The Third Time is the Charm

   

                                              by Cathryn Platine

Over the course of the twenty two years the Maetreum has been in New York we have had to start the first time and then start over after what we called the Insurrection five years in. About three years ago we had another “Insurrection” by a formally trusted priestess who grew impatience with me not dying and leaving her in control of everything. The past five or so entries here have been our response to the war waged against myself and the Maetreum. I took direct action last October against the rouge, defrocked ex-priestess and her married lover. Since then the attacks seem to have stopped.

It is now time to reboot the Maetreum yet again. The three other active priestesses live a distance away from the Maetreum. One in Canada and two others in Erie Pennsylvania. We need some fresh, young Novicates and the times almost demand we do a complete reboot to take up the fight for women’s and trans rights in the face of the rising tide of fascism all around us.

The first “Insurrection” took place shortly after we had properly incorporated and the Maetreum property deeded over directly the the newly incorporated Cybeline Revivial. We did seek and get a property tax exemption at that time. The attempt to take over the property was through the corporate structure by people who had no idea what our structure actually was. Our organizational model is fairly unique. We are a consensus based organization and the take over was made trying to use Robert’s Rules which absolutely no not apply. In a scotched earth upon that failure, the primary actor of the first Insurrection told the town we were an illegitimate religion and allowed the town to do a phoney inspection designed by and with the town attorney to justify removing our exempt status and refusing for years afterward to reinstate it in open defiance of New York law.

The second reboot required us to engage in an eight year long legal battle seeking our equal treatment under the law. We were forced to go to the highest court in the State after winning at the Appellate level unanimously. We won there .unanimously again and this time set a precedence now used across the country for the legal property rights of minority religions. At the same time we won the case, we applied for a low power FM radio license built the station and went on the air with the nations first and still possibly only, Pagan owned radio station. My health went to hell, the rouge priestess showed her hand and then Covid did an absolute number on us.

At this time we have an aging former Catskill resort inn, a caretakers house that serves as the primary studio for the radio station and a fifth wheel camper/mobile home that has three season water supply, waste hookup and 30 amp electric service. We have three plus acres of land, and an outdoor Temple. We have survived the past few years because we own the property outright so our expenses are exactly that, our expenses to maintain the property and utilities. At a time when the cost of housing, especially in our area, is simple out of reach of regular people, we are uniquely situated to house new Noviciates at a fraction of the going rate. Living communally is a bit different than most folks think of but really is just living as a family. You have your room and you share the other resources such as the kitchen, common areas and in our case, our large multi media library. You are expected to respect the personal boundaries of everyone else, which in retrospect, has been the source of most the past friction along with not understanding that the whole thing works only if everyone pulls their weight in the maintaining of the property understanding that living at the Maetreum is NOT a tenant/landlord situation. The expected share of expenses is just that, a share of the expenses, not a rent.

The property is deeded to the incorporated religion meaning no one or group of individuals can personally profit from it any in fashion under both State and Federal law. Both attempts against the property were to try to own it. That is not possible under our Organizational model.

If you feel the call to the Goddess, contact me at firstchurch@gallae.com.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

 Boundaries? I Got Your Boundaries Right Here    by Cathryn Platine

 

I received this email the summer of 2020 a year prior to our removal at Jeremiah Lennox’s urging of Viktoria Whitaker for lying, abuse and violation of all three of her oaths of elevation. At the time I dismissed it but as it turns out I should have paid attention to it.

KatyaDinnye@protonmail.com

8/6/20, 18:34

(No Subject)

Hi Cathy. You don't know me but I've heard a lot about you. Victoria Whitaker talks to everyone about how she is just waiting for you to die or be put in a home. I was there when she talked on the phone to a hospital you were in last summer, and she told them you're a pig and they should not send you to your home because you couldn't take care of yourself. I've been there when she told my friend that you stole your house from the people who paid for it by lying to them, and that she hates you for controlling her and for liking her rapist because he is your drug dealer. She talks to everyone about you dying from your heart or smoking or getting too sick to live in the house you're in, how she will make things better after that. She got really upset in January when you didn't die in surgery. She brought in a man to help her, and she says they are planning together to have a house without you. So maybe you're being played out by people who can't wait to celebrate your death. Or maybe she just tells big stories about you and she's a terrible person. I looked you up on the chance that this might be what's true. If so, I have done the only thing I can. Good luck to you. I'm not going to write to  you any more and I don't talk to her, but I listen. when she calls my friend. She doesn't care who hears as long as you don't. She tells everyone.

Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

This was confirmed later in a facebook reply to Jay Stewart, Julie Pousson stated;

“Jay Stewart, Vikki’s goal was to wait out Cathryn and take the place over. She stated this goal to me and to others. She profited off the losses she caused, and wholly deserves her fate.”

Clearly the man she brought in was Jay Stewart who has now been reported to his employer, UPS, for his terrorist activities in addition to the charges made to the FBI initially. The supposed rapist is Barry Lucas from the Phat Coffee House who not only did NOT rape her but resisted her unwanted stalking of him at his home after they had consensual sex that she bragged about to me several times. He is not my “drug dealer”. Apparently Viktoria was not shy about her plans and hatred of me while I was totally unaware of what a nasty, vicious, hateful liar she was. I hate doing so but will probably file a complaint with the New York tax people about Viktoria's campaign of lies via Jay which violates several state laws. While Jay has no resources to sue him for, Viktoria and her actual husband do. I do not even need a lawyer to file on my own behalf and perhaps I can find one to do so for the Maetreum as the real world damages are beyond a doubt as this point and her husband, Gary, is worth at least a million.

I did not want to have to continue to write about this but Jay started again with false, rambling libelous “reviews of the Maetreum" on Google business, now joined by “Rennie” (Deborah Graney) a convicted felon for writing bad checks and who was involved in firebombing my car and confessed to that in several Facebook postings!

We are now up to an accusation that I stole over a million dollars, which far exceeds the Maetreum’s total income for it’s entire history! The average income for the Maetreum a year is around 30 to 35 thousand a year for ALL our expenses including propane, electric, trash removal, property maintenance and repair and running the community radio station, which is duly licensed despite Jay’s repeated lies that it is not. Other than a few donations of under 50 dollars and a concert organized to fund a taller antenna by the Phat Coffee boys, the station and all it’s expenses has been funded by the Maetreum. The money raised at the concert went to buying the antenna which was never raised for lack of volunteers and sits out back and to pay music licensing fees for the station after asking those who raised it if that was ok. Once again, the bookkeeping of the Maetreum dictates that NO ONE gets paid or reimbursed. The money only flows in one direction and for fourteen years every single penny went through Viktoria’s hands as treasurer. Literally the only way any money could be misappropriated would have been if it was stolen from petty cash on the way to the bank, again ONLY Viktoria did that as the bank is in Albany and she set up the account herself. I live on below poverty level social security and most of that money is deposited directly in the Maetreum bank account as well as the royalties for book sales from the Cybeline Revival. Every penny ever in the bank account can be accounted for as for legitimate expenses. It held up under the attempts of the Town of Catskill to find anything fishy during our legal action against them.

These constant lies are taking their toll as intended. Now I am supposedly “wanted” in Ohio for contractor fraud. My business went bankrupt four years prior to my moving to New York and largely due to fraud on the part of a contractor I sub contracted for and resulting in my filing a mechanic’s lien against a church that is still active to this day due to shenanigans pulled in court by the bonding company and the judge's refusal to rehear the case as ordered to do so by the appeals court and then dying. I not only did not “flee” Ohio but after losing my company I worked for four years at pink collar minimum wage jobs while also engaged in national and local trans civil rights activism. If I was “wanted” I never heard about it. Not then, not ever.

I moved to New York after I was disabled in multiple workplace injuries in order to establish a home for newly transitioned transsexuals to bootstrap themselves because in those days (and it looks like the future now as well) you almost always lost everything and everyone in your life when you transitioned. Along with three other women of trans history, I put everything I had left into getting the property. We “stole it” from no one. At one point Jay claimed we cheated our lawyer…… quite the opposite as a matter of fact. She literally blackmailed us for additional funds at the end of the case and then kept all the court costs awarded to us. We never saw a penny of that money.

So, you ask, why are these people so dead set on destroying my life and the Maetreum? It’s called boundaries. Viktoria kept adding to our housing contract for those we took in with every specific violation of boundaries. It became almost a joke. No one was ever asked to leave who did not violate several of the rules and were given multiple chances. Most of the time they were asked to leave at Viktoria’s insistence! Many of the people such as Rennie and company she had placed binding spells on that I found while cleaning out the freezer. Viktoria was the one who invited most of these people to the Maetreum in the first place. The only one I recall bringing in was Julie who supposedly was not in need but going to contribute a full share but never did. Julie was NEVER told to leave, she set up a situation where social services told her not to return as recounted in a prior entry here. Whenever I set a boundary on behaviour or out and out abuse, I became the enemy of these people. Julie lied about her dog (an exception was made for it) being housebroken, it was not, and it bit at least five people I know of in two short months! She never had the funds she promised and her last act was to attempt to have social services invade what turned out to be our last Orphan’s Thanksgiving to force me to kick out an actual woman in need that she herself pushed on me along with Viktoria again, on Thanksgiving.  It was a case of pure karma.  I never told her to exit or whatever version Jay is pushing this week.

Most of those asked to leave stole from us and mostly myself on the way out and did damages to the property in the thousands of dollars. Police refused to take reports in all cases. What I finally learned from all this is you cannot help people on their way to rock bottom, only after they hit rock bottom. We never got any funding from any agency for taking folks in need in and I still do not regret that we did so but no longer trust my own judgment in doing so in the future. I was always a happy person, no longer. I am not sure I believe in the basic decency of people anymore having been shit on so completely and without end. Jay is taunting me now with “Jeremiah left you”. More accurately, seeing the unending and extreme harassment, he ran away before it came to him as well.

At a time when some trans folks are fleeing states where their very existence is being outlawed I now fear taking any of them in because I have been abused, gaslighted, libeled, slandered, threatened, had my car firebombed and attempts made to take over our home by criminals and sociopaths. I now live under siege as a result with cameras recording around the house and alarms set up to let me know if anyone comes on the property so I can defend myself if necessary. I am now 74 years old and going blind, can barely walk and living alone.

While the property of the Maetreum may not survive me at least I know the Cybeline Revival will through the work of our youngest priestess who is becoming a Goddess academic powerhouse and who teaches at a Pagan Seminary and publishes almost every month.

I keep hoping some sane Goddess women will join me before I pass so this property and the first Temple to Cybele in 1600 years will survive. I have dedicated my life to service of others in civil rights activism and taking in those in need on the meager means I have had myself. I can barely afford to live at this point and cannot even get dentures. This is apparently what you get for trying to make a better world.  Frankly I deserve a hellva lot better.

Postscript 10/15/23:   They are bombarding the Google business listing for the Maetreum with personal attacks as fast as Google removes them for violation of their rules.   This is due to my starting a new Facebook group for trans people feeling the call of the Goddess and posting it in another Facebook group with rules against the personal attacks and false accusations they trade in as an attempt to prevent us from doing anything positive. 

 10/16/23:  Today they started calling in for false wellness checks on me, I just had two social workers "drop by" because of the anonymous call in.   Word to the wise, done for harassment this is a felony in New York.

What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been --Part Three, the Insurrection

                                                                    

by Cathryn Platine

 

I have been writing this series of blog posts so as to leave behind the facts behind the deranged attacks being leveled against the Maetreum and myself all over the internet by Viktoria Whittaker and her psychopath lover, Jay Steward.

Viktoria’s assault on both the Maetreum and myself continues. She somehow didn’t get her certificate for becoming a third degree Corellian. She somehow was overlooked getting her Reiki master certificate and now, despite having been excommunicated from the only Cybeline Revival for openly breaking all three aspects of her oaths is somehow an “independent Cybeline Priestess. In fourteen years she did not contribute a single aspect of ritual, contribute any historical research and she uses the drumming pattern recovered by Dr. McMahon, Cybeline chakras I developed and the body of ritual I originated. Her basic dishonesty is staggering. A normal person forced out of a Pagan group for breaking their oaths and other crimes, would knock the dust off their feet and go on their ways especially knowing that my personal rules of engagement are not to pursue if the matter is dropped. An egomaniacal sociopath, on the other hand, would do what Viktoria has done. She mostly uses Jay Stewart as her proxy but make no mistake, all the things he says come straight from her. I cannot believe I was so clueless as to not see Viktoria for who she actually is and it has shaken my own faith in my ability to see people as they are to the core. It was not until the abuse started and she admitted she was a liar that I saw her as she is. I had told her for years one of the few things I could not stand was a liar because they left you nothing to work with.

Viktoria has sought out any and all people I may have had a conflict with for my entire life. If she hadn’t recently died, I’m fairly certain she would have sought out my ex spouse as well looking for anything that could be spun against me. The people she has allied with are often felons, mentally unstable people who have been in and out of mental institutions that we tried to help, drug addicts and the worst case, Chelsea Goodwin, a pimp of trans crack whores who with her partner, ran Transy House which was a trans themed crack whore house in Brooklyn. Many of the street girls from Transy House told me of how Chelsea would push them out to whore to raise money for her. I visited Transy House several times after I moved to New York and it looked exactly like what it was as anyone who ever visited the place can attest. Out of a misguided desire not to cast a negative image on that period of trans activism I have not said anything about any of this for decades now but as part of her alliance with Viktoria, Goodwin is once again targeting me using her radio show and passing on out and out lies about what we called “the insurrection”.

Pauline Park, founder of the New York trans activist group, NYAGRA , has written about how Chelsea almost destroyed that group  and I can attest she used exactly that same game plan on NTAC, the first grassroot national trans rights organization of which I was one of the founders. She has been notorious in NYC as someone who disrupts for the sake of disruption and managed to avoid ever having a psych professional evaluate her despite having “transitioned” and getting surgery she later expressed regret about in Europe. Psychopaths often have a common trait of gender fluidness and in the case of Chelsea this led to a de-transition to “Chet” for the sole purpose of pursuing a heterosexual woman as a lover outside her relationship with Rusty Moore. Chelsea is a self proclaimed vampire. Not the psychic type but an actual blood sucker. She has left in her wake a series of organizations she destroyed or attempted to destroy and mentally abused victims that passed through her hands. She has conned the greater LGBTQ communities of NYC that Transy House was a housing collective instead of the crack whore house it actually was.

Which brings us to Chelsea’s attempt to destroy the Maetreum of Cybele. Chelsea and Rusty sent many of their mentally ill people up to the Maetreum for rest for several years while both of them visited on a regular basis and participated in our rituals and even the Mysteries of the Season of the Tree. Many of these visitors visibly improved while here but in all cases, shortly after returning to Transy House were institutionalized for a period of time. I made the mistake of elevating her with several others after what would prove to be our most successful Season of the Tree in terms of participants including one who came all the way from Australia. Chelsea immediately started to try to totally disrupt our organization, not an easy feat given we are consensus based. Transy House was about to be condemned and Rusty sold it to her son for rehabilitation which meant Chelsea and Rusty needed a new base of operation. First they tried to remove the oldest priestesses in Conclave by adding a clause about not active participation. Then they worked on the lawyer who joined the same time Chelsea did. We were applying for our 501c3 status at this time and I had to stop the attorney from screwing the pooch just as she had done on my own Social Security disability case which cost me 15000 in lost benefits. Rusty never did join officially. The final step was to move into the Maetreum a totally insane trans person named Katrina who immediately started a campaign of abuse against me so bad I was even afraid to venture out to the bathroom. In the classic abuser pattern, Katrina disconnected my phone, came into my office room while I was sleeping and completely took my computer apart so I would be cut off from the outside world. Whenever I did leave my room she would take hundreds of photos of me trying for anything to use against me and when I tried to drive off the property she would jump in front of my car trying to make me hit her. All of this was at the direction of Chelsea.  While all this was going on Rusty hired a lawyer to try to take the Maetreum over legally. One of the people in on the phone call recorded it and I have a copy of that conversation where they are instructed to get me off the property and never let me back on because they had no legal case at all! All of the paperwork incorporating the church, the deed to the property, the organization model, the tax exempt paperwork and the 501c3 were prepared and signed by me personally. None of them appeared on any official document pertaining to the Maetreum and the lawyer knew it. I went to the State Police requesting they remove these people from the property and they refused because the fix was already in with the town of Catskill.

Chelsea personally threatened to carve me up like a turkey and they conducted illegal Conclaves (as Battakes I was the only person who could call a Conclave under our organization model). A couple I knew from Ohio were visiting and saw I was severely being abused and helped me move temporarily down the street into an apartment fearing for my life literally.

The year before all this went down we had applied for and was granted property tax exemption because the property was deeded to the incorporated church, the Maetreum of Cybele. Having driven me off the property, Rusty and Chelsea moved in temporarily and discovered maintaining a 150 year old inn was beyond their ability. Chelsea then told the Town of Catskill we were a sham religion which led to an illegal inspection I was left out of and resulted in revoking our tax exempt status. It took an eight year long legal battle and almost 100 grand in legal fees to get it back.

Chelsea wrote to others that the entire house was screaming at her to get out and they did leaving behind a couple of crack addicts and a vicious dog to keep me from moving back in. I managed to move back into the caretaker’s house at this time and shortly afterwards the crack addicts fled in fear I would take legal action against them. It was shortly after this that Viktoria became involved in the Maetreum during the period of time we had to rebuild much of what was physically destroyed during the Chelsea era. Chelsea and Rusty bought a property in Pine Hill and moved there.

Viktoria was totally aware of what Chelsea, Rusty and Katrina had done even though she had never met them at that point. That she would ally with them demonstrated better than anything else the length she will go to harm the Maetreum and myself even more than the verbal and physical abuse she aimed at me. I had trusted her completely even to the extent of making her my medical proxy and the executrix of my will. It was not until she lost patience in my not dying during open heart surgery that I finally had my eyes fully opened although apparently she was telling many other people she was just waiting for me to die.

In a facebook reply to Jay Stewart, Julie Pousson stated;

“Jay Stewart, Vikki’s goal was to wait out Cathryn and take the place over. She stated this goal to me and to others. She profited off the losses she caused, and wholly deserves her fate.”

Pay attention to that part, “she profited off the losses she caused” which can be taken that she was confessing having stolen petty cash she was supposed to deposit in our bank account! She did drive off the women who were priestess tracked undergoing classes during the Pandemic.

Viktoria even went so far as to hook up with someone she met through Chelsea named Cynthia Brian Kate, whom I met once fourteen years ago for about an hour at a trans event at Cauldron Farm. Together she and Viktoria produced a radio show that was an hour long false accusation of the Maetreum as a cult and myself as a cult leader. This was not only broadcast on an Albany community radio station, she then uploaded it to the entire Pacifica network distribution site! It was eventually taken off that site but the damage was done. Just in the past day of this writing Jay Stewart put up a libelist review on the Google Business listing for the Maetreum falsely accusing me of actual crimes and running a radio station without a license. This is why I have posted these last three blog entries. Not out of spite but as a self defense having waited over two years for these “people” to finally stop their insane, transphobic and religious bigoted attacks and to leave a record behind if something happens to me.

What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been -- Part Two

  by Cathryn Platine 

For the past couple of years both the Maetreum and myself have been under an almost never ending assault. That is why I am writing about our dirty laundry at this point because we now need to rebuild from almost scratch yet again and one can only be bullied just so much without having to strike back.

Over the years most of the people we have had major problems with have not been those who came to us for religious reasons. Chelsea Goodwin was the primary exception to that and more on her later. Jay Stewart’s connection was sleeping with Viktoria. Now both of them are married to other folks but I guess I am old fashion about that sort of thing. What I did not know about Jay at the time was his long long history of anti-social behaviour bordering on sociopathy. Recently I posted on Facebook about the social differences between those, seeing the pizza is limited, take one piece and those who take three for the same reason. Jay would take the entire pizza. I learned he had been known by others for phone harassment of others for years on end. Not having any legitimate connection to me or the Maetreum, he apparently has set his new life goal at the total destruction of my reputation and the Maetreum itself all on behalf and the urging on by Viktoria Whittaker.

The spring of 2020 was the year of covid. Leslie moved out of the Maetreum due mostly to the unending harassment by Viktoria and others. I did NOT ask her to leave. Shortly afterwards Frodo and I were awakened after dark by the sound of several explosions. They were the tires on my car exploding after it was firebombed in the driveway. My car had not been even driven for several months at that point, probably had a dead battery and the point of origin of the fire was easily seen as the interior directly over the gas tank. The fire chief declared it an electrical fire which would have made it the very first Honda CRV to catch fire for any thing except the window switch in history. He flat out refused to do an investigation. So did the State Police. The very first comment on Facebook came from Debby Graney aka Rennie Yenarg who then posted elsewhere of her fear of being connected with the fire. I am almost certain she was involved in the firebombing from comments she made. My mother died two weeks later.

Rennie (Debbie) and her husband Bruce got involved with the Maetreum solely on the basis of her being a Facebook witch. She never once attended any religious service or even went down to our Temple. She, instead “held court” on our front porch and arranged events for herself we were expected to pay for. Both Rennie and Bruce turned out to be convicted felons. Ironically, although neither Rennie nor Bruce ever attended any of our rituals, their dog did several times. Rennie is notorious on Facebook as a spammer, stalker, and hacker of accounts. I had asked her to leave one night after she had been asked not to come over when Mandie, a young woman we had taken in with her two kids, had a miscarriage scare and asked me to tell her not to come over. Apparently that was all that was needed to make me enemy number one in her book. By the way, the dog, who Bruce had crippled as a pup with a lawn mower, got revenge on both of them. He dragged Bruce over a ledge and Bruce broke his leg in three places and a few weeks later tripped Rennie in the middle of the night and she broke her collar bone. After being asked to stay away from the Maetreum Rennie started a “secret” Facebook group trashing the Maetreum where she sought out several individuals we had to ask to leave for violating the rules of the house and in one case, actually posing a real and present danger to Mandie’s kids.

For the record, Rennie and Bruce were two of the 18 + people Viktoria had magically “bound” using my mirror spell which I discovered after cleaning out the freezer and finding the spells. Apparently Viktoria overused this spell quite a bit! Rather than leave peacefully, when Viktoria was finally removed from the Maetreum she immediately, as within hours, launched attacks on myself and the Maetreum. She shared literally every intimate detail of my life she had learned over the course of 14 or so years and shared it all on Rennie’s “I hate the Maetreum” private email group and directly with Jay. She actively sought out everyone who had been asked to leave the Maetreum in the past 14 years, most of whom she herself actually wanted removed! At her direction, Jay started a campaign of accusing me of stealing funds from everyone, Jay phoned in a threat to destroy the Maetreum and the radio station from a Stewart’s sandwich shop and left it as a message which I still have. We called the shop and verified they had a security camera that filmed him in the act and Jeremiah called it in to the FBI. The accusation of misuse of funds is particularly phony given that the Maetreum has a policy of no one being paid or compensated under any conditions and all cash being deposited in the bank account. Viktoria was the treasurer for almost a decade and, as a result, every single penny went through her hands including all the petty cash! She and Jay also claimed I “stole” all the money over the course of sixteen years she contributed as part of her shared expenses for running the Maetreum. That is like saying a landlord stole all your rent money you paid while living in their apartment.

Viktoria and Rennie and Jay started a campaign of terror against me personally threatening to “out” every supposed secret I had, vicious emails, deadnameing me (using my birth name), threatening and harassing messages on Facebook, comments on almost every public posting I made, false reviews of my book, additional phone calls. All this continues to this day. But the cream of this crop was Viktoria sought out Chelsea Goodwin to be an ally. They even collectively picketed the Maetreum when we were trying to organize a post covid Season of the Tree celebration a year ago. We had to cancel that at the last minute due to the pandemic not being over but they did not know that.

Which brings us to Chelsea Goodwin.

To be continued:

 

What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been

 

                                 by  Cathryn Platine

 

  

It has been quite some time since I have been writing or sharing much of anything and a LOT of weird water has passed under the bridge. On Facebook my posts have mostly been restricted to political re-posts and the cute animal shares and for a good reason. I suffered a major health crisis the spring of 2019 following getting a pacemaker the first of the year. Instead of improving my health, it caused my health to go down hill. Apparently the cheap Medicare approved two wire model interfered with the electrical rhythm for part of my heart and I put on, by early June, 60 lbs of edema water weight.

At the time a younger couple from NYC had started to stay full time instead of just frequent visits but the trans partner was very mentally unstable and as I asked for greater help with chores such as taking care of the chickens it was resented to the point she came into my bedroom and screamed at me for over an hour while I was bedridden. My sister priestess, Viktoria, was not picking up any of the slack on her weekend visits either. As a result of them not cleaning the coop and keeping the chicken feed in the vermin proof containers, we got a rat infestation for the first time after having chickens for almost seven years prior to that. It was also the first time since the insurrection of 2007 that I did not feel safe in my own home.

As my health declined, I turned my bedroom into an efficiency apartment of sorts. I had a microwave, small freezer, small refrig and a breakfast cooking station complete with a griddle and coffeemaker. The ladies bathroom with directly outside my door so that as also not an issue but by the end of May I was, practically speaking, wheelchair bound for anything off the property. Finally I got a doctors appointment and was told to check into the hospital that day. My cardiologist worked out of St. Peter’s in Albany so that is where I was taken. I was put on IV diuretics, practically lived on the can and peed out sixty lbs of water in two weeks. At that point, one of the nurses, ignoring my request she not do so, examined my genitals. I don’t discuss is, but I am intersexed and when I had down there surgery, remained so. She freaked out and got two aides and immediately rushed me out of the room I had been in for two weeks with other women. I mean immediately, like five minutes notice.

I was confused at first but then realized what had just happened. I complained and asked for a supervisor. I got an apology but the nurse wasn’t even disciplined at all despite the non discrimination notices everywhere you looked. Rev. Jeremiah Lennox was visited at the time I was rushed to a private room and basically read them the riot act on my behalf.

While I was in the hospital, Viktoria was supposed to bring me needed personal items since her Albany home was only ten minutes from the hospital and she was still doing her weekends at the Maetreum. Apparently this was asking too much and I waited up to a week for her to “get around” to bringing me underwear, my incontinence pads and pj bottoms among other things of a personal nature. Instead of cleaning up the chicken coops, she gave away our chickens and adopted ten feral cats from NYC to take care of the rats. She proved unable to even pay the bills despite her having been the treasurer for about seven years at that point and I had to run the radio station remotely from my hospital room. I spent my 70’th birthday alone in the hospital. Later I was to learn from several sources that Viktoria was counting on my not surviving my open heart surgery and was extremely resentful that I did. She had even printed up business cards for herself as Battakes of the Maetreum!

I was hospitalized for just over a month and had two more transphobic encounters with staff during that time. I demanded release and came home mostly confined to my bedroom with no one else in the house except Viktoria on the weekends and my cat Frodo, his brother Gandy having died shortly before my hospitalization. Despite having lived at the Maetreum full time for a two year period in the past, apparently it was too much to ask she do so again for a couple of weeks as I started to recover some of my strength. I did have a visiting nurse for a couple of weeks, twice a week for an hour or so.

Unable to do much those first few weeks, Viktoria continued to produce the Phat Coffee House show on the weekends. Keeping these guys from turning our studio into a party house had always been as challenge but Viktoria let them run totally wild and then turned around and lied to me about it to my face. Eventually it got so bad we had to cancel their show altogether.

As a Conclave, all the active priestesses had agreed that we would stop taking in any charity housing women for the immediate future. We had been burned badly by a succession of users who trashed the property and stole from us on the way out. A woman from Texas, who was a FB friend for several years but I did not really follow, approached me about moving to the Maetreum on a full shared expenses basis. Seeing an advantage of someone living with me full time and pulling their own weight during the winter, I asked the other priestesses and was given the go ahead. Big big mistake. She promised she was not into drama at all which should have been a red light. She turned out to be the drama queen champ of all time and upon her arrival, I knew I had made a huge mistake. Her housebroken dog wasn’t. The dog got out and I spent the first four hours of her arrival searching the grounds “before a bear ate her”. She and Viktoria bonded immediately over metal music, smoking too much dope and sleeping with the guys doing their radio show. Having committed to contributing a full share of expenses (600 @ month) Julie immediately announced that due to unexpected travel expenses (someone else drove her up from Texas) she couldn’t make the first month payment. She did have money for dope a week later. During the two plus months she was here, her dog bit at leave five people I know of. Luckily none of them sued us although they could have. During that time she made exactly one contribution of 500 (not the agreed on 600) and borrowed money from me personally twice.

One night Viktoria informed me that her friend Beth was coming up with someone who needed a place to stay. Remember, a Conclave which included Viktoria, all agreed we were NOT taking in anymore emergency housing cases. I was forced to sit at the table, with Leslie, the woman in need, Beth, Viktoria and Julie and keep telling them, no, we had all agreed not to do this again as a Conclave. Yes, I finally gave in having been made to feel like the ogre of all time. Leslie had some serious issues but overall not as bad as some of the characters we had in the past. But after only a couple of weeks Julie decided Leslie was going to kill her and all the rest of us in our sleep. She was totally irrational about it. She had nothing to base this on.

For more than fifteen years we held what we called Orphans Thanksgiving every year for folks who didn’t have family or were estranged from family or just wanted to join us in a Thanksgiving celebration. 2019 was the last one. The night before, while several of us went out to dinner, Julie decided she was going to have a medical emergency and called Viktoria to leave the dinner early and take her to the hospital. We had a houseful of guests either already there or arriving the next day. Julie told the social worker at the hospital she did not feel safe at the Maetreum because of Leslie in an attempt to force me to throw Leslie out on Thanksgiving. This prompted a call to me from social services who were going to come and investigate while I had a houseful of guests. I explained the situation and as a result she would not be allowed by social services to return to the Maetreum and got a free hotel room. I never told her to leave, she maneuvered herself into the position of not being able to return out of a mean spirited attempt to force someone else out.

Thanksgiving day I was doing most of the prep work, still recovering from my heart surgery and getting wore out. Viktoria started yelling at me as I tried to go up to my bedroom to lay down and followed me upstairs into my bedroom screaming at me about Julie and Leslie. She would not stop. Downstairs we had a full house of guests. Once again, I felt totally unsafe in the very home I had founded. My heart condition, commented on by several people at the time, aggregated by Viktoria’s assault, left me cyanotic from the lack of circulation. Two months later I had to have another surgery to replace my bottom of the line pacemaker with a better one. Apparently, according to a couple of anonymous emails I received, I was once more expected to die by Viktoria who apparently was telling a large number of people that she was just waiting for me to die so she could take over the Maetreum! The prior entry here “For the Record” contains the bare bones account of why Viktoria was removed from the priestesshood the following summer. In a facebook reply to Jay Stewart, Julie Pousson stated;

“Jay Stewart, Vikki’s goal was to wait out Cathryn and take the place over. She stated this goal to me and to others. She profited off the losses she caused, and wholly deserves her fate.”

Viktoria had met Jay (John) Stewart at the funeral of Randy Ripley, a long time friend of mine and operator of the community radio station in Woodstock. Jay had been a long time hanger on to the trans communities with a reputation as a user and harasser via phone of other individuals. The fall before my heart surgery, Viktoria had invited Jay and his wife to our Yule celebration and dinner. Jay’s wife, Cheryl, openly insulted me while I was giving our meal blessing. Jay went on to get totally orc-faced drunk that evening. Afterwards I discussed the behaviour with Viktoria and made it crystal clear that Cheryl was never to come back and I was not happy about Jay being coming by as well especially since neither of them was Pagan, let alone Goddess oriented. Viktoria started sleeping with Jay and meeting him at the Maetreum on the Sunday of her weekend visits. As a result, what little work around the Maetreum Viktoria had been doing was replaced with her leaving me a sink full of her dirty dishes every weekend and Jay eating any food available I had for the following week.

The fall following my surgery several folks had cut and split a large amount of firewood for use during the winter. We partially heat with wood from a cookstove I had bought the Maetreum many years before. Jay took it all. Following the disastrous Thanksgiving, there having been no leftovers, that Saturday I cooked another turkey for Leslie and I to have for the following week. Jay came by on Sunday and ate most of it and took the rest. To be clear, I survive on a below poverty level social security income and was also helping Leslie with food. Jay had been joining Viktoria in passive aggressive sniping at me plus refusing to use the mens room toilet, instead the stall I used and leaving the seat up on purpose. I finally had enough and told Viktoria I did not want him in my home any longer.

To be continued:

For the Record

It has been some time since I last posted on this blog.  I am now 73 years old with a bionic heart (two artificial valves and a pacemaker) and the Maetreum has suffered, as much of the rest of organized  religions from the worldwide Covid pandemic.  We have been unable to hold a Season of the Tree celebration since the spring of 2019, shortly before my heart surgery.  Orphan's Thanksgiving was last held the fall of that same year.

While we continue to hold regular Full and New Moon celebrations, attendance is sparse.  We attempted to have a Season of the Tree last year but the outbreak of the Omicron  variant led us to cancel at the last moment.  During the pandemic, the summer of 2020, we took advantage of the summer weather to have many weekends working on the property and priestess training for three novitiates.  We started to do the same the summer of 2021 but ran into major trouble with one of our priestess, Viktoria Whittaker.  We had to remove her for egregious violations of all three aspects of her oath of elevation.   From that time forward she has sought out everyone ever at odds with the Maetreum and myself and waged war on us.

 Lately she and her married lover, Jay Stewart, have been accusing me online of stealing the funds of the Maetreum and from her.   I will quickly address that.  During the time she claims I was stealing the funds, she was the treasurer and every single penny including cash passed through her hands.   As per our organizational setup, no one gets any money from the Maetreum, period.  No reimbursements, no salary, no purchases on their behalf.  I ran my own business for many many years and learned that for a non profit, this is the only way to make yourself bullet proof and it was borne out during our court battle.  She and Jay, her lover, are also claiming I stole 100 thousand from Viktoria in contributions.  Lets look at that one square in the face.  She maintained the Maetreum as her primary residence and part time residence for the entire run of her priestesshood.   We all pay part of the expenses of running the property, suggested until recently at about six hundred a month to cover utilities, upkeep, garbage removal etc.  She paid her share most months (not all) and claiming that money was somehow stolen is the same as saying the landlord of the property stole all the rent you paid while you lived on their property.

Rather than give my own account of what led up to Viktoria's removal I am including the letter she got initially, the report to the entire Conclave of priestesses from Jeremiah Lennox and the letter removing her completely.   They speak better than I can.   I have waited almost two years for her insane war to end but she just steps it up so this is the record in case something happens to me.

Rev. Jeremiah Bruce Lennox, OMM 

Chapterhouse of the Ordo Magna Mater 

Care of Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater 

3312 Route 23A 

Palenville, New York 12463 

Regarding Viktoria Whittaker, Former Priestess of the Catskill Phrygianum

 7 th July 2021

 OVERVIEW

 Over the course of the preceding two years, since shortly after the hospitalization of the Battakes, I have served Mrs. Whittaker in the capacity of spiritual director, with both the blessing of the Battakes and Mrs. Whittaker’s willful agreement. Given recent developments regarding Mrs. Whittaker’s change of status within the Catskill Phrygianum and the Cybeline Revival as a whole, I feel compelled to submit this report regarding my work with and observations of her for formal review by the Conclave. I would also note that I have rescinded my role as spiritual director for Mrs. Whittaker and have, as of this date, made it abundantly clear through direct text messaging that I am unwilling to serve as a “go-between” for any communications she may wish with the Battakes, the College of Priestesses, or any other business of the Maetreum despite her repeated requests for such action.

 PAST ACTIONS AND DERELICTION OF DUTY 

1. At the time of the Battakes’ hospitalization, Mrs. Whittaker held the informal title of ‘Battakes-in-Waiting’ and as the only priestess at that time living within the State of New York, it was not only her duty to step up in sacred service but an absolute necessity for both the well being of the Battakes as well as the well being of the Maetreum. Unfortunately, Mrs. Whittaker was either incapable or prevented from stepping up to meet that moment, depending upon which version of the story she chooses to tell. During the course of my tenure as her spiritual director, I have heard several variants of the story. In the instance of being “incapable”, she has blamed her diagnosis of autism as the reason that she could not tend what needed tending (that being bringing supplies to the Battakes in the hospital, maintaining the Maetreum and its rites, and the business dealings of the Maetreum, such as paying the bills- noteworthy is that she was also entrusted as the treasurer at that time) because she was simply overwhelmed and could not rightly process what needed doing, and thus almost nothing was properly taken care of. In the case of her being “prevented” from doing so, Mrs. Whittaker blamed her husband as he would not allow her to tend to her duties in a timely or productive manner, and that is why she was unable to tend to the needs of the Battakes and left the Maetreum essentially shuttered and uncared for. 

 2. Following the hospitalization of the Battakes, Mrs. Whittaker provided next to no assistance to the Battakes during her recovery period except on weekends, leaving a septuagenarian recovering from major cardiac surgery in the Phrygianum alone (the building of which is arguably not well set up for such recovery or ease of access for the handicapped or disabled). This is both a direct dereliction of duty to the Battakes she was vowed to serve and tantamount to elder abuse. 

 3. On several occasions, Mrs. Whittaker has admitted to lying to the Battakes in matters regarding the management of the WLPP-LP 102.9 FM radio station, an extension of the ministry of the Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater, Inc. and another not-for-profit in its own right. These lies covered issues such as drug and alcohol abuse within the radio station by persons brought in by Mrs. Whittaker, her own use of alcohol while on air, and her engagement in an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of the broadcasters. I will note that the sexual relationship was inappropriate not because of any issues of age or consent, but rather because she was portraying herself as an officer of the station’s board and as a priestess of the Maetreum and engaging in a relationship with a person which ought to have been kept strictly professional for the wellbeing of both not-for-profits. 

4. Also following the hospitalization of the Battakes, Mrs. Whittaker was stripped of the informal title of “Battakes-in-Waiting”. Despite that change in status being made abundantly clear to her on several occasions both by the Battakes and myself, Mrs. Whittaker continued, until this past week, publicly misrepresenting herself as the “Battakes-in-Waiting”. Furthermore, she has misrepresented her role with the WLPP-LP 102.9 FM radio station having been publicly referring to herself as both a member of the board of directors and as the program director, neither of which was accurate as she was removed from that board in order to serve on another not-for-profit radio station’s board of directors, and it would have been illegal for her to serve on both. It was only this past weekend, on the same day that Mrs. Whittaker received the Official Notification from The Battakes of the Catskill Phrygianum, that she issued her letter of resignation to the manager of the other radio station. 

5. As you are aware, following the Battake’s recovery, we have engaged in an intensive rehabilitation effort to revivify the Maetreum, returning the buildings and grounds to a state satisfactory for use of worship and community service. This has involved many work-retreat weekends, bolstered by the Nemeton of the Ways’ community, to see the work through. Throughout the course of these work-retreat weekends, Mrs. Whittaker has paid great lip service to being in service, but was continually found wanting in actual engagement of service. Regularly she avoided participating in any actual rehabilitation work, instead burying herself in the “World of Metal” radio show, something distinctly lacking in ministerial character. On the rare occasions she chose to participate, or more frequently was directly told to participate by the Battakes, it was always lackluster and without any real effort to do the work correctly, which in turn actually hampered the rehabilitation process. While this does not constitute direct malevolence, it does serve as character witness indicating that the wellbeing of the Maetreum and service to the Temple has not been at the forefront of her heart or mind. 

6. Given that Mrs. Whittaker, during her time as a priestess, engaged in very little actual ministerial work (the only actual instance I am aware of is a single wedding she officiated and sought out my advice for), I encouraged her to begin offering the Daily Noontime Praise. This was one action that she performed admirably with, and to begin with I was pleased at her follow-through with it, especially considering that any other project given to her met with almost no follow through. That action served the Maetreum well and provided an avenue for Mrs. Whittaker to engage in some direct, if minor, pastoral work through the difficulties of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, instead of inspiring her to a life of deeper prayer, meditation, and service, it devolved into what I can only describe as a severe case of the “High Priestess Olympics” wherein she felt compelled to constantly spend money on new outfits weekly to show off during the daily praise. While she is free to spend her money as she sees fit, if wastefully, she continued to engage in this spending out of vanity while simultaneously claiming that she could not fulfill the full terms of her monthly contribution for maintaining residence within the Phrygianum. Neither the vanity nor the shorting of her contributions to the Phrygianum are indicative of a priestess who is in a healthy, grounded, spiritual mindset. 

7. During this period, the Cybeline Revival was given a blessed opportunity to reform and renew in the form of three women who submitted themselves as Novice Sisters with the blessing of the Battakes. During the course of their novitiate, Mrs. Whittaker on several occasions spoke with them on topics that were inappropriate for a priestess to be speaking to a novice about, oftentimes dredging up past traumas and debacles, oversharing regarding the inner workings of the Maetreum and its past, and with one novice in particular, bonding in an unhealthy manner over their shared autism diagnosis. Never did she ever engage in any actual teachings of the tradition, or how to be in service to the Temple and the People of the Goddess - she remained only mired in base gossip. Even after the loss of two of the novices, never once did she attempt to step up in service to teach and inspire the remaining novice. Indeed, even with the remaining novice, Mrs. Whittaker overstepped boundaries in an unhealthy manner with a woman who, while having been a congregant of the Maetreum for a decade, she had never once before acknowledged the commitment, work, and devotion of that novice prior to her novitiate, only latching onto her and treating her as a person after it became apparent that this woman was taking meaningful steps towards the priestess-track. Mrs. Whittaker also spoke to a novice telling tales of how the Battakes is a “narcissist and abuser”. On a recent occasion, having recognized that she herself had overstepped boundaries, sent a text to this novice asking “Have I been shitcanned?” - something that is, from any religious tradition, deeply inappropriate for an ordained clergy person to be asking a novice. The lack of respect for the novitiate and for the continuity of the tradition has been deeply worrisome. 

8. There have been a number of occasions where Mrs. Whittaker has acted out in what is at best unhealthy, and at worst psychotic, behavior, often in front of guests of the Maetreum. I will not attempt to make a full list of these moments, but will include a few notable ones. During an Orphan’s Thanksgiving, a time honored ministry of the Maetreum, Mrs. Whittaker had a full meltdown and actually chased the Battakes up the stairs and into her private room and then proceeded to scream at her, during which guests were left at the table in a state of trepidation and confusion. More recently, within the past month, two occasions come to mind: A moment when Mrs. Whittaker walked off with the novice while in a state of agitation, and then proceeded to have what she claimed was an “autistic meltdown”. During this episode, she violently threw herself onto the ground, then rolled around while screaming loud enough that those in the Temple legitimately thought that someone was being violently attacked (including first time visitors to the Temple). While I am not a psychologist, I doubt the authenticity of the moment as a genuine autistic meltdown as she remained fully verbal throughout the incident, spewing accusations against the Battakes and the rehabilitation process. The weekend immediately following this instance, Mrs. Whittaker engaged in a long series of passive-aggressive actions aimed at the Battakes, during which time the Battakes was trying to continue engaging in meaningful rehabilitation work and simultaneously avoid Mrs. Whittaker because of the barrage of passive-aggressive actions. This culminated in a moment when the exasperated Battakes asked Mrs. Whittaker to “give me some space” to which Mrs. Whittaker then replied with more than some drama “I’m not staying where I’m not wanted” and stormed off, then stood by her car to see if anyone would chase her. Again, this took place in front of a guest of the Maetreum who was visiting. 

9. Over the years, the Maetreum has taken in a series of deeply unwell women in crisis that the Maetreum did not possess the skills or resources to care for in a healthy, meaningful way. This has repeatedly led to theft, destruction of property, the Battakes being made unsafe within her own home, and a serious loss of standing within the broader community. During a previous Conclave, it was decided to end that open door policy and cease and desist in taking in any more crisis cases. Unfortunately, Mrs. Whittaker was unwilling to abide by the binding will of the Conclave and welcomed in another series of women in crisis, which led to a repeat of the pattern of theft, destruction of property, the Battakes being made unsafe within her own home, and again a serious loss of standing within the broader community. The most recent example of this happened just at the end of this spring into early summer, though that incident was fortunately dealt with more effectively this time with only minimal loss of face and no theft or property destruction. However, Mrs. Whittaker’s unwillingness to abide by the will of the Conclave and readiness to place the Maetreum in a state of jeopardy repeatedly is disconcerting, as is her predilection for attracting unstable individuals within her personal affair. 

10. While sorting through boxes that had been stored in the second floor of the back house, it was discovered that Mrs. Whittaker had inappropriately stashed away official documents of the Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater, Inc. Included among these documents were an official copy of the Maetreum’s Articles of Incorporation bearing the seal of Greene County, a variety of banking documents, agendas and notes from previous Conclaves, the letters of approval from the Internal Revenue Service, and documentation that held the necessary information for use of the tax exemption. 

11. Finally, I sat as witness and mediator during the morning of Saturday, July 3rd 2021 when Mrs. Whittaker was formally presented with the Official Notification from The Battakes of the Catskill Phrygianum stripping Mrs. Whittaker of her role as a priestess within that Phrygianum and the Cybeline Revival as a whole. While the initial conversation went peacefully, and was rooted in prayer at the start and at the end, and the expectations regarding Mrs. Whittaker’s immediate loss of residence and ability to function as a priestess were made explicitly clear, she proceeded to try to negotiate around the boundaries and made next to no effort to actually begin moving out. Immediately following the conversation, the Battakes politely requested that Mrs. Whittaker hand over the Maetreum’s Lowes card and the house key that she possessed (a key which she was not actually supposed to have had, but had made a copy of without consent) - the Lowes card was returned, the house key was not. Her primary concern seemed to be for her radio show, which the Battakes graciously made clear that while Mrs. Whittaker is no longer welcome to use the radio house, that she could continue producing the “World of Metal” from home and send it into the station via dropbox. Unfortunately that evening, Mrs. Whittaker had made no efforts to move and when confronted by the Battakes, made a claim that she had intended to stay the night and use the station the next morning, saying that it was never made clear to her. Fortunately both the letter and the conversation had, in fact, spelled out the details clearly and she did leave that night, after I had to personally pack her car while she remained on the telephone weaving tales of woe to her husband and her co-host and lodging accusations against the Battakes. While the official notification presented to her outlined a clear path of mercy, part of which included the stipulation that she in no way represent herself as a priestess of the Phrygianum, the Matreum, or the Cybeline Revival, Mrs. Whittaker then proceeded on the following day to post to social media that she was moving forward as an “Independent Cybeline Pagan Priestess” in direct violation and contempt of the Battake’s formal action. Since then she has proceeded to foment ill-will against the Maetreum behind the scenes in an effort to undermine the tradition, Temple, and remaining priestesses. 

CONCLUSION 

Reverend Mother and Reverend Sisters, it has brought no joy to my heart to submit this report to you for your review during Conclave. However, as stated in the overview, I felt compelled to share my experience of working with and observing Mrs. Whittaker over the course of the previous two years so that this situation can be fully addressed by the appropriate authorities of the Cybeline Revival and, hopefully, rectified. While I will make no recommendations within this report as to how to proceed, I will state that Mrs. Whittaker will not be allowed to serve within any ministerial role within my own communities moving forward, be that the Nemeton of the Ways or the Ordo Magna Mater. Furthermore, please also be aware that while this report may seem long, it is by no means exhaustive of the ways in which Mrs. Whittaker has failed to meet the sacred trust of priestcraft, it includes only those most egregious circumstances of which I am personally aware. In my opinion, Mrs. Whittaker is wholly unfit to serve in the capacity of cleric, and while the Battakes’ offer of a twelve month period as priestess-at-large to seek healing and renewal within herself was indeed gracious, I hold little hope that Mrs. Whittaker will actually engage with that period of time as an opportunity for healthy reformation.

 

The full Conclave met on July 10 and by consensus voted Viktoria be removed from all association with the Maetreum and be striped for all time of any claim to be a priestess of Cybele.  Since that time she sought out the lunatic that reported to the town we were a phony religion costing us an eight year expensive legal battle and the malcontents who firebombed my car.  Last year, unaware we had cancelled Season of the Tree at the last moment, she, her psychotic lover, the lunatic that drove me out of the Maetreum during the "Insurrection" as we called it and someone else picketed the Maetreum for more than three hours saying I should go back to Ohio and calling out my birth (deadname) name in a demonstration of the most transphobic  behaviour possible.  Harassing emails and messages and threats continue to this day.

Dear Mrs. Whittaker,

As you are aware, on Saturday the 3rd of July, 2021, you received in person the Official Notification from The Battakes of the Catskill Phrygianum informing you that you were being immediately transferred from active priestess status to priestess-at-large status for a period of twelve months due to a series of egregious, willful offenses against the vows you took in sacred service to the Battakes, the College of Priestesses, and to the Great Mother Goddess. That period was offered as a path of mercy and recuperation, during which you were explicitly forbidden to “represent yourself in any form as a priestess of the Catskill Phygrianum…[or] the Maetreum of Cybele/Cybeline Revival”. Within hours of receiving the Official Notification, you began violating the conditions laid out therein, going so far as to begin publicly representing yourself as an “independent Cybeline priestess” in direct contradiction to the path of mercy as had been made clear to you in the Official Notification and through direct conversations.

It is also notable that from that day forward, the Maetreum and clerics in service to the House of the Mother began receiving a series of threats and endured a campaign of harassment from close associates of yours. That the threats and harassment came from your associates is not in doubt, having been verified through both phone and video records from several of the locations from which the threats were issued.

It is therefore our duty to inform you that as of the 10th of July, 2021, through a unanimous act of the legally convened Conclave of the College of Priestesses, that the initially outlined path of mercy and recuperation graciously offered by the Battakes has been wholly suspended. Furthermore, as of that date, you have been formally defrocked from the Priestesshood without recourse. While this action has brought deep sadness to the whole of the Priestesshood, it was deemed absolutely necessary through natural consensus. To be clear, your vows as a Priestess of Cybele have been revoked and nullified and, because of the threats and harassment brought against the House of the Mother and Her clerics by your personal associates, you are no longer welcome in any capacity upon the grounds of the Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater.

With great sadness,

TERF Wars and Trans-terrorism

How the most trans affirming Pagan tradition got labelled transphobic and why you should care.

Back when the Maetreum legal case first came to the attention of the Pagan community by an article on the Wild Hunt, one of the very first comments made on that article was that the Maetreum was not “worthy” of support because it was a “tranny” tradition. I kid you not...... Just yesterday I was called a TERF and transmisogynist in comments on the Wild Hunt on another article about Cherry Hill Seminary. The Maetreum was called transphobic and a claim was made we never ever ever helped any transwomen who were not post surgical! Both, by the way, are not true. I was the principle founder of the Cybeline Revival of which the Maetreum of Cybele is the main home and Temple. I was born intersexed myself, the three other women who bought the property originally (it is now owned by the incorporated Maetreum of Cybele) were all transsexual women. The very first women we took in for emergency housing were trans street girls of colour, literally the most at risk class. Sylvia Rivera, the transwoman often credited with starting the infamous Stonewall rebellion, planned to retire to the Maetreum had she survived her last bout with liver cancer. Our basic policies remain exactly the same today as they were then, so how did we get labelled transphobes you ask??? Big nosed Pagan wannabe trolls.  At the time, two years ago, when the following happened, we were at our most vulnerable, needing the support of the community as we were facing the loss of our home, our tradition, everything we had worked for over a decade to accomplish.



I have blogged here in the past  about what happened without naming names but since this just came up yet again on the Wild Hunt blog in comments several years later, it is time to call out the perps, as it were. Perp #1 is Lauren Ouellette-Bruchez, the woman who was about to move in to the Maetreum with her two husbands (which we were making a major exception for), about to start priestesses training with us and who left all her personal possessions clogging all the downstairs of the Maetreum and a dead car in our driveway at the exact time the Town of Catskill was attempting to condemn our property under zoning violations as a last ditch effort to force us out just as the final appeal was hitting the court. The stuff was here for literally months!



Perp #2 is Shauna Aura Knight, a relentless self promoting fraud who gives “leadership” workshops all around the Pagan circuit when her only leadership experience is leading those workshops! Further, having attended one of them hostessed here at the Maetreum, I can state without question she trashes actual Pagan leaders in those workshops carefully giving enough information to identify them without naming them specifically. The bitch did this to me based solely on the private whining by Lauren Ouellette-Bruchez that I somehow “triggered her” during the incident that she was actually actively interfering in a priestess of the Maetreum only matter, was told in no uncertain terms that was the case and yet still attempted an “intervention” against me personally with others who also were not priestesses of the Maetreum! Ms.Knight wrote a “hit piece” blog entry  aimed directly at myself, based on what she knew first hand was out and out lies and then proceeded to start posting on the Maetreum Facebook page that we were transphobic. She also started trashing us all over the internet and managed to totally dry up all the legal fund contributions at the very stage we needed them the most, nearly sabotaging eight years of legal battles. Knight and I never had contact prior to her visit despite her claiming otherwise, never had any actual face to face discussions because of the incident the only night she stayed with us. None of the exchanges Knight claims took place actually took place at all on our Facebook page because the priestesses conferred and we simply removed her nasty comments. Knight goes on to claim my successor was “co-dependent”! That, by the way, infuriated her and is about as untrue as it gets because she argues with me all the time, is encouraged to do so and is personally more empowered as a result of being part of the Maetreum than at any prior point in her life. She is even debating with me as I write this about whether or not we should publish it!



We had welcomed Ms. Knight into our home, allowed her to do her workshop for another Pagan group at the Maetreum and she was present when that night our home was attacked by a local bigot, our windows broken, threats were made to shoot up our house with an assault weapon and the local police refused to take a proper complaint. The supposed conversations she and I had never happened at all because of those events. Further, she promised to send us an affidavit supporting what had happened and never did so. At the time she was apparently quite sympathetic to what we had been experiencing.



Neither Shauna nor Lauren are in any fashion trans. They both accused me personally and the Maetreum of being transphobic.... I have a trans/intersexed medical history. If this can be done to me, it literally can be done to anyone regardless of how trans supportive they actually might be. This is why it is important to tell this. By the rules now being used all around Paganism, both should be “no platformed” everywhere at every Pagan event. Fair is fair because what they both did is the worst type of transphobic behaviour. Demands to ostracize other women have been made for much much much less. In addition, and a further indication of exactly how bigoted Ms. Knight actually is, she has blogged in the past that those on the autism spectrum should be excluded from Pagan groups for being too much of a distraction. When she gave her workshop at the Maetreum she repeated this in the presence of two women on the autism spectrum!!!! The younger one required counselling as a result. Knight is a bigot of the worst sort, that who believes she knows better than everyone else. 

 
Spread their shame, demand they be removed from any Pagan events in the future, do it because they are both liars and they slandered and libelled the Maetreum of Cybele that won the most decisive legal battle in the past twenty years for Pagan equality under the law.
Why write about this now? Because it won't go away. We waited hoping it would go away but it remains circulating in Pagan circles. Because women who have merely questioned the trans dogma have suffered loss of position and venues when Knight continues to go around claiming a position of moral superiority when she is actually an out and out bigot. Because Knight does not hesitate to out and out lie about actual leaders in the Pagan community and who knows how many others she is slandering as you read this. Call her out for her hypocrisy to talk about ethics when she clearly has none whatsoever. 90% of what she wrote about me simply never happened at all.

Because all of the negative things that have been repeated about the Maetreum trace back to Lauren and Knight, and that ain't right! Am I an opinionated strong willed woman? You're damn straight I am and I make no apology for that but I am also the very model of a so called leader who does not act unilaterally without the consensus of the other priestesses and our very organization was deliberately set up so I could not do so!... by me!



Call them out as I have done. They weaponized the desire to be supportive of transwomen against a woman of trans/intersexed history and literally the most trans supportive tradition in Paganism!  What they did is out and out abusive, like most victims of abuse, I felt I could not call this out until now.  As part of my own healing process, I need to address this abuse publicly on, not only my own behalf, but my sister priestesses and the Cybeline Revival we all dedicated our lives to.  Both of these women have done real world harm to the Cybeline Revival and it is past time to hold them accountable as that harm continues to this day.