Thread by @AnnOlivarius

What do you do, when your sexual abuse masquerades as spirituality, and you're told you fell pregnant not through rape, but through "tantric enlightenment"?

If you're our incredibly brave client Rachel Montgomery, you try to save others by speaking up:

thedailybeast.com/oregon-student…

Despite the esoteric and high-minded rhetoric of Dongzen Buddhism, Rachel's story is a classic tale of abuse and coercive control:
🚩A vulnerable and naive teenager
🚩A charismatic leader, promising a hotline to the divine
🚩Dismantling of psychological defences
🚩Isolation

You might ask, "why did it take Rachel so long to realise that she was raped?" - and the answer is that cult leaders are incredibly good at reframing the sexual assault as something else.

Controlling a woman's fertility, by impregnating her without her consent or knowledge, and trying to control if she can get an abortion, is a classic tactic of abuse. For Rachel, she faced the added burden of being told she was carrying a "tulku" - an enlightened, future Buddha:

Having suffered profound physiological effects from the abuse, Rachel brings her concerns to Dzogchen leadership. Their response is a classic institutional denial of responsibility, one which we argue breached the law.

Carol Merchasin has seen this deny-and-dissuade tactic many times before. The board should have, but didn't, take immediate action when they heard Rachel's allegation.

Rachel is likely not the only victim at Dzogchen. In fact, our lawsuit alleges that “Despite being born to a white, blond haired, and blue-eyed couple, [one baby girl] had distinctly East Asian features,”.

But Rachel does want to the be LAST victim.