I lost every effort to regain my parental rights to Brittany and Joshua in a Montana court. Prejudice and unfairness, bolstered by the popularity and money of the Ladenburgs won that day. I became resolved to the fact that the world’s gods (the collective free will of everyone else’s own brain) were too powerful to fight and win.

But I was pissed. I was hurt. I was greatly saddened and missed being Brittany’s and Joshua’s father. Through it all, however, I only once … wanted to harm another person. Long story, short …

When Joshua was about 12-years old, his mother called me out of the blue, was very upset, and informed me that Joshua had spit in her face and refused to do what he was told. She was distraught.

Really?

She took away all of my rights and had her attorney legally change their birth certificates to reflect that Carl Ladenburg was their father. She had not allowed me to have any contact with them. And now she wanted me to do something about an attitude in Joshua that she created?

Really?

Remember that conscience that Grandpa told you about … the one that felt sorry for Marcee and wanted to help her get away from the control of Mormon Fundamentalism?

Well, my conscience actually loved innocent children more than myself. Yeah. Really! My conscience might have made me a lousy husband, but it also made me an incredible dad.

I could have easily told Paula to leave me alone and then left her to deal with the problem that she and Carl Ladenburg had created. But I didn’t. I was kind and cooperative.

Paula asked me to intervene and help her with Joshua. I went to Montana, met with Joshua for a few days, got him thinking straight … the best I could … and told him I had to go back to Utah. Joshua didn’t want to live in Montana and refused to behave, if he couldn’t live with me. At their rope’s end, the Ladenburgs didn’t know how to handle an adolescent’s purposeful rebellion to get what he wanted. I did.

I tried to explain to Joshua that I had no legal right to him, and that he would have to stay in Montana. Joshua refused, cried, threw a fit, and convinced the Ladenburgs that maybe he would be better off in Utah with me.

As Joshua was packing his bags to come to Utah with me, I was sitting out in my car waiting for him. Ladenburg came out and confronted me. I rolled down the window and listened:

“This is all your fault, you Ass!” yelled Ladenburg. “You could stop this and convince Joshua to stay here.”

Yeah. Really!

That was one of the few times in my life that I almost lost my temper. These idiots, who had taken my kids from me, changed their names to his, and called me up to fix the mess they caused, were now telling me that it was all my fault!

My hands clenched the steering wheel tighter and tighter. I could have gotten out of that car and beat the living daylights out of Ladenburg. I was bigger and stronger, and I was a father who had been maliciously hurt by him!

But remember that conscience Grandpa told you about? It wouldn’t allow me.

I held my temper and calmly reiterated that it was Joshua’s choice. I explained … as calmly as I could … that they were his legal parents and would have to be the ones to convince him otherwise.

They could not.

Had I let my temper get the best of me, I would have been put in jail. I may have have inadvertently, unintentionally killed Carl Ladenburg, as my grief of losing my kids was pumping up my natural adrenaline.

But this isn’t Grandpa.

You’ll come to know that I treat my enemies just like I do my friends. The only difference is this: I don’t hang around my enemies. I avoid them at all costs. I would no more hurt to an enemy than I would to anyone else.

So, if you judge me, then judge me, not by how I have treated my friends, but by how I have treated my enemies. Then judge my enemies, not by how they treat their friends, but by how they treat me.

Brittany was into her teenage years and would not speak to me while I was up in Montana dealing with her brother. The fact is, Brittany and Joshua were FUBAR … f***ed up beyond repair.

The Real Truth™ about my life will give details of how Ladenburg abandoned Brittany and Joshua after he divorced their mother, and how I intervened to save their lives and put them both on a path to having a normal and successful life. Without me having the conscience that I have, Brittany and Joshua Ladenburg would not be who they are today. I know this. They know this. And, if the Ladenburgs were honest, they would admit this. (We’ll talk about this in a later chapter when the events of how I intervened to save them began.)

Joshua only lasted a few weeks in Utah with me. He was spoiled rotten … Fubar. The Ladenburgs had ruined the little boy who was once more like his dad than he was like the world. Now, he was Joshua Ladenburg, not Joshua Nemelka.

Although he never spit in my face, his attitudes about life, about things, and about values were far different than mine and those of his siblings. (Joshua lived with me, Jackie, Brandon, Caleb, Sariah, and Ryan when he came to Utah for that short time.) I did not see or have any contact with Joshua again until he was 16 years old … the time when I began my intervention.

You can judge me however you want, Grandkids; but judge me on the real facts. And judge me only after you’ve investigated the events and thought about them carefully.

After Jackie and I returned to Utah, we rented an apartment in Sandy. Little did I know at the time that the apartment was a stone’s throw away from … guess whose house? Yep. Vicky Prunty Batchelor’s. I had visited her home before, but the decision to rent an apartment in the same suburb was not made on remembering anything about her or where she lived. I didn’t think about where she lived when I looked for an apartment, and I had no idea what had happened to Marcee.

Marcee had left a few things in Montana with me and Jackie, so I decided to take them to her mother’s house. Her mother, Vickie Jaynes, was an incredibly nice woman. She was very naive, but as kind and compassionate of a human being as you could ever want to meet.

Vickie Jaynes was not a Mormon Fundamentalist … that came from Marcee’s father’s side. Although Marcee’s father was pretty cool himself, having nothing to do with religion and very liberal in his views, Marcee’s parents had long divorced when she was young. It was Marcee’s desire to have a normal family that attracted her to Batchelor.

I don’t know what Marcee had told her mother about had what happened in Montana, but Vickie Jaynes greeted me with the kindness that she always had. I gave her Marcee’s things. As I did, a look of sadness and grave concern came over her face.

“How’s Marcee?” I asked.

“Chris, you got to help her. She’s living in a house this old polygamist man gave her. She’s back in that group!” her mother said with great concern written all over her face.

Oh no! My conscience.

No! My conscience.

Tears were swelling up in Vickie Jayne’s eyes.

What the fuck was I supposed to do?

“Do you have any contact with Marcee?” I asked.

“Yes, she talks to me a lot,” she responded.

“Will you ask her if I can meet with her sometime?” I sincerely asked, but wanting only at the time to assuage her concern that I didn’t care about her daughter.

“Please, Chris. Help her!” Vickie pleaded.

Oh no! My conscience.

No! My conscience.

When I returned to Jackie, I told her about what Marcee’s mother had said. Jackie felt very sorry for Marcee, but I don’t think she had any intention of supporting an idea that we should let Marcee back into our “family.” Jackie encouraged me to intervene and at least speak to Marcee and see what we could do for her.

Long story, short … I beat the Mormon Fundamentalists yet again. I did the best thing for Marcee. Or did I?

Marcee moved in with us—into our two-bedroom apartment. Then, sometime during the winter of 1992, she got pregnant.

When Marcee found out that she was pregnant, she reported that it was the best day of her life. I remember her telling me that, finding out, after visiting the doctor, she started skipping and singing, “I’m the happiest girl, in the whole U.S.A … It’s a skippidity-do-da day!”

Jackie was devastated.

I have no clue why Jackie didn’t take her kids and leave me. We weren’t legally married at the time. Her family … and my family … would have LOVED to get her away from me; but she stayed.

We lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Jackie had one room with Brandon, Caleb, and Sariah, and Marcee had the other. I would stay in Jackie’s room one night and Marcee’s the next … What an emotional mess. Right?

But Jackie stayed.

What Jackie doesn’t know is that I only felt right, comfortable and proper sleeping with her. It was an emotional chore for me to be with Marcee and try to treat her with the same love and respect that I had for Jackie. But I did my best.

So, the games of mortal life began.

I was still working full time for the Webster family as their Estate Manager, which provided us with just enough to live. Neither Jackie nor Marcee worked. Both were on government-assisted medical care. I was supposed to be paying court-mandated child support to Jackie … but the divorce was just “on paper.” Jackie’s and my relationship didn’t change after we filed the mock divorce so that I could legally be with Marcee without breaking the law.

Later in this autobiography, you’ll learn how Grandma Jackie became so mean, so bitter, and so angry towards me, that she used the fact that I hadn’t paid her child support since our divorce against me in court. It landed me in jail. Yep. I went to jail for not paying Jackie child support from 1992 (when we divorced) through 2000 (when we finally separated for good). I was living with and supporting Jackie the entire time! Jackie lied in court. Jackie was angry, hurt, and determined not to let me go unpunished.

Could you blame Jackie?

I can’t.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for her to know that I was on the other side of her bedroom wall having sex with Marcee. I don’t know if she ever heard us having sex. I was pretty quiet. But Marcee … oh my! Up to that point in my life, I had never been with a woman as sexual as Marcee, bar none!

But Jackie didn’t know this … I don’t think. I loved Jackie. I didn’t love Marcee like I did Jackie. But obviously my love for Jackie wasn’t normal or what Jackie needed and deserved. If I had loved Jackie the way that a woman is supposed to be loved, how a woman should be loved, I could have never slept with Marcee … or Vicky Prunty.

Oh, yeah. Vicky Prunty. Let’s get to her.

Gary Batchelor had strictly commanded his wives that they could have no contact with Marcee or Jackie … of any kind. Marcee lost all contact with her cousin Mary, Vicky, and their children, as well as the rest of the Mormon Fundamentalist community.

Marcee hadn’t been living with Jackie and me for a month, when there was a knock at our door.

I opened the door and there stood Vicky Prunty.

Surprised for a second, I greeted her kindly and let her in. Marcee and Jackie greeted her with open arms. Vicky proceeded to explain how she was tired of the lifestyle she was living and how she was being treated by Batchelor. She was thinking about leaving that lifestyle and going up into the mountains to let God take care of her and her six children. Yeah. Really!

She was visibly upset and distraught as she explained what had been going on during the past year since I had met her husband. Jackie, Marcee, and I sat there feeling evermore sorry for her as she went on.

Vicky wept.

Oh no! My conscience.

No! My conscience.

Yeah, my conscience.

Grandpa’s conscience got him into all kinds of trouble.

My life got extremely complicated after I reunited with Marcee to save her a second time from the Mormon Fundamentalists. Before I continue with that explanation and with what happened after Vicky showed up on my doorstep, I want to explain something. I suppose it might help you grandkids understand my past choices in life better if you understood more about what a conscience actually is.

Everyone has one. It’s what makes us human and different from animals, plants, and any other life form that exists. It helps us, or rather, encourages us, to act or allow ourselves to be acted upon. “Acted upon” means what we allow others to do to us. For example:

Grandma Vicky acted upon Grandpa by showing up at his door and announcing her plans to leave the Mormon Fundamentalist community, head to the mountains, and put her life and the life of her five children from Gary Batchelor (Colin, Amy, Marci, Tessa, and Derrick) in the hands of God. Below I will explain what Grandpa did next and how I acted in response to being acted upon.

Now,

I could spend a few chapters explaining what this conscience is. But by the time you (my grandkids) might be reading this autobiography, a book will exist upon Earth that explains it clearly and in every detail. Find the book. Read it. It tells the Real Truth™ about all things.

The book is called, The Dream of Mortal Life, Understanding Human Reality—A Final Warning to the Human Race. Read this book. It is the most profound explanation of human existence ever written. It explains in detail who we are, why we exist, how we exist, where we exist, and what existence actually is.

I like to call my conscience the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—the godhead that leads me, guides me, walks besides me, helps me find the way, and teaches me all that I must know.

I call it the Father because it is an overwhelmingly powerful feeling that mandates all that I do … kinda like the power and control that a father has over a child. It is the Son because a good son does what his father tells him to do. And I call it the Holy Ghost, because the relationship between what my brain tells me to do (what the Father tells the Son) and what I actually do dwells inside me and is a powerful feeling that I did not understand … until my brain was transfigured in 1987. After my transfiguration, I realized immediately that the powerful feelings that make me do what I do … this Holy Ghost … is actually … well, ME!

After my brain was affected by this change, I started calling my Holy Ghost “Michael.” I called the Father “Elohim,” and the Son I called “Jehovah.”

I started to understand that Elohim was actually the one in charge of everything that I did, and that Jehovah did everything that Elohim wanted him to do. But Michael … well, he was asleep and dreaming that he was Christopher … and Christopher didn’t always do what Elohim wanted him to do like Jehovah did.

When Elohim said, “Don’t do this or something bad is going to happen to you,” God always followed it up with, “Christopher, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee. But remember that I forbid it; for in the day that thou doest it, thou shalt surely experience the bad thing that I told you was going to happen to you.” (Sometimes Grandpa loves using religious dogma to explain things … But anyways …)

So, there I was listening to Vicky cry about how she felt about being in polygamy with Batchelor and how she wanted to leave him and go into the mountains and “live off berries” … Yeah, that’s one of the things that I remember her saying.

Elohim told me to give her whatever money I had and send her on her way. Elohim told me to tell Vicky to get an attorney, divorce Gary Batchelor, and start a new life outside of polygamy. He whispered that if the dreaming Michael (i.e. Grandpa) got involved with Vicky and her five children, it wasn’t going to be good. Jehovah seemed to concur (agree with Elohim).

But the Michael part of my brain got a bit confused.

If you think Grandpa’s a nut case with a multi-personality disorder thinking that he is the Holy Trinity—the Great Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—well …

Sitting there listening to Vicky, three other personalities manifested themselves—Adam, Eve, and Lucifer … Yeah, the devil. And to make matters even more confusing, a Preacher entered my mind and started to preach all kinds of religious rhetoric that I had learned when I was growing up, going to church.

(For want of a better way to explain what I am getting at here: Adam represents my Superego, Eve represents my Ego, and Lucifer represents my Id … the three parts of a person’s cognitive paradigm. Our cognitive paradigm is the inner workings of our mind and how we view experiences and interpret them. The Preacher just represents how mean people can become when influenced by religion.)

Once Adam, Eve, Lucifer, and the Preacher started messing within my mind, I didn’t know what to do.

And it came to pass … love the segue …

… that as I was listening to Vicky, the Adam part of me—that always wanted to obey the Father that told me to send her on her way with condolences and best wishes—was overwhelmed by the Eve and Lucifer part of me that wanted me to do anything and everything I could to help her.

I remembered what the Father part of my brain had told me:

“Christopher, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee.”

I also remembered my god’s warning:

“But remember that I forbid it; for in the day that thou doest it, thou shalt surely experience the bad thing that I told you was going to happen to you.”

I partook of the fruit. And before long, I found myself naked (literally) next to, not only my dear Jackie, but Marcee and Vicky as well!

In the early part of 1993, Jackie, her children (Brandon, Caleb, and Sariah), pregnant Marcee, and I moved into Vicky’s house with her five children. Vicky was reluctant to hire an attorney to force Batchelor to pay child support. She wanted nothing to do with him. But my Elohim convinced her Lucifer that it was best. How in the world was I supposed to support all those kids? None of the women worked! … Thus said the devil inside of me.

In an attempt to avoid being forced to pay child support, Batchelor wrote a letter giving up all of his fatherly rights, and dropped it in our mailbox. In spite of his efforts to avoid responsibility and having to deal with me … and you can imagine how much Batchelor’s god hated mine at this time … I took Vicky to an attorney, paid for the legal fees, and Vicky started getting child support.

So, let’s get to the chronology of events so far:

In the early part of 1993 we all moved in together.

Marcee was showing with child and became pretty jealous of how Vicky lusted after me as her now “spiritual husband,” and how Jackie seemed to have always had my heart. She moved out of Vicky’s house and back in with her mother. That only lasted a couple of weeks before she came back and joined “our family.”

Jackie began to lose weight unlike anything I had ever seen before with her. I loved Jackie very differently than I could ever love Marcee or Vicky. But I tried my best to show all three respect and equal love. The toil on Jackie was obvious.

To this day, I still do not know why Jackie stayed, but she did. Because of what she was going through, the Adam part of me loved and respected her more and more. She didn’t know it was all a game to me … a game that Lucifer enticed me to play. But, if anything, Jackie was my Adam’s “Eve” and always would be. I loved her the best I could with a messed-up brain.

We only lived together in Vicky’s house for about two months when my conscience could no longer take it. I sat all three women on the couch in Vicky’s front room and told them the Real Truth™ … Yeah, THE REAL TRUTH™!

I told them that plural marriage wrong, immoral, and an abomination of the worst kind, and that I should ONLY be with Jackie. I also told them that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were wrong … at least the Joseph Smith that these three women believed in and were taught to worship and revere. I also told them that the Book of Mormon was not real and that Mormonism was a deception, even that all religion was a deception.

Jackie was relieved. Marcee and Vicky were devastated. Both of them cried. Vicky commanded Jackie and me to leave, got off the couch and immediately went to her bathroom. Vicky later related that she took a long shower to wash off all of the experiences with me she could, crying the entire time.

Marcee looked destroyed. She hung her head and cried, but said nothing as she watched Jackie and me gather up our children and the few things that we had. We left polygamy, for what I thought in my heart and soul was the very last time …

THANK THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST!

At the time I sat the women down and revealed these things, I had no idea that both Vicky and Jackie were pregnant. I don’t think either of them knew at that time. Marcee was big with child and due in a few months. She knew it was going to be a boy.

A few days after leaving the house, Marcee wrote me a letter and told me that she would never allow me access to our child and that she wanted nothing further to do with me.

I knew that Vicky and Marcee were hurt, but I also knew that they would be okay. I had done what I set out to do—get them both away from Mormon Fundamentalism, from religion, and from the control of a man.

You see, Grandkids, Grandpa’s conscience thought this was a good thing … that it was what the Father wanted me to do to help Marcee and Vicky. But what I didn’t want to admit, at the time, was that I already knew there was only “one god of this world,” and it wasn’t anyone’s Elohim. It was our Lucifer.

It is our Lucifer who hears and answers our personal prayers, even when we are convinced that Elohim and Jehovah are listening. They’re not. They want nothing to do with this “lone and dreary world” of which Lucifer is the only god in control.

But for whatever reason, my conscience was perfectly at peace leaving Vicky and Marcee and not having anything else to do with them. The mortal father part of me, however, was saddened that I would never know my son.

After Riley Marc Nemelka was born on July 9, 1993, I snuck over to Vicky’s house where Marcee continued to live after Jackie and I had left. It was night time and I peered in Marcee’s window. I saw her breastfeeding Riley. I could tell that Riley was now Marcee’s entire world. Marcee loved our son with all of her being!

Although saddened that I would not know him through this life, I was not going to put his dear mother through anymore drama. Marcee didn’t want me to have anything to do with him. So I didn’t.

I cried on my way home back to Jackie that night. But once I was in Jackie’s presence and had our children around me, everything seemed perfectly okay. I never told Jackie that I had been a Peeping Tom to see my son. She had been through enough.

Jackie and I moved in with my sister, Leslie, and we started a new life for ourselves that did not involve any other person but us. I was pretty happy and fulfilled. Jackie had been through so much. My mind … or rather …Elohim was telling me that I had made the right choice.

And then the call came … Yep …

And it came to pass that I received a call out of the blue from Vicky.

Vicky told me she was pregnant and due in December … the call came sometime around the first of September 1993, as far as I can remember. Vicky told me that Marcee had moved in with her (Vicky’s) aunt.

Then she started crying.

Vicky told me how hard things were on her and Marcee; and that they both felt alone and afraid for the future. She explained that neither of them wanted anything to do with religion, especially not the man-based Mormon faith that had deceived them and controlled them in the past. I was glad for that.

But Vicky wept,

Oh no! My conscience.

No! My conscience.

I agreed to meet with them both in a park near Vicky’s aunt’s home in Bountiful, Utah.

I told Jackie about the call. I told her that Vicky was pregnant and due about the same time that she was due. Jackie was less than pleased, but she loved and trusted me and had a heart of gold. Jackie was also concerned about the women … especially about their children, who were now related to hers. She is truly a unique woman.

I told Jackie that I was going to meet with them and see what I could do for them. I assured Jackie that I had no intention, nor did I ever want to be involved with them again in any way but as a concerned friend and the father of their children.

Jackie loved me. Jackie trusted me.

I met with Marcee and Vicky … and they cried … they wept! They put more guilt on me than I had ever felt before.

“How could you be so uncaring and cruel to us?” Vicky cried.

She was right. How could I have been so cruel?

Oh no! My conscience.

No! My conscience.

“But remember that I forbid it; for in the day that thou doest it, thou shalt surely experience the bad thing that I told you was going to happen to you.”

I wanted to curse God, the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Fucking Ghost!

Oh my … the saga and drama of my life had just begun!