Supernaturalism
Within days, neighbors’ insistence that the Church of Naturalism was involved with drugs was validated by the revelation that four of its members were arrested on narcotics charges in June of 1981. An L.A. County Sheriff’s raid of the church compound yielded two ounces of cocaine, 350 Quaaludes, 66.5 grams of maijuana, nearly a gram of hashish and $3200 in cash. As the Los Angeles Times reported, despite the large quantity of drugs confiscated, “all charges were subsequently dropped because the district attorney’s office said the investigators did not find the drugs on the individuals.”
I’m no narcotics investigator, but this seems like a rather odd reason for not pursuing charges. At the time of the raid, sheriff’s detectives must have held some suspicions regarding the occupants of that location, and surely would have acquired some evidence or information that led to the raid in the first place. The presence of large quantities of drugs discovered at the location would surely have confirmed these suspicions. It seems strange then that no one was subsequently charged. How common is it that, after conducting a drug raid and finding the illicit contraband, no one is charged because the possessors of that contraband didn’t have it directly on their person? This seems highly unusual. However, as we will come to find out, this was a pattern for George Peters and the Church of Naturalism, as he was arrested for drugs and subsequently freed without charges on a number of occasions.
At this point, investigators still maintained that robbery remained the motive for the murders, while conceding that drugs may have been a factor. “It appears to us the primary motive was robbery. But, remember, a person can rob for drugs too,” Hollywood Division homicide Detective Richard Kuster told reporters. “It’s obvious they were involved in drug traffic in one form or the other.”
Strange that a group that billed itself as offering drug counseling services, indeed that was purported to have counseled addicted rock musicians, also may have been involved in drug trafficking. One ex-employee of the church told the Los Angeles Times that he had purchased marijuana from the group and later warned an employment agency not to place applicants with the church. The owner of the agency confirmed the man’s account. “At one point we heard something about that place we didn’t like and canceled the job orders,” the owner said. One of the church’s subsidiaries, Mentor Media, subsequently tried to recruit through the agency but was also denied.
Additional odd facts about the group began to emerge. According to the Los Angeles Times, author Nathaniel Lande wrote in a 1976 book, Mind Styles, Life Styles that the Church of Naturalism offered a three stage divinity training. The first stage, called “group grope,” involved groups of 5-10 members living together, working and contributing 80% of their income to the church for “samaritan services.” The second stage, labeled “rural setting,” required members to remove from society and spend an hour each day in hot tubs receiving massages. According to the book, this stage causes members to “develop deep, honest personal relationships.” The final stage is called the “Death Judgment Experience.” Here the church member isolates in a black box for 40 days. “During the experience, the person loses his self-concept and relives the events of his life,” Landes says. The purpose “is that if you can gain sufficient strength and stamina to be yourself by isolating yourself totally, you can operate in society much more effectively.”
In 1998, Lionel Rolfe wrote extensively about his time working as George Peters’ ghostwriter in the memoir, Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground. In the book, Rolfe describes a much stranger and darker version of George Peters and the Church of Naturalism than members and acquaintances revealed at the time of Peters’ death. “Into his and his church’s philosophy, Peters had put a lot of thought – some genuinely humanistic, it seemed to me. But he also had potentially evil ideas. I believe he considered himself an enlightened human being who wanted to help others. The trouble, the evil, the weirdness entered his philosophy with his belief that he had supernatural powers … . George claimed he could glow in the dark. He didn’t do it for me, but he did tell me the story of how Mr. X once walked into the room where he was meditating, and Peters was ‘glowing.’ Later I learned that Peters’ witness, Mr. X, would not directly contradict the story…. About this time I started getting concerned about being Peters’ ghostwriter. The more I became familiar with his thinking, the more I found the notion of being his ghost ill-advised, if not plain dangerous. Peters wanted me to undergo one of his sensory deprivation experiences so I would have greater knowledge of what I was writing about. I declined the opportunity.” Smart move.
At the time of Peter’s death, the Los Angeles Times reported on a Church of Naturalism document that alluded to Peters’ alleged supernatural powers. According to the document, “Peters claimed he could read others’ thoughts and move objects through mind control,” the Times reported. The newspaper made no mention of the guru’s ability to glow in the dark.
Despite George Peters’ apparent abilities to transcend the physical constraints of this world, he was also a man who enjoyed the finest comforts and pleasures the material world could offer. Shocking to no one, the man who considered himself a messiah had expensive tastes and eschewed monogamy. “To watch him sitting on the sectional bed-sofa that filled half of his large bedroom as he viewed the wall-size television set was to see how much he loved his toys, and his comforts. It was a grand bed, one that could accommodate a dozen people at a time, and probably had,” Rolfe wrote.
“George was a hedonist. He liked sex…. At the time of our acquaintance, Peters didn’t appear to be heavily into drugs himself, although he certainly liked to smoke good dope. What he really liked, and was obsessed by, were the good things in life.”
That a self-styled messianic guru surrounded himself with life’s finer material possessions, that he partook of mind-altering substances, that he enjoyed frequent sex and the occasional orgy, that he claimed magical powers and exerted a level of mind control over his followers was not shocking for 1982 and mostly lifted straight out of the How To Be A Successful Guru handbook. (Note: George Peters literally taught a guru class. More on that later.) But George Peters’ fascination with drugs stretched back at least as far as the mid-sixties and possibly earlier. Because while George Peters was seemingly pushing forms of mind control on his followers, a week after his death, one of his followers, Susan Shore, revealed to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that Peters himself had been the subject of CIA drug experiments dating back to the 1950’s.
Sources:
The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner
The San Francisco Examiner
The Chicago Tribune
Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe
Mind Styles, Life Styles by Nathaniel Lande
If there is something 