Wife of Edmonton 'spiritual leader' charged with three counts of sexual assault

John de Ruiter is a former shoemaker from rural Alberta who runs the College of Integrated Philosophy, also known as the Oasis Group

Anna Junker

Edmonton Journal
March 14, 2023

The wife of a self-styled Edmonton “spiritual leader” is facing sexual assault charges in three incidents her husband has also been charged with.

On Tuesday, Edmonton police said Leigh Ann de Ruiter, 64, has been charged with three counts of sexual assault for incidents that allegedly occurred between 2017 and 2020.

Her husband, Johannes (John) de Ruiter, was charged in January with four counts of sexual assault. At the time, police said they received reports he “informed certain female group members that he was directed by a spirit to engage in sexual activity with them and that engaging in sexual activity with him will provide them an opportunity to achieve a state of higher being or spiritual enlightenment.” The allegations have not been proven in court.

John de Ruiter is a former shoemaker from rural Alberta who runs the College of Integrated Philosophy, also known as the Oasis Group, which operated out of a conference centre headquartered in west Edmonton, near 109 Avenue and 177 Street from 2007 to 2021. Leigh Ann de Ruiter was previously executive director.

In 2021, the group moved to an office building in St. Albert. John de Ruiter has also hosted meetings at a campground near the hamlet of Smith, 200 kilometres north of Edmonton near Lesser Slave Lake.

Leigh Ann de Ruiter first attended one of John de Ruiter’s seminars in Germany and moved to Edmonton to work at the conference centre. The couple was legally married in 2009.

John de Ruiter claims a global following and bills himself as the “living embodiment of truth.” He founded the college in 2006, holding weekly meetings in which he will stare silently at followers for hours.

A biography on his website states he experienced a “spiritual awakening” at 17 years old, during which he became “immersed and fully absorbed into what we are after we die.”

A frequently asked questions section on the website addresses a number of controversies about the group, dismissing claims it is a cult and outlines there are no initiations, vows, or special clothes required to attend. The section also states that de Ruiter has had “consensual sexual relations with women beyond the traditional scope of marriage.”

In the early 2010s, de Ruiter was the subject of legal action when two sisters who formed part of his inner circle sued him for entitlements and payments from the decade they spent as his common-law wives and employees.

Following a bail hearing on Jan. 27, de Ruiter was released on the condition he provide a $30,000 cash deposit, stay away from the complainants, surrender his passport and not have any unsupervised contact with women other than his wife, daughter and a housemate.

Investigators believe there may be additional complainants and are encouraging them to come forward.

de Ruiter’s lawyer, Dino Bottos, declined to comment on the latest charges Tuesday.

— With files from Jonny Wakefield and the National Post

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/wife-of-edmonton-spiritual-leader-charged-with-three-counts-of-sexual-assault

The outsiders

Followers of a self-styled spiritual leader now facing multiple counts of sexual assault are buying property around Fort Assiniboine, Alta. Uneasy locals are asking why they’re moving in, and what comes next

Jana G. Pruden
The Globe and Mail
MARCH 17, 2023

It started slowly, so slowly that it took the folks around Fort Assiniboine a long time to notice anything was happening at all.

But properties that had been for sale for years were getting snatched up, sold at prices that were sometimes far over market value. People were showing up at residents’ doors asking to buy their land, tying notes onto farm gates with golden string, addressed: “To the Landowner.” An area realtor told locals she had a list of people wanting to buy properties, then sold her own house and moved south. One by one, family homesteads were flipping: the Levy place, the Bradley’s, the Edeltraud’s, all bought by newcomers to the area.

The buyers were similarly unexpected. Not farmers expanding their land or moving from other rural properties, but people from Spain, Australia, Israel, New York. There were psychologists, designers, a pharmacist – professional people and retirees scooping up property and asking who else might be selling, because, they said, their friends were interested in buying there, too. When locals asked why – why would you move to this isolated area two hours away from Edmonton, with nothing out here, and a town so small it didn’t technically qualify as a town at all – they would say, “peace and quiet.”

The influx would eventually be traced to numbered companies and individuals connected to John de Ruiter, a 63-year-old former orthopedic shoemaker who, for 30 years, has commanded a legion of dedicated followers from around the world in a group some say is a cult. The self-styled spiritual leader has long faced questions about his sexual relationships with women in his community, and in January was charged with four counts of sexual assault. His wife, 64-year-old Leigh Ann de Ruiter, has since been charged with three counts of sexual assault in relation to the same allegations.

Over many months, residents around Fort Assiniboine began to suspect what property documents now prove: John de Ruiter was coming to the area, and his followers were moving with him.

At a café bought by newcomers, a sign says it will be ‘opening kinda soon.’ The café’s ‘welcome friends’ sign is not new, but it echoes the typical greeting of members of Mr. de Ruiter's group, ‘my friend.’

The newcomers

The hamlet of Fort Assiniboine is about an hour and a half northwest of Edmonton, a modest clutch of houses, trailers and commercial buildings dotting a few blocks along the winding Athabasca River. As of the last census, there were 158 residents in the hamlet, and another 4,558 souls spread sparsely over the 7,668 square kilometres of field and forest that make up the rural municipality of Woodlands County.

The first sign of the newcomers came in the spring of 2020, when the county received an application to rezone agricultural property along the edge of a vast expanse of Crown land for a camp. According to documents put before council, the 189-site River’s Edge Wilderness Centre would focus on wilderness skills training, but would “also welcome religious groups, yoga, or spiritual groups seeking outdoor retreat facilities.”

The application was filed by Ted Barnes, a retired engineer who told council the project was “created by a small group of individuals who love nature and enjoy bringing people together in a natural learning environment.”

Although it was not publicly linked to John de Ruiter, one of the two directors of the numbered company behind the application is Don Kostelyk, former operations manager for the Oasis Centre, the lavish facility in Edmonton where Mr. de Ruiter’s community previously met and held meetings. The other director of the numbered company is Mr. Kostelyk’s wife, Gladys.

Woodlands County council ultimately declined the rezoning application, after other landowners expressed concerns about traffic and environmental impacts. But while the camp didn’t proceed, land title documents show numerous other properties in the area continued to be purchased by people closely associated with Mr. de Ruiter.

Mr. de Ruiter’s son, Nathaniel de Ruiter, bought 160 acres in the Fort Assiniboine area in 2021 for $218,000 in cash under a numbered company, then obtained two more quarters directly across the highway. One was purchased for $310,000, the other – valued on transfer documents at $420,000 – gifted to his numbered company by a woman named Marilyn Carr. An application to subdivide one of the purchased properties into three lots, with a residence on each parcel, was filed in November 2022 by Don Kostelyk’s son, Jesse.

John de Ruiter’s spokesperson, Zaba Walker, and her husband Johannes, who was facility manager of the Oasis Centre, purchased a quarter nearby for $300,000. Anne McLennan, Oasis’ wedding director, bought a plot for $330,000. Ayaaz Kassam, a realtor and former vegan restaurant owner who has hosted events with Mr. de Ruiter and described him as “my teacher,” picked up a property of his own for $160,000.

In addition to the land owned under their numbered company, Don and Gladys Kostelyk bought another quarter in the area for $180,000, around the time the River’s Edge development was declined.

Others were looking. Ron and Christine Dimler – formerly conference director at the Oasis Centre – left notes on properties describing themselves as people who “really enjoy living in the country,” and were looking to “purchase a larger property, ideally a quarter section bordering crown land.”

Another man, who’d been sleeping in his truck in the area in October, told locals he’d come from England looking for John de Ruiter.

Newcomers bought the restaurant in Fort Assiniboine, opened a store, and took over the shuttered café. Posters for yoga classes fluttered on bulletin boards alongside ads for wood and cattle dogs.

As more and more properties flipped – often quietly, in private deals – Woodlands County began receiving applications for subdivisions and development permits. And slowly, longtime residents began to take notice.

One former follower of Mr. de Ruiter, who is being identified only as Bob because he fears being associated with the group could compromise his housing and employment, said he began to hear about people moving to Fort Assiniboine in 2020 or 2021.

He said the moves were happening quietly, and that even friends within the community weren’t always open about their plans.

“If ever anybody mentioned it, especially on a livestream, John would say, ‘No, this isn’t directed by me. It’s just happening,’” said the man, who left the group about a year ago, when allegations of sexual assault by Mr. de Ruiter began to surface.

Bob said when someone asked about it directly, Mr. de Ruiter said: “Just move. If you want to be close to me, move wherever you think I am.”

“And of course, everybody knows, even though you’re not supposed to talk about it,” Bob said. “Everybody’s moving to Fort Assiniboine.”

Everybody’s moving to Fort Assiniboine

Residents of isolated rural areas may already tend toward being leery of outsiders, but there again, Mr. de Ruiter is far from the average new arrival. To his followers, he’s the literal, living embodiment of truth, a highly evolved being, even god. To his detractors, he’s a cult leader wielding a dangerous amount of power.

Mr. de Ruiter’s following dates to the mid-1990s, when he split with the Lutheran church and began holding gatherings at his home in Edmonton. Since then, his teachings around openness and “core splitting honesty” have blossomed into a multi-million-dollar enterprise, including meetings, retreats, and online resources like “John de Ruiter TV.” He is particularly known for long periods of silent staring.

Mr. de Ruiter has been the subject of media attention and scrutiny for decades, including a 2017 Globe feature about whether his sexual relationships with followers were an abuse of power. The Frequently Asked Questions page of his website nods to numerous controversies and “extreme criticisms,” acknowledging questions around his finances, sexual behaviour, and control over his community. The webpage also addresses the question of whether “John and his meetings constitute a cult,” but concludes they do not.

Mr. de Ruiter’s spokesperson, Zaba Walker, told a reporter last year last year that there are 300 to 400 people who attend events locally, and another 3,000 to 4,000 supporters around the world.

The sexual assault allegations against Mr. de Ruiter have caused a deep split in the group, sparking the defection of dozens of people in Alberta – some of whom have been with Mr. de Ruiter for decades, even their entire lives.

“I think people who are willing to wake up and recognize what they’ve been in and own it, will be better for it,” said Jess Silva, who left the group with her partner last year, and is writing a newsletter about her experience. “Now we get to actually wake up from what was a long, long dream. Now we get to live. It’s really the brink of real life.”

Ms. Silva said she was relieved when the charges were laid, but that her partner went into a state of physical shock from the news, devastated by the realization that he’d left his home, his children, and his career for Mr. de Ruiter, “that he had invested so much and it had come to this.”

Many others remain deeply devoted. At Mr. de Ruiter’s bail hearing in January, defence lawyer Dino Bottos counted 33 people there for Mr. de Ruiter. Those supporters – some weeping, clutching cell phones from which Mr. de Ruiter’s face glowed as their wallpaper – packed into the courtroom, squeezing two deep onto benches or standing at the back, gazing rapt at Mr. de Ruiter as he appeared on video from the remand centre.

Details of that hearing cannot be published because of a standard, court-ordered publication ban.

Raised in Stettler, Mr. de Ruiter has long hosted rural retreats and camping trips, but former followers say he’s been increasingly drawn to the wilderness in recent years. In November 2021, while those around him continued to purchase properties around Fort Assiniboine, Mr. de Ruiter bought the 121-acre Mosquito Lake campground near Hondo, north of Edmonton, for $1,050,000 under a numbered company registered solely to him. That camp, which is about a two-hour drive from Fort Assiniboine, was renovated, renamed Midnight Sky, and has been the location of a number of events with Mr. de Ruiter since.

“A lot of the talk in Smith and Hondo these days seems to be about a ‘cult’ that has been buying up properties at a terrific rate,” said a short unsigned piece in the area’s local newspaper last May.

“This sort of thing can be disruptive for a small community, as new, unexpected and completely different from what’s generally considered ‘normal’ things usually are …” it read. “If people behave like good neighbours and follow the rules regarding development and so on, there shouldn’t be too many problems. It could even make life a bit more interesting in the neighbourhood.”

A bit more interesting in the neighbourhood

The mood on a sunny winter day in the hamlet of Fort Assiniboine is not as light and peaceful as it appears. At the mailboxes and the curling rink, in the aisles of Strawson’s General Store, longtime locals talk in hushed tones, and look warily at those they don’t recognize. Coming out of the tensions of COVID, the question of the newcomers has once again divided neighbours, pitting residents against each other, fostering paranoia and suspicion as people wonder who may pose a threat to whom.

“I’ve heard some of the concerns. How can you not?” said Fort Assiniboine resident Carole Carr, who is among those standing up for the newcomers.

“I’ve always gone to bat for them and said, ‘In my opinion, they’ve been nothing but good for the hamlet.’ They’re nice. They’re very pleasant, a lot of them are professional people.”

Originally from Wales, Ms. Carr says she has things in common with the new residents, having also moved to the small rural community from more metropolitan places. She said she’s made a number of new friends in the group, and that those coming in have been good for the economy, buying properties, supporting the stores and drawing much-needed traffic.

“The whole area is going to die a death if we don’t allow new people into the area. I don’t see a downside,” she said. “Apart from the fact that I don’t really understand who this man is that they’re following.”

At the County office, Jen Christianson said the newcomers have become a popular topic of discussion for many walking through the door.

“They’re in the community. Nice folks,” she said. “My only question mark is, how are they contributing to the community? Whether it’s community groups, or if they help out with the Legion or help out with the ag society or whatever, how are they going to contribute to community? They’re here, but what are they going to do?”

The tiny local library now stocks four copies of Dark Oasis: A Self-Made Messiah Unveiled by Jasun Horsley, a former follower of Mr. de Ruiter’s who has become one of his most public detractors. Librarian Megan Petryshen says all the copies have been out constantly since the fall, with a waiting list.

Questions about the new spiritual leader in their midst – and about those who would choose to follow him – took on a new urgency in Fort Assiniboine in January, when Edmonton police announced Mr. de Ruiter had been charged with four counts of sexual assault.

Police said the charges related to women in Mr. de Ruiter’s following, and that “the accused informed certain female group members that he was directed by a spirit to engage in sexual activity with them, and that engaging in sexual activity with him will provide them an opportunity to achieve a state of higher being or spiritual enlightenment.”

Mr. de Ruiter remains out on bail on a number of conditions, including that he can’t be alone with any woman except his daughter, his wife Leigh Ann, and his previous common-law wife Katrina von Sass, a former Olympic volleyball player who resides with them.

Leigh Ann de Ruiter was also released on bail. Her conditions include that she’s “prohibited from arranging, inviting, counselling or facilitating any sexual activities between John de Ruiter and any other female person.” The charges are expected to go to trial in late 2024 or 2025.

In the absence of concrete information about Mr. de Ruiter’s presence in Fort Assiniboine, gossip has circulated wildly through the community.

When resident Cory Kitchen heard what he describes as “a country hamlet rumour” the newcomers planned to blow up the bridges into town if necessary to protect their people, it disturbed him so much he drove to one of the main properties and went to the door to confront them.

“You’re free to do whatever you want in your world, unless it goes to hurt my family or friends. Well, then now I have a problem,” Mr. Kitchen says. “That’s exactly the message I had relayed to them.”

He said the people he encountered were very nice in response to his intrusion, and that they denied the rumour about the bridges, telling him they were just moving to the area to better their lives. He said he’s been trying to leave it alone and avoid any drama since then, though he remains uneasy.

“What’s the intention?” he said. “That’s the question. What’s the intention here?”

What’s the intention here?

Dr. Stephen Kent, a University of Alberta professor who specializes in alternative religions, has been following the evolution of Mr. de Ruiter’s group for three decades and is keeping a close eye on the move north.

He says the relocation of a close-knit spiritual group isn’t uncommon, but the outcome varies wildly. In some cases, it works. The new residents bring in resources and opportunities, and ultimately integrate well – or well enough – with the community. But in other cases, he says, it’s “disastrous.”

“Tensions grow between the new community members versus longtime residents, and the tensions devolve into acrimony,” he said. “Acrimony and violence.”

One longtime member of Mr. de Ruiter’s community says he’s equally worried about dedicated followers he believes would die for John, and about locals who think “there’s a cult up here.”

“It’s a two-way street. They might be trying to protect John, but other people are going to see the cult as a threat, and that’s scary, too…,” said the man, who The Globe agreed not to identify because of ongoing challenges related to leaving the group.

“There’s a potential there, and it’s potential on all sides. It’s not just about the group doing something extreme. It’s about somebody doing something extreme to the group.”

In the 1980s, the Oregon community of Rajneeshpuram – created around the guru Rajneesh, also known as Osho – famously escalated into extreme and dangerous conflicts with area residents. A number of people from that group later moved to Alberta, and joined Mr. de Ruiter.

The mounting enmity in Fort Assiniboine was apparent during a recent meeting at the hamlet’s Museum and Friendship Club Drop-in Centre, where the issue of the newcomers drew a large and sometimes emotional crowd, and emerged amid discussion of gravel trucks and municipal development.

Toward the end of the evening, a woman who identified herself as one of the new residents acknowledged it was “a very unusual situation.”

“I wanted to say that it wasn’t planned that this group of people were going to come here and take over. It was not like that,” said the unnamed woman, in a recording of the meeting provided to The Globe. “There’s a whole story to it, but I don’t think now’s the time.”

The woman suggested a committee could be formed to liaise with the newcomers, and said there was “room for conversation … as uncomfortable or unusual, or unpleasant, or whatever that may seem.”

“Please don’t let it build in this negative way,” she said.

Mr. de Ruiter’s spokesperson, Zaba Walker, told The Globe the group would not answer questions about people moving to Fort Assiniboine, including whether Mr. de Ruiter is living in the area.

Woodlands County Reeve John Burrows said he understands the apprehension of longtime residents, but stresses there are no allegations anyone else associated with Mr. de Ruiter has done anything illegal, and that Mr. de Ruiter will go through the legal system to face his charges.

“If people have concerns that there’s anything criminal going on, then by all means, contact the RCMP,” Mr. Burrows said.

“But from a municipal standpoint, we aren’t really able to say who gets to move here. And it would be a tough position to put us in if we ever got to that spot.”

Municipal councillors either declined to speak, or did not return requests for comment. But in the December edition of local newspaper The Woodlands Express, Councillor Peter Kuelken concluded his year-end review with a note about the “many new folks that have chosen to make this County of ours their home.”

“We would not be here if our forefathers no matter the country they came from or what their beliefs were had not been welcomed by the people who lived here…,” he wrote.

“Let’s continue being a welcoming community of diverse and good people for in that there is strength.”



A letter from councillor Peter Kuelken urges people to accept the newcomers.

Still, for some around Fort Assiniboine, questions persist. What will all these people from the city do out in the isolated rural area? What happens if Mr. de Ruiter is convicted? Why did it feel like it happened in a way that was so secretive? And, perhaps most of all, why did they come here?

While some residents have so far refused offers to buy their properties, others told The Globe they’re seriously considering selling land that’s been in their families for generations, fearing that it will soon be worthless, or that they’ll be outnumbered.

“Our exit strategy is already in the works,” Mr. Kitchen said.

Numerous other landowners expressed serious concerns but did not want to be quoted on the record, in some cases equally fearing making enemies of the newcomers and of angering locals they previously considered friends. One man said he was afraid to express his views publicly because he worried about retaliation by those who stand to profit off the new residents.

As he wrote in a text, “There are no guarantees that these people will ever leave and I’m not ready to give up everything I have. It isn’t a whole hell of a lot, but it’s mine.”

With research from Stephanie Chambers

Reporter Jana G. Pruden has been investigating John de Ruiter’s group for years, speaking to ex-members and attending a meeting to learn more about his spiritual teachings. She spoke with The Decibel about the sexual-assault charges laid against him in February. Subscribe for more episodes.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-john-de-ruiter-alberta-followers/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/1/2023

College of Integrated Philosophy, Oasis Group, Johannes de Ruiter, Canada, Jehovah's Witnesses, Religious Freedom, Russia, Children of God

CBC: Edmonton spiritual leader charged with 4 counts of sexual assault

"A well-known Edmonton-based spiritual leader has been charged with four counts of sexual assault.

Johannes de Ruiter, known as John de Ruiter, was arrested and charged Saturday by Edmonton police.

De Ruiter is the leader of a group known as the College of Integrated Philosophy, or the Oasis Group, which has been operating in Edmonton for decades.

Police allege de Ruiter, 63, assaulted four people in separate incidents between 2017 and 2020.

"It was reported that the accused informed certain female group members that he was directed by a spirit to engage in sexual activity with them, and that engaging in sexual activity with him will provide them an opportunity to achieve a state of higher being or spiritual enlightenment," police said in a news release Monday. 

Investigators say they believe there may be additional complainants and are asking others to come forward.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson said de Ruiter intends to challenge the allegations."

Eurasiareview: Russia: Attacks On Religious Freedom Continue With Two Trials, Nine Long Jail Terms

"In two trials in mid-December 2022, two courts in Russia's Far East sentenced a total of 9 Jehovah's Witnesses to long jail terms. All but one received jail terms of between 6 and 7 years. The 9 men were among 19 Jehovah's Witnesses to receive general-regime prison terms in the last quarter of 2022.

Raids, prosecutions, and convictions of Jehovah's Witnesses for practising their faith in Russia continued unabated in 2022, despite the issuance in late 2021 of amended guidance for judges in extremism-related cases.

Across the calendar year, there were 124 convictions in first-instance courts, according to statistics from the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses (a small number were later overturned on appeal and sent back to prosecutors or for re-trial). The number of convictions has risen every year since prosecutions began in 2018, in the wake of the nationwide ban on Jehovah's Witness activities.

In Birobidzhan, capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region, which has seen one of the highest numbers of prosecutions in the country, the district court handed two men 7-year sentences and their two fellow defendants terms of 6-and-a-half years and 3-and-a-half years respectively, all followed by lengthy periods of restrictions and bans on particular activities..."

The Conversation: 'Have I just joined another cult?': Daniella grew up in The Family, then joined the army - where she experienced toxic control, again

"On Daniella Mestyanek Young's first day of military training, she stands among her fellow recruits holding a duffle bag high in one arm above her head. As she ponders the other bodies lined up in her peripheral vision, all struggling to maintain the same pose, it gradually occurs to her that this feeling — of being owned, coerced, programmed — seems unsettlingly familiar: "Have I just joined another cult?"

This sense of suspicion forms a pattern in Mestyanek Young's life, which she documents with remarkable insight in her memoir, Uncultured, exploring the systems of control in which toxicity can thrive.

Mestyanek Young was born into the religious cult the Children of God, also known as The Family. (Not to be confused with Anne Hamilton Byrne's Australian-based cult, also known as The Family.)

Mestyanek Young spent her childhood shuffled from compound to compound in Brazil, Mexico and the United States. At 15, she fled what she would come to recognise as a cult, made her way to Texas and put herself through school and college, eventually graduating as valedictorian and joining the US army, where she served as an intelligence officer.

But this book is not simply a survival story. It's an exposé of the abuse that can run unchecked within cults. It's a story about trauma, a war memoir, a meditation on the difference between culture and cults. And it's a searing indictment of groups that continue to view those who are not men as subservient to those who are.

But at its core, Uncultured is a book about groups. It asks readers to look closely at the power mechanisms at work within the communities we call our own."

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L'Arche co-founder Jean Vanier sexually abused at least 25 women over seven decades, report finds

IAN BROWN
Globe and Mail
January 30, 2023

At least 25 women were abused over nearly seven decades by Jean Vanier, the Canadian co-founder of L’Arche, a global organization for the intellectually disabled, a lengthy independent report has found after a two-year investigation.

The Globe and Mail obtained a 60-page synopsis of the report, which will be released Monday, that details the incidents that took place between 1952 and 2019, the year he died. It is replete with Mr. Vanier’s sexual abuses of nuns and other women who worked within or with L’Arche.

“But,” the report cautions, “the full extent of his activities has yet to be determined.”

It’s a measure of how shocking the report is that L’Arche Canada executives are already at pains to underline two essential findings: that none of the abused were people with disabilities, and that so far no charges of abuse have been laid in Canada, where the second L’Arche home was founded in Toronto in the 1960s. It was an early link in what became a global network of communities where the intellectually disabled are able to live as equals.

The independence of some members of the outside investigating committee has been challenged. Even so, the 900-page report is a striking condemnation of sexual abuse, secrecy and repression deep within the Catholic Church and the founding of L’Arche.

The six investigators – two historians, a sociologist, a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst and a theologian – had access to L’Arche’s archives, previously unpublished papers in the Dominican archives of the Vatican, the lifetime writings and 1,400 letters of Mr. Vanier (including 340 he intended to be seen by only a handful of perpetrators), as well as 119 interviews with 89 people and the testimony of victims.

The investigation was mandated in August of 2020, after six women in France revealed that they had been abused by Mr. Vanier and his lifelong “spiritual father” and L’Arche co-founder, Père Thomas Philippe.

His victims were not disabled, but adult women who, when the transgressions first occurred, were between the ages of 20 and 35. Their number included nuns and both married and single women working at L’Arche. Most of them were Catholic, with access to what the report refers to as “high cultural resources.” Half came from privileged social backgrounds. (Père Thomas preyed on more pious, psychologically vulnerable girls.)

Mr. Vanier appears not to have questioned what he was doing – except years later, in some of his writings.

The report’s authors state: “Partial nudity, the absence of coitus as well as the spiritual justification of sexual abuse led Jean Vanier to consider that they were non-sexual practices.” The medical professionals on the panel describe him as delusional. Some relationships lasted weeks; many lasted years or even decades.

The report covers 90 years of history, from Mr. Vanier’s birth in Geneva in 1928 to his death in Trosly-Breuil, the village where he founded L’Arche, in 2019.

Mr. Vanier – the once revered founder of the world’s most progressive communities for adults with disabilities, a frequent candidate for the Nobel Prize who changed the way the world understood the intellectually disabled – is revealed as the centre of a “cult” (to use the investigators’ word) that practised bizarre, religiously motivated sexual rituals.

The report weighs in on everything from the early use of L’Arche as a smokescreen for the cult, to the psychoanalytic theories of Mr. Vanier’s sexual habits.

The Jean Vanier I knew, and the one I didn’t

Mr. Vanier had a privileged but chilly Catholic upbringing as the son of former Canadian governor-general Georges Vanier and his devout wife, Pauline. It was Pauline who first introduced her son to her spiritual adviser in France, Père Thomas Philippe, a well-connected French Dominican friar 20 years older than Jean Vanier. Père Thomas became his lifelong obsession and spiritual leader, initiating him into his cult of abuse and seduction, and into a lifelong rebellion against the leadership of the Catholic Church – a rebellion that, ironically, was partly responsible for the founding of L’Arche.

In the judgment of the report’s authors, Mr. Vanier – lonely and mostly friendless as a child, raised in an always busy family that valued public service and religious faith over emotions – was a sitting duck for a predator like Père Thomas.

In 1952, at the age of 22, after attending an English military school and serving in the navy, Mr. Vanier was considering the priesthood. (His mother was all in favour.) He joined L’Eau vive, an international training centre funded by Père Thomas, in 1945. L’Eau vive was “halfway between the religious community, the Christian youth hostel and the American style university campus” with an emphasis on theology and the contemplative life. It was located near several convents, one of which was run by Père Thomas’s sister, Marie-Dominique Philippe, a Dominican mother superior.

Père Thomas used L’Eau vive (and a total of five convents) to procure partners for the unorthodox sexual appetites he developed in 1938. By his account, he was standing in front of a fresco of the Virgin Mary and experienced a “mystic union” with her and his “graces” – which included his genitals.

According to the report, his sister was another of his procurers: she “pushed several of her nuns into her brother’s arms while having homosexual relationships with several of them herself and incestuous ones with her brother.” Père Thomas justified these acts with theological theories of his own devising. Mr. Vanier became a spiritual acolyte of Père Thomas – and eventually a participant in his sexual activities.

An investigation into Père Thomas’s behaviour in 1952 resulted in Mr. Vanier taking over the leadership of L’Eau vive. He defended Père Thomas vigorously four years later when the priest was found guilty of serious sexual abuse, ejected from the Dominican order, and stripped of his rights as a priest. Even as late as 2012, when asked about Père Thomas, Mr. Vanier described the contretemps as a little more than a doctrinal disagreement.

Mr. Vanier spent the next eight years on a wandering path he described to his parents as a period of searching and solitude “so that he could know what Jesus will ask.” It was a convenient front: In fact, he maintained close if secret contact with Père Thomas and their core group of “initiates” – women he and Père Thomas “accompanied” on their mystical-sexual-religious practices. Jacqueline d’Halluin, a sexual partner of Père Thomas, then initiated Mr. Vanier into the rituals, at Père Thomas’s direction.

When first confronted with these details sixty years later, Mr. Vanier claimed little detailed knowledge of what had happened. “Suddenly that woman found herself in his arms,” he is quoted as saying.

The Vatican never publicly revealed the findings of its damning investigation of Père Thomas – one main reason the abuses continued for decades, according to the report. But several authorities – including Pope John XXIII – tried to persuade Mr. Vanier to break ties. Père Thomas was variously diagnosed as a “madman,” a “subtle pervert” and as a delusional schizophrenic. But as Mr. Vanier later acknowledged, he couldn’t abandon his mentor: By his own admission, the relationship was both the deepest and most troubling of his life.

“He was 25 years old when he arrived at L’Eau vive,” Stefan Posner, the international leader of L’Arche, points out. “He was very open and impressionable. And he was seduced. I think in a sense Jean was a victim of Father Philippe. But he quite quickly became an accomplice.”

Mr. Vanier and his master become experts in the art of secrecy and dissimulation – behaviour startlingly (and conveniently) at odds with Mr. Vanier’s reputation as a compassionate and gifted leader. With Mr. Vanier’s help, the disgraced and exiled Père Thomas continued his mystical-sexual relationships with women – the “little ones,” as he and Mr. Vanier called them.

Mr. Vanier provided the cleric with overalls and a motorcycle balaclava so the notorious apostate could move about undetected. He also ensured that the little ones were “well rested” for their encounters with Père Thomas. In return, Thomas arranged “immediate access to ‘exceptional mystic graces’” – sexual experiences.

The sexual encounters were eccentric and often noncoital. They usually began with Mr. Vanier on his knees praying, with his head to the bared chest of the woman – naked prayer was common – followed by kissing and caressing and even ejaculation.

All this was couched, in the many letters Mr. Vanier and his victims exchanged, in hyperbolic self-justifying spiritual language: They share “a dive into divine Love” while “united in prayer” and “penetrating the mysteries” of seeking a “good pleasure” through God. He refers to himself as “the Christ” or “the bridegroom.” When a woman questions what is happening, he has an almost stock reply: “It’s not us, it’s Mary and Jesus.”

Many of the women professed feeling confused and lost – partly because of Mr. Vanier’s growing reputation as a compassionate, charismatic leader of a just and respected cause. “He put my conscience to sleep,” one victim recalled. He was not argumentative or a bully when someone wanted to end things. His behaviour often surprised his victims. Once, when a woman revealed that she was having a (prohibited) relationship with a Jesuit, Mr. Vanier laughed. “But it’s so beautiful in you that the physical and psychological should always go together,” he reportedly said. The investigators comment frequently on Mr. Vanier’s naiveté.

“I did not know if it was good or bad,” one of his victims said. “After the first time, I was totally lost … At the same time, it also made me feel good.” Said another: “I didn’t want to disappoint him.”

The findings raise serious questions: Mr. Posner wonders if an organization that does good work will be permanently tainted because its founder did bad things. Will it be possible for the public to accept that both good and evil could exist in the same person?

Most alarmingly, at least for L’Arche as an organization, the report undermines the world-famous foundation story of L’Arche. Mr. Vanier moved into a house with two intellectually disabled men who could not speak, in the town of Trosly-Breuil, outside Paris, in 1964. But the evidence now reveals that he did so mainly, and certainly initially, simply to be as close as possible to Père Thomas, who was living nearby in semi-exile. Even the name L’Arche was the idea of Ms. d’Halluin, the partner of Père Thomas who initiated Mr. Vanier into the sex cult.

But the larger community of L’Arche managed to keep to a straighter path. The report states that “there is little evidence that [the cult’s] toxicity deeply infiltrated L’Arche.”

One reason (and the report sites several) was that as L’Arche expanded as a refuge, it was subject to more public-health regulations and scrutiny.

As troubling as he finds the rotten roots of L’Arche – how extensive the abuses were, how long they lasted, how hidden they remained, and why – Mr. Posner is taking some comfort in L’Arche’s apparent immunity to greater contagion.

“The report confirms that this small circle of people did not go beyond that,” he says, with evident relief. “It would be very interesting to see why we did not, to see what in our history and our story has given us the resources to become something other than that.”

It’s an interesting question. Despite what its founders perpetrated, L’Arche also began as a triple utopia – Catholic, communal and medical. Having accepted one another as mutually broken companions and equals, the men and women who share their lives at L’Arche appear not to have needed to force each other to their will.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-larche-jean-vanier-abuse/

Edmonton 'spiritual leader' John de Ruiter charged with four sexual assaults, police seek additional complainants

Edmonton Police on Monday announced Johannes de Ruiter was arrested Saturday on four counts of sexual assault.

Jonny Wakefield

Edmonton Journal 

January 23, 2023

The Edmonton Police Service has charged a self-appointed spiritual leader with four counts of sexual assault. On Jan. 21, 2023, Johannes "John" de Ruiter, 63, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting four complainants in separate incidents occurring between 2017 and 2020.

A self-styled Edmonton spiritual leader has been charged with sexually assaulting four of his followers.

Edmonton police on Monday announced Johannes “John” de Ruiter was arrested Saturday on four counts of sexual assault for incidents that allegedly occurred between 2017 and 2020.

de Ruiter is a former shoemaker from rural Alberta who runs the College of Integrated Philosophy, also known as the Oasis Group, which operated out of a $1.7-million headquarters on 177 Street until 2021.

de Ruiter, 63, claims a global following and bills himself as the “living embodiment of truth.” He founded his “college” in 2006 and became known for holding weekly meetings in which he stares silently at followers for hours.

Investigators believe there may be additional complainants and is encouraging them to come forward. Police said de Ruiter is currently holding meetings at a St. Albert office building, as well as retreats at a campground near Smith, Alta.

In a news release, police said they received reports that de Ruiter “informed certain female group members that he was directed by a spirit to engage in sexual activity with them and that engaging in sexual activity with him will provide them an opportunity to achieve a state of higher being or spiritual enlightenment.” The allegations have not been proven in court.

de Ruiter’s case was briefly in an Edmonton courtroom Monday for scheduling, with a bail hearing set to take place Friday. Dino Bottos, de Ruiter’s lawyer, declined to comment. Messages to de Ruiter’s website were not returned.

In a biography posted on the website, de Ruiter claims he experienced a spiritual awakening at age 17, during which he became “immersed and fully absorbed into what we are after we die.”

“John realized that when you are deeply gentled and quieted within, you are naturally open and soft, the most basic form of true beingness and that living this way at any personal cost is the key to the fulfillment of our purpose for being here,” the website states.

Mary Jane James, CEO of the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, said the complainants are “very brave” to come forward with the allegations.

“It will be very difficult for these four women to go through the experience and the exposure of the justice process,” she said.

Speaking generally, James said stories of charismatic leaders abusing their vulnerable followers are common.

“(The followers) become reliant and they believe what they’re told, and when they’re told they can reach a different level of spiritual connectedness or whatever, sometimes these things lead to one person taking advantage of another,” she said.

de Ruiter was the subject of legal action in the early 2010s when two sisters who formed part of his inner circle sued de Ruiter for entitlements and payments from the decade they spent as his common-law wives and employees.

— with files from the National Post

jwakefield@postmedia.com

twitter.com/jonnywakefield

The former site of the College of Integrated Philosophy, located at 10930 177 St., operated out of the Oasis Building in west Edmonton. The Edmonton Police Service has charged a self-appointed spiritual leader with four counts of sexual assault. On Jan. 21, 2023, Johannes “John” de Ruiter, 63, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting four complainants in separate incidents occurring between 2017 and 2020.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/edmonton-spiritual-leader-john-de-ruiter-charged-with-four-sexual-assaults-police-seek-additional-complainants

Edmonton spiritual leader charged with 4 counts of sexual assault

John de Ruiter's spokesperson says he will contest the charges

Paige Parsons

CBC News
January 23, 2023

A well-known Edmonton-based spiritual leader has been charged with four counts of sexual assault.

Johannes de Ruiter, known as John de Ruiter, was arrested and charged Saturday by Edmonton police.

De Ruiter is the leader of a group known as the College of Integrated Philosophy, or the Oasis Group, which has been operating in Edmonton for decades.

Police allege de Ruiter, 63, assaulted four people in separate incidents between 2017 and 2020.

"It was reported that the accused informed certain female group members that he was directed by a spirit to engage in sexual activity with them, and that engaging in sexual activity with him will provide them an opportunity to achieve a state of higher being or spiritual enlightenment," police said in a news release Monday.

Investigators say they believe there may be additional complainants and are asking others to come forward.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson said de Ruiter intends to challenge the allegations.

"Mr. de Ruiter will be represented by legal counsel and intends to vigorously contest these charges in a court of law. This situation is deeply impactful for those who know Mr. de Ruiter," Zaba Walker said in an email.

According to police, de Ruiter's group operated out of the Oasis Buildng at 109th Avenue and 177th Street from 2007 to 2021.

Police said de Ruiter currently holds meetings at an office building on St. Albert Trail in St. Albert, and that he hosts spiritual retreats at a campground near Smith, Alta., 200 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

De Ruiter's activities are well-known to Stephen Kent, a University of Alberta professor emeritus who specialized in cults and alternative religions.

"De Ruiter claims to be the living embodiment of truth, he claims to have received messages from Jesus, he claims to get spiritual insight that directs and justifies his behaviours," Kent said Monday.

In 2002, a CBC News documentary delved into de Ruiter's past and his growing global following. The story reported that de Ruiter got his start in a Lutheran church before breaking off to start preaching on his own. Eventually he gave up his job as a shoemaker to focus on his following.

In the documentary, his ex-wife spoke to CBC about de Ruiter's transition from following Christianity to New Age practices. De Ruiter became known for opening his meetings by staring at attendees, sometimes for up to an hour.

Some of de Ruiter's followers were featured in the documentary, describing their faith in him.

Kent — who was also interviewed for the 2002 documentary — said it is not uncommon for male spiritual leaders to make claims to followers that having sex could help advance the follower's own spiritual advancement.

"That power requires great care in its application. And one of the questions that may come up at trial is whether he abused that power, whether he abused the trust that was placed in him," Kent said.

Mary Jane James, CEO of the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, echoed Kent's concern about imbalances of power.

"Any time you have a person in power, exerting that power over someone who does not have any power or equal power — then the issue of sexual assault definitely comes into play," she said.

James said that in 83 to 85 per cent of sexual abuse cases, the victim knows, loves or believes in their abuser.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Paige Parsons



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-spiritual-leader-charged-with-4-counts-of-sexual-assault-1.6723600

Alberta spiritual leader John de Ruiter charged with four counts of sexual assault

JANA G. PRUDEN
Globe and Mail
January 23, 2023

John de Ruiter, the messianic leader of a multi-million-dollar spiritual organization based in Alberta, has been arrested and charged with four counts of sexual assault against women in his close-knit community of followers.

Edmonton police say Mr. de Ruiter, 63, whose full first name is Johannes, was arrested on Saturday and charged with sexually assaulting four complainants in separate incidents that occurred between 2017 and 2020.

“It was reported that the accused informed certain female group members that he was directed by a spirit to engage in sexual activity with them, and that engaging in sexual activity with him will provide them an opportunity to achieve a state of higher being or spiritual enlightenment,” says a statement from the Edmonton Police Service.

Are a spiritual leader’s sexual relationships a calling or a dangerous abuse of power?

Police, who describe Mr. de Ruiter as a “self-styled spiritual leader,” say there may be additional complainants. Investigators are encouraging them to come forward.

An internal statement sent to Mr. de Ruiter’s followers from his organization, the College of Integrated Philosophy, acknowledges Mr. de Ruiter’s arrest and the charges against him, saying they were “based on complaints made by four former meeting attendees.”

“John will be represented by legal counsel and intends to vigorously contest these charges in a court of law,” says the statement, obtained by The Globe and Mail. The statement adds that there “may be concern” for Mr. de Ruiter and his wife, Leigh Ann, but that “They are okay.”

It says events and meetings will resume with Mr. de Ruiter during the week. It is signed by “The College Team.”

An announcement on the group’s website said meetings slated to take place with Mr. de Ruiter on Sunday were cancelled, and that those who had purchased tickets would receive refunds.

Edmonton police spokesperson Cheryl Voordenhout said Mr. de Ruiter was in custody, and was expected to seek bail before a justice of the peace on Monday.

Zaba Walker, a spokesperson for the College of Integrated Philosophy, reiterated in an e-mail that Mr. de Ruiter will contest the charges in court, and added, “This situation is deeply impactful for those who know Mr. de Ruiter.”

Mr. de Ruiter, a former shoemaker from Stettler, Alta., has for the past 25 years drawn devoted followers from around the world. He describes himself as the “living embodiment of truth.” His empire, which began with in-person meetings, pamphlets and cassette tapes, has grown to include a sophisticated spectrum of paid livestreams, social media channels, conferences and “John de Ruiter TV.”

While the number of followers Mr. de Ruiter has – and the amount of money he makes from them – isn’t clear, court documents filed in 2009 estimated his personal assets then at almost $9-million, including a house, a $75,000 truck, personal income of $232,000 a year and his stake in the Oasis Centre, a lavish custom meeting place in west Edmonton.

Land title documents show the Oasis building was sold to the Aga Khan Foundation in October, 2021, for $6,650,000.

Police say Mr. de Ruiter is currently holding meetings at an office building on St. Albert Trail in St. Albert, Alta., as well as spiritual retreats out of a campground near Smith, Alta.

Stephen Kent, an emeritus professor at the University of Alberta and an expert in cults and alternative religions, said the complexity of the issues around the sexual assault cases will be “significant.”

“One of the complexities of the case is that he is a religious or spiritual leader for his followers, but the organization is a business. Moreover, he’s calling himself an educator,” said Dr. Kent, who has been studying the de Ruiter group since the late 1990s.

“This case may become precedent-setting around issues related to sex, consent, free will, coercion and assault in the context of fiduciary spiritual leadership boundaries and responsibilities,” he said.

Mr. de Ruiter was the subject of a Globe investigation in 2017, as some followers began to publicly question his sexual interactions with women in the community, and whether his alleged sexual activity had played a role in the disappearance and death of Anina Hundsdoerfer.

Ms. Hundsdoerfer, a devoted follower of Mr. de Ruiter’s who had moved from Europe to be part of his community in Edmonton, was reported missing in March, 2014. She was found dead seven weeks later, 12 kilometres from her car in the frozen wilderness near Nordegg, a rural area where Mr. de Ruiter and his followers sometimes went to camp or do survivalist training.

There were no signs of foul play, and police concluded her death was “non-criminal,” meaning they found no evidence a crime had occurred. Her family later released excerpts from her diary that appeared to show that Ms. Hundsdoerfer, 32, had had a sexual relationship with Mr. de Ruiter. They questioned whether the effects of such a relationship could have driven her to suicide.

The “Frequently Asked Questions” page of Mr. de Ruiter’s website lists a number of responses to “some extreme criticisms of John.”

It says “John is scrupulous in all financial, legal, and personal matters.“ It also says he “did not and does not use sex as a means of control or submission over any person.”

“John did not contribute to the disappearance of Anina Hundsdoerfer in any way,” the page adds. “Her death is as tragic and mysterious to him as to all of us.”

Police say anyone who believes they have been victimized by the accused should contact the Edmonton Police Service at 780-423-4567.

Follow Jana G. Pruden on Twitter: @jana_pruden



https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-alberta-spiritual-leader-john-de-ruiter-charged-with-four-counts-of/