Ramtha's School of Enlightenment pt.1

In 1977, a Tacoma housewife picked up a paper pyramid as a joke and somehow channeled a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit in her kitchen. That spirit, Ramtha, would go on to turn Knight into a multimillionaire guru and the founder of a controversial "school" on an 80-acre compound in Yelm, Washington that still operates today. 

In part 1 we dive into the wild origin story of one of the New Age movement's biggest names. From that first strange encounter through Ramtha's explosion into pop culture, including celebrity followers, appearances in mainstream media, and the birth of the channeling movement that would influence decades of New Age spirituality. We dig into who JZ Knight really is, how "Ramtha" first spoke, and how a paper pyramid turned into an empire.

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Intro music by Don Edwards

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, welcome back to the podcast. Happy Thursday and early beloved, we are gathered here today with Mom.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

The sizzler.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

The sick fizzler.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Oh, I see. And today we're we have our hypothetical tinfoil hats on.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

I got the real one on.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Oh, for real. I just can't see it.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

I'm not like that.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Yeah. Okay. You don't have one on, so you can't see mine? Right, right, right, right. Your third eye isn't open.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Right. Basically. And today we're gonna be talking about Rampha or Rampha's school of enlightenment. Have you heard of that?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

This sounds like a cult.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

It is. We're talking about a school of enlightenment. We're talking about a cult today. Let's get enlightened. You've not heard of Rampa today. It was like during the 70s and 80s.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Oh yeah, you should have heard about them, huh?

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Because I'm how old?

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Hey, were you there for the Moonlanded?

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Okay. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Enlighten me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Okay. Well, yeah, we are gonna be enlightened. And this is gonna be a a two pata, so part one next week. Be sure to listen to part two next week. Oh, they gotta wait for the part two? Yeah, you're not getting two episodes in one week. Wow. So yeah, part one this week, part two next week. Listen to both parts. They're gonna get crazy. Today is mainly about the lore and yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

Oh, so we're gonna we're gonna really get enlightened. We're gonna be learning.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yep. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

What flavor of Kool-Aid they use? Grape. Wait, what do I have next to me right now? Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

That was intentional.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

The grape Gatorade.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay, so Judith Darlene Hampton was born on March 16th, 1946, in East Texas, before her mother left her alcoholic father and moved Judy and all eight of her siblings to Artesia, New Mexico. I think that's how you say that. Allegedly, weeks after she was born, a Yaqui Indian woman looked at the baby Judy and said, This little girl of Yorn will see what no one else sees. That's in her autobiography.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

No, thank you. Oh, so it's five fake.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Despite this, in New Mexico, Judy's life was by all accounts pretty unremarkable. She was a majorette and an Eddie County rodeo queen, attended church with her family on Sundays, and dated the star of the football team. Ooh, fancy.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Sounds like a movie.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Right. Her friends called her Judy Zebra and then just Zebra because of her black and white decision-making ability, which then was further shortened to just J C, the letters. After high school, she planned to attend a business college but had to drop out due to financial reasons. She then went on to marry a local garage mechanic and they had two children.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

So she goes from dating the football star to garage mechanic. Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I mean, what if the football star became uh a mechanic?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Maybe. I mean I'm just saying that. In 1972, she left her husband, who suffered from, this is in quotes, disgusting table manners, according to her autobiography, and moved with the kids to Tacoma, Washington, where she got a job working in the cable television industry. In Tacoma, she met a local dentist, J. Mark Burnett, who she then remarried shortly after. On the afternoon of February 2020, 1977, Jay-Z and her husband were crafting pyramids from paper after learning about the pyramid power theory.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

What?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

According to this theory, if you were to mimic the proportions created by the ancient Egyptians in your own home, you could harness, amplify, or focus energy fields. It was believed that this could be used to prolong the freshness of foods, enhance plant growth, and promote healing and rejuvenation.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

On my way.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

I know.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

This is where the sinfoil had came from.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

I have no idea. This is in 1977. So according to Jay Z Knight, jokingly, she picked up a paper pyramid, held it above her head, and said, Attention, attention, please. You're now about to witness a miracle. We are about to place our new brain machine upon the willing person upon whom nature did not smile with great intelligence. Carefully we place the pyramid in the aligned position encompassing the entire head and face. And moments, gentlemen, you will witness a truly magnificent transformation.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Dude, this might be the tinfoil hat.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Maybe. That was all a joke. She said that jokingly. And suddenly, Rampha appeared.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

It was Ramtha. What?

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Like Rumpel's dilty skin? She said, in quote, through my tears I saw what looked like a handful of gold and silver glitter sprinkled in a ray of sunshine. A very large seven foot entity was standing there. I wasn't scared, just shocked. I mean, this was happening in my kitchen. He said to her, I am Ramtha, the enlightened one. I have come to help you over the ditch.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

What? Was she taking bandage rail before this or something?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

I am in all caps. Who TF is Rampha? According to Jay-Z, Rampha told her he is a 35,000-year-old warrior from Lumeria, an extension of the fabled Atlantis. During a battle, he was fatally wounded and spent the next seven years meditating in isolation to conquer the secret of body transcendence, which he called his ascension.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Bruh.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

According to a prophecy, his divine mission was to, by channeling through Jay-Z, teach humanity that consciousness and energy create reality.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

I'm sorry, is it Jay-Z? She's dropping like mixtapes after this?

SPEAKER_04 5:58

So basically 35,000 years ago, it takes him seven years to heal, and then he waits.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Well, he was fatally wounded, but like didn't die for s he meditated for seven years, even though he was Yeah, I just don't know about that. I guess not. Not like that yet.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

Okay, so now we're gonna get some followers, huh?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

During this time in the late 70s and early 80s, there was a massive rise in what's called the New Age movement. Scholars say most of the New Age groups combine elements of Eastern mysticism, western occult traditions, and what the New York Times dubbed the Norman Vincent Peale style of power positive thinking about life. Man is viewed as divine, holistic health, and spiritual healing. It was widely believed by these groups that heightened spiritual consciousness would bring international peace and an end to racism, poverty, sickness, hunger, and war.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Ambitious.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yep. Carl A. Rash, a professor professor of religious studies for the University of Denver, said that the New Age movement is essentially the maturing of the hippie movement of the 1960s. According to Britannica, traditional occult practices like tarot reading, astrology, yoga, meditation, and mediumships were integrated into the movement as tools to assist personal transformation. And one of the most popular of these transformative tools that peaked during this time was the concept of channeling. The same Britannical article goes on to state that either consciously or in a trance, they claimed to establish a contact with various or extraterrestrial entities who spoke through them on a wide range of spiritual, philosophical, and psychological topics.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Now I can get behind it.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

In 1979, Jay-Z, channeled by Rampha, began preaching in public at what she called Rampha dialogues. The middle-aged blonde woman dressed in velvet robes with intricate braiding, and spoke with the voice of her 35,000-year-old warrior entity. This resembled a vaguely British accent with a husky voice, weird emphasis on certain words, and off-kilter sentence structure that has been compared to Master Yoda.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

You can watch videos of her talking. It's very strange.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

But no one else can see this creature.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Figure. Nope. After sessions, Jay-Z has no recollection of the message Rampha delivers or anything that he does with her body while they're while he's channeling.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

It seems like a good way to get out of the UI.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Or any other crime. I mean, dang.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

At first, these Rampha dialogues were just in her living room with 20 people, then it was 50 people. Next, she was traveling every weekend to hotel ballrooms all over the country, charging more and more as her popularity increased. In 1983, she was charging $200 per person to hear the ancient wisdom of Rampha, and upwards of a thousand dollars for private sessions. Private sessions that range from medical advice to daily decision making. 200 bucks?

SPEAKER_04 8:55

That was a lot of money. And I could buy a house. Okay. And that was then. Now it's a lot more. And no one else could see this, but she could channel Rampha anytime.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Wait, is she still doing this? Oh, good hell.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

Crazy. We gotta watch.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

She's not in jail or anything.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Wait, between this week and next week we're watching.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

According to an article out of out of the Tacoma News Tribune in 1987, these are the basic teachings of Ramphtha. One, each person is divine and is loved and supported by the essence called God. Two, individuals can train their minds to focus on what they want and then experience it. Three, happiness is a point of life, and the person who is happy will treat others with justice and decency. Four, most souls are cycling through a pattern of reincarnation on earth, and each person has chosen the life he or she is living. Five, individuals who achieve an innate and understanding of the God that lives in everything can ascend bodily to a higher plane of existence. And six, instead of following the rules of other spiritual advisors, people should listen only to themselves and follow only the path of joy.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah, I mean the first half. Honestly, the first three were sounding pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

In theory, it doesn't sound standard. I mean, the standard like goal setting, being others the way you should want to be treated, be grateful, be respectful.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Number six is like don't listen to other spiritual whatever.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Listen, listen to yourselves.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

That doesn't apply to her, though?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Trust.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Like people are paying for her to tell them not to listen to her. Sounds genius.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So many skeptics and followers alike were mystified that a housewife from Tacoma, Washington, with no background in philosophy, theology, or even theater, could front or fake such ideas with a voice and cadence so insanely different from her own. However, early followers who are known in Hollywood, such as Shirley McLean, Richard Chamberlain, and Mike Farrell, further catapulted her, I put in parentheses, their success. Mike Farrell came across Rampha in 1980 after psychiatrist friend recommended he look into the experience. First of all, fire fire that psychiatrist.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

Hey, you know what? I'm having trouble working with you. Why don't you go see someone that's gonna talk to someone imaginary?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Is Jay-Z paying off psychiatrists or something? Like the board of psychiatry, like hey, like someone.

SPEAKER_04 11:20

Okay, but what about Shirley McLean? Because she was uh like well-known, right? So what what is what is her allegedly they cut ties 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Trust. She's still making donations because she she's a psychic herself, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

I mean, she's an actress. I don't know if she's a psychic. I think she's spiritually inclined.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

Spiritually inclined, okay. And they cut ties. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Don't worry, Selmahayek is a follower of Ramfa. So Mike Farrell is quoted as saying, My first impression was that there was a great truth and great, I'm trying to pick my words carefully, great majesty, great beauty in terms of the interaction between Rantha and the people who were there. And I left feeling, I think I told Rampha Rantha this, I said, I don't know if you are who you say you are or not, and I don't care, because there is a great love expressed and exchanged and realized here. Farrell added, it seems to me that what is so important around Rantha is that he or she or it empowers people, gives people a sense of their own validity and majesty and capabilities, reiterates that time and time again, don't come to worship. I am not here to be worshipped, you are.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

But you're worship.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

But yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

But you're worshiping Rantha to worship yourself. Right. And paying for it. You're paying for someone to tell you you're great.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

I'm trying to figure out what this revenue model is.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

I could do that for way cheaper.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

People can only go to her things once, because like if you go twice, you're like disobeying the No, I think there's followers, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Well, followers are not if you're disobeying the sixth commandment or whatever if you if you trust in her, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Well, it doesn't count for that. But Rantha's Rampha's higher than higher bean. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. I guess.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

So finding major success on tour as Rampha, which is crazy. This is gonna ruin the world tour. Jay Z and Jay-Z. Jay-Z acquired an 80-acre property in Yelm, Washington, 55 55 miles south of Seattle, where she built a 12,000 square foot mansion and bred and sold Arabian horses. Jeez. During this time where her public life was gaining massive momentum and international attention, her personal life was not as successful not as successful.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Wait, but she's the one that's preaching this.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Not her, Rampha. Oh, okay. She's not preaching. Rampha is preaching.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

She's just letting him use her body.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

Or it or whatever. So how did it get to her? Do we ever get to that? It came to paper pyramid? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

It came to her in her kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Stars aligned.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

In the paper pyramid. Yep. And does never leave her. She can channel at any time, but it doesn't. Mom, ma. I'm asking too many questions. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

You're asking logical questions about something that is completely illogical.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

Well, something someone's been following this for f almost 50 years. They're gonna ask questions.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

That's the issue here. People are not asking enough questions. They're just like, this person exists.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Well, I'm asking questions, so let's get to it.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Okay. So Jay-Z separated from her second husband and shortly after remarried for a third time to 27-year-old horse trainer Jeffrey Knight in 1983. What? Taking his last name to become Jay-Z Knight, which is now what she's known as.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

A 27-year-old?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah. She was 10 years older than him. So she's 37 at this time.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Oh, okay, that's chill.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

The dissemination of multiple books on Rantha's teachings, audio and video recordings, in addition to the weekend sessions, led to Jay-Z raking in millions of dollars a year without the addition of the Arabian horse operation that her and her husband were now running. So on the side, they were breeding and selling racehorses. Crazy. But they were already making a million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Just from weekends.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And selling multiple books and audio recordings and videos and private sessions and her monetary success and rapidly increasing session prices had even her most devout followers questioning if she was a profit for profit. Yeah. During her sessions as Rampha, when people would inquire about any variety of health-related questions, Ramtha would often promote the drug Girovitol. Have you heard of that? What's it called? G-E-R-O-V-I-T-A-L. Gyrovitol. An anti-aging drug popular in the 50s. And don't worry, you could stop up on the drug by going to the booths in the back of the room to get immediately where she had it for sale.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Wait, so what but why?

SPEAKER_00 16:08

I have no idea. People would ask, I saw in a newspaper article someone asked her a question. It didn't say what the question was, and she was like, oh, take Dravidol four times a day and you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Oh, so now she's a doctor. Wait, uh a homemaker.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Now a theologian. And now we're a doctor.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Mm-hmm. That's yeah. Where a 35,000-year-old being got the authority to give out modern modern medical advice for things that wouldn't have had a name for in his day. I'm not sure. But lack of knowledge certainly didn't stop her slash him slash it. In 1983, a follower in attendance of one of the sessions named Adrian was interviewed for the Philadelphia Inquirer. The 33-year-old chiropractic student from Long Island was told by Rampton not to worry because the tumor on her ovary was getting smaller. Her doctors, however, told her that it was getting larger. While this should have been a light bulb moment, Adrienne didn't lose faith after the misdiagnosis. She said, and in quotes, he said he didn't want to tell me it wasn't smaller because then I would become afraid.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Okay. Okay. That's actually pretty genius. What a good way.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Well, in this case, Adrienne did proceed to have surgery at the advice of Ramphtha. Others who followed her advice were not as lucky.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

So it's a her, not a him, or we don't know. Or we're just calling it her to give it the female, or Well, Rampha is a him is a man, is him.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

But Jay-Z is a her.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

But if she doesn't know what she says when Rampha Right, so it's him. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, because she has temporary amnesia when she is possessed by Wow.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

Rampha is very good at business too, American business capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

And somehow he knows modern English.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

That's why I said, yeah, the language. I don't. Okay. All from a paper pyramid.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Mm-hmm. Rampha's teaching over teachings over the past few years put an emphasis on the apocalyptic end of times that his followers needed to be prepared for. Different from other New Age groups, this wasn't the threat of nuclear fallout or catastrophic or a catastrophic world war, but major natural disasters to only those in certain regions would survive. JZ's Rampha said people should find a safe place to live, stockpile a two-year food supply, and become self-sufficient by planting their own gardens. One of the safest places, according to Rampha, to survive the world-ending cataclysmic events is in the Pacific Northwest.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

Because 35,000 years ago, Rampha would have known that.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Well, we'll get we'll get there. Dinosaurs. We'll get there. Followers around the country, mainly middle-aged women, were packing up their families or divorcing unsupportive spouses. Oh my God. And it's letting it into rural Washington. Roy Burnside, a real estate broker, said for the New York Times in 1986 that 80% of his annual clients were out-of-state devotees of Rampha. One of Rampha's followers, a 36-year-old hairdresser who moved to Washington from Southern California, said, We're concerned about the coming change changes in the earth. We want to become self-sufficient and live off the land.

unknown 19:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

I mean, that's not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

While Jay-Z and I claim she never encouraged people to move into her community, she certainly wasn't upset about the influx of local quote unquote students, which led to the opening of Rampha's School of Enlightenment on her Yelm property in 1988.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Oh yeah, now we're going to be making more money, because just bring them in. If you build it, they will come.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Well, they're coming regardless. So might as well build it.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Wait, I thought Rampha was nice enough to only use her body on the weekends.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

No, it's like any time. That's what I said.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Like it doesn't even do speaking engagements on the weekends. Doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

I don't think it's only I that doesn't make sense. Can she control it? Can she tell him Rampha? No.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Dude, I think if she's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Is this a consensual agreement? Right. Come out of my little pocket. Yeah, it would say hello to my little friend. Uh the importance of the Pacific Northwest region goes beyond being safe from impending natural disasters. According to the Rampha School of Enlightenment website, it was actually part of ancient Lumeria during Ramtha's lifetime, before he migrated to Atlantis and freed his people from tyranny at the age of fourteen, where he then went out to conquer two-thirds of the world at the head of an army of 2.5 million.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Wait, wait, wait. This is supposed to be on Earth?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Dude, I thought it was like a different like astral plane or something.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

That's what I was saying. Where's the dinosaur?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Like we're we're skipping or after being run through with a sword during battle, Rampha sat on a rock and meditated for seven years, becoming enlightened, taught his bot body to vibrate at a high frequency, and ascended like Jesus. Their website says that.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Okay. Okay, so we're just taking the school uh everything else.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah. There's a YouTube comment.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Dang, this was before AI, too. Yeah, it's just a comment. I actually had to think that up.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Uh-huh. Oh. This YouTube comment said if Rampha lived 35,000 years ago, there's no way he was run through with a sword. The sword wasn't invented until the Bronze Age. The earliest swords date back to approximately six sixteen hundred BC. Yeah, that's it. So about thirty-six hundred years ago. She's off by a factor of ten.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

Close enough. I mean relative, I suppose. Rounding error.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

I beyond yeah. Okay, so now we're in the eighties. Uh-huh. So while she still traveled, the opening of the RSC or the Rampha School of Enlightenment allowed for her to host multi day workshops, trainings, and retreats all centered around the principles of the Rampha.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Dude, imagine your company pays for you to go on a retreat at Rantha's School of Enlightenment.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Okay, but this doesn't even make sense. Just I'm sorry. You know I'm gonna have a lot of questions about this. It's gonna be annoying.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

It never gets to a point where it actually makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

Because if you don't remember when someone is overtaking your body, how are you writing books and having school and teaching lessons on it?

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Well, because he's in your body as he's he's the one writing the books.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Trust. He talks like Yoda, but he can write in sentences.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Oh yeah, in sentences. And he knows about Jesus because bro.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

I don't know. I don't know. It's it doesn't make sense. Even historians are like, there's no homies. There's no credibility to any point of her story. Atlantis didn't exist. What's a Lumerius? What? 35,000 years ago it would have been Pangea, probably.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Atlantis wasn't with that?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Not that they know of. And if it was, it wasn't here.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

It's rose.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

There's just no and two point there wouldn't have been 2.5 million people on Earth 35,000 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 22:55

I mean supposedly as long as you say something loud enough and long enough, someone's gonna leave you.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Don't manipulate people financially.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

I did write a book.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Okay. I mean like write a fantasy book. Sit down and become the next JR Tolkien or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Yeah.

unknown 23:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Jay-Z Tolkien.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Basically. The campus was massive, is massive, boasting a great hall that can host hold over 1,000 people. The curriculum of Rampha School of Enlightenment features a structured prog progression of programs designed to train students in mind expansion and reality manipulation techniques, starting with introductory events and advancing to intensive multi-year apprenticeships.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Oh, I want that.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Other practices taught at RSE include specialized vocabulary, consciousness shifting techniques, warrior classes, and various mental disciplines.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Oh, so we can learn to talk like Yoda?

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Dang, wait, we've got Ramtha teaching us how to swing a sword.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

I yeah, I don't know. In an article for the Cult Education Institute, Rampha teaches that with proper training you can learn to see in the infrared wavelength, transmit what? Transmit through or predict the future. To hone their mental powers, discipl disciples wander through a vast outdoor labyrinth with blindfolds, duct tape to their heads for up to eight hours at a time, concentrating on the void at the center of the maze. They also practice telepathy. One will take a scrap of paper, sketch an image, a canoe, for example, and focus on transmission. A second will sit blindfoldfolded across the great hall and sketch what they receive. Hundreds of apparently successful transmissions are taped up, are taped up on the walls side by side. Bicycles, numbers, colors.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Dude, this is like my babysitter giving us all Ben and Drail and putting us down for a nap.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Blindfold him for eight hours.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Followers of Rampha should do something. Followers of Rampha were now considered students, and both Knight and the Ramphtha School of Enlightenment reject any rhetoric that labeled them as a cult. According to Knight, participation in any of the RSC events or harmtha sessions outside the school were completely voluntary, which for many in the areas that were being flooded with students at Rampha, this was even more concerning. Like you're not being forced to do this, you're actually willingly doing it. Doing all these cre you're selling your belongings, you're divorcing your husband. That's called a cult.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Okay, but there's no Kool-Aid.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

That's well, not yet. Yeah. While in theory, manifestation and thinking good thoughts isn't a bad practice, the extent of Rampha's spiritual guidance beyond headlines of the sessions was not known to many outsiders. So it's like if you went to one, you're kind of in it. But people weren't just going, like they wouldn't pay $200 just for Well, you can't just go once. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 25:53

I mean you could go a couple times to see if there's actual.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. You know what? I feel like we needed to call Aunt Vicky. I feel like Aunt Vicky went to something like this, and dad can confirm, but she went to an all-day some kind of We'll we'll call him up at the end of conference. And she like sat for hours in meditation and and conjured interesting things. I don't Mom is a sounding I know it was cra it was loony at the time. But um but she did that and that was in the nineties. It was like at the convention center in Portland. I mean it was thousands and thousands of people.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Rantha.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

And they like couldn't have water. I mean they like didn't have like some of the basics. And they were like meditating and Okay, we'll have to ask her.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Or ask him, I don't want to ask her just in case. So Phil Dennis, a writer for the journal of the San Juan Islands, was a concerned citizen after the Calda people moved to Washington and published an excerpt on Rantha's recently published book, quoting from chapter 13, The Lawlessness of Life, page 126. Master. So you don't even think that killing someone is evil. Rantha, that is correct. Master, so you're saying that even murder is not wrong or evil. Rantha, that is correct. On page 154, Knight expands on the folly of social conscious. The Antichrist is the alter ego and its kingdom and social conscious is social consciousness. She says, You can know everything and make anything happen you ever wanted to happen, and it is your pleasure to do so. Take your body with you when you die.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Oh, so we shouldn't get cremated.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

Well And we're giving ourselves any excuse to be a bad person. And the murder.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Dennis goes on to say the fact that significant numbers of people are accepting this conduct condoctrine as the truth is startling, disturbing, and downright frightening.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

I mean, at least like there isn't reports of her followers going out on a killing spree.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Like they seem generally But it's uh centered around happiness. But this is starting to sound like significant mental illness.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Wait, if a psychopath got happiness from killing people and killing people is not wrong, that could be kind of bad.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

So in 1988, four years after their marriage, Jeffrey and Jay-Z Knight filed for a divor divorce. According to divorce proceedings, Jeffrey Knight, while the third legal marriage of Jay-Z, he was actually her fifth husband.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

So I guess it's unknown where these other two happened, but spiritual husband or common law or something, right?

SPEAKER_04 28:31

They just lived together long enough.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

I don't know. In 1992, after suing his wife for psychological manipulation, the couple had a very public eight-week divorce trial, with everyone wondering if Ramtha himself would take the stand.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

She can testify for herself to eyes.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Unfortunately or fortunately, he did not make an appearance. But what this trial brought to light was the monetary success of new age celebrities and the amount of money other people were shelling out for quote unquote ancient wisdom. Jeffrey Knight claimed in 1989 he agreed to a measly sum of 120K in the original settlement because he was under duress. According to his testimony, she threatened to cut off all connection to Rampha, expose his previous homosexual alliances, and his diagnosis if he didn't sign. Jeffrey testified that he helped his wife transform her transform herself from middle-class wife of a Tacoma dentist into a spiritual guru who lives in a two $2 million ranch house. During their six-year marriage, the Knights went into Arabian horse breeding business, which ultimately failed, but made huge sums, four million a year on point off the various Rampha industries. For most of the last decade, he claimed he was under the influence of Rampha, saying I trusted him implicitly, even at the expense of his own health. In 1985, it was revealed that Jeffrey contracted HIV, which then evolved into AIDS and didn't seek medical treatment under the advice of Rampha. He said, Rampha told me I could not die from the plague. Unfortunately, while the judge did rule in his favor and he won $800,000 in the settlement, he died of AIDF AIDS-related illnesses in 1994 and didn't see any of the money.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

That was pretty sad.

SPEAKER_04 30:18

I'm not sad that they called it the plague.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Well, I mean, but if the issue is, if sh if Rampha was holding the AIDS thing over his head or Jay-Z or whoever, then if I mean him getting treatment for AIDS would expose that as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

So what And that is where we're gonna stop for part one. No.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

That's where we're stopping for now.

SPEAKER_04 30:45

Okay, homework is everybody watch a video.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Oh, I can probably show you one of those.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Of of Baby Era Master Yoda.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Yeah, I wanna see I want to see one.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

So yeah, tune in next week because then we're gonna start getting into the controversies and the last few years of the 80s kind of started to expose the not so great. She's still alive. But she is still alive, and there's no current successor for Rantha, and she doesn't plan on having one.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Well, uh let's get a paper.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Wait, can I be one? Pyramid.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Where would you want to be one? Let's get a paper pyramid, too. That's fine business. It starts. It starts getting crazy. Starts getting crazy. You have like parapsychologists involved. RFK Jr. makes an appearance. Stop. QAnon makes an appearance.

SPEAKER_04 31:36

Is she taking peptides?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

I don't know. We could probably check on Twitter and see.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I respect ingenuity. You know, coming up with your own cult.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

The NX VIM, what's it called? Mm-hmm. They get involved. There's a lot.

SPEAKER_04 31:53

Yeah, I mean, yeah, just one day in your kitchen. There's a lot. There's gonna be a lot in the next part. Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna go watch a video.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Okay. Alright, see you next week. Sorry for the cliffhanger, but had to get into the lore first. And if you have questions, send them to me. I'll try to answer them. I don't think I can.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

Okay, we're gonna send Aunt Vicky an email. We're gonna send her an email before next week.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

That'd be crazy. She could give us some some insight. What what was it? What was it called?

SPEAKER_04 32:22

The School of Enlightenment?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Rampha School of Enlightenment.

SPEAKER_04 32:25

Okay. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

All right, more to come. Follow us on Instagram, threads, TikTok, all the things, Early Beloved Podcast. Bye. See you next week. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Bye.