Cult News

Douglas Macarthur once observed, “old soldiers never die,” but perhaps the general might have also included old “cult leaders.”

Terri Hoffman now known as Terri Lilya Keanely, a notorious “spiritualist” who made headlines in the early 1990s, is still plying her trade even though she is pushing seventy.

Ms. Hoffman/Keanely became notorious because she allegedly committed “murder through mind control.”

No less than ten of the Dallas guru’s associates met with untimely deaths while under her influence.

Hoffman launched her career during the disco days of the 1970s and eventually founded a company called “Conscious Development of Body, Mind and Soul Inc.” in Dallas, Texas.

Terri’s devoted disciples wrote her big checks, one couple alone gave Hoffman more than a hundred thousand dollars.

However, the spiritualist eventually declared bankruptcy after a series of lawsuits and an ongoing criminal investigation supposedly exhausted her resources.

In 1993 Hoffman seemed to hit bottom when she was convicted on ten counts of bankruptcy fraud.

Never mind.

Flash forward to today and Terri Lilya Keanely has reinvented herself and is now a “visionary cloud artist” with a spiffy little Web site selling “angel photographs” featuring “a view into God’s kingdom, normally not seen by physical eyes.”

In her new bio, which not surprisingly neglects to mention Hoffman’s past woes, Terri touts herself as a “self-taught” jewelry, floral and clothing “designer,” not to mention an inspirational writer, speaker, consultant, counselor and seminar leader.

The Web site states, “Terri has had a series of classes for over 30 years…[teaching] methods…to grow and develop in consciousness.”

Hmmm, doesn’t this sound suspiciously like her old company “Conscious Development of Body, Mind and Soul Inc.” that went belly up more than a decade ago?

Terri also wants her Web site visitors to know that “a great deal of her work has been within the area of healing which encompasses many levels of energy.”

Is Hoffman/Keanely referring to the “healing” she performed on her ten dead former associates left in the wake of her previous failed business?

The guru’s latest technique for healing is “called Multi-Body Release therapy, which…involves removal of ‘stuck’ energies from the body.”

Does Ms. Hoffman/Keanely mean the removal of the soul from the body, which many believe, occurs upon death? This could relate to her claimed “view into God’s kingdom,” a place some of her past students have moved on to.

Maybe Terri is talking about simply separating people from some green “energies” they are “stuck” to, more often simply called money.

Hoffman/Keanely says she is also offering “financial (planning) workshops.”

Well there it is, old “cult” leaders never die and Terri Hoffman is a diehard.

Note: An old crony of Ms. Hoffman/Keanely and a fellow “healer” also appears to be something of a diehard in her devotion to the old guru. Ariana Mariah Geoffrey Stahlka who is doing “energy work” around Chicago names Keanely within the “Philosophy/Approach” of an interview as her source of learning and attributes the “healing technique developed by Terri” as a basis “for work on others.”

Update: Apparently Ms. Stahlka is not quite so devoted to her old friend and mentor Hoffman/Keanely. Since this article first appeared she has had deleted any reference to “Terri” from the previously cited interview. However, to see the reference to “Terri Lilya Keanely” as it appeared originally through the Internet archive Way Back Machine click here.

Stahlda said, “My answers started flooding in when I began to learn and apply the techniques Terri Lilya Keanely offers through A Balanced Path to Mastery and Enlightenment. I had a great deal of inner healing to do, and my desire for Spiritual Evolution and growth is ever growing. Application of these techniques, including meditation, has brought me closer to myself, closer to God and inspired me to help bring these possibilities to others. I have been teaching meditation and energy techniques and practicing Krashada, an energy healing technique developed by Terri for work on others for 15 years.”