Cults. As modern-day history documents the bizarre path from fervor to fanaticism, one can easily question, how does one fall victim to the absurd? “It happens so slowly,” writes Renee Linnell. “So insidiously.” Linnell, a former Pacific Beach resident, knows first-hand, the dangers of falling prey to life as a cult member. And she’s ready to share her experience with the world. “The Burn Zone,” Linnell’s narrative memoir, recounts a journey that began with a search for enlightenment and yet, somehow, evolved into a path of self-destruction. Raw and riveting, the inspirational yet cautionary tale, details life entrenched in a Buddhist cult “severely brainwashed” at the hands of her spiritual teachers. The self-described “soul-sick” student who attended a meditation seminar “begrudgingly,” left forever transformed. She then unwittingly carved a seven-year course into the “hands of hell.” When emotional, physical and financial devastation reared their ugly heads, the tormented apprentice woke up and realized that she had been “had.” But how? According to Linnell, the teacher appeared “at the right time” with an inviting message, “follow me, study with me, and I will bring you the peace you have been searching for.” Lured in with love, affection, compliments and the promise of protection, life within the realm of her teachers became magical. “At first it’s like winning the lottery,” she writes. “She {the teacher} sees the true you, the bigger you, the you hidden inside, the you no one else can see, the you that was meant for greatness. You sit in front of this person and you feel so much light; you feel God.” Once a free spirit, Linnell quickly became a “spiritual narcissist.” Judgmental and self-righteous, everyone else became “less evolved.” Friends and family were no longer wise enough to understand. Life anew had begun. “You’re filled with new energy,” she writes. “Life takes on a magical quality. Every day is a new adventure.” And then the dismantling began. Harsh criticism was dispensed as life lessons while leaders demanded money and unquestionable loyalty. Creating distance became imperative. Attendance at the University of Mysticism required the total detachment and relinquishment of possessions and personal power. Who she was no longer counted. “The outcry is simple,” she writes. “Today matters and only we are your family.” Ignoring her intuition, Linnell fully embraced this twisted theatre of Tantric Buddhism. Dominated and manipulated, she severed all familial relationships, moved from Southern Cal to New York, and was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Bhutan, South Asia, within four years. And she did so while serving her spiritual leaders as both housekeeper and sexual consort.  “I took my ordination seriously and truly considered myself a monk,” she writes. “In further self-denial, I forced myself to believe I was changed, radically this time. I was now utterly dedicated to God and solitude. I wanted to start life over. I wanted to erase everything. The saddest part is, I wanted to erase myself. I was so sure I was all wrong the way I was.” Linnell was Bohemian. Her former self didn’t fit this personality profile. Growing up, the Linnell family – mom, dad, twin brother – split their time between a home in Florida and living on their boat. Proficient in all water sports by age 13, at 15, she hitchhiked through Costa Rica surfing. A double degree in dance and psychology from Jacksonville University completed her formative years.  Life then became an escapade that began in Oahu, Hawaii, surfing waves while working as a model. Modeling became a global adventure with a string of mishaps for the record books. The long-legged beauty became stranded at 22,000 feet in the Himalayas; was photographed in a New Zealand ice cave minutes before it collapsed; was mugged in Prague; electrocuted in the Maldives; sailed through the French Polynesian islands while delivering a sailboat; wake-surfed in waters teeming with crocodiles; and was detained by militia in Panama. These exploits then landed her in Fiji as co-manager of Tavarua Island.   At age 26, she moved to Pacific Beach to became a tango dancer. While studying the Latin-ballroom dance she jump-started an import company for tango dance shoes. She also started San Diego Tango, a teaching and performing company. The serial entrepreneur then launched an e-commerce apparel company called Bald Guys Rock.   With her wanderlust, “quenched,” Linnell “wandered” into a meditation class and became a convert. Despite her former life on the run, Linnell attributes the slow deterioration that followed to a perfect storm of personal tragedies. Imbedded, life forever changed. At the advice of her guru, Tango dancing was replaced with computer programming. In 2009, again under the direction of her guru, she moved to New York to attend New York University’s Executive Master’s Degree in Business Administration. Demands to build business to the tune of $10 million dollars followed suit. A failed romantic entanglement ran parallel to a failed business partnership. Both ran a-mock in the New York City tabloids. Crushed, Linnell realized that her guidance was not given in her best interest. The last seven years were spent fulfilling the wants and whims of her gurus. “I was broken,” she writes. “I had no idea of just how broken.”
Thoughts of suicide ran the gambit. “I imagined different options for killing myself,” she writes. “Fortunately, I didn’t have the energy for suicide.”
She returned to Southern Cal to regroup. Therapy, writing and graduating from New York University with a Master’s in Executive Business Administration grounded her to the beginnings of normalcy. Linnell writes, “After a lifetime of trying to be perfect, after subjecting myself to emotional and psychological abuse in an effort to become Enlightened, and after paying a small fortune for therapy, I finally accepted that being flawed is part of the deal of being human.”
The Burn Zone became her personal catharsis. By evacuating herself from the “rubble,” writing became a way to forgive everyone – including herself. “My story is not a story of revenge; it is a story of becoming whole,” she writes. “And in order to do so, I had to forgive; to forgive my mother, my spiritual teachers, my ex-lover in New York, and ultimately myself.” She urges readers to “to trust that quiet voice inside that knows the way” and to embrace the skeletons in our closet. “Pull them out and pain them pink,” she writes. “Celebrate them. Your skeletons are probably the most interesting part about you. Your difference is your destiny.” The Burn Zone/She Writes Press
www,reneelinnell.com