American Judy Zebra Knight, the woman who started the Ramtha School of Enightenment, is smart, super-wealthy, lives in a huge French chateau-style home and persuades her followers to part with their money before the end of days.
Members are urged to build underground bunkers and stockpile food and weapons to prepare for a global catastrophe – even the end of the world.
This is according to a former member who spent seven years in Yelm in the US, where Knight runs her school, purportedly guided by the spirit of Ramtha, a 35 000-year-old disembodied entity from an ancient civilisation, who first appeared to her in the kitchen of her husband’s trailer in Tacoma.
Robair Barbeau, 64, of Las Vegas, who spent seven years in Yelm, described the Ramtha School of Enlightenment – whose members included slain French fugitive couple Philippe Pierre Meniere, 60, and Agnes Jeanne Jardel, 55 – as a “mind and soul-raping cult”.
He and former member David McCarthy, who still lives in Yelm, have formed a group called Life After Ramtha School of Enlightenment, or Larse, to warn people of what they believe are brainwashing and cult-like activities.
Hollywood actresses Salma Hayek, Shirley MacLaine and Linda Evans have been linked to Knight.
Barbeau told the Saturday Star that he and his wife had joined Ramtha in 1981.
“We sold all our possessions to go and prepare for the end.”
He said he personally built more than 40 underground bunkers. Some of the wealthier members spent anything from $100 000 to $1 million on the elaborate structures.
Barbeau said they were supposed to be secret, but everyone in Yelm knew about them.
He said Knight used fear to keep her “paying customers”.
“I had supplies for about three years – long-lasting food in airtight containers.”
Everyone stockpiled weapons “I’m not sure if people would go to the extent of shooting a policeman but they would definitely protect themselves.”
He said about 1 800 members lived near the school, paying about $1 000 a week to attend courses.
Barbeau described how Knight gathered her followers.
“First she attracts them with the carrot of spirituality, targeting those searching for answers about God, by also promising to teach them the secret of many things, including how to live 200 years.”
A South African who spent time in Yelm, but asked not to be identified, said many of the families in the rural town had bunkers in which they stored tins of lentils, beans and peas. They also had bicycles and kept guns. “These are apparently to ward off the starving hordes at Armageddon.
Members practised “deep focus and visualisation” to generate capacity to influence reality via their consciousness.
“Every sort of New Age lunacy is encouraged.”
“There is deep paranoia about government control. The idea is to lead a sovereign existence by being independent, but they are dependant on Knight.”
He said people came to “The School” to practise creating wealth – but most were impoverished.
The Ramtha School of Enlightenment has distanced itself from the couple and Knight said in a statement she had never met the couple.
“This school does not condone violence in any form… The choices made by the couple do not reflect an understanding of the school’s philosophy,” she said.
Knight said Ramtha students were not survivalists.
“We are sovereignists. We have always been taught to be prepared for anything, to be able to provide and care for ourselves and our families.
She said that the school was not a cult and that the couple had had no contact with them for more than seven years since they attended a seminar in Joburg in January 2004.