Jul 30, 2024

Scam or spirituality? Inside the power games of an Australian 'cult'

The Australian
July 30, 2024

Former members of a group that has offered high-priced enlightenment since the 1990s reveal the sex and power games at the heart of Access Consciousness. 

Gary Douglas used to sell houses. Now he sells self-improvement. He founded the ­Access Consciousness system – a confusing mix of the spiritual, the pragmatic and the ­impossible – in the early 1990s from his base in Santa Barbara, California. It was there that the former realtor began to forge a lucrative ­career peddling a form of energy therapy he said he learned by “channelling” – of all people – the Russian ­mystic Grigori Rasputin. Today, according to Access Consciousness, the group is active in 170 countries worldwide, with major centres in America, Ireland and Australia. Its local base is at Queensland’s Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast.




No comments: