Surviving the Predator: A True Story. {Part Three}
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In December 2009, we were married, and by that time I was indeed a nervous wreck.
I knew I was making a dreadful mistake, but I didn’t have the courage to call it off.
In January 2010, we moved to a Greek island, where once again I was isolated, cut off, and knew no one. He had stopped working. We were having an online sabbatical. So all his attention was on me. I felt like an experiment on his petri dish.
We fought furiously. It is a miracle that I am still here. It wasn’t a case of punching, but brawling. I would forever be trying to escape through doors and windows, and he would simply pull me back in. Getting off the island seemed impossible.
There were times when he would plunge into a deep depression. Just lying on the sofa, not speaking and growing grayer and grayer. One time he asked me to commit suicide with him. I was terrified. I really thought he meant it. I think at the time he really did. At first, I said No, which angered him. After a while, I said Yes, but I didn’t mean it. I just wanted him to stop talking in that way.
After 10 months on the Greek island, we moved to Oxford, UK. He felt we would do better in a more social environment. I was elated to return to England, knowing that mum and dad would only be half an hour away in Oxford. So once again, my hope was renewed.
One month later, there was a particularly wild night where he smashed in the doors and walls of the house. I cannot remember the reason why. I think it was because I was ignoring him. I was ignoring him as any answer I would give would escalate his fury. My silence also did the same.
One year, one month later in January 2011, I left him. My parents came to pick me up. I walked away with £7 in my pocket. The next day I was filing for divorce on the grounds of domestic violence. I had to move quick, because I knew I had the capacity to talk myself out of it.
I thought I loved him so deeply and completely. I seemed to be woven into him. Extricating myself from him was like my soul being slid up and down a cheese-grater. I have never known such intense pain. I thought my lungs were bleeding. But, I finally now loved myself more, and knew, in the name of love, I must not proceed with this man.
During this time, I lived with my parents in my old bedroom. They took care of me. Quietly allowing my gentle recovery. After a few months, I was offered a flat-sitting opportunity in London, which I took. I wanted to know how I would function without mum and dad. Months later, I felt ready to treat myself to a healing retreat on the Island of Maui.
After that, I returned to England to begin the process of writing Sacred Sexual Union. It was a quiet period of introspection, retrieval of my creativity and identity, and lots and lots of healing through touch and re-connection with people.
Despite going through all that, I went back to him in May 2012 for 6 weeks. Why? I still could not accept that I had failed with him. I was very ashamed of being divorced. I still suspected he was my Twin Flame. I just couldn’t explain away why I had grown so close to someone. I wanted to try one more time. I had to make sense of all this. I couldn’t explain this all away.
There were questions everywhere, and no answers.
He had created a retreat centre in Provence, and so I moved from my parents’ house to be there with him.
I was unnerved to see how he was now more of a guru. I felt like I was in a movie. The students doing the most bizarre things in the name of spiritual growth. Making food for him, massaging him, having meetings at 3 am in the morning. Everyone was walking on eggshells. I felt they were doing some dangerous practices, like extreme water fasts with daily colonics, and separating from their children.
It felt foreboding, untrue, and they were clearly not happy.
He had turned into some kind of an icon. I was concerned.
Sure enough, the arguments began as I was not under his spell. I did not want him to become my spiritual teacher, I thought for myself, and attempted to be outside of his rule. There was one time when he was forbidding a seven-year-old child to leave her room before 11 am because he would be in meditation. For some reason, I exploded. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
It was one thing for adults to live under this madness, but it was another for an innocent child to do the same. In the midst of all the students, there was this huge row in the kitchen. I would not back down, no matter what he did or said. And the very next day he left for England.
He was gone. He called the next day asking for the students to clear out, but they refused. He was furious.
Days later, he was having an MRI scan in London with a suspected tumor. In the end, there wasn’t one.
I stayed for a while, maybe a week. We were all shell-shocked. Not really knowing what was going to happen next. The people staying at the ashram were very kind to me, and supportive. Suggesting that I now get on with my life, and start again. Days later, I did exactly that: I got in my car and drove to another area in France.
Even though we had formally separated, he would still pursue me via email. Sometimes messages of love and how he was missing me, but most often emails containing threats, questions of why I never saw him, knew who he was, etc.
He hassled me for years. Creating public online campaigns against me, slandering my name, and accusing me of stealing his work. He blamed me for everything. When we were together in Provence, I asked him whether I could use a portion from one of his books for my new book on Sacred Union. He said Yes, which I can verify, but then later denied.
In 2015, I began writing another book. This book was made up of three parts: Sacred Feminine, Sacred Marriage, and Sacred Masculine. I had completed the first two parts, and was putting off the Sacred Masculine section, because I felt I was not capturing the true voice in the right and necessary way. Then I began to think about how unbalanced everything was between the predator and I.
His biggest issue was the first book we wrote together, how this book became a thorn in his side. He felt I had stolen his limelight, his work, his readers, etc. I felt it was only right that I should extend the hand of friendship and ask him to contribute to my next book. I felt this would balance us out, and it would be the right course of action and how this act could potentially bring us peace.
So, I contacted him and asked him, and he agreed. I was not up to date with where we was, or what he was up to. I felt it wise to stay on a professional level with him. So I didn’t inquire into his personal life.
Within six weeks of easy and effortless writing, the book was completed. Inner Traditions, its publisher, was happy, and all was well.
But then once the book was completed, the invitations to open up began again. He started to send daily emails with probing questions, suggestions to teach together, the asking of personal questions, and the sending of music, which is always a big hook for me. Before I knew it, he was trying to edge his way back into my life again. So, I backed off immediately, leaving him out in the cold.
He got wild and threatening, and began looking for a fight… and he found it. He found it in the pages of my earlier book. He saw how I have copied his description of the Egyptian light bodies word for word, and this became his weapon.
He chased me down, threatening to take me to court for plagiarism. And so the conversation started up again. Back and forth we went, I produced the emails where he had agreed for me to use his material as long as I credited him, which I had, but this did not stop him. On and on we slogged it out.
By this time, many years had passed and I was with Pete, a good and solid relationship was starting, and I knew this one was going to be deep and true. I wanted the predator’s influence over me, and my life, gone.
So I succumbed. I just wanted him out of my life for good. I asked my/our publisher for help. They could only offer us a contract declaring that we were forbidden to slander one another, to end this petty war, to drop all accusations of plagiarism, and to settle this quarrel. In the end, I paid him £10,000, that I dreamt up and gave willingly, and we signed the contract with Inner Traditions, USA.
In Reflection
Meeting the predator has been the single most intense period of my life. Still, to this day, I would not change any aspect of this journey. I do believe that my seven-year interaction with him was one day in the wilderness. I believe my early childhood years of fearing and being curious of the devil led to this experience.
I believe my being unbaptized set in motion a feeling of seeking out redemption and repentance. I had this feeling of being unprotected and vulnerable to evil attack.
Because of this highly taboo and forbidden subject, I developed an inner naive curiosity towards the dark side of life, wondering whether the devil and evil really existed. I now realize, without any doubt, they do exist. Both as an outer and inner expression, and as an individual and collective force.
Another earlier contemplation was the feeling that maybe a brother was out there. That another soul existed, just like me, and all I had to do was find him. I almost believed that soul was the predator. But the truth of the matter was, I thought that soul was Jesus. Because Jesus had become my childhood friend, I imagined, as I grew older, that I must have been a disciple, and at times, him — himself!
I believe this relationship with Jesus was my only solitude for the actual harshness and coldness of life. I found daily life to be too colorful, too noisy, and way too much happening. I wanted to be left alone most often. And because of this, my inner world grew.
One last aspect to draw into this reflection is what is now known as Stockholm syndrome. This is where a hostage falls in love with her captor. During the time of my health scare, because of the fear of dying from cancer, I believe I entered a state of falling more in love with him. We seemed to go on this deep and meaningful journey together.
The predator showed me such exceptional kindness, care, concern, and seemed to be praying and organizing this huge and full recovery on the inner and outer planes. I felt as if our dark times were over, and this was the beginning of our true love and union.
Since the predator, I have not taken another spiritual teacher, or joined any other community. I have turned inwards towards Julie for rehabilitation, and sharing my findings mostly with other women. My path has been one of self-love and love of God. It has been a long and slow journey.
Along with my animals, being in nature every day, and now the living of my life with Pete, my husband, slowly, slowly, slowly, I can stand up and share my story.
Thank you for taking the time to read my testimony.
This is a three-part series by Anaiya Sophia.
Check out the first chapter in ‘Surviving the Predator: A True Story. {Part One}’ and the second chapter in ‘Surviving the Predator: A True Story. {Part Two}‘.
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Anaiya Sophia is a mystic of an almost forgotten faith. She is mostly known as being an author of six books, including ‘Womb Wisdom’, ‘Sacred Sexual Union’ and ‘Sacred Relationships’. She is currently working on her latest book, ‘Fierce, Fierce Feminine: One Woman’s Quest to find Her Authentic Voice’. She also orchestrates worldwide gatherings where men and women can delve into the celebration of joy and love. Her themes often include sexuality, relationships, and the higher union of both. She lives in the south of France with her husband , where they run a B&B called Occitania in the Magdalene/Cathar foothills of the Pyrenees.
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