Barbara: Yes, I am. Good evening, folks. Good evening, Anne.

Anne: Good evening, Barbara. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. We are very excited to hear what you have to tell us and to talk with you.

Barbara: Oh, yeah.

Anne: Let me start by saying your book Lucifer Rising, which is available on Amazon, and we will have that link up on the site after the show or people who are listening right now can just go to Amazon and Google Lucifer Rising. It’s the story of a woman, a reporter, a journalist who was recently widowed. She meets this cult leader and she gets drawn in by him. She is sent to write a story about cults and about the cult leader and ends up being mesmerized by him and actually in a relationship with him. Now am I right in thinking that it was a bit autobiographical?

Barbara: It’s a true story actually. It is definitely autobiographical.

Anne: Well tell us a bit about it.

Barbara: What? Well it takes place in Daytona Beach, Florida. It happened a few years ago. My husband had passed away after 20 years and it was very lonely. I was reading in the Penny Saver one day about a man who did faith healing. I thought well this is kind of interesting. Maybe I should try this out. It might make me feel better. So, I went over to his house on Wednesday nights. He had all of these women over there and he had them lying on a couch and he was doing hands on healing. I got involved with it on Wednesday nights, and before you knew it I was dating him. He was doing Reiki. It’s a legitimate form of faith healing. You put your hand on somebody. You’re supposed to be able to pass your energy from your hands into the person’s body so that you heal them, whatever illnesses they might have, and mostly physical illnesses. I got kind of involved in it. I thought I was going to help other people out too. He had these students over there. He was doing all of this hands on healing and playing all of this really spooky music. It was kind of weird, with candles and it was dark inside. He had all of these different gods and goddesses all over the room and Buddhas and angels, lots of angels. Later on he actually thought he was a reincarnation of the archangel Lucifer.

Anne: He thought that?

Barbara: Yeah, yeah. He saw himself walking through a tunnel. Originally he came to earth he said to save people. Well he had this glorified thing about himself, this big ego thing, thinking he was going to save the world and save all of these homeless people that were on the streets of Daytona. He had them all living in double wide modular homes behind his home on his property. A lot of these people didn’t pay rent and he was helping them out. He had a lot of females there and I found out later on that he was dating these females. Also, there was sex going on too and sometimes group sex, which I never got involved in.

Anne: I wasn’t going to ask, but I really wanted to so thank you for volunteering that. I’d actually like to back up a little and ask you about your initial involvement, which was through the Reiki healing. Did you actually feel that he in some way did something beneficial for you?

Barbara: Well, I don’t know if he really had these Reiki powers or not. I mean I thought that maybe I myself was developing them, but I don’t think he really had them. But, with healing me…He was a very charismatic person. He liked to dance, and he liked to do all of these things that I liked to do. He liked to go to fancy restaurants and he kind of like took me out. He kind of coddled me. He took me to restaurants and nice shows. He had a lot of money. I had a good time with him. I kind of fell in love with him after awhile because I felt like there was something missing from my life after my husband passed away. So, I kind of fell into this relationship.

Anne: So, do you feel now, in retrospect, was he sort of taking advantage of your vulnerability in order to weave his spell on you and bring you in under his control?

Barbara: Oh, yeah, definitely. In fact…Well he would take me out. I broke up with him three times during the year and a half that I dated this man. I noticed that…I saw red flags whenever I went to visit my children in another state. He didn’t like it. He was very jealous of my family members. He was trying to get controlling with me. I knew that these were red flags that he was a dangerous person. He was starting to get controlling. He would date other women while I was gone and call me on the phone and send me messages that he was dating all of these women and even have me try to talk to them on the phone which is kind of crazy. He’d send me e-mails with pictures of him dating all these women in beautiful clothes and stuff. He’d try and make me jealous. When I came back he was ok, but as soon as I went out again it was the same old thing. It was usually during the holidays he did this thing. It was kind of cruel in many ways. In fact, it’s been three years but he even occasionally sends e-mails to me with pictures of him dating these women. Of course I delete them. I don’t correspond with him at all. I delete his e-mails and I changed my phone number and everything. Maybe I should change my e-mail too.

Anne: So he is still trying to get you back?

Barbara: Oh, yeah. In fact, I’ve had a steady boyfriend for two years now and he knows it too. He’s seen me a couple of times in public with this other fellow, but he still tries to do it. But, I’m never going to go back, because I know it would be very dangerous and very stupid to do such a thing knowing the way he is.

Anne: How long were you involved with him all told?

Barbara: A year and a half. In fact, one time I hadn’t seen him in about six months and what happened was he broke up with this one woman and he said he needed a dance partner. We used to take dance lessons together. I couldn’t find anybody to dance with. I advertised in the paper and the Penny Saver and I could not find a person to go dancing with. I just finally decided to go back with him just so I could go dancing with somebody. What happened was one thing led to another, before you know it, we were having sex and going out to dinner and that sort of thing. I realized that I would just have to give up dancing. I don’t have a dance partner, too bad. I just cannot see this guy anymore. He’s very dangerous. He’s violent. He a couple of times pushed me around when I wanted to leave his house. Yeah, he threw my purse one time. He broke my suitcase one time, broke the handle off of it. He broke my purse one time. I was terrified of him. I would run out of the house, get in my car and take off and not come back for a few days. He would calm down and be back to his good old self again until the next time that we had an argument.

Anne: Ok, so let me just flesh this out a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about your own background? Your academic and professional background is high level and sophisticated.

Barbara: Oh, yes. Well I have a degree in journalism. I have a Bachelor’s degree in journalism. I’ve worked on a lot of newspapers in New York State. Ten years ago I lived in New York State. I was a reporter. Later on, I got a Master’s degree in social work, believe it or not, in social work, where I worked with little kids and did counseling. You would never think I would get into such a relationship having worked with people that had all kinds of problems. I believe the fact that my husband had died. It could happen also if you go through a divorce or you have a problem where you lose your home, or an illness, anything that is a major catastrophe in your life does something to you so that you become more vulnerable than you normally would be. I believe that I was thinking straight after my husband died. A lot of people they are sort of temporarily insane so to speak. Later on when I began to realize what was going on and I started to think straight again like I used to think, then I realized what a mistake I had made in my life and I would never do it again of course. I realized I walked into a trap so to speak. I know how to keep my common sense now, my bearings.

Anne: We are going to get to that in a bit, the question about how you would advise others to be able to avoid that trap. First, I need to remind our listeners that if you have a question for Barbara, or a comment, you can give us a call at 866Monday6. That’s 866Monday6. You can also send us a message via Twitter at @mondayradio or by Facebook at facebook.com/mondaynightradio, or e-mail us at comments@mondaynightradio.com. We also have our chat room open on the website at blogtalkradio.com/mondaynightradio if you want to get involved in the online chat. So, actually how would you recommend that people avoid this trap all together? You’ve identified a few key elements I think. These people are often vulnerable. You had just lost your husband. Sometimes I know they are young teens that have run away and are vulnerable. But, what would you advise people out there?

Barbara: Well the signs of a…Well a person if very controlling for one thing, they try to tell you what to do. You can’t go visit your relatives. You can’t listen to your mom and dad. You have to do what I tell you to do, not what you want to do. Being a middle aged person, middle of life, I’m saying between 40 and 60 years old, I’m not going to listen to that. If I was younger like in my 20s I might go along with it. To me it was like a joke, sort of like a game he was playing, and that’s why I left him several times. Another sign is also violence, when a person gets violent with you. Like I said, he didn’t leave any marks on me but he did shove me against the wall one time. Another few times he threw things around the room. He got very angry. His veins would come out on his neck. His face would turn red. He actually looked like the devil. His face would turn really red. It was really scary to look at. I was kind of terrified. I wasn’t used to this kind of behavior from anybody. My husband never acted like this. This was very different to me, very overly dramatic. The signs of controling-ness and violence, those are the two major signs. Also, trying to control you in other ways like dating other women and trying to make you jealous, like he was doing sending me e-mails and calling on the phone. I wouldn’t answer the phone, he would call me on the other phones, and then I would block his calls. This would go on and on. The first six months he was constantly calling me. I had to block all of my calls.

Anne: You mentioned that he got very upset if you went to visit your family and your children. What did your children think of this when you were involved in this?

Barbara: Oh, they think he was crazy. They said, “Mom, what are you dating a guy like this for?” They said, “Don’t you have any intelligence? You’re an educated woman with a Master’s degree. Why are you dating a guy like this?” I said, “Well he’s not like this all the time. He’s only like this occasionally.” Maybe he would get violent once a month or once every six weeks, but not all the time. Most of the time he was very charming, and whenever he made up with me he would bring me perfume and jewelry. The typical abuser who when he makes up, he spends a lot of money on you, buys you jewelry and perfume and those things. This is in the book, how he kind of drew her back in with this ruby bracelet, this is the kind of thing they do. You kind of say, “Oh boy, nobody else buys me all this stuff. This is great. This guy thinks highly of me. He wouldn’t be spending that kind of money on me.”

Anne: Is that what drew you in? Is that what kept you coming back?

Barbara: Yeah, I was kind of flattered by this attention, because nobody else I had dated acted like this. But, it’s not worth it, believe me. Tell your listeners it’s not worth it. No matter how much they spend on you, it’s not worth it.

Anne: Let’s go to callers. Let’s go to Rob in California. Rob, good evening. You are on the air with Anne and Barbara Fifield.

Caller #1: Hi, Anne and Barbara. Here’s my question, what would you recommend to parents and/or teachers to help give children the mental tools they need to resist cults and their charismatic leaders when they become adults?

Barbara: Well, they can see signs of controlling-ness. Tell these children and these teenagers that these people just want to use them. They might flatter them and say, “We’ve got a place for you to live. We can take care of you and spend money on you. You don’t have to go hungry again.” They have a contact with god or their contact is a higher being so to speak. You will see red flags with these people too. They are controlling. They can be violent and very dangerous. They could even try to kill you. They could be serial killers.

Anne: Is that it, Rob? Do you have any other questions for Barbara?

Caller #1: No, that’s it. Thank you very much.

Anne: Well, thank you very much. Thank you for the call. Remember that number to call in is 866Monday6. That’s 866Monday6. You can send us a message via Twitter at @mondayradio or by Facebook at facebook.com/mondaynightradio. E-mail your comments at comments@mondaynightradio.com. So, Barbara, when did you start realizing that you really needed to get away from this guy?

Barbara: Well the first time we broke up, we had been dating about nine months and he kept saying he was madly in love with me and all this sort of thing. What happened was he had this woman move into his property that was married to another man. She had left her husband because he was an alcoholic and he was beating her up. He said he was going to show her what a real man is, and then I began to realize he wasn’t very faithful. He had her move into one of his doublewides behind his house. She lived there for like six months and he dated her. That’s when I broke up with him the first time. I realized he’s not faithful. This is a married woman. She should get some help from an abuse shelter rather than going to live with him. He was taking her out, taking her out for dinner all the time, taking her to shows. Then, I guess her husband and her got together again about six months later and she moved out. He calls me up. He says, “Well she’s left. I’d like to start dancing again.” I said, “Well I’m sorry, but we’ve broken up and that’s it.” At this time I was in between boyfriends. He said, “Well why don’t you just meet me at the club? At the Moose Lodge where we used to go dancing?” I said, “Well I’ll meet you, but I can’t get involved with you. I can just go dancing with you.” So, foolishly, I have to admit it was a very foolish thing. I went over to meet him and he brought me a big bottle of this really expensive perfume. It’s like $500.00. It just slowly but surely we started going out again, but then I had to go visit my son. At Christmas time it started all over again. I realized that this going back and forth is not very healthy. I was getting stressed out from it. I found myself taking medication for it. I couldn’t live in a normal way just worrying all the time about this relationship. So, I decided that’s it, finally, that’s it. I broke up. I just told him no more.

Anne: But, he hasn’t taken no for an answer, because as you said earlier in the show he is still e-mailing you.

Barbara: Yes, he is, but I just…I have told him a couple times asking if I was still dating somebody and I said I was and he stopped. But, I’m going to have to e-mail…I don’t know. I might have to change my e-mail address.

Anne: So, but he’s local to you. You sometimes do run into him.

Barbara: Well he’s never comes to my house. He lives a good 40 minutes away from me. He’s never driven down in this direction where I live south of Daytona. He lives north of Daytona very close to Ormond Beach. So, fortunately he’s never come near me. I never go near his house. I’ve been avoiding all of the areas where we used to hang out. I don’t even go to the Moose Club anymore. I’ve just been avoiding them. So, I haven’t seen him in really three years.

Anne: To the best of your knowledge though, he is still running this cult?

Barbara: I have no idea. I have not seen anything in the paper or in the Penny Saver. So, maybe he stopped. I found out after we broke up that he moved in with some woman in Ormond Beach and he is living at her house now. So, he probably doesn’t do it anymore because she doesn’t believe in it. She belongs to the yacht club, and they go to the yacht club together. According to him, the few things he’s sent me were pictures of them at the yacht club. So, I really don’t care anymore. I’m just glad that he’s out of my life, and that she’s taking up the empty space that I used to occupy. I’m just glad.

Anne: Just to remind people you can call our guest. We are chatting with Barbara Fifield, who is a survivor of a cult relationship. She has written a book, it is a novel, but it is essentially autobiographical called Lucifer Rising. It’s available on Amazon. You could also look up the link on our website. You can call Barbara to ask her any questions you may have or with your comments at 866Monday6. Send us an e-mail at comments@mondaynightradio.com. We have a question, Barbara that has come in over the wire. This person is wondering how did he make money? It seems like he had a lot of money. He was spending a lot of money.

Barbara: He owned a lot of businesses. He owned some TV repair shops and other major appliance stores. Plus, he did a grass cutting business. He had people working under him. Plus, he owned a lot of real-estate. He was renting two or three houses out. He was making money from the real-estate and these other businesses. He had quite a lot of money on him. I think probably five or six hundred thousand dollars. He wasn’t a millionaire, but he was pretty well off. Let’s put it that way.

Anne: Here’s a question then. First of all, was he actually working at these television repair shops and the lawn shop? Was he doing manual labor, or did he just have employees?

Barbara: No. He had people working for him. He had at one time when he was younger, but he was in his sixties. Basically, he was semi-retired and he was drawing social security. He just had people working under him.

Anne: So, he was sixty years old but he still had the stamina to have sex with the different women he was seeing and engage in group sex?

Barbara: Yes! He e-mailed me one time after I broke up with him that he was having sex with three different women and was doing bike week three years ago. We have bike week twice a year here in the fall and in the spring. One was one of the ladies that work the bar during bike week. Plus, I guess the other one was this new woman that hooked up with him that he met in Oktoberfest the year before. I don’t know who the third woman was. He told me he was doing three. He might have been bragging, but it’s possible. He’s the type of person that used to pick up prostitutes on the side of the road as he drove by. That’s what he told me. I thought, well gee wouldn’t you get some kind of disease or something. So, that’s another reason I broke up with him. I definitely didn’t want to pick anything up. I never did. I was checked for everything, for all kinds of diseases just to make sure. He can be very dangerous, somebody like that.

Anne: Absolutely. So what I’d like to know then is how do you distinguish him? What suggests that he was running a cult as opposed to just a jerk with a lot of money who slept with a lot of women? Can you make that distinction for us?

Barbara: Well he had all of these teachings. He had people come in for teachings and then he would do some meditations with them. He basically told everybody who he thought he was. He had people coming and sitting in his backyard. People that came from North Carolina would come every winter and stay in his backyard in their campers. He actually believed in this stuff, this metaphysical stuff. He also did some astral projecting. One time, believe it or not, I don’t know if you believe it or not, but one time I asked him, “If you can astral project, why don’t you come visit me at night while I’m asleep?” This is like when I was going out with him at the beginning of our relationship before we started fighting and everything. Sure enough one night I went to sleep and I could feel him almost breathing on me. I didn’t mean his physical body. It was really spooky, like a ghost, like a spirit around me, something breathing and moving around in the dark. It was kind of creepy. Evidently he had this ability. He must have practiced it or something. He used to rise out of his body. It’s in the book too. I talk about the different times he like left and went up above his body and came down again. He could do a lot of different things that most people can’t do. He had a lot of psychic abilities.

Anne: Getting back to the book then, where does it diverge from the reality of your story? What’s different other than the name?

Barbara: Well a lot of it is very similar. I have one scene in the book where they are on a boat in the middle of the Halifax River in Daytona, and they talk about reincarnation. I’m a person that sort of believes in reincarnation. I’ve had some readings done. I believe I might have known him in past lifetimes. In the book he says, “Yes, I was married to you. We were husband and wife.” I can’t believe him as the reporter named Elsa Eldridge. I can’t believe that these things happened. Then, I start to see this vision of what had happened in a former lifetime. We were sitting in a church actually and he actually remembers different things that happened between us in other lifetimes. But, this is kind of exaggerated a little bit to make it look more like a fantasy novel, but he actually believed in this. So, the fact that I exaggerated it a little bit, that part is fantasy.

Anne: So, I’m curious then Barbara, if the book is so autobiographical, why did you choose to publish it as a novel? Were you fearful that he might come after you? Was it a marketing decision?

Barbara: Yes. I was afraid, because he bought my first book on Amazon, Photographs and Memories. I was so afraid that he would see himself in the novel. But, as far as I know he has never bought the novel as far as I know. I know he read the first book. I’m surprised he didn’t buy the second book maybe. Whether he would recognize himself in the book or not I have no idea. Even his name is very similar to the character in the main book. I’m not going to tell you what his real name is, but his name is Tyrell Toro. His name is very similar to Tyrell his first name. It’s kind of like a play on words so to speak, but the way I describe him in the book, how his face turned red and he got very angry and the veins stood out on his neck, is exactly the way he was in real life.

Anne: Did he only bring in women, or were there also male members of this cult?

Barbara: Oh, there were male members. There was the one guy from North Carolina he used come down every winter and spends the whole winter down there on his property and stay there. He was in the metaphysical too. He used to this cult in Ashville, North Carolina were so-called Merlin, he thought he was the reincarnation of Merlin in the King Arthur saga. Isn’t that something? He invited me to come up there some time. I said no I’m not going to get involved in that. All these druids and stuff, they were a bunch of druid people doing all these activities, these winter solstices and stuff. There were other people too, but there were mostly homeless people that stayed there. They had no place to stay and he said they could stay in the back. There was one couple, a man and his girlfriend. They stayed there for three months until he found out that the woman was stealing from him. She was going in to his kitchen and taking things, taking food and pots and pans, and stealing jewelry and all kind of stuff that belonged to him. So, he had to tell them to leave. He had some people that were possibly on drugs. I found out that earlier in life he himself used to smoke weed. I have no idea, I don’t think he’s used heavy drugs, but he did smoke weed when he was younger. But, he had a son who was living with him. He was 42 years old and he was on crack cocaine. He was living in one of the trailers back there. So, all of these very creepy people, I call them creepy people, were living back there. They kind of gave me the creeps. Occasionally this son of his would get in a fight with his girlfriend. They would get in a fight and they would have to go to the hospital because he beat her up. I could see all kinds of signs of abuse going on and violence where this son and his girlfriend, not as bad with his father Tyrell, but Tyrell was not as bad as the son. It was pretty creepy, they were using drugs. Tyrell never used any drugs in front of me. He didn’t even smoke cigarettes or even drink. However, I just felt very uncomfortable about that as well.

Anne: So there was never a time where they tried to get you or other members to take drugs? That was not ok.

Barbara: No, no, no. I couldn’t believe that this Tyrell was against drugs, let he allowed his being codependent allowing his son to do it on the property with his girlfriend. This was going on with the guy just beating her up. I couldn’t understand it. She used to be in the air force. She was intelligent and educated. Why in the world did she tolerate it? In my opinion she was only doing it for the drugs, but is it really worth it? That’s the way I felt.

Anne: Remember folks, you can give us a call and talk with our guest who’s Barbara Fifield, author and survivor from a cult relationship. Give us a call at 866Monday6. Send us a message via Twitter at @mondayradio or by Facebook at facebook.com/mondaynightradio. You can also e-mail us at comments@mondaynightradio.com. Barbara, I’m really curious, you mentioned this cast of characters that came through the cult property if you will. Were there ever kids? Was there ever anyone under 18?

Barbara: No, they were all adults. Most of them were probably in their 40s or older. He even had this older woman who was 70 years old living there with her cat and dog. She was living in a modular home. She was interesting person. She just needed a place to live. She wasn’t on drugs. She smoked, but she wasn’t on drugs as far as I could tell, a very nice person. He was very kind in the sense that he let people live there, but I also think he let people take advantage of him as well. I also thought he’d take advantage of other people like the women, the single women like the one I told you about that was married who was living there and he was using her for sex. She finally broke away and said she got tired of it and went back to her husband.

Anne: Let’s talk about group sex for a moment. That’s always an interesting subject.

Barbara: Ok.

Anne: You mentioned it and it’s in the book, so I’m just curious. In my mind, I’m imagining, well not imagining, but I would imagine that that entails at least two or three other people in addition to him, maybe more.

Barbara: Right.

Anne: Are these particular people people that would normally have done that? Or do you think that he some how talked them into it?

Barbara: I believe he talked them into it. He was very charismatic. He kind of talked them into it. He had been married for like 28 years to another woman and he had five kids. He told me that even during their marriage he used to have people come stay back there and they would have group sex with these people. I can’t believe that she would actually go along with it. According to him she enjoyed it. He also picked up hookers as well on the side of the road and brought them over because he thought his wife would enjoy it. To me that sounds really scrungy, you know? I guess she was afraid of him, because she called me up several times while I was dating her ex-husband, the divorce was almost final, and she told me to stay away from him, that he was also a pedophile, that he had had sex with their kids. So that really turned me off, because I used to work with children and some of them had been sexually abused. I was really against that completely. I didn’t know whether she was making it up or it was true. But, he told me that when his daughter had had a car accident in front of his house when she was on drugs when she was a teenager five years earlier. According to his ex-wife they had had sex together because the daughter had told her mom that he was seducing her and had also had had sex with this son of his that was living on his property, which was possible because a lot of drug addicts were abused children. They were abused by their parents or uncles and they end up using drugs to get rid of the emotional pain.

Anne: I have to agree with you that that is pretty creepy stuff. We have a question from the chat room, the question is, Barbara, do you have any psychological background information about this man’s past that might suggest why he chose to become this cult leader with followers like this?

Barbara: Well I believe that he is a very egotistical person. He likes to be the center of attention. Whenever he would go to a club to go dancing he wanted to show off. He wanted to show that he was the best dancer there. He would dance with all of the women there. He’s got to be the center of attention. Even now he sends me pictures of himself with these outlandish costumes on. I can just imagine how he can be almost embarrassing to the partners he’s with because he wants to show off and they probably feel kind of silly with him. He likes to be the king. Everything is about him. He’s very self-absorbed. His wife told me that he spent all of his time on his motorcycle going around and didn’t…well he would be working at his businesses, but he would also be going around ignoring the kids, ignoring her needs. She had to raise the kids basically by herself because he didn’t want anything to do with it. He only wanted to use them for his own gratification.

Anne: Wow. We have another question coming in from the internet. This is a little bit long, so I am going to paraphrase. Essentially, if this guy thought he was the reincarnation of Lucifer, than did he also think he was rebelling against god? If so, why would he think that was a good way to go? If you believe in the biblical stories and a heaven and hell and god and Lucifer, then you would also believe in a god that is all good and why did you want to go to hell? Do have any insight to that?

Barbara: Well, yes he believed that he wasn’t the Lucifer that had the big war in heaven with Michael. He believed that it was a different story. His story was that he saw this tunnel and he was going down to earth and he decided to reincarnate as a human being. He thought he could help people like Moses did or Abraham, and become like a big profit so to speak. But, he didn’t do those things, he was so wrapped up in himself and being Lucifer. In the bible he is a very egotistical self-centered, because he stands for the ego. He ended up wanting to be a kind instead on earth, to have everybody adore him and worship him to be like a rival to Jesus or a rival to Mohamed so to speak. By the way, he hates Jesus. If you mention Jesus’ name he gets very upset. He doesn’t like orthodox religions at all. It’s like a rival to him, a competition so to speak.

Anne: So, bring us back to the beginning. You went there for some faith healing and he did some Reiki healing on you and there were other people there and they were being healed and there were statues and icons of all sorts of different gods and candles as you said. Very spiritual décor and at what point did he lay on you, “Guess what? Guess who I am?” and that he thought he was Lucifer. How long into your connection there did it take for him to tell you that?

Barbara: I’ll tell you it was about two months after I got to know him. This fellow from North Carolina, his name was Will. He came and used to stay with him. They would talk late into the night on Wednesday nights after the Reiki was over with and everybody had gone home. They would talk about metaphysical things. He would talk about how he could do all of these different things like astral project and Will said he could do it too. He told Will. I was listening to them. I didn’t really interrupt the discussion at all. He saw himself looking into the tunnel and jumping into the void. They call it the void. I don’t know what this void is, but it is your way of coming down to earth into the physical realm. Will remembers doing it too. I don’t know who Will was before he was born, but that’s what he says. He remembers doing it. They would just be talking like they are just talking about the news. I was fascinated with this topic. What’s this void thing? I’ve never done this sort of thing before. So, that’s when he began talking about it. I would listen. I thought it was kind of interesting conversations they were having on Wednesday nights.

Anne: So, now I hope this is a question you are used to, or that you will not take offense to it. But, it’s sounding like it was fairly early on in your relationship that he told you he believed that he was Lucifer incarnate. Did you believe him?

Barbara: I didn’t really believe him. I always thought of Lucifer as an evil person. I always thought of him like in these horror movies Lucifer. If he acted like that I definitely would have left and never come back, but he didn’t act like that. He didn’t act like people in the horror films. So, I thought, “What is this guy? Who is this guy anyway?” He just remembered coming down to earth and he thought he was Lucifer. He had one of these cameras where you take auras, an aura camera. You can take people’s auras. His aura was all light. It was all white. Most people have different colors around them. His was all white light. Lucifer means light. The meaning for Lucifer is light. It was all white. So, I thought well maybe he is Lucifer because he had a different kind of aura than most people have. Maybe he is an angel. So, it’s possible. I don’t know. It’s just a weird thing to think about. Maybe he’s a human being, but he has extreme psychic powers, extreme ability to do things that most people can’t do. It’s possible, but then I don’t know.

Anne: That was a two part question; did you believe that he believed it? Did you believe that it was true?

Barbara: I believe he believed it, yes. It’s possible maybe he was a little bit crazy. He thought he was. He imagined was this big archangel. It’s possible that he had himself fooled. Fooling himself he fools other people. Whatever he was, he was really an extremely unusual human being. That’s all I can say.

Anne: (laughs) How many people did he have? During the time you were involved there how many people at the most did he have at any one time sort of under his spell?

Barbara: It would differ. Some Wednesday nights he would have 30 people, other ones he would have 5. It was different. He had a lot of students, and when the students went away for the summer he didn’t have so many people. In the winter he had more, in the fall. Women were very turned on by him. They were always coming by the house wanting to take rides with him on his motorcycle. They didn’t even care that I was there. To them it was like he belongs to everybody. He belongs to all of the women so to speak. That was him. He just thought he was like Henry the eighth.

Anne: What did he do with the male members of this cult? He had the women have sex with him or go out with him. Did he try and control the men in any way?

Barbara: Not really. He treated the men with respect. He had a lot of male friends. Believe it or not, but there were a lot of ministers that used to come by his house, and sometimes he would go to church. Even though he didn’t like Jesus and believe in him, but he would go there. His father was a Baptist minister. That’s what he told me. He’s no longer alive. So, he had an attraction for everybody, male or female. A lot of them didn’t realize what kind of a person he really was. Some of these people never even went to his faith healing things. They just came by the house, just to call on him and see how he was doing. He also ran a metaphysical bookstore in his living room. He had all kinds of books. He had his whole foyer, it was like a library. He had turned his dining room, living room and foyer into a bookstore. He sold metaphysical books that he bought.

Anne: Interesting. Do you know has he ever been in trouble with the law? Has anyone ever turned him in for any of the things that have gone on?

Barbara: Well, I got an order of protection against him one time, the last time that I broke up with him because I got tired of the phone calls. When I called the court in Daytona Beach, they said that many women have gotten orders of protection from him. I was really surprised. Including his ex-wife, but a lot of other women have too. He really has been in trouble with the law that way. Sometimes the girlfriend and the son in the backyard would have a fight and he himself would have to call the police. The police were always coming over at least once a week to see what was going on and arrest somebody or take somebody away. He had these homeless people that would get into fights and drug fights too. One person had a gun and they were shooting. I said, “This is crazy. I can’t stay here. I can’t stay at your house tonight, because if somebody has got a gun, forget it.” He was well known to the police.

Anne: And yet, the power that he was exerting over you was such that you didn’t say, “I can’t be here at all anymore, because there are guns and people that the police come looking for.”

Barbara: Well that’s what I did do. It was a like a week before I left him for the last time. I said, “This is it. I can’t take it anymore.” The next day I left, and I never went back. That was like the final straw.

Anne: Tell us what he did at that point. What things did he do to try?

Barbara: He couldn’t understand why I was so upset. He said, “You are going to be ok. Nobody is going to shoot you. They are just getting in a fight with each other.” I said, “Still it’s dangerous. A stray bullet could come by and hit me or hit you. I don’t feel very comfortable with this going on.” I told him, “This is insane.” So, I left. He didn’t seem to understand that people would feel afraid.

Anne: So, when you left for that final time did he try to get you back?

Barbara: Of course. He kept calling me. I blocked all of the calls. He just kept calling me. For some crazy reason he was afraid to come to my house. I don’t know why. I’m glad he didn’t. I have a very good neighborhood I live in anyway with good police protection. He was just afraid to come down here. He didn’t want to do it. Maybe he thought it would be dangerous to him.

Anne: Maybe it was that order of protection you had?

Barbara: Right. Right. Then he sent me a dozen bouquets of flowers the final week. I sent them all back. I said I didn’t want anything to do with him. I don’t want these flowers at all. That was it. He tried everything under the sun to get me back but it didn’t work.

Anne: Tell someone what does a cult leader look like? So charismatic, so clearly…

Barbara: …He was attractive, physically attractive, well built. He did Tai Chi believe it or not. Chi Gong and everything, he was in good shape. He just had a lot of personality and fearlessness. Just aggressive, you just come out. I couldn’t believe it that the first time I met him he actually came out to my car and he was just after me. At the same time he wasn’t too pushy. He didn’t try to kiss me or anything. He comes out to my car and wants to know where I am going. He kind of flattered me that he asked me where I wanted to go out to eat. I myself wanted to learn how to dance. It was something that I never did with my husband. It was something new to me. So, I was kind of flattered by it and other women too. He knew which made them tick. He knew what to do to turn them on.

Anne: I want to turn. We have a few minutes left. I want to turn just quickly to your other novel to give you a chance to talk about that. These are both of her books. She actually has three books. She also has a book of poetry out that has gotten marvelous reviews.

Barbara: Yeah. Passion’s Evidence.

Anne: Passion’s Evidence. It’s poetry written across 25 years. There’s also another novel called Photographs and Memories. Barbara, can you tell us about that?

Barbara: That’s my first novel. I published it last year in April. It’s about me coming to Florida ten years ago from New York State to take care of my parents who were getting old. They were in their 80s, ready for a nursing home. I had a sister who was an alcoholic and I had to deal with her. How I dealt with her, and later on I had my husband’s death. All of this happened within a period of two years. So, not only was I dealing with my husband’s death, but my mother’s death the year before my sister’s death, my only sibling. It was just too much for me to handle I believe. It wasn’t just one death, it was three deaths. That’s what it’s about, and how I made it in life. How I recuperated and got back to normal again after they had passed away, and it talks about family generational problems. Everybody has to deal with this as middle age when their parents get old and they have to deal with the changes in their parents and what to do with them. It’s a very common problem with people that are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Anne: Correct me if I’m wrong. What is the timeline between all of this going on and wow you really had a lot going on in the space of a few years, where does your involvement with the Tyrell character come in on that timeline? Was this before, or…

Barbara: I did. It was after had everybody had died. My mother and my sister died in 2004. My husband died in 2005. I met this Tyrell character about 9 months after my husband passed away. That’s when I met him. I was under a lot of stress at the time. Trying to pay bills, taking care of accounts, and you name it, things you have to do when somebody dies. It helped me to write this book. I started writing the novel right after my husband died. I kind of put it on hold for a while. This was in 2005, but I finally finished it in 2009 right after I broke up with this Tyrell character. So, I’ve been spending time writing instead of dating people like him. My poetry, I’ve been writing poetry since I was 11. So, this is only poetry from the last 25 or 30 years, but I have been writing poetry all along for quite a long time.

Anne: Your book of poetry, as I said, has gotten some just amazing reviews. Congratulations on that because a lot of people like to read poetry but people’s tastes are so different. Poetry is a very personal thing to write. What you write isn’t always what other people appreciate. So, it’s wonderful that you have gotten such great reviews on your poetry book.

Barbara: Thank you.

Anne: The book about a photograph and memory, does it touch at all on the Tyrell episode.

Barbara: No, this is before I met him. Actually it takes place, what happens is, I dated one person very briefly after my husband passed away, six months after my husband passed away, before I met Tyrell. It talks about the character Angela, and she meets this guy and he kind of flatters her because he says, “Well my wife just died a year ago, so we have something in common.” She meets him at a poetry club. This is autobiographical too. She falls in love with him, but she doesn’t have any sex with him because she is still in love with her husband. She doesn’t want to get involved with him that way. After a while he realizes that she doesn’t want a full relationship with him, so he starts dating other women. Then at the end of the book she learns to accept her husband’s death and everybody who died and get on with her life and get a job and make something of herself.

Anne: That book is Photographs and Memories. The book of poetry is Passion’s Evidence. The book we are discussing now, which is Barbara’s story of being involved with a cult leader is Lucifer Rising. You can pick it up on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and search for Lucifer Rising, or that link will be up on our website. Barbara, we have just another minute to go. Is there anything in this last minute that you would like to tell people out there?

Barbara: Yes. I have a website fifieldauthor.com. I have videos and audios of all three books on there. If anyone wants to e-mail me on there they can too.

Anne: Barbara, thank you so much for joining us. We of course will have all of those links on our website as well for you. Thank you so much for coming. Will you join us again?

Barbara: You’re welcome. I enjoyed talking to you.

Anne: Well thank you very much. Thank you very much, everyone out there, for listening tonight. We look forward to seeing you or at least hearing you or at least you hearing us next week at Monday Night Radio. You can call and leave comments about the show anytime at 866Monday6. Write to us at comments@mondaynightradio.com. Talk with you next week!

Barbara Fifield’s Website

Barbara Fifield’s book, “Lucifer Rising”

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