The Steel Magnolia

The other day I came across this story:

Archbishop pleads guilty to perjury
ATLANTA (AP) - Court officials say the 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge he lied under oath. Cobb County Superior Court Judge Frank Cox said Archbishop Earl Paulk of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church was sentenced to 10 years probation and a $1,000 fine for the felony charge.

Paulk turned himself in to authorities Tuesday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest the previous day. The charges stem from a deposition Paulk gave as part of a civil lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the church by a former church employee who says she was coerced into an affair.

In a 2006 deposition for the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was former church worker Mona Brewer.

But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother’s son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer’s lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.

Paulk’s attorney, Joel Pugh, said he had been working with Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head for weeks on negotiating a deal.

“It was a fair and just resolution of the case for a man who has lived his whole life and done wonderful things but made a mistake,” Pugh said. “He’s ready to move on.”

Pugh had said earlier the warrant came as a surprise to the Paulk family.
The warrant was the result of a months-long probe by Head and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Head called the sentence “certainly adequate” for Paulk, who had never been charged criminally before.

“There are a lot of allegations about things he has done over the past 15 or 20 years,” Head said. “In trying to determine what is a fair sentence, I can’t look at what he’s been alleged to have done in other counties.”

Paulk’s home and church are in DeKalb County, but the deposition he gave was in an attorney’s office in Cobb County.

Cox said the sentence was not unusual for someone like Paulk, who has no prior record and whose health is “frail.”

Paulk has been in bad health for the last couple of years after a battle with cancer, limiting his activity with the independent charismatic church he and his brother founded in 1960.

At its peak in the early 1990s, the Cathedral at Chapel Hill claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. The church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress in Decatur outside Atlanta.

Today membership is down to about 1,500, the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers, and the Bible College and TV ministry have shuttered — a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the sexual scandals.

Wow! It never ends, does it? But get ready for this, it gets worse! While trying to find more info on the good bishop, I came across this: Sexual predators in the religious scene which includes the above article and so much more!

It seems that there is some guy named Eric Pepin who has created a front for his sexual predation called “Higher Balance Institute.” You can read about it at the above link, and also here: Eric Pepin - Higher Balance Institute - Discussion This last link will give you all the details as well as a glimpse of how this guy operates. Talk about totalitarian. He even gets his lawyers to shut down websites if anybody exposes him! (If this blog disappears, you’ll know why!)

That, of course, made me even more curious. I found the following:

Master Eric Messes Up

File under: Hands Where They Don’t Belong

Eric J. Pepin and an accomplice are in the slammer for photographing and molesting an at-that-time 17-year-old employee of his Higher Balance Institute:

A man who is now 20 was 17 and working for Pepin when he allegedly was sexually abused at the Higher Balance office… in Beaverton and at Pepin’s former home in the city.

Pepin should have stayed out of the child pornography business and just stuck to selling snake oil:

Pepin’s meditation systems, which sell for $79 to $149, help customers develop their “sixth sense” and apply it “inward to awaken a dimensional universe within the mind,” the Web site says.

But like many gurus who have fallen before him, Pepin just couldn’t keep it in his pants:

The boy, Smith wrote, “was taught by Pepin to believe that the sexual contact was only a spiritual necessity.” But after a while, the affidavit says, the boy decided he was being used by Pepin, who bought him meals and paid him $200 after sex.

An all-time classic in the lustful guru’s playbook: “I’m doing this for you, kid.”

We imagine “Master Eric” is about to receive some karmic “balance” of his own, in the form of a horny 300-lb. meth-chef for a bunkmate, only this time he won’t get to be the master anymore.

Then, there is this:

claim: psychic pill boosts paranormal abiity

Dear Friends,

It may come as a surprise to you, or at least we hope it will as we have kept this a Top Secret project for nearly two years. The secret is more or less a very real “Psychic Pill.”

For nearly two decades I have investigated the source of Psychic abilities, suspecting at first then discovering without a doubt that it was located within the brain. Not only do I believe that this source has been located, and isolated, but more importantly I have discovered the actual compounds the brain uses to manifest these Psychic abilities!

My team and I have produced the very first of its kind; a “Psychic Pill”, and it offers remarkable results in as little as sixty minutes. Believe it!

Within the year this product will at first go nationwide, then worldwide with full media coverage, etc. However, currently I am making it available exclusively to you because of your mutual interest and pursuits with the Higher Balance Institute. If you are at all familiar with my materials, then you also know how serious I am about this. This is the real deal.

Our supply is very limited but we will be taking back orders. A bigger shipment is expected to arrive in about two weeks. Because of these available quantities initially, a limited number of customers will receive their orders from the first shipment be sure to get a confirmation number. Others may have to wait as much as several weeks or months thereafter. So if you are as interested and excited as we are, call now to secure your order!

We are expecting heavy calls so please be patient when placing your order. You will also be able to order online which we proffer and will give immediate secured status. All orders will be secured and guaranteed delivery to you as long as you receive a confirmation number, all internet orders are considered secured otherwise orders will not be accepted and state that we are currently sold out. We will post updates on the new website of the shipment schedules as we receive them.

The product is called Magneurol6-S. It uses a unique formula that works with something never heard of before — digestible magnetite; “Magnetized Iron”. Please review the new website at http://www.magneurol.com. You may order from the Magneurol6-S order page or use our Higher Balance website order page.

The company I have created to manage this exciting and cutting edge product is called RemCure. Over time, we will be offering many other rare and highly unique products that actually do what they claim!

Most people will not know that RemCure Enterprises is a sister company to Higher Balance. This is a convenience for you as my highly trained staff will support any questions you (a Higher Balance participant) will have, and yes, Magneurol6-S was specifically designed to work with and dramatically amplify the results from Higher Balance’s already amazing material!

This special e-mail list you are on is giving you advance notice so take advantage of it! We are not likely to send out a snail mail brochure as we expect to be sold out shortly.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Very sincerely,

Eric Pepin

Higher Balance Institute, 515 NW Saltzman Ave, #726, Portland, OR 97229, USA

Yes, that’s right folks! A real “Psychic Pill” and he was going to go national with media coverage though he didn’t have enough to do more than backorders at the time he was sending out this email!

Oh boy!

But that was back in 2005. Before Pepin got arrested for pedophilia? Guess he had to spend his national marketing campaign money on lawyers.

Is there a lesson in this?

I think there is: there are predators everywhere. They prey on people in all walks of life from Catholic to Protestants to New Agers, and one of their chief disguises is Do Gooders, religious teachers, salesmen of “faith” and so on. No matter what you believe, you will have your very own predator to play your belief for all he can get.

Belief is the enemy. Only Truth can set you free. And you have to dig for it because there are liars everywhere.

But really, that takes the cake! A “Psychic Pill”???

The ultimate snake-oil I guess.