Prophet, Prometheus, Superman: Neo’s Peak

[pirate_anon]

Prophet, Prometheus,
Superman: Neo’s Peak

Their adventure in Texas a failure, Neo and Trinity move
back to Seattle somewhere around summer or fall 2006. There,
they continue to take advantage of other followers' generosity,
rack up more court cases, and cause another accidental bomb
scare.

On November 30, 2006, Draven is a respondent for
charges of domestic violence against Kenneth Anthony Parker
and Russell Aaron Smith. I don't know who they are; roommates,
possibly, or unknown followers. Both men petition for orders of
protection and receive them until December 4. Then the judge
decides there isn't adequate reason to continue the orders of
protection, and both cases are dismissed (Parker, 2006; Smith,
2006).

Draven and Trinity both end up in court again on January
19, 2007 (State of Washington vs. Draven, 2007). This is the
controlled substance false info violation; they will both plead
guilty to a felony, be sentenced to fourteen days of confinement,
followed by twelve months of community custody, and be
forbidden from owning firearms. They never pay what they owe,
which at present is almost $3000.

On January 25 and February 16, Trinity ends up in court
again (citations available upon request). I have no idea what
either case is about.

Undaunted, Neo re-starts his podcast, Radio Zero One, in
March (2007 August 2). It runs roughly every night for four
months and then goes on hiatus forever after, possibly because of
evictions and his reliance on a follower named Blackbird to
organize, transcribe, and notate it all. More on that later.

It's already apparent that Neo's breadcrumbs tactics are
deliberate and premeditated, but in the first episode of his
podcast, he outright admits it (as quoted by Blackbird, 2007
March 7). He says, "you send a 19 year old mailclerk [sic] a note
saying 'OK Johnny, I know that you're looking for something. I
might be able to help you find it. Logon [sic] to this site at this
time. Here's your code.' Then they go, and they look around, and
when they walk home that night, they're going to be thinking
'well how do they know me? What does this have to do with
anything? How did they find me and what is this mysterious
thing that they can show me?'" He also cynically states, "if you
single out someone, tell them that they've been chosen or gifted,
or if you make a very small group of people privy to something
private, it is by human nature that they will, you know, meet
their friend after school and say 'hey, guess what happened to
me.'"

At this time, Neo is almost thirty years old; wouldn’t it be
more natural for him to say “after work,” instead of “after school?”
Unless he’s specifically targeting children and teenagers, people
who are young and still unworldly. (After all, I too was in my
late teens when Neo spoke to me.) Neo calls this tactic "viral
marketing taken to the next level - much more personalized"
(ibid).

The next podcast episode includes a "rant about neo's
uniqueness," "Neo's self neglect (food, sleep, etc)," and the
various superpowers that Neo, Smith, and Trinity receive from
their Matrix version selves, "(smith's strength/brainpower, neo's
visions and such, trin's strength)", (Blackbird, 2007 March 8)
while episode three includes Neo reading poetry (March 9).

Despite their dicey legal circumstances, Trinity and Neo
end up in the local newspaper again a month later. The Stranger
reports, "Seattle Center security witnessed two individuals carry
a 'device' onto the campus, leaving it attached to a metal pole
with a note" (Spangenthal-Lee, 2007 April 13). The photos show
it to be a cardboard cut-out of a man with the face removed,
stuck to a pole and connected by wires to a bowl of red Jell-O
mounted on a tripod dome. The installation is accompanied by a
"manifesto," which starts with, "Good morning, Seattle. It’s time
to wake up. I watch you all. Every day" (ibid).

Like in Dallas, the local bomb squad is called to
investigate, where they "assessed that the device was 'non
harmful' and removed it for disposal" (ibid). However, this time,
the article includes an interview with Neo!

Neo is probably delighted for the opportunity to spread
the message of his philosophy, gain followers, and build his cult.
The Sun Journal, after all, treated Kurt credulously in 1999; why
should the Stranger treat Neo any differently in 2007?

But that is not how it goes. The journalist reports with
barely restrained incredulity that "[Neo and Trinity] enjoyed the
action in the Matrix films, 'but they didn’t really accurately
portray our lives'…and they were totally serious" (emphasis his).
He calls Neo's website "terrible" and consults an art critic about
the "device." She "stared at the photos of Neo’s device for a solid
five minutes before declaring 'It’s just terrible. There’s a million
reasons why.'" (Emphasis his.) He ends with reporting that a
Seattle Center PR rep "called it 'a non-event.'”

Spangenthal-Lee isn't done. He writes another article
about Neo and Trinity a few days later (2007 April 19) with equal
derision: "Melding pop-science and undergrad-level philosophy,
Neo and Trinity say they represent an 'international
revolutionary group' that's 1,200 strong." He also seems
unimpressed with what he calls “the group’s fuzzy philosophy.”

Neo is furious, and to this day holds a grudge about what
he sees as character assassination, painting Spangenthal-Lee as
some predatory interrogator. Over a year later, he calls it a "nasty,
condescending blog article" and claims that Spangenthal-Lee
made "a mockery out of everything we stand for and then to
have the blatant and heartless nerve to bring things into a public
forum - things that he literally FORCED out of me during the
conversation; he simply REFUSED to drop the subject - that
would be grounds for a lawsuit, with anyone else *sighs.* He's also
the one that confuses '120' with '1,200'" (2008 July 28, paragraph
4).

All of this is more twisting the truth; Neo himself is
infamous for hounding his followers for information and then
dragging it into public forums like Fandom Wank or Livejournal
communities. And unless Neo is counting every headmate of
every follower Draven ever had, that 120 number is grossly
inflated as well. To my great fortune, the Wayback Machine
happens to have an archive of the for_zion community profile
(and thus, the membership roster) from two weeks after the
disastrous newspaper articles (2007 May 3). At arguably the
height of Neo’s fame, his primary cult community has only 29
members—and four of those screen-names belong to himself and
Trinity, while at least three others belong to a single person,
instantly knocking the true number down to 24 at most. And
even that is presuming that there are no other duplicate accounts,
no trolls sneaking in for laughs, no ex-followers who haven’t
managed to get dumped from the roster.

Even among that small group, there’s a lot of overturn and
burnout. The next Wayback Machine archive, from only four
months later (2007 September 20), has raised the membership
quota to 31 screen-names, but while five new ones have joined,
three have left. Whether those who left were never deeply
involved, or fell from grace the way Draven’s ex-partners did, it’s
safe to say that Neo’s following is nowhere near the size he says it
is. At best, he seemed to have a core following of maybe a dozen
people at any given time, and at most five of them involved with
him offline. (And often, that offline following drops to just
Trinity.)

But anyway, back to Spangenthal-Lee’s Seattle Stranger
articles, where like many a time before, Neo's followers descend
upon the newspaper comments section to attack the reporter and
defend their leader. This does not succeed in making them look
like a benign group.

One follower, appropriately named Zeal, posts a
manifesto, insisting that they're not a cult. "No one pushed Alice
down the rabbit hole," she says (2007). All her life, "something
was missing, and [I] found it through Neo. This has changed my
life in a great way." She describes Neo as "a sentient being who
cares more about every single one of us then he does of himself"
and "some kind of Prophet." Another follower claims the reporter
"mangled and misquoted Neo," and that the Mission is "not in
any way about 'saving the world'" (mit-x, 2007) which is a
complete reversal of Neo's earlier messianic claims.

The Zero-Six contingent’s defenses of Neo make it clear
that it's not about his cause but him. For instance, when an
unrelated Slog commenter recognizes Neo's forearm tattoos as
coming from the movie Constantine, Trinity appears to claim that
“it’s an alchemy symbol […] [that’s] been around much longer
than the movie,” and claims that Neo got them because he studies
alchemy, "as in the old science version, not the fluffy bunny new
age crap." Again, this is nonsense; alchemy symbols come in all
sorts of shapes, styles, and versions, and Constantine specifically
chose the exact form and location of the sulfur symbol that his
fictional version had—he clearly based his choice on the movie,
along with his study of alchemy itself. Another follower,
apparently completely unaware of John, Angie, and Gabriel's
existence, says "It was the only thing about the damn
movie(Constantine) [Neo] liked for long" (DK, 2007 April 19). In
the process, they erase Constantine's existence, perhaps in hopes
of fortifying Neo's narrative as the One, rather than the One of
Many.

Spangenthal-Lee doesn’t back down, and neither does the
newspaper. Indeed, Draven’s followers descending en masse only
proves the point. The reporter never engages with the
commenters, doesn’t get into a fight, certainly doesn’t remove his
articles. He stays silent and lets his work speak for itself, which
Draven seems incapable of doing.

It turns out that defending Neo isn’t just a matter of
personal investment; it’s in fact a tenet of his philosophy! He
codifies it in his book, Codex Veritas Neo, which he puts up for free
download on his site and then self-publishes (2007 June 29).

When I first started writing about Draven, other plurals
from this time period spoke up to say that they had read Neo’s
book and it didn’t seem so bad. Which makes sense: after all, this
book is carefully curated and written by Neo himself to look as
inoffensive and harmless as possible. But it’s not. I can not discuss
Neo’s cult in proper detail without analyzing this book.

First of all, I must discuss the book’s design. The fonts are
constantly changing, as are their colors—certain selections are
blue, bright red, purple, turquoise, or lime green for no purpose I
can fathom. The pages were clearly made using the default
Microsoft Word settings, with a size of 8.5 x 11 inches and side
margins of roughly an inch and a quarter; no thought was given
to making it more appropriate. At times it is physically
uncomfortable to read. The images are not sized appropriately,
and are generally poorly made, confusing in message, and
muddied with too much text.

None of this is surprising; none of Draven had any
experience in design or self-publishing, nor the money to hire
someone who did. But it reflects how Draven treats even their
ostensibly most important pursuits: focusing on trivial surface
details, rather than the structure underneath. And while there
are plenty of poorly designed books out there, Draven
specifically wants his to be attractive to new followers. It’s
intended to be someone’s first introduction to the group. What
does it say that such an important work is made so shoddily?

But let’s move on to the book’s content. The cover
illustration (created by a follower) depicts Neo standing astride
two planets, one being our blue Earth, the other a post-
apocalyptic red wasteland—perhaps reflecting the red and blue
pills of the movie, though if so, that would imply that taking the
red pill and becoming a follower leads to disaster. Wearing his
trademark black trenchcoat and sunglasses, Neo holds out two
handfuls of light to the viewer. Surrounding the image in four
different fonts and colors are the words, “You are dreaming. It’s
time to wake up now,” “Codex Veritas Neo,” “The New Vision
Towards a New Reality,” and “THERE ARE OTHER WORLDS
THAN THESE” (2007 June 29).

The first chapter is filled with glowing testimonials of
Neo's followers; one describes Neo with "move over Superman
'cause he's coming to save the day" (pg. 5). But more interesting is
that follower’s description of Neo’s voice: a "warm, comforting
blanket" that "is filled with so much love and compassion that at
times I've [...] simply wanted to weep" (ibid).

It’s true, Neo has a very soothing, rolling, hypnotic voice;
it’s on display in his countless Youtube videos, podcasts, and
voice posts. But that’s not a coincidence. Other cult leaders use
the same vocal techniques. David Sullivan, a sadly now-deceased
cult authority, describes infiltrating a cult and how after only two
weeks, he was hallucinating the cult leader’s voice: “what’d
happened with the hypnosis, the constant shouting and talking
and guided imagery, is his voice does get inside your head. And
so what he does is a technique that’s called a voice roll that a lot
of preachers use” (Koehler and Sullivan, 2011, 52:30). When the
interviewer asks him for details, he explains and partially
demonstrates using his own voice: “you use your voice in a way
that it slowly builds, and it goes up and down, and builds to a
natural crescendo, and sometimes it will come up to great peaks
and I can’t do it right now, I’d be shouting, raise it up to where
you’re shouting, then plummet down and you get this very
subtle, slow, seductive voice that feels like it’s going inside your
head. […] It has a kind of rhythm to it, and it’ll be this long
protracted story, and it lulls you, taking you through these
emotional states when you’re unaware of how it’s manipulating
you […] you can do this with your voice—the masters of it in our
culture are Southern preachers” (53:30).

Draven uses their voice similarly, and even in poor-quality
recordings, such as on their voice posts or Youtube videos, the
effect is still noticeable, though difficult to translate into text. On
me, the effect was stupefying; even while constantly pausing the
recording to try and textually transcribe, even with poor audio
quality and a hearing impairment making speech comprehension
difficult, I had a hard time remembering what he was saying, had
to work to keep my wits about me. It reminded me of a teacher I
had who was cursed with an impressively droning voice, only far
worse, because instead of trying to learn about state debt, I was
watching a man try and actively manipulate me into believing in
the impending Machine apocalypse. Plus, my teacher only ever
inhabited the dull end of the vocal scale; he never goaded his
students’ emotions into an inferno with screaming, ranting, or
sobbing the way Draven does. I imagine the effect would be
more pronounced and far more acute on someone who trusted
and liked them already.

This effect also is mirrored in Draven’s writing style: long
run-on sentences and paragraphs, going from the quietest of
details to the most intense drama, intended to lull the reader and
inspire emotions. Indeed, many of the compliments of their
fanfiction refer to exactly that (Anonymous, 2004; Various,
2006).

I must agree with Sullivan, that this can get inside
someone’s head. It sounds crazy, but I felt the effects myself.
Even though I was never a part of the cult, even though I knew
what Draven was doing and had no personal relationship with
them, I was reading so many of their words and listening to so
much of their voice that it insinuated into my mind. I would
have nightmares about Draven. Even when I didn’t, I would
wake up in the dead of night, unable to stop playing it back in my
mind. It was poisonous and horrifying, and I would have to take
long breaks from the work. Even after interviewing ex-followers
and being pursued by Neo himself, I found myself internalizing
his beliefs and opinions, that I was a vindictive stalker out purely
to get him and to make fun of him. This book has suffered from
my desperate attempts to make it as boring as possible, as dry as
possible, just to try and moderate my own response to it.

And all that is with me, who never had a personal belief in
Neo or his spiritual framework, who never truly knew him.
Imagine the effects if I were a follower, a person who truly
believed Neo was my friend, my father, my savior! If I found
myself dreaming about Neo or hearing his words replay in my
head, I might truly believe that he had supernatural powers, that
I was living in the Matrix and that he had control over it! It
sounds absurd, but I can not emphasize enough that the effect,
however subtle, is real.

The reader need not take my word for it; it’s on full
display in the Codex’s rapturous follower testimonials. One
follower leaves a poem comparing Neo to Prometheus or a Christ
figure: "Precious is the man who knows the truth / And holds the
fire to change the earth / Who suffers the burns and burdens of
man" (pg. 4). Zeal, who commented on the Stranger article,
contributes much of what she said there, and more: "After
reading about what true prophets went through and
experienced, so much resonates with what he experiences [...] I
am now convinced that this is what Neo is: a prophet" (pg. 8).

Trinity goes further, claiming that Neo has "psychic
abilities (such as his apparent ability to heal certain afflictions of
the body)" and "Neo is something miraculous... he has been
touched by the Divine" (pg. 4-5). But Trinity didn’t come up
with this idea on her own; Neo himself was claiming healing
powers years prior, stating that he fixed Trinity’s sprained
shoulder (2005 May 6). Except he didn’t; an ex-follower a year
later reports, “[Trinity] is using a pre-existing shoulder condition
that has never healed properly to go to ERs and get prescriptions
written” for Neo’s drug habit (personal communication, 2006
May 20).

Even in a book of propaganda voiced by the devoted,
made entirely to present a squeaky-clean image, the violent
undertones leak through. One follower says that Neo "loves even
his enemies!?!" and that "I was ready to rise up, along with others,
and give those violent detractors 'what was coming to them', but
he would shake his head and tell us no. He cared about them so
much that he didn't want to see anything bad happen to them,
even if they did deserve it" (pg. 6). This follower refers to Neo's
detractors as "haters" and "attackers," as though they are sources
of physical violence (ibid). Really, though, what these people are
doing is "openly mocking him, having a laugh at his expense"
(ibid).

Zeal agrees, saying "they spread lies or say things to hurt
[Neo]" (pg. 7). Reality is constantly reversed; ex-followers like
Smith I are rebranded into liars, violent attackers, while Neo's
own acts of stalking, harassment, abuse, and violence are
completely erased: "Neo will stand there, smiling and with open
arms to them” (pg. 6).

It's not just the followers alluding to violence, either. For
all his declarations of being peaceful and all-loving, Neo still
refers to his actions as a "war," "a revolution," and claims that
"your mind is a weapon" (pg. 13). Spreading his word is "fallout"
from a "logic bomb" (pg. 53). Even in a book ostensibly all about
peace, he can't resist thinking in terms of an action movie fight,
like in the Neofox days. He even ends one parable with "Lock
and load" (pg. 13).

In Chapter Two, Neo regurgitates some of his "parables"
from Daemmerung, Truth of the Spoon, and Livejournal. Here,
he dances around the idea that the Matrix and the System are
real, instead claiming they're all a metaphor, only to then suggest
that maybe they're not. It is exhausting and dizzying to read,
slabs of bloviating prose constantly saying one thing and meaning
another.

For instance, Neo refers to human beings as "batteries,"
like in the Matrix (pg. 11). Then he immediately reverses and
says, "Batteries of a machine race? Hardly. 'Batteries' of the
System that keeps people contained within their own limitations.
By accepting it, […] they power the self-perpetuating machine."
And then, in the very next sentence, he reverses again, saying, "But
in the end, is it really so far of a stretch?" The Matrix might exist,
except it doesn't, but maybe it does, though! The constant
contradictions dizzy the reader's critical faculties into
submission.

Ex-followers laugh at the idea that the Matrix is a
metaphor. “Yeah, the ‘it's all a metaphor!’ is a lie he drags out for
outsiders,” one reports (personal communication, 2017).
“Everyone on the inner circle is hip to how much it is all *not*
supposed to be a metaphor. He talked about Deus Ex [the
interface to the Machine City in the Matrix franchise, who helps
Neo sacrifice himself as a Christ figure to save the Matrix] and the
Machine gods and the Machine Arm and the Second Renaissance
all the time. But he was very vague about it. There was never a
discussion about how the second renaissance was going to
actually go down (thus avoiding the pitfall of ‘delayed rapture
syndrome’) but just that something vague was going to happen
and that he had to ‘fight’ it.”

I don’t need to take the ex-follower’s word for it; basic
common sense proves Neo’s true beliefs, because if the Matrix is
just a metaphor, then why does Neo have the identity he does?
Why does he persuade his followers that they are characters from
the franchise, including Niobe (AKA Faith from the Angel cult),
Trinity, and Agent Smith? Why does his original FAQ from
Daemmerung include the answers to such questions as, “Do you
have memories of your life as Thomas Anderson?” “When did
you learn to trust Morpheus?” “What did that slop stuff you ate
on ship taste like?” and “Are there condoms in Zion?” (Draven,
2005, January 10)

In the Codex, Neo is unable to resist going back to Angel's
old claims of the apocalypse, but rather than Whedon's
supernatural demons, it's now the Second Renaissance of the
Matrix franchise, which is also treated with bilious coyness: "I
will NOT stand on the verge of nuclear winter, or knee-deep in
ashes with the scent of burnt metal on my tongue, I will not stand
amidst the wreckage of shattered pods – metaphorical or not –
and watch crumpled remains, of any being, literal or otherwise"
(2007 July 8, pg. 12). "I'm not here to tell you with 100% certainty
that the world is going to end in a great Machine war, with
humanity's own creations rising up against them. That sounds
ridiculous, really. I'm simply here to offer you a glimpse at
several possible futures,"(pg. 40). But he brings back the imagery
again and again, suggesting its reality even as he claims it's
metaphorical.

In Chapter Three, he addresses the "'Core members' and
'crew' of the Zero-Six Contingent" and goes into the beliefs
required to be part of the group (pg. 47). It's here that defending
him becomes a formalized requirement: "If someone attacks the
group with no reason other than pure malice - someone who just
likes to 'make fun of the crazy people' - and you're there to see it,
and are a part of the group, you won't simply stand by and let
them spill wrong information everywhere," Neo orders. "All that
we ask is that you - neutrally, as least - try and defuse
misinformation. Open their eyes before they get them stapled
closed with ignorance of our real intentions" (pg. 52).

On the surface, it seems reasonable, but the Stranger
article shows how it works out in practice: Neo siccing his
followers en masse on any criticism, with even the slightest joke
at his expense being transformed into psychological violence.
And for all his claims that he’s victimized as one of the “crazy
people,” he’s totally fine with painting ex-followers as delusional,
psychotic, or otherwise mentally ill when it serves his purpose.

Another requirement for followers is to "trust us to know
what we're doing... don't come in and try to change the path
we're on, adjust it to fight your own personal cause, or tell us
what we 'need to do'" which hints at the hierarchy of the cult (pg.
48). For all his talk about equality, Neo is in charge; nobody is
allowed to adulterate his mission. Perhaps he's thinking about
Smith I's attempt at creating a separate Matrix group.

Neo also mentions the machine gods, though he dances
around whether they exist or not. "There isn't an overriding
'Machine consciousness' in this world, that I'm getting these
visions, these images, from," he says, "but sometimes I 'open a
window' to a world where there is and receive the
'transmissions'" (pg. 26). He calls this "precognition," presumably
one of those "psychic abilities" that Trinity mentioned earlier.
Why the Machine consciousness can interface with his organic
mind, and why they'd be able to tell the future in a world where
they don't exist is never made clear. It doesn't have to make
sense; it only needs to entice.

Neo also mentions a vision of "a mechanical angel of
death" that "towers over you with a thousand eyes. And every
time one of the eyes blinks-- […] something dies" (pg. 33). He
claims it was created by human apathy, that the only reason
others can't see it is "either because you don't choose to look and
it's proverbially hiding in plain sight, or maybe because it's
between the walls of reality" (pg. 33). That's the closest to public
admittance of the thing's reality that Neo ever makes, and he
claims that after he came out of the vision, "half my hair had
turned gray," which needless to say isn't true (pg. 35).

Neo will create a replica of his machine god of death later
in the year, calling it metaKISMET; it is a simple kit robot covered
in painted eyeballs and dismembered doll parts. Neo uses it for a
Robothon combat match in Seattle, ostensibly to “make a
statement” against “creating […] self-sustaining entities - to use as
killing machines,” (2007 December 6) which makes about as
much sense as protesting cockfights by participating in one. He
submits metaKISMET to the Robothon Judges’ Awards, but wins
nothing (Anonymous, 2008, April 4).

Back to the Codex. The final chapter ends with a reprint
of the manifesto Neo used in the Seattle bomb scare and some
final words of support from followers, including Zeal and a new
recruit, Blackbird.

Blackbird’s recruitment is a classic cult story. In the
Codex, he describes being in a time of great life transition,
wanting to free the world and searching for truth. "I had to find
the answer somewhere. I knew it was within me, but I just didn't
know how to recognize it," he writes (pg. 67). In this time of
psychological uncertainty and vulnerability, Neo steps in to offer
structure and purpose. "I ran across Neo's website during a
particularly intense search one night. I read through it and
realized - that thing that was missing... it was love." He closes the
book with, "I'm behind and with him 100% on this. It is all that I
care about. I want love to spread throughout the world - to
permeate every being and cause a major change for the better"
(ibid). He joins for_zion (Draven, 2007 September 9), becomes
the painstaking organizer, transcriber, and notator of Neo's radio
show, and creates the Livejournal account radio01podcast.

In the Codex, Blackbird is reported to be living in
California, but that soon changes. Like Demos before him, he
moves in with Neo and Trinity, and becomes their acolyte. But
his timing is most unfortunate; a week before the Codex is
released, on June 21, 2007, Draven and Trinity end up in court for
yet another lawful detainer charge (Lunde, 2007). An ex-
follower from the time explains, "They did their 'Radio Zero One'
show late into the night, with the door wide open because the
heat was 'unbearable', so naturally, the very loud music and
talking and such disturbed the neighbors. They had many noise
complaints against them, then the landlord eventually asked
them to leave. They dug in, refusing, and the sheriff was called to
assist in the eviction process" (personal communication, 2017).

Once evicted, the whole household moves in with a
complete stranger who works at an adult supply store. Draven
and Trinity had previously gone there and schmoozed his phone
number out of him; now they persuade him and his wife to let
them stay (ex-follower personal communication, 2017). The
wife, astoldomiel, later shares her experience on Livejournal,
stating, "Since none of you wish to listen to BlackBird's account
of what transpired, I will tell you all in my own words what
really happened and what led me to decide to expell [sic] Kurt
and Trinity from my home" (2007).

Astoldomiel describes the household coming in on July
18th, driven by Trinity's mom after the eviction. They have Neo's
long-suffering dog, Menemsha Blue, with them, and astoldomiel
reports, "I told them that they had not informed me about a dog.
Thereupon Kurt began to bitch out Trinity for not saying
anything." The dog is apparently horrifically afflicted by mange,
and in a few months will die from it. Astoldomiel claims it "was
allowed to urinate on my floors and carpet" and "each time I
asked them to clean it up Kurt would throw a screaming fit and
only grudgingly clean it up. When I asked him to put the dog
out he screamed that the dog was a service animal and refused to
comply." (For all his claims of Menemsha Blue being his best
friend, these statements show how Neo neglected his dog; a
service dog owner should always take it out when it needs to,
and give it the care it needs.) Neo also apparently orders cable
behind astoldomiel's back after being told no, and constantly
proselytizes to them.

Astoldomiel also notes Neo's abuse of Trinity. "He would
send her to the market for him, to make his food, and do his
wash. He treats her more like a glorified maid than a
girlfriend/fiance [sic]. On one occasion she became stranded in
Seattle and was unable to return. Kurt began to storm around,
screaming, and yelling at her on the phone, then stormed
through my house slamming doors and swearing he was going to
kill himself. Then he stormed out of the house into the rainy
night. I followed after him to make sure he did not in fact step in
front of a semi truck as he said he would. While out there I
witnessed him screaming at Trinity on the phone in a very
unhinged sort of way. He was swearing at her, calling her a
'fucking bitch', calling her useless, and raving up and down the
street."

Blackbird is treated similarly badly. "They decided that
BlackBird could not stay in the room with them and froced [sic]
him to sleep in the living room, and pointedly refused to allow
him entry." He is also encouraged to proselytize too.

Finally, astoldomiel and spouse have had enough and
evict Draven and Trinity on July 31st, less than two weeks after
their arrival. Astoldomiel notes that while cleaning out the
room, "We found various odds and items that belonged to us that
had mysteriously ended up in their room. And a plastic bag full
of an unknown white powdery substance that looked like
cocaine, which I refused to handle without gloves as I packed it
in a trashbag." They put the stuff outside and call Trinity's mom
to pick them up, all while Neo screams threats and insults.

Blackbird does not get evicted. Astoldomiel reports,
"BlackBird remains with us because he was respectful, helpful,
courteous and has become a good friend of mine. He works
every day as a temp laborer till he pins down a full time job.
Then he will endeavor to save his money to get back on his feet.
He never once threatened Kurt and has done nothing illegal."

As far as I know, Blackbird does indeed get back on his
feet and recover from his time in Neo's cult. He also tries to bring
Neo down; another ex-follower tells me that he made at least one
post collating sources on Draven’s history, and eventually Neo
gets him banned from Livejournal under claim of doxxing (ex-
follower personal communication, 2016 December 18). All of
Blackbird's comments and posts are scrubbed from the site,
leaving no online evidence of his existence asides from the
radio01podcast account and the Codex entry.

But Blackbird's struggles aren't in vain; he manages to get
Zeal out of the cult as well. An ex-follower tells me, "During the
confrontation with Blackbird, Draven edited one of his emails to
make it look like Blackbird had threatened Draven, and
forwarded it to Zeal. Except he forgot to remove all the
text...which included the unedited email, further down" (ex-
follower personal communication, 2017 May 13). They continue,
"Zeal actually emailed me about it - and she was after my time,
and we had NEVER spoken before. She told me she'd been
warned not to talk to me, but wanted to know if I'd seen any
shenanigans like that when I was with the group. I told her
exactly what I'd witnessed, and she deleted her LJ and bailed."

Without any other housing, Draven and Trinity move
back in with Trinity’s parents. It takes less than three weeks for
that situation to self-destruct as well; on August 17 and
September 5, 2007, they end up in court yet again for even more
domestic violence charges, this time against Draven’s in-laws
(Prissel, Phyllis vs. Draven, 2007; Prissel, Steve vs. Draven, 2007).
Both parents request orders of protection, and Phyllis's request is
granted. (Steve's is denied, due to not showing up.) Phyllis's
order expires a year later, and is not updated. An ex-follower
from this time claims that Neo or Trinity tried to stab Trinity's
stepfather, but I've been unable to find details (personal
communication, 2017).

Regardless of what exactly transpired, it seems to have
made quite an impression on Draven’s in-laws; they move
abruptly and leave no forwarding address. An ex-follower
reports running into Draven and Trinity a few months later, and
"they had apparently gone to Trinitys [sic] mothers [sic] home in
Bremerton and discovered that they had moved. And apparently
they had no Idea [sic] it had happened. They were walking along
furiously ranting about how they couldn't believe that they had
been betrayed by those traitors" (personal communication, 2008
January 25). This will be the end of their association for some
time.

In the midst of all this chaos, Draven ends up a defendant
in court on a separate matter in October, but I have no more info
over what the matter was, or how it turned out (Draven, 2007
October 26). All I know is the case is closed.

Neo’s cult has been troubled from the start, but as more
and more people escape and share their experiences, the cult
starts rotting out completely. Even his iron-fisted tactics can't
scrub his reputation clean. Of the seven followers who are
referenced in the Codex, and thus presumably the most devoted,
Blackbird and Zeal, get out within a year, while another acts as an
incompetent double agent (personal communication, 2016).

Even Trinity's parents pull away. Thanks to the newspaper
articles, word spreads about Neo's behavior, and his reaction to
criticism only makes the matter worse; he sics his followers on
everyone who criticizes him, including a thirteen-year-old child
whose parents intervene (ex-follower communication, 2016).
Indeed, Neo's now been around enough that followers are tiring
of his lack of progress and his constant demands for housing,
money, adoration, and labor.

Neo tries to renew interest by guilt-tripping his followers
and discussing bigger and bigger projects, none of which go
anywhere: a second Codex (2008 May 12), the monastery (2008
February 11; March 18), another robotics project (2008 April 24).
He claims to have more visions and that he foresaw an
earthquake (2008 May 17).

Throughout all of this, he claims to constantly be at
death's door… though most of the causes have changed since the
heart attacks and lung cancer days. Instead, he focuses on the
multiple sclerosis (2008 September 25), plus seizures (2008
January 7), pneumonia (2008 March 13), viral meningitis (2008
June 15a), and gallstones (2008 August 10). He also suggests that
his visions from the Matrix world might be killing him (2008
January 12). He alleges that he nearly drowned in his bath tub
from them, making sure to paint a grim picture of Trinity finding
his body, “cold and blue, in the cooling water. And the worst
thing is, she wouldn't ever have known why. She might even
have thought that I did it on purpose... even though I'd never do
that,” despite the fact that he’s already threatened to commit
suicide to manipulate her multiple times (2008 March 18).

The demands on his followers are intense: they post
testimonials to his greatness on Youtube (Draven, 2008 January
26; January 27b; February 26), are called to submit things for the
Codex II (2008 May 12), and constantly have to proclaim their
loyalty and devotion (Trinity, 2008 April 17). They proselytize
online and off, and if Neo takes criticism, they defend him (and
sometimes stalk, defame, and relentlessly troll the nonbeliever).
They supply him with web hosting, organize and notate his
podcasts, and give him living space when he becomes homeless.


But Neo is never grateful, never satisfied. He never stays
stable for long, and no amount of reassurance or validation seems
to ever be enough. But come March 2008, everything suddenly
slows down. Neo stops posting Youtube videos for about a year;
his blog posts become more sporadic. Why? Because Anakin has
taken over, and he's even worse.