Richard Kieninger

P.O. Box 473032

Garland, TX 75047

 

 

 

    I’m writing in response to your request to have an explanation of what has been going on between The Stelle Group and me. The situation is both sad and ridiculous, especially since it has led the Brotherhoods to no longer support TSG. It is difficult to compress the problems into a meaningful historical overview since it involves many complexities; however, I will try.

    The core of our difficulties stem from a basic and long-standing conflict between me and the other members of TSG’s board of trustees. They were not implementing the directions given me by my Teachers, and the trustees wanted to pursue other interests. I opposed president Carnahan’s high salary and his building of a large paid staff instead of using volunteers. Also, the trus­tees were embarrassed by the metaphysical and prophetic nature of THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER and my other writings and wanted to take more scientifically provable positions publicly. I objected to their wanting to speculate in real estate in a big way with TSG assets, and I also opposed Carnahan’s scheme to sell the 78-acre Adelphi Subdivision, use the proceeds to buy two acres in a prestigious suburb, then get a mortgage to build a condominium commune in town, sub­sequently folding TAO into TSG. But my biggest complaint against Carnahan personally was that he taught members of TAO and TSG a form of sorcery called Vivaxis. Carnahan and I have never been friends. Shortly after he joined TSG in 1968, he gathered together a dissident party seeking equal distribution of power. He was the one who hired lawyers to drive out Jim Howery and my former wife, Gail, from Stelle in 1975; but Carnahan needed a connection with me to establish a link between the Brotherhoods and him in the minds of the other Members. After years of disagreement on basic policies and direction of the group, the Trustees finally said that there comes a time when founders of organizations should step down and let younger directors run things on their own. Robert Machiz, who was a new Trustee on the board, believes that clever lawyers can use the law to take anything away from anybody. This apparently can be done by regarding a person incompetent or insane and thereby justifying transfer of his property or positions to a successor. I was very dissatisfied with Machiz’s work; so when he threatened to resign in one of his snits, I said I would accept his resignation. This brought about an immediate response by Carnahan to save Machiz’s job.

    The trustees planned to remove me by saying I was emotionally ill since I had had a 28-year-old girlfriend who was a divorcee. Because I was a bach­elor and 59 years old at the time, they claimed I had to have been perverted. Carnahan convinced her that he had been able to dowse, via Vivaxis, that I had hypnotized her into our relationship. She telephoned me in a fury (which I would have done if I thought someone had hypnotized me); so I was ready to believe the Trustees when they claimed she was going to sue me and TSG for a million dollars on the grounds of sexual harrassment unless I immediately resigned my offices. I signed letters of resignation in order to protect the group. Two months later I learned that she had no idea of suing, and a lawyer advised me that the sexual harrassment laws couldn’t be stretched to apply to us. I confronted the trustless on their trickery, but they wouldn’t rescind the letters. From that point on, my relationship with the Trustees deterior­ated to total non-cooperation.

    They next hit upon a new tack--claiming I had perpetrated fraud in soliciting donations to the Philadelphia Fund. This was because I had recently explained to the board that the Philadelphia project was a three-phase operation wherein the community of Adelphi in Texas was the first phase, with the second and third phases being on the island in the Pacific Ocean. They jumped on this tack as cause to  expel me from TSG and TAO even though my detailed break-down of the program didn’t violate the purpose, solicitation or use of the Philadelphia Fund. They falsely said that I privately told them there is no island to be purchased, and they later published this in the Stelle Newsletter. They said it was my word against the word of the five of them and that after they got finished, nobody would ever believe me again. After four months of angry arguments between me and the other trustees, I realized that nothing was going to be accomplished in TSG until they finally got rid of me; so I agreed to resign from TSG and TAO as they demanded and give up control of the fund. My lack of that fund has slowed my efforts to purchase the island now that I am negotiating with the foreign government that has sovereignty over it.

The trustees anticipated that TSG would experience a dramatic loss in income when they would announce my leaving TSG. Their strategy document included their printing a statement, falsely attributed to me, that I had passed the torch to them and was going elsewhere to do other things. They devised the scheme of having me surrender control of the $76,000 Philadelphia Fund so they could use it to spend to cover their expected downturn in donations. They said publicly that they planned to offer to return money that donors had given to the fund. When they enquired of the donors by mail if they wanted their money returned or transfered to TSG’s general operating account, virtually all the donors asked for their money back. The trustees have since spent the fund on salaries and regular operating expenses instead of returning the money to the donors as they contracted. I understand that a class-action suit has recently been instituted against TSG by some of the donors who have been waiting more than two years for their money.

    There were three members of TSG who worked in the office and became upset at the duplicity of the trustees in railroading me out of the group on what they could see were trumped-up charges. They formed the “Stelle Committee for Truth” and used the mailing list to inform donors of what was really happening in TSG. The trustees sued these three members for damages and for a permanent injunction from ever again contacting the donors. A month later the trustees covered all their bases by adding me to the lawsuit so I could no longer tell my truth to supporters of TSG. After two years awaiting trial, TSG trustees dropped their suit. They spent over $30,000 and gained nothing other than ex­clusively having the ear of TUF readers via their control of TSG’s newsletter during that period.

    The Adelphi Organization had been pretty much under the control of trustees of TSG since my leaving TAO. Their main objective was to remove me from being Trustee of the Adelphi Land Trust so they can sell the land, transfer the proceeds to TSG, and then dissolve TAO and fold all its other assets into TSG. They have made no secret of this and had a slight majority of votes by which their plan was possible. At the behest of the lot owners in Adelphi, who were the people who paid for and built the Adelphi Community I refused to resign as land trustee. The lot owners realized that once the bulk of the land around their lots was sold, their decade of work would be to naught and they would be stranded. A lawsuit to dissolve the trust was brought against the trust and to remove me as trustee. The lot owners joined my side as inter­venors in the suit. The lot owners, who were the real builders of the site before the TSG members came down here to join TAO, have since broken off from the rest of TAO as a separate organization and claim to be the rightful TAO. The faction loyal to the original purpose has reinstated me as a member.

    The Stelle Group in the interim has completely revised the structure of its organization. Membership no longer is based on a person’s understanding of the Lemurian Philosophy and demonstrating personal development for inclusion in the Stelle program. Now one purchases membership on an annual basis and does not have to partake in the Brotherhood’s work. The trustees have plans to revise TUF to remove references to me and to issue disclaimers of having any connection to me since they claim I lied about the island in the Pacific. They vow to prevent me, at whatever expense, from getting the Nation of God started. When I do accomplish this assignment, it will probably be a great embarrassment to them. I don’t know how they hope to obstruct me, especially now that none of them are trustees as of April 1st this year.

    In order to keep moving forward, I formed Builders of the Nation, which I had asked the trustees of TSG to undertake for three years, but they never got to it. That was another of my sore points with them. Builders of the Nation has been quite successful financially and in gaining members. It’s an active group, having many educational programs associated with it.

          I thank you for your interest in what has been going on. It’s a shame that there is so much upset in TAO and TSG as a result at the trustees’ takeover two years ago. No one owns stock in The Stelle Group; so whoever is able to get in control can operate without being much restricted by those who actually created the assets. Being able to use wield millions of dollars of other people’s assets was apparently a hard temptation to pass up. During the 12 years that Carnahan was president of TSG, he voted himself more than $350,000 in salaries, and his principal activity during that time was borrowing money on the real estate assets of the group, which had been accumulated while I was president earlier, in order to keep things going. During his tenure, he brought not even one creative thing to fruition. He and I could hardly come from more different backgrounds. He received his training in bureaucracy from HUD, and I received my training in production from various industries. He was interested in profits while I was interested in enlarging the Brotherhoods’ program to serve the public.

    The Trustees had hoped to contain their vague inferences that I am insane, a liar and a lecher within the membership of TSG. They never brought charges against me, for they didn’t want a trial or open hearing where I could defend myself. When the Stelle Members Committee for Truth advised the donors that they weren’t being told of the Trustees dos about the veracity of TUE as were the local members, that blew the Trustees’ cover. The Committee for Truth asked in their letter how TSG could continue to sell TUE books to attract donors if the Trustees impugned the sanity of and claimed to doubt the veraci­ty of the man who wrote it. The plan of the Trustees’ article in the October 1986 Stelle Letter titled, “A New chapter,” was to make it look to the public that I was happily going off somewhere else and passing my torch to Trustees. The Committee for Truth letter made them switch to bashing Kieninger publicly. Since I am rated a public figure, I can be subjected to derisive innuendo and caricature in print, like Jim and Tammy Bakker have been, without my having legal recourse. The Trustees relied on this to hint at all kinds of impropri­eties without ever making specific charges in the February 1987 Stelle Letter article titled “The Most Frequently Asked Questions About ‘A New chapter”’. That article is a highly exaggerated propaganda piece with many false claims and vague implications. When they stepped over the legal line, I sued them for libel. This helped bring about settlement of the two lawsuits.

    The real tragedy of this mess is that people who needed The Stelle Group are turned off by these lawsuits and TSG’s spending donated money for them. But it still goes on. The new class-action suit by Philadelphia Fund donors, and the still-pending suit brought by TSG to prevent me from using my writings keep things in turmoil. I suspect TSG officials believe they will win by pit­ting their millions against me until they win by default whenever I can’t continue financially. However, I won’t abdicate the Brotherhoods’ work; so I’m afraid I’ll have to hang in there rather than turn the other cheek so they can have their way with things. At any rate, now you have my perspective. I hope you’re not too disappointed. We’re still moving ahead on other fronts.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

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