Raised in Stettler, a ranching community in central Alberta, John was brought up a Roman Catholic by Dutch immigrant parents.

At the age of seventeen, he experienced an ecstatic but fleeting awakening, which he later described as an "awareness of reality . . . joy, love, and deep, inner rest." He spent the next decade trying to recreate that sensation. "I began to strive and search intensely through many different means, relentlessly pursuing anything I believed might show me the way back," he explains in his book of teachings.

For about five months, he had lived on the streets, penniless, sleeping in churchyards and eating from dumpsters. His intention, he said, was to become a pastor.

John de Ruiter married Joyce de Ruiter in 1982. A year later, they moved to Toronto, where they both attended a downtown Baptist seminary. But they were soon put off by the leadership; they both felt it was too rigid. They completed one year of studies and then returned to Alberta, enrolling in the Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills.

After another year there, John decided that he didn't need any more academic training. He thought he'd get more learning on his own and interning with a pastor. That's when everything started.

The couple joined Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Edmonton, where his wife Joyce's sister and brother-in-law, Hetty and Bob Emmerzael, were members of the congregation. Singing and open rejoicing were part of regular worship at Bethlehem, and they both felt comfortable there. Bethlehem's pastor occasionally allowed John to preach, but words often failed him.

In 1984, he decided to undertake a rite of passage: reciting his spiritual history to the church's elders. This was unusual; members of Bethlehem often waited years before they felt the need to deliver their "testimony."

John talked for an unprecedented nine hours, recalling the story of his "awakening" and his search for reality and truth. His speech confused many in the congregation, but it made a lasting impression on Bob Emmerzael, his wife's brother-in-law.

Soon afterward, Bob became John's first devotee. The two men began spending hours alone together, meeting about four times every week and staying up until four or five in the morning. They would often fall asleep in John's van. Joyce, his wife, and Hetty, Bob's wife, were always excluded. His wife later recounted: "It was spooky and weird, they couldn't really describe what they were doing. It was always told to us that they were doing 'Kingdom of God' stuff. I loved my husband, but that was the first thing I didn't like, even though I had to accept it: this was God's stuff."

John left Bethlehem Lutheran in the late 1980s, taking five couples with him, including Bob and Hetty. Every Friday night, they gathered at the Emmerzaels' and listened to John preach. Although he read from the Bible and made Christian references, his interpretations were unconventional. He talked about death, it was about being willing to lose your ego, your emotions, your desires, your ideas, your beliefs. Drop all that, and come to a pure place. It was the way Jesus really taught, or so he led us to believe. John would embellish that place to make it sound beautiful.

Later, the meetings moved to Sundays at the de Ruiters' house. Over the next few years, while still acknowledging Christ, John became increasingly critical of organized Christianity, calling it "Satan's masterpiece." The group gradually stopped praying and singing. Then John stopped teaching. "There was a year or two when absolutely nothing happened in these meetings, it was called a 'sifting time.' Attendants would either sit in silence or would socialize and tell jokes.

During this time, the five couples used to give John a portion of their income so that he could devote himself full-time to his oddball ministry. His wife Joyce was uncomfortable with the arrangement. "I didn't really see him doing a whole lot to earn it," she says. "He was supposed to be studying during the week but he slept a lot and piddled around with other things." At one point, his wife stopped attending the meetings, but that was short-lived. After all, they were held in her house, attended by her friends, overseen by her husband. They were entwined with her life.

In 1993, John met a boisterous woman named Boots Beaudry, a reflexologist with a deep interest in metaphysics. For almost an entire year, John spent about four to six hours a day with her at her clinic, picking up new practices. He started "connecting" with people. "I remember him coming home and sitting at the kitchen table," says his wife. "He'd say, 'Look at me; see what happens.' He tried it with our oldest son, who was about eight at the time. John would sit on his bunk bed and instruct him to look into his eyes. The son then said, 'It worked! I saw faces!'"

When his meetings moved to a New Age bookstore on Edmonton's south side, de Ruiter's reputation quickly spread. Within months, more space was required for his followers. They assembled in Beaudry's reflexology clinic until a larger, permanent location was found, next to a doughnut shop in a drab industrial park.

It was here that de Ruiter began to perfect his trademark techniques. "I remember sitting in those meetings so many times, listening to a questioner, and watching John pick apart their life, or their identity," his wife says. "Let's say they ran a charitable organization. Perhaps it was very genuine. He would take it apart, so that it was all about them, their own self-esteem and personal agenda. And you would just see them completely fall apart. That happened repeatedly. He would just completely undo people."