Private Membership Associations

What they are, and why I created one

When I moved from Michigan to Florida 3 1/2 years ago, in the fall of 2020, I needed to re-establish myself and my service activities in a new state. Watching what was unfolding rapidly around the world at that time, my interest in further protecting myself and my natural health services from un-needed, unhelpful sorts of government intrusion was piqued. I believe it is increasingly essential that we all take a stand in whatever way we can toward preserving what is naturally healthy and life-affirming. Whatever different theories we may hold for why, and to what end, governmental organizations are desiring to command more and more control over our choices around how we wish to live, and how we desire to care for ourselves and our bodies, it’s a fact that this is happening, all over the world.

The attempts to mandate medical treatments, to censor and suppress voices for nature-based living and healing practices, and to claim control over natural remedies and other healing tools, should be alarming to us all. I know instinctively that I (and every one of us) have the right and the personal power to have sovereign domain over my own body, and to choose how I wish to care for myself, and how I wish to live - as long as I am not not intending to cause harm to another through my actions. It also follows that we each have the right, and the personal power, to contract with whomever we wish to trust, learn from, and do ‘business’ with.

In Michigan, I had the typical LLC and S-Corp designations tacked onto the health and yoga offerings that I developed. Through my investigations at the outset of the covid events, into how the natural health landscape is being egregiously attacked and undermined, I learned about another option for business operations. It’s an option that is being re-discovered, thanks to the mounting pressures to preserve a way of life and sovereign choices that we cherish. It’s known as a Private Membership Association.

A PMA is formed to keep private business and private activities a private contractual matter between the association and the members. The association is founded upon the principle that we have an unalienable right to associate. The Supreme Court has always held that the right to associate is synonymous with the right to assemble (and fortunately, the law says that “no state can pass any law that impairs the obligation of contract"). An association is simply a group of men and women collectively exercising their right to associate in private.  See: https://www.getyourpma.com/faq

There are many types of private membership associations, and the protections one gives is determined by what is written and agreed to in the founding documents. For maximum protection, it’s important that the documents be drafted correctly, to NOT be ‘statutory compliant.’ In other words, the language must be correct to remove the association from statutory rules and regulations. If you trust that the government has yours and everyone’s best interests at heart, then you don’t need to go to the extra effort to step outside the public lane into the private. But if you, like me, experience a sense of alienation from the many arbitrary enforcements in the public lane, a PMA can breathe new life and creative possibility into your endeavors.

I chose to form a faith-based organization, or a Private Ministerial Association. It is not necessary that this be guided by any formally recognized religion. Strongly held beliefs that guide your life and your work are all that is needed. I put my faith in the laws of nature, and nature’s God. This form of association - the faith-based - provides the greatest protections, including a taxation exception.

“There is a limit to the protections, however it's pretty extreme. In the wording of the courts: an association must be engaged in activity that creates a clear and present danger of a substantial evil before the state can obtain jurisdiction to interfere with the activities of the association. Fortunately, The State does not get to arbitrarily decide what constitutes a substantial evil. That test has been in place in the courts for over 150 years. Basically, if your properly founded association is not engaging in activities that create an immediate threat of serious harm or death to people, then the activities do not constitute a ‘clear and present danger of a substantial evil.’" (text from the website linked above)

As a person who prefers to follow my own internal guidance, I find it refreshing to know that these kinds of (properly founded) private associations have the same protections as private activities within your own home, and those activities are governed by your own rules, not public law.

It is entirely feasible to claim your sovereign rights to self-governance and private contracting without forming a PMA, but the PMA can be helpful for those of us who are still learning the full distinction between the public and private lanes, still developing confidence in the language needed for claiming our natural sovereignty, and prefer to have a more generally recognized umbrella-structure of organization for our business and service activities.

Living Heart Sanctuary, and all of my natural health and wellness mentoring, retreats, writing, website, public speaking, classes and workshops are projects of the unincorporated, faith-based private membership organization and association called Living Heart Ministry, which is governed by a board of trustees. All parties who exchange money for the products and services that I or another trustee offer within the protection of the ministry, with the intent to help others improve their health and wellness, agree to the terms in Living Heart Ministry’s document known as the “Membership Agreement.”

Living Heart Ministry offers me a safer platform within which to continue my life’s work, helping others to recover and reclaim their innate blueprint for thriving in the health and wellness I believe is naturally intended for us all to enjoy. I hope that this blog-post clarifies the newer structure of Living Heart, and perhaps inspires some of my readers to consider outside-the-box options for living, associating, and serving in today’s complicated world.