1. Born in California, LA area. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

2. Ran wild in Santa Barbara. Chinese Mansion, Banana Road, Mountain Drive! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

3. Parents went full-bore with rich-widow neo-hippy crazy-artist themes. Fun while it lasted! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

4. Parents got sucked in to (and spit out by) a Cult (I Am merged into Children of the Light). Mother was a "High Priestess". They had their own branch! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

5. Witnessed brain washing and "aggressive" therapy, and forced labor, insomnia and fasting. And a melange of beliefs such as Theosiphism, Christianity, Buddhism, and anything else lying around. Everyone had glamorous past lives, and the lucky ones were planning to "ascend" this plane by "transmuting" their "substance" (and leaving no corpse) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

6. Escaped Cult with parents at 5a.m. unannounced, and traveled across the U.S. then to Europe. One of the nicest people, Anne, never escaped. The photos below are hers. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

7. Attended Catholic school in a tiny village in Mallorca, Spain, where I learned French and a little Catalan. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

8. Attended a Community College near Brighton. A Yankee mutt tested well enough for "posh schools", so they placed him in this alternative co-ed school for O-Level prep. 2 hours each way. Invaluable to his spotty education. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

9. Studied piano in SF with Robert Sheldon, a student of Egon Petri. Petri taught Victor Borge. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

10. Worked as an ESL and music teacher in Barcelona - Richard ¿digame? Walker

11. Attended City College of San Francisco, where I started to program computers at the Electronic Music Lab - Richard ¿digame? Walker

12. Got a job playing piano, then one programming children's games for Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. In "Forth." - Richard ¿digame? Walker

13. Went on to work and live in the Silly Valley for a few years in the 80s. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

14. Learned on the job from graduates of SRI, Xerox Parc and Stanford AI Lab - Richard ¿digame? Walker

15. After long stints at companies in the North Bay, career as a C++ programmer flamed out in the crash of 2000 - Richard ¿digame? Walker

16. Co-inventor of ImagePump, which was sold to several people, even without a patent. Still in use today. People said nice things! . - Richard ¿digame? Walker

17. In 2004 I started working with Robert Elvin to provide music for his indie film "The Savant" released in 2008. People said nice things! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

18. Started full-time programming again in 2007, this time Eclipse, Java, GWT, GXT, MySql, tomcat - Richard ¿digame? Walker

19. 2 sisters live in Ireland, one sister lives in Las Vegas - Richard ¿digame? Walker

20. I'm highly Skeptical, even of these "facts." - Richard ¿digame? Walker

21. I have a large extended family on my Mother's side, as she had 6 sisters and a brother - Richard ¿digame? Walker

22. I wrote a "pocket primer" for the "Performing Pianist" - Richard ¿digame? Walker

23. I prepared my own edition of Isaac Albeniz' Navarra for piano - Richard ¿digame? Walker

24. I have been known to mess around with multi-track digital audio. Magix Samplitude is my weapon of choice. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

25. I am a frustrated radio producer, not much of a blogger, and not a journalist either - I like to help journalists, though. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

whew! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

And thanks to that, Jason, I was able to fake "therapy" by telling friends funny stories that were (more or less) true :) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

wow! and OMG about your childhood. I see a book or a screenplay there. - Kelly W.

very interesting. thanks - Cee Bee

Incredible life. Wow. - Jen (SquirrelGirl)

Thanks and welcome :) And Kelly, there have been more than one book written already about the cult and related stuff. Unfortunately not good ones, and completely opaque to the average person. This is on my list as a cautionary "look what can happen to nice people with good intentions." I'd have to do some research though, and for that I'd need some kind of "book deal". - Richard ¿digame? Walker

I did write a quick chapter outline for "Memoirs of a Reluctant Cult Observer" though :) http://reechard.vox.com/library... - Richard ¿digame? Walker

go Richard- great post - anna sauce

hey there anna! I guess I went! ;-) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Whoa. - Derrick

Derrick, every time I read "whoa" I think "giddyup" - did I mention we had a horse and goats briefly? - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Yes, and since you were a child, I'm sure you were sheltered from a lot of things, but seeing or reading something like this from a child's perspective I think would be fascinating. - Kelly W.

Thanks Jason! I can say to that publisher that's hiding from me: "people want to read such a book" :) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Very insightful, Kelly -- the most gruesome events I was told or read in my Aunt's terrible book. Physical violence and forced partner-swapping. Engrossing reading indeed :-) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

thanks to the 23 prime of YOU, I've been on "best of day" for "most of day" :) - Thx! And I didn't even have to trot out the REALLY salacious stuff about the cult :) And now I call upon Saint Germaine to cast his violet ray and give my "inner circle" magical loin-girding powers for online battle :) - Richard ¿digame? Walker