Back in 1999, Joey Donner was on the top of our list of teen heartthrobs, every week changing our mind as to whether the white or black photograph was the most dreamy to look at (we’re still going with white, FYI). But, in the world of Hollywood anything goes, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise the 10 Things I Hate About You star has founded his own religion.
Andrew Keegan, who portrayed male model Joey in the cult classic, co-founded the California spiritual community Full Circle, where he “passionately seeks to inspire and empower the community to co-create a better world.”
Originally founded by Robert Goddard in Ojai, CA, during his quest for enlightenment in the late 1960s, Goddard’s son Gunnar and Andrew came together to form the “peaceful community centre that is Full Circle Venice.” Keegan, who is often referred to as a “guru,” promotes organic experiences within the temple, including hand-holding, group meditation, spooning, crystals, candles and “soul medicine.”
According to Vice, followers describe it as “advanced spiritualism”, and all members are considered “enlightened”.
The centre, which is called the “Rose Temple”, plays host to community pet Krishna, a large parrot whose name is in line with the religion’s appropriation of Hindu beliefs. While the beliefs of Full Circle are hard to pinpoint, the community espouses the use of crystals for healing and prayer. Also, it co-opts Hindu deities like Ganesh, the god of wisdom and entrances, for its own uses.
A 2015 Vulture article explained how Full Circle encompasses an ambiguous culmination of religions: “The actual theology of the group is tough to pin down, but it seems to loosely follow Hinduism – or at least Russell Brand’s Sanskrit-tattoo version of it.”
In 2015, Keegan’s centre was raided by California’s Department of Alcohol Beverage Control for illegally selling Kombucha that wasn’t labelled alcoholic. Kombucha can contain an alcohol content that can sometimes exceed 0.5 per cent and a beverage cannot be labelled non-alcoholic if it exceeds 0.5 per cent.
“Kombucha is something we’d never imagine to be an illegal substance, and it’s frustrating the system has that perspective,” Keegan said at the time. “We’re certainly taking full responsibility. We try to put our best foot forward.”
“It’s a sacred tea to a lot of people who come into our temple. So to have a raid, saying we can’t do the sorts of practices that we do on a daily basis is rather disturbing,” Jason Dilts, Full Circle’s communications and development director said at the time.
Keegan and his partner Artista are still very much involved in the Full Circle community. The couple share two-year-old daughter, Aiya Rose Keegan
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