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By Mark Hosenball
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What's a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit from the lost continent of Atlantis doing at the Federal Aviation Administration? The answer may be as elusive as trying to track Ramtha on a radar screen. The New Age guru purportedly "channels" to the modern world through J. Z. Knight, a former cable-TV saleswoman. Since the mid-1980s, thousands of believers have flocked to her luxurious compound near Seattle to watch Knight go into a hypnotic trance while Ramtha issues everything from investment advice to predictions of imminent disasters in a deepmasculine voice. Ramtha's most famous follower, Shirley MacLaine, has now left the fold, and Knight has been mercilessly parodied in "Doonesbury." But the laughter may be decidedly strained at the U.S. Department of Transportation. This week the DOT's inspector general is expected to unveil a two-year investigation into charges that the FAA channeled at least $1.4 million to a Ramtha follower to run "stress management" training programs for the agency.
The FAA first hired Gregory May, a California psychologist, to lead the training sessions in 1984. The idea was to make FAA officials more sensitive to employees' complaints about stressful working conditions. But May's techniques allegedly went far beyond routine psychology. Employees of a private firm hired to run the FAA's management-training center in Florida said May tied them together with strips of bedsheets for 24 hours at a time. One former instructor, Helen Murphy, said she was forced to share a bed with her (male) boss; three women trainees had to shower together, and two men had to visit the toilet tied to each other. FAA personnel attending official sessions led by May were reportedly deprived of sleep and verbally abused. Yet scores of them went along quietly, fearing they would not be promoted unless they won May's approval. In all, May told Newsweek he had trained as many as 4,000 FAA officials. A source close to May says he believes he did nothing wrong.
Murphy and other instructors began complaining to FAA management, and Congress, about May's practices in 1992. But May's contracts weren't suspended until Transportation Secretary Federico Pena took office in 1993 and asked the DOT's inspector general to investigate. Sources say the IG's probe has discovered a host of potential irregularities, including allegations that FAA officials arranged no-bid contracts for May and that some received free private training sessions and other "gratuities." The FAA's top personnel official, Herbert McLure, has been removed as a result of the training scandal, and management is considering disciplinary action against other senior civil-service officials. May is in contempt of court for refusing to comply with a government subpoena, and a grand jury is looking into possible criminal charges.
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May's connection to Ramtha is the most startling twist. Sources say the IG's report includes a transcript of a purported conversation between the psychologist and the 35,000-year-old spirit. May declined to discuss his involvement with Knight. But a lawyer for Knight, Doug Kaukl, said that May is one of "hundreds" who moved to Washington state to be closer to her and that Knight has received a federal subpoena for information about May's work for the FAA.
Last week FAA Deputy Administrator Linda Hall Daschle said the agency believes May's training methods were "clearly unacceptable." "Don't haunt us with the past," Daschle pleaded. "We're trying to move forward." But the DOT did allow a peculiar "diversity" training program for FAA controllers to continue until last fall. One controller, Douglas Hartman, filed suit, complaining he'd been forced to run a "gantlet" of women who groped him and made sexually demeaning comments. Hartman's lawsuit is still pending, but the FAA has paid $75,000 to a female controller who claimed she suffered "extreme trauma" during a diversity workshop.
The training scandals may not stop there. Rep. Robert Dornan, chairman of a House subcommittee on military personnel, plans to investigate diversity-training programs throughout the armed services. As for the revelations about the FAA, Dornan said: "It makes me want to ride on trains."
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