Forced labor, Tucson hospice prop up ‘cult,’ ex-members say

The GCCA, in an email, said Anderson, as a spiritual care volunteer, was not in a position to know such financial details about the hospice.

“His characterization of Soulistic’s financial structure and operational priorities is not based on any knowledge he had access to in that role.”

Plattner got a lot of attention from the high-ranking members of the GCCA community, he said. He visited the property in Santa Cruz County many times, and they wanted him to join. He was tempted.

“The truth is that I drank way too much of their Kool-Aid, because I liked that feeling of belonging, and so that’s how they kind of reeled me in.”

When they eventually asked him to join, Plattner said, he reminded them he was married. 

“They said, ‘We’re not asking for your wife, we’re asking for you,’ ” he recalled in a recent interview. “They weren’t interested at all in having my wife come. And I just thought, ‘Wow, what kind of an operation is this?’ “

“But the more I got to know them, it really made perfect sense. You know, my wife would have told them to go (screw) themselves a long time ago.”

At the same time Plattner was training community members, and even considering joining the group, he also helped others leave the community.

“I was a really bad double agent,” Plattner said.

Five of the approximately 20 people who contacted him about leaving actually took the leap, Plattner said. Others found the challenges of re-entering the outside world — what members often refer to as the “third dimension” — too daunting. They had no money, felt loyalty to the group and feared leaving the enclosed world they’d known, he said.