's auction in 1998]. He also regularly lavishes expensive gifts on his wives and children [e.g., vast sums for jewelry and sexy lingerie for his wives]. Large amounts are allocated to each person on Frank's gift-giving list -- sources say between $20,000 and $30,000 per person, for birthdays and Christmas. Expensive jewelery will be purchased, designer clothing -- the gifts of a King to his Consorts and his Princesses. These gifts are never reported to the community at large. And the recipients are generally careful not to wear the gifts in the company of devotees. One of the complaints of the so-called 'dissidents' who left Adidam in the mid-1980's was that the guru spent wasteful amounts of money on his own whims and personal appetites. All indications are that Frank's prodigal spending of devotee's money has never moderated, but over the years grown to grandiose proportions." (--from Elias' 2000 article, "Daism Report #3: Adidam Fundraising.")

"Sources paint a quite different picture of what goes on behind the scenes [than what most devotees think about him]. When the veil is pulled away, and 'the man behind the curtain' is revealed, Frank comes across as incessantly foul-mouthed, petty, nagging, totally self-obsessed and controlling. His life is a constant stream of decision-making about his hobbies and his possessions. He obsesses about money, and he micro-manages virtually every detail of ashram life. Among his intimates he often refers to the devotees as 'dummies,' 'damn phonies,' 'kiss-ass retards,' and 'high-faluting egos' who 'diddle me with their crap.' (And those are only a few of the nice things he says about his followers.) His private conversation is laced with obscenities.... Anybody who dares to stand up to his bullying is quickly sent packing.... Sources report that he has to be handled with kid gloves at all times. He will begin to ruminate obsessively about some detail and be unable to get off it, until one of his wives skillfully directs his attention to something else -- sort of like the way you treat a child or a mental patient....." (--from Elias' 2000 article, "Daism Report #4: The New Pattern.")

"One of the most bizarre characteristics of Daism is the facade of 'authority' it tries to present.... Like Scientologists, Daists are programmed to communicate a patronizing sense of their own superiority in all matters, spiritual, psychological, intellectual, etc etc...you name it, they are smarter than you or me in just about every department! This they learn from Frank, whose interminable 'one-upping' masks a profound inferiority complex. The purposes of this false front are to control the language of discourse and to grab the 'chair of teaching' away from the genuine sages. The 'mask' of Daism is also intended to push the interested observer's mind into a pre-determined shape below the threshhold of consciousness. Studying the scriptures of Daism is thus not simply a matter of meditating on a teaching and finding insight -- but a matter of being assaulted by rhetorical bombast and larger-than-life imagery.... In using these methods, Daism is much like any autocratic political movement -- it puts on the the dress, the uniforms, the symbols, the grand imagery, and all of the stage-props that will hypnotize an audience into submission." (--from Elias' 2001 blog, "Posturing and Intimidation in Daism.")

"I was watching a video somebody sent me from around 1997. There were three things on the video-- a Q-and-A [Question & Answer] talk by Frank, a walk through Fear-No-More Zoo [with footage of him trying to handle a squealing pig], and a darshan occasion [an audience with Da, wherein the "shaktipat" energies are flowing]. The talk he gave was one of those berating ones, about failure to practice etc. I was struck by the darkness in the man. All the light that had seemed to be there in former years was gone out of him. He had an aspect that was both disdainful and cruel.... OK, then [in the video] we cut to the darshan occasion. There was a purposeful editing juxtaposition here, because the devotees [under the influence of the Pentecostal-like shaktipat energies] were all making grunting and squealing noises, just like the pig. In fact, it sounded like a damned barnyard in the darshan hall! Frank had that slightly cruel look of amusement he is famous for.... At one point the camera pulled back, showing the crowd getting really worked up, all shouting and hooting and holding up their hands, and there was this sudden wave of inhuman sound, and you could feel their souls just leave their bodies, all at once, and go into him. I was stunned. I hadn't realized how retrograde the thing had become in the last 20 years. Back when I was involved there were some very intelligent and complicated people around, including people who had spent years studying and practicing under Eastern teachers. The group I saw on that tape were simple, average folks, the kind of people who easily accept being controlled and 'owned' by beings more powerful than themselves...and they were being eaten alive." (--from Elias' 2001 essay, "Adam Gave Names to All the Animals.")

"It has always been a 'paradox' that Franklin Jones criticizes [his guru] Muktananda's realization and yet relies heavily on Muktananda's naming-letter for his own claim of legitimacy as a 'guru.' In fact, according to Frank's current '7-stage' system, Muktananda isn't even a realizer-- he's at best a 5th stage yogi, an ego suffering self-limitation and contraction from the Divine Self.... Later came rebellion, when he didn't receive the support that he wanted and expected from Muktananda [or from his earlier teacher, the American-Hindu renunciate Rudrananda / "Rudi"].... Neither of them... was even close to true Realization. Both of them were curiously unfinished men... And these are the teachers [Muktananda and Rudi] that Frank chose, because of their perceived weaknesses, because they were 'pushovers' from whom he felt he could easily obtain the authority to teach a form of the Hindu religion. The result -- Daism -- is a teaching without a real foundation in tradition, and a teacher -- Franklin Jones -- whose central 'heroic-myth' is that of supplanting the father. In fact, there's the nub of Frank's psyche -- he 'kills' the father and 'marries' the mother [the Goddess, whom he claims to have 'fucked' and merged with in a culminating experience in the Vedanta Temple in Hollywood, CA, in 1970]. Frank has always been in an Oedipal rivalry, not only with his teachers, but with his own devotees. As many have testified, he is in competition with every male member of his community. He sleeps with their wives, strips their sense of self-worth, and systematically castrates them, both psychologically and spiritually. Most importantly, he is at war with every apparent masculine manifestation of the Divine, from Buddha to Ramana. In this ultimate Oedipal statement of having supplanted the father, he devalues all gurus except himself -- there is not one ounce of devotion or respect in him for those who came before. He is, quite simply, Oedipus the father-slayer." (--from Elias' 2001 essay, "Frank's Oedipus Complex.")

And one last observation from Tom/Elias on Da: "One good way to think about this is to ask yourself what you would expect of others, if you could, by the grace of God, show them their divine nature. Would you use your transmission as a means to acquire wealth and power? Would you use your siddhi [paranormal power] as a seducer of young women? Would you acquire a thousand slaves to do your every bidding? I'm willing to wager that the answer is 'no' to all of the above. And IMHO [in my humble opinion] only a psychologically undeveloped person would combine 'spiritual transmission' with the lust to acquire countless sexual partners and vast amounts of money, real estate, and material things.... According to Frank and his cohorts you and all the rest of us are 'totally bereft of Divine Truth,' hopelessly mired in illusion, and walking around seeking answers we will never find except by complete surrender to the Da guru. Then you sit with Frank, he shows you his extrordinary consciousness, and all of a sudden you owe your life to him-- he owns you." (--from Elias' 1999 essay, "For a Man Who Had a Vision of Frank.")

There's much, much more insight and revelation from Tom Veitch / Elias (see his posts from 2000 forward on the continuing insane dramas of Da and his minions) and from other former devotees on the strange phenomenon of Franklin Jones / "Adi Da."

If you or anyone you know is involved with Da, please read further at the Adi Da Archives (www.adidaarchives.org).

I have received a number of supportive and informative emails reinforcing what i have shared here from Tom/Elias and others who have written about their strange times with "crazy Da." I would add a bit more detail to all of the above with the following report. Anonymous source-persons (who have remained anonymous because they are concerned about reprisal if they speak openly), have informed me that Adi Da is a heavy abuser of diverse drugs, some for the sake of his sexual escapades. As one correspondent wrote me: "The core of Franklin is very simple: drugs. An addictive personality, he has always lied about using drugs, made free use of them while he has proscribed them for others. LSD, poppers (i.e. butyl nitrate, very big), amyl nitrate, cocaine, lots of pot, and other stuff including anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants. So the self-declared Lord of all the worlds and his Sahaja Samadhi has to have his meds to maintain equilibrium? He uses lots of Viagra these days to fuel his sex addiction in addition to periods of non-stop pornography and sex parties. That's what the 'higher levels of practice' considerations are, and why they are so hush-hush. It's basically about sex abuse of adults. His fund raisers for 'art' and other causes - money is used to pay for the parties, drugs and lavish lifestyle. He thinks absolutely nothing of screwing his students over financially and physically. In what is left of his mind, others exist [only] for his pleasure and use."