Facing possible eviction from the house he occupied last fall in tiny St. Agatha, Gary Blankenship said Monday he’s not worried.
“It doesn’t matter,” the purported cult leader said. “I’m going to be all right regardless.”
Gary Blankenship Submitted photo
Blankenship said he is due in court Friday to answer an eviction notice that would force him to leave the Civil War-era house on Main Street that he’s referred to as his refuge and headquarters.
“I don’t have the slightest clue what’s going to go on,” he said, but trusts that whatever the outcome, it will be for the best.
Though head of an internet-based group chock full of conspiracy theories, Blankenship said he made a good faith deal to move into the property, poured $30,000 into its repair and hopes to stay for the long haul.
If it doesn’t work out, though, he said he’ll accept it as “for the best.”
“At the end of the day,” he said, “I’m not a crazy person.”
If he comes up short in court, Blankenship said, he’ll hit the road for somewhere “off the radar” — maybe “a couple hours to the south” of his northern Maine outpost — and nowhere near any 5G cellphone towers that he’s convinced are bad for health and happiness.
“I’m going to stick with Maine until they run me out,” he added.
A number of residents have said privately in recent weeks that Blankenship needs to move on after taking advantage of an elderly property owner and allegedly threatening to take over the town.
“Same old, same old. Nothing’s really changed,” Blankenship said in response. “I’m getting every right of mine trampled on” because of “a bunch of rumors.”
This is the house in St. Agatha that Gary Blankenship calls the headquarters for his movement to bring followers to northern Maine. Provided
The owner of the 16-room house at 347 Main St., Leo James Dugal, could not be reached. But relatives said he feels like he’s been cheated and wants Blankenship ousted.
In the past, Blankenship has talked about his internet followers moving to St. Agatha in order to create a town of their own where they could live peacefully.
It’s an idea he hasn’t abandoned.
He said he still wants his followers and family to get together somewhere safe and prepare “for a day when you can’t just run down the road to Walmart.”
“I’m not going to be a ‘sheeple’ and head over to the slaughterhouse,” Blankenship said.
What exactly he and his followers constitute is something of a synonym game: Cult? Faith? Family? There is no solid answer but he continued to use the hashtag #CULTure on social media.
Whatever it is he leads, Blankenship said, he has a five-year plan to create something “almost like the Amish, but without the crazy rules.”
“Let’s live love. Let’s treat each other the way we want to be treated,” he said. It is time for those who “love your brothers and sisters” to come together, Blankenship said, before what he fears is a looming depression and a government roundup.
Though it’s a little hard to make out Blankenship’s theology — “I believe I am the church,” he mentioned at one point — he is clear in his embrace of what many see as outlandish conspiracy theories mostly fostered by extremists.
A meme posted by Gary Blankenship on his Facebook page this month.
“The world we’re living in today is a hard place,” Blankenship said, and one where it is hard for people to know “the truth” given all the media bias and government propaganda.
For instance, he said, without presenting evidence for the claim, that the federal government has built hundreds of what he termed “resettlement camps” complete with crematories that bring to mind images of the Holocaust.
Blankenship said he worries about the imposition of martial law and other woes that could begin “very soon,” perhaps with the spread of the coronavirus.
He questions how jet fuel could melt the steel beams that brought down the World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001.
Blankenship insisted that CNN “is owned by the Rothschilds, the Illuminati” and that 10 people in the White House decide each day what’s going to be on the news.
He loathes vaccines, telling followers to avoid them because there’s no way to know what’s being injected into children.
Blankenship worries about chemical trails from airplanes creating “sheeple” instead of active citizens and frets that cellphone network improvements may be used by the government to power new military hardware. Invest “far from the grid,” he advised Monday on his Facebook page.
“Most of you have no idea what nanotechnology is, but your bodies are full of it,” he posted recently. “They spray it in our skies. It’s in our food, water and in vaccines. 5G manipulates nanos in order to control and target individuals. Welcome to the Matrix.”
Blankenship argued that America’s wars are fought for bankers and the pharmaceutical industry.
“I’m not politically correct,” Blankenship happily conceded. “But I’m in a free country where I have the right and the freedom to live and practice my religion as long as I’m not hurting anybody.”
He said he’s devoted most of his life to the pursuit of his vision of helping and loving everyone.
Blankenship said he’s been “on the front lines and researching and figuring things out” instead of just going along with the pack.
He said the opposition to him among many in St. Agatha is spurred in part by people who won’t make the same effort.
“It’s like these people are possessed by the system here, by the small minds,” Blankenship said.
He said that in the long run, “truth flows freely” and people will come around.
“I don’t have a problem with anybody,” Blankenship said. “I don’t want any enemies.”
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