True Crime Campfire - Episode 25: Bad Karma: The Cult of Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul, Pt. 1

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

Cults are fascinating. Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, NXIVM. So often, people end up in these groups because they’re seekers, and they genuinely want to work toward a better world. Contrary to popular belief, people who end up in cults are often smart and well educated. Good people who march to a different drumbeat and have only the best intentions. But unfortunately, when a group dynamic forms around a charismatic and narcissistic leader, and people start molding their own realities to fit theirs, utopian visions can turn into dystopian realities. This is the bizarre story of a vision gone horribly wrong. Terri Hoffman didn't seem like a prophet, at first glance. She looked more like somebody's grandma. But for decades, Hoffman ran a cult called Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul--but many of her followers ended up disenchanted with her. They couldn't help but notice that she seemed to be enriching her bank account more than she enriched people's lives. And it went deeper than that. Before Conscious Development finally fizzled out, Terri and the cult would be linked to sixteen murders, suicides, APPARENT suicides and disappearances. Was Hoffman responsible? Was she a prophet, or a predator? Sources: https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/december/rise-and-fall-of-a-north-dallas-cult-conscious-development/https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2014/06/d-magazines-40-greatest-stories-death-in-a-north-dallas-cult/https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/terri-hoffman/#:~:targetText=Murder%20of%20Jill%20Bounds,and%20became%20a%20popular%20psychologist.https://unsolved.com/gallery/charles-southern/Follow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Colts are fascinating. Jones Town, Heaven's Gate, Omshinrikio, Nexium. So often, people end up in these groups. because they're seekers, and they genuinely want to work toward a better world. Contrary to popular belief, people who end up in cults are often smart and well-educated. Good people who march to a different drumbeat and have only the best intentions. But unfortunately, when a group dynamic forms around a charismatic and narcissistic leader and people start molding their own realities to fit theirs, utopian visions can turn into dystopian realities. This is the bizarre story of a vision gone horribly wrong. Black Lodge.

Terry Hoffman and the cult of conscious development of mind, body, and soul. didn't look like a messenger of God. As Peter Elkind of Texas Monthly pointed out in an article about her in the 1990s, she looked more like Aunt B from the Andy Griffith Show, grandmotherly. That is how they get you. It is. To some, she was akin to Jesus Christ, Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Mohammed, a prophet. To others, she was a narcissistic cult leader in the center of what some people have called a circle of death, connected with over a dozen disappearances and suspicious deaths, murders, suicides, accidents. Their deaths made her at least $500,000 richer and led to one of the longest and weirdest probate court trials in Dallas history. Intrigued yet, I am. Oh, totally.

To her followers, Terry bragged about her powers. She could see the past and future. She could shield people from harm, even from auto accidents and cancer. She could communicate with the dead. Terry Hoffman claimed she was only four when three men in beautiful robes came to her as she rested under a tree. Sounds like Isaac Newton, right? Yeah. She called them masters. They told her that she had special abilities, that through God and meditation, quote, I could do anything if I wanted it badly enough. I would add, and if you don't care who you step on in the process. Sure. Yeah, that's I said this in a previous episode, but this is a supervillain origin story. She is most definitely a comic book supervillain.

They told her not everyone could see them, not her alcoholic dad or the girls who made fun of her at school. And whenever Terry felt despondent, she should just think about God. And she felt despondent a lot because her family was really poor. And when she was eight, Terry's mom gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. and soon after died of tuberculosis. So just rough stuff. Yeah. When she was nine, Terry's alcoholic father sent her to a Lutheran orphanage in Round Rock.

He just decided he couldn't take care of her anymore without his wife there to help. And for the second time, the mystical visions appeared. She said the masters told her she was the reincarnation of St. Teresa of Avila. The masters taught her to pray, and she had a vision of Christ. She remembers a German nun telling her about the elements, earth, air, fire, water, and ether. This nun also told her about the Akashik records. These were basically a record of everything that had ever happened or would ever happen. But they didn't have a physical form on earth.

You could only see them if you meditated hard enough. The nun also taught her about reincarnation, and Terry liked this idea. Her stillborn sister would have another chance at a happier life. The kids who were mean to her would have to suffer in their next lives. This appealed to her. At 11, Terry was adopted by the Benson family of Dallas, but her new mom made her feel smothered, and at about 15, Terry ran off and married an 18-year-old truck driver named John Ray Wilder.

They both had to lie about their ages on the marriage license, so you know this is going to work out great, right? Yeah, start your marriage on a lie. Yeah. She had two daughters in quick succession, and John drove big-rig trucks while Terry stayed home with the kids, and she was not having this. She realized very early on. She was destined for greatness, after all. So she began to dabble in mysticism and the occult. First, it was a mail order book on hypnotism,

which her husband actually sent off for, and I'm sure forever after deeply regretted it, because it started this whole thing off, then the writings of psychic Edgar Casey. And she started meeting up to chat with other women about the meaning of life. Then Terry started taking classes and hypnosis among other subjects. By the late 60s, after the Wilders had moved to the Dallas suburbs, Terry had gathered a following of housewives that she'd met at a country club. These ladies looked at her as a spiritual guru, and some of them started sending their teenage kids to her for help. Supposedly, she helped one young guy end his drug habit through meditation and prayer, and after that, she started holding weekly evening meditation sessions attended by 20 or so.

high school students at a time. So this by now is an adult woman. I think she was still in her early 20s, but she's got this sort of entourage or following of 20 or so high school students. Yeah. Don't trust an adult that hangs out with high schoolers. Right. I mean, it's red flaggy. It's red flaggy already. And these kids adored her. She gave them pat explanations for how the universe worked, which is appealing to hormonal teenagers for whom the world is getting increasingly complicated. I mean, we all remember those teenage years, right? Oh, yeah. And she offered unconditional acceptance, which is something that I think a lot of teenagers don't feel they get at home. At this stage, she wasn't charging yet for her meditation sessions and lessons. Notice I said,

yet. She taught them that the archangels were there to protect them and lend them strength and each angel represented a different element. Ariel was Earth, Michael was fire, Raphael was air, and Gabriel was water. I don't know who was ether because it doesn't say. I guess she left that one out for some reason. But she believed in reincarnation and the way that this shook down depended on your karma. If you'd been a good human, you'd get to choose who and where you'd be in your next life. If you'd been a crappy human, so if you didn't put your shopping cart back in the corral after grocery shopping, for example, or if you'd murdered a busload of nuns, you'd be punished for it. Presumably by coming back as a tapeworm or some such thing. This was Terry's

version of how reincarnation worked. And in Terry's cosmology, if you had a miserable life, it was your own fault. You were being punished for your past sins. In one of her lessons, she wrote, quote, we can be sure that the people who have been killed in volcanic eruptions and dire catastrophes have deserved these violent deaths and that they've been reborn in those places to fulfill their destiny. They reaped as they sowed in past lives. Wow. Cool. How nice? Right? She makes it sound so. Oe. And Terry would lead the kids in meditation, a state kind of like a hypnotic trance, and tell them that they were entering a higher plateau of spiritual development where they could find the temples of the world's spiritual masters. And all the great religious

figures in every religion had been masters. During the meeting, Terry would lead the students on what she called a tour of the temples of the higher realms. And the students, I love this, would say, oh, yeah, we can see it. And they would all add details of their own. They would describe, like, the way that these temples looked as if they were looking at an actual place. And Terry would agree with everything. They said, yep, that's what that temple looks like. All right. You're absolutely right. How, yeah, right. Oh, I forgot about that little window at top sure right so to me it's an interesting question whether these kids actually believed that they were seeing this stuff or whether they were just playing along to get terry's approval maybe each one

thought all the others were really seeing the temples and they just didn't want to be left out because you know fomo is real oh totally y'all right so i don't know what you think about that whether it was just everybody was perfectly aware that they were just that everybody else was just lying or if they all thought, I'm the only one that can't see it. I better not let on. Yeah, I don't know. You see it in, you know, cults that do the speaking in tongues where afterwards they're like, oh, I just was making stuff up. I think that's probably accurate. I don't know. I don't think they were actually seeing anything, but they were like, they thought they thought they were saying something. Does that make sense? You can get into, you can get yourself into a state, I think, where you can talk

yourself into just about anything. And it was probably different for different people as well. So, anywho, Terry taught them about these Akashic records, which gave her knowledge of their past and future lives and of their love lives. So the kids would ask her to tell them if their boyfriends or girlfriends were their soulmates. And Terry would do this. And she claimed that she could see into the future. So, you know, this was like going to a fortune teller or something and getting your future read. And Terry told one young couple that they weren't destined to be together. You're not soulmates.

And these poor kids, because they took her teaching. seriously, they were just devastated. Because, you know, they loved each other. They wanted to be together. And Terry said, no. No, you're not soulmate. Sorry. I guess we have to break up. And she told them about her powers. She said she could levitate.

She told this big story about how one night her husband woke up and found her just floating feet above the bed. Sure he did. She said she could heal the sick. She told one of her students, Glenn Cooley, that his girlfriend was going to die in a car crash the next day but she said she could prevent it if she meditated enough she's probably like yeah and you know if i get done with my errands in time i'll do it so sure enough the next day she proudly told him that she had averted the accident wow which again no way of proven that now is there for god's sake but he was impressed and sometimes during her meeting she would turn off the

lights and have a student hold a sheet of that colored film that they use in the theater to create different lighting effects in front of his face. And Terry would shine a flashlight on the student and say something like, look everyone, Jeff is a Chinese wise man. Terry, no, God. So this kind of stuff, plus the fact that her followers couldn't help but notice how much she loved material things, always bragging about new purchases and talking about wanting to buy expensive

stuff, this all turned some followers away. But every time one would leave, there'd always be a new one to replace them. She started a group called Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul, and made up a bunch of written lessons for sale. Now, this reminds me of Scientology, and this is not the only thing about this particular cult that reminds me of Scientology, as we'll see in a moment. She promised to teach followers the ancient secrets of the masters. She said they'd not only learn truths that most people would never know, but they'd also learn to use and control energies few have mastered, which, you know, sounds good, right?

Yeah, sign me up. Who wouldn't want to do that? It's like, you know, Professor X in the X men. Who doesn't want to be in his class? So as we said a few minutes ago, the center of Terry's philosophy was her version of karma, what she called the law of karma. And I want to dig into this a little more deeply because this is an upsetting philosophy to me, Terry's particular version of it anyway.

Basically, the idea here is that if you're suffering, you did something to deserve it in a past life. And the worse the suffering, the worse your past sins must have been. Now, this idea is central to Scientology, too. I don't know whether people listening are familiar with Scientology, but you can read up on it. Whatever bad thing happens to you, you did something to, quote, pull it in as the Scientologist. call it. Everything bad is your own fault. Now, if you buy into this philosophy, it means that you can never be a victim. If someone assaults you, if someone sexually abuses you, it must mean that you did something to deserve it, even if you did it in a past life. And former

Scientologists have reported that Scientology auditors have been known to ask sexually abused children, did you abuse someone in a past life? Fuck off. What the hell, right? That's just So no matter what happens to you, there's no sympathy, there's no soft place to fall, there's no justice, if you're wrong, it's payback. It's because of something you did. And in my opinion anyway, this is a dangerous worldview because after a while, I would think it would start to really erode your self-esteem. And I know former Scientologists have said this. Jenna Miscavage Hill, who's David Muscavich's niece, she wrote a memoir called Beyond Belief about her time in Scientology, which is great book. You should read it. And she talks about that, how it just really starts to chip away at your sense of self-worth when you feel like anytime something goes wrong, you earned it. Yeah. You know? So, yeah, that troubles me. And Terry also taught that there was really no barrier between life and death.

So death was nothing to be afraid of. All it was was a doorway to another realm of existence. She wrote, you will also become conscious of the continuity of life. Death, then, will not exist in reality, for you will realize that your existence is not dependent upon the mere maintenance of your physical body. After all, she wrote, the result of noble death is rebirth. Now, that, of course, is something that comes up in a lot of different religions and philosophies and is not particularly unusual, this idea of death as nothing more than kind of a doorway for another means of existence, right? But the important thing to remember about this, Campers, is if her followers didn't see death as final, if they were taught not to fear it, might it be pretty easy for her to talk or drive them into suicide?

These direct quotes, by the way, are from a 1990 Texas Monthly article on the cult by Peter Elkin. We'll post a link in the episode description. It's a great article. She also taught her students that critical thoughts or, as she called them, negative energies, could drain you, even kill you. So this is one of the things that has me rolling my eyes. For example, if you are afraid of a disease, you can actually give it to yourself because of your fear. That scares the absolute crap out of me. I hope that's not true.

Well, it's actually, if you don't think about it too hard, it's actually the same thought process that goes into placebos, where you can actually cure yourself through the power of your mind. And there is actually some legitimacy to that. I mean, you know, there have been studies that have shown that even if you are aware that a placebo is a placebo, it can still have some effect, which is bizarre. But there you go. Our minds are very powerful. Yeah. And so I guess logically it could make sense that it would work in the opposite direction, but that's just not how the human psyche works. That you could hurt yourself, like because I'm terrified of cancer, you know, that I might give it to myself, which God, like I said, I hope not. That's horrifying. I don't think that's, I don't think that's possible. Please reassure me, Katie. Yeah, I got you. So Terry promised her followers that she could help them reach such an advanced state of enlightenment and human evolution that they'd be on par with God and the masters. during their next incarnation.

Damn, not a whole lot of religions promise that, right? No. You will literally be equal to God if you do what I'm telling you. Okay, where do I sign? Right, but Whitney, this isn't easy to achieve. Oh, damn, it will never mind then. It takes serious work. Take my name off the list.

It meant diving into Terry's teachings with both feet. She said, if you wish to enter the highest realms, you need to work to develop the latent power of your emotions, mind, and soul. All this stuff is kind of cobbled together from other religions and philosophies. Right, absolutely. Which you see this a lot in cults where they take one tenet of a religion and then that's what they focus on. Yeah, and there's a great deal of that in Scientology as well, borrowing from other,

you know, other worldviews, other cosmologies, other, even fiction. Yeah. Yeah. As Peter Elkin pointed out in his Texas Monthly article, Terry told father. followers what they wanted to hear. They would become comfortable with wealth. They would find bliss in every sexual encounter. Everyone in the meditation classes sat cross-legged in the floor, listening to her drone on about everything from sex to personal finance to ghosts. Then she'd guide them into a trance-like state, which must have been entertaining as hell

to watch. Right. Oh my God. What I wouldn't give to have been. to fly on that wall. Absolutely. Me too. Terry encouraged people to let her guide them one-on-one as well, like a kind of psychic therapist slash life coach. And of course, she charged by the hour. Yeah. But oddly enough, despite her claims of enlightenment, Terry's own personal life was turning into a hot mess on toast. Hubby Numero Uno, John Wilder, had never bought his wife's claims about her psychic powers. And a couple of times, he tried to talk followers out of giving her expensive gifts. Good for him. Right? In 1970, Terry filed for divorce on the grounds that John was, this is a direct quote, impeding her spiritual growth. Oh, please. Like, okay, more like trying to

impede her financial growth, am I right? In reality, it seems very likely that she had been cheating on John with one of her followers, the guy whose girlfriend she'd supposedly say, from a car accident by thinking really hard about it. His name was Glenn Cooley and John had been suspicious of the two of them for months. Terry denied it and said he was being paranoid. After Terry filed for divorce from John, Terry's adoptive mother had her temporarily committed to Parkland Memorial Hospital for a psyche valve after persuading a judge that she posed a substantial risk of harming herself or somebody else.

The divorce came through in March of 71, and Terry didn't come away with much. She got her car, some stocks, one of her three kids, the teenage daughter, and a few guns. John got the house, most of the money, and the two younger kids. Terry married Glenn just four months later. Glenn was a student at North Texas State University, but he dropped out after the wedding. He was a hardcore believer in Terry. in her big bag of bullshit. Glenn was the one whose girlfriend, Terry, had supposedly saved from a car crash by meditating

the night before it was supposed to happen. So I think he felt probably beholden to her. Yeah, because she'd saved this woman's life. Yeah. And he was a sweet kid. He was about half of Terry's age. Oh, yike. His friends described him as creative and nonconformist and kind.

He dabbled in drugs off and on, which worried his parents, but, like, it was a 60s and 70s. I know, right? What do you expect in the 60s? But despite the fact that Terry claimed she'd helped Glenn stop using, his family didn't approve of him marrying her at all. Presumably, they were bothered by the age difference and by Terry's commanding personality and bizarre beliefs. The thing was, according to Glenn's brother Wayne, Terry offered Glenn something his parents never had. She seemed to accept him just the way he was, whereas his parents wanted him to be who they wanted him to be. they tried keeping him from seeing friends they didn't like stuff like that no no yeah never a great

idea parents unless you want to push your kids away exactly i think that's a terrible idea and i get like it's the one thing if they're like actually scary people like if they're you know like a convicted murderer who's escaped from prison or something like that that's one thing but you know if you just don't like the way they dress or the number of piercings and tats they have or whatever just for for god's sake this never this never ends well to just say you can't see your friends anymore all you're going to do is just piss the the kid off and drive them further away from you into a cult into a cold this is our um our hot take and reminding you all that neither of us has kids but we've got lots of opinions on good parenting yeah obviously makes us a delight to all our friends with children we are nightmares

yeah whatever it's fine by now They were working full-time to develop conscious development. Terry was doing one-on-one consultations, still charging by the hour, and selling her printed materials. And in the midst of all this, she and Glenn started selling jewelry. Terry had come up with this idea that certain gemstones and crystals had healing and protective powers. You had to pick the right ones, and you had to electrically charge them. But if you did it right, these stones could carry enormous power. This was convenient, given that Terry was now making money off of them. Oh, that's a nice quinky dink. I know, right? So, of course, this meant that Terry's followers needed to buy as many of her and Glenn's handmade jewelry pieces as they could. And shockingly, Terry told everyone that the most expensive pieces were also the most powerful. Now, see, this is amusing to me, because I've heard plenty of gemstone lore, and it's actually quite interesting stuff.

Yeah. And, you know, I make jewelry and sell jewelry myself. And I have definitely, I'm a huge skeptic. I mean, you guys have probably noticed that from some of our takes on, you know, aliens and et cetera, et cetera in previous episodes. But an open-minded skeptic, you know, and there are certainly some things that I would very much love to believe. But I have actually noticed that certain stones, like when, especially when I've just ordered a big supply of them, and I have, like, a big handful of, say, Labiterite or something, you do get a sort of weird buzz off it. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's just because it's so pretty. I think, yeah, your reptile brain is just like pretty smooth rock. Oh, shiny, flashy, pretty. So that might be all it is. But what I'm saying is I can understand how people might come up with this idea to explain that feeling of, you know, running your hands through a pile of rose quartz and feeling kind of mellow or something like that. But what I have certainly never heard in any of this lore is that the more expensive the

stone, the more power it has. That, I think, was the brainchild of Ms. Terry. And gee, I wonder why. Good gravy. It's just, it baffles me. Guys, cultists, please. And they bought that horseshit. And I get it, because at this point, they were very much into the don't think very hard

about stuff. it's going to cause negative energy, which is brilliant. This was brilliant on Terry's part. It's very smart. Absolutely. You're totally right. So they couldn't be skeptics because that was negative and that would get you picked out. Suspicious thoughts are very dangerous to your well-being, Katie. I guess.

I guess. You're right. Cynicism and suspicion will give you cancer. Gems are magical. You're right. I'm going to go buy $100,000 worth of jewelry. Okay. According to George Ruggiege, who wrote one of the articles we read while research

this case, he said, you could tell how tightly followers embraced Terry's teachings by counting the number of rings they wore. And the follower with the most rings, 14 of them, to be exact, was a woman named Sandy Cleaver. How do you even wear 14 rings at one time? You only have 10 fingers. You got to stack them. You got to stack them. That man, she must have clinked when she walked. You could probably hear her coming a mile off. Oh, definitely. So Sandy Cleaver was the most devoted disciple of them all, family and friends have described her as sweet and intelligent, but she was also sheltered and gullible, naive, basically. She didn't have to work because of a family trust fund.

Her husband, Chuck, had a good job with Proctor and Gamble, and they had a daughter named Devereaux, which is a great name, by the way. I know, isn't that beautiful? It makes me think of Blanche Devereaux from the Golden Girls. Yeah. Sandy had a rough childhood. Her mom was in and out of mental hospital. Her dad wasn't around a lot, and then her sister died in a car crash.

Oh, man. Then Sandy's father died in 1966 in a plane crash. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's horrible. So many crashes in one family. That's awful. And she felt a little untethered. So she got interested in metaphysical stuff. Now, at the time, this was huge.

Yoga was on everybody's radar and crystals, new age philosophies of all kinds. was the type of stuff she was getting into. Sandy got into Edgar Casey. She went to meditation sessions. She took up Silva Mind Control. She became a vegetarian. She got into homeopathic medicine and believed in the power of gemstones. Eventually, and unfortunately for her and everyone who loved her, this led her right to the

doorstep of Terry Hoffman. By 1971, Sandy and Chuck's marriage had started to fall apart. Chuck says mostly because of... of Sandy's spiritual quest and her involvement with Terry in the conscious development. Sandy told Chuck that she and Terry had agreed he was blocking her spiritual development. Now, this was the same thing that Terry accused her first husband of in their divorce papers, remember? And Sandy filed for divorce. And that just shows you right there that she's already getting her little fingers into everybody's brain, you know,

because Sandy ends up filing for divorce for the same reason that Terry did. So you know Terry was in her ear saying, he's holding you back. I want you all to myself, rich lady follower. Sandy and Chuck fought over custody of Devereaux for a solid year. Chuck was concerned about Sandy's obsession with Terry's teachings, and he accused her of being an unfit mother. For example, Sandy had decided that Western medicine was useless and dangerous, and she told Chuck she wouldn't allow Devereaux to be taken to the doctor, even if she was really sick. If the little girl got sick, Sandy wanted to do.

to treat her with prayer and meditation. Oh, my God. Uh, yeah. So, this all came to a head one night when Chuck went in to check on Devereaux and found her sheets soaked with sweat. The poor kiddo had a high fever and her skin was bright red. When Chuck told Sandy they needed to take her to the hospital, Sandy freaked out and said, over my dead body. Wow. So Chuck had to wait until Sandy fell asleep and at five o'clock in the morning he snuck his little girl out of the house and woke up their pediatrician. Devereaux had scarlet fever. She, yeah, that shit's serious. She might have died if her dad hadn't taken her to the doctor. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Sandy started sending off for a variety of unlabeled, unidentified, unidentified pills from a healer in Mexico. And of course, Terry had

recommended this person, and this person claimed he could diagnose Devereaux through telepathy. Oh, it's like WebMD. Yeah, sort of, except with no factual basis behind it whatsoever. So, yeah, so this person in Mexico could diagnose Devereaux through telepathy. So this untrained, unlicensed, random person started sending bottles and bottles of pills to Sandy. and based on this guy's quote-unquote telepathic diagnosis, Sandy started giving Devereaux over 100 pills per day, which is astonishing.

And when Chuck realized what was going on, he was terrified that she was going to accidentally kill their child. But fortunately, when he took the pills to a doctor to have them analyzed, they turned out to be placebo pills. Oh, thank goodness. But the doctor was worried about Sandy's Western medicine is the devil attitude and what it might mean for Devereaux the next time she got. really sick because that kid could have died of that scarlet fever that night. No question

about her. Fever was crazy high. So Chuck was even more worried about the fact that one night during an argument about all this stuff, Sandy said that Devereaux would be better off in heaven than being treated by a doctor. Whoa. Now that scared the shit out of Chuck because he knew Sandy believed in all Terry's stuff about reincarnation. So he thought, you know, would she kill our daughter rather than leave her in my care? So that scared the crap out. of him and they ended up divorcing and one of the provisions that chuck insisted on was that sandy had to promise to only take devereau to quote recognized physicians licensed to practice in texas and chuck later said that the main reason that he didn't go for full custody was that he was

afraid sandy would kill devereau if he did which is astonishing and terrifying and also like really man i mean i think i think i would have gone ahead that's more reason to file for full custody and just make sure that you'd get in there and get that kid out of there. But, of course, this was, was it 60s, 70s? So, you know, the courts were probably very much inclined to side with the mother back then, even more so than now. So, you know, he might have gotten advice from an attorney that you're probably not going to win, and then you might be putting your kid in more danger.

And by the way, we should add, Terry had been working on Sandy for months, turning her against Chuck. She told Sandy that Chuck had a powerful negative energy, the kind of, of energy that could actually make you physically sick, and that both she and Devereaux could be in danger because of Chuck and his bad vibes. So what's the number one tool of an abuser again, campers? Is it isolation? Yep, that's the one. So Terry's obviously using that tactic. And after the divorce, Terry had full unfettered access to her best and richest disciple. Sandy became her full-time unpaid assistant. Sandy often used her own money to buy stuff for the group. She bought him a printing press at one point. And the deeper Sandy delved into the group, the less involved she became as a mom. She'd go with Terry to sell jewelry in other parts of the country, and she'd leave Devereaux with her elderly housekeeper Louise Watson, who they called Weezy. And she was gone a lot as she and Terry started taking conscious development national. So traveling and shipping Terry's printed materials all over the country. And they actually

did open little chapters in a bunch of different cities during this time. They were talking about building a school. And Sandy really believed in this. She believed that they were saving the world. You know, again, with Scientology, they tell their followers, we're saving the planet. We're saving humanity. So there is a genuine drive, at least I don't think with Terry Hoffman, but I believe with Sandy and the people who joined this group, a genuine drive to pursue a utopian future, to do good in the world. It's just the problem is when you hand over your judgment, And when you hand over your vision of reality to somebody else, that's where the problem lies. Because those somebody else's aren't always very good somebody else's.

Sometimes they're people like Terry. Yeah, you can't judge their intentions. Yeah, exactly. Sandy told Chuck she'd put a psychic shield around Devereaux, but that Chuck's bad vibes were still getting through and they were making their daughter sick and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ridiculous but it was around this time when things took let's just call it an odd turn as if this whole situation wasn't odd enough already so at the center of the group of conscious development was a group of 40 teachers who were helping spread terry's good word and in 1977 Terry announced to her teachers group that the masters had told her something big the masters had said look you've

studied enough. Now it's time to take things to the next level. Spiritual warfare. Wow. Heavy stuff, right? There were two forces in the universe, one good, one evil. The evil forces were called the black lords. They existed only in the spiritual planes, not in physical form here on earth, but nevertheless, they could still hurt you physically. They had these powerful negative energies that could injure you, make you sick, even make you insane. These black lords traveled in black lodges. Now, I don't know if anyone listening is a Twin Peaks fan, but if so, I'm guessing this is sounded awfully familiar.

Yeah. Because on that show, there's this evil sort of demonic force that can possess people, and it's called Bob. And Bob comes from a place called the Black Lodge that exists on another plane. So I got to ask here, David Lynch, my dude, are you listening? you read about Terry and her cult? Did you swipe the Black Lodge from a cult, my dude? I am suspicious.

Yeah, I think David Lynch is an established listener of our podcast, so Dave, why wouldn't you think? Can I call you Dave? You can come clean to us. He'd probably prefer you call him Susan or Jeff or, like, you know, I don't know, like moon fries because he's an odd ball. An odd ball I love, but nevertheless. I don't know why I said moon fries, that's just weird, but I was like the maddest thing

I could think of in the moment. I was also thinking of, oh, what's Rob Zombie's daughter? Oh, I think what you mean is, are you thinking of a moon unit Zappa? Yes. Thinking of or not thinking, it started with a Z, okay? So anyway, I'm suspicious, David Lynch. Fess up. So, anywho, because they were such powerful and enlightened humans, Terry and announced that she and her teacher's group had been chosen to fight these black lords, chosen

by the masters, to be the warriors for humanity, the champions of the world, right? Dangerous? Absolutely, but necessary for the sake of humanity. Now, is anybody thinking back to the Dyson-Koff case and how he convinced Linda Henning that she was an alien queen sent to save humankind? Reminded me of that, for sure. And, you know, a mission like that might be scary, but I imagine it's also really flattering to be picked. I mean, you know, everybody wants to feel special, right? And if you're wondering how otherwise intelligent, educated people could have fallen for this big bag of horseshit,

consider how tempting it might be to convince yourself that you're not just ordinary Joe or ordinary Joanne, you're a spiritual warrior. You're on a mission to save the world. You've been chosen, capital C. For a certain kind of personality, that is catnip. Too good to pass up. And Terry assured her inner circle that she would guide,

them through this difficult task. So their meetings soon turned into battles. And y'all buckle up because this shit is bananas, okay? Here is how these battles worked. The teachers had to bring what Terry called their

magic circles. These were cloth circles, each with a cloth triangle in the center. And then everybody would sit in a circle because circles were protective and do a protection ritual. Of course. Terry told them, right, like you do, Terry told them that the masters had dictated the procedure.

Each teacher had to bring a weapon, a cup, a robe, a fan, a sword, and a rod. Okay, cup, robe, fan, sword, and rod. The robes and magic circles had to be full-size, but everything else could be like a small replica. It's like a symbolic version of the thing. So campers, these grown-ass human beings were bringing plastic swizzle sticks, like from a mixed drink for swords. and car antennae for rods just deal with that for a second these things were supposed to represent

the various archangels and defend them from the black lord's bad vibes but the rods a.k.a. the car antennas were offensive weapons so the teachers who again are grown-ass adults would sit in their protective circle and swish these things around in the air like in the directions north, south, east and west

while chanting protect us all around protect us all around then they would touch the rod to their shoulders which terry told them was a power center and point the rod the car antenna to the center of the circle and then terry told them to project their thoughts along it and know they were eliminating black lords now this apparently was red-hot stuff because according to terry they were dropping these black lord dickheads like flies like every week she would give them a body count or an astral body count i guess since these things only existed on spiritual playing. She'd say, we got so many black lords last week. Like, pumping

them up, you know, coach. But no matter how many the damn things they took down, there were always more. They just kept coming and coming like locust, and the prognosis for humanity just got darker and darker. So Terry would call emergency battle sessions. The black lords just kept getting

more and more powerful and more evil. So they were just beset on all sides by these nasty buggers. And sometimes, in the heat of one of these battles, and by the way, let's all just take a minute to get a good mental image of this. A bunch of people sitting in a circle and swishing car antennae around and holding on to cocktail swizzle sticks,

trying to shoot mind bullets at invisible demons. Right? So sometimes in the heat of one of those battles, the leader would announce that one of the evil spirits was in the room with them, which had to be flippantirifying, and everybody would aim their car antennae wherever the leader told him it was and try and take the evil spirit out. So it's over there!

and, like, they'd all aim the ones. Current, any. Let's not make it sound cooler than it was. So, Terry said that the black lords sometimes chose what she called conduits. Now, these were human beings who became sort of possessed by evil and proceeded to spread icky energy to everyone around them. And it shouldn't surprise anybody to hear that these conduits were usually people who had managed to get themselves on Terry's shit list

or who had crossed her in some way. Hmm. For some reason, one of these conduits was Devereaux Cleaver, the teenage daughter of Terry's right-hand woman Sandy, which is just weird, and we'll get some more of that later. Now, none of this was doing the cult member's mental health any favors. I mean, we laugh, but imagine genuinely believing that you're under attack by evil, powerful spirits from another plane. The stress of that must have just been unbelievable. I can't even imagine. I wouldn't want it, right? And in the midst of all this spiritual warfare against the black lords, Terry's recently ex-husband Glenn committed suicide. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Now, we told you earlier that Glenn's parents never approved of his marriage to Terry. And as it turned out, Glenn seems to have eventually realized that they were right. Because Terry was super controlling. If Glenn went to visit family or a friend, Terry would call him every half hour and ask when he was coming home. Sometimes she'd even drive over to where every one. and just sit outside in the car honking the horn until he finally just gave up and came out

which is really red flaggy scary behavior and they also clash sometimes about religion Glenn was never fully able to reject the Christian beliefs that his parents had raised him with and that frustrated Terry you know she wanted nothing less from all of her followers than full acceptance of her philosophy so by 1976 Glenn had decided

he wanted out of his marriage and he wanted out of conscious development. So Terry filed for divorce in November, and by January of 77, they had officially split, so a very quick divorce. Glenn was dead less than a week later. Terry said he'd left a note, and it said, and I quote, I, Glenn Cooley, give to Terry Cooley, all of my property,

both personal and real. This includes two boats, a 1972 Buick Limited, all jewelry and equipment for its making, all furnishings for the house on Dunhaven Road, Glenn had given Terry clear title to the house two weeks earlier, and all cash. I ask that this last will of mine not be contested by anyone in any way for any reason. Last but not least, I give all my love to my family and friends.

As explanation for all this, I can't really say what it is because of, but I can say what it is not because of. It is not because of divorce with Terry, past drug experiences, inability to cope, etc. What it is, I myself know, but don't have the words for. Very sad. Very sad. According to authorities, here's how it went down.

Terry found this note, locked in a safe where she kept some of her valuables. She called her friends Alice and Ben, who were both part of her conscious development in her circle, and they drove out to a lakeside cabin, Glenn's parents owned. Why they assumed he'd be there, I'm not really sure, but maybe that's where he was living since the divorce. They found Glenn's body in bed at the cabin. There was a can of beer on the nightstand, half empty, and Glenn had some kind of foamy liquid seeping from his mouth. When they moved his body, they found two pills underneath.

Later, a talk screen revealed the presence of Librium and Valium, two powerful prescription sedatives. The medical examiner ruled that Glenn had died of a drug overdose. At the funeral, Terry's behavior, rattled Glenn's mom. Her tears seemed performative. Glenn's mom said that she'd be crying and talking and then she would stop and look up to me to see my reaction. Oh, that's so creepy. So creepy. She said Terry didn't seem to be truly grieving at all. Terry claimed she was devastated by Glenn's death, divorce or no divorce. But her actions suggest otherwise.

When Glenn's mom challenged Terry in probate court, Terry called Glenn's sister and said that if the family testified against her, it would get ugly. Glenn's history of drug use would come up in court, she said. Oh, gross. Shame on her. Yeah, it's pretty clear how much she loved him, right? Disgusting. Get between Terry Hoffman and a little bit of money, it seemed, and you'd get bitten. Mm-hmm. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that a lot of the conscious development. members blamed Glenn's death on the Black Lords. And possibly as a means of ramping up the battle

against them, Terry soon started telling the members that their blood was being poisoned by the Black Lords. So, naturally, the solution to this was bloodletting, like you do. Of course. What else could you possibly suggest? Terry got a bunch of syringes and started literally draining the blood out of members' bodies like a damn ghoul. Ugh. A little vials worth. It's gross. For God's sake.

And just a quick question. Is anybody flashing back to the Dyes and Hassenkofft episode? I am. I am. Freaking bloodletting again. I know. It's got to be a control thing, right? Yeah.

Like a way to assure yourself that you can get your followers to do almost anything. Mm-hmm. I think for someone like Terry and someone like Dyson Koff, the little gremlin, that feels really good. Absolutely. And, you know, I think we said in the Dyson Koff an episode that we're surprised he didn't either we said it in the episode or I know I said it to you that I'm surprised he didn't end up with a cult, like with multiple followers.

And so, you know, here's somebody with obviously a similar personality and similar motivations who did end up with a cult. Yeah. It might have been the voice. He doesn't have the voice of a cult either. Who wants to join my cults? Colts are a very sticky business. You have to play them by the numbers.

I never get tired of doing it. Mirder. Oh, God, I fucking hate them. It's not about not getting caught, you see. It's about the attitude. We just never get tired of doing it. We just do it with each other all the time. All the time.

That's an awesome coughed voice. If you haven't listened to that episode, please, please. do. It's one of our favorites so far. Yeah. But I digress. Sandy Cleaver always Terry's helpiest helper was the main vampire, but Terry was the one calling the shots as to who needed this done. Of course. And apparently, this, this was a step too far for some of the conscious development members, because there seems to be, have been a minor exodus from the group shortly after this creepy shit started? Well, okay, it was partially the bloodletting.

It was also about control and money. One former member told reporter George Rodriguez, I was relying on someone else's judgment of me instead of my own judgment of what's right and wrong, and using Terry as the ultimate authority of my life rather than me as the ultimate authority. She also said, once you give up your own decision-making process to someone else,

however wonderful they may be, you've lost your integrity. To be part of Terry's world, you had to yield control to Terry. You had to let her drive, and you had to let her be the center of attention. Terry's world was a stage, and everyone else was just an extra. Some members also couldn't help but notice that Terry was taking donations for her own personal use. And Terry was telling her students that she was taking on physical punishment from the black lords on their behalf, to protect them from terrible pain. Well, bless her heart. You know, like Jesus dying for the sins of the people.

Terry Hoffman, a martyr for our times. Ugh, oh boy. Unsurprisingly, some people had a hard time believing that. The only part that surprises me is that anyone did believe it. the bullshit about the more expensive the stone, the more powerful it is. So by all means, buy some from me. Are you kidding me, people? Come on, that didn't raise a red flag for y'all.

So some people, understandably, started peeling off from the group. But Sandy Cleaver was more devoted than ever. This, despite the fact that Terry had blatantly stolen the expensive gemstones out of a piece of jewelry she'd borrowed from Sandy and replaced them with fakes. Well, allegedly. Allegedly. It seems clear to us, anyway. Totally. Sandy was convinced the jewelry store had swindled her,

even though the thing had been in Terry's possession for weeks. Sandy's devotion was unshakable. And Terry was telling her that Devereaux, Sandy's teenage daughter, had been taken over by the Black Lords. Terry said Devereaux was a great, powerful, negative being, who is attacking them and trying to deviate their energy, whatever the hell that means. Remember, campers, this is a teenage girl we're talking about.

Yeah, she was in the eighth grade. Yeah. Of course, Sandy bought it, hookline, and sinker. She was worried sick about her evil spirit-possessed daughter. She put protective totems under Devereaux's bed. She prayed for her. And in the summer of 78, Sandy drew up a will, leaving everything she had to Terry Hoffman. This was a considerable estate.

Sandy was a wealthy woman. Sandy's will didn't even mention her daughter Devereaux, which is just astonishing. That's amazing. Wow. But Devereaux had money of her own in the form of a trust fund worth about $125,000. And this is in 70s money, so it'd be worth a lot more today. Oh, much, much more. Yeah, about what, three and a half times that or something like that?

that. Yeah. And less than a week after Sandy wrote up her will, Devereaux made one too. A teenage girl made a will. And just like her mom, Devereaux left all her money to Terry in conscious development. And she wrote in the will that she didn't want it contested. Hmm. Yeah. Interestingly, Terry's ex-husband, Glenn, had a similar line in the will that left his estate to Terry. What a coincidence. Yeah. Teenage Devereaux's will was witnessed by two of the conscious development teachers, two of Terry's inner circle.

This is just beyond bizarre on a few levels. First, what teenage girl makes a will? And second, Texas law, at least at the time, I'm not sure about now, barred minors from writing wills. Even weirder, although Devereaux's will mentioned, that she considered Terry Hoffman a second mother, Devereaux's friends and her dad, Chuck, said this was absolutely not the case. Devereaux thought conscious development was weird.

And she just thought of Terry as her mom's weird friend. When Devereaux had friends over after school, she'd get embarrassed if Sandy's conscious development friends were there for a meeting or if Sandy was meditating in the living room. Oh, man, I can only imagine for some poor, you know, eighth grade kid, because you just Just when you're that age, you know, most people anyway, that you just want to fit in. You just want to be normal. I say most people because I wasn't really one of those people.

Like, I was fine with not being normal and not really fitting in. But most people at that age, at that teenage, they just want to, you know, be one of the crowd. And so to have your mom into all this stuff, reincarnation and levitation and crystal healing must have been hard on Devereaux. Everybody knows what we know it was, according to her friends and her dad. She was just an ordinary 13-year-old girl. She was into aerosmith. She liked boys and going to the mall. She wrote poetry.

She fought with her mom. In fact, she was fighting with her mom a lot these days. Later, her dad and closest friends would be totally shocked to find out about this will. It was mostly copied out of a legal book, by the way. But there were a few little touches that let Devereux personality shine through. She left her rock collection to her school. school science department. She left her artwork to her mom with notation, mom, friends forever. I love you a very great deal. And her dad was to get her school awards and her antique whistles. Oh, man, bless her heart.

She wrote, you're the best dad in the world. I love you a ton. Oh, bless her little heart. So we are going to stop it there for part one campers, but because we release both parts on the same day, if you want to Skip ahead to part two, go ahead. And if you want to save it for later, that's cool, too. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. Until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page.

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