Transcription: Dateline NBC - 1998 February 24

==============================================================================
Description: A "hidden-camera investigation into alternative religious
groups," according to producer Joe Ferullo, focuses on an Arizona group led
by Gabriel of Sedona. Correspondent: John Larson.
Canonical URL: http://mretc.net/~cris/gabriel/DatelineGabrielOfUrantia.txt
Last updated: $Date: 2012/06/23 15:04:53 $
Transcribed June 19, 2012. Please send any corrections/improvements to
<chris@mretc.net>
To download the video or audio associated with this transcript, see
"Preserving
Dateline's Expose on Gabriel of Sedona"
<http://americancynic.net/log/2012/6/21/preserving_datelines_expose_on_gabriel
_of_sedona.html>
For background information about Gabriel of Sedona
(AKA Gabriel of Urantia), see "Gabriel of Urantia and Spiritualution"
<http://americancynic.net/log/2012/6/7/gabriel_of_urantia.html>
==============================================================================
JANE PAULEY:

Dateline cameras go undercover to

find out why someone would give up so much to join

something quite out of the ordinary.
You'll meet a self-proclaimed spiritual leader.
Find out how he influences his followers.
everyone is buying the pitch.

But not

John Larson with an inside

look that may fascinate and trouble you.

ANNOUNCER:

From Studio 3B in Rockefeller Center,

here is Jane Pauley.

JANE PAULEY:

Good evening.

your job, your money, your family?

Would you give up

Would you walk away

from it all for spiritual enlightenment?

More and more

people are doing just that as they join alternative

spiritual movements sprouting up around the country.
But mainstream America remains deeply suspicious
of these groups and of the motives of their leaders.

Do

they prey on insecure, unhappy people searching for

meaning in their lives?

Dateline tonight takes you inside

one of these movements.

You'll meet the movement's

charismatic leader and see a world many wonder about.

Here's John Larson.
GABRIEL:

God chose me.

I didn't choose this.

Q. (John Larson) What happens if they don't pay

attention to what you're teaching?
A.

(Gabriel) They could die of diseases.

We have

terrible plagues happening today, terrible viruses that

are caused by the negative thoughts of people.

Because

energy is thought.
JOHN LARSON:

It is a vision of how the world

might end brought to you by a man who calls himself

Gabriel of Sedona.

He claims to have this vision thanks

to alien rulers of the universe who are speaking through

him.
Q.

(John Larson) You're the only person here who's

getting the message from above?

A.

(Gabriel) Yes, and pray for me because I need it.

JOHN LARSON:

And what are the aliens saying?

That the end could be near, and only they through Gabriel
can save us.
GABRIEL:

It's a very unconventional claim that

sounds like, on the surface, that I'm some egomaniac or

something.
JOHN LARSON:

Nonetheless at least one hundred

people believe him and have joined Gabriel at his Aquarian

Concepts Community in the Arizona desert town of Sedona.

Here they work in a place they call the new

Garden of Eden where Gabriel says if Doomsday comes
spaceships may land and save all the believers.
What's going on here?

Are these simply religious

people or have they surrendered their free will?

Are they

peaceful followers of a man with unusual beliefs, or could

they harm themselves and others?
The Aquarians let our cameras in to shoot certain
aspects of the community, and we'll show you that tonight.
But what the Aquarians didn't know was that we also sent
these Dateline staffers into the group undercover over a
three-month period.

Posing as potential recruits to see

how the community operates when it believes TV cameras are

not around.
Over the next hour we'll give you a rare inside
look at the Aquarians and Gabriel.

How a twice-divorced

musician from Pittsburgh now appears to control lives, get

money, and create new rituals.

You'll see the influence

he has over many of the most intimate aspects of members'

lives from parenting to sex partners.
An important point to bring up before we move
further into our story, and for you to think about over
the next hour.

Just when does a religious group become

something else, something like a cult?

Some in the

academic world don't even like that word cult.

it smacks of religious persecution.

They say

In this country,

remember, we're free to believe what we want to.

Yet cult experts say don't look at the beliefs,

no matter how far out.

Look instead at behavior.

Look

how power is concentrated, usually in the hands of just

one member of the group, and whether that power is abused,
used to control people.

That, say the experts, is when a

seemingly innocent religious group can become dangerous.

The suicides at Heaven's Gate.
Jonestown.

The deaths at

These are the most extreme examples of

religious groups gone wrong, of control by a leader that

spun out of control.

These tragedies have heightened

concerns about the growing alternative religious movement.

The Aquarians did not appear to be dangerous, but
what more do we know about them?

The Aquarians believe

that sometime between May, 2000, and May, 2001, much of

the human race may be destroyed if major changes don't
occur, and only those faithful to Gabriel will be carried
away in a spacecraft and will return with him to rule over
a cleansed earth.
Q.

(John Larson) So you're also an alien being?

A.

(Gabriel) Yes, I guess you can say that.

My

point of origin is another universe.

Q.

And you've been reborn many times on this planet?

A.

Yes.
JOHN LARSON:

Also aliens, according to Gabriel,

most of the major religious figures we know, including

Jesus and the angels.
Q.

(John Larson) For example, Adam and Eve.

Extraterrestrials?
A.

(Gabriel) Yes.

extraterrestrials.

I guess you could consider them

They're material sons and daughters.

JOHN LARSON:

To keep their ranks growing, to

draw in potential new members, the Aquarians rely on

sophisticated marketing techniques
The Aquarians have produced this video, pitching
their group, their leader Gabriel of Sedona, and his
common law wife, Niann, whom he calls his complement.
Gabriel also sells books.

Including his

autobiography, The Divine New Order.

CDs of his music.

He sells tapes and

Audio cassettes of his lectures with

titles like There Are No Real Leaders.

And, like an

increasing number of new religious groups, Gabriel has a

state-of-the-art website painting an inviting portrait of
the Aquarians.
But as you'll see later, this website is also
used to attract people who may have no idea what they're
getting into.
REGINA SPRAGUE:

I went from a really comfortable

life to like a living hell.

JOHN LARSON:

Regina Sprague says she didn't

realize what she was doing when she joined the Aquarians
four years ago with her husband, Mark, and their
daughter.

Now Regina believes she knows exactly what he

is.
Q.

(John Larson) Is he a con man?

A.

(Regina Sprague) Yes.

Q.

A liar?

A.

Yes.

Q.

Is he purposely trying to control those people

there?
A.

He's a very dangerous person.

I think he's very

ill.
JOHN LARSON:

The Spragues' journey began with a

trip to the stunning red rock desert town of Sedona.

Regina's twelve-year marriage to Mark was in trouble.
They decided to take a vacation without their daughter.
The beauty and tranquility of the place drew the Spragues
here.

Once in town, Mark and Regina stumbled upon a red

rock tour company called Spirit Steps Tours.

Q.

(John Larson) You were just going to see some

historic sites?
A.

(Mark Sprague) Exactly.

in Sedona called vortexes.

They had a lot of places

And a lot of American --

Native American, Indian legends.

JOHN LARSON:
it appears to be.

But Spirit Steps Tours is more than

It's owned by the Aquarians, and as

you'll see, taking this tour can be the first big step
into the world of Gabriel.
JANE PAULEY:

When we return, the Spragues take

the tour, as do our a Dateline undercover staffers.

They're about to hear the pitch of the Aquarians.
ANNOUNCER:

Returning to our story, Mark and

Regina Sprague have gone to Sedona to help get their

troubled marriage back on track and take a tour of the
Arizona desert.
But they're also about to take the first step
into Gabriel's world, as are two Dateline staffers with a
hidden camera.

They're all about to discover what is for

some appealing and for others troubling.

Here again is

John Larson.
JOHN LARSON:
Age capital.

Sedona is America's unofficial New

Spiritual groups and healers thrive here.

New Age tourism is old-fashioned good business.

And local authorities here say the Aquarians are
good neighbors.

Gabriel is low-key, quiet and the group

keeps to itself.
It's an appealing town.

So say you want to visit

Sedona and access its website looking for local tours.

You'll find this group, Spirit Steps Tours.
Pull up their web page and little here indicates
you are actually dealing with the Aquarian Concepts
Community religious group.

Only by going further into the

website can you find out who is really behind this tour
company.
It was even simpler for Dateline's staffers, Jeff
and Sarah.

In a Sedona hotel there was a table of

brochures, including this one for Spirit Steps.

SARAH:
Sedona.

It just said, Get a spiritual tour of

A very special, different kind of tour.

Q.

(John Larson) It didn't say who?

A.

(Sarah) No.

It didn't say anything about

Aquarian Concepts Community.

It didn't say anything about

Gabriel of Sedona.
JOHN LARSON:

We called the number listed and the

phone rang here, the administrative headquarters for the

Aquarians.

We were asked several questions about our

interest in spirituality and booked a trip.

The cost:

$54 per person for a three hour tour and a spiritual

lecture.
Mark and Regina Sprague also went on a Spirit
Steps tour.

Their tour guide was Gabriel's common-law

wife, Niann.
REGINA SPRAGUE:

I had mentioned to her during

the tour that we were there because we were having some

problems.

And --

Q.

(John Larson) Problems?

A.

(Regina Sprague) With our marriage.

And she had

mentioned that her husband did spiritual work and that he

could help us.
JOHN LARSON:

After our Spirit Steps Tours and

lecture, we wanted to learn more.

We were invited by the

tour guide, an Aquarian himself, to a workshop.

donation:

$40 each.

Suggested

We paid our money and went.

We never told anyone we were journalists.

Instead we presented ourselves as a young couple with
problems, searching for something.

That's often the

profile of people drawn to alternative religious groups,

and often into cults.
Carl Raschke is a Denver religion professor.
He's appeared in court as an expert on new religious
groups.
CARL RASCHKE:

Strong personalities who think for

themselves do not go to the cults.

It's people who are

dependent, people who can't think for themselves, people

who have had a lot of emotional trauma --

JOHN LARSON:
GABRIEL:
of their own.

Gabriel says that's not his group.

These are not people that have no mind

These are very intelligent people and

spiritually grown people who know that the kind of control

that I have over them is a control of love, respect, and
honor.
JOHN LARSON:

Gabriel tells his followers they

were all part of his cosmic family on another planet, and

he was the father.

Gabriel then gives members new cosmic

names like Centria and Pointiay [phonetic].

New

identities, new personalities.

SARAH:

They say, Come here, you'll be healed.

Come here, you'll find true love.

your perfect career.

Come here you'll find

You'll find your cosmic family, all

your brothers and sisters.

If you don't have a great

family life, this is your real family.

CARL RASCHKE:

They tend to break down the

natural bonds of affection between family members so that

they can create the larger cult family.
JOHN LARSON:

For Mark Sprague and his wife,

Regina, the cosmic family also struck a chord.

Six months

after meeting Gabriel, trying to fix a broken marriage,

they moved to Arizona with their six-year-old daughter,
Angie.
MARK SPRAGUE:
we will get a divorce.

If we stay here in Houston, I know

And we will separate.

And the

only other alternative that I can see, the only open door
that I see that we have, is to move to Sedona.

REGINA SPRAGUE:
grasping at.

It was kind of straws I was

It was maybe there was some hope, maybe some

how they could help us get through the situations we were

going through in our marriage.
JOHN LARSON:

The Spragues say Gabriel was warm,

friendly and attentive at first.

The whole community

was.
And it was the same for us.

We are rarely left

alone while inside the community.

JEFF:

There are a lot of hugs, and a lot of

kisses, and a lot of I love you's, and a lot of, You

really belong here, this is God's mission for you.
LOUIS WEST:

And they make you feel more

important than you ever have in your life, all of a

sudden.
JOHN LARSON:

Psychiatrist Louis West of UCLA

studies alternative religious groups and has been a court

expert on them.
Q.

(John Larson) Makes you feel like you're on top

of the world.

You finally found the people you've been

looking for all your life.

A.

(Louis West) And they're being so wonderful to

you, the least you can do is hang around as they're urging

you to do.
JOHN LARSON:

Next, we're invited to a Sunday

service led by Gabriel.

come over to us.

At one point Gabriel and Niann

The discussion quickly turns personal.

Q.

(Gabriel) Do you have brothers and sisters?

A.

(Jeff) No.

I'm an only child.

Q.

Only child.

Your mom and dad are alive?

A.

My father is alive -- my mother is alive as well,

but I don't really have much of a relationship with her.

JOHN LARSON:

Then, suddenly, the friendliness

appears to fall away.

Another side of Gabriel emerges.

member of the group has apparently questioned why Gabriel

doesn't do all the hard labor in the community garden with
all the other members.
GABRIEL:

Me going over there and shoveling dirt

is not the highest use of my talents and abilities right

now, believe me.

Some of you have too much freedom.

again, that's the problem.

Thus

Where does leadership say,

Don't do that?
JOHN LARSON:

Then, the man who claims to be the

wisest soul on the planet scolds the group and anyone who
might criticize him.
GABRIEL:

Oh, you want to test me?

go out and go one-to-one?

we'll do it.

Great.

Choose the weapons.

You want to

Send me a note and

You bad enough?

Let's

do it.
JOHN LARSON:

Mark Sprague says he saw Gabriel

flash that kind of anger more and more at him and his wife
after the initial warm feelings wore off.
MARK SPRAGUE:

Gabriel would always come up with

statements like this, embarrassing people and making

outlandish statements and nobody said anything.
Q.
you?

(John Larson) You're afraid that God's mad at

A.

(Mark Sprague) Yeah.

And that's how he portrays

it, exactly.
JOHN LARSON:

And beyond those harsh words,

Gabriel's control over the Aquarians appears widespread.

Since April of last year, when full members join, they are
asked to turn over their money.
Q.

(John Larson) How much do you typically ask a

person to donate who comes here to live?

A.

(Gabriel) We ask everything.

Q.

Everything?

A.

Everything.

Five percent?

Just like Jesus asked me in the

first century.
JOHN LARSON:

With that money Gabriel has

purchased or been given twenty-two acres of prime land on

a creek in Sedona.

He also runs six cottage industries

staffed by members, including Spirit Steps Tours, a

gardening outfit, and a house cleaning service.
Q.

(John Larson) Why is it so important to relieve

all of your flock of all their dough?

A.

(Gabriel) Because we give them higher dough,

which is the bread of life, which is Jesus.

JOHN LARSON:

Thanks to all this bread, Gabriel's

group is now worth at least $800,000.

And it's been

granted tax-exempt status by the IRS as a charitable

organization involved in evangelism.
Once in the group, Gabriel assigns members to
live in communal houses, several to a standard tract
home.

There are thirty three children in the group.

Under Arizona law, Gabriel can home school these

children.

So all of them attend his Starseed School full-

time, year round.

As for personal mail sent to the members, well
all mail is sent to a central location.
mailman makes the deliveries.

An Aquarian

As for personal travel,

well no one is supposed to leave the protected five-mile

area without special permission.

And even shopping, there

are designated people who leave the area and shop for the
group.
But there is contact with the outside world, at
least electronically.

In Aquarian buildings we saw phones

and computers, TVs, radios, and video tapes.

entertainment choices?

Other

Many members join the group's

Bright and Morning Star Choir to sing songs written by

Gabriel of Sedona.
But as you'll see, Gabriel's influence extends
further, into the most intimate areas of members' lives:
Marriage, children, sex.

The Spragues say they found that

out soon enough.

ANNOUNCER:

Aquarian Concepts points out that in

return for contributing financial resources, community

members are provided with all their material needs
including food, housing, clothing, health care, and
education.

When we come back we'll find out just what

kind of marital help the Spragues say they got from

Gabriel.
JANE PAULEY:

Back to your story now.

We've seen

how Gabriel can influence his member's day-to-day

activities:

Where they live, how they educate children,

how they travel.

His reach can extend even into the most

private areas of their lives.

do they let him?

How can he do that, and why

John Larson continues his journey into

the world of the Aquarians.

JOHN LARSON:

According to one estimate there are

about two hundred alternative religious groups in America

today.

As we head towards the millennium, more of these

groups preach the end of the world by the year 2000,

promising protection only to people who sign on.
Mark and Regina Sprague say it was one way
Gabriel got them to join the Aquarians.
MARK SPRAGUE:

He always was very concerned about

us because saying that Houston's going to be under water

soon.

We need to get to Sedona as soon as possible.

Saying that the earth changes could happen at any time.

JOHN LARSON:

On Gabriel's advice they'd given up

their home and careers, moved to Sedona where Gabriel gave

them new names.

Regina became Tacina [phonetic]; Mark,

Justin.
Gabriel told them they were his niece and niece
and nephew in the cosmic father and mother family.

But

the Spragues say almost immediately Gabriel's control of

their lives began growing.

Within a year the man they

hoped might save their marriage told them they were

cosmically incompatible and should separate.
REGINA SPRAGUE:

They told my ex-husband that he

needed to leave me, that we were in an inappropriate

relationship, and that we would no longer have the support

of the community if we stayed together.

JOHN LARSON:

They say with Gabriel's divine

approval, Mark moved into a tent in the desert.

Regina

and her daughter were living in a trailer Gabriel had set

up for them.

Regina says with Gabriel's encouragement she

and her daughter went on welfare.

REGINA SPRAGUE:
who I am anymore.

I'm losing myself.

I don't know

They changed my name, I didn't hear

from my family in a long time.

visit my family.

I was scared.

They told me I couldn't

JOHN LARSON:

I was scared to death.

Gabriel says he actually tried to

keep the Spragues together, but he admits he does tell

followers, based on what celestial overcontrol tells him,
who their mates should be.
GABRIEL:

If overcontrol comes in and tells me --

a finaliter tells me that this person definitely has a

higher partner, then I will tell them that, You have a
higher partner.

If overcontrol doesn't tell me, then I

can only ascertain based on my own clairvoyance and my own

relationship with God.
Q.

(John Larson) So you're actually telling people

who they ought to be mated with?

A.

(Gabriel) Uh-huh.

Most of them a few years later

say, Thank God you told me, I mean should have listened to
you three years ago.
Q.

I know from reading your book that you went

through a couple of bad marriages?

A.

That's right.

it?

Q.

And you're giving these people marital advice.

A.

Yes.

What better -- someone that's been through

I mean, not only in this life have I been through it,

but in other lives.

A.

(Niann) When people come here, we don't tell them

who to be with and who not to be with.

JOHN LARSON:

In our investigation, Dateline

staffers wearing hidden cameras sought to step even deeper

into Gabriel's world.
We're invited back for a weekend seminar, an
intensive nonstop course in Aquarian doctrine.

And we're

told to write these essays about Gabriel's autobiography.

The suggested donation for this weekend:

$500 each.

The first event of the weekend is a sharing

session called Heart to Heart.

The session is run by an

Aquarian who once worked as a clinical psychologist.

Q.

(John Larson) It's basically like a group therapy

session?
A.

(Sarah) A little bit, yeah.

And we told -- we

went around the circle and told our life stories.

JOHN LARSON:
attended the session.
families.

Including ourselves, six newcomers

They were people with careers and

The psychologist leading the group says she

left her husband and family to join Gabriel, and it worked

for her life.
LOUIS WEST:

It's part of the process in which

the bonding goes on with others who are also opening up.
JOHN LARSON:

Psychiatrist, Louis West, says the

more new recruits open up, the more they're inclined to

trust the Aquarians.

SARAH:

Our staffers felt that too.

I -- you know, I felt a lot closer to

everybody after hearing their tribulations, their

unhappiness in their lives.
Q.

(John Larson) You were actually starting to feel

like you were partners of the group?

A.

(Sarah) A little bit, yeah.

JOHN LARSON:

Whether Gabriel intends to control

his followers or not, his influence on their lives, even

the most basic activities, appears extraordinary.

As

we've told you, citing divine inspiration he often

controls their finances, assigns them their jobs, even
influences who they should be sleeping with.

And as we

soon discovered, that's only the beginning.

Once a newly recruited family moves into the
Aquarian community, Gabriel sometimes separates children
from their parents.
MARK SPRAGUE:

Gabriel, again, tries to micro-

manage people's lives and claims he knows what's best for

the parents and the children.

It has been known that

children have been taken away from their parents to live

in other people's homes.
JOHN LARSON:

Mark and Regina say Gabriel tells

women their destiny is as breeders for the new world to

come.
MARK SPRAGUE:

He claims that a balanced male

individual can heal a female with his sperm.

Q.

(John Larson) So you say to the woman, I not only

want to get you into bed, but it's good for you?
A.

Yeah.
JOHN LARSON:

The Cosmic Family.

It's right there in Gabriel's book,

He writes, Sperm injection from a male

to a female can bring balance to her in many ways.

Throughout the weekend our staffers hear more
about Aquarian doctrine.

Much more.

Along with the other

recruits, we're emersed in continuous Aquarian teaching.

Saturday 9 a.m. to noon, a lecture on interrelationships between complementary polarities; 2 p.m. to
4, a lecture on the Lucifer Manifesto; 7 p.m. to 10, the
beginning fusion of pride in relationship to the circuitry
of the brain; Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Gabriel himself
on the cosmology of the master universe.

Fifteen hours of

lectures over two days.

JEFF:

They watched you very carefully.

Every

time a lecture session finished, there was someone that

was right next to you asking you how you felt and whether
you were understanding what was going on.
SARAH:

You have a hundred people looking you in

the eye and saying, The sky is green, the sky is green, we
believe the sky is green.
Q.

(John Larson) You start thinking maybe it is a

little green?
A.

(Sarah) Yeah.
JOHN LARSON:

finale:

And then, the weekend's grand

A heavenly transmission where Gabriel channels

alien super powers.

Our staffers get a telephone call

about the transmission.

Things look shaky for Jeff.

SARAH:

She said to me, Jeff is not going to be

invited to the transmission, but you are.

having some problems with authority.

We feel Jeff is

Gabriel feels that

he really doesn't respect Gabriel.

JEFF:

I very quickly assured them that I didn't

have a problem with the power structure and that I thought

Gabriel was a perfectly nice person.

She then said, Okay,

well you're invited now.

Q.

(John Larson) So it was sort of like they didn't

want a skeptic in there?

A.

(Jeff) That's exactly what it was like.

JOHN LARSON:

Our undercover video is hard to see

here, just burning candles in a dark room.

But that high

pitched voice you hear coming out of the Gabriel's mouth

is, according to Gabriel, the voice of the Bright and
Morning Star, a perfect alien being, one of the rulers of
the universe.

And the first thing that the perfect being

does is praise Gabriel's music.

GABRIEL (high pitched voice):

Gabriel's cosmic

pop is cosmo-pop because it is universally popular.

JOHN LARSON:

Then the alien sings one of

Gabriel's songs.
GABRIEL:

Oh when starseeds have flight on the

world -JOHN LARSON:

Finally everyone in the room joins

in chanting the word "stabilization" for twenty minutes.

Regina Sprague went often to these transmissions,
but she says one night it all turned against her.

Q.

(John Larson) So he's in his channeling --

A.

(Regina Sprague) He's in his channeling mode.

Q.

-- mode.

And you want to know whether or not

you're going to get back together with your husband?

A.

Right.

He just jumped down my throat and said

you've never been grateful for anything.

Here you have a

great husband and you don't appreciate him, and you're the
one that ruined your marriage.
JOHN LARSON:
straw.

That humiliation was the last

After eighteen months in the community, Regina

grabbed her daughter and got out.

Mark did the same a

couple of weeks later.

But new members come all the time, drawn in by
the weekend seminar we went through.
hope, and money.

They bring with them

At the end of our seminar we were given

this questionnaire to fill out.

It required us to list

all our financial assets and turn those assets over to the
group if we joined.
We were also offered personal transmissions, in
writing, where Gabriel channels the aliens on your
behalf.
each.

Suggested donation:

Three to six hundred dollars

Our transmissions arrived in the mail.

Jeff is

told he's a spiritual beginner who needs to change his

attitude.
JEFF:

And he said that Sarah and I should not be

together, that we should break up, that I should release

her, that she should release me.
soul.

Because she was an old

If I did come and if I did show up that there were

other women that could be my complements.

That I could

have a chance of finding someone new.

JOHN LARSON:

Sarah, on the other hand, is told

that she knew Gabriel personally in a past life when

Gabriel was Saint Francis of Assisi, and that she donated
a lot of her parents' money to him back then.

And she's

actually a highly evolved alien being who's had an

interesting sex life.

In one life, dozens of lovers.

In

another -SARAH:

In my past lives on different alien

planets I was used to being the wife of a husband who had

had other wives.
Q.

(John Larson) Ands it was okay with you, in your

past lives?
A.

(Sarah) Yes.

I was very used to that in past

lives.
Q.

Seems like the indication is that if by any

chance it should come up in this life it should be okay

with you now.
A.

That if I have a problem with it now it's only

because I'm not in touch with my past lives.

JOHN LARSON:

In his book, The Divine New Order,

Gabriel says polygamy, having multiple husbands or wives,

is common on other planets and good for higher souls.
GABRIEL:
several wives.

Some of those planets a husband has

And some of those planets the wives have

several husbands, complements.

JOHN LARSON:

But according to Gabriel, polygamy

is not practiced here on earth in his community.

Q.

(John Larson) Are people here having multiple sex

partners?
A.

(Gabriel) No, because they're not ready.

Q.

A husband with two wives?

A.

They're not ready for that.

JOHN LARSON:

Three wives?

But as you'll see, our hidden

camera investigation found that Gabriel's own New Age

journey may be on a different path from those of his
followers.
GABRIEL:

Why would I give you information that

you're going to use to make me look dirty and ugly and

black and all that stuff?
JANE PAULEY:

Where did Gabriel come from.

When

we come back we'll find out more how his life -- he'll say
his past lives -- led him to this point.
ANNOUNCER:

Who is Gabriel, this New Age guru who

can convince people to give up jobs, family, and money for

the privilege of joining his league of followers?

Well,

it turns out his earlier life may hold clues to how

Gabriel got where he is, and what he does with the
influence he now has.

John Larson has the conclusion to

our story.
JOHN LARSON:

Gabriel leads a community of one

hundred people, calls himself the next planetary prince,

and he began our interview with a prayer.
GABRIEL:

Father in heaven, Jesus Christ, Michael

-JOHN LARSON:

But it wasn't always this way.

started out life as Tony Delevin from Pittsburgh,

He

Pennsylvania, an Italian-American raised catholic.

He

became a Protestant preacher and worked in Arizona.

But

according to his own autobiography, after two traumatic

divorces and the death of a seven-year-old daughter, he
began to hear voices.
He went to Las Angeles to be a musician, and when
that failed, he says, the voices grew stronger.

They told

him he had had many past glorious lives on earth.

He'd

been Saint Peter and Alexander the Great.

Q.

(John Larson) You were Francis of Assisi?

A.

(Gabriel) Yes.

Q.

Martin Luther?

A.

Yes.

Q.

King Arthur?

A.

Yes.

Q.

You were also George Washington?

A.

Yes.

Q.

Father of the United States?

A.

Well --

Q.

Led the troops?

A.

Yes, yes.

I'm either insane or egotistically

mad, or I am who I say I am.

JOHN LARSON:

So which is Gabriel?

From our

research, psychiatrist Louis West's impression is that

Gabriel shows all the warning signs of becoming a cult
leader:

Accumulating power, controlling his followers,

getting rich.
LOUIS WEST:

That guy is as phoney as a $3 bill,

and you can tell it right away.

Q.

(John Larson) But how do you know?

How can you

say that?
A.

(Louis West) Because I'm seventy-three years old,

and I've been practicing medicine for half a century, and

I know a sly con artist when I see one.
JOHN LARSON:

But ex-member Regina Sprague sees

someone more dangerous than just a con man.

REGINA SPRAGUE:
doomsday.

I think he's creating his own

The more people believe in him, the more power

he gets, and the more greedy he's going to get.

thinking of himself as a god.

And he's

And God can do anything.

Q.

(John Larson) You're not a cult leader?

A.

(Gabriel) I don't like the word cult.

I'm a

leader of a divine administration.

Q.

You're not dangerous to these people?

A.

Absolutely not.

Q.

When the end of the millennium comes, under any

circumstance, you wouldn't ask them to hurt themselves?

A.

Oh my god, no.

We're not waiting around on top

of a mountain waiting for a spaceship to come and pick us

up.
JOHN LARSON:

No?

In his autobiography, Gabriel

writes about encounters with aliens who tell him they are
ready to evacuate the planet and save all believers in
spaceships.
might happen.

Gabriel now says that's just a vision of what

But then why does he tell followers they

risk losing the protection of alien forces and their

spaceships if they travel?

Q.

(John Larson) Are they free to leave?

A.

(Gabriel) If they want to.

Q.

No restrictions on their personal movement?

A.

No.
JOHN LARSON:

Of course.

But one former member gave us this

document warning followers of a protected five-mile radius

and urging the approval of elders before leaving the safe
zone.
Q.

(John Larson) It says, "At times some areas may

be designated by overcontrol as too dangerous under any

circumstances."

I mean basically this is a permission

slip -A.

(Gabriel) But they can go.

We've had people that

decided against my counsel and they went and they got into
accidents.

One broke their leg, one broke their arm.

JOHN LARSON:

And remember Gabriel saying that

polygamy, having multiple wives, is common practice on

other planets but not in his community?
Gabriel and his common-law wife, Niann, have
three children, but our hidden camera investigation also
came cross this woman.

Her name is Tiendey [phonetic].

She was introduced to the group as another of Gabriel's

complements.

She's holding a baby named Elenora,

introduced as Gabriel's newest child.

Q.

(John Larson) You don't have more than one

complement?
A.

(Gabriel) I have two spiritual complements here

in this community right now --

Q.

These are spiritual complements?

A.

-- but we are not in a sexual relationship.

But

they are spiritual complements.

Q.

Have any children with these other complements?

A.

Past lives?

Q.

No.

A.

Yes, I have children with one of these

Currently, here.

complements.
Q.

I thought you said it wasn't sexual?

A.

It was sexual.

Yes, it's -- I have a very

beautiful lovely little daughter.

Her name is Elenora

Desminey [phonetic].
Q.

Okay.

A.

She's also from another planet.

universal planet.

An inter-

And it was God's will for me to be with

her again in this life.

She has been with me in other

lives.
Q.

Niann, this is all right?

A.

(Niann) Yes.

When I first met Gabriel, and we

began learning about this, I wasn't ready then.

want to hear about that.

I didn't

You know, that type of thing.

But I've moved into that.

Q.

Why is it always the guys who are spiritually

advanced to the point where they can have multiple

partners?
A.

And it's rarely the women?

I could.

It's just that there's no one who I'm

interested in.
Q.

And if she does, Gabriel, it's all right?

A.

(Gabriel) No.

It's not okay with me.

Many men

could be okay with -- and these would be men basically

that would be more mother-circuited.

I'm a very strong

father-circuited male.
Q.

This is what confuses me.

I ask you about

complements here, you tell me something that's not true.

I ask you about your complements sexually, you tell me
something that's not true.
A.

I have clairvoyance.

I knew fully well where you

were headed before I even sat down in this chair.

Q.

Clairvoyance?

You know this is coming?

We've

had a few Dateline employees come join your community.

A.

Dateline employees?

Q.

Employees.

Employees of Dateline.

You know who

they are?
A.

(Niann) Would you like to name them?

A.

(Gabriel) Yeah.

Q.

Well, you're the clairvoyant.

A.

John?

Q.

No.

It'd be great to know.

A fellow from Florida?

JOHN LARSON:

At this point we did not name our

undercover staffers, but we did play clips from our hidden

camera video.

We showed him the Sunday service.

We also showed him what was referred to as kind

of an ordination.
full member.

A New Zealand woman is mandated as a

The vow Gabriel reads includes what seemed

like a threat not to break away.

GABRIEL (in video clip):

The actions that

celestial overcontrol will have to take upon you will be

more critical and harsh.

JOHN LARSON:

Gabriel says he's not making

threats, God is.

Q.

(John Larson) You're saying if you break this

vow, there's hell to pay?

A.

(Gabriel) God's saying that there's a law of

cause and effect.

The angelic forces will see to it that

these people's lives are not as comfortable as they would

like it to be.

Not us.

JOHN LARSON:

Finally, we showed Gabriel the

transmissions he'd done for our staffers, including Sarah.

Q.

(John Larson) The gist of what you're saying to

her here is, You knew me in a past life, you liked me a

lot, you gave me a lot of money, you had a lot of partners
in one of your lives, you're comfortable with pluralistic
marriages, and you need to come here.
A.

(Gabriel) Well it'd be good if she still did.

Q.

I mean, word of God or cosmic come on?

A.

How about inter-universal absolute reality?

REGINA SPRAGUE:

And it's very sad that someone

could have this much power that could harm so many souls.
JOHN LARSON:

For Regina Sprague, Gabriel's words

are frighteningly familiar.

Her first year after leaving

the group, she says, was the toughest on her and her
daughter, Angie.
REGINA SPRAGUE:
scared.

She was so scared.

She was so

I mean she would just literally get into cold

sweats saying, I don't want you to die because I don't

know where you're going to go.

I don't want to die

because I don't know where I'm going to go.

Because it

was drilled to her, we're all going to live in a

spaceship.
JOHN LARSON:
three years now.
group.

The Sprague's have been out nearly

They divorced shortly after leaving the

Mark is writing an a book about his time with the

Aquarians.
MARK SPRAGUE:

No one else h your life but you.

What the people in Sedona were doing, they were believing

that this man Gabriel could hear from God better than they
could.

And nobody can do that.

Q.

(John Larson) You're sure of that now?

A.

(Mark) Absolutely.
JOHN LARSON:

But Gabriel says God speaks to him

in special ways and people need to listen and listen now.

GABRIEL:

I am either a right-motived, divinely

appointed, godly ascending son of God who God trusts to

lead people, or I am not.
JOHN LARSON:

I like to believe that I am.

And people keep coming to Sedona,

to Gabriel, looking for answers.

In the same way Mark and

Regina came there from their home in Texas hoping to find

answers to a crumbling marriage.

Regina says she now

knows she was looking in the wrong place.

REGINA SPRAGUE:
Everyone has a story.

Everybody has a cross to bear.

And that's when these people can

prey on you is when you're at you're lowest point.

look within.

Always

There isn't anyone on this planet that's any

more powerful than you.

And there isn't a human being on

this planet that has the answers to everything.

ANNOUNCER:
members.

A note concerning travel by Aquarian

The lawyer for Aquarian Concepts tells us

members of the community are able to travel freely to

downtown Sedona and neighboring towns, and to visit
relatives and friends.
The lawyer adds that because, she says, Gabriel
and Niann are clairvoyant, members consult them for advice
concerning the safety of overnight or longer trips.

She

says the travel policy memo we showed Gabriel in our

interview with him was outdated.
And finally, even before this broadcast, some
relatives of Aquarian members wrote us to say they had no
trouble getting in touch with their family members or
visiting them.

One member's father told us he sees,

quote, No reason why the Aquarian Concept Community should

be looked upon with suspicion or distrust.

End quote.

But some ex-members tell us that the general rule

is Aquarians cut off contact with families unless those
families support what their loved ones are doing.

And

that exceptions are made to this rule, but the Aquarians

don't make it easy.