And finally, they've moved to Kingman AZ. More accounts of cult practices, pledges to die for her, shady financial dealings.
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http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=38969&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=797&S=1An Interesting Development
Learning Center for Human Development sets up shop in Kingman
James Chilton
Miner Staff Reporter
If you live on Kingman's eastside, you might have already heard of the Learning Center for Human Development.
Based out of a small single-family house on Heather Avenue, the center describes itself as a non-profit outreach organization, performing educational services, assisting children and the elderly, maintaining a food pantry and hosting various exhibitions.
Associates of the center also go door to door, introducing their programs and offering small household trinkets such as candles and stuffed animals in exchange for donations to their cause.
Perhaps its most visible presence since establishing itself in Kingman in late 2008 has been at the various neighborhood clean-ups, job fairs and economic development forums, though members also frequently attend City Council meetings, and one member, Mike Dellar, is a commissioner on the Economic Development and Marketing Commission formed late last year.
The Kingman center is an extension of the original Learning Center for Human Development formed in the mid-1970s in Ohio by a woman named Parisha Taylor, who has since relocated to Kingman with her family. While Taylor says she stepped down as executive director of the non-profit five years ago, she has remained a visible presence in Kingman following its establishment here, speaking before groups such as Kiwanis and Rotary and taking a leading role in working to bring the Patriot Wall, a three-quarter scale traveling Vietnam War Memorial, to the area.
"I did not like seeing good people just complaining and blaming others, so I asked a few close friends to work with me and put our energy together to make a positive difference in the world," Taylor said of the center.
"Over the years, we grew and became an international organization that networks with many other like-minded people to enhance quality of life and foster personal growth. It has been well received and had wonderful results."
Originally based out of South Euclid, Ohio, the Learning Center relocated to the tiny village of Summerfield in the late 1980s following Taylor's purchase of a farm there. Today, the farm still stands, serving as the organization's headquarters for all U.S. activity as well as the site of numerous weekend events including "business seminars, interfaith groups, inner-city youth leadership programs, (and) Boy Scout troop camps," Taylor said.
"It primarily does relief services to help people in need. It hosts and provides educational programs to enhance personal development and skill building," she said. "It has a retreat facility with 82 acres and a variety of structures for meetings, housing and other purposes."
The center in Ohio has also served as the site for numerous Native American-style rituals performed by a group called the Yunsai, or White Buffalo Society. That group was also formed by Taylor in the mid-1980s as an extension of a small meditation circle that used to meet in the basement of her home.
In fact, the two groups appear to have quite a bit of overlap in their membership, and tax returns even list
www.yunsaisociety.com as the Learning Center's Web site. Taylor explained that the society technically falls "under the LCFHD umbrella."
"The Yunsai Society ... is focused on international research of ancient civilizations, their cultures and philosophies," Taylor said. "It attracts people from around the world for multi-cultural activities that study world traditions."
Taylor describes the Yunsai Society's practices as ways of communing with nature and getting in touch with one's self. "We do periodic fasts, and we also participate in sabbaticals where we are alone for three to four days and journal and be in nature," she said. "We also do sweat lodges."
A sweat lodge typically consists of superheated rocks placed in the center of a tent or similarly enclosed structure, with the resultant steam creating sauna-like conditions. A purification ritual long practiced by various Native American tribes, modern sweat lodges have recently come under fire following two deaths that occurred during a ceremony led by motivational speaker and self-help guru James Arthur Ray last October in Sedona. A third participant died nine days later, and another 18 of the roughly five dozen participants were hospitalized. Ray is currently awaiting trial in Yavapai County on three counts of manslaughter, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
A similar sweat lodge death occurred at the Learning Center in Ohio last July, when a co-founder and longtime attorney for the organization, Paige Martin, died during a demonstration.
According to the Noble County coroner, Martin died of pulmonary burns she sustained when the water she poured over the superheated rocks literally exploded in her face, burning her over three quarters of her body and injuring at least one other participant.
Nearly a year later, the death remains under investigation by the Noble County Sheriff's Office, according to the investigating officer, Deputy Phil Lumpkins. But Taylor's account of Martin's death differs from that of the police.
"Paige had developed a serious cholesterol condition and died while leading a sweat lodge when her heart stopped and she could not be resuscitated," Taylor explained. "We were shocked and deeply saddened by her death."
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Martin's wasn't the only death to be associated with the Learning Center. In April of 1990, Taylor and her associates gave statements to police following the death of another member, Joanne Sustar of Chester Township, Ohio, during a sand burial ceremony in Topsail Beach, N.C.
According to Taylor, Sustar "was a severe anemic and 20 years ago she fainted on the beach and died two days later at a hospital." Police reports from both Topsail Beach and Chester Township paint a different picture.
The reports indicate that Sustar died due to complications she suffered after being completely buried under 2 to 4 feet of sand and given a small tube to breathe through. During the subsequent investigation, former members of Taylor's group claimed that Sustar had been participating in an "earth initiation," one of a number of rituals led by Taylor and designed to cleanse the soul, where the body's impurities are leeched away into the sand.
Something had apparently gone wrong with Sustar's breathing tube and she ended up choking on her own vomit. According to the police report, Taylor herself called for the ambulance, while several of those present, including Martin and Dellar, attempted to aid Sustar to no avail.
Upon his arrival at New Hanover Hospital the morning after the incident, Sustar's ex-husband, Jerome, said the doctors had declared her effectively brain dead.
"According to them, she'd died of the vomit that had come up and closed off her windpipe," Jerome said in a recent interview.
"When I got there, she was on life support, but I talked to one of the doctors there and he said, 'There's no way, she's not coming back.'"
Twenty years later, Jerome said he still blames himself for not paying closer attention. As time went on, he said, his wife had seemed to get more involved in both the White Buffalo Society and the Learning Center, and more distant from him, eventually culminating in their divorce.
"I kinda wondered what was really going on, but Joanne was really tight-lipped about it," he said. "I know they went to their sweat lodge, that thing with the hot stones and water. I guess I was just stupid because I never really put things together. I thought it was just a bunch of women getting together."
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That's how it started, at least. But in 1984, Taylor announced to her then-meditation group that she intended to bring her teachings to the public through the Center for Human Development, according to the police statements of then-member Sandy Miller. Miller said Taylor had originally envisioned a company designed to bring in various motivational speakers to discuss concepts relating to personal growth and skill development.
The idea was actually a revival of an earlier business Taylor had started in the 1970s called "The Winners Circle International," according to Miller, who left the group in 1986. The center sought and eventually earned non-profit status from the IRS in the early 1990s.
At the time, Taylor referred to herself as "Pa'Ris'Ha," and claimed to be the descendent of two full-blooded Cherokee, Miller said. When she first revived the Center for Human Development (the "Learning" part was added later), Miller said Taylor offered each member of her group the chance to be on the board of directors for an initial $500 investment.
Despite the Center's weak initial business performance through the mid-1980s, Miller said Taylor was still able to convince the board to help her finance the
purchase of Snow Hill Farm in Summerfield, Ohio, which she claimed would "provide a place for the group to go for protection when the mass annihilation of the earth occurred." Another ex-member of the center, Sue Ann O'Brien, claimed Taylor had predicted that "Lake Erie was going to rise and flood Ohio and the group would be spared there."According to Taylor, however, "the purchase of the lands in Summerfield was based on the LCFHD interest in farming. We purchased a farm to raise and store organic foods and to develop healthy food products."
She added, "We have had many programs where we teach people to be prepared for floods and earth changes," though she contended that "Lake Erie is not anything I remember as a threat," adding that "some events held by historians did teach there that the Ohio Valley was once a lake and could be again if conditions were different."
Miller said her share of the expense for the farm was $1,200 down and another $75 a month. But while the original legal paperwork had included her name, as well as those of the other board members, Miller claimed Taylor had later come back to explain that the bank "would not allow that many names on the deed." Instead, the property was deeded solely to Pa'Ris'Ha and her husband, Anthony.
O'Brien, along with ex-members Emily and Christine Calamante, also told police that Taylor required members to tithe 10 percent of their income and personal wealth to her, and would frequently pressure them to make additional "love offerings" upon completion of various rituals and training courses.
To this, Taylor said, "If a person does not pay a fee, we ask that they do service in exchange for what they are given. I am very determined that there be an exchange for what we take. So it has been LCFHD policy."
O'Brien said group members would frequently go on sojourns to sites of spiritual significance, including Canada, Sedona, Topsail Beach, Cherokee, N.C., and
Hawaii, where O'Brien's statement to police claimed a large number of followers were burnt during a firewalking ceremony led by Taylor."We did have an event that involved a firewalk," Taylor said.
"And to my recall, there were two people who did not follow directives regarding doing this out of 30 that had poor results." She did not elaborate further on what injuries, if any, the participants sustained.
O'Brien said she left the group in 1988 after two years due to
Taylor's claims that she "could see auras and protect everyone from evil," among others.
By the time she left,
O'Brien said she and her daughter had spent more than $6,000 on various seminars, trips and ceremonies offered by Taylor and the Learning Center. She told police that Taylor seemed to "spend money excessively" and had requested that all checks be made out to cash, because "the checks would clear the bank faster."
"We all made our checks out to cash to help (the) person arranging accommodations and venue to be able to cover those upfront costs," Taylor explained. "Those days, credit cards were not as popular a means to do such. Also at that time, banks worked with that; today they do not."
To the excessive spending claim, Taylor said, "I am known to give away all I can earn to less-fortunate people, by simply taking everything I have in my wallet at the time and giving it, maybe (O'Brien) talked to someone about that?"
Miller described a number of initiations and ceremonies the group would take part in, including the sand burials, sweat lodges and firewalks. She also
described a "water initiation" where up to six people would forcibly hold the initiate under water until "Parisha sees your heart spill over into your soul" and ordered them to be let up. At least one former member, Emily Calamante, claimed to have nearly drowned during one such initiation.Miller also described
a blood ceremony that began as a prick on the finger but which she said eventually escalated into "the slitting of your palm and cauterizing the wound in the fire and making a commitment to protect Parisha with your life."When asked about this, Taylor said, "When a person accomplishes important personal goals or feats, we have ceremonies to recognize those accomplishments," adding that "when a person becomes a member, they pledge to live within the bylaws and codes of honor of the organization." She maintained, however, that "no one has participated in a ritual in which they committed to protect me, and no one has ever cauterized anyone around me."
Taylor said the non-profit "is funded by donations from members and staff. Beyond that, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the organization's finances except to say that it abides by the law, and I believe the IRS files are publicly available."
According to the most recent publicly available IRS records,
no tax returns for the organization could be found for any of the last three years, and the Learning Center actually submitted its 2006 return in January of 2009. The Center's current legal representative, Arlene Potash, maintains that "the LCFHD is in complete compliance and current with the IRS."
A call made to the Learning Center's Summerfield headquarters for further comment on June 29 was returned with the message that all officers were out of the office until after the July 4 holiday.
The Learning Center's executive director, Robbi Gunter, came to the Daily Miner's offices on July 2 demanding to know why the Miner was investigating Taylor's connections to the Learning Center. She declined to answer any questions.
* * *
Potash has since stated that Taylor "has no criminal record, nor arrests or investigations regarding anyone's death inside or outside the organization. She has more than legally proven through direct testimony and family affidavits her lineage and all things that had been brought to question more than 20 years ago."
Potash also denounced a series of articles published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer between 1991 and 1997 where reporter Michael Sangiacomo made inquiries into Taylor's claims of Cherokee lineage and interviewed a number of ex-members of the White Buffalo Society, many of whom echoed Miller, O'Brien and the Calamantes' statements regarding the group's operations and finances, as well as Taylor's leadership style.
"The articles from the Plain Dealer are pure yellow journalism, with the reporter admitting that writing these sensational articles was his ticket to fame and gained him a prominent position in his newspaper," Potash said.
"It's totally ridiculous," Sangiacomo said when asked his opinion of Potash's statement. "I never said any such thing to her at any time, and I never profited in any way from the stories I wrote about Parisha and her society.
"No such conversation between her and I ever took place; in fact, when I talked to her, she'd make that claim, 'Oh, you're just doing this to sell papers,'" he continued. "And I would say to her repeatedly, 'I don't sell papers, I'm in editorial and I write stories only for their news value.'"
Copies of Sangiacomo's articles about Taylor can be found in an archive on the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Web site:
http://topics.cleveland.com/tag/white%2520buffalo%2520society/index.html.
Potash maintains that "the Learning Center for Human Development has been in existence for over 40 years and has not a single blemish."
Yet
at the time of her death, the center's former attorney, Paige Martin, was facing up to a six-month suspension from practicing law for allegedly taking a client's funds out of her Interest on Lawyer Trust Account without his permission or knowledge. The account, which was maintained to generate funds to pay for clients' legal expenses, was transferred to an entity called Five Star Credit Union.
According to court records from Martin's disciplinary hearing, the Columbus Bar Association found that Five Star Credit Union was not a licensed credit union, nor was it insured by the FDIC. The sole signatory on the account was a woman named "Da'Nagasta," who was also listed as the assistant treasurer for the Learning Center for Human Development on its most recent business license filing. Likewise, the authorized representative for Five Star Credit Union was Mary A. Smith, another member of the Learning Center and one of the followers who accompanied Taylor to Topsail Beach during the Joanne Sustar incident. In fact, many of the names listed as witnesses in that police report - Mary A. Smith, Robbi Gunter, Arlene Potash and Mike Dellar - remain associated with Taylor and the Learning Center, and even helped establish its operations here in Kingman, where many of them now reside.
Taylor claims the Learning Center and its members have only the best intentions for Kingman, as evidenced by their participation in the recent job fair series at Cerbat Lanes and their continuing presence at local economic development forums and community clean-up events. The Kingman center, she said, remains focused on working with local charity and service organizations on what its members perceive to be "the most pressing needs" in the current economic environment.
"Our job fair has had tremendous success, and we've worked with various local organizations and charities to help the city grow by helping local small businesses, promoting new industry, and serving as a catalyst in getting the Kingman Community to come together and help itself," Taylor said. "I love Kingman and have felt very welcomed by the people here. My family and grandchildren are here with me, and we look forward to continuing to serve the Kingman community and doing what we can to help it flourish."
