My name’s Betsy Ashby and I’ve been an active Guardian in the Pagan Community for 30+ years. I’m the Director of Out of the Dark and we’ve worked over 100 different events, marches and gatherings…so many I’ve lost count. We’ve maintained a list of predators, psychopaths and assorted problematic Pagans since the mid 80′s when one of my Teachers entrusted me with a copy of her list of “dangerous people” in the Pagan Community going back to the 50′s. Of course most of them aren’t still on the list, ’cause they’re dead and there’s no point in keeping an eye out for the ones that are already worm food… but I still have that first little file box full of index cards we used long before computers were generally available.
A little over a year ago, I found the Cassiopaea forum while I was searching for info about a ChickenHawk by the name of Eric Pepin. Google spit out a lawsuit where Pepin sued Laura Knight-Jadczyk, SOTT.net, and the Cass group for libel and LOST, which gave me a big giggle… so I kept digging. I’d never heard of Laura Knight-Jadczyk, Arkadiusz Jadczyk ,or the Cassiopaeans, before, but the fact that they were standing up to Pepin and several other predators I was already familiar with got my attention; so I joined their forum and introduced myself.
I basically said “Hi, my name’s Betsy Ashby and I see you’ve assembled quite a list predatory azzhats. I’m an avid collector of lists of predatory azzhats … do you mind if I rip your site and filter through the thousands of pages looking for useful nuggets of info?” They said “Sure, go ahead, help yourself” so I did.
In the process of reading through the Cassiopaean pages, I was immediately struck by the enormity of the pile of steaming bovine fecal matter these folks have had to wade through just to chat about life, the universe and everything, as they see it. Now I know that every Internet forum gets its fair share of trolls, but the sheer number of troglodytes who join the Cass forum for the sole purpose of disrupting the group is unbelievable!
Of course the very first thing I did when I read all the accusations against Laura and Ark was to check out the various claims being made by their detractors. As I said, I had no idea who these people were, and I’m not exactly a trusting person to begin with. Someone I’ve known for 20 years can tell me it’s raining, and I still want to peep out the window to be sure…. it’s just my nature. I was also well aware of the fact that I could have stumbled into a pack of “azzclowns fighting among themselves” type situation… I’ve seen that before too. It took me about a week to ascertain that was NOT the case here.
I went through EVERY (what I now know to be) libelous claim against Laura Knight-Jadczyk, Arkadiusz Jadczyk and the Cassiopaean group, one by one, looking for proof of these horrible charges against them… and I did not find one single shred of evidence of wrongdoing. Zip, zilch, NADA! What I did find was that Laura and her group have spent a good deal of time examining and publicly exposing the actions of a wide variety of psycho hose beasts… child molesters, rapists, thieves, plagiarists, etc. This certainly does explain where the rabid, obsessed, anti-fan club comes from!
Like most cyberstalkers, Laura’s attackers take a tiny grain of truth then twist it around a few times and wrap it up in multiple LIES. If you want to get to the truth of these stories, you’ve got to peel them apart, layer by layer, just like a cabbage, until you get to the heart of the matter.
The worse charge leveled against Laura is that she was arrested for “attempted murder” or some variation of same…. so I looked into this claim first. The TRUTH of this story is a matter of public record for all to see Members of the Bar just can’t lie about stuff like this, and this dude giving the statement about her innocence was her Public Defender, so I think he knows what really happened.
Over 40 years ago, when Laura was a teenager, she was assaulted by a large male perv. She defended herself with a kitchen implement she grabbed off a counter top, and was found innocent of any crime by reason of SELF DEFENSE… despite the fact that her assailant was politically well connected in Florida.
Essentially, she was viciously attacked by a large, male predator and went all Thor’s daughter on his ass with a meat mallet. GOOD FOR HER!!!! One in four women are physically assaulted before the age of 21, and it’s real nice to see a sister able to defend herself now and again. I think it’s also VERY important to note here that she could have killed her attacker… and she didn’t. She maintained enough self control to stop whooping him once he went down, and run… she got away without taking a life, and I think I admire that most of all.
This horrible, traumatic incident in Laura’s distant past tells me a lot about Laura … and even more about the bottom feeders who try to twist the story and use it against her. They want people to condemn her for saving her own life without taking the life of her attacker… whereas I think she should put it on her resume.
The second allegation of criminal activity I examined was the so called “Raffle Scam”
Laura and her group had a house raffle that turned out to be a giant honking mess. Everybody including the next door neighbor’s dog got lawyers, big legal fight… apparently over taxes, and by the time all was said and done, the only real winners were the attorneys.
Laura admits right on her own website that she screwed up. She was moving to another country, didn’t pay attention to what the lawyers were doing, etc. read it yourself. Bottom line… she’s a human being, and she made an UNINTENTIONAL mistake.
I’ve read where Laura’s been called lots of things, but I’ve never seen even her most hateful attackers accuse of her being stupid…. and Ark is an uber genius rocket surgeon or something like that. If these two very intelligent people had decided to INTENTIONALLY run a Raffle Scam it would not have turned into such a lawyer feeding frenzy because the ending would have been a pre-planned part of the con.
I’ve seen dozens of raffle scams over the years, and they’re one of the simplest cons to pull off…. any moron can do it. The scammers have a faithful follower (or even a sock puppet on the Net) gleefully posting “I won, I won” all over the web. Grand prize (car, house, etc) changes title to an anonymous corporation in Delaware… and that’s that. This didn’t happen, which tells me there was no intent to defraud anyone.
Then there’s the total lack of evidence of the alleged intentional scam. I did a complete search for any pending criminal and/or civil actions against Laura Knight-Jadczyk, Arkadiusz Jadczyk, the Cassiopaean group, Quantum Future School, etc. There are NONE. I did a complete search for anyone holding a raffle ticket who asked for a refund and didn’t get it. I found NONE. There was no raffle “scam” and there were no “victims” …just a fouled up fundraiser that didn’t turn out the way anyone planned, especially Laura.
Reality check folks… the more you try to do in this world, the more often you mess something up. Group Leadership Rule #101: If at first you do succeed, try not to look surprised.
The people who actually purchased raffle tickets to the “seemed like a good idea at the time” fundraiser know and accept honest mistakes as a fact of life, and they don’t hold Laura and Ark to some unreasonable standard of perfection. Members bought their tickets to support their group, it’s their money, and not a one of them has brought a verifiable public complaint against their group and/or its leadership. Not one!
If anyone who actually took part in the raffle had a beef with Laura, Ark, the group, school, etc. they could easily write a letter asking for a refund on their ticket, post it on the many slander sites and forum threads….and SIGN THEIR NAME TO IT. A legitimate dissatisfied raffle ticket holder could also file an action in small claims court and post that paper work too.
None of this has happened, check for yourself as I did…. there are NO pending lawsuits and/or outstanding criminal charges against Laura Knight-Jadczyk and/or Arkadiusz Jadczyk! These are LIES being spread all over the Internet by a few mealy mouth butt biscuits like Vincent Bridges, Jay Weidner, and their tiny troop of zombie cheerleaders. They’ve taken an honest mistake that Laura made and apologized for years ago, and twisted it to the point that it’s totally unrecognizable when compared to the actual truth of the matter.
Personally I think Laura should also put “only one majorly messed up fundraiser in 30+ years of activism” on her resume right under “Can kick serious butt when necessary.”
Laura and company are running a huge forum, a high traffic alt news site, a popular breathing program, a hardcopy magazine and a publishing company.
Only ONE fouled up fundraiser in all of that is a pretty darn good track record. With what they’ve got going on, I’d be worried if they didn’t screw something up once and awhile. “Perfect people” creep me out, ’cause you know they’re lying.
Once I’d determined that all the allegations of criminal activity were outright lies, I started looking into some of the random insults being thrown at Laura and her group by the above mentioned trolling turd blossoms.
One common slur that’s routinely hurled against the Cass group is that they are a “cult,” which I found hilarious right off the bat ….until I realized that some bored government official and/or net newbie might actually fall for the sockpuppet slander campaign.
This paragraph is for the noobs… experienced netizens can just skip this part:
“Cults” do not require an Internet connection… in fact most REAL cults do not allow Internet connections so as to keep their members isolated. If a group disappears when your battery level goes below 10% it is not part of a “cult” it is part of a NETWORK called “The Internet.” If you don’t like something you see on the Internet, just turn the damn thing off! Don’t go running all over the place screaming ‘The sky is a cult! The sky is a cult! The sky is a cult!” like chicken spaztard.
Laura, Ark and the Cassiopaea/Quantum Future groups have chosen a CLASSIC organizational structure, the concentric circles model. This is the exact same organizational structure used by every successful, long term Pagan and Heathen group I know of…. and a lot of geek groups use it too. It’s the same basic organizational structure (with slight variations according to culture) used by numerous Indigenous people all across the globe. It’s popular because it works… sorta.
Of course nothing is perfect when people are involved, but there are many of us who believe that the concentric circles structure works better than anything else we’ve tried, so once again, if you don’t like it… just turn the damn thing off! This is the INTERNET… if you don’t like how a particular group is organized go google up one you do like.
Another popular target of the ratbag brigade is the Ouija Board that’s Laura, Ark, and the group’s chosen method of communication with the “Cassiopaeans”. I really don’t get the problem here… at least among Pagans and Heathens? A Ouija Board is a tool, and it certainly fits the Cass group ’cause they do dearly love to spell everything out down to the last letter.
I have Heathen friends who use the Runes to communicate with the Aesir and Vanir; Santerian friends who use shells or cocos to communicate with the Orisha; Voodon friends who use bones to communicate with the L’wha; American Indian friends who use a stone on a cord to communicate with the Creator; Strega, Fey and assorted Gaelic friends who use tarot cards to communicate with a longggg list of Gods and Goddesses; and Magician friends who stare into a scrying mirror for hours on end to communicate with who knows what.
Meeting a group of folks who use is Ouija board sorta felt like I’d completed a cosmic communication tool set of some kind. To me, it really doesn’t matter what method a particular sub-culture uses, or what they name whoever they’re talking to, they’re all doing basically the same thing… or at least trying to.
I believe in Gods/Goddesses, Divine Entities, Other Dimensional Beings, etc., whatever a person decides to call them… and I truly do not care what belief structure an individual and/or group chooses. All I ask is that folks pick one and stick with it so I can understand what the heck you’re trying to say.
Laura and the Cass group are actually more truthful than many similar groups in that they don’t even pretend to be certain about who or what they’re chatting with. The words “Cassiopaean EXPERIMENT” are written in large friendly letters at the very top of Laura’s page…. which is a nice way of being honest and saying “No, we’re not really sure about anything either… still working on it”
Newsflash for Noobs #2: If anyone ever tells you they’re absolutely certain about ANYTHING regarding Spirituality, Divine Entities, or Other Dimensional Beings of any kind….RUN! When is person stops questioning themselves is when they get dangerous. Every single culture on this planet has come up with a wide variety of names for a bunch of stuff that not a single one of us is capable of understanding while stuck in these meatsacks. Life and the search for self amounts to one experiment after another, and fussing about the details is just a waste of breath.
My absolute favorite, taken out of context “quote” is one that Jay Weidner claims Laura made regarding her ex-husband. “she believed that a robotic alien had taken over his body.”
My first thought was that even if it’s true, that’s one of the nicer things I’ve heard someone call an ex-spouse.
Compared to what some of my friends have to say about their ex-husbands (and wives) “robotic alien” is almost polite. I have a Yoruban friend who’s convinced that her ex was possessed by an evil spirit… and from what I saw of him, I wouldn’t disagree. Everybody’s got a different way of expressing the same concepts, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I were to eliminate all my friends who had something negative to say about their ex-husband/wife, I would be very, very lonely.
Folks, I’ve been a fixture in the Pagan Community, both online and off, for 35+ years, and I’ve seen these kinds of vicious attacks based on bupkis, many, many times before. If I’d found ANY truth to the reams of defamation written about Laura, Ark, and/or their groups, you wouldn’t be reading this statement. You’d be reading what the victims had to say about Laura and Ark on my pages, IF there were any victims… but there aren’t. IMO, there’s nothing going on here but a handful of amoeba minded, vomit spewing, primates with keyboards trash talking about a good woman and her diverse family.
It doesn’t matter how many times I see this kind of crap, it still ticks me off! I’ve read through THOUSANDS of pages where all Laura and her group do is try to help people… for nothing. They don’t charge, even their best “product” the EE breathing program,is available for FREE on the website. The Cass Transcripts are also on their website, for FREE. Their forum and all the advice on it, is FREE. Folks can certainly donate if they want to, but they don’t HAVE to… nothing is denied to people who don’t have any money, and that says a lot.
The sub-human creatures tearing down Laura and her group don’t do jack diddley squat for anyone for free. Go look at their egosites, there’s a price tag hanging on everything but the back button. You can’t even post to their forums without getting a “Click here to enlarge your favorite body part” pop-up.
Now go look at the ads on the Cass forum… oh wait, you can’t, ’cause there aren’t any! They’ve got a high traffic board with a membership in the thousands and they could be using it to rake in some serious cash, but they don’t…. it’s all free. Sometimes when you’re trying to figure out who’s who on the Internet, looking at what a person chooses not to do is as important as paying attention to what they are doing.
There’s just one more Cassio-absurdity I’d like to debunk before I end this saga, and that’s the contention that Laura requires everyone to agree with her, is only interested in attracting followers, etc. etc. In my personal, first hand experience, this is just another big chunk of the Vincent Bridges/Jay Weidner barf bonanza.
I am a Heathen… and I told Laura (and her whole group) this when we first met. I’m a Norse woman and Daughter of Thor… I always have been, and I suspect I always will be. We have 9 Noble Virtues, one word each, and that’s quite enough to suit us. Heathenism doesn’t have an official motto or slogan, but if it did it’d be something along the order of “Will you please just get to the point, ’cause I have things to do”. Some Heathens can have an entire conversation that consists solely of shoulder shrugs, a few grunts and a little lip pointing. The closest I’ve ever come to engaging in a Heathen “scientific experiment” went something like:
“What’s that?”
“I dunno?”
“Well poke it and see what it does.”
“I’m not gonna poke it, you poke it.”
“Ok, we’ll both poke it together.”
“Ok.”
“1,2…”
I have absolutely no use for science and/or medicine whatsoever, and studying long dead philosophers who like to use big words bores me to tears. I’m of the general opinion that I can gain more personal insight by taking a long walk in the woods, and I always learn more by doing than by reading what someone else says they did…. this is just my nature.
So if Laura has such a problem with people who have a different way of living life than she does, why has she offered me nothing but genuine, non-judgmental friendship since the moment we met? We do share the same basic morals and values, definition of right and wrong in any given situation, desires for ourselves and humanity, stuff like that. …but our chosen paths on the road to awareness really couldn’t be much further apart? We’ve disagreed on a multitude of topics ranging from her favorite author to the effects of aged cheddar on my colon, and not once has she turned into the wicked witch of the west when we did.
I think Laura’s memorized half the history and philosophy literature in Library of Congress, and they’re going to have to add a shelf for the books she’s written. If the stack of dusty books I might get around to reading one day gets any bigger, it’s going to require a building permit from the county. Laura’s dialing up Other Dimensional Beings on a regular basis, whereas I tend to go out of my way to avoid talking to anything that isn’t breathing. Her Statement of Principles is 36 pages long in pdf format… with bookmarks and links and detailed explanations of every single idea. My philosophy consists of nine words, and I have a hard enough time living up to those.
I would officially like to offer myself up as a walking, talking contradiction to the “Laura is intolerant of other beliefs and methods” LIE. If she was, once again… you would not be reading this missive. Laura’s friendship, support, advice and assistance are NOT contingent on agreeing with her particular perspective on the mysteries of life…. and I’m living proof of that. I’m severely allergic to Gurus, and always break out in a serious case of snarky when exposed to one…. my immediate reaction usually involves a hand gesture that requires less than two fingers.
IMO, Laura Knight-Jadczyk is courageous, truthful, honorable, faithful, disciplined, hospitable, industrious, self reliant and persevering. I deeply respect and admire the work she, her husband, and kindred do, and I’m VERY grateful to be able to count them among my friends. Every time I log into the Cass forum I’m amazed by their dedication to helping others, without any expectation of personal gain, and often at great expense to themselves. Like most members I’ve taken great benefit from their research and teachings on everything from psychopathy to my dog’s diet. I feel my life has been greatly enriched, in a wide variety of ways, by getting to know these folks…. and I hope to be learning and laughing with them for a very long time.
If anyone has any questions about anything I’ve written here, please feel free to contact me. My phone# and email address are on my website. Thank you.
Betsy Ashby
Pagan.com
Traduction et résumé : SOTT