On Resurrecting A Dead Blog

After some long and careful thought, I have decided to resurrect this blog. I would have preferred to leave the Maetreum of Cybele in the rear-view mirror of my life, as everyone who has passed through there has done. Unfortunately, I do not have that luxury. There are several reasons why. First, because as long as Cathryn Platine is still attempting to recruit vulnerable trans people who may well be fleeing for their lives from persecution in red states, I cannot remain silent. I do not believe that the Maetreum of Cybele, Catskills Phrygianum is a safe environment for trans people, or anyone else for that matter. I covered the reasons for my concern in a prior entry: An Open Letter to Jeremiah Bruce Lennox. Second, given that I was Platine’s second-in-command/heir apparent, I was deeply involved in the organization and heavily promoted it for thirteen years, I feel a moral obligation to continue to speak out. Indeed, I was informed by a credible source that Marina Brown, one of the original four owners of the Maetreum property, credits me personally for the Maetreum’s continued existence. It was her opinion that the Maetreum likely would have folded years ago, had it not been for my involvement, financial investment and downright obsessive promotion of the place. So then why, if I loved it so much, am I now saying negative and critical things about it? And why, if I now claim it is so horrible, did I stick with it for all that time? These are excellent questions, and I absolutely will address them in future blog entries Third, some things are just so awful and so egregious, that they cannot and should not be ignored and forgotten about. My own life was turned upside down and I could have very easily lost my career and livelihood due to the sheer maliciousness and malevolence of these people. Moreover, I was far from the only one. And for that reason, more than anything, is why I am still here blogging about the Maetreum when I have so many better things to do with my life. Fourth, I want to help give cult survivors a voice. My experience with other people since leaving the Maetreum has been positive overall, and I have been touched and overwhelmed by the support that I’ve gotten. Nevertheless, I’ve also run right into a lot of ugly and inaccurate stereotypes and misunderstandings about cult survivors. I want to rectify these. I have also decided to take the blog in a slightly different direction: I am going to open it up as a community space for honest discussion and debate about the Maetreum. I want to emphasize that this is NOT an attack on the Maetreum! Unfortunately, Cathryn Platine is invariably going to regard anything shy of fawning praise as an attack. It’s the nature of the beast and I’m just going to have to live with it. Accountability and honest discussion are only to be feared by those with something to hide. I will accept submissions for guest posts. There are going to be some ground rules, though: 1. Email them to me, viktoriawhittaker@gmail.com with the subject line: Gallae Central House Blog Submission. 2. I will accept all perspectives on the issue, positive, negative and anything else. This is with the caveat that if I disagree with what is said, I will make clear what my objections are. And of course, community discussion in the comments from all perspectives is encouraged. 3. I will put a disclaimer on any such submission indicating that the views expressed in said piece that they reflect solely the opinions of the author and do not necessarily express mine. 4. I will censor the names of any third parties mentioned unless I have written permission for them to be used. 5. I will accept submissions from anyone. This includes the other Maetreum priestesses: Caillean McMahon, Francesca Tronetti and Susan Davis. The only person whom I will NOT accept a submission from is Cathryn Platine herself. There a few reasons for this. First: she has her own blog and her own platforms. Hell, she’s got her own goddamn radio station! Yes, I am aware that she has been using said platform to spew vitriol at me for the last two years. Second, whenever she steps into a debate, she attempts to completely control the narrative and if she cannot, she angrily storms off like a petulant child. You just can’t have a conversation with someone like that. And that is the reason why I have been ignoring the Gish-gallopy word salad that is her blog for the last few years. I will not allow myself to get reeled into an unproductive discussion with a dishonest interlocutor who never intended to fight fair. 6. I will make submissions anonymous if the author wishes. 7. As a final note: NO ONE IS OFF LIMITS. I plan to hold EVERYONE who was involved with the Maetreum who behaved in abusive and unethical ways to account. As terrible as Platine was, she does not and never has operated in a vacuum. She has had supporters and enablers that kept her going. To my great regret, I was one of them for far too long, and that accountability and honesty applies to me as well. I hope to get an honest conversation about the Maetreum going here. Based on what I have seen on online forums regarding Palenville, it seems like there is very little factual information out there and too many of the Palenville community groups shut down discussion of the Maetreum and its place in the community, if there even is one! One day, I hope to share happy memories. Unfortunately, for me, for now, all my memories of the Maetreum are tainted with bitterness. Just how do you get past betrayal trauma, where people whom you loved and trusted not only stole from you but tried to actively destroy your life? I wish I had an answer.

Update On Me

Time flies. It has been nearly four years since I last set foot on the Maetreum grounds and things could not be more different. A year ago, my husband Gary and I divorced. (As an aside, he is most assuredly NOT a millionaire. I should know. I divorced him!) I bought my own home with the proceeds of the divorce. It’s a small cottage: 2 bedrooms 750 square feet and half an acre of land. I don’t need much more than that. My home is the only house that was built on a street that barely exists off the drawing board. Most of my street is still just paper street and is surrounded by paper streets. I like it that way. Although where I live is technically in the ‘burbs, my home is a little oasis of woodland. I live in a hollow that I call Woodpecker Hollow. Just simply because it’s a hollow that’s full of woodpeckers: pileated, red-bellied, Downy and Hairy as well as Nuthatches and Northern Flickers. They say goodbye to me when I leave and are the first creatures to welcome me back home. I don’t just have woodpeckers here, though. I’m also home to a mated pair of hawks and am visited by owls, especially during the winter months. I have heard the calls of Great Horned Owls, Screech Owls and I have seen a Barred owl. It isn’t just birds, although even the little songbirds who visit my feeder are curiously unafraid of me. There is a creek on my property which acts as something of a wildlife superhighway. I am regularly visited by deer. There is a family of beavers who have made their home on my creek. There is also the usual wildlife of groundhogs, skunks and possums. Last autumn, I was also visited by a mother fox and her kits. Bats also roost in the concrete fill that litters the hollow: a failed attempt to build over it prior to 1935 which, ironically enough, created the perfect habitat for them. My woods are also home to wild honey bees and fireflies. Oh the fireflies! Last summer I saw more of them in my woods than I ever saw in the Maetreum woods! I get to watch it all from my deck. I decorated it with all kinds of fairy lights, colorful furniture and woven outdoor mats. Unfortunately, it’s only seasonal. I can’t wait until the weather gets warm and I can chill and entertain people on my deck! My indoor space is chock-full of books, colorful baskets, plants, wall masks, psychedelic art, bottles and throw pillows. Lots of throw pillows. Because throw pillows are cozy and make me happy. I live with my two cats: Squishy, my grey tabby lockdown kitten and Violet, my tortoiseshell girl who was a stray on the Maetreum grounds and was formerly known as Rooftop Kitty or Two-Face. I also have a housemate named Cynthya Brynkattae. She is a legally blind transwoman. She likes to say that I rescued her from Long Island. I suppose I must have. Because of her disability, she was essentially stuck living with family. Since she has moved in with me, she has been able to proceed with her physical transition as well as learn life skills like cooking and cleaning. With the help of organizations such as NABA and The Commission for the Blind, she is finally gaining some life functionality. We have hope that soon she can get an actual job and build her own life. I am extremely proud of her. I am continuing to produce my radio show, Viktoria’s World of Metal. Currently, I am with WCAA-LP in Albany. For a time, I also produced it live at WIOX in Roxbury. It is now available once more through the Pacifica Network’s Audioport database. But what I am most excited about by far is my own continuing ministry. Thanks to Chelsea Goodwin, I have now been initiated into Rachel Pollack’s line. Pollack herself was practicing the Rites of Cybele as far back as the mid 1990’s, well before Cathryn Platine ever did. That, however, will be the subject of a future blog entry. For the last two years, I have been conducting the rites every new and full moon with a small group of celebrants, many of whom are former Maetreum people. We also hold a monthly brunch at our home as well as a monthly meetup at a venue in Durham. I have also conducted classes, particularly teaching magic to blind and other disabled pagans. Both Cynthya and myself have been ordained through the Universal Life Church. This in and of itself may not be something to write home about, but it is how Cathryn Platine and Jeremiah Bruce Lennox got their start. When I was at the Maetreum, I was the only priestess in residence who was a practicing Sibyl. So, to is Cynthya. She is far better at it than I am. She is my dedicant as well as a proud Maenad Galla. I’m very much excited about the future.

An Open Letter to Jeremiah Bruce Lennox

 An Open Letter to Rev. Jeremiah Bruce Lennox

From Rev. Viktoria Whittaker

We need to talk about Cathryn Platine. And the Maetreum of Cybele (a Pagan church and monastic retreat located at 3312 Route 23A in Palenville, NY). I’m here to address the elephant in the room regarding the Maetreum that no one wants to talk about. It has been a year and I have thought and prayed long and hard on this, and I am now ready to speak out publicly about what happened at the Maetreum. By means of a legal disclaimer, what I am about to describe is the truth as I understand it. I am prepared to swear to this under oath if need be and should facts prove me wrong I will publicly retract them.  I can also provide witnesses who are prepared to do the same as well as documentation. Moreover, none of this is new information. I am simply bringing into the light was has been long gossiped about but never publicly discussed.

For the benefit of others who are reading this, you have associated yourself closely with the Maetreum for the last 3 years. You have done so ostensibly as a “consultant” for the purpose of “rehabilitating” it as both an organization as well as repairing and upgrading its physical plant in the hopes of attracting more people and building a community there. This was a goal that I supported until recently. I now feel that doing so, if successful, can only lead to disaster for you and especially for any vulnerable people who come there. You see, the only way to reliably predict the future, is to fully and honestly understand the past. Allow me to explain:

I will begin with my own story. As you know I was elevated and ordained as a priestess there in March 2008 and served as both Secretary/Treasurer and Battakes-in-Waiting (Platine’s designated successor in the event of her death) among other roles. For thirteen years, I was utterly devoted to the goddess known as Cybele, Magna Mater (and still am), to the Maetreum, Platine, and the other priestesses per my vows. I resided there full-time for 4 of those years and was present for at least the weekends for the rest of the time. Over the years, I donated according to my best estimates over $100K in cash and goods to the organization because I loved it and believed in it so strongly. I also took out a $6000 personal loan in 2009 to pay back taxes in order to prevent foreclosure.

In the year 2019, Platine’s heart failed and she nearly died during open-heart surgery. After she came home from the hospital, something changed in her attitude towards me. She began to hate me and abuse me verbally in a way that she hadn’t before. She made absolutely NO attempt whatsoever to discuss whatever her issue was with me and resolve it, regardless of what she claims. Believe me, had she been open and direct with me, I would have bent over backward to make things right, such was my love and devotion to her. During this time, I tried my utmost to placate her, doing whatever she asked, dealing with her emotional abuse, and trying desperately to smooth things over until I was suffering from autistic burnout and Complex PTSD. This culminated in what I have previously explained to you was the very first autistic meltdown that I have experienced in seventeen years.

I was placed on involuntary sabbatical on July 3^rd of 2021. I don’t disagree with that decision, given that I was so mentally worn down at that point I badly needed a break. However, it all went awry in the administration of it. Although it clearly states in the separation paperwork that I had 30 days by law to remove my possessions from the Maetreum, Platine informed me via private message that I was only being allowed a week and that I had to have EVERYTHING out by Sunday, July 11^th and anything that was left behind “we will deal with”. To begin with, this is illegal. My estimate of the value of the property left behind (which includes art and antiques) is around $12K. This potentially makes what happened to me Grand Larceny. You may also want to remember how Platine very nearly grew violent with me on that day when she literally threw me out of the house and you needed to break it up.

I was then defrocked a week later at the July 10^th Conclave for things that I didn’t do. There was absolutely NOTHING that was kind or merciful about it! For the record, she told me NOT to attend that Conclave with veiled threats. I was absolutely NOT willfully absent. Therefore, the “natural consensus” which made that decision was in fact anything but natural. There could NOT have been a fair debate because I was not allowed to attend to defend myself. There can be no true consensus when there is no debate. It’s rather ironic because even if I hadn’t been defrocked, I had no intentions whatsoever of returning. The prior weekend, she had thrown a tantrum worthy of any toddler in front of our guests, accusing me of following her around and “not giving her space” just when I was doing my best to avoid her! I decided then that I was done. Just done. I didn’t fight it and I didn’t protest. I’ve just been focused on healing and recovering over the last year.

Think I’m being Sour Grapes because I was kicked out? Well, I would be if my story was unique. If it was, I would happily sit with what I had done and work on doing penance and making amends to Cathryn and the others. By now you know me well enough to know that I am a deeply introspective person who is not afraid to hold herself to account. But my story is NOT unique. Far from it.

After much personal reflection and discussing the matter with many other people, I have concluded that what happened to me is merely the latest and most blatantly egregious example of a pattern of behavior that Cathryn Platine follows like clockwork. It goes like this:

1.      1. She meets someone new. She turns on her megawatt charm and gets them interested in the Maetreum and what is going on there. They become her friend and are completely dazzled by her. Love-bombing then commences.

2.      2. She then gets the person to commit to volunteering, donating money or other goods, or even moving in and/or studying to become a priestess. She builds up a sense of solidarity with the new target by sharing horrific stories about how she was mistreated by prior associates/volunteers/Maetreum clergy. She may encourage the person to think of the Maetreum as “Your Home” as she did with me. If the person is particularly desirable to her, she will intensify the commitment by suggesting that she will make them her heir, which is what happened to me and several others and what I suspect is happening to you. There’s a term I would like you to look up: Future Faking.

3.     3. She then works to extract whatever she can from them. When they have nothing to give in terms of money or goods, she extracts as much labor from them as possible. She frequently manipulates and maneuvers the person into doing things that they are not comfortable with and even to the point of indirectly inflicting physical pain and injury. The smart and/or lucky ones get out on their own at this point

4.      4. She becomes weary of the person, or feels threatened by them, or jealous of them, or they figure out her scam or she becomes too dependent upon them and bitterly resents that dependence. I suspect the latter is the REAL reason why she discarded me and that it had absolutely nothing at all to do with anything I actually did. She then begins the process of devaluing, dehumanizing, and finally discarding them. This typically manifests in presentations of hostility. They begin as subtle - coldness, insults, subtle disrespect, and other humiliation in front of others. She refuses to talk to the person about just what her concern actually is and if she does, it will consist of exaggerations and even outright lies. If they do not leave on their own, she will escalate, becoming verbally abusive and even physically abusive.

5.    5.  The endgame is that she throws them out: she yells, screams, threatens, or actually becomes violent. She will even brandish weapons. YES, I HAVE SEEN HER DO THIS. She makes it clear that she will not respect their rights and that she will physically harm them if they stay any longer. The victim then rushes the move-out, leaving behind valuable and/or sentimental goods that they would not have otherwise been inclined to abandon and frequently regret having lost. Platine then pockets whatever is left behind and even discards items out of spite.  Chelsea Goodwin has stated to me that she considers this to be a form of armed robbery. I can’t disagree with that.

6.    6.   The aftermath is that Platine will then continue to abuse the victim remotely by conducting a smear campaign against them as a way of justifying what she did to them as well as completing the cycle to win over new victims. She does this by telling lies about them to whoever will listen typically consisting of them abusing her. Or stealing from her. But most of all, the victim is the one who is dangerously crazy. Not her. Never her. Another priestess who happens to be a forensic psychiatrist then provides justification by backing up Platine’s claims about the person’s mental health, even though she never had any personal interaction with the victim, let alone examined them in a clinical setting. And if Platine feels particularly belligerent, she may even attempt to destroy their lives by making bogus complaints to their employers, licensing boards, or whatever groups they affiliate with. She may even make false complaints to the police about crimes that they did not commit (FYI, knowingly making a false criminal complaint is classified as a criminal misdemeanor. It wastes police time and resources and is considered a crime against Justice itself. It is punishable by up to a year in jail. Just sayin'.).

I have come to identify and recognize this pattern not only through 13 years of close association with and observation of her, but also from speaking to numerous people about this issue. Here are a few of their stories:

Let me begin with the story of Sage, which I am relating with their permission: They stayed at the Maetreum part-time during the spring of 2021. After a few weeks, Platine decided she didn’t like them and decided to throw them out as she invariably does. I tried to talk her into just simply making things uncomfortable enough so that Sage would want to leave voluntarily and peacefully. Instead, she overwhelmed Sage with complaints about things that made no sense as well as verbal abuse and threats in my presence during a house meeting. This included assertions that she’s had to use firearms to get prior tenants out. This terrified and traumatized Sage and they were completely moved out in 24 hours. Believe me, this was all fresh in my mind when she threw me out and this is why I left most of my things behind. I was completely terrorized by Platine just as Sage was! 

Second is the story of the woman from Texas (I do not have her permission to use her real name) who resided there from September to November 2019. Remember? The one that you insisted that I Ghost? She was forced to leave when a schizophrenic charity case that we made the mistake of taking in started a kitchen fire and then shut the kitchen door, closing her in. This triggered an asthmatic attack that led her to the emergency room. Ms. Texas feels certain that Ms. Schizophrenic had every intention of killing her. I asked Platine to please remove Ms. Schizophrenic since I felt that she had proven herself to be an active, physical danger to the household. She opted to evict Ms. Texas instead because Ms. Schizophrenic proved to be very adept at manipulating her (by doing things like cooking her meals and preparing foot baths for her). Her sole income is Social Security Disability and she spent what little savings she had transporting herself and her pets to Palenville. She needed help returning home to Texas where she had an offer of housing because she would have become homeless just at the beginning of winter. She was forced by the situation Platine created to leave her beloved cats behind. Although her fortunes have since turned, she was living literally hand-to-mouth for the last two years and would have to go without eating for the last week or so of each month.  Platine literally ruined her life and she still experiences PTSD flashbacks concerning her time spent at the Maetreum.

But that’s not all! During the winter and spring of 2019, a trans and non-binary couple moved up from New York City. I’m not going to name them, but the trans woman is the one that Platine refers to as “Rat Tranny” because she wrongly blames her for the rat infestation that we had to deal with that year (Do I need to elaborate on just how sickeningly transphobic and disrespectful that is????) Platine threw them out just before she went into the hospital. They had to live on the couch of a new friend because she refused to allow them the full 30 days to find other accommodations. I begged, literally begged her to at least let them stay in the 5^th wheel trailer until they could find a new home, but she refused. Admittedly, they did cause damage to the property and were not well suited to life at the Maetreum, but no one deserves that kind of cruel treatment and disrespect. No one.

I could go on and on with examples that I personally witnessed. I hope that I have made the point that what she did to me when she discarded me is hardly unique and is not even recent. It goes back even further than my involvement with the Maetreum.

During my time spent as a Maetreum Priestess, Platine made it abundantly clear that there were certain people that I was NOT to associate with (Which is, naturally, a big red flag right there, but I digress). Since I am now out and on my own, there is nothing keeping me from doing so. I’ve since spoken with more than two dozen people including former Maetreum clergy, members, and residents. Their perspective has been refreshing. And sobering. Not only was I informed that this pattern of throwing people out while terrorizing them with threats of violence and stealing whatever property that they abandoned in haste is longstanding, but I was also faced with another bombshell:

Cathryn Platine is not a priestess anymore. She was defrocked as a priestess by the Cybeline Conclave.

Seriously.

I’ve since become good friends with her archenemy, Chelsea Goodwin. Among the documents that she was gracious enough to give me were the minutes of two conclaves held during 2007 as well as a signed, notarized affidavit. It turns out that what happened during that period that Platine refers to as “The Insurrection” was NOT an insurrection at all! What happened was that after five years of her treating tenants and guests in the same abusive and even violent ways, the Conclave voted her out and defrocked her. Yes, you read that right. She was rightfully removed for abusing the vulnerable transwomen who were staying under their roof and then stealing their belongings. 

Not only that, she was misappropriating organization funds. This typically consisted of her asking several priestesses for cash to pay the bills. Numerous duplicate payments were then made, she would pay the bills and then pocket the excess. This was a pattern that I witnessed myself. At the time, I was in denial, but now I recognize it as the pattern of malfeasance that it is.

I can’t count how many times she would ask me to “not tell Sister S. that Sister C. made the contribution to pay the bills” and “not talk on the private priestess group about how much money is in the bank account”. She would also occasionally pocket cash donations and NEVER allowed me to inspect the Amazon and eBay purchase records, so I just dutifully recorded them as “miscellaneous household expenses” on the Treasurer’s report each year.

Because she was voted out and defrocked, Platine had moved out into her own apartment just up the road during 2006-2007. There was a lack of consensus among the other priestesses about providing her housing, but nonetheless, she managed to force her way back onto the property in the Fall of 2007. She essentially squatted in the back house and occupied it by force, daring the remaining priestesses to call the police on her. Remember, she owns firearms and is not shy about letting you know it.

This was around the time that I first met her and back then I naively assumed that her actions were heroic because Platine completely misrepresented what had happened to her on the internet as a hostile takeover by an evil bunch of “criminal heretics” whose sole motivation was to steal the Maetreum property. You may recall at the time there was not much in the way of social media: there was email, blogs, Yahoo groups, YouTube, and not much else. She had control of the Maetreum’s website and I was not acquainted with anyone who could explain what the real story was. Apparently, the Conclave did not have any other way to correct her misinformation and get the truth out. The truth is that Platine is the one who staged the hostile takeover, not them. The Rule of the Women of Cybele, when working as designed, resulted in her rightful expulsion.

I had been under the impression that a Maetreum associate, Reverend Jamie Hunter, gave her a copy of the key to the back house and she moved in against the Conclave’s wishes. Jamie denies this because she NEVER had a key and believes that Platine stole it and then lied about it. By that time, many of the other priestesses were just so disgusted with the situation that they quit, leaving only Platine and the few women that were loyal to her (who just happened to live out of state and seldom visit). She later kicked Jamie out as well. I recently reconnected with Jamie and she states that her expulsion had the same features as mine: She was verbally attacked, threatened with violence, terrorized, and forced to leave her belongings behind, including treasured family heirlooms. She gave Jamie NO opportunity to remove her belongings. It was just simply, "GET OUT AND DON'T COME BACK!" Moreover, she has NO idea of just what it was that she did to earn Platine’s ire. As bad as my expulsion was, hers was worse. Much worse. She had nowhere to go and she was left homeless! Moreover, she and Platine were close for a number of years and Platine was one of the people that she loved more than anything in the world! Apart from being made homeless, she was utterly devastated and traumatized by that rejection. It propelled her onto a downward spiral of poverty and hard drug use that eventually landed her in prison. Although she has been gradually building her life back up since her release, Jamie states that to this day she STILL has PTSD-related nightmares regarding that event!

Reverend Lennox, I BEG you, out of basic decency PLEASE REMOVE YOURSELF AND YOUR PEOPLE FROM THE MAETREUM! It is NOT safe there and they are in potential danger! Platine is getting worse, not better, mentally. Given that you have worked professionally with elderly people for some time now, I’m sure you have noticed how she’s going downhill. Yes, I know that you have a deep understanding of the physical and mental needs of seniors, but Cathryn Platine is NOT your average senior citizen! I don’t care how adept you think you are at managing her. You can’t control her. No one can.  Moreover, she owns firearms and has made it clear that she has no qualms about using them. Yes, I know that I belabor that point, but I want you and any other reader to understand the potential for violence here.

Yes, I am well aware that Platine has some very deep and unhealed trauma issues, and I have no doubt that former associates, including myself, may have inadvertently triggered those traumas. I have compassion for all trauma survivors, including her, but she has completely lost my sympathy. She has lost it because for YEARS I would try SO HARD to get her to take accountability for her words and actions as well as agree to go to therapy. I tried to get her to understand that she was hurting vulnerable people who did not deserve what she was doing to them. And invariably, her response would be, “Oh YEAH? Well *I* (insert whatever incident in her past made her feel vindicated in abusing others)”. She has come full circle from being a victim to becoming an abuser herself because she used her own trauma to justify inflicting it on others. At the final meeting on July 3rd when I was placed on sabbatical, you attempted to remind her to show compassion for me when she began acting up. Let me put this bluntly: if compassion does not come naturally to someone who is already 73 years of age, it’s never going to come. True empathy and compassion are just not part of her psychological makeup. Yes, she started a charitable nonprofit. I have my own theories as to what her actual reasons for doing so are, but I am not going to speculate on them here.

You said to me the last time we spoke in the Maetreum Temple that if you thought that Platine was abusive, you would leave immediately. You then invalidated my complaints of abuse in the very same breath! Several months later, you expressed great contempt for BOTH Platine and me by saying that we are both “horrible” and that “Only I can save the Maetreum”.

No, Reverend Lennox. You can’t save the Maetreum, because it’s already gone.  

The Maetreum died when Platine returned against the wishes of the Conclave in 2007. Yes, she did create a system that is beautiful on paper, but she has spent the last 20 years violating every single precept of it. It’s no accident that she never behaves, speaks like, or even makes an effort to present herself as a priestess. That’s because she isn’t one. She isn’t a leader, either. Since then, she has been running the Maetreum in ways that are, to put it kindly, selfish and unsustainable. Her actions have been unethical and immoral at the very least, if not actual grounds for arrest. I don’t know how I could have made it any clearer that the Maetreum’s bad name is not simply caused by poor PR and her unfortunate online outbursts. I have stated the facts of the situation, and I will leave it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions about Cathryn Platine.

As I have previously stated, the only real way to predict the future is to look at the past. I predict that if you do not leave and take your people with you, she is going to do great harm to them, and then throw them out. It will start with one chosen scapegoat, then another, then another, until the remaining people no longer feel safe and leave on their own. I don’t think that you personally will be the first one to get the ax, but I think that you will witness a great many horrible things being done to undeserving and vulnerable people and if you have any shred of humanity in you, your own mental health will suffer for it as mine did. Believe me, even though I was not the direct target of her abuse for many years, watching abuse being perpetrated against others inflicts its own trauma!

Now I’m sure your reaction to all this is, “But we are not like you and the others! We’re better people and she would NEVER do that to us!” No, you are no better than me or anyone else and believe me, I used to think that I was better than those people she threw out, too. The truth is, NONE of us knew the exact reason why she threw us out. The horrifying conclusion that I have reached is that she just invents reasons when she has no further use for people. Whatever harm perpetrated against the victim, or even to the Maetreum itself isn’t any of her concern. Human beings for her are just a means to an end and are as disposable to her as Kleenex.

“But all I have to do is outlive her and when she dies it’s all mine! Then I’ll make it better! You’ll see!” I figure that you’re thinking that, too. Yes, I know how rare, wonderful, and special the Maetreum of Cybele potentially is and how you want it to be the best that it can be, but believe me, it’s all an impossible dream. Yes, it has done some good, but under Platine’s leadership, it has done much harm as well. And no, the good does NOT balance out the bad – the bad has negated the good. And that is the central tragedy and failure of the Maetreum of Cybele under Platine’s leadership. Moreover, she has a way of managing to survive whatever life throws at her! I stuck out 13 years and she lived to throw me out!

Think it was “hard” and “sad” when I was removed last summer? It only gets worse from here on out. Much worse. Believe me, I know. Of the many things that have been said to me by the many people that I have spoken with about this, the statement that stuck with me the most was, “Viktoria, if YOU were not safe, then NO ONE is safe!”

The only way to minimize the harm to yourself and your people is to get out now! However, I am not suggesting that you should completely abandon her, either. I strongly encourage you to use your influence and contacts to get her in touch with Adult Protective Services or whatever other organization in Greene County that serves the interests of the vulnerable elderly. If she refuses the help, it isn’t your concern. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her drink.

Let her go. And let the Maetreum go. Leave the property to the absentee priestesses to deal with when she is gone.

You cannot begin to know just how much it breaks my heart to say this: it’s time to let Cathryn Platine and the Maetreum of Cybele die and rot in peace.

Regards,

Rev. Viktoria Whittaker

An independent priestess of Cybele, Magna Mater.

P.S. If you wish to discuss this letter with me, I will insist upon a public forum. You may do so in the comments section of this blog entry or YouTube video. Or also in a moderated discussion on In Goth We Trust on WIOX radio. If you turn up on my doorstep, I will turn on my phone and Livestream the conversation. Any comment on the Maetreum Facebook page will be responded to in my blog. 

November 4th, 2012

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The Maetreum of Cybele has a few rooms left for women the New Jersey/New York City area who require temporary housing due to being displaced, or for whatever reason are unable to stay in their homes, as a direct result of Superstorm Sandy. For those of you who are not familiar with us, we are a small pagan church that owns a historic inn in the Catskills hamlet of Palenville which we use as a temple, convent as well as providing charitable housing for women in need. We will be able to take single women and lesbian couples. We are LBGT friendly and welcome women of trans history. Unfortunately, we are not set up to take women with children at this time. Please contact firstchurch@gallae.com for further information.

Bright Blessings Everyone! Palenville Pagan Pride Day is fast coming up, but we still have openings for vendors and workshop presenters! If you are interested, email vendor@palenvilleppd.org or workshop@palenvilleppd.org! For more info, check out palenvilleppd.org. We will be holding our event on Saturday, August 25th from 9am to 5pm at the Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater in Palenville. We are located at 3312 Rte 23A in Palenville. Check out our website for directions! Admission is free with one nonperishable food item to be donated to our chosen charity, Greene County Community Action. This year, we will hold a pagan film festival as part of our event! Come check us out!

Discrimination Against Maetreum of Cybele Puts American Civil Rights In Peril

Guest Post by Rev. Cathryn Platine


Palenville, NY, USA.

The town of Catskill, New York has waged an illegal five year battle against the Maetreum of Cybele for claiming its legal property tax exemption under the laws of the State of New York and United States.

It is a struggle for nothing less than the right of all religions in America to be treated equally under the law. You do not have to be a politically aware Pagan to understand the danger to us all when government becomes the arbiter of personal belief.

The Maetreum of Cybele is a revival of the ancient Goddess traditions that long pre-dated the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam that dominate the religious landscape today. Originally founded as an organized religious group in 1999 by myself — a lifelong Pagan — and Susan Davis in Ohio, today the worldwide home of the Maetreum is nestled in the Catskill mountains, in the tiny Hamlet of Palenville, New York.

The home sits on about three acres of rural land in a Catskill landmark, the historic former Central House Resort Inn. In 2002, three Cybeline priestesses and a Catholic purchased the property for use as a woman's housing collective. The property also provided a place for newly transitioned women with a transsexed history to reposition their lives. Far too many women in their situation find it difficult to support themselves and often wind up homeless.

Establishing an outdoor Temple became a priority; within three months of buying the property and Cybeline adherents began religious services. The participants formed a non-profit corporation in the summer of 2002 to manage the property, updated in 2005 under New York Religious Incorporation Law as a religion. All four owners signed over all their legal interest to the property to the newly incorporated Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater, Inc.

Under both Federal and New York state law no individual can profit in any manner from the property of a religious corporation so this meant this signing over of interest in the property forever barred any of us who investing in the property from ever having a return on that investment. No one has ever been employed by the Maetreum of Cybele and all our funds are separate from any individual. The flow of funds from our priestesses is totally one direction … to the Maetreum.

From that time forward the property was the official world wide home of the Cybeline revival and from day one the charitable housing continued as part of our religious mission. In the spring of 2006 the Maetreum applied for and was granted property tax exemption as a recognized church property. Later that year the Maetreum also applied for and eventually was granted official IRS 501 (c)(3) status specifically as a church and religious charitable organization. Women living at the property did so under the Rule of the Women of Cybele, a specific set of guidelines for living together as a religious community, that actually pre-dated formal incorporation by two years.

So the situation was this: the Maetreum of Cybele was legally incorporated, something the majority of Pagan faiths are not, and had legal and formal standing with the IRS as a legitimate church. This was based on a formal doctrine of faith and theology, an ongoing congregation of worshippers, and fully legal ownership of its own property. Women living at the property did so under a set of guidelines for living as a religious community of women, or were there as part of charitable housing of women who would have otherwise been homeless.

But this annoyed someone on the Board of Trustees of the Town of Catskill who then ordered the Town Assessor to deny our exemption for 2007. At that time, an attempted schism of our religion was opened by a group of transgender identified people who did not like the requirement of the religion that only fully female bodied and woman identified women could be elevate to the priestesshood. They had taken over the house and driven me out for a period of time. This was a religious schism: they continued to represent themselves as the Maetreum and continued religious services, but it failed and the original priestesses regained control of the property later that year.

Despite this, from that time forward the Town of Catskill refused to acknowledge the property tax exemption. In 2007 and 2008 I exhausted the appeals process short of filing a lawsuit. I could not find anyone who understood New York property law well enough to advise me on how to do so within the four days after the filing window closed for 2008. The filing period was very short: only thirty days. In 2009 the Maetreum again filed for exemption as it had the prior two years and once again was denied.

This time we filed legal action against the Town but were still unable to find a lawyer willing to help us do so. The court informed us that under New York law we could not represent ourselves because we were a corporation and granted us an extension to hire an attorney. That was when we discovered exactly how badly the opponents had stacked the deck.

Very few lawyers in New York will take on a tax case as it is considered a very difficult and esoteric part of New York law. We searched for months for an attorney.

The only one we could locate who actually knew that law — and willing to take our case — was barred by her law firm from doing so because they also represented the Town of Catskill in other tax matters. Eventually we found a young inexperienced social justice minded lawyer willing to take on the case.

The Maetreum of Cybele is funded only by contributions mainly made by its priestesses. We never have received outside grants to do our charitable works but funded our activities on our own. Even at a very reasonable rate, hiring a lawyer put a major crimp in our funding so we appealed to the greater Pagan community for help raising our legal fees.

We received a decent contribution from a Pagan woman in California that paid our initial legal retainer, but neither the American Civil Liberties Union (and its New York version, NYCLU) nor several Pagan legal groups could help beyond that point. So we had to get by with a trickle of funding from grass root Pagan efforts and our own internal funding to wage what had become a major legal battle.

Why is this important to anyone but the Maetreum? The Town of Catskill, from the start, refused to give a reason for denying our exemption other than a vague reference to property use. During the appeal hearing in 2009 they briefly switched tactics to claiming we were in violation of fire and safety codes and failed to apply for a "change of use" permit that actually was not added to the Town code until after we had first been granted exemption. Basically, the Town of Catskill was taking the position that they trumped both Federal and State law regarding our legitimacy as a religion because they did not approve of a bunch of Pagan women having equal standing under the law with Christian churches.

This is a pure First Amendment issue. Their attorney kept lying to the press saying this was not about our legitimacy as a religion but our land use stating we were nothing more than a housing cooperative but when it came time to actually file in court, the Town's pretrial filing was that we were a "sham" religion organized only to avoid taxes!

Our attorney suffered major health problems requiring us to hire another which, luckily, our original attorney had found for us. The Town of Catskill, knowing it did not have a legitimate case, pursued the tactic of ruining us financially by filing bogus motion after motion to keep the case from going to trial and forcing us to answer them at increasing cost to us. The Town of Catskill, by our educated estimates, has spent in excess of one quarter of a million dollars to keep us from having our exemption. In the meantime, they granted millions in tax breaks to big box stores, some demanded after the initial deals.

The Town raised their level of legal filings several times to keep the pressure on us. By the sworn testimony of one of the members of the Catskill Board of Review, we were singled out; from 2005 onward not a single non-profit had been denied exemption other than the Maetreum. Moreover, a review of the tax records showed church property after property was used as Parsonages (housing clergy only) and even a church owned picnic ground was declared fully exempt. They did this while denying our claim on the basis that several of our priestesses lived on the property!

We finally had our day(s) in court in the Fall of 2011. Up to that time we had paid in excess of US$20,000 dollars in legal fees; our current bill is an additional 12,000 that we owe right now. Trials are expensive in terms of legal fees and especially so when the opposition deliberately drags them out.

We almost certainly will win. We were told informally that we met our burden of proof in this case and had a preliminary decision the spring of 2011 that basically acknowledged we were being discriminated against. But this has left us completely broke, with almost all of our projects on hold (other than charitable housing). Right now three women are staying with us on a charitable housing basis — we have never stopped that mission.

If the willful and blatant discrimination we have suffered bothers you, know that we have always been mindful that this battle was bigger than just us. We are fighting for the rights of all minority religions to be treated equally under the law.

(This post was previously published today, January 26th 2012 at TS-Si.org)

January 3, 2012

Here’s wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year! Once again, I have let far too much time go between blog posts. So much has happened in the past months.

We have finally had our trial. It was supposed to only be on November 16th, but wound up carrying over for another half of a day on December 7th. The first day consisted of nothing but Cathy testifying. I’m told that she did very well (since I was on the witness list, I had to wait outside the whole day). The town counsel’s entire argument and rationale for denying our exemption is that they believe we are a sham out to defraud the town. Never mind our 501(c)3 status, never mind that we have the status of a nonprofit religious corporation, never mind that we have an established theology that has been enumerated on our website for years. No, we’re just a sham. The defense strategy consisted solely of cross-examination. The town introduced no witnesses, no evidence, nothing. It was just Vincelette and on Day 2 his associate trying to knock us down on the stand, and failing. Their arguments were, shall we say, utterly absurd.

It was my turn on the stand on Day 2. We were not sure at first if I was going to be called, but given that I am the Housemother here and the only person who has lived consistently on the property other than Cathy during the years in question that it seemed impossible for me not to be called. We were worried that I would have to endure some serious, irrelevant nitpicking, but fortunately that was not the case. Although I was nervous as hell, I was told later on that I did very well. On the whole, we feel very confident that we will succeed in this, but now we have to wait another 3 months or so to get the verdict.

As for other news, I’d like to welcome some new residents to Central House. First, the warmest welcome to Kassandra and Melanie from Saugerties who moved in earlier this month. Kassie has become a novice here, finally. It’s something we had hoped for for a number of years now. They’ve been a great addition to the household.

We are also home now to three young chickens! This has been another one of our dreams was to have a flock of layer hens for our own eggs. We opted to start out with three pullets, since this seemed like the most cost-effective way to get started (i.e. no expensive incubation equipment for eggs or chicks). We got them in late October, and now they are all grown up and laying! They are a hybrid variety called Black Stars known for outstanding egg production and they have already lived up to their reputations, each giving us one egg per day. We have named them Boudicca, Sheeba and Nancy. Why Nancy, I don’t know. Cath insisted on it. I was all set to call her Jezebel. Oh well, maybe the next batch of hens will have a Jezebel. ~:>

Not long after I posted the last blog entry, I woke up one morning at 4am to water dripping on my cheek – and my room is on the second floor, mind you. This was during the week that Tropical Storm Lee hit us, and it was a several-days long, soaking rain. I cussed up a storm of my own, vowing to get the roof done if I had to haul my fat @$$ up there to do it myself! Then that day at work, I had an idea. I created an event on Facebook: Maetreum of Cybele Roofing Party for that Saturday, and it was a success! We got several volunteers and as it turns out, I didn’t have to get on the roof myself. My job was to haul heavy buckets of latex roofing goop up several ladders to make sure that the roofers were well stocked. I don’t want to get into what kind of pain I was in afterwards, but it worked! The roof is now done. YAAAAAY!!!!!!!

We also reached another milestone this fall: we’ve been painting the house. As of now, the west wall is completely done and the south-facing front of the house is now almost done. The base color is a very, very pale pink and the trim is maroon. They both look very good together and the house is now looking better than it has in years. Unfortunately, since it is now winter, we will have to wait until spring to finish it, but at least the most difficult parts of it are now done and the house is really looking good!