Propheet= Profits The Truth

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Time to talk Propheets. Remember the first time you were kept up without food for a night in the bright lights and standing in a circle for three and four hours at a time in the same place? The disclosure circle. I am trying (for the same bizarre reason I like throwing up when I'm ill )
to remember what transpired in each propheet. Not just what they were about and Gibran trappings and associated music, but the overall schedules of each one. Wasn't there someone here a few months back whom had perhaps lifted a copy of the Propheet and Workshop handbooks? Come back. There were scripts for each one, I remember viewing them myself when I supported in a Brothers Keeper.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

There was an air of curiosity about what this was all about. After we went through this ritual, we would truly be part of the school. Sure, people continued to get dirty and to run away even when they were in the upper school, but us lower schoolers were expected to act thus. I just remember Chris telling me the day of my Truth to make sure I got a nap in. I felt SO happy that I was going to escape from that afternoons rap. I didn?t see how they could shell anything out that could be worse than a rap. All of us were jokingly told not to drink the water. I remember after my Truth Propheet telling the forming peer group below mine the same thing. ?The Truth is an awesome experience, but don?t drink the water?. I was lying in all categories. Though there was something rewarding about actually knowing something that the others didn?t. I had been through the first propheet, afterall.
    Because we were all untrustworthy (yes) in the program?s eyes we were not allowed to be alone in out quarters to sleep the afternoon away. We were taken to Denali where there was no rap. The space had been reserved for us. We took turns reading from Winnie the Pooh, and were able to drift off or draw, or write. After a few chapters of Pooh had been read, most of us were already sleeping. I was writing in my journal about how nervous I was:

[blownawaytheidahoway]

At last light My big sister and her peer group presented some ideas to ALL the kids to think about their Truth Propheets. They reminded the school that when we got out our new peer group would be part of the community and that we would really need for people to slow down. They each got to talk for a few and some would start crying as they talked about the Truth Propheet and it?s place in the program. This thing about crying at this school was so weird. I knew they were going to pull out all the tricks tonight, but I still didn?t know how to identify the weaponry.

We walked silently towards Walden, I was already wishing I had run away that afternoon, my spidey sense was vibrating like a hummingbird wrapped in celophane.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the posts.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

When we entered the room, the windows had been blacked out with large cardboard slabs. There was no light except for the overheads that were turned as dimly as possible. There was one lit candle. There were slabs of cardboard over all of the windows. ?The truth shall set you free? proclaimed a most prominently displayed sign on the north wall. On a large easel read the words ?Welcome to your Truth Propheet?.

The girls in out peer group carried stuffed animals, and some caring older sister of theirs had had the good sense to tell them to wear a few warm layers. Soon though, we were all shivering in our seats anyway.
Stacy opened her copy of The Prophet by Kahil Gibran. She read from the passage entitled On Joy and Sorrow. After the reading was done a couple of times with Barbara Streisand music bleeding into mix, the tormenting begun.
As usual it all began with jossing. Some of that bantering and rousing. Condescending tones were used in relation our previous pre-RMA lives. And it really didn?t much matter what you were like once and opinion was formed of you by the staff, you were stereotyped.

For many reason the first propheet WAS a first in many ways. For one thing chairs had always been circles not a horseshoe shape. The room was clean. Like special attention had gone into it, a plant in the corner, the candle, the signs around us. There was the easel that Stacy now turned to and turned the page to display the next page. It was blank until Stacy drew a circle. She drew a little square in the circle so that it took on a 3 dimensional, spherical impression. ?What do you think this is?? she asked. We were daunted as rhetorical questions undoubtedly seemed the precursor to something bad. In a rap you were asked rhetorical questions a lot. But the trick was you had to answer. It was something I still cannot seem to describe properly. But Stacy drawing a ball on a pad and asking what it was was like one of those things. Finally, she wrote the words CHROME BALL under the circle and reached to the pockets of her sweater. She produced a chrome ball. Exactly the size and shape of a pinball, she held it up for us and then huffed on it and shined it up on her sweater.

She made a little mark on the chrome ball on the giant pad. ?This scuffmark represents the first time someone said something to you that hurt you.? She made another mark. ?And another, and another. All of the things that people said about you, and things that were done to hurt you, scuffed up your shiny chrome ball. And we are going to spend tonight shining up that chrome ball. I know you?ve already heard not to drink the water, There are cups over there and all of you will have a chance to drink water later and I promise you it will come from the faucet and it is perfectly harmless. She took a sip and the older students who were ?supporting? in the rap laughed along with the staff. My peer group looked dazed. We had already been sitting there for two hours and it was getting cold. Not too bad, just the lack of activity was stifling me a little and I didn?t want to attract attention by shifting around in my chair too often. Stacy flipped the tape of ?Somewhere? for a fourth time and instructed us to take off our shoes, and put them in Walden?s mudroom. When we came back to our seats she asked us to move them all against the wall and make as much space in the room as possible and to return and silently stand in a circle. We all complied. While we did this, Stacy turned the lights up some and the music a little louder to. She stood in the middle of the circle and addressed us, including the two staff members that were in our peer group.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

REDACTED

[blownawaytheidahoway]

?Good job. Now we?re going to do something else. ?Now we?re gong to have a dirt list from everyone?. We all said all the things that we had done out of agreement that we hadn?t already ?copped out? to. One kid surprised everyone by admitting to huffing gas in order to get high. We were all impressed that he wasn?t immediately punished. I remember thinking that that WAS a big deal. I admitted to my usual litany of smoking in the woods, and singing unacceptable songs on work details. I remember thinking after an hour of this that maybe this truth propheet thing won?t be so bad.

?It?s Verrrry important, what we?re going to next. Stay in the circle and think about your life before you came to RMA, and this special Propheet. We all have done things to scuff our own chrome ball, too. We have our secrets, our skeletons in our closets, and we?re going to take out these secrets and disclose them to one another tonight. This peer group is going to be your peer group for the whole time that you are here. They are going to know you inside and out and that work starts tonight?.What you put into this experience, is what you will get out of it?.

She repeated this last slogan a couple of times while walking around our circle, and continued on to the stereo. It went dead and the room was bright and silent. Everyone joined the circle now except Stacy. We stood in the circle and waited for instruction.
 ?Why don?t you get us started.? The staff she had addressed was across the circle from me. He was in the Discovery family. I didn't really know him, at all.  

Now, I had been expecting something like this for the simple reason that over the previous few weeks there I had heard some of the most amazing things that students admitted to in raps. And while I didn?t always believe them, and I certainly didn?t understand why sometimes specific staff would know about some kids? dirt without having heard him admit it. Shit, I didn?t know it was going to be routine but here I had just found myself in my first ?disclosure circle?.

XXX looked at all of us and let out a defeated sigh. He began. Now AILBOI, it doesn?t matter who said what or who did what when or even if any of it was false. Some of it was true and some of it would be false. Ironically, the further along in the program you got the worse your disclosures got?the more magnified, the more scrutinized, and the more glorified. Contradictions abound as apparently did acts of homosexuality, bestiality, and other depravities. There was self cum-swallowing, suicide attempts, arm- carving, and animal torture. There was prostitution, overdoses, acts of violence described, and petty theft admitted. There was claims of attempts at motherfucking and peeping tomming and self- inserting. Descriptions of women using and cocaine shooting, and barroom behavior was described by some of the staff along with the sordid details of horse-fucking. I tried to hide my incredulous expression.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

At first it all started off pretty innocuous and grew more and more perverse as were grilled with details. The longer we stood there, and it had already been a few hours, the worse it got. My legs were cramped and shaking a little. One girl admitted to having sex with two guys at the same time, and an hour later the number or marauders had grown to six! I did the bare minimum and thinking smugly that I didn?t even FEEL BAD about anything I had done. I thought pot was great. And I didn?t feel bad about the acts of sex that I had had. But all that was going to change regardless of how steadfast I decided to remain. I didn?t see the next phase coming at all.

How could I know that everything we had just admitted to was going to be used against us now in a spirited rap that was destined to last the next 8 hours off and on? How could I know how good it would feel to sit back down, also? How could I foresee that we would all have index cards taped to us that labeled us for the night? Or how could I know just what I would admit to, and admit to feeling bad about in order to have the lambasting attention displaced from me?

[Anonymous]

How do remember all that? I completely blocked it. But it all came back... I got blown away badly in this propheet at the instigation  of staff for not copping out to hidden dirt. I think it was overdue; I really wasn't of the ones who was in the hot seat often; when I was, it was like they had to make shit up. I also kept my nose clean there.  When I was in the hot seat, I lost all respect for the staff because they couldn't even keep the story straight.  They never blew me away for stuff I did prior to CEDU. It was random bullshit that was totally off target or for being a slut for sleeping with one guy, my boyfriend for two years. I wasn't going to admit to being a drug addict when I only used it recreationally and stopped months and months prior to CEDU because I wanted to, not because I got caught.  I didn't feel bad for having experimented or enjoyed sex with my first love. But of course, this stuff they honed in on.  THe important stuff they never got around to, and I don't think I shared because I didn't trust them. It wasn't dirt. It was trauma and pain I experienced. Why would I share that if they exploited it for sport and used it to degrade you rather than heal you?

All I remember was the spectacular pressure everyone was under to cop dirt, true or false. The kids that were there for not getting along with their parents, but didn't really have dirt were just reamed relentlessly.  The worst thing was if you had sex or enjoyed a spliff now and again, they made you feel on par with a prostitute and drug dealer.  And they hammered you until you did feel this low. In that isolated environment, you lost your sense of reality, so it was easy to distort our self perception.

That propheet, as I remember, was an exercise to tear you down and wear you down.  The last thing you got to do was pick a new truth.  But picking two new adjectives to describe yourself did not make up for the way we were degraded. And the degradation was the thng that stuck.

I always wished I was more of a con artist and manipulator when I went there; at least then, I would have understood the game.  Sometimes I think the people who fared better were better con artists. They never let it get under their skin because they knew what it was about.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

We took a water break, and each of us wrote on a Dixie cup our name. I went into the bathroom to take a piss along with most of the other boys. We weren?t allowed to talk to one another, but there was some sighs of relief in that bathroom. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I wore a sign on my heart which said ?LIAR?. My eyes were puffy though I hadn?t been crying and my lips were a little blue, mostly because my t-shirt was so red. I washed my hands and went back to Walden West and assisted in putting the chairs back into the horseshoe. Stacy had put ?Somewhere? back on and put the lights on normal. We sat there for a few minutes and looked at one another. Everyone in a t-shirt was shivering, and all of the girls had been crying. I couldn?t believe it when Stacy blurted out a minute later from her place at the head of our horseshoe, ?Let?s have a rap?. I swear it was the LAST thing I wanted at that moment and it was truly a torturous experience since it lasted for so long and just when you thought that there had been heat taken off of you, it would come back hotter that before. The rap bled in with the earlier dirt and disclosure circle. Xxxx was fully reamed for his gasoline dirt and told Stacy where it had been stored and that he just wanted to ?escape? for a few minutes. She acted incredibly perturbed with all of us. We were grilled on our attempts to disclose our secrets, and told they were exaggerated and to ?get real?.

I was again told not to be intellectual and the reason I was a liar was because I thought I was so honest. Stacy said that I probably felt worse than everyone there and that was the reason I was being less emotional. I had a choice now. I could defend myself again and express my satisfaction with my life on the whole before attending RMA and this goddamn rap, or I could admit that I was a liar and that I had made up stuff to cover up WORSE things I had done and hoot and holler about how I hated myself and bad I felt and go into hysterics. I tried both, Defense, as should be clear now was a simple detraction that could if used correctly and ONLY by an older student could, theoretically, save them a little grilling on the hot seat in a rap; but for us young ones, defense was a desperate and futile act. It was plain as day in any rap I was in. And I hadn?t really ever been grilled to the point of explosion yet.
It was hard to try to pretend to be upset when I really wasn?t. But I gave it my all in the Truth Propheet Rap that night. I got nowhere with it though, as much as I yelled and ranted, I was still detached. I said that I did cocaine, and I admitted that my brother made me touch his dick when I was like four. However, AILBOI, I was stupendously confused and tired by the end of the rap. I was angry at being called a liar endlessly and mad at myself for not breaking down the way half of the kids had done, and upset at all the things the peer group said to me in the rap. How they didn?t like me, and agreed with WHATEVER Stacy or another ?counselor? had put out there. So, there we were: all hungry, all upset, even the faculty in my peer group and the older students too.  The sun was coming up when rap finally ended and Stacy reminded us again that what we put into it would be what we got out of it. She read about joy and sorrow again and promised us that we were only feeling joy missing now and that the misery we were all feeling was actually perfect. ?You are right where I want you to be?.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

It was probably three hours that we were allowed to sleep. When we were awoken, still with Barbara Streisand wrenching her guts out, we were quietly told to put our shoes on and to follow the older students on a silent walk. We went and ambled around for about 30 minutes on the trails behind the tipi while someone snuck stacks of paper plates into Walden along with a bowl of mustard. Yuck! The sandwiches were on the plates with a handful of plain potato chips. The sandwiches were crappy and small and unfulfilling but we were all ravenous and all the food disappeared quickly. I had a finger scoop of mustard, and I?m still not sure why.  We were sitting in Walden East and were filed back into West through the mudroom a few minutes after ?lunch?. The room had been brought back to its original state. Fresh tissue boxes had been put out replacing the garbage that had accumulated from used ones. The floor had been vacuumed again. Because the sun was out and because of the shitty rap, the room didn?t have the appeal and majesty of the beginning of this experience. AILBOI, I think I forgot for a while that this night/day would actually end. It seemed so endless after that short little nap, all I really wanted now was to go back to sleep. Instead we had a sit in the horseshoe again. Stacy talked for a while about what it meant to be part of this ?special place? now and though we were still new we should understand that being in agreement was a necessary part of ?agreeing? to be there. It was never agreeing to STAY there, I noted smitten in my journal a year later, it was always agreeing to BE there.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

She continued to harangue about the ?work? we had done in there together and made it ritualistic the taking off of our negative index cards. The next couple of hours nothing miraculous happened except that our labels changed from the negative to the positive. I now wore an index card with HONEST on it, while others had loving, accepting, forgiving, and brave on theirs. We were encouraged to bring these positive qualities to the environment and share with our older brothers about the experience. Stacy noted that she was really proud of us and that we should all get in a big smoosh pile. It felt really creepy to be touched by all these people who had been yelling at me just a few hours before. And while, at first, I resisted the necessary component of forgiveness to join this pile, I had to acquiesce when I was the only one still sitting in a black chair.

The stench of body odor was heightened in the smoosh pile as was the feelings of relief that it was finally ending. We remained like that for a while stroking one another?s hair and listening to ?Somewhere? for the 757th time. When the sun started to go down and our eyes were heavy and Xxxx started to snore, we were told there was one last thing to do before we could join the rest of the house. We were instructed to take the crayons and markers and paper from the mudroom shelf and make a card for our big brothers and sisters. We all spent a few minutes doing this and putting our shoes back on. Everyone tucked in their shirt and held hands in a big daisy-chain and we filed back on the stone bordered path past Denali and up the stairs to the house. It was less than twenty- four hours later and though I was very tired, I also felt a heightened sense of awareness. I was, in a way, more awake. The faces in the house were all extra passive or smiling insanely. The dogs that ran by on our brief walk had seemed extra extraordinarily playful and happy. The kitchen staff stopped what they were doing, like at all times when an expedition came back, or a workshop or propheet got out. Dinner was waiting on us, so virtually all of the staff in the school and the whole of the student body were assembled. Thus, we walked by the food bar and through the dining room into the House. Everyone was still, and Barbara sang her song over the speakers in the House extra loud. The song continued to serve to make my brain feel mushy and my instincts clouded. I was in a very colorful dream. A group of students stood up and we could see that they were our preferred big brothers and sisters that were approaching with soft, knowing looks on their faces. The compassion was, in the most part, genuine. And we traded our cards for rolled up papers. These "scrolls" wers that were in their hands.  
   But we were exhausted and for the most part hungry. We would have to endure two more lengths of ?Somewhere?, while each one of us had to individually say something about what we had learned that night. I stood weakly and the wafting smell of ground beef made me start to salivate. ?I just want to say that the Truth is not what I was expecting. But I feel a lot more a part of the community here now, and I?m going to try to continue to be as honest as possible about myself?I feel really ?slowed down? right now, and am glad it?s over.? We all said something and finally it was over, I couldn?t believe crappy food could taste so good. All night we got a little special attention from the rest of the students and smooshing just didn?t seem so strange anymore.

[Anonymous]

blownaway,

thank you for your honesty and your amazing words.  You truly have a gift, you know.  Are you writing professionally?  You should be.

Can I ask why you were sent away to RMA? How long were you there, and when were you there?

[Boomerang]

WOW... my TRUTH was more than 20 years ago. Until reading your posts, I had remembered very little. It is amazing how some are able to remember such details, other remember names and faces, and others nothing.

I can name the propheets and comment briefly about what happened in each other. I could describe some of the "exercises", but... that would be the extent of my memory. I don't remember specific conversations, disclosures, or raps.

[try another castle]

I just think it's funny that apparently they started playing Metallica in the truth in the late 90s and 00s.

Further proof that Metalllica lost its edge and started to suck.