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. By the late 1960s, he had shed his accent and become an energetic walker who trafficked in gossip and his Rolodex. There wasn't much around the Lake Lure home of Frederick von Mierers to indicate a fast-paced lifestyle and the idea that he was a prophet from the star Arcturus. Behind him were a golden Buddha and a massive display of pink azaleas and lilies that seemed to take up an entire wall. You see everything like it is. A year later, as a highschool senior, he ran into Frederick again. . A popular series called The Dark Forces sold as a complete set for twenty-five dollars. Karr said he had never heard of von Mierers until after his death. He had mastered enough Eastern philosophy to sound authentic. Montgomery soon invited Andreadis and von Mierers to meet with her at her home in Washington, D.C. "She asked me to write about alien life for her next book," Andreadis said. Any job they could think of that was a pain in the ass, theyd assign it to me. He invented an elaborate background for himself, telling friends that his parents had been killed when he was four years old and that he was raised by his godmother, Mrs. Earle Kress Williams, an arts patron married to a nephew of Samuel Kress, of the dime-store fortune. 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. Von Mierers would invite his more attractive and richer clients to his apartment. Eileen Ford then told me about another group operating in her agency, a cluster of bornagain Christians called Models for God. Of special interest to the tabloids were the models and ``life readings' or other advice von Mierers had given celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone and Rae Dawn Chong. They quickly annulled their marriage, but they have remained friends. Frederick von Mierers almost ruined my life." von Mierers told Jacki Adams, the Ford model who had come to see me, on one cassette. From somewhere, I heard music which sounded like an organ on a Moog synthesizer. A male supermodel on surviving an apocalyptic, vegetarian cult. "I went to one weekend seminar," a businesswoman named Christina Andrews told me. For years, Freddie Mierer, or Meyer, as he was reportedly known before he took on the name von Mierers, was like many people you meet in New York. It is through such negative thoughts that the dark forces work. It was the go-go 80s. He will buy everything for you." The girlfriend of a handsome young relative of mine called me in a state of panic. When I saw him in Venice, he just sat right down with me at Harry's Bar. EVERY PAGE. They told me then to make two payments in cashone $8,000, one $3,000. You must write that I am the reincarnation of Jeremiah from the Old Testament. When youve been in a cult and you meet new people at a dinner party, youre never quite sure when to bring it up. staffer, who was conned out of $62,000 by Anna Sorokin, questions Netflix's decision to pay the proven criminal more than . They came after me and talked me into coming back. These are the ones that I prescribe. How could I have been duped like that for solong? I have rubies and sapphires! . He lived in this awesome apartment and had all these young, intelligent and wealthy followers. Von Mierers was still strictly smalltime; his only platform was a regular stint on a call-in radio show. (''Only a clear understanding of how the Evil Forces work will enable people to make it through the precarious times that lie ahead. "Frederick got me an apartment in the building. The ring had twelve of my own diamonds in it, and I was shocked when I learned that the whole ring was worth at most $15,000, because Frederick had told me that the stone was worth $23,000. As she became more involved with John Andreadis, von Mierers pushed her to take the gems. While I was at Fabios, I began doing a lot of reading. The minute I saw that group, I knew I was in a cult. I am creating the greatest comedy on earth. "Why do you have to be a gem salesman? "It was Frederick's idea to strip us of our egos through sexual humiliation," a model told a prosecutor in the office of the Manhattan district attorney. East Side Alien: Frederick von Mierers, who claims he's from the star Arcturus. Purely by coincidence I met a modeling agent; the next summer I was cast in a big ad campaign for Geoffrey Banks. "You are so pretty-pretty-pretty-pretty, my wonderful birds," he said, kissing their beaks. "Freddie used to tell us all in those days that he had spent $20,000 to decorate it, which was a tremendous amount then!". Man died Wednesday. "I can't begin to tell you how handsome he was." A lot of it I think has to do with learning to find acceptance within yourself, and not relying on others for your self esteem. Is a "Dangerous" Distortion, Says Rachel Williams. " Still, at the group dinners, Adams would hear von Mierers tell the women models, "You need to sit on a six-foot dildo in the middle of Park Avenue." " Adams, at her most psychologically fragile, agreed to do her time on "mail duties." Control is subtle. Dr. Thomas Clark, who appeared on the ``Inside Edition' report last week, confirmed von Mierers died of AIDS. . Andreadis's mother, Barbara, who owns a New York talent agency, began to worry. I have been in journalism a lot longer than you, young lady! "You see how terrible your families are?" He's saying, 'Don't hit me!'.. Eileen Ford asked me. .Frederick was hitting him in the faceabout fifty times!smashing his head against the floor and everything. What came out of John was just a hatred of Frederick instead of a complete submission, which indicates humility on the part of the soul. ``They pretty much stayed to themselves.'. "I come from a very rich family," he once told a TV interviewer. The cult was called Eternal Values. "That's $500,000 wholesale!" ``They were rather reclusive,' Police Chief Frank Fritts said. I would not recommend the path I took, but Im grateful now for the life that is mine. The spirit of Jeremiah walked into my body. Do you see the ego there? Hoyt Richards was dubbed the worlds first male supermodel, pulling in a minimum of $15,000 a day. Bey told him, "You know what I really think? "I had found them through Ruth Montgomery's book. That summer she began her spiritual quest in earnest. Von Mierers would often warn his New Age leaders to beware of Jews. I can get you these gems at cost!' Immediately! He hasn't taken me," Joe Hunter told me. We all lived together in the same apartment building. Like von Mierers, they were dressed in expensive clothes. $769.99 / piece Size: 49in. Catherine Edelmann asked on a tape. "You will all be dead within ten years. Maybe you remember seeing it on late-night public-access cable TV. I worked with photographers like Bruce Weber, Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton. "Handle them carefully," one of the young men said to me. Von Mierers had decorated the other apartments exactly like his own. Close to sixty people attended. "I almost had a nervous breakdown," she told me. People don't even know themselves, do they? Life after a cult has been challenging and terrifying and liberating. "Her ideas are good," von Mierers said. It was impossible not to notice that von Mierers's friends all wore large gems. .From where do these thoughts arise? LAKE LURE MANSION HOUSED STAR PROPHET LEADER SOUGHT REFUGE BEFORE DYING OF AIDS. "I was making over $300,000 a year," she said. Sutherland 48 in. A decade ago, Montgomery was a Danielle Steel of New Age literature, a forerunner of Shirley MacLaine. Were all in one kind of cult or another. "No one is recruiting here! Group members were encouraged to patronize special doctors, nutritionists, and the chiropractor David Seaman. Pressed about other people who claimed he had cheated them, he said, "These are jealous, sick, twisted people. 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.' Black Vanity with Carrara Marble Top. Kathleen Turner and her. John Richards Hoyt was 16 when the 30-something Von Mierers approached him at the beach. ''Germans have created everything, '' he told me. They all came with bogus appraisals. Basically, at this point, Ive shifted the shame to a place where I think of myself as a survivor. Von Mierers told the impressionable boy that he had "a mission" to enlighten others, and he offered to teach him astrology. There was a big Vanity Fair expos at one point in the early 90s; I was involved with them for more than 20 years, from 1978 through1999. It was late summer 1987, and Jacki Adams, the Elizabeth Arden model, at twenty-two was earning more than $300,000 a year. About this time a Ford model named Susanne Gregard attended von Mierers's regular Wednesday-night "family dinner" for the inner circle of the group. I thought there was the possibility for real violence. For that, you feel a sense of shame. I had a Life Reading done by Frederick von Miers in the late 1980's. Although I did not get to meet him, I believe he was honest in the concept he passed on to some of us and that he was a Walk-In. Eternal Values is unusual in that many of its young devotees have a lot of cash to spend on von Mierers's healing gems. As the Manhattan D.A. "Hasn't it always been part of the reputation of the Ford modeling agency that you protect your young kids from being taken advantage of?" The real reason I left was because I felt like a failure. von Mierers would tell them. The gem operation was confined to New York, although von Mierers also used jewelers in Washington, D.C., and Iowa to obtain stones. He used to tell friends that he went to the Professional Children's School, although there is no record of him there. ' If anyone in the room argued with him, von Mierers would scream, "You either come to my way of thinking or the dark forces will destroy you.". I thought, How can he have such sway over these attractive people? Im here. Splintered family relationships of the type familiar to anyone who has had experience with cults. "We are not a cult," von Mierers told me angrily during the strange afternoon we spent together. Von Mierers told anyone who asked that Andreadis had left the group because of an experience he had had with a black Marine. I don't know anything about this!" They never saw that side in Lake Lure, however. They all had striking similarities; they were young, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, and quite good-looking, with taut, muscular bodies. I believe in the master race!". $699.99 / piece Size: 31in. It's a joke! "These kids are legal age." 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." Frederick insisted on cash. Even today, years after Charles Manson and the Jonestown mass suicides, more than two thousand cults continue to operate in America. "When we started Eternal Values, it was completely benign, really nothing more than a spiritual merchandising scheme," a former associate of von Mierers's who is now cooperating with the Manhattan district attorney's office told me. . Studio Design Collection. He swept into the room and said, 'I come from Arcturus. But I was impressed with the people he had managed to have around. The former V.F. He said, 'These gems will help you! In the last five years, close to eight thousand people have contacted Eternal Values seeking its merchandisecassettes and videos, books and pamphlets, diet plans which urge specific food combinations and colon cleansing, personalized astrology, and psychic "life readings.'' They are essential for every sincere seeker of the Truth. ") Often he had $30,000 or $40,000 in cash in his apartment. Like best-selling author Whitley Strieber (Communion, Transformation), who details his visitations from space people, Montgomery seems completely in the thrall of her vision. Freddy said to me, youre different, Hoyt says, speaking directly to the camera. (''This cassette describes how the one Principle of Cosmic Intelligence expresses itself. For that offense they shaved my head. "Freddie used to say to me, 'With these gems, they hold you close to their heart. I don't think that is a spiritual pursuit," Andreadis says he once told von Mierers. After a hard day's work, exhausted young models could be seen in the building spinning von Mierers's laundry and mopping halls. They are, in the main, blessed with ample salaries from good jobs. ''Cash would come in for the gems from all over the country," Andreadis told me. "Frederick shut me in a room until it was finished," Adams said. Ruth Montgomery detailed von Mierers's relationship with Mrs. Williams in Aliens Among Us: "In company with his dowager godmother, Frederick traveled the high roads of Europe, meeting socially with the Queen of England and European aristocracy. 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. . He even let me drive one of his Porches. Beware.. .the path of the razor's edge is sharp," he told one model. "Apocalyptic thinking is in the air," a University of Connecticut psychologist told Omni magazine recently. He could no longer walk; a Lucite cane rested by his side. "Don't ever carry a Vuitton bag!" He would say, 'This sapphire is $50,000, this emerald is $70,000.' Adams was at first taken in by von Mierers's techniques. No unity can be achieved here in the physical world. But don't mention that I have them here," von Mierers told me during the afternoon we spent together. "We must spread our message to help humanity." 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? "Of course, he was never a spiritual person.". Natural Vanity with Engineered Marble Top. '. Send it to The Daily Beasthere. "It was like being in a meeting of Nazi storm troopers," Hartwell told me. Perhaps as a way of breaking free, Andreadis and Adams married in November. Perhaps von Mierers's ability to mesmerize so many young peopie comes from the very persona he labored to develop as he made his way up the social ladder of New York. A hydrogen-light body. One apartment, 6E, was used as the office, and had desks with computer screens, shelves of merchandise, and files containing thousands of letters and orders for von Mierers's services. Later, Hoyt went to Princeton and became a member of Cap and Gown. "There was something endearing and maybe a little sinister about that." "I came to New York from Houston to my mother's apartment and saw her checkbooks," her son, Claude Williams, told me. There is no punctuation in it.' Mostly it was menial jobsdoing dishes and laundry, scrubbing toilets, doing vacuum packing. The gem business has always been predicated on the notion of caveat emptor; a stone is worth what the customer is willing to pay. They could help you. Eternal Values was my reality. The anxiety attached to the end of an era, much less a millennium, inevitably produces collective madness. 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 can't miss it,' he advises lake visitors curious about the house. We had a mission. 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