Von Mierers began to talk about the great psychic Edgar Cayce and his gem prescriptions. You realize its kind of happening to everyone in a way. I looked over at the owner, Cipriani, and got the distinct impression he would have thrown him out if I hadn't been there. $699.99 / piece Size: 31in. Solemnly, the merchandise was spread out near me. .. Frederick says that he realized 'even then' that Helen Williams had been his mother in several previous lifetimes, and they were almost inseparable. The real reason I left was because I felt like a failure. CURRENT ACTIVITY: Being admired in Mondo Uomo, the Italian men's magazine, which has devoted 58 pages to him in its November/December issue. Plus, I was supporting them. I am only interested in archduchesses and lords! At that time I was high priest! That's $3 million. Von Mierers was still local in 1983. "You'll never be a Ted Koppel unless you have manners!" Eileen Ford said "As far as I'm concerned, he's a crumbum.". ", Mind control inevitably follows a specific pattern. "Pick that up right now!" Group members were encouraged to patronize special doctors, nutritionists, and the chiropractor David Seaman. .gemstones.". To me, I was in a special group on an important mission; I believed I was one of the Chosen who would lead the Earth into a new era of peace and prosperity. After Aliens Among Us came out, everyone wanted to come to dinner with us," a follower of von Mierers's named Monty Karp told me. Her office was filled with poinsettias; she wore layers of red wool and plaid Christmas stockings. Later, when I got out and sold them, I found out they were worth less than$8,000. It has also been eye-opening. . "Do you understand? Sometimes I would have to go out to the end of the dock and do 15 belly flops as a form of self-punishment because supposedly Id been a dickhead that day. I asked. He kept elaborate ledger records, but he insisted on being paid in cash. . Only Hermes.". von Mierers scolded. He used to tell friends that he went to the Professional Children's School, although there is no record of him there. ". Suddenly, von Mierers's living room appeared very small. Early on, he felt the strong need to camouflage the fact that he had grown up in Brooklyn. I can get you these gems at cost!' Close to sixty people attended. He was a fringe player who appeared "to know everybody," as he might have said. ", "Terrible storms will destroy the world," von Mierers told me gravely. Writer Marie Brenner, who confirmed the now-dropped investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office, compared the blank stares of von Mierers' minions to those of Jim Jones, who led his followers in a mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana in 1979. As unbelievable as it sounds, never once during my two decades with the group did I ever consider I might be a member of a cult. I gave Freddy every penny I earned. "You see how terrible your families are?" "How does Frederick know so much?" Basically, at this point, Ive shifted the shame to a place where I think of myself as a survivor. Evan 37 in. Later, Hoyt went to Princeton and became a member of Cap and Gown. I could write three books about him. Von Mierers seems to have been aided in his gem operation by several New York jewelry appraisers, who were gifted fantasists when it came to evaluating the Eternal Values stones. With an entire group of new friends who looked up to him as a spiritual guide, he could reject social New York as it had once rejected him. Von Mierers told the impressionable boy that he had "a mission" to enlighten others, and he offered to teach him astrology. Then he opened his sweater and showed us all the gems he was wearing. He even let me drive one of his Porches. She was impressed by the "hypnotic atmosphere" and the attractive young people; Andreadis did an astrological reading for her which, she said, "blew me away." "In ancient Egypt, I trained you to be a healer! The hardest part, really, has been forgiving myself. "Frederick shut me in a room until it was finished," Adams said. Adams turned over the cash. "It was Frederick's idea to strip us of our egos through sexual humiliation," a model told a prosecutor in the office of the Manhattan district attorney. By 1987 von Mierers was wasting no time selling the healing stones. Andreadis was confronting von Mierers frequently about the gems, and angry factions were arising within the group. This is not phenomenalism and five-and-dimestore stupidities!" Andreadis said. I would never have made it without the help of my old friend Fabio, the spokesmodel. Freddy said to me, youre different, Hoyt says, speaking directly to the camera. He had mastered enough Eastern philosophy to sound authentic. He told us to call him Freddy. Von Mierers would often warn his New Age leaders to beware of Jews. Do you see the ego there? Olson, the head of quality control for IBM's Latin-American division, owns gems von Mierers sold him for more than $100,000. I have so many fabulous, fabulous things.". Every few moments, the birds spread their wings. He was a scrambling pretty boy who lived life on the edge. Von Mierers would invite his more attractive and richer clients to his apartment. "These kids are legal age." I thought, How can he have such sway over these attractive people? Recently, odd sexual practices have been encouraged by the group. I had come in to interview Ford and Joe Hunter about von Mierers. Frederick Von Miers Sciences Education Art Writing & UFO. Suddenly, von Mierers noticed that a pillow had fallen on a spotlight on the floor. But I was impressed with the people he had managed to have around. We were on earth to help people. He would tell prospective buyers that he was able to get stones at a tremendous discount, which the inflated appraisal papers would confirm. Von Mierers, however, did make Gentlemen's Quarterly. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. But I know one thing: If I do bring it up, nobody ever finds my story boring. "Maybe Freddie von Mierers is taking people for millions! It bears the signature of Unified Cosmogony's then-president, New York City TV producer Fritz Diekmann, who is featured in the 14-page Vanity Fair spread. Studio Design Collection. "We must spread our message to help humanity." Without Freddy to focus on, there were an increasing number of strict rules and codes of punishment. Members have included well-known models from the Ford agency, such as Jacki Adams, John Hoyt, and Susan Bearden; an honors graduate of Princeton named Catherine Edelmann; a West Coast money manager; Harvard alumni; Fritz Diekmann, a TV executive; Tracey Miller, a Florida model; an officer of Marine Midland Bank; and Douglas Wyatt, a Houston lawyer whose mother, Lynn, is the famous blonde socialite married to Oscar Wyatt, the head of an oil-and-gas empire. At first glance, the flowers appeared real. Life is vice. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Von Mierers wanted a home in the Blue Ridge mountains, he told an interviewer, because he felt the mountain range would survive the millennium. These cults attract mostly the Less than Zero generation, born in the 1960s, reared on fashionable doomsday prophecies about the millennium. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone. Through connections he made at Quest, von Mierers began doing astrology charts and psychic readings, presumably now strained to make ends meet. ", I was staring into the face of Frederick von Mierers. ``They've been very good neighbors they're quiet, and their landscaping is fantastic.'. The cult was called Eternal Values. Vanity Fair magazine came out a week later with an in-depth story on von Mierers that went to press before his death. "It has been a disaster," Montgomery once wrote of von Mierers to an angry reader who had taken her book seriously, but the reader has yet to recover $17,000 he says he paid for stones. We always used to kid about the old neighborhood. And when he complained to Frederick, von Mierers said to him, "You will die on the water! ' I was appalled by Frederick. He demanded $20,000 in cash or money orders immediately." When the cheerleading coach broke the news to Katrina Kohel that she was the only one left on the cheer squad, Kohel was determined to compete anyway. He would tell us, 'We are living a high spiritual life.' The inner circle of Eternal Values calls itself "the group." I hung out with Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell. But little did the world know that he was deeply involved in a terrifying cult. Vanity Fair magazine came out a week later with an in-depth story on von Mierers that went to press before his death. As I came and went to work, I was often accused of being resistant to our rules and way of life. Insight is given as to the inner workings of the Universal Magnetic Field, as well as how the stones can help you tune in to higher intelligence.") Von Mierers, like the leaders of the People's Temple, talked constantly of Satan's influence in the world, the dark forces, and viciously belittled the notion of family ties. Send it to The Daily Beasthere. Von Mierers had learned what it took to glide through New York's best drawing rooms. Even William Scranton III, the former lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and son of the former governor William Scranton, once bought gems. Cults have always attracted those with deficiency needsmissing pieces of psychological makeup that family, religion, or education did not supply. I thought, This is crazy.". Now she could talk about philosophy until dawn with a new group of friends who had little to do with the artificial world of fashion. The leader was a man named Frederick Von Mierers. "What is that?" At its peak, there were perhaps one hundred active members. Von Mierers, who believed in a master race, courted attractive young people. The inner circle called itself the group. At its peak, there were about 100 active members, some at the Manhattan apartment, some in a big loft building in Brooklyn. Did it matter? Williams, who was later the executor of his mother's will and had her power of attorney, changed the locks on his mother's apartment and told the doorman never to let von Mierers up again. In 1977, Helen Williams was in a car crash and had a stroke, which left her unable to speak. Through the help of a friendly building representative, he had arranged leases for some of his new friends in his apartment house. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space in the material world, which is what they are trying to do when they're having physical intercourse. .. . "You have to do something! Through a series of visions, the "new" Frederick suddenly recollected his life as "a mathematician and astrologer involved in building the Egyptian pyramid at Giza, and another incarnation at the time of Buddha in India." There was a big Vanity Fair expos at one point . Dr. Thomas Clark, who appeared on the ``Inside Edition' report last week, confirmed von Mierers died of AIDS. " Von Mierers's apartment became a hangout. Nobody forced me or twisted my arm to waste 20 years of my life. ``You can't miss it,' he advises lake visitors curious about the house. We never would have signed him." In the light, it was obvious that the furniture was shabby, that the fabrics were second-rate. All this pale-blue lacquer. "A lot of it I couldn't really absorb at once." What's the big deal? "I ran into her on an airplane," a close friend of hers told me. We spoke what youd call New Age jargon. I couldnt seem to live up to the community standards. They came after me and talked me into coming back. Years ago, if he said he worked ten days on a modeling job, I knew that meant he worked two days! "I thought I was in love with Jacki," he told me. Devastated by illness, he twisted on his tiny lavender slipper-chair perch and clapped his hands for one of his followers to open his bedroom vault. "We were like one entire family. Frederick insisted on cash. "It is time to go big-time," Andreadis remembers von Mierers telling him a little later. Control of diet was an important first step. Her success did little to affect her malaise, though; Adams often spent evenings reading spiritualism books, trying to make sense of her troubled childhood. Von Mierers rented a house on Nantucket, where Baldwin always spent his summers. Few wind up, as von Mierers did, a canny gem salesman who was easily able to win over a popular author named Ruth Montgomery, whose books on psychic phenomena have sold millions of copies. At times, his anti-Semitic remarks were almost comical. Jesus, Rama, Krishna, Buddha did not come to promise you another piece of ass. .. Got a tip? Subscribers have complete access to the archive. "That always sounded suspicious to me," a friend of von Mierers's told me, "but he was always around with Mrs. Williams, and she was such a sweet old lady." However, word began to spread through the Upper East Side of New York that von Mierers had genuine psychic ability. This guy is raking in millions! ``I have no complaints about them at all,' Karr told The Asheville Citizen. "I heard they got money to Frederick by Federal Express." Editor's Letter: Tales of the unexpected. The fairy tales of this dimension! Amelia is kind and innocent and comes from a family with money. He told me, 'Give me $9,000 cash to paint it. Im a textbook cultvictim.. Even though I earned most of the money that supported us, the leaders seemed to be growing more and more disdainful of me. 1913 TO TODAY. Find out who is the source at the source of the I thought, who is the author of the / thought? The message was simple: Adams and Andreadis were evil; their egos would have to be ' 'destroyed. ' She reportedly paid von Mierers $75,000 for her gems. Blind faith, fear of the millennium, and obsession are less easy to analyze. He would say, 'This sapphire is $50,000, this emerald is $70,000.' He had us change the locks on the door. We were supposed to be renouncing vanity and worldly possessions and living in a monastic community. It was impossible not to notice that von Mierers's friends all wore large gems. In those days, he would hold seminars for hundreds of people at a church on Park Avenue or at a downtown school. summers in Nantucket and falls in Oyster Bay. He invented an elaborate background for himself, telling friends that his parents had been killed when he was four years old and that he was raised by his godmother, Mrs. Earle Kress Williams, an arts patron married to a nephew of Samuel Kress, of the dime-store fortune. . "We had a conversation about various things that had already occurred in my life, ' ' Hoyt told an interviewer. Frederick would talk about their mission and explain the need to eat grains and vegetables; he would place them on rigorous diets, which involved an elaborate system of eating known as food-combining. "The root of all thought is the I thought," he might say while lecturing opaquely on his views of Eastern philosophy. She was saved by her intelligence and her astonishing beauty. Within a few weeks, I met with a beautiful model named Jacki Adams, who for some years had been the face on the Elizabeth Arden campaign. I probably have over $800,000 wholesale of these gems in this very apartment. My mother was not that rich. She told me they had her do things! Access everything Vanity Fair has ever published.Join Now Subscriber-Only Benefit The Complete Vanity Fair Archive EVERY ISSUE. I was all of seventeen years old." They're cheaper than you could get wholesale!' The house was on a lake. Amelia and Becky are friends, but they are nothing alike. He told us about the personal tapes he would make for us that would cost $350, and he said he had eight thousand requests. . "I almost had a breakdown. My career is on the line! We are sincere! You have to do all the therapy and the research. One of the women, Erika Wilson, a model with the Ford agency who has appeared in Glamour and Self, had a bland, sweet expression and an allAmerican beauty. $769.99 / piece Size: 49in. He knew what was at stake. What a dummy I was. Only the elite will be saved. Pressed about other people who claimed he had cheated them, he said, "These are jealous, sick, twisted people. "It is possible to raise the vibration of your consciousness through the. You can cancel at any time. Since then, he has acted and started his own film and TV production company, Tortoise. Tell her how much her book and the group have helped you!" Freddy did astrological charts and life readings. I also got a lawyer and brought a civil suit against Eternal Values. ", In gay circles, von Mierers was called ''the mignon." The dark and evil forces are perpetuating the idea of soul mates. Studio Design Collection. He will buy everything for you." We all want the gems,'' I had heard a Princeton honors graduate and devotee of Eternal Values say on a cassette about the stones. New York has always been a city of pretense, filled with mythomaniacs and con artists, most of them rank amateurs. Frederick gave me spending cash. Richards most recent film is Intersection, a romantic thriller he produced and stars in. A male supermodel on surviving an apocalyptic, vegetarian cult. We were sitting in his apartment, an elaborately decorated aerie on East Fifty-fourth Street. The ring had twelve of my own diamonds in it, and I was shocked when I learned that the whole ring was worth at most $15,000, because Frederick had told me that the stone was worth $23,000. You will survive the storms and be the leaders of the millennium." "You are so pretty-pretty-pretty-pretty, my wonderful birds," he said, kissing their beaks. Id fly to Tokyo for a shoot and have to be back by Monday to take an exam; I was proud I was able to graduate with my class, in1985. People don't even know themselves, do they? Perhaps von Mierers's ability to mesmerize so many young peopie comes from the very persona he labored to develop as he made his way up the social ladder of New York. Group members began to yell at Adams and Andreadis that they were "satanic." By his sixteenth birthday he had read volumes of metaphysics, and he often bought books at the Quest bookshop. Black Vanity with Carrara Marble Top. Don't hit me!' "All the people here went to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton!'' The terrible earthquakes, the storms that will beset humanity! Von Mierers's conversation predictably dwelt on the fact that his new friends had never experienced proper sex. "Frederick immediately saw that we needed an organization, merchandise, a name!" Were they real? From a folder, she pulled out a sheaf of receipts and gem appraisals which appeared to show that during a four-month period she had given von Mierers more than $100,000 for gems and the cost of fixing up her apartment, most of it in cash. "Don't become a cock worshiper! But I know one thing: If I do bring it up, nobody ever finds my storyboring. I am creating the greatest comedy on earth. . Go deeper. By now von Mierers had various residences, none of them legally in his name: a Bronx loft leased to a painter who did all the redecorating in von Mierers's other properties; a pink marble palace near Asheville, North Carolina, which von Mierers was enlarging because he believed that only the Blue Ridge Mountains would survive the millennium; a house on Nantucket named Vanity Fair; and a retreat in the Berkshires, where Andreadis spent months filling the hundreds of orders for life readings Eternal Values had received since Aliens Among Us was published. Id hurt my shoulder playing football at Princeton; Id come to the city for a doctors appointment. von Mierers was recently asked. I even found a letter she had written him that said, 'Why don't you invite me to Nantucket when Billy Baldwin is there?' he would say. These looked pretty good. Fritz Diekmann, the TV executive, yelled out, "Stop bullshitting everyone." investigates von Mierers, MARIE BRENNER breaks the story. 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