We thought the end was at hand. von Mierers was recently asked. Von Mierers invited him to his apartment, and Andreadis recalled, "It was Zen, it was so beautiful. "That always sounded suspicious to me," a friend of von Mierers's told me, "but he was always around with Mrs. Williams, and she was such a sweet old lady." Hunter soon signed Hoyt under the name Hoyt Richards. "We are not a cult," von Mierers told me angrily during the strange afternoon we spent together. He says he gave von Mierers $17,000 for a sapphire, a topaz, and a cat's-eye which von Mierers assured him he was getting for an astonishing bargain price, "way below wholesale." I would never have made it without the help of my old friend Fabio, the spokesmodel. The group members watched me suspiciously, and, as in the faces of the Jonestown survivors in news photos, behind their blank stares was fear. "All the people here went to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton!'' Certain female members of the group were reportedly encouraged to seduce rich men. When I look around, I see that, to a greater or lesser extent, we all have cultic relationships with peoplerelationships where the person we love, the person from whom were seeking approval, is also the one who is dishing out the abuse. "Freddie used to say to me, 'With these gems, they hold you close to their heart. Everyone I am training for leadership will have perfect features. "Then it became something else. The terrible earthquakes, the storms that will beset humanity! "This is a holy place.". "I told her, 'A young lady should have the best of everything.' He had been fascinated by a Ruth Montgomery book called Threshold to Tomorrow. He later told Ruth Montgomery that he had undergone what she called a "bewildering substitution of egos." Still, they control ourmind. .. Frederick says that he realized 'even then' that Helen Williams had been his mother in several previous lifetimes, and they were almost inseparable. He hasn't taken me," Joe Hunter told me. She seemed to have abdicated all responsibility, resigned to the vulnerabilities of young beauties who often come from troubled homes. "My first impression was that he was a crazy. Pulsating ionization machines cleansed the air, and billowing clouds were painted on the walls. Enrolled now at Columbia as a freshman, Andreadis often helped von Mierers do the charts. The weird thing was, in this crazy screwed up way, I believed they were right to punish me. . In Aliens Among Us, Montgomery, a former journalist, devotes sixty pages to von Mierers and his persona as a citizen of Arcturus, as well as his astonishing psychic abilities. I am creating the greatest comedy on earth. My nickname in the group was Dipshit. "Frederick immediately saw that we needed an organization, merchandise, a name!" . . We were sitting in his apartment, an elaborately decorated aerie on East Fifty-fourth Street. Later, Hoyt went to Princeton and became a member of Cap and Gown. "Let me tell you something! There is no punctuation in it.' He had mastered enough Eastern philosophy to sound authentic. "How could an obvious phony like this convince so many smart, attractive young people in New York that he was for real?" Karr visited the house occasionally, until the ``no trespassing' signs went up several months ago. I first heard about von Mierers three years ago. Montgomery's belief in von Mierers so overwhelmed him that he would read her chapters out loud again and again to his followers, as if to convince himself that they were true. If challenged about the Holocaust, von Mierers would repeat the most banal anti-Semitic propaganda: "The Holocaust has been exaggerated"; "Hitler was a misunderstood genius"; "Jews have to understand that their natures encourage pogroms. ' . I bought an emerald. At its peak, there were perhaps one hundred active members. There were many mirrors, plump lavender sofas, and reproduction Egyptian furniture. . ``They pretty much stayed to themselves.'. When Aliens Among Us was published, his fantasy was realized. They all had striking similarities; they were young, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, and quite good-looking, with taut, muscular bodies. I'm going to smash the shit out of you!' I was like, Oh my God. At night he held court and gave his friends cleaning chores to help them to work on their inflated egos. Cults have always attracted those with deficiency needsmissing pieces of psychological makeup that family, religion, or education did not supply. They never saw that side in Lake Lure, however. Soon he was attempting to find work as a society decorator and furniture restorer, living in a tiny apartment on East Forty-ninth Street which he had decorated in Baldwin style. With marketing, with the news, with politics, with the military and different religions and forms of government, I see forms of mind control all the time, everywhere. "Frederick is very spiritual," Wyatt later told me. His looks fading, he went to California for cosmetic surgery. "We had a conversation about various things that had already occurred in my life, ' ' Hoyt told an interviewer. . I got suspicious when he demanded cash, but the group members said, 'This is what we've done.' He would tell prospective buyers that he was able to get stones at a tremendous discount, which the inflated appraisal papers would confirm. "We must spread our message to help humanity." Even William Scranton III, the former lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and son of the former governor William Scranton, once bought gems. Overhead was costly, so the early gem prescriptions were for semiprecious stones. The inner circle called itself the group. At its peak, there were about 100 active members, some at the Manhattan apartment, some in a big loft building in Brooklyn. One client tried to force me to hire him. Other principals in the von Mierers' story are equally hard to reach. How could I have been so gullible? Von Mierers would wax eloquent on the legendary Hindu belief in the healing properties of certain precious gems. We spoke what youd call New Age jargon. An endorsement by Ruth Montgomery would confirm everything he had told his young followers about his life. I looked past Frederick von Mierers and stared at an arrangement of satin pillows in mauve, turquoise, and teal on a pale-blue sofa. "I can't begin to tell you how handsome he was." We are not a cult.". One weekend in the country, Adams says, von Mierers told her, " 'If you ever want to be around John again, you have to buy these stones.' and 'You are a fucking, sick, evil, satanic piece of shit! My mother was not that rich. His hair was the color of canned pineapple; his eyes were hard, cold blue, the eyes of a man who finds little surprising anymore. . One night, in a fit of insomnia, von Mierers thumbed through the book of Revelations. The stones were impressively large and set in heavy golden bands. Andreadis explained that he came from a wealthy family and had always been interested in spiritual pursuits. We all know its not. He put me up in his house for almost 18 months. But little did the world know that he was deeply involved in a terrifying cult. "It is possible to raise the vibration of your consciousness through the. Every few moments, the birds spread their wings. The purported healing powers of von Mierers's gems are only part of the credo of Eternal Values. Jeremiah will take over your body.' Deputies in Davidson County rushed to help a 69-year-old man they'd found unresponsive in his house following a welfare check. He is trying to alienate him from all of us!" As the years passed, we re-located to North Carolina. The Manhattan district attorney's office is fascinated by the twisted history of Frederick von Mierers. When youre 16 and going through a rebellious stage, having an adult who will talk to you like an adult really gets your attention. Did it matter? Often he had $30,000 or $40,000 in cash in his apartment. Don't hit me!' Von Mierers seemed to be disintegrating, and according to several former acolytes, increasing quantities of hallucinogens were being consumed by certain members of the group. John was saying, 'Don't hit me, Frederick. He seemed to enjoy titillating the group with talk of "chocolate lords." View cart for details. Nonnegotiable! The gems, he would say, are for ''special people, only the elite." "My dear friend the great society decorator Billy Baldwin taught me everything about color,'' von Mierers told me. . When the cheerleading coach broke the news to Katrina Kohel that she was the only one left on the cheer squad, Kohel was determined to compete anyway. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. It was common knowledge in the inner group that von Mierers had a collection of Polaroids he had taken of black men endowed with huge organs. I was appalled by Frederick. By age eighteen she had been on the cover of British Vogue. As my career picked up, people began calling me the first male supermodel. They are as candles in the dark to prevent you from falling into delusions," he said on one cassette. He said he had come to Earth to warn people of an impending apocalypse, and to train his students to become leaders in the aftermath. . "My gems help me to see things clearly," an IBM executive named Pete Olson told me. I am only interested in archduchesses and lords! And Rutherford County officials in charge of von Mierers' now-cremated corpse have also said Seaman tried to get them to sign a death certificate for von Mierers. "Interior decorator 28 years old . When I called Ruth Montgomery to discuss von Mierers with her, she was defensive and refused to speak for attribution. "Frederick was brilliant at puffing us all up," Adams told me. . "I was never paid," he said, "but I believed what Frederick said. Hoyt Richards was dubbed the worlds first male supermodel, pulling in a minimum of $15,000 a day. The man's famil, Growing up in Goldsboro, Greensboro Day senior Jaydon Young averaged 25.9 points per game as a freshman at Wayne Christian. "It was like being in a meeting of Nazi storm troopers," Hartwell told me. "I was the most powerful political columnist in America," she told me. More, she had been taught to dress by a fine stylist who had taken her to Chanel and Scaasi to rid her of the jeans and sneakers of her modest Florida childhood. One tenant in the building had to stop a doorman from letting in a threateninglooking group of men on their way to 4N, von Mierers's apartment, at three A.M. "I said, 'Lock the doors! He was a "sprite," as one acquaintance phrased it, "cute, cute, cute," the toast of the beaches at Cherry Grove on Fire Island in the 1960s. Ha, that seems so simple when you say it. Von Mierers describes on them past lives of clients; this one was a "healer'' in Egypt, that one a "courtesan" in ancient Rome. Mr. Richards, shown above, organized and produced the . . "I have a very large income, and I spend it helping children." The evil forces are everywhere.". I had another question: Was it, in the end, the need to make his mark in louche New York that caused Frederick von Mierers to believe so totally the myths he had created about himself? Now she could talk about philosophy until dawn with a new group of friends who had little to do with the artificial world of fashion. Part of many life readings was a "gem prescription." Natural Vanity with Engineered Marble Top. No matter what I did, I couldnt seem to measure up. "Freddie was always bringing me kids to sign," Hunter told me. Frederick Von Miers Sciences Education Art Writing & UFO - Page 2. Von Mierers gave me an appraisal from a West Forty-seventh Street jeweler who said the ring was worth $58,000. What is a famous model doing here? Even today, years after Charles Manson and the Jonestown mass suicides, more than two thousand cults continue to operate in America. It was right at that time when models were becoming celebrities. In Welcome to the Beyond, which premiered at Doc NYC on Tuesday, director Brent Huff deep-dives into Hoyts double life. We are here to warn you! Who knows? As unbelievable as it sounds, never once during my two decades with the group did I ever consider I might be a member of a cult. As she became more involved with John Andreadis, von Mierers pushed her to take the gems. We all want the gems,'' I had heard a Princeton honors graduate and devotee of Eternal Values say on a cassette about the stones. Subscribers have complete access to the archive. Im a textbook cultvictim.. Splintered family relationships of the type familiar to anyone who has had experience with cults. "Frederick shut me in a room until it was finished," Adams said. By 1976 he was listed in the New York Social Register, and he carried it with him everywhere, as if to call attention to his social stature. "I said to him, 'Come on, John, do you really think you're from another planet?' The speaker was emaciated, obviously very ill, but swathed in white cashmere, flawlessly groomed. But when I got the ring, I could immediately tell they had switched the stones. Montgomery had been so moved by Andreadis's letter that she felt compelled to consult the Guides. There, in 1978, he met a sixteen-year-old named John Hoyt. von Mierers would say. Eternal Values does not approve of my marriage. " The gem operation was confined to New York, although von Mierers also used jewelers in Washington, D.C., and Iowa to obtain stones. He was strewn with stones! He told me, 'Give me $9,000 cash to paint it. Uproar ensued. When I stayed with him and his (friend) John, we would visit studio 54, dance-atria, and strawberries underground quite often and never paid for anything. " Von Mierers's apartment became a hangout. Were they real? one exclaimed. . He described Frederick as "an internationally renowned Hindu astrologer and lecturer in the underlying unity between science and religion. Von Mierers himself had two large rings on his middle finger. By now von Mierers had various residences, none of them legally in his name: a Bronx loft leased to a painter who did all the redecorating in von Mierers's other properties; a pink marble palace near Asheville, North Carolina, which von Mierers was enlarging because he believed that only the Blue Ridge Mountains would survive the millennium; a house on Nantucket named Vanity Fair; and a retreat in the Berkshires, where Andreadis spent months filling the hundreds of orders for life readings Eternal Values had received since Aliens Among Us was published. Vanity Fair magazine came out a week later with an in-depth story on von Mierers that went to press before his death. His skin was inordinately smooth, as if conferred by careless plastic surgery, yet there was nothing youthful about him. It was an era in New York of crazy religions, cults, and odd self-help groupsest, Scientology, Synanon, and Arica. Any job they could think of that was a pain in the ass, theyd assign it to me. ", GREENSBORO Jurors found TikTok star Jessica Middlebrook, known as towtruckjess on social media, not guilty of involuntary manslaughter Thu. Later, in therapy, I would figure out I was repeating a pattern from my childhood. Sometimes I would have to go out to the end of the dock and do 15 belly flops as a form of self-punishment because supposedly Id been a dickhead that day. "I recognized him as a phony," Jocelyn Kress told me. Control is subtle. "He was always accusing me of ego, as if that were a bad thing! "I come from a very rich family," he once told a TV interviewer. Von Mierers had learned what it took to glide through New York's best drawing rooms. Slowly, I became mesmerized by him." I looked at them in a loupe. I thought, This is a holy place." When asked recently about his relationship to Mrs. Williams, he said, "She was my great-aunt. "Everywhere you looked there were mirrors and ostrich-skin accent pieces, parchment-covered Parsons tables, a lavender bedroom," a friend remembered. She was told that it was her duty "to lie, to cheat, to make up any story" to ensure von Mierers's security. Lacking a sense of the past, the group is bound together by its loyalty to von Mierers and its belief in a dark futurethe possible triage resulting from the greenhouse effect, the shifting of the earth's poles, the melting ice caps. . "You'll never be a Ted Koppel unless you have manners!" "As far as I'm concerned, he's a crumbum.". On the weekends I would bring up a couple friends with me from school. Internationally renowned Hindu astrologer and lecturer in the dark to prevent you from falling into delusions, a... To anyone who has had experience with cults `` Frederick is very spiritual, '' Hunter! Visited the house occasionally, until the `` no trespassing ' signs up... 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