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EDMONTON — Three days each week, approximately 300 men and women pack the Oasis Edmonton Conference Centre in this city’s west end. Many have come from abroad, from countries such as England, Australia, Germany and the United States, and stay for months at a time, volunteering at the conference centre and attending the three-hour “meetings”. These are conducted mostly in silence, with long periods of intense gazing toward the front of the room.

Everyone wants to make eye contact with the man sitting at centre stage, a former shoemaker from rural Alberta turned spiritual leader. John de Ruiter claims to be the “living embodiment of truth.”

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Local businessman Peter von Sass, his wife Ilona, and their daughters Benita and Katrina were for a long time convinced. Starting in the mid-1990s, the four von Sass family members formed the core of the guru’s inner circle. Peter and Ilona offered Mr. de Ruiter financial support. They introduced him to their rarified world, to their beautiful girls. Benita and Katrina gave themselves to Mr. de Ruiter, body and soul. They “submitted” to his sexual requests, despite the fact he was married with three children. “I know that John is goodness and purity personified,” Benita told the Edmonton Journal in 2000, once the guru’s marriage had dissolved and his affairs with the sisters were exposed. “I’m fully aware of what I’m doing.”