By many, many other names: The many lives of the late Avatar Adi Da Samraj

Part 2

This week, we will look at how Franklin Jones led his followers through to the new millennium (including the legal tumult of the 80s), the New Zealand side of the story, and where the group and some of its ex-disciples are now.

As a refresher, Jones had a habit of changing both his and his sect's names whenever he underwent a spiritual transformation. This can make research a bit difficult and time consuming.

According to the Encyclopedia of Hinduism (2007) the name change timeline is thus:

Late 1960s: Received the spiritual names of Dhyanananda and Love-Ananda from Swami Muktananada.

1972: When his religious community got underway, he initially went by Franklin but soon went by Bubba Free John

1979: Became Da Free John

1986: Became Da Love-Ananda (although some publications in the early 80s refer to a Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda)

Late 80s: Da Avabhasa (The bright)

1990: Became Da Kalki

1994: Adi Da Love-Ananda Samraj

1995: Became Adi Da Samraj

Da Avadhoota, a likely play on the Sanskrit word avadhūta, is also referenced in some sources, while the Wikipedia page lists other name changes as Dau Loloma, Hridaya-Samartha Sat-Guru Da, and Santosha Da.

The naming of the sect goes through a similar metamorphosis with the group's magazine also changing names alongside it:

The gist of Jones' belief system was that the belief in the self and a personal ego is an illusion that separates oneself from transcending to the enlightenment that God is all. Transcendence, or the reunion with God, can be achieved by entering a devotional relationship with God and moving through the seven stages of life. But there was a catch: Jones was the only person who was at the seventh stage and the only person who could reach it. Still, if you turned your devotion to Jones, then you too could feel transcendence by proxy.

Where the controversy lies is with what passed for devotion in various forms the Joannine Daist communion took over the decades before finally becoming Adidam.

Source | Franklin Jones (L) and Aniello Panico (R)

During and beyond Goddess and the Garbage

In the long tail that is the aftermath of the Saturday Night Massacre, he made his first attempt to move away from the teaching aspect of being a guru and, in December 1975, announced “ The Way of the Divine Communion”. From that point onward, Jones intended to only teach mature devotees and leave the management of his ashram to said disciples. As for the rest, he developed two paths of devotional practice. A practical one which included a lacto-vegetarian diet, having one sexual partner, and a productive work life; the spiritual path, which accompanied the practical one, required disciples to “...remember, surrender, love, and yield your life and circumstances to God through [Jones]” once or twice a day. There were no obligations to study or to the community in particular with the expectation that devotees would tithe regardless.

In 1978-79, was another year of change and transformation for Jones as he established an ashram in Hawaii called Da Love-Ananda Mahal and he dropped the Bubba and added Da as a signifier of his divine nature and completion of the seventh stage of life. However, it is a process that he likens to a crucifixion and one that has changed him internally and mentally, if not externally:

“But during the last year and a half a kind of bodily and mental crucifixion has been occurring, a transformation of the body, in which I have less and less capacity to enter into casual relations with people. Very dramatic physical changes have occurred many times, not so much in outward physical appearance as in the glandular system, the functioning of the gross organs, including digestion and the heart, changes in the brain,changes in the nervous system. These changes are an extension of the process that has been active in my case for years; but they are an intensification of that event, in order to provide a vehicle for the demonstration of this Teaching in its highest form.”

In 1980, Jones made another claim at retirement and the end of his teaching by declaring his renunciation from all worldly concerns and the necessity from being involved in the life of devotees. Again, he attempted to put the onus on his followers to run the show as well as offer the opportunity to long-time followers to also practice renunciation. However, the number in this official order would be limited based on the ability of the church to support them; those who didn't make the cut could still practice renunciation but had to support themselves or be supported by others.

But, despite these proclamations, Jones still thought a lot of himself, his teachings, and his importance to the material world. In one talk, called Mark My Words, Jones envisioned himself as the saviour of the world (aka five billion slugs) but anticipated that it would take twenty years (or at least until 2003) for that to be achieved.

In the physical realm, a special hermitage was needed whereby Jones and his inner circle could conduct this important spiritual work. The California and Hawaii ashrams were not fit for that purpose but fortunately a wealthy member bought an isolated Fijian island from actor Raymond Burr in 1983. This particular wealthy devotee, Neal Stewart, is an interesting character in his own right. Certainly Australian educated and possibly Australian born, Stewart made his millions in the nascent tech industry of the 70s and 80s manufacturing power supply systems. In particular, he founded the company Astec with New Zealander Brian Christopher in Hong Kong in 1971. A meeting with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the late 70s led to Apple Computers being the first customer of Astec's power supply. As per his LinkedIn page, Stewart would go on to be the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of several more tech companies and hold multiple patents, including a handful for face masks that decrease the transmission of human pathogens. In 1985, it was reported that Stewart had donated approximately $3.5 million to Jones; between $2.1 and $2.5 million for the island and another $1 million for publishing operations. At the time access to the island, called Naitauba, was invitation-only and largely limited to members who were deemed spiritually mature or could offer a needed service to the island. Stewart, who had gifted Naitauba to Jones in 1983, did not visit the island until 1985. During his visit, he was fortunate enough to get a long hug from his guru, which he thought was totally sufficient.

The Defectors and the Divine Emergence

1985 was also a bad year for Jones and his sect in a legal and reputational sense. Former followers approached the media with their stories of sexual and financial exploitation, indicating that the sexual theatre that Jones had presented as a short lesson in Crazy Wisdom was an ongoing exercise in indulgence and manipulation that did not end in 1974. Starting in April, media outlets throughout California dissected what was then called the Johannine Daist Communion. Former members like Jacky Estes, Mark Miller, Beverly O'Mahoney went public with their eyewitness or first-hand experiences of sexual molestation, unlawful imprisonment, and, despite his claims of divinity, a fairly human preference for drugs. Miller and O'Mahoney would go on to launch multi-million dollar lawsuits against the group. O'Mahoney, who was going through a bitter divorce from then president Brian O'Mahoney, had her suit dismissed but Miller and two other suits came to an out of court financial settlement.

While only a year old when the events took place, Jonathan Hirsch reports that the group cooperated with the Today Show as a means to get their side of the story out there. Unfortunately for them, the defectors had their say as well. Adding to the criticisms of the group was the treatment of children at the sect's own school, including the provision of alcohol in teens and children between the ages of 4 and 9 and in one incident, ordering a minor to undress against their will. It also entered the greater public consciousness that Jones keep a harem of 9 women or wives. The Today show expose can be viewed on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2

The negative public response to this piece contributed to the group going underground and avoiding public controversy for the remaining years of Jones' life. However, that did not mean that there weren't points of internal turmoil.

Recollections regarding public response to this controversy have been mixed. While the sexual elements of the accusations both titllate and disgust, the difference between Jones' and other groups at the time (e.g. Sri Chinmoy) was that he never claimed to be anti-sex nor require complete celibacy; moreover, it was baked into the teaching of the 70s that the group's sexual experimentation was intended to break boundaries. Another commentator noted that despite the cult and satanic panic scares of the 70s and 80s, followers of Jones were not public subjects of deprogramming or reeducation. Conversely, in his podcast, Dear Franklin Jones, producer Jonathan Hirsch interviewed a lawyer in one of the lawsuits, Ford Green, who was firm in his assessment that Jones was a narcissist and his group a cult, not a community. In 2006, when Jones was still alive, Adidam was once on Rick Ross' leaderboard of top 10 controversial groups. Adidam has their own website addressing their side of the controversy.

With a bit of digging through the Internet Archive and Rick Ross, you can read transcripts of newspaper articles and internet forum posts that offer a proper deep dive into this dark period for Jones and the interior lives of devotees in general. These include: Adi Da Archives, Cult Education Institute, Enlightened Spirituality, Daism Web Resource Index, Daism Forum Archives, and Daism Research Index

As for Jones, he did not respond directly to the controversy and weathered most of the storm at his Fijian hermitage. However, whether it was the stress of the controversy or an adulthood of hedonism taking its toll, Jones would begin a long period of ill health which began with a collapse/breakdown/panic attack on January 11, 1986. Making lemonade as best as any guru can, Jones claimed that he felt his life-force leave his body before convulsing and losing consciousness. He was successfully resuscitated but when his life-force came back, he brought the “bright”, which he had abandoned in childhood, back with him. This reunion of the divine in a physical body was unprecedented and provided Jones with the confidence to travel internationally, including a stopover in New Zealand from March 30th to April 7th, 1988. Jones would come to call future incidents “yogic events” which signified the completion of important divine efforts or works. Further yogic events were reported to have occurred in 1994 and 1997 (at a urologist's office). Jones would later attribute his 1986 yogic event to the loss of several members of the inner circle as well as five of the nine women in his harem.

The 1980s also entailed multiple changes in the image Jones' presented. Beezone, a website maintained by a Adidam follower, and archived copies of dabase.net included the many changes in hairline and fashion that Jones made through the 70s and 80s, including a few missteps at presenting himself as stereotypical swami or Indian guru before mainly landing on a new age guru look with occasional forays into orange robes.

Source | Jones in 1986

Source | Jones in 1990

Source | Jones in 1991

Source | Jones in 1996

By the early 1990s, Jones made his final transformation into the name that he is known by today, Adi da, and group Adidam. And he largely kept quiet with the exception of his 1994 and 1997 yogic event and a more serious health event while visiting Seattle in April 2000. Similar to his 1986 collapse, Jones would take these panic attacks and repackage them for his followers as an event of apocalyptic proportions and blamed his followers for failing to bring in important people, calling this one the Ruchira Dham Event. What made this event different was that rather than the “bright” descending into a human body, he instead had ascended into the bright and his work until his death would be pure communication of his entire enlightened state.

Jones finally called it quits on the teaching side of Adidam after nearly 26 years of failing (or refusing) to properly do so and devoted the rest of his life to his art which served as his means of translating the bright to the world. His art was interesting enough for him to be invited to the 2007 Venice Biennale.

To be quite honest, I really like Jones' art despite myself.

Eat your heart out Sri Chinmoy.

Source | Jones' Alberti's Window 1 (from Genome One)

Death and Jones' legacy

Jones died of a heart attack in Fiji in 2008 and like other groups I've profiled, Adidam today has been stuck in stasis with no successor having been named. As with all things on the internet, the longer the group itself survives the easier its job is when it comes to cleaning up the guru's reputation. Much of Jones' writings are transcriptions of his talks and there are accusations that current Adidam members are editing out the more controversial bits to make Jones' more palatable. Anti-Adidam information is hard to come by and old forums and websites that archived any piece of Jones' wrongdoing have disappeared unless someone had the immense foresight to preserve them via the Wayback Machine. On the other hand, the internet archive has also made it possible for long lost works like Garbage and the Goddess to be made accessible again; all that remains is the rerelease of the Garbage and the Goddess documentary that Adidam continues to suppress.

Adidam and New Zealand

The earliest mention of a connection between Adidam and NZ comes from a transcription of a July 1976 article by Jack Garvy. Garvy refers to a seed community in Auckland, New Zealand and it is one of four international communities with the others being in Australia, Canada, and England. The Laughing Man Institute, the education arm of Jones' enterprise, is mentioned in a 2012 Herald article about West Auckland and Anawhata Beach. Apparently, the group was evicted by the local council in the 1970s. The Laughing Man Institute was also noted as one of the groups that were present at the Nambassa festivals in the late 70s. Robert Ellwood recalls the highly visible Dawn Horse Bookshop and Laughing Man Institute that was on High Street in Auckland at least through the late 80s. It is unclear when Adidam moved from its High Street premises but in 1992 they purchased a property in Henderson that now houses the bookstore. New Zealand still has the distinction of being one of just four international centres and of just twelve worldwide.

During the 1985 defector drama, The NZ Herald interviewed a former New Zealand member of the Johannine Daist Communion in the July 13th, 1985 edition of its Weekend Magazine. Given the pseudonym of Margaret, the informant was a then 34-year-old woman Aucklander who was living in San Francisco. Margaret was part of the informal group of defectors which included the previously mentioned Mark Miller and Beverly O'Mahoney although Margaret claimed that she had not experienced those excesses for herself. Margaret's exposure to Jones came through an extramural paper on comparative religions offered by Massey University, where she met one of his followers and went to San Francisco with him. Margaret and her now-second husband would work as landscapers at Jones' Hawaiian ashram. Margaret observed Jones becoming more distant with his followers as well as the extremes between his strict prohibitions regarding diet, and when couples could have sex, to the full on parties.

In 1988, Jones visited New Zealand for a week and gave several talks that were taped and can be viewed via the Adidam website: It's up to you, Self-observation, Beyond a Mediocre Life, Beyond Culture.

In a contemporary context Eve Tonkin and Dean Nungent, both Adidam members, were part of a team that was attempting to set up a democratic learning community called Whakamanawa Learning Community. It is currently unclear if progress has been made on this project. The larger spiritual community of Adidam in New Zealand continues to exist, hosting yoga retreats and other religious celebrations. Anke Richter reported on a documentary about Adi da, and produced by Adidam, that was screened at a Christchurch public library in 2019. You can sign up for a free online screening, in return for your email address, by following this link: https://consciouslightfilm.com/screenings/